Jonathan Dickinson
This celebrity goo was created by Scott Hardie.
publication date: Sunday, July 5, 2026 (part of July 2026)
category: 
Disasters
clue: He wasn't a lawyer from Delaware. He was a merchant whose journal after a famous shipwreck in Florida has been hailed as one of the great survival-in-captivity tales, but spoiler warning: He lived to become the mayor of Philadelphia.
explanation: Dickinson left Jamaica in 1696 bound for Philadelphia with his family and their slaves. A storm wrecked their ship along the Atlantic coastline of Florida, and they were soon taken captive by Jobe Indians. They were marched to South Carolina and freed by Spaniards there. Dickinson and his wife eventually made it to Philadelphia where he became prosperous enough to win election twice as mayor. more…
intended difficulty: easy
solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Richard Slominsky, and Erik Bates
trivia: This goo was inspired by founding father John Dickinson.
You're Not My Real Founding Fathers!: America loves its Founding Fathers, and the nation's 250th anniversary makes for a fine opportunity to celebrate them. But wait—who are these imitators? These are actors, and musicians, and authors, and athletes! Their John Hancocks are very similar, but these aren't the real Founding Fathers! Starting apropos on Father's Day, here are a whopping fifty goos to challenge your knowledge of patriotic trivia. Can you identify these fifty fake signatories to a Declaration of Independence that never was? With luck, you\ll hold these goos to be self-evident.Similar Goos
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John Witherspoon
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Frances Dana Barker Gage
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George Washington Carver
He wasn't a military commander from Virginia. He was an agricultural scientist and inventor, the arc of whose life—being born into slavery, witnessing race crimes, overcoming educational discrimination, joining the faculty of an esteemed school, devoting his career to teaching poor Southerners who spurned him how they could grow new crops like peanuts in soil that was depleted by cotton, and surviving until the eve of the post-war boom—inspires hope that America will spend its second 250 years fully embodying the principles that it established in its first. Go »
