315 Encore Independence Day Trivia 141

Bob Smith 0:00
This episode of The Off Ramp is an encore performance of an earlier show. What signers of the 1776 Declaration of Independence would be called millennials today?

Marcia Smith 0:12
And every Independence Day, how many times does the Liberty Bell ring?

Bob Smith 0:16
Answers to those and other Independence Day questions coming up in this episode of The Off Ramp with Bob

Marcia Smith 0:23
and Marcia

Bob Smith 0:24
Smith.

Bob Smith 0:39
Welcome to the off ramp. A chance to slow down, steer clear of crazy, take a side road to sanity, and get some perspective on life. Before we get started, let’s just have a little patriotic music here. Let’s get in the spirit of this thing. There we go. Do you like that, John Philip Sousa music? Oh my goodness, this one of my favorites. Stars and Stripes Forever, that gets us in the spirit of the questions today. Okay,

Bob Smith 1:14
Independence Day is a day when we all pause and get some more perspective on our country and how it began, and how lucky we all are, and I just recently found an article that kind of confirmed something I felt when I was at Independence Hall recently. They had busts of people who signed the Declaration, and on the floor they had their names with their ages at the time.

Marcia Smith 1:34
Oh yeah?

Bob Smith 1:34
And I was astounded at how young many of them were. The average age of the signers was just 44.

Marcia Smith 1:41
44 Okay,

Bob Smith 1:42
Four of the signers were in their 20s, 16 of the signers were in their 30s, including Thomas Jefferson, who was 33 when he wrote the declaration. And 12 more signers were from 34 to 39 including John Hancock, the man who had that huge signature. Yes, he was just 39

Marcia Smith 2:00
Old Johnny Hancock with that big gaudy signature. Look at me, look at me!

Bob Smith 2:05
There’s one in every congress!

Marcia Smith 2:07
Isn’t there though?

Bob Smith 2:09
For every revolution, certainly, there were several of those. Oh my goodness, yeah. But just think of that, he’s only 39 when he’s doing that. John Adams was 40, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and two others were 41 and on and on. Today they’d be called millennials,

Marcia Smith 2:24
indeed. They would.

Bob Smith 2:25
I mean, you just don’t think of them that way.

Marcia Smith 2:27
You think of them as, yeah, old and wise. They were young and cranky.

Bob Smith 2:30
They were young and cranky people.

Marcia Smith 2:32
All right. All my questions today are from a Fourth of July quiz in Parade magazine. Okay, let’s see how well you do. I have a feeling you’re going to do very well, Mr. Smith. Every Independence Day, Bob, how many times does the Liberty Bell ring?

Bob Smith 2:47
How many times does it ring?

Marcia Smith 2:49
Every Fourth of July

Bob Smith 2:50
I didn’t know that they rang the bell?

Marcia Smith 2:52
Well, it’s not hit really hard, but this is interesting backstory.

Bob Smith 2:56
Okay,

Marcia Smith 2:56
On every Fourth of July at 2pm Eastern time, children who are descendants of Declaration signers symbolically tap the Liberty Bell 13 times, while bells across the nation also ring 13 times in honor of the patriots from the original 13 states.

Bob Smith 3:15
Well, that’s pretty symbolic, having the descendants, you know, great, great, great , great grandchildren of the signers tapping it 13 times, that’s cool.

Marcia Smith 3:23
That is very cool. You’re waiting for descendants of the Mayflower to get to do something.

Bob Smith 3:27
Yeah, when will we be able to do something?

Marcia Smith 3:29
Tap a bell, or you know,

Bob Smith 3:30
Sink a boat, Something, you know.

Marcia Smith 3:32
Do something. Do something

Bob Smith 3:33
All right.

Marcia Smith 3:34
Okay. Bob, where was the first celebration of Independence Day held?

Bob Smith 3:39
Was that in a tavern, a certain tavern, somewhere?

Marcia Smith 3:42
I meant city,

Bob Smith 3:43
City. Was it Philadelphia?

Marcia Smith 3:44
Yes.

Bob Smith 3:45
Okay. Well, that’s where they signed it. That makes sense.

Marcia Smith 3:47
You got the bell there.

