Independence Hall: Their Lives,
Their Fortunes, and Their Sacred Honor

hen British troops crossed Lexington Green in the early hours of an April morning, they carried orders to seize the powder and arms stored there, but also arrest warrants for two of the most wanted Patriot leaders: John Hancock and Samuel Adams. When the brave militia stood their ground and fired The Shot Heard ‘Round the World, these two men—without whose example there would have been no such resistance—fled the parsonage on Lexington Greene just in time to escape with their lives.

Little more than a year later, John Hancock, one of the wealthiest men in the colonies and now serving as President of the Continental Congress, became the first to sign the Declaration of Independence. With a now iconic and boldly uncowed signature, he publicly committed everything he had to the cause of an independent country, all in the face of King George’s proclamation of intent to hang each of the constituents as traitors.

This sacrificial willingness to risk all was the spirit that animated each of the fifty six men who pledged Their Lives, Their Fortunes and Their Sacred Honor for the freedom of their posterity—that means you and me! For every American today, their stories are an essential reminder that liberty has always exacted a rigorous price of her defenders and requires the utmost fortitude to preserve. Join Dr. Bill Potter on our Philadelphia tour at Independence Hall, as we aspire to live up to Hancock’s stirring words:

“Some boast of being friends to government; I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.”

Help your children learn to mark and give thanks for these uniquely American Ebenezers as we celebrate together the 250th anniversary of Americas’s founding document.