On August 2, 1776, John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, stepped up to a table in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia (later renamed Independence Hall) and looked down at the parchment upon which the official copy of the Declaration of Independence had been written. Hancock would be the first delegate to sign the document. His conspicuous signature would become the most famous and iconic in American history.
According to legend, Hancock explained his bold signature by saying he wanted to make sure King George could see it without his spectacles. It’s a great story, but unfortunately there is no historical foundation for it. But that the Signers knew they were doing something dangerous is certain. Pennsylvania delegate Benjamin Rush would later describe the “pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress,” to sign “what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants.” Benjamin Franklin is said to have quipped, “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
In any event, Hancock’s signature on the Declaration became an enduring symbol of American defiance of royal authority, becoming so famous that “John Hancock” would eventually become slang for “signature” (as in, “Put your John Hancock here.”).
One month after approving the text, and two weeks after Congress ordered the preparation of an official signed copy on parchment, John Hancock and the other delegates to the Second Continental Congress began putting their signatures on the official version on August 2, 1776,
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