What does a street map of Madison, Wisconsin have to do with the Constitution?
Funny thing is, unfortunately neither street maps nor the Constitution seem to be as relevant to everyday life as they once were.
Anyway, the Constitution of the United States was signed by 39 delegates on September 17, 1787.
The signatories were:
1. George Washington (Who, before becoming our first President of the United States, served as the President of the Constitutional Convention)
2. John Langdon
3. Nicholas Gilman
4. Nathaniel Gorham
5. Rufus King
6. William Samuel Johnson
7. Roger Sherman
8. Alexander Hamilton
9. William Livingston
10. David Brearley
11. William Paterson
12. Jonathan Dayton
13. Benjamin Franklin
14. Thomas Mifflin
15. Robert Morris
16. George Clymer
17. Thomas Fitzsimons
18. Jared Ingersoll
19. James Wilson
20. Gouverneur Morris
21. George Read
22. Gunning Bedford Jr.
23. John Dickinson
24. Richard Bassett
25. Jacob Broom
26. James McHenry
27. Daniel of St Thomas Jenifer
28. Daniel Carroll
29. John Blair
30. James Madison Jr.
31. George Wythe
32. Richard Henry Lee
33. Thomas Jefferson
34. Benjamin Harrison
35. Thomas Nelson Jr.
36. Francis Lightfoot Lee
37. Carter Braxton
While some of these delegates to the Constitutional Convention have remained well known thanks to events which occurred after the Constitution was ratified, others are more obscure and their names are rarely mentioned. That is, unless you live or have lived in Madison, Wisconsin. Where most of the signatories have a street named in their honor.
Of course, the Wisconsin Historical society has a newspaper clip from 1888 that, quite poetically, explains how this came to be.
We wonder how many current students and UW Madison grads were unaware, given the comparatively smaller level of civics instruction in schools these days.
With the proliferation of online navigation, for the most part physical street maps are mere historical relics. Let’s hope the same cannot be said of our Constitution.
