About

In 1819 John Adams came across a stunning story in his hometown newspaper 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 story claimed that a full fourteen months before Jefferson crafted his own Declaration of Independence, a 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. The Mecklenburg Declaration was signed on May 20, 1775—a date that’s still featured on the state flag of North Carolina. A year later, in 1776, Jefferson is believed to have plagiarized the MecDec while composing his own, slightly more famous Declaration and then, as he was wont to do, covered the whole thing up. Which is exactly why Adams always insisted the MecDec needed to be “thoroughly investigated.” Now, 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 unexplored while traveling the globe to bring to life one of the most fantastic, important—and controversial—stories in American history.


David Fleming is a senior writer at ESPN. During the last three decades at Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine and ESPN he has been one of the industry’s most prolific, versatile, and imaginative writers. Fleming’s unique work has earned numerous national awards as well as a handwritten note from the White House. He is also the author of several books, including Breaker Boys: The NFL’s Greatest Team and The Stolen 1925 Championship; and Who's Your Founding Father?: One Man’s Epic Quest to Uncover the First, True Declaration of Independence.