Some quite interesting trivia about the Declaration of Independence. Outside of America it was first published in the Belfast Newsletter on the 23rd of August, 1776. A copy of the document was being transported to London when bad weather forced the ship to port at Derry. The document was then carried on horseback to Belfast for the continuation of its voyage to England, where a copy was made for the Belfast newspaper. Eight of the fiftysix signatories on the document were of Ulster-Scots Presbyterian stock. They were John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress who had family ties in Co.Down; William Whipple, whose parents arrived in Maine from the North of Ireland in 1730; Robert Paine, his grandfather came from Dungannon; Thomas McKean (his father came from Ballymoney); Thomas Nelson, his grandfather came from Strabane; Matthew Thornton from Londonderry, he settled in New Hampshire in 1718; and George Taylor, son of an Ulster Presbyterian minister and Edward Rutle
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