Fifty-six delegates attended the First Continental Congress in 1774.
The delegates represented 12 of the 13 British colonies, with Georgia absent. They met in Philadelphia during a crisis caused by Parliament’s punitive response to Massachusetts and the Boston Tea Party. The gathering aimed to coordinate resistance and defend colonial rights without immediately demanding independence.
The delegates included prominent figures such as John Adams, Samuel Adams, George Washington, Patrick Henry, John Jay, and Richard Henry Lee. Their discussions helped establish a shared political response among colonies that had previously acted more independently.
The number 56 refers to delegates who attended the First Continental Congress, not the number of signers of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration was signed in 1776 by 56 delegates, but those were members of the later Second Continental Congress, so the identical number can cause confusion.