Bob Smith 3:48
You got the hall, Independence Hall.

Bob Smith 3:50
That’s right. All right. What was the name of the newspaper that published the Declaration of Independence?

Bob Smith 3:57
That’s a good question.

Marcia Smith 3:58
The First one

Bob Smith 3:59
But I don’t know the answer to that.

Marcia Smith 4:00
This is something I didn’t know either. It was called the Pennsylvania Evening Post

Bob Smith 4:05
The Pennsylvania Evening Post.

Marcia Smith 4:07
And, oh, here’s the tough one, Bob, but people get this wrong. I have! The Fourth of July commemorates which document,

Bob Smith 4:16
The Declaration of Independence

Marcia Smith 4:17
Correct,

Bob Smith 4:17
Not the Constitution,

Marcia Smith 4:19
which came

Bob Smith 4:19
After the war,

Marcia Smith 4:20
all right.

Bob Smith 4:21
Okay, I got some more of these founding fathers’ ages. Now, these people weren’t signers. How old do you think the Marquis de Lafayette and James Monroe were the day that the Declaration of Independence was signed? Any idea?

Marcia Smith 4:32
Nope,

Bob Smith 4:33
they were teenagers,

Marcia Smith 4:34
Really. Lafayette was?

Bob Smith 4:34
Yeah, 18 years old.

Marcia Smith 4:37
Wow,

Bob Smith 4:38
Aaron Burr was 20, Alexander Hamilton was 21 and James Madison was 25

Bob Smith 4:44
Wow,

Bob Smith 4:44
Okay. And even good old Betsy Ross, how old do you think she was?

Marcia Smith 4:47
Betsy, the sewer, didn’t she sew the sew the flag?

Bob Smith 4:51
Sewed the flag.

Marcia Smith 4:52
Okay, she was 28 years old.

Bob Smith 4:54
She was 24 the day the declaration was signed. So she sewed that American flag in her 20 – not as a senior citizen.

Marcia Smith 5:02
No. Okay, you’re right, we think of Betsy rocking in the chair, sewing away on the stars and stripes.

Bob Smith 5:08
Betsy Ross, 24, I bet she was a babe, you know?

Marcia Smith 5:12
So, what is the proper way to fold the American flag?

Bob Smith 5:17
Oh, the American flag, you start it and you fold it at angles, don’t you?

Marcia Smith 5:20
It ends up as a

Bob Smith 5:22
As a triangle

Marcia Smith 5:23
Correct,

Bob Smith 5:23
Yes, correct. We had to do that in Boy Scouts.

Marcia Smith 5:26
Yeah, I’m sure

Bob Smith 5:26
Had to learn to do that in Boy Scouts.

Marcia Smith 5:28
You were born to be a Boy Scout, Bob.

Bob Smith 5:29
Yeah.

Marcia Smith 5:30
Which American president, Bob, was born on the fourth of July?

Bob Smith 5:34
That was. Oh, wait a minute. Which American president was born on the fourth of July? Born on the fourth was it Teddy Roosevelt?

Marcia Smith 5:43
No.

Bob Smith 5:43
No? I don’t know.

Marcia Smith 5:45
Calvin Coolidge,

Bob Smith 5:46
Calvin Coolidge, born on the fourth of July. So he was a Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Marcia Smith 5:51
He was. You know, who died – We both know who died on the fourth of July,

Bob Smith 5:54
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson,

Marcia Smith 5:56
Within minutes of each other, 50 years to the day of the signing of the Declaration, that’s one of my favorite

Bob Smith 6:03
That’s one of the miracles of American history.

Marcia Smith 6:05
Yeah, it is amazing,

Bob Smith 6:07
Just amazing.

Marcia Smith 6:07
All right, what do you got?

Bob Smith 6:09
Okay, I’ve got some more ages. How old was King George, the old King George, our hated

Marcia Smith 6:14
42

Bob Smith 6:15
He was 38

Marcia Smith 6:16
Oh my goodness

Bob Smith 6:17
So even, even our enemy was a young man. British General Charles Cornwallis, he was only 37 the day the Declaration was signed, and George Washington, George Washington was already in the field with the army the day that the Declaration was signed. He was just 44 years old. So this Declaration of Independence thing, this was a young person’s game. Most of the rebels and those who opposed them were the millennials of 1776

Marcia Smith 6:42
And it’s good because they had new ideas and young ideas. They weren’t tethered to the old land, the, you know, the king and the England. Okay, Bob, which president of the US was the first to host a Fourth of July celebration in the White House?

