Group of 19thc Steel Engravings, Signers Declaration of

Group of 3 steel engravings from 1846, signers of The Declaration of Independence. Thomas Mc Kean, Joseph Hewes & George Bead. 5 1/2" X 9" each. Engravings by J.B. Longacre. **moderate foxing & toning per photos. - Thomas McKean (1734-1817) was an American lawyer and politician from New Castle, in New Castle County, Delaware and Philadelphia. During the American Revolution he was a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he signed the United States Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. - Joseph Hewes (1730-1799) was a native of Princeton, New Jersey. His parents were members of the Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers. In 1776, he was appointed as the new Secretary of the Naval Affairs Committee. - George Read (1733 – 1798) was a politician from New Castle in Delaware. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a Continental Congressman from Delaware, a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, President of Delaware, and a member of the Federalist Party, who served as U.S. Senator from Delaware and Chief Justice of Delaware. Read was one of only two statesmen who signed all three of the great State papers on which the country's history is based: the original Petition to the King of the Congress of 1774, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States.