 The draft was completed in York Town, Pennsylvania on November 15, 1777, but it was not finally approved until Maryland ratified five years later, after Virginia and other states with western claims ceded territory to the U.S. government.Thomas Nelson Jr. was one of the thirteen committee members appointed in the Continental Congress on June 12, 1776, to "prepare and digest the form of confederation" which led to the Articles of Confederation.The signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787. was commemorated on the 150th anniversary in 1937.