Bob Smith 6:59
Was that Abraham Lincoln, by any chance?

Marcia Smith 7:01
No.

Bob Smith 7:01
Oh, was it before Abraham Lincoln?

Marcia Smith 7:03
Yes.

Bob Smith 7:04
Okay, so it would probably have been maybe Martin Van Buren

Marcia Smith 7:08
No

Bob Smith 7:08
Or Buchanan

Marcia Smith 7:09
No

Bob Smith 7:10
Andrew Jackson.

Marcia Smith 7:10
No.

Bob Smith 7:11
All right, I’m missing out. Who was it?

Marcia Smith 7:15
Thomas Jefferson.

Bob Smith 7:16
Oh no kidding!

Marcia Smith 7:16
I didn’t know it went back that far.

Bob Smith 7:18
He probably served ice cream because he liked ice cream too.

Marcia Smith 7:21
Another little factoid that

Bob Smith 7:22
Holy cow

Marcia Smith 7:23
Amazes and amuses.

Bob Smith 7:24
It’s amazing.

Marcia Smith 7:25
How many stars and stripes does the US flag have?

Bob Smith 7:30
13 stripes

Marcia Smith 7:31
Right.

Marcia Smith 7:31
And

Bob Smith 7:32
50 stars.

Marcia Smith 7:33
Correct. Wasn’t sure about

Bob Smith 7:35
Yeah the stripes or for the original, for the original colonies, right?

Marcia Smith 7:38
And what is the location of the nation’s oldest Fourth of July parade?

Bob Smith 7:45
Well, that would probably be in Philadelphia too.

Marcia Smith 7:47
You’d think

Bob Smith 7:47
New York?

Marcia Smith 7:49
No.

Bob Smith 7:49
Where?

Marcia Smith 7:49
Bristol, Rhode Island.

Bob Smith 7:51
No kidding. Tell me about that. What year was it?

Marcia Smith 7:54
1785

Bob Smith 7:55
That’s the first parade.

Marcia Smith 7:56
Yeah

Bob Smith 7:57
Huh. Now I think the first fireworks were actually 1777. I think that was the year after the signing.

Marcia Smith 8:03
Well there goes one of my questions Bob. Hold off.

Bob Smith 8:05
Oh sorry!

Marcia Smith 8:06
Hold that off. Okay?

Bob Smith 8:07
Okay, I got another question for you about one of the 1776 millennials we talked about. Who is the one who said after signing the declaration, “There! I guess King George will be able to read that!”

Marcia Smith 8:18
Oh, that was John Hancock.

Bob Smith 8:20
That’s actually what he said after signing it. Isn’t that funny. Yeah, he signed it in those big letters and he said that.

Marcia Smith 8:25
And I bet had it been another time, George would have tweeted him on that one. You know, really, John, do you have to be so ostentatious?

Bob Smith 8:33
That’s right, don’t poke him in the eye.

Marcia Smith 8:35
Yeah, okay.

Bob Smith 8:36
What signer said, we must all hang together, else we will all hang separately.

Marcia Smith 8:41
Great quote, one of my favorites. And not many people were that eloquent back then, but Ben Franklin

Bob Smith 8:47
That’s right, Benjamin Franklin. He signed it when he was 70, and he said that.

Marcia Smith 8:51
Yeah, okay. Here’s another number question. What was the total number of people who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Bob Smith 8:58
Now that’s a good question, because I’ve got all these names, I found a whole list of them, I would say 50,

Marcia Smith 9:06
That’s pretty good.

Bob Smith 9:07
How many?

Marcia Smith 9:08
56

Bob Smith 9:09
56 signers.

Marcia Smith 9:10
And what is the name of the national anthem of the USA?

Bob Smith 9:15
Well, the name of the national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner.

