In 1979 a simple receipt sold for $100,000 because of the name at the bottom: Button Gwinnett. This deep dive follows the son of an English reverend who failed as a greengrocer, ironmonger, merchant, and storekeeper, then bought St. Catherines Island and enslaved workers on credit, only to fail as a planter too. Drowning in debt to British merchants, he found new purpose in the radical politics of St. John’s Parish, Georgia.

Gwinnett signed the Declaration of Independence, drafted Georgia’s first constitution, and became acting governor after Archibald Bulloch died. His feud with General Lachlan McIntosh led to a disastrous invasion of East Florida and a duel on the former royal governor’s plantation in May 1777. He died three days later at 42, leaving so few signatures that his autograph became the bottleneck for collectors.

• A string of business failures from England to Savannah
• How 18th century credit let a bankrupt shopkeeper buy an island
• Revolution as a political cause and a financial reset
• The bitter rivalry with Lachlan McIntosh and the fatal duel
• Why only 51 known Gwinnett signatures make him so valuable