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The Rotunda Twenty-Eight

Barry Faulkner's The Declaration gathers 28 men in the National Archives Rotunda. This series follows their work, risks, losses and final accounts, beginning with the existing Robert Morris biography. The National Archives key supplies the numbering, not a literal attendance roll for July 1776.

Publication status: two biographies are available, including the original exemplar. The other 26 new biographies remain unpublished. This page is the navigation scaffold, not the commissioned full mural history. That essay and the capstone are not yet written. The capstone waits until every biography has been researched and published.

Download the series execution file. It is an operational adaptation of the supplied series brief, with the verification rules and publication queue, not a verbatim copy of every original research bullet.

Front row

1. Robert Morris PARead the biography
2. Samuel Chase MDRead the biography
3. Charles Carroll MDNot yet published
4. Stephen Hopkins RINot yet published
5. Samuel Adams MANot yet published
6. Thomas McKean DENot yet published
7. John Dickinson PA; did not signNot yet published
8. Abraham Clark NJNot yet published
9. William Ellery RINot yet published
10. John Witherspoon NJNot yet published
11. John Hancock MANot yet published
12. Benjamin Harrison VANot yet published
13. Samuel Huntington CTNot yet published
14. Thomas Jefferson VANot yet published
15. Roger Sherman CTNot yet published
16. John Adams MANot yet published
17. Robert R. Livingston NY; did not signNot yet published
18. Benjamin Franklin PANot yet published
19. Richard Henry Lee VANot yet published
20. Thomas Nelson Jr. VANot yet published

Back row

21. Joseph Hewes NCNot yet published
22. Edward Rutledge SCNot yet published
23. Lyman Hall GANot yet published
24. Josiah Bartlett NHNot yet published
25. Thomas Stone MDNot yet published
26. Francis Hopkinson NJNot yet published
27. George Wythe VANot yet published
28. William Floyd NYNot yet published

The biographies distinguish contemporary documents, later recollections and institutional interpretation. A signature is not proof of presence at every July meeting, and a later financial loss is not automatically a consequence of signing.

The earlier seven ledger laws provide the comparison framework. Their wording is retained; their historical examples are not substitutes for new source checks.