Page 159 - JM Book 9/2020

FRANCIS HOPKINSON’S home in Bordentown was ransacked by a party of Hessians. It was not burned.
JOHN HART rode to protect his wife and thirteen children as the British advanced toward Trenton, New Jersey, during the winter of 1776. His wife Deborah was ill and unable to be moved. Mrs. Hart and friends were finally able to convince Hart that he should escape. At the last moment, he ran into the woods and found cover in the nearby Sourland Mountains. Hart was not able to return to his home until December 26th after the Continental Army had retaken Trenton. He found that his wife had died and his children were gone. The house and farm had been damaged but not destroyed. Until the day he died in 1779, he was never able to locate all of his children.
ABRAHAM CLARK and his family had to leave their home before British troops arrived. Two of his sons were officers in the Continental Army; they were captured and imprisoned aboard the prison ship Jersey. Because their father was a signer, they were subjected to severe brutality. British officials offered to release Hart’s sons if he would renounce the American cause; he refused.
PENNSYLVANIA
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN and his only son, William, were driven apart by the American Revolution. William, who served as Royal Governor of New Jersey from 1763- 1776, decided to remain loyal to King George III, while his father chose independence.
JOHN MORTON, a public servant in a loyalist-leaning section of Pennsylvania, found it difficult to support independence. After a long struggle with his conscience, he finally decided to support the Virginia Resolution on July 2, 1776. His vote and signature on
the Declaration of Independence led his supporters, friends and some family members to believe that he had betrayed their trust and the King’s. From that moment he was publicly ostracized. When he became ill in early 1777, his friends and some of his relatives stayed away. On his deathbed a short time later, he reportedly said, “Tell them that they will
live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it [the signing] to have been the most glorious service that I ever rendered to my country.” Morton was the first signer to die.
BENJAMIN RUSH, a physician, attended the wounds of the Continental Army during the Battle of Brandywine. When the battle was over, he escaped being captured by fleeing into the woods. British forces confiscated his home and General William Howe used it for his headquarters.
GEORGE CLYMER’S home was invaded by a small party of Redcoats as British forces marched across eastern Pennsylvania in 1777. Clymer’s wife and children hid in the woods and watched as their home was ransacked and the furnishings burned.
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