A Fictional Interview with George Clymer

at Signers’ Park

TRAVEL IN TIME WITH DAN   |   Signers’ Garden, Philadelphia — 1787

⚠️  AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following is a fictional historical interview. George Clymer (1739–1813) was a Philadelphia merchant and one of only six men to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Signers’ Garden, on the former site of the Gilbert Stuart House, features a symbolic bronze statue widely believed to represent Clymer, honoring the lesser-known signers alongside the more famous founders. Roughly fifteen to twenty delegates who supported independence did not sign the Declaration, for reasons ranging from principled abstention to being absent when signatures were collected. The historical facts are real. The dialogue is creative fiction.

📍 SETTING: Signers’ Garden, across the street from Independence Hall, dusk. A merchant in plain but well-made clothes stands near where the bronze statue will one day be raised in his honor, though he has no way of knowing that yet.

Dan: Mr. Clymer, you’re one of only six men who signed both the Declaration and the Constitution. That’s a remarkable distinction, and yet most people have never heard your name.

Clymer: (A shrug, without much bitterness) I was a merchant, not an orator. I did not give speeches people remember or write essays people quote centuries later. I signed what needed signing and did the work that needed doing between signatures. History tends to remember the loudest voice in the room more readily than the steadiest hand. I have made my peace with which of those two things I actually was.

Dan: Let’s be honest about what signing the Declaration actually meant in that moment — this wasn’t a ceremonial gesture.

Clymer: It was treason, plainly stated, against the most powerful crown in the world. Dr. Franklin said it best — we would all hang together, or we would most assuredly hang separately. My signature was not a statement of pride. It was an acceptance that my family’s property, my family’s safety, possibly my family’s lives, were now wagered against a cause I believed worth the wager. I do not think every signer weighed that cost as carefully as I did. I know I did not sleep well for some time after.

Dan: Not everyone signed. Fifteen to twenty delegates who supported the cause never put their names on it at all.

Clymer: And I would caution you against judging every one of them the same way. Mr. Dickinson abstained on genuine principle and then picked up a musket regardless. Mr. Livingston left before the vote for reasons of his own. Others were simply elsewhere on the day the signatures were gathered, called away by circumstance rather than conviction. Courage and absence are not always the same story, and I would rather you not flatten them into one.

Dan: Eleven years later, you’re signing the Constitution too. Different document, different risk?

Clymer: A different kind of risk, certainly, and I will not pretend it carried the same weight as the first signature. No king was going to hunt me down for ratifying a constitution. But do not mistake that for safety. I risked something quieter and, in its own way, just as costly — the good opinion of neighbors who disagreed sharply with what this new document proposed. Losing a friendship over a conviction is a smaller wound than losing your life over one, but it is a wound all the same, and it is the one most people alive today are actually asked to risk.

Dan: There’s a statue planned for this exact spot someday — deliberately ambiguous, meant to represent men like you rather than just the famous names.

Clymer: (Looking toward where it might stand) I find that a fitting tribute, more fitting than a bust with my name carved beneath it might have been. Most of the real work of building this country was done by men whose names will never appear in a schoolbook. If a stranger stands where I am standing now and reaches for the sky the way that statue does, wondering which forgotten man it might represent, I would count that a better legacy than fame.

Dan: Fame usually isn’t the most important thing. Thanks for your time today, Mr. Clymer.

 

George Clymer was one of only six men to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, yet his name remains far less known than his fellow founders’ — a fact Signers’ Garden’s deliberately symbolic bronze statue seems built to correct without naming him outright. The fifteen to twenty delegates who never signed the Declaration, including John Dickinson and Robert Livingston, carried a range of reasons that rarely make it into the standard telling. The leadership lesson from Signers’ Garden: greatness isn’t always the loudest name in the room. Great leaders take real risks for the principles they believe in, whether or not history ever learns their name for it.

Uncovering History. Inspiring Leadership.

📺 Watch the episode: YouTube | 🎙️ Listen to the podcast: Spotify | 📖 Read the blog: granddaddyssecrets.com | 📚 Dan’s book: Travel in Time in the Northeast