America's fifth president is the one most people forget. But you have almost certainly seen his face, and you have definitely heard his most famous idea.
His name was James Monroe. And he was the last of the Founding Fathers to lead the country, the final president who actually fought in the Revolution.
He dropped out of college at 18 to enlist. He crossed the Delaware with George Washington on that freezing Christmas night in 1776, and took a musket ball to the shoulder that nearly killed him. In the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, the young officer holding the flag is traditionally said to be Monroe.
He later studied law under Thomas Jefferson, and helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States.
As president from 1817 to 1825, his time was called the Era of Good Feelings. The opposing party had collapsed entirely, and he was so popular he won reelection almost unanimously. He also acquired Florida from Spain.
Then, in 1823, he issued the idea that made him immortal. The Monroe Doctrine. He declared that European powers could no longer colonize or interfere in the Americas. At the time, America barely had the power to enforce it. But it became the backbone of US foreign policy for the next two centuries.
And his ending is genuinely eerie. Monroe died on the 4th of July, 1831. He was the third president in a row to die on Independence Day, after John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4th, 1826, exactly 50 years after the Declaration.
Even the capital of Liberia, Monrovia, is named after him. And most Americans still could not pick him out of a lineup.
Where the creek bends, the frontier lives on.
This is the America we remember. Wide open skies, wild grass, cold clear water, and a place to gather at the end of the trail.
Built on grit. Rooted in freedom. This is Deercreek.
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