July 4th

I'll post the answers to the most most common counties soon, but one of the more common county names on the list is "Jefferson."

Here is a quote from the last letter of Thomas Jefferson as he looks back nearly 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In the letter he declines attending a 50th anniversary celebration of the signing due to ill health. He has a way with words doesn't he?

"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them." - Thomas Jefferson

(Thanks to the Marginal Revolution for the find.)