False Things You Believe About America's Founding Fathers

The names of the Founding Fathers are invoked a lot, especially when talking about the state of the country these days. How many social media posts lament political decisions of one sort or another, then make it clear that this isn't what America's Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Declaration of Independence or signed the Constitution?

But how much do you really know about our Founding Fathers? We're taught a lot in school, and it's often stories like George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, then admitting it to his father because he couldn't tell a lie. Just the fact that he didn't get in trouble at all should be a hint that yes, it's a total myth. Mount Vernon says it was made up by Mason Locke Weems, one of the first people to write a biography about Washington. The idea was that he wanted to write a book that put the spotlight right on Washington's personal virtues, and in order to do that, he had to make some stuff up. And that's not the only tall tale we've been told.

It turns out there's quite a few things everyone knows about the Founding Fathers that just aren't true.

Remember the first time you heard about the claim that Thomas Jefferson had an affair with one of his slaves? Her name, of course, was Sally Hemings, and not only did the union produce children, but it was an incredibly awkward thing to discuss about a Founding Father. While it might seem like something that only came to light recently, it isn't.

Jefferson became the third US president on February 17, 1801. In the September 1802 edition of the Richmond Recorder, journalist James Callender wrote (via the Smithsonian): "IT is well known that the man, whom it delighteth the people to honor, keeps, and for many years has kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves. Her name is SALLY." It was a massive scandal, and Jefferson supporters who waited for an official statement denying the story just didn't get one.

It turns out that Jefferson's colleagues had known about it for years before the story even broke. Historians found letters that John Adams wrote to his sons, Charles and John Quincy. He makes very blunt reference to the knowledge that Jefferson had left his position as Washington's secretary of state and returned to his estate to, Adams wrote, have "conversations" with a certain woman he referred to as Egeria, a nymph from Roman mythology. Or, as historians believe, the woman also called "Dashing Sally." (And yes, "conversations" is slang for the old hanky-panky.)

This one's a given, right? Clearly, Samuel Adams was a successful brewer, why else would he have a whole company named after him now?

Only, that's not exactly the case. Adams' father was Deacon Samuel Adams, and he was the sort of rich man who founded political parties. (Namely, the Boston Caucus.) He also owned a malt house, says the New England Historical Society, which was essentially responsible for preparing ingredients (ie., malted barley) to sell to the brewers who were doing the actual brewing.

HIs son was a different story. Adams the younger went to Harvard, then jumped around a bit career-wise. When Adams the elder died in 1748, his son inherited the family business. What happened next is one of those bits of history that's a little fuzzy at best. While some claim there's receipts and advertisements — like one in a 1751 edition of the Boston Evening Post — that suggest Adams was a brewer as well as a maltster, that's kind of irrelevant to the whole "success" part. According to History, Adams took the successful business he inherited from his father and did such a bad job running it that he was bankrupt in just a few years. The building was quite literally crumbling, his family estate was put up for sale, and he kept it by intimidating the heck out of anyone who considered buying it.

Here's one that pops up on a regular basis: Benjamin Franklin had campaigned for the national bird to be not the bald eagle, but the turkey. Silly Franklin, what a goofball!

And no, it's not actually true. According to The Washington Post, the rumor started a good long while ago. Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were all appointed to a committee that was tasked with developing a national seal, but the problem was that they were all lacking in artistic talent. Franklin's suggestion was — according to a letter written by Abigail Adams — Moses parting the Red Sea, and submerging the Pharaoh's chariot.

Wait, what? The turkey only came around later, after they'd settled on the bald eagle. Franklin wrote to his daughter and said that he wished it wasn't the eagle at all, calling it "a Bird of bad moral Character," and lamenting that the turkey "was a much more respectable Bird." And that's it. That's where the whole thing started. Here's a little footnote to the story, and we'll spare the gory details. Franklin definitely wasn't partial to turkeys: he conducted (pun not intended) a series of experiments in 1750 to determine just how much electricity it took to kill them.

There's only one thing that many people know about John Hancock, and that's the fact that he wrote his name so large on the Declaration of Independence that King George III could read it without his glasses — and he boasted that the reward for his capture would be doubled.

Unfortunately, that "fact" is wrong, and there's a few reasons we know. For starters, the National Archives says there's zero evidence the British had ever issued a bounty on Hancock. Then, there's the whole thing about the king reading it without his glasses. The massive problem with that part of the tale is that no plans were ever made to send the king a copy. The signed copy, says All Things Liberty, was always meant to stay in the US. When it was printed and sent abroad, the signatures were typeset, not copied from their actual signatures. 

Any rumors that Hancock signed so large because he was the first to sign and wanted to set an example for the others in the room is also false: Snopes says that in spite of the mythology of the event, the document wasn't signed in a massive gathering on the 4th of July. It was actually signed a month later, and it was seen as such an insignificant event that no one even knew the date for over a century.

It's one of those quotes that everyone knows: Patrick Henry definitely said in a stirring speech, "Give me liberty, or give me death."

While this one isn't a definite "no," it is a "highly unlikely." The Constitution Center says that Henry was said to have uttered those famous words on March 23, 1775, as he was rallying his fellow countrymen to revolution. He was talking about organizing into armed militias, and by all accounts he ended the speech with a passionate plea. But here's the thing: there are no transcriptions of the speech, and "give me liberty or give me death" didn't show up anywhere until a man named William Wirt reconstructed the speech in an 1817 biography. There, he re-wrote the speech based on accounts of those who were there — almost 40 years prior at that point. 

Henry, History says, was a fire-and-brimstone sort, and when he stood up to give his speech, he had nothing written down — not even notes on what he was going to say. Many historians believe his famous words were actually written by either Wirt himself as he reconstructed the speech, or by St. George Tucker, an attorney who had been at the convention Henry spoke at. Although accounts of the speech were written, those words were never recorded until Wirt.

It's impossible to talk dueling without mentioning Alexander Hamilton, who was killed by life-long rival Aaron Burr in 1804. They were such bitter rivals that History says that's what the duel was about — honor. If you think Hamilton was the only Founding Father to have died in a duel, you're wrong.

In 1777, Button Gwinnett was not just a signer of the Declaration of Independence, but he was also at the head of Georgia politics. According to History, one of his major concerns was securing the border between Georgia and Florida. Gwinnett argued with a political rival named Lachlan McIntosh, not over whether or not a planned expedition would happen, but over who was going to lead it. The solution? To duel. Both men were shot, and while McIntosh recovered, Gwinnett's wound turned gangrenous and he died three days later. 

Then, fast forward to 1802. The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources says political rivals John Stanly and Richard Dobbs Spaight had spent about two years trading personal attacks through pretty much every means possible. Finally, it all came to a head on September 5 when, in front of 300 people, they faced off with flintlock pistols. Spaight — who had been North Carolina's representative at the Constitutional Convention — was hit during the fourth round of shots and died the following day.