Today is the birthday of one of the greatest patriots of the Revolution: Samuel Adams. I have become well acquainted with Sam over the past year, since he became the subject of my short story series on the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. Today, in honor of his birthday, I'm sharing a few interesting facts that I learned about Sam during my research. Samuel Adams was born on September 27th, 1722 in Boston, MA, unless you want to go by the Old-Style date, which would be September 16th. He was one of twelve children, however only three lived past their third birthday. Sam once had a job as a tax collector, but he didn't do well because he couldn't bring himself to force people to pay when they couldn't even afford to feed their families. The government even filed a lawsuit against him for failing to collect. Known as the "Father of the Revolution", Sam was advocating independence long before it was popular, or even acceptable.He was viewed as ...

Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to one of my co-authors of the Declaration of Independence series! Today, Joseph shares some of his research and reaction to the critics of the Founding Fathers of this nation.  Happy Fourth of July!             Imagine how the signers of The Declaration of Independence feel while looking down from heaven and listening to their critics. The thought never occurred to me until my publisher asked me to write a fictional short story relating how John Hancock experienced the 4 th of July. Before starting, I read Herbert S. Allan’s even-handed biography of Hancock. Yes, the Founders were all human - Hancock was vain and a clothes horse, for example. But when you study the founding of America from the perspective of a Founder, the greatness of these men staggers you.             “But they didn’t free the slaves a...