Fifty-six delegates attended the First Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia in 1774 before the founding era commemorated by America250.
The delegates represented twelve of the thirteen American colonies. Georgia did not send representatives to this first congress, although it later joined the revolutionary movement and sent delegates to the Second Continental Congress.
The gathering was not yet a declaration of independence. Many participants hoped to pressure Parliament and the king into changing policy while defending what they considered colonial rights. The Congress adopted the Continental Association, a coordinated boycott of British goods.
The number 56 is sometimes confused with the number of signers of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration’s engrossed parchment was signed by 56 delegates, but those signers belonged to the Second Continental Congress in 1776, not the First Continental Congress of 1774.