A Boston Stone

This month the city of Boston announced a new finding about a stone in the Granary Burying Ground that reads:

HERE LYES Ye.
BODY OF BOSTON
AGED 70 YEARS
DECd. FEBy. Ye. 28
1 7 2 8

Kelly Thomas, director of the Historic Burying Grounds Initiative for the Boston Parks and Recreation Department, told WBZ: “I was reviewing the photos of headstones, and then I noticed that the stone only had one name.” A geographic name, at that. That hinted the person buried there had been an enslaved man.

Some documentary research turned up records of such a man. Indeed, Gloria McCahon Whiting discussed Sebastian’s marriage to Jane Lake at length in her 2024 book, Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England. Judge Samuel Sewall helped to negotiate the terms of that union at the same time he was writing The Selling of Joseph, his pioneering but self-suppressed anti-slavery pamphlet.

On 13 Feb 1701, after protracted discussions between the couple’s two owners, the judge married the couple. Sebastian’s owner, John Waite, died the next year. Six years after that, when the Boston selectmen listed free black men in town they put to work mending roads (since those men were free/barred from militia training), one of those men was identified as “Bastion Waite.”

Interestingly, Sebastian’s wife came to be known as Jane Basteen and then Jane Boston, taking (or being assigned) her husband’s name while he was assigned his late owner’s surname. As Whiting pointed out, Sabastian would name his second son Joseph, echoing Sewall’s pamphlet. Meanwhile, Sebastian’s name evolved into “Boston.”

The issue of the New-England Weekly Journal dated 24 Feb 1729 included this death notice:

On the 14th. Instant [i.e., of this month] died here a Negro Freeman named Boston, in an advanced Age, and on the 17th, was very decently Buried. A long Train follow’d him to the Grave; it’s said about 150 Blacks, and about 50 Whites, several Magistrates, Ministers, Gentlemen, &c.——

He having borne the Character of a sober Virtuous Liver, and of a very trusty honest and faithful Servant to all that employ’d him, and having acquir’d to himself the general Love and Esteem of his Neighbours by a Readiness to do any good Offices in his power for every one; his Funeral was attended with uncommon Respects, and his Death much lamented.

The carved gravestone, whether paid for by Boston’s estate or by his friends, was another sign of his standing in the community. It is, Mayor Michelle Wu now notes, “one of the oldest gravestones of a free Black person in America.”

At first I was confused by the different death dates stated in the newspaper and on the gravestone. But then I realized the stone was written in the Old Style, Julian date system while the newspaper followed New Style, Gregorian dating decades before the British Empire adopted it officially.

New Signage Installed at the President’s House During the Night

Since September 2025 I’ve been following the dispute over displays at the President’s House, part of Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia.

Reflecting its overall ideology, the Trump White House ordered the National Park Service to replace signs discussing how that site had been a site of enslavement when George and Martha Washington lived there in the 1790s.

Because the city of Philadelphia had participated in creating the exhibit, it claimed legal standing to sue for the signs to be restored. A district judge agreed. A higher judge stopped the restoration process. Over the last month the full circuit ruled that the federal government could control the site and remake the signage.

Yesterday WHYY reported: “Workers replaced the remaining exhibits overnight Tuesday.”

The new exhibit retains references to slavery and those enslaved by Washington while serving as president in Philadelphia, but it devotes significantly more space to the history of the executive mansion and the early presidency. A panel that had been titled “The Dirty Business of Slavery,” for example, has now been replaced by signage that reads, “Celebrating Independence Throughout the Years.”

It also softens Washington’s views on slavery compared to the previous display.

“In 1774, Washington helped draft the Fairfax Resolves at Mount Vernon,” one panel reads. “These condemned the slave trade as ‘wicked,’ ‘cruel,’ and ‘unnatural’ and called for putting ‘an entire Stop’ to it. Over time, he became increasingly committed to the gradual abolition of slavery.” . . .

on Wednesday, several armed members of the National Park Service Police were seen vigilantly watching over the site.

Park service officials stopped one activist, Dr. Sandra Shachar-Krasnoff of Philadelphia, after she briefly taped a piece of paper with “the excavation revealed a kitchen and a slave quarters below the president’s house site” to one of the walls.

She was fined $310.