Marcia Smith 9:20
It is, yes, because people often say different

Bob Smith 9:23
They think of “America,” yeah

Marcia Smith 9:25
But it’s not. The national anthem is the Star Spangled Banner.

Bob Smith 9:29
All right, Marcia, I have some things. You know, there were other things going on in 1776 Did you know that there were other things? Thomas Paine published some very important pamphlets.

Marcia Smith 9:38
Common sense

Bob Smith 9:39
Yes, common sense that really stirred up a lot of feelings, but what other momentous action did the Continental Congress take that year? They signed the Declaration of Independence. What’s another thing they did that year?

Marcia Smith 9:51
They were pretty exhausted. What

Bob Smith 9:55
People go to the gas station today, and they buy tickets these days

Marcia Smith 9:59
A Lottery? They approvad a lottery?

Bob Smith 10:00
They started, they started a national lottery to raise money for the Continental Congress — at gas stations all over New England. No, I don’t know where they sold the tickets, but yeah, they started

Marcia Smith 10:11
The horse hay store!

Bob Smith 10:12
The horse hay store.

Marcia Smith 10:14
Okay, all right, here’s an easy one and a hard one. Okay, who gave the United States the Statue of liberty.

Bob Smith 10:20
Oh, that’s the country of France.

Marcia Smith 10:23
That’s correct.

Bob Smith 10:23
Yeah

Marcia Smith 10:24
And what was the Statue of Liberty’s official name?

Bob Smith 10:28
Wasn’t Lady Liberty, was it?

Marcia Smith 10:29
Nope,

Bob Smith 10:31
Bartholdi’s statue. What was it called? Liberty Lights the Way, or something like that.

Marcia Smith 10:37
That’s -I’ll give you 50% on that. Okay. Okay. Liberty Enlightening the world,

Bob Smith 10:42
Enlightening the world.

Marcia Smith 10:43
Yeah,

Bob Smith 10:43
okay,

Marcia Smith 10:44
all right.

Bob Smith 10:44
I think it’s time for a break.

Marcia Smith 10:46
Oh yeah,

Bob Smith 10:46
you’re listening to a special Independence Day edition of The Off Ramp. We’ll be back in just a moment.

Marcia Smith 10:51
What do they know about their country?

Bob Smith 10:58
Okay, you’re listening to a special Independence Day episode of the Off Ramp. Marcia, I’ve got another question about something that occurred that year, but it wasn’t related to Independence Day. What famous hymn was first issued in 1776

Marcia Smith 11:14
It wasn’t something like mine eyes have seen the glory.

Bob Smith 11:19
No, that was that was around the Civil War time.

Marcia Smith 11:21
Oh, okay, okay. Well, I’m way –

Bob Smith 11:22
It’s a famous one. It’s a three-word hymn.

Marcia Smith 11:24
I don’t know,

Bob Smith 11:25
it’s Rock

Marcia Smith 11:27
on

Bob Smith 11:28
Rock on, yeah, Rock on America. That’s right, that’s what it was.

Marcia Smith 11:31
Rock’s of ages.

Bob Smith 11:32
Yeah, Rock of Ages actually appeared in 1776 with verses by the London editor Augustus Top lady, public lady. Yes, published in the February 1776 issue of the Gospel magazine in London, Rock of Ages. I thought of that as a 19th century hymn, not an 18th century hymn. Okay, what great western city had its beginnings in 1776

Marcia Smith 11:57
Western city,

Bob Smith 11:57
Awestern city of the United States,

Marcia Smith 12:00
Denver.

Bob Smith 12:01
No,

Marcia Smith 12:01
LA,

Bob Smith 12:02
No,

Marcia Smith 12:02
San Francisco.

Bob Smith 12:03
Yes, its original name was Yerba Buena, meaning good herb, but San Francisco had its real beginnings in the settlement of Yerba Buenda, which was established by Spanish monks in California. They actually established that in 1769 but it really started taking off in 1776 So, there were other things happening that year.

Marcia Smith 12:23
Well, here’s one that’ll stump you. Where is the Liberty Bell located?

Bob Smith 12:28
lt’s located right down in downtown Philadelphia. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 12:30
I’ve never seen it.

