03
Apr
2024
The story of the mysterious professor who influenced the signing of the Declaration of Independence is a fictionalized account from George Lippard's book, repackaged by Manly P. Hall.
This is a lot of fun, but Hall hadn't actually found a secret book of speeches in Ojai. This entire story is just cribbed from a book called Washington and His Generals, as illustrated in The Legends of the Revolution by a guy named George Lippard. Lippard is a dude who would take ideas of moments in history and then fictionalize them and add fantastic elements to spice them up a little bit so they'd sell. He's a fun guy, yeah. This was a fake story that appeared in Lippard's 1847 book, which was then repackaged by Manly P. Hall in his 1944 book, and I guess this caller believes it's a real thing that happened.