Francis Hopkinson: Signer in Bordentown

The Francis Hopkinson House in Bordentown marks the home of one of New Jersey's most versatile Founding Fathers. Hopkinson signed the Declaration of Independence as a delegate from New Jersey, but he was also a poet, satirist, musician, and designer who is credited by some historians with designing an early American flag, a claim long contested. He moved to Bordentown in the early seventeen seventies, joining a small community of Revolutionary-era intellectuals that included Thomas Paine, who lived in the town for a time.

Hopkinson later served as a federal judge under the new Constitution. His house is a modest reminder that New Jersey was not a political backwater in the founding era but home to some of the most creative minds of the Revolution.