The original parchment of the Declaration, preserved in the Department of State (from 1841 to 1877 in the Patent Office, once a part of the Department of State), was injured--the injury was almost wholly to the signatures--in 1823 by the preparation of a facsimile copper-plate, and since 1894, when it was already partly illegible, it has been jealously guarded from light and air. The signers were as follows: John Hancock (1737-1792), of Massachusetts, president; Button Gwinnett (c. 1732-1777), Lyman Hall (1725-1790), George Walton (1740-1804), of Georgia; William Hooper (1742-1790), Joseph Hewes (1730-1779), John Penn (1741-1788), of North Carolina; Edward Rutledge (1749-1800), Thomas Heyward, Jr. (1746-1809), Thomas Lynch, Jr. (1749-1779), Arthur Middleton (1742-1787), of South Carolina; Samuel Chase (1741-1811), William Paca (1740-1799), Thomas Stone (1743-1787), Charles Carroll (1737-1832) of Carrollton, of Maryland; George Wythe (1726-1806), Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Benjamin Harrison (1740-1791), Thomas Nelson, Jr.(1738-1789), Francis Lightfoot Lee (1734-1797), Carter Braxton (1736-1797), of Virginia; Robert Morris (1734-1806), Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), John Morton (1724-1777), George Clymer (1739-1813), James Smith (c. 1719-1806), George Taylor (1716-1781), James Wilson (1742-1798), George Ross (1730-1779), of Pennsylvania; Caesar Rodney (1728-1784), George Read (1733-1798), Thomas McKean (1734-1817), of Delaware; William Floyd (1734-1821), Philip Livingston (1716-1778), Francis Lewis (1713-1803), Lewis Morris (1726-1798), of New York; Richard Stockton (1730-1781), John Witherspoon (1722-1794), Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791), John Hart (1708-1780), Abraham Clark (1726-1794), of New Jersey; Josiah Bartlett (1729-1795), William Whipple (1730-1785), Matthew Thornton (1714-1803), of New Hampshire; Samuel Adams (1722-1803), John Adams (1735-1826), Robert Treat Paine (1731-1814), Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814), of Massachusetts; Stephen Hopkins (1707-1785), William Ellery (1727-1820), of Rhode Island; Roger Sherman (1721-1793), Samuel Huntington (1732-1796), William Williams (1731-1811), Oliver Wolcott (1726-1797), of Connecticut. Not all the men who rendered the greatest services to independence were in Congress in July 1776; not all who voted for the Declaration ever signed it; not all who signed it were members when it was adopted. The greater part of the signatures were certainly attached on the 2nd of August; but at least six were attached later. With one exception--that of Thomas McKean, present on the 4th of July but not on the 2nd of August, and permitted to sign in 1781--all were added before printed copies with names attached were first authorized by Congress for public circulation in January 1777.