Bob Smith 12:31
They’ve taken it and put it in a little beautiful building, it’s adjacent to the Independence Hall, and you know that was an anti-slavery bell, that’s why they call it the Liberty Bell.

Marcia Smith 12:40
Oh, see, I didn’t know that. Yeah, did you get to ring it when you’re there?

Bob Smith 12:44
No, no, they don’t let you touch it. No, you can’t ring it.

Marcia Smith 12:45
Okay. All right. As if that wasn’t hard enough, how many hot dogs are consumed every fourth of July in America? Bob, take a guess.

Bob Smith 12:55
There’s a good one. Oh my goodness. So we’re talking millions of hot dogs, I would assume. Okay, so let’s say

Marcia Smith 13:00
let’s

Bob Smith 13:01
1776 1776 hot dogs. No, no, no, I’ll say 2 million,

Marcia Smith 13:08
not even close. 150 million on the fourth of July. No

Bob Smith 13:12
kidding, 150 million on the fourth of July alone.

Marcia Smith 13:16
Yeah, that’s a lot of mustard and relish. Boy,

Bob Smith 13:19
is that ever. I

Marcia Smith 13:20
like the onions, you know. I gotta have that. You

Bob Smith 13:22
always have to have onions. Okay?

Marcia Smith 13:24
What country declared independence from the US on july 4, 1946

Bob Smith 13:30
From the US, yeah. A country declared independence from the US

Marcia Smith 13:35
1946

Bob Smith 13:36
Our Independence Day, how dare they? I don’t know, who would that be? I’m sorry, I’m drawing a blank on the

Marcia Smith 13:44
Philippines.

Bob Smith 13:46
Okay, we’re done with you.

Marcia Smith 13:48
I’m out of here.

Bob Smith 13:49
Well, you’re right, it was the year after the war, the war had ended, so that makes sense. That the Philippines declared its independence on July 4, 1946 Yeah,

Marcia Smith 13:58
that is

Bob Smith 13:59
a great, great trivia question.

Marcia Smith 14:01
I’m here to here to amaze and amuse.

Bob Smith 14:03
I have something. It’s kind of an amazing thing. What great drink may have also been invented in 1776 Great

Marcia Smith 14:10
drink must have been tang. No, it wasn’t tang. All right, not a

Bob Smith 14:16
beer. It’s a, it’s a mixed drink,

Marcia Smith 14:18
a mixed drink, really. Okay. Well, I’ll say the gin Ricky. No, that’s the 20s. I don’t know,

Bob Smith 14:24
the cocktail.

Marcia Smith 14:26
Oh, the cocktail be anything. Yeah,

Bob Smith 14:28
there are several stories on the cocktail, but this one comes from the food chronology by James Traeger, and he says that by some accounts the cocktail was invented in 1776 at an Elmsford, New York Tavern barmaid Betsy Flanagan decorated the bar at Hall’s Corner with discarded tail feathers from poultry that were roasted and served to patrons, the cocktails. See, and an inebriated patron demanded that she bring him quote a glass of those cocktails and. Lanagan served him a mixed drink garnished with a feather,

Marcia Smith 15:03
isn’t that fun? Yeah, well, you know, basically back then, then before we got all sorts of fancy names for it, it was any kind of booze and soda

Bob Smith 15:12
with a feather, yeah, apparently, which

Marcia Smith 15:14
now you can put in an umbrella instead. But okay,

Bob Smith 15:17
as I said, there are other stories, but that’s one that

Marcia Smith 15:20
I like that.

Bob Smith 15:20
I thought that was good, because we could talk about 1776 with regard to that.

Marcia Smith 15:24
That’s very interesting to me,

Bob Smith 15:26
said the barkeeper’s daughter. We have to remind people, your dad ran the tavern. Frenchies, Frenchies, yeah, in Milwaukee. Oh,

Marcia Smith 15:34
Frenchies.

Bob Smith 15:35
Okay, we mentioned Betsy Ross a while ago. Oh,

Marcia Smith 15:37
we did.

Bob Smith 15:37
Now we don’t know for sure if Betsy Ross actually did make the flag.

