When Mary Knapp was born on 7 November 1677, in Fairfield, Fairfield, Connecticut, United States, her father, Josiah Knapp, was 26 and her mother, Sybil Dickerson, was 23.
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Thomas Jefferson's American Declaration of Independence endorsed by Congress. Colonies declare independence.
"At the end of the Second Continental Congress the 13 colonies came together to petition independence from King George III. With no opposing votes, the Declaration of Independence was drafted and ready for all delegates to sign on the Fourth of July 1776. While many think the Declaration was to tell the King that they were becoming independent, its true purpose was to be a formal explanation of why the Congress voted together to declare their independence from Britain. The Declaration also is home to one of the best-known sentences in the English language, stating, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."""
Date of Statehood: February 6, 1788, the fifth State
German: occupational or status name from the German word Knapp(e), a variant of Knabe ‘young unmarried man’. In the 15th century this spelling acquired the separate, specialized meanings ‘servant, apprentice’, and ‘miner’. This surname is also found elsewhere in central Europe, e.g. in Czechia and Slovakia, where it is more commonly spelled Knap (compare 3 below).
German: in Franconia, a nickname for a dexterous or skillful person, of the same ultimate origin as 1 above.
Germanized or Americanized form of Polish, Czech, Slovak, Rusyn, and Slovenian Knap , a surname of ultimately German origin (see 1 above).
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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