LYNN BERGMAN: THE RELIGION OF THE FOUNDERS
Religious Affiliation of the Delegates to the
Constitutional Convention of 1787, including the
Signers of the Constitution of the United States of America
http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html
There were 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 at which the U.S. Constitution was drafted and signed. All participated in the proceedings which resulted in the Constitution, but only 39 of these delegates were actually signers of the document.
Most of the [signers of the Constitution] married and fathered children. Roger Sherman of Connecticut sired the largest family, numbering 15 by two wives... Three (Abraham Baldwin of Georgia, Nicholas Gilman of New Hampshire, and Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer of Maryland) were lifetime bachelors. In terms of religious affiliation, the men mirrored the dominant Protestant character of American religious life at the time and were members of various denominations. Only two, Daniel Carroll of Maryland and Thomas Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania, were Roman Catholics.
Some of most recognizable of the signers are listed below by state, occupation, and religious affiliation:
George Washington – Virginia – Surveyor – Episcopalian
James Madison Jr. – Virginia – Planter - Episcopalian
Alexander Hamilton - New York – Economist - Episcopalian
Benjamin Franklin – Pennsylvania – Inventor - Episcopalian
Benjamin Franklin was the only signer who, in adult life, became a confirmed Deist. Franklin, in contrast to the more militant Deist, Thomas Paine, did not attempt to "wither Christianity by ridicule or bludgeon it to death by argument."
The occasional yet persistent claim that our forefathers were mostly Diests is obviously a fabrication promoted by current day agnostics and atheists, perhaps to support their viewpoints concerning religion. Of course, if one were even remotely interested, one could ask them to perhaps present a better articulated explanation of such recurrent misinformation.