Marcia Smith 15:42
Yeah, I’m positive she did.

Bob Smith 15:45
We do know five things about Betsy Ross that you might find interesting.

Marcia Smith 15:49
All right,

Bob Smith 15:50
we know her name was Elizabeth Grissom Ross. She was born Elizabeth Grissom in a Quaker family in Gloucester City, New Jersey, back in 1752 which would make her 24 the day the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Marcia Smith 16:03
Okay,

Bob Smith 16:04
and we know that in 1773 while serving as an apprentice for a Philadelphia upholsterer, she fell in love and eloped with another apprentice, John Ross. He was a member of a prominent Philadelphia family that included a signer of the Declaration of Independence. So,

Marcia Smith 16:20
okay,

Bob Smith 16:21
by the way, the Quakers expelled Betsy because she married a Protestant, so they can’t have that. We also know that Elizabeth and John Ross set up their own upholstery business in Philadelphia.

Marcia Smith 16:32
Okay,

Bob Smith 16:32
and they enjoyed what National Geographic describes as a lively social life. They attended his family’s Christ Church with people like George Washington, but tragedy struck two years later, in 1775 John was killed in the Revolutionary War. His widow, Elizabeth, carried on. She put a shingle out and ran her own business, and she married two more times and gave birth to seven children. Oh

Marcia Smith 16:56
Lord, she married. When did she do the flag?

Bob Smith 16:58
Well, we don’t know for sure if she sewed the first US flag, we do know that she did sow flags for others, though. Her upholstery business made flags for Pennsylvania’s Navy, and it supplied the Continental Army with tents and other goods in the Revolutionary War. And one of her daughters carried on that work, making flags for the US government and merchant marines until 1857 So, there’s a lot of information. A fifth thing we know is that she rubs shoulders with some of the nation’s founders, because 15 members of her church’s congregation signed the Declaration of Independence, so she was in the right social circles,

Marcia Smith 17:30
but nothing that says, like my grade school book, that she sewed the flag.

Bob Smith 17:35
How did Betsy Ross become famous for the flag? Her grandson made that happen. Now Elizabeth died in 1836 at age 84 in 1870 her grandson, William Canby, gave a speech on the history of the American flag at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and he claimed that George Washington and members of a congressional committee approached his grandmother asking if Kershaw could create a flag. He even came up with signed affidavits from family members saying, yeah, we heard this story all of our lives. Oh, okay. She told this story. Oh, it is a

Marcia Smith 18:05
true story.

Bob Smith 18:06
Well, we think it was, but we don’t know for sure. She said she gave them some suggestions, all kinds of little design changes she supposedly came up with. And then later magazines started publishing these stories. There were two big paintings that you’ve probably seen, where Betsy Ross is sewing the flag. One was a massive painting that was at the Columbian Exposition World’s Fair in Chicago. 1000s of people lined up to see this thing. It became a sensation, and that became embedded in the public memory. Now there is a paper trail on the US flag, and it belongs to a man.

Marcia Smith 18:39
I’m getting confused.

Bob Smith 18:40
If Elizabeth Grissom Ross, Betsy Ross, didn’t design the first flag, who did? Well, it may be Francis Hopkinson, a patriot poet, lawyer, naval flag designer, congressman, early treasury official, and signer of the Declaration,

Marcia Smith 18:54
puppeteer.

Bob Smith 18:55
He left a paper trail in 1780 He billed the Continental Congress for designing two items, the Great Seal of the United States, that’s the one with the eagle with its talons, holding the arrows, and the other was for the flag of the United States. He asked for a cask of wine for his services, but there’s no evidence he was paid. While the journals of the Continental Congress show he designed the flag, the Board of Treasury disagreed, claiming he was not the only person consulted, and couldn’t take full credit for that, and besides, they said he earned a big salary as the treasurer of loans for the government, so they felt he owed a service to the public, and the design was a way to pay that debt, so they never apparently paid him.

Marcia Smith 19:35
Well, couldn’t he have designed it, and she sold it?

Bob Smith 19:38
Maybe

Marcia Smith 19:38
that makes sense.