The photo above, taken by Abraham Gutman for the Philadelphia Inquirer, shows a federal officer writing a citation for Dr. Shachar-Krasnoff. The Inquirer also reported that the N.P.S. installed security cameras at the outdoor site last week, ostensibly because the All-Star Game was about to be played in the city. So there’s no doubt the government will surveil the walls more tightly.

The park website displays eleven large new panels, but the Inquirer states there are also “more than a dozen smaller panels that detail governmental processes, the lives of various historical figures, and a panel dedicated to the escape of Ona Judge and Hercules [Posey], two people enslaved by Washington who fled to freedom.”

All told, says the Inquirer, “the new exhibits mostly offer a broad timeline of U.S. history that significantly strays from the original intent of the President’s House as outlined in the park’s foundation document in 2017: ‘It would explore the historic context of the site in the context of its ties to slavery and the lives of the enslaved who lived at the site.’”

There’s already an effort to have Philadelphia erect a historic marker about Hercules Posey outside of federal control, like one already up for Ona Judge.

“Touching the delivery of the Papers found upon Mrs. Hill”

As recounted yesterday, on 21 Oct 1776 Boston’s committee of correspondence, inspection, and safety questioned Elizabeth and Mary Hill about the documents they had tried to carry into British-occupied New York.

One of those letters was from Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr. The Patriot authorities were pretty certain he had spied for Gen. Thomas Gage, but they were still lacking solid evidence. If that letter had been incriminating, they would have used it.

In the second letter, Elizabeth’s husband John suggested that the merchant John Timmins was a fellow Loyalist.

And when asked who had brought John’s letter out of the Boston jail to her, Elizabeth said it might have been Richard Newton.

The committee sprang into action:

Collo. [Nathaniel] Barber and Mr. [Ebenezer] Dorr were appointed to go to Mr. [Alexander?] Orracks where Newton lodges in order to secure his Papers for the Inspection of the Committee.

A Complaint signed by the chairman [William Davis], was entered with Mr. Justice [Joseph] Greanleaff one of the Court of Enquiry; praying that the said Newton, might be immediately apprehended, & examined, touching the delivery of the Papers found upon Mrs Hill.

Richard Newton appears to have been a merchant, but not one who had been in Boston for long. He had evacuated Boston on the brig Elizabeth in March along with the Hills, William Jackson, Crean Brush, and other hopeful Loyalists. But Capt. John Manley captured that ship.

In April the Massachusetts Council had ordered Newton, Jackson, Brush, and a couple of other men to be detained in the Boston jail. Later they sent John Hill to jail, too.

In August, Newton signed a bond for good behavior, so he was presumably let out then. It seems quite plausible that Newton brought out a letter from Hill to his wife. That letter probably had more to say about the family’s survival than Boston’s defenses. After all, how much could Hill have learned over the summer in jail?

On 22 October the committee met “at their Chamber in King Street,” perhaps in the Town House. This time Ellis Gray chaired.

The Committee appointed to secure Mr. Newtons Papers Reported, that they had examined the same and could not find any one of a criminal nature among them.

Voted, that Mr. Newton shall have his Trunks of Papers returned him by the Committee — also —

Voted, that the Complaint entered with Mr. Justice Greanleaff, one of the Court of Enquiry against Richard Newton be withdrawn.

As for John Timmins, he was also a merchant. In 1768 he had married the young widow Mary (Olney) Greene, and they had children baptized at Trinity Church. During the tea crisis of 1773 he was agent for the cargo on the Beaver and publicly promised not to unload the East India Company’s tea.

The following year, Timmins signed the merchants’ addresses to Govs. Thomas Hutchinson and Thomas Gage. All of which is to say Timmins really did look like a Loyalist before the war. But he hadn’t left town with the British military.

The committee record says:

Mr. John Timmons name having been mentioned in one of the Papers found upon Mrs. Hill, the Committee sent for her Husband who gave the Paper, and having examined him strictly with respect to what he had written, together with his Wife and Daughter, and also made inquiry of Mr Timmins — the Question was put viz. — “Whether the Committee are fully satisfied, that Mr. Timmons conduct with respect to what passed between Mrs. Hill & himself has been quite unexceptionable — passed in the Affirmative unanimously.

