gone.......................

 

    Another of our friends of 76 is gone, my dear Sir, another of the Cosigners of the independence of our country.  And a better man, than Rush, could not have left us, more benevolent, more learned, of finer genius, or more honest.  We too must go; and that ere long.  I believe we are under half a dozen at present; I mean the signers of the Declaration.  Yourself, Gerry, Carroll, and myself are all I know to be living. I am the only one South of the Patomac.  Is Robert Treat Payne, or Floyd living?  It is long since I heard of them, and yet I do not recollect to have heard of their deaths.

-Thomas Jefferson, from a May 27, 1813 letter to John Adams