Caesar Rodney was 47 years of age when he signed the Declaration of Independence. He was a plantation owner and was considered a fine military man. He never married and died in 1784 at the age of 55.
Caesar Rodney was born on his father’s farm in St. Jones Neck in Dover Hundred, Kent County, Delaware, on October 7, 1728. His family were prominent members of the community. Caesar was the eldest of son of eight children of Caesar and Elizabeth Crawford Rodney and grandson of William Rodney. William Rodney emigrated to the American colonies in 1681–82, along with William Penn. Speaker of the Colonial Assembly of the Delaware Counties in 1704. Rodney’s mother was the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Crawford, Anglican rector of Christ Church at Dover. Among the Rodney family ancestors were the prominent Adelmare family in Treviso, Italy, as attested by genealogy studies.
The family farm, Byfield, was an 800 acre farm with many slaves. With the addition of other adjacent properties, the Rodneys were, by the standards of the day, wealthy members of the local gentry. The plantation grew to 1,000 acres, and was worked by 200 slaves; it earned sufficient income from the sale of wheat and barley to the Philadelphia and West Indies market to provide enough cash and leisure to allow members of the family to participate in the social and political life of Kent County.
He was tutored by his parents and may have attended a local Parson’s school, but received no formal education. Caesar lived here until his father’s untimely death when he was sixteen years of age. After his father’s death he was orphaned and was placed under the guardianship of Nicholas Ridgely, who was a clerk of the peace in Kent County, and this seems to be the root of Rodney’s interest in politics. The sixteen year old Rodney was known for his wit and excellent political skills.
He rose to prominence in Delaware and served in the militia during the French and Indian War. After the war he served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. In 1755, under the royal government, Rodney was commissioned High Sheriff of Kent County, Delaware. This was quite a distinction for a man twenty-two years of age, and he apparently honored the distinction, for in succeeding years his official capacities grew to include registrar of wills, recorder of deeds, clerk of the orphan’s court, and justice of the peace. At age thirty he attained his first elected office as a representative in the colonial legislature at Newcastle. He served in that position, reelected each year except 1771, until the legislature was dissolved in 1776 and then resumed the seat as a representative to the Upper House of the State of Delaware until 1784.
Rodney was a leading patriot in his colony, a member of the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, a formative member of the Delaware Committee of Correspondence, a military leader in the colonial militia, and a delegate to the Continental Congress from formation until 1777. The following year he was elected President of the State of Delaware for a three year term, a duty that he assumed even as he served as Major-General of the Delaware Militia. In this office he played a crucial part not only in the defense of his own colony but in support of Washington’s Continental Army, for Delaware had a record of meeting or exceeding its quotas for troops and provisions throughout the revolutionary conflict. Rodney’s health and strength flagged for a time. He suffered from asthma and from a cancerous growth on his face, for which he never attained proper treatment. He saw his colony through the war at the cost of personal neglect.
Throughout the American Revolutionary War, Caesar Rodney served as Brigadier General of Delaware’s militia. He was one of the few delegates to the Continental Congress that had earlier military experience. During the Revolution, Rodney was promoted to Major-General of the Delaware militia by George Washington. Here he served until the Battle of Brandywine which resulted in the State President of Delaware, John McKinly, being captured by the British and George Read relieving himself of duties to poor health and exhaustion. These events placed Caesar Rodney and Thomas McKean back into the Continental Congress. Rodney replaced McKinly as President of Delaware and reignited Delaware’s passion for the revolution. His natural charisma allowed him to influence much of Delaware’s politics and his relentless devotion to the cause changed Delaware’s political landscape. Rodney began enforcing his authority and confiscating loyalist property and began scouring Delaware for supplies to help the Continental Army. The men of Delaware went on to fight bravely and distinguish themselves in the Battle of Monmouth, but was nearly destroyed when Gates fled the field at the Battle of Camden. By the end of 1781 Rodney had stabilized Delaware. The coast still had to deal with loyalist privateers, but incidents were lower than it had been before. His health began to take a serious decline and he was forced into resignation shortly after the siege of Yorktown.
Like Paul Revere, Caesar Rodney is famous for a midnight ride. Rodney’s ride ended up at the doorstep of Independence Hall where he cast the decisive Delaware vote for Independence. On June 30, a motion for Independence had been put forward with nine colonies voting for independence, two voting against, New York abstaining while the Delaware delegates had split their vote. Delaware delegate Thomas McKean was in favor of independence, while George Read voted against. Rodney, also a delegate form Delaware was absent during this vote. While there was technically enough support to carry the motion, the Continental Congress didn’t want to go forward and declare independence without unanimous support.
