By S.A. McCarthy

A theme which has recurred throughout both of President Donald Trump’s terms in the White House, as well as often enough on the campaign, is that of a National Garden of American Heroes. On numerous occasions, Trump has proposed the construction of a series of statues honoring the brave and the bold who helped to found and further the land of the free. Just days before the end of his first term, Trump issued an executive order naming 244 “American heroes” who would be honored. The list included such legends as Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Paul Revere, alongside other American greats like Daniel Boone, Theodore Roosevelt, General George S. Patton, Norman Rockwell, and many others.

While former President Joe Biden was quick to rescind Trump’s executive order upon taking office in 2021, Trump was just as quick to reinstate it last month. While the president’s list of “American heroes” is nigh-exhaustive, below are five of the 15 “American heroes” whose names do not appear on the list but who nevertheless deserve to be honored or commemorated.

Ethan Allen (1738-1789)

Not quite as famous as George Washington, Ethan Allen was still notable as a formidable military commander in the American Revolutionary War and his legacy as the founder of Vermont persists today. Born in the Colony of Connecticut, Allen grew up quoting the Bible and debating theology. He originally intended to study at Yale College (later the prestigious Yale University) but, after the death of his father, tended the family farm. Allen moved much over the succeeding years, traveling to the Colonies of Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

A land dispute with British governors in the 1760s resulted in the formation of the Green Mountain Boys militia, which Allen led as Colonel Commandant. He began purchasing land which British authorities in New York claimed to own, with the Green Mountain Boys driving away tenants who were paying rent to the British in New York, rather than to Allen and his compatriots. A riot in Westminster (in modern-day Vermont) led to Allen authoring and publishing a 200-page tract defending the rights of the Green Mountain Boys and their friends, as Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers were drafting the Declaration of Independence.

Once the Revolutionary War began, American patriots asked Allen and the Green Mountain Boys for help capturing Fort Ticonderoga. Joined by Benedict Arnold, then serving as a colonel in the Continental Army, Allen succeeded in capturing Fort Ticonderoga without firing a single shot. The capture proved consequential, shielding American forces from the British attacks from the north, in addition to providing the Continental Army with valuable cannons and munitions. The Continental Congress later made the Green Mountain Boys an official regiment in the Continental Army.

When Allen returned home from fighting in the War, he found that the land he had defended so passionately against British authorities in New York had been organized into the independent Vermont Republic. He was active in continuing to defend Vermont against British incursions and claims and, in 1791, just two years after Allen’s death, the United States agreed to make Vermont the 14th state.

Allen’s contribution to the United States goes beyond even his role in the Revolutionary War and his founding of Vermont. His unique polemical style and sense of humor has also become something of an icon of the American people. In a famous, although possibly apocryphal, story emblematic of his style, Allen asked to use the restroom while dining with British soldiers. The British had placed a portrait of George Washington above the toilet as an insult but, when Allen returned, he made no mention of it. Impatient, his British host asked him what he thought of the portrait and its placement; he was shocked when Allen said it was “appropriate.” The Revolutionary War hero said that the portrait would “do good service” there, quipping, “The world knows nothing will make an Englishman sh** quicker than the sight of George Washington.”

John Denver (1943-1997)

What’s more American than apple pie? Arguably, the songs of John Denver. Born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. in New Mexico, Denver began playing the guitar at the age of 11 and eventually dropped out of college, where he was studying architecture, to pursue a career in music. By 1969, Denver had embarked on a solo career, with his single “Take Me Home, Country Roads” catapulting the young singer-songwriter to national fame. Unfortunately, Denver passed away in October 1997. The son of a U.S. Air Force officer, Denver was an avid pilot but had been legally barred from flying due to a series of drunk-driving charges. His small airplane crashed into Monterey Bay in California when Denver was unable to switch fuel tanks.

While Denver was a supporter of the Democratic Party and an open critic of the Republican Party’s positions on energy and weapons, his music nevertheless encapsulates the American spirit of wonder and is evocative of the beauty of the American landscape. His songs “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “Rocky Mountain High” pay tribute to some of the nation’s most exquisite terrains, including both the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Rockies. “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” praises the simple, rural, family-centered life to which so many Americans aspire. Despite some of the more progressive policies and programs he favored, Denver’s music has still inspired generations of Americans to cultivate a deep and abiding love for their homeland.

John Dickinson (1732-1808)

One of the lesser-known Founding Fathers and one of the few who did not sign the Declaration of Independence, Dickinson was nevertheless an influential writer and committed soldier in the American cause. The great-grandson of an indentured servant who arrived in the Colony of Virginia in 1654, Dickinson became distinguished as one of the wealthiest men in the fledgling United States, having inherited his family’s tobacco plantations.

Born into a Quaker family in the Province of Maryland, Dickinson was well-educated and eventually studied law in Philadelphia and, later, London, being admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1757 at the age of 25. Leading up to the American Revolution, the young lawyer published the influential “Letter from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,” a series of pseudonymous essays addressing the taxes and levies imposed by the Townshend Acts. In the letters, Dickinson clarified that although the British Parliament may have the right to regulate colonial trade, raising revenue from and imposing additional taxes on the colonies in order to permanently station what amounted to a small British army in the colonies was unjust.

Notably, Dickinson urged his fellow colonists to seek redress from the king for the injustices of the Townshend Acts. This theme of seeking redress from the king, in effect looking to right wrongs by means of the lawful authorities of the time prior to taking up arms, recurred throughout Dickinson’s political and legal writing. As a delegate to the Continental Congress, Dickinson pursued his goal of reconciliation, rather than open revolution, authoring the Olive Branch Petition and the first draft of the Articles of Confederation. When his compatriots signed the Declaration of Independence, Dickinson urged them first to finish the Articles of Confederation and secure a foreign alliance before taking up arms. His goal was to avoid bloodshed.

Despite his efforts to eschew violence, Dickinson still served the country he loved so dearly once the Revolutionary War began and was one of only two members of the First Continental Congress to take up arms and fight, serving as a militia officer in Pennsylvania. Even his congressional rival John Adams, who had vocally opposed Dickinson’s pursuit of reconciliation and had long advocated independence, praised Dickinson’s armed service, writing, “Mr. Dickinson’s alacrity and spirit certainly become his character and sets a fine example.” Dickinson was also one of the only two Founding Fathers (the other being Benjamin Franklin) to free the slaves working his plantations prior to the end of the War.

The remainder of Dickinson’s career was not undistinguished. He served as the president (a precursor to the modern role of governor) of both Pennsylvania and Delaware and, during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, was instrumental in not only the formation of the U.S. Senate and the executive branch, but he drafted the First Amendment, guaranteeing some of America’s most crucial values, including religious liberty. Later in life, Dickinson promoted the abolition of slavery, although he believed that the practice would die “a natural death.” Upon Dickinson’s death, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “A more estimable man, or truer patriot, could not have left us.” The third president declared that Dickinson’s “name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne is remembered over 150 years after his death as one of the nation’s most accomplished authors. As a child, Hawthorne showed an early aptitude for writing, distributing multiple issues of a homemade, handwritten newspaper to family members. On his way to Bowdoin College, the young author met and befriended future President Franklin Pierce. His first novel, “Fanshawe: A Tale,” was published anonymously and, although it received positive reviews, Hawthorne later tried to distance himself from the novel, believing it inferior to his later work.

Working as a weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House, Hawthorne penned several short stories. His later promotion to the position of Surveyor for the District of Salem and Beverly and Inspector of the Revenue for the Port of Salem meant that he had less time to write but managed to publish his most enduring novel, “The Scarlet Letter,” in 1850. Over the succeeding years, Hawthorne issued a number of novels, such as “The House of the Seven Gables” and “The Blithedale Romance.” He also authored “A Wonder-book for Girls and Boys” and “Tanglewood Tales,” collections of short stories written for children. During this time, he befriended Herman Melville, who is featured on Trump’s list of “American heroes.” Melville dedicated his best-known book, “Moby-Dick,” to Hawthorne, in “token of my admiration for his genius.” Hawthorne worked for several years in the diplomatic service during Pierce’s presidency and published his final novel, “The Marble Faun,” after his time in Pierce’s administration came to an end. By the time of his death, several novels of his were left unfinished.

Hawthorne’s work has left an indelible mark on American literature. The moral puritanism of his stories is contrasted against the dark, complex psychology of his characters, conveyed to readers through romantic, elegiac prose. Whether in his novels or his multitude of short stories, Hawthorne always paid homage to his home of New England. The author has influenced numerous other literary greats, including Edgar Allan Poe (also on Trump’s list), Henry James, William Faulkner, and Flannery O'Connor. Despite the sometimes dark or morbid nature of his fiction, Hawthorne’s moral absolutism is a trait worth honoring and, perhaps, returning to American storytelling.

Isaac Jogues (1607-1646)

Born in Orléans in France, Isaac Jogues was a Catholic priest and Jesuit who ministered to the Iroquois and Huron natives in the areas known today as Canada and the state of New York. Although he came from an upper-class family, Jogues nonetheless left his life of comfort to live in the wilderness and preach the gospel to the natives of North America. Alongside other French Jesuits, Jogues was responsible for converting thousands of Iroquois and Huron natives to Christianity, spending years living amongst them, learning their language, and adapting to their culture.

Jogues and several Huron converts were captured by Iroquois warriors in 1642 and subjected to months of cruel torture. The Iroquois pulled out the Jesuit’s fingernails and chewed the flesh from his fingertips, poured hot coals on him at night, cut off his thumb, and would frequently make Jogues and other prisoners “run the gauntlet,” rushing in between columns of Iroquois who would beat them with sticks, flog them with whips, or slash at them with stones and blades. Over the course of his year-long imprisonment, Jogues baptized many of his fellow prisoners and even members of the Iroquois war party that had abducted him in the first place.

Jogues was eventually rescued and returned to France, but he could not stay away from the New World. After only a year and a half home in France, the Jesuit returned to North America. When an Iroquois man asked Jogues to come and baptize his friend who was close to death, the priest did not hesitate to come, despite the cruelty of his former captors. Upon arriving to baptize the native, Jogues was killed by a tomahawk to the head. His killer was later captured and sentenced to death. Before being executed, he asked to be baptized and took the Christin name of Isaac Jogues, having been impacted by the priest’s charity and devotion to his faith.

Although Jogues was not only French but lived and died prior to the founding of the United States, his missionary work and martyrdom have left a lasting impact on the country. Thanks to the efforts of Jogues and his compatriots, the Christian faith blossomed in the New World, providing spiritually-rich soil in which the roots of the United States could grow and dig deep. The Jesuit’s journey to the New World is a testament to the United States’ European heritage, and his decision to leave a life of luxury in France and face certain death in the New World is not only a testament to the fervor inspired by Christianity but stands as an icon of the adventurous, pioneering American spirit.

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.