Whos Your Founding Father?, David Fleming
Whos Your Founding Father?, David Fleming
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Who's Your Founding Father?
One Man’s Epic Quest to Uncover the First, True Declaration of Independence

Author: David Fleming

Narrator: Jonathan Todd Ross

Unabridged: 10 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/16/2023


Synopsis

A centuries-old secret document unravels the origin story of America and reveals the intellectual crime of the millennia in this "hugely entertaining" dive into our country’s history to discover the first, true Declaration of Independence (Andrew Roberts, author of Napoleon and Churchill.

In 1819, John Adams came across a stunning story in his hometown Essex Register that he described to his political frenemy Thomas Jefferson as “one of the greatest curiosities and one of the deepest mysteries that ever occurred to me…entitled the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. The genuine sense of America at that moment was never so well expressed before, nor since.” The story claimed that a full 14 months before Jefferson crafted his own Declaration of Independence, a misfit band of zealous Scots-Irish patriots, whiskey-loving Princeton scholars and a fanatical frontier preacher in a remote corner of North Carolina had become the first Americans to formally declare themselves “free and independent” from England. 

Composed during a clandestine all-night session inside the Charlotte courthouse, the Mecklenburg Declaration, aka the MecDec, was signed on May 20, 1775—a date that’s still featured on the state flag of North Carolina. About a year later, in 1776, Jefferson is believed to have plagiarized the MecDec while composing his own, slightly more famous Declaration, and then covered the whole thing up. Which is why Adams always insisted the MecDec needed to be “thoroughly investigated” and “more universally made known to the present and future generation.” 

With Who’s Your Founding Father?, David Fleming picks up where Adams left off, leaving no archive, no cemetery, no bizarre clue or wild character (and definitely no Dunkin’ Donuts) unexplored while traveling the globe to bring to life one of the most fantastic, important—and controversial—stories in American history. 

Reviews

Goodreads review by Brent on June 20, 2023

If you're familiar with the Charlotte area at all and it's history, then you should at least have heard about the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. It's a fascinating story that until now, hasn't been given its due, like other famous historical events. David Fleming has breathed new life into......more

Goodreads review by Anthony on October 25, 2023

I loved this book. Fleming writing as a journalist and not a trained historian makes this book fun and exceptionally readable while taking us through his thoroughly researched treatise on the validity of the Neck Deck. I am a skeptic no more. (it doesn't hurt that he takes shots at Thomas Jefferson......more

Goodreads review by Jackson on June 15, 2024

The information concerning the Mecklenburg Declaration was very engaging. However, to get this information, the reader (or listener) had to wade through meaningless anecdotes. I found the author’s tone condescending, in what C.S. Lewis would refer to as chronological snobbery, which I find to be ver......more

Goodreads review by Jeff on August 07, 2023

Who's Your Founding Father? One Man's Quest to Uncover the First True Declaration of Independence.  David Fleming. Hachette Books, 2023. 320 pages.  Wow! Never, ever have I thought that I would enjoy a book written by a sports guy, an ESPN guy no less. David Fleming has proven me wrong.  This book is......more

Goodreads review by Shannon on February 08, 2025

My husband gave me this book for Christmas, and I was immediately interested in reading it. Now that I have completed it, I’d like to visit Charlotte to see some of the places that author David Fleming references in the book. Though Charlotte is in fairly close proximity to me, I’ve never known much......more