Historical Fact & Fiction

As a journalist, I may be boringly fact-oriented. "Never spoil a good story with too much truth" seems to me best left to tales around the campfire.

So I grimace when I get e-mail from a few well-meaning but rather careless friends who enjoy passing along some gem of unsubstantiated origin they found on some random website or (more likely) received from another person who was more interested in an amusing tale than the truth.

So on the eve of the U.S. Independence Day, a friend forwarded a well-meaning but less-than-authentic tale of the fate of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; perhaps you've seen it? It tells of the dire fates that befell these men who dared to defy the King of England by signing the document.

One could research each of these, name by name, to fact-check. I've done so for some of them. However, I also have come to appreciate Snopes, which fact-checks urban legends like these. The link -- and the likelier story, which is no less interesting -- appears below.

One aside: Sometimes I'd succumb to the temptation to reply to such messages and gently tell my friends, "You know, this isn't exactly correct . . . here's some information on that topic." I quit after one replied that he knew it probably wasn't true, but he really likes the story, so he was going to spread it anyway.

So here's the Snopes reply to "The Price They Paid" -- the story of the fates of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The only part I'll reproduce here is the closing, which really addresses the core issue of sacrifice and patriotism:

What should we take from all of this? The signers of the Declaration of Independence did take a huge risk in daring to put their names on a document that repudiated their government, and they had every reason to believe at the time that they might well be hanged for having done so. that was a courageous act we should indeed remember and honor on the Fourth of July amidst our "beer, picnics, and baseball games." But we should also not lose sight of the fact that many men (and women) other than the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence -- some famous and most not -- risked and sacrificed much (including their lives) to support the revolutionary cause. The hardships and losses endured by many Americans during the struggle for independence were not visited upon the signers alone, nor were they any less ruinous for having befallen people whose names are not immortalized on a piece of parchment. (credit: Barbara and David Mikkelson, Urban Legends Reference Pages)

Happy Independence Day!