Bob Smith 19:39
Who knows? But that’s the paper trail in the Smithsonian. We have that information, but all right. Don’t, don’t know for sure if Betsy did. Her family says she told the story, and there’s no reason not to believe her.

Marcia Smith 19:49
I believe Betsy.

Bob Smith 19:50
All right,

Marcia Smith 19:51
all right. Thank you, Bob.

Bob Smith 19:53
I set the record straight here.

Marcia Smith 19:55
All right. Name the seven founding fathers.

Bob Smith 19:58
The seven founding fathers. Others, I think I saw something about that. This was a historian who named the seven, right?

Marcia Smith 20:06
Yes, Richard Morris, the historian, in 1973 Okay, he identified these seven figures as key founders based on a series of tests he did, and actually he looked at them as the leaders who produced the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Okay,

Bob Smith 20:23
let me give you my take on that.

Marcia Smith 20:25
Okay,

Bob Smith 20:25
I think we’ve got to have, of course, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote it, John Adams, who was involved in the writing of it too, as was, let’s see, Benjamin Franklin is Alexander Hamilton in that. Yes, okay, so that’s 1234, So I need three more. George Washington,

Marcia Smith 20:42
got

Bob Smith 20:43
it. And then, who would be the other two?

Marcia Smith 20:46
Yep, one was the president and one wasn’t.

Bob Smith 20:48
James Madison,

Marcia Smith 20:49
correct?

Bob Smith 20:49
And then

Marcia Smith 20:50
John Jay,

Bob Smith 20:52
oh, John Jay, yes, who became the Supreme Court Justice of the United States? Yeah,

Marcia Smith 20:55
so it was John Jay, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington

Bob Smith 21:02
– those are considered the original seven founding fathers. Yeah. Okay. Hey, you know, I have a question on that.

Marcia Smith 21:08
Okay?

Bob Smith 21:09
Who came up with the term founding fathers? Well,

Marcia Smith 21:12
oddly enough, I don’t know that

Bob Smith 21:14
this was a future president as well, and it wasn’t until 140 years after the revolution began that that phrase became popular. Warren G. Harding, he was a US senator. He first coined the phrase “founding fathers, and he did it in a keynote speech for the Republican National Convention in 1916 Before that, terms such as the fathers, the founders, and founders of the republic were used, but not founding fathers. In fact, some of the founding fathers didn’t like that kind of term. Did you know that? Yeah, John Adams, in 1811 responding to praise for his generation, said, “Don’t call me father or founder. These titles belong to no man, but to the American people in general. So, founding father, the term has only been around since 1916

Marcia Smith 22:02
Well, that makes sense. Yeah, it’s not something that would come out at the time,

Bob Smith 22:06
is it? All right, here’s the question of the day: Did America’s founding fathers wear wigs?

Marcia Smith 22:13
Gee, seems to me they did. Yes, we see pictures of George, a room full of

Bob Smith 22:18
men in big white wigs. Yeah, but guess what. By the time of the American Revolution, by that time, by the mid to late 1700s the wig craze was already dying out, and most of the founders weren’t wearing wigs at all, but they were wearing their own hair styled and powdered to look like wigs. So that was the fad after that. It’s like, well, we’re not gonna wear wigs, but we’ll make it look like we’re wearing wigs. I mean, how stupid is this?

Marcia Smith 22:46
Come to think of it, they weren’t so exaggerated, were they? They were more tasteful.

Bob Smith 22:50
So, I do have specifically George Washington – no wig, just powder. People think he wore a wig, he never did.

Marcia Smith 22:56
I’ll be darned.

Bob Smith 22:56
Every portrait that looks like a wig was actually his own hair, brushed back, tied in a queue, and heavily powdered, and we know this from Charles Wilson Peale, who did portraits of him, and also the Mount Vernon hairdresser books. They list powder and pomatum, but no wigs, so that’s from the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. John Adams did wear wigs in his youth, but by the time of the revolution, the 1770s he had abandoned them. Thomas Jefferson always natural hair, no wig purchases ever. He disliked wigs. He actually had memoranda books where he recorded every purchase he made for decades, and they list hair powder, but never a wig. Benjamin Franklin was an anti-wig founder. He rarely wore wigs, and he often mocked aristocratic fashion. When he was in London and Paris, he was wearing fur caps.

