Excerpt from Biographical Sketches of the Early Settlers of the Hopewell Section and Reminiscences of the Pioneers and Their Descendants by Families Hopewell church was organized in 1765, cotemporary with Rocky River and Sugar Creek. It was here that the spirit of civil and religious liberty first became manifest, taking deep root in the hearts of the people, and culmi nated in the world-renowned Declaration of Independence in the town of Charlotte on the 20th of May, 1775. Most of the signers of the Declaration, absolving their country from the crown of England, were members of the Presbyterian church, nine were ruling elders, and one a minister of the gospel. They lived to a ripe old age, and transmitted to their posterity a full account of the trans actions of the ever - mem'orable 20th of May as the most important act in the wonderful drama that gave birth to American liberty. So that if no other proof but tradition of such a character, it should be sufficiet to establish its validity in the minds of all unprejudiced persons. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.