The letters that Elizabeth and Mary Hill had been carrying therefore turned out to be less incriminating than first newspaper reports hinted. Yes, John Hill had communicated to them from the jail. Yes, he’d written about Timmins as a potential helper. Yes, Mary Hill and Ralph Cunningham, attached to the British army, were on their way to marrying. But the committee found no sensitive military information or the like.

Nonetheless, Elizabeth and Mary Hill were still locked up in the Boston jail in February 1777. According to John’s claim to the Loyalists Commission, the family “were all tried For their lives, but not Condemned.” Instead, “In November 1777, they were Exchanged, went to Halifax, and afterwards to New York…”

As for John Timmins and Richard Newton, both those men eventually left Boston for Britain. They decided to be Loyalists in the end.

Interrogating Elizabeth and Mary Hill at the Boston Jail

Back in April I wrote a series of postings about John Hill, his wife Elizabeth (?), and their daughter, captured on board the brig Elizabeth as they evacuated Boston in March 1776.

Recently I stumbled back across a source I may have seen before since I could have mentioned it in 2012. But I viewed it with new eyes.

As you recall, on 12 Oct 1776, Patriots in New London detected the two female Hills trying to carry secret letters onto British-occupied Long Island. They sent those women back to Boston, where John Hill was locked up, for questioning.

The records of the Boston committee, inspection, and safety, published by the New England Historical Genealogical Society in 1880, let us fill out that story.

On 21 October, the committee met at the house of Joseph Otis, the jailkeeper. The merchant William Davis chaired. They summoned “One Mrs. Hill Wife of one Hill now in the Jayl of this County examined together with her Daughter” about the incriminating papers they were carrying when detained.

The committee minutes say:

A Letter of recommendation given Mrs. Hill by Dr. [Benjamin] Church was read, together with the other Papers found upon her.

Mrs. Mary Hill the younger was brought in, and examined particularly with respect to Dr. Church, and one Ralph Cunningham mentioned in the Paper, the latter of whom appeared to be a Person who had made Courtship to the said Hill & supposed to be in the British Army at New York.

This source thus tells us that John Hill’s daughter was named Mary, and that she must have been the daughter of John Hill who married Lt. Cunningham of the Legion in 1779, as I guessed here.

Mrs. Hill the Mother was brought in & examined more particularly with respect to Mr. John Timmins of this Town Merchant, who was characterized by Hill the Husband, as a person who had been faithful to Government [i.e., Loyalist].

Mrs. Hill being asked who it was that delivered her the Paper wrote by her Husband answered. that she could not well recollect but thought it was one Richard Newton.

Well, of course we know what happened next: the authorities went on a hunt for Timmins and Newton.

TOMORROW: Further investigation.

“Headquarters of a Revolution” in Cambridge, 19 July

On Sunday, 19 July, the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge will host a commemoration called “Headquarters of a Revolution: Washington’s Arrival in Cambridge,” coinciding with the 251st anniversary of the new commander-in-chief’s first week living in that mansion.

Here are the events scheduled for that day, including two from me.

10 A.M. to 3 P.M.
Living History
On the Lawn

Interact with living historians John Koopman (as George Washington) and Sandy Spector (as Martha Washington), including a noontime Q&A with Mrs. Washington. Free family activities and a story walk available all day.

10 and 11:30 A.M., 2:30 P.M.
House Tour: Headquarters of a Revolution
Starting in the Visitor Center

General George Washington’s Cambridge headquarters was a testing ground for many of the ideals, institutions, and questions that still define our nation. This conversational tour with an N.P.S. ranger explores Cambridge Headquarters as a hub of revolutionary activity, where generals, enslaved people, paid laborers, poets, Indigenous diplomats, politicians, and soldiers shaped history—and how later generations would shape its memory.

10:15 A.M.
Get Ready with Martha
Carriage House

Learn all about the clothing of 1775 as Mrs. Washington finishes dressing for her day. There will be some stories and some gossip, too! Sandy Spector is a Boston-based historian, researcher, and interpreter, and has been a Revolutionary War reenactor since 2000. She spends most of her time researching and interpreting Mrs. Washington and has been portraying Martha—alone or with George—in numerous states and venues for the past 10 years.