Marcia Smith 23:47
Yes, that was funny.

Bob Smith 23:48
The European observers thought that was a philosophical statement about American simplicity. He’s not wearing a wig, he’s wearing a fur cap.

Marcia Smith 23:56
That guy’s wearing a raccoon on his head. If that wasn’t sophisticated,

Bob Smith 24:00
Alexander. Alexander Hamilton, powdered hair, not a wig, long hair, tied back, powdered. And portraits by John Trumbull and Charles Wilson Peale confirm that. So the wigs went out of fashion, they were gone from everyday life by 1800 surviving only in the British courts.

Marcia Smith 24:19
Okay. All right, Bob, can you tell me what was the estimated population of the US in 1776

Bob Smith 24:27
Oh, no, that’s a good one. I think it was like 2.5 million, something like that. Was it that many people?

Marcia Smith 24:35
How much did you say?

Bob Smith 24:36
I said 2.5 million. Was it that many people?

Marcia Smith 24:41
Yes, it was exactly that many. Oh, you’re kidding. He has two, yes,

Bob Smith 24:46
2,500,000 people is the estimate.

Marcia Smith 24:49
Yeah, okay. And don’t forget, we today eat 150 million hot dogs, and back then they were only 2.5 million people,

Bob Smith 24:57
and 35 hot dogs consumed on the fourth. July. Okay,

Marcia Smith 25:00
a piece that is correct. Who is the author, Bob, of the Pledge of Allegiance?

Bob Smith 25:06
Oh, now that’s a good one. I thought you were gonna say who authored the.. that was the easy one, but this is the hard one. Don wasn’t around for this. Who authored the Pledge of Allegiance?

Marcia Smith 25:17
Francis Bellamy.

Bob Smith 25:18
Francis Bellamy,

Marcia Smith 25:20
do you know him?

Bob Smith 25:21
I went to school with somebody named Francis Bellamy. You’re

Marcia Smith 25:23
not that old. Here’s an interesting one. Okay, where was the Declaration of Independence stored during World War Two?

Bob Smith 25:31
Oh, I bet it was stored down in where they stored a lot of the famous paintings.

Marcia Smith 25:36
Oh,

Bob Smith 25:36
Asheville, North Carolina.

Marcia Smith 25:38
You’re thinking of at the Vanderbilt

Bob Smith 25:39
house.

Marcia Smith 25:40
No,

Bob Smith 25:40
no. Where was it?

Marcia Smith 25:41
Fort Knox.

Bob Smith 25:42
Oh no kidding.

Marcia Smith 25:43
Yeah, how about that? They

Bob Smith 25:45
took it to Fort Knox and stored it underground. Yeah,

Bob Smith 25:47
wow.

Marcia Smith 25:48
I thought that was pretty interesting.

Bob Smith 25:49
Well, during World War Two, the government did take a lot of famous paintings from the National Gallery and stuff and took them to the Vanderbilt mansion, because they thought if Washington was bombed. They wanted to make sure that some of the treasures were other places. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 26:04
all right. Bob, well, I’m gonna wrap it up. There’s so many great quotes, Bob, about freedom and the Fourth of July, but I decided to go right for the big enchilada. And here’s a brief excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776 and and when you hear the word man in this, think mankind.

Bob Smith 26:26
Okay,

Marcia Smith 26:27
I do. You know, and I think if George and Tom and John lived longer along with the other boys, they would eventually have wanted it that way too. Okay. Quote, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, and so it goes.

Bob Smith 27:03
Yes, there we are. That’s some special fun Independence Day information, trivia, facts, figures,

Marcia Smith 27:10
and something I call bountiful badinage.

Bob Smith 27:13
Okay, that’s it for today. I’m Bob Smith.

Marcia Smith 27:20
I’m Marcia Smith.

Bob Smith 27:21
We hope you enjoyed today, and that you’ll join us again next time when we return with more fun facts and trivia here on The Off

Speaker 1 27:29
Ramp. The

Bob Smith 27:35
Off Ramp is produced in association with the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai