Robert R. Livingston

Robert R. Livingston sat on the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence, yet his name is not on it — recalled to New York on state business, he missed the signing. The omission obscures a long career at the center of American government: it was Livingston, as chancellor of New York, who administered the first presidential oath of office to George Washington in 1789.

His largest mark came abroad. As Thomas Jefferson's minister to France, Livingston opened the negotiations that became the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, doubling the size of the United States for fifteen million dollars. He later backed Robert Fulton's steamboat, lending his name and money to the launch of American steam navigation on the Hudson.

Livingston is the founder who kept turning up at decisive moments — drafting, inaugurating, and expanding the republic — without ever becoming a household name.