11:30 A.M. to 12:15 P.M.
The Last British Army to Come Through Cambridge
Carriage House

In November 1777, nearly 6,000 soldiers of the king arrived in Cambridge. With them came about a thousand women and children. These weren’t invaders but prisoners of war, British and German, captured at Saratoga. Top officers were housed in mansions along “Tory Row” while enlisted men went into the leftover barracks on Prospect and Winter Hills. Over the next few months Cambridge, Charlestown, and neighboring towns had to adjust to a new population under guard. J. L. Bell explores what we should remember about this “Convention Army” as we approach the 250th anniversary of its arrival.

12:30 to 1:15 P.M.
“Though Dwelling in a Land of Freedom”
Carriage House

Join poet, educator, and Darby Vassall descendant Denise Washington for an exploration of Revolutionary-era freedom struggles surrounding Washington’s Headquarters through the lens of Anthony, Cuba, and Darby Vassall, as well as Phillis Wheatley Peters.

1:30 to 3 P.M.
The Black Patriots of Lexington – Silas Burdoo
Carriage House

This film explores the role that third-generation Lexington resident Silas Burdoo played in the Revolutionary War, starting with the battle on 19 Apr 1775. Burdoo was a grandson of Ann and Philip Burdoo, who married in Medford in 1704 and then purchased 40 acres in Cambridge Farms, which became Lexington. This film screening will be followed by a discussion with Zine Magubane, professor of historical sociology at Boston College, and Sean D. Osborne, producer of the Black Patriots of Lexington YouTube series.

3 P.M.
What Washington Saw on Cambridge Common
Walking Tour starting at the gate at the southern tip of the common

What did the center of Cambridge look like in July 1775? Since April, the town had been the base of the New England army besieging Boston, with war transforming the community. On this walking tour J. L. Bell looks at sites in and around the common, including the first headquarters, buildings turned into barracks, and the Continental artillery’s lost laboratory. How well do the Washington Elm and the Revolutionary monuments that dot the common memorialize the men who were actually there?

All of these events are free, as organized by the National Park Service.

History Camp Boston 2026 Coming Up on 8 August

History Camp Boston will take place on 7–9 August, with the main gathering on Saturday the 8th.

As in recent years, the main venue will be the Suffolk University Law School building at 120 Tremont Street, just a block from the Park Street subway station and across the street from the Park Street Burying Ground. Or, as I like to think of it, on top of Adino Paddock’s coachyard.

This year I’ll talk about the myths and realities of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, from the signature on the first copy not included on later versions to the handprint that mysteriously appeared on the document in the early 20th century.

In fact, there’s a little Declaration track on the schedule, with Andy Volpe speaking about the printing technology behind the spread of that text and Jennifer Epstein Rudnick speaking about locating the Signers’ graves.

And there are many more presentations on eighteenth-century history, including Sam Forman and Salina Baker giving their separate takes on Dr. Joseph Warren; Ben Powers and Bjorn Bruckshaw on Col. Christopher Greene and Janet Uhlar on his cousin, Gen. Nathanael Greene; Bob Allison on the year 1776; Jake Sconyers on the year 1752 and why it was so short for the British Empire; Judy Anderson on Loyalists in Marblehead; Sarah Walsh and Christopher Davis on the spoken language behind the Adams letters; John Morton on Paul Revere; and more.

Other speakers will cover topics ranging from mercantilism and King Philip’s War to the bombing of the Los Angeles Times and Amelia Earhart. The hardest part of History Camp is picking which presentations to attend—but most are available afterwards on video.

In addition, there’s a reception on the preceding Friday evening for people who support History Camp financially, and on Sunday folks can choose among seven tours of historic sites at additional cost.

Registration for Saturday with a hot lunch and morning and afternoon refreshments costs $135. That money goes toward the food, the venue, the recordings, and support services; all the speakers are volunteers, talking about their topics for the pleasure of sharing history.

New Dramas at Old Places in Newport, Deerfield, and East Granby

This is a very busy summer for Plays in Place, which works with historic sites to create new plays built on their past, informed by their archives, and designed for their spaces.

At the Hunter House in Newport, Rhode Island, Newport Mansions presents Loyalty or Liberty, a trio of short plays set between 1778 and 1781 as control of that port changed hands.

