Button Gwinnett

Button Gwinnett
Portrait by Nathaniel Hone
2nd Governor of Georgia
In office March 4, 1777 – May 8, 1777
Preceded by	Archibald Bulloch
Succeeded by	John A. Treutlen
Personal details
Born	1735 Gloucestershire, England
Died	May 19, 1777 near Savannah, Georgia, U.S.
Nationality	English
Signature

Button Gwinnett (1735 – May 19, 1777) was an English-born American political leader who, as a representative of Georgia to the Continental Congress, was the second of the signatories (first signature on the left) on the United States Declaration of Independence. He was also, briefly, the provisional president of Georgia in 1777, and Gwinnett County (now a major suburb of metropolitan Atlanta) was named for him. Gwinnett was killed in a duel by a rival Lachlan McIntosh following a dispute after a failed invasion of East Florida.

Early life and career

Gwinnett was born in 1735 in the parish of Down Hatherley in the country of Gloucestershire, England, to Welsh parents, the Reverend Samuel and Anne (née Button) Gwinnett. He was the first of his parents' seven children. There are conflicting reports as to his birth date, but he was baptized in St Catherine’s Church in Gloucester on April 10, 1735. After attending The King's School, Gloucester he started his career as a merchant in England. He then moved to Wolverhampton in 1755 and married a local, Ann Bourne, in 1757 at St. Peter's Church at the age of 22. In 1762 the couple left Wolverhampton and moved to America.

Arriving first in Charleston, South Carolina, by 1765 they had traveled to Georgia. Gwinnett abandoned his mercantile pursuits, selling off all his merchandise to buy a tract of land where he started a plantation. He prospered as a planter, and by 1769 had gained such local prominence that he was elected to the Provincial Assembly. During his tenure in the Assembly, Gwinnett's chief political rival was Lachlan McIntosh, and Lyman Hall was his closest ally. Gwinnett did not become a strong advocate of colonial rights until 1775, when St. John's Parish, which encompassed his lands, threatened to secede from Georgia due to the colony's rather conservative response to the events of the times.

Revolution

He voted in favor of the Declaration of Independence, adopted by Congress on July 2, 1776, two days before the "fair copy," dated July 4, 1776, was presented to the Congress. He signed the famous parchment copy on August 2, 1776. After signing the Declaration, he was accompanied as far as Virginia by Carter Braxton, another of the signers, carrying a proposed state constitution drawn up by John Adams. During his service in the Continental Congress, Gwinnett was a candidate for a brigadier general position to lead the 1st Regiment in the Continental Army, but lost out to Lachlan McIntosh. The loss of the position to his rival embittered Gwinnett greatly.

He served in the Georgia state legislature, and in 1777 he wrote the original draft of Georgia's first State Constitution. He soon became Speaker of the Georgia Assembly, a position he held until the death of the President (Governor) of Georgia, Archibald Bulloch. Gwinnett was elevated to the vacated position by the Assembly’s Executive Council. In this position, he sought to undermine the leadership of McIntosh.

Legacy

Despite his brief career, Gwinnett however does hold one claim to fame: his autograph is among the most valuable in the world, a fact used to good effect by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in his short story "Button, Button." Studies usually suggest an example of an original Gwinnett signature would be valued only behind the likes of Julius Caesar and William Shakespeare, making Gwinnett’s by far the most valuable American autograph. Single examples of Gwinnett’s autograph have been sold for as much as US$150,000. Its extraordinarily high value is a result of a combination of the desire by many top collectors to acquire a complete set of autographs by all 56 signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and the extreme rarity of the Gwinnett signature; there are 51 known examples, since Gwinnett was fairly obscure prior to signing the Declaration and died shortly afterward. In the 1920s, five copies of his signature were owned by the noted rare bookseller A. S. W. Rosenbach.

In popular culture

• In the 2008 role-playing game Fallout 3, a Protectron robot wearing a powdered wig has been left in command of the National Archives and due to a memory malfunction believes itself to be the real Gwinnett. It will challenge the player to a duel or otherwise resist him if the player attempts to seize the copy of the Declaration of Independence that it is guarding. If the player manages to convince the robot that he or she is Thomas Jefferson, it will submit.
• In Season 1 of Mr. Show, Button Gwinnett was played by Jack Plotnick in a skit surrounding the origin of the American flag's design. Gwinnett was portrayed as a pitiable stooge.
• The 1932 film Washington Merry-Go-Round stars actor Lee Tracy as Button Gwinnett Brown, a (fictitious) modern-day Congressman and descendant of Button Gwinnett. He owns a letter written and signed by his ancestor Button Gwinnett, which is worth $50,000 because (according to this movie's dialogue) only three of the original Gwinnett's letters still survive, and this is one of them. This fictitious document is destroyed during the film's action; the film also includes a close-up of the real Gwinnett's signature on the Declaration of Independence.
• Stephen Colbert has referenced Gwinett in both airings of the segment "Better Know A Founder" featuring impersonators of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, joking that Gwinett would be interviewed in a future segment.

See also

• List of residents of Wolverhampton

External links

• Button Gwinnett at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Biography of Button Gwinnett
• Georgia Signers of the Declaration of Independence
• New Georgia Encyclopedia
• Button Gwinnett's spirit lives on
• Biography by Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, 1856
• Button Gwinnett Genealogy Research
• Button Gwinnett at Find a Grave

Political offices
Preceded by Archibald Bulloch	Governor of Georgia 1777	Succeeded by John A. Treutlen