Lesser known founding fathers of the United States

Editor’s Note: While July 4th and all that the Independence Day celebration brings with it is still a month away, this is a bigger season than most years as the country celebrates this significant anniversary. Over the course of the coming weeks, the editors will share some patriotic content as we all prepare for #America250.

When Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States throughout 2026, names like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams are bound to come up. While those four men played notable roles in the establishment of the United States of America, many more Founding Fathers bore significant influence as well.

America’s semiquincentennial is a great time to celebrate all who have helped make the country into what it is today, and that includes some of the Founding Fathers who have not become household names over the last 250 years.

• William Livingston: Born in Albany, New York, in 1723, William Livingston was a prominent attorney prior to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The Historical Society of the New York Courts notes Livingston moved to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, in 1772. Within two years of that move, Livingston became New Jersey’s representative to the Continental Congress. By June 1776, Livingston was appointed brigadier general of the New Jersey militia, a position he held until 1777, when he became the Governor of New Jersey. Livingston was a target of British forces, who offered a reward for his capture. But Livingston remained Governor of New Jersey until his death in 1790, and even served as the New Jersey delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when he signed the United States Constitution adopted at that convention.
• William Hooper: William Hooper was born Boston in 1742, but he made his name as a Founding Father after relocating to Wilmington, North Carolina, as a young adult. The National Constitution Center notes Hooper, like Livingston, was a successful attorney. Hooper was appointed Deputy Attorney General of the North Carolina colony in 1770, and even supported the Royal Governor’s efforts to suppress a taxation-related rebellion of North Carolina farmers during this pivotal period, when he was notably dragged through the streets by angry rioters. By the mid-1770s, Hooper had changed course, and was even among the three delegates chosen to represent North Carolina at the First Continental Congress in 1774. Prior to that conference, Hooper wrote to a friend that the colonies were destined to win independence from the Crown, an assertion that ultimately earned him the nickname the “Prophet of Independence.” Hooper signed the Declaration of Independence but illness forced him to retire from politics. He continued to support the war effort, donating much of his legal earnings to the colonists’ cause, and was so reviled by the British that his home was burned down when Wilmington was taken by Crown forces in 1781.
• John Witherspoon: John Witherspoon was born in Scotland in 1723 and moved to what would become the United States in 1768. Witherspoon is unique among signatories of the Declaration of Independence because he is the only active clergyman and the only college president to sign the document. Witherspoon later signed the Articles of Confederation and supported the ratification of the Constitution. Witherspoon came to New Jersey to become president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), which educated many notable figures from the era, including James Madison and Aaron Burr. All told, 12 members of the Continental Congress studied at the school while Witherspoon was president. The Presbyterian Witherspoon supported colonial independence for various reasons, and was especially opposed to the Crown’s attempt to appoint an American Anglican bishop, speaking out against British interference in colonial affairs in a sermon titled “The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men” during a 1776 sermon. Like Hooper, Witherspoon was convinced independence was the path forward for the colonies.
• Roger Sherman: Born in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1721, Roger Sherman was a multitalented Founding Father who began to study law in the mid-1750s after working as an author, general store owner, and surveyor, among other jobs. By 1766, Sherman was so established in the legal profession that he was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut. Though he initially expressed reservations regarding colonists’ resistance to the Crown, by 1774 he agreed to serve as a Connecticut delegate to the First Continental Congress. Sherman joined the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence in mid-1776, and later represented Connecticut on the drafting committee of the Articles of Confederation. Sherman also holds the unique distinction of being the only person to sign the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.