SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND THE BIRTH OF THE U.S.A. (SUMMER 2026)

 

On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress, representing the 13 British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America which broke away from the British Crown, formally approved the Declaration of Independence. 

 The document, which had been drafted the previous month, explained why the colonies were separating from British rule. Thomas Jefferson, who would become the third president of the United States of America in 1801, was the primary author of the Declaration.

In the Autumn 2025 issue of The Conant Courier, mention was made of Thomas Jefferson’s admiration of Sir Walter Raleigh as an opponent of tyranny, and his ownership of two of Raleigh’s books. 

 In 1786, Jefferson was in England on official business with John Adams, who would become the U.S.A.’s second President. Possibly during a tour of the English countryside and manor houses which the two men took together in early April, Jefferson saw a portrait of Raleigh and arranged to have a copy made for himself. 

 He later displayed this painting, based on a 1602 portrait of Raleigh by an unknown artist, in the parlor of Monticello, his home at Charlottesville, Virginia. 

 And that is why, to mark the 250th anniversary of Independence Day, and to remind us of this tenuous but interesting link between the U.S.A. and East Budleigh, birthplace of Raleigh and Roger Conant, you can view the painting here. 

It is reproduced courtesy of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which has a website at https://www.monticello.org