When Jeremiah Belcher III was born on 31 October 1668, in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America, his father, Jeremiah Belcher Jr., was 27 and his mother, Sarah Weeden, was 27.
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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."""
English (of Norman origin):
from Old French bel ch(i)ere or beu ch(i)ere (Old French beu, bel ‘fair, lovely’ + ch(i)ere ‘face, countenance’), which had various senses, including ‘fair face or looks, fine manners, good company, good cheer, food and drink, hospitality’. Although ch(i)ere originally meant ‘face’, the word later came to mean also ‘demeanor, disposition’ (hence English cheer), and the nickname may thus also have denoted a person of pleasant, cheerful disposition.
from Old French bel, beu + sire ‘fair sir’, a term of address. From at least the 15th century this name was probably confused with the name above, owing to the pronunciation of Middle English beu sire and bel sire as ‘bewcher’ and ‘belsher’.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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