Rodney’s image on the Delaware state quarter
Rodney had been away from Congress because his role as a Brigadier General in the Delaware militia, forced him back to Delaware to squelch a Loyalist riot. McKean got word to Rodney that his vote for independence was desperately needed in Congress. All night, as the first of July, 1776, turned into the second, Rodney rode through a thunderstorm. He covered 80 miles and arrived at Independence Hall’s doorstep in time to cast his decisive vote. Years later Thomas McKean remembered meeting Rodney at the door “in his boots and spurs.”
Rodney’s vote decided the matter. Delaware was going to war.
Once the voting for independence concluded and debate resumed, Rodney is remembered for puncturing the self-importance of the Virginia delegates who believed they were the mighty rock on which independence rested.”Let [Virginia] be of good cheer,” he said, “she has a friend in need; Delaware will take her under its protection and insure her safety.”
John Adams described Rodney as “…the oddest looking man in the world; he is tall, thin and slender as a reed, pale; his face is not bigger than a large apple, yet there is sense and fire, spirit, wit and humor in this countenance.” It was not an appearance to quicken the heart of a woman, however, and it is said that Rodney remained a bachelor because Molly Vining, the woman he loved, married a rector — and soon after died.
In 1782 he was again elected to the national Congress, but was forced to decline the office due to failing health. He nonetheless continued to serve as Speaker to the Upper House of the Delaware Assembly. He died in that office, in June of 1784.
Resources:
The Society for the Defendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence
His political engagement began in his interest in the law. He wrote and organized against a poll-tax originated by the royal governor just prior to the outbreak of hostilities. He was a local leader in the patriot movement in the late 1770s.
Charles Wilson Peale’s famous portrait of William Paca, painted in 1772, says much about the man. With arm akimbo, he is very much the self-assured diplomat, lawyer, planter, and patriot. An extremely attractive, tall, yet large, man, he exudes the charm, fashionable demeanor, and educated manner for which he was known. With a bust of Cicero beside him and his Annapolis garden and summerhouse in the background, Paca fills the seven and a half foot canvas with the presence and confidence that would help win independence for the colonies. Many years later, Peale described his famous commission in these words: “A handsome man, more than six feet high, of portly appearance, being well educated and accustomed to the best company, [Paca] was graceful in his movements and complaisant to everyone; in short, his manners were of the first polish. In the early period when the people’s eyes first became opened to their rights,[he] made the first stand for the Independence of the People.”
The relationship between Lee and his oldest brother steadily worsened over the next few years. In 1754 Lee and his siblings brought suit against Philip Lee for not immediately dividing Thomas Lee’s estate according to his will. The lawsuit failed—Philip Lee had wanted to settle his father’s debts before dividing up his property—but Francis Lee and his younger siblings did successfully petition the court to have their cousin Henry Lee appointed as their guardian. When the familial discord threatened to undermine the Lees’ social and political position in colonial Virginia, Francis Lee set aside his differences with his oldest brother and focused on restoring the family’s rank in the colony. Although Lee’s relationship with his oldest brother remained strained, he developed a close bond with his other siblings, brothers Thomas Ludwell Lee, Richard Henry Lee, William Lee, and Arthur Lee, and sisters Hannah Lee and Alice Lee. When Philip Lee finally gave Frank Lee the land he had inherited in far-off Loudoun County, he eagerly took up residence there and was soon called to public service.
In 1769, Lee married Rebecca Tayloe, the sixteen-year-old daughter of John Tayloe, of Mount Airy. Frank was in his thirties at the time. Rebecca Tayloe was one of the eight daughters of John Tayloe II. In providing his blessing, Rebecca’s father made a wedding gift to the couple of a plantation of 1,000 acres. Frank and Rebecca moved to Richmond County. He soon began overseeing the construction of a new residence, Menokin. That same year, residents of Richmond County elected him to the Virginia House of Burgesses; once again, he maintained an inactive role and attended sessions sporadically. He also served the county as a justice of the peace from 1770 until the collapse of Virginia’s colonial government in 1774, and, for a brief time in 1771, was justice of the peace for both Richmond and Loudoun counties.
He became a close associate of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, though he preferred library discussions and back-room strategy to the limelight of public debate. Frank’s contributions to the formation of the American Republic, though subtle and often overlooked, were nonetheless critical. His staid countenance offered stability to the sometimes fractious debate among the delegates and, importantly, he modulated the fiery and sometimes divisive speech of his brother, Richard Henry. “He was,” as his youngest brother Arthur attested, “calmness and philosophy itself.”