“Dinah” by Ken Green follows an enslaved woman in a Loyalist household whose husband plans to enlist in the Continental Army, seeking freedom for the family. “For Love and Glory” by Patrick Gabridge dramatizes the conference between Axel von Fersen, aide-de-camp to Gen. Rochambeau, and Adm. de Barras, who has to be convinced to sail his fleet to Yorktown. “Where We Once” by Lily Mathews picks up the story of Dinah’s enslaver, Sarah Wanton, as she faces life in an independent republic. These plays are directed by Rachel Walshe and produced by Jessica Chace.

Loyalty or Liberty will run Tuesday and Saturday evenings through 1 September. Normally the plays will be staged outdoors, overlooking Narragansett Bay, but in bad weather the production will move into the Guild Hall at St. John’s Church. Buy tickets here.

Historic Deerfield is hosting A Stake in the Ground: 1774, three short plays about conflicts in that Loyalist-leaning town as Massachusetts slid out of royal control.

In the summer of 1774, Patriots brought a Liberty Pole into Deerfield. “The Liberty Lark” by Talya Kingston, “Jinny and Cato” by Valyn Lyric Turner, and “Sparks on Dry Tinder” by Patrick Gabridge explore the political divisions, tangled family relations, and complexities of enslavement stirred up by that political act and the protest against it. These dramas are directed by Brianna Sloane and produced by Talya Kingston.

Performances will take place on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons through 16 August. A Stake in the Ground will be staged outside, with the audience walking to each location and sitting on folding chairs. On 31 July–2 August, and in very bad weather, the same plays will be performed inside the Deerfield Community Center for a more traditional and accessible theatrical experience. Tickets available here.

At the Old New-Gate Prison & Copper Mine in East Granby, Connecticut, visitors can take in The Slippery Truth: Prisonbreak at New Gate by Patrick Gabridge, directed by Zoë Golub-Sass and produced by Nicole Young-Martin.

On 18 May 1781, a group of captive Loyalists rushed up a 35-foot ladder and overpowered their guards, killing one man before escaping into the night. Was this brave resistance by political prisoners or a desperate blow by criminals? Did they have inside help? Prison trustee John Forward interrogates guards and recaptured prisoners to find the truth.

The Slippery Truth will be produced indoors—to be precise, inside the mine. The audience will enter via 33 steps and a 100-yard loop starting at 35 feet below ground and descending to 75 feet below. The shortest tunnel is 4 feet. The mine is always 52 degrees and wet. Strollers, wheelchairs, walkers, and similar devices are not permitted, and visitors should consider their medical history and physical limitations before attending.

Performances will happen on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings through 30 August. Tickets at this page.

Musical Offerings across Massachusetts

Theaters on either side of Massachusetts are offering Revolutionary musicals in this Independence Day season.

Through Sunday, 19 July, at the Kathleen E. McDermott Auditorium in Great Barrington, John Alan Segalla’s new musical Rebel Town is being staged under the direction of Michael Siktberg.

This show is set in 1773 and looks at the disputes leading up to the destruction of the tea. The main characters are carpenter William Grey, his wife Sarah, and apprentice Peter Slater, presumably based on the ropemaker’s boy of that name. Among the historical figures in the cast are Mercy Warren, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, Francis Rotch, Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, and Gen. Thomas Gage.

On Cape Cod, the Academy of Performing Arts in Orleans is producing 1776, with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. This production, directed by Joan Baird, also runs through 19 July.

Staged on Broadway in 1969 and filmed in 1972, 1776 dramatizes the process of declaring independence. Most of the characters are delegates to the Continental Congress, starting with John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Dickinson. Abigail Adams and Martha Jefferson appear as well.

In Boston’s North End, the Paul Revere House is hosting a hammered dulcimer concert by Dave Neiman on Saturday, 18 July, from 1 to 3 P.M.

“Im Congress, den 4ten July, 1776.”

On 9 July 1776, 250 years ago today, Heinrich Miller’s Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote newspaper printed the first translation of the Declaration of Independence into another language.

Miller’s paper served the colony’s substantial German population. He supported independence, so he was happy to spread this news.

At some point two more German printers, Melchior Steiner and Charles Cist, issued a broadside with the same translation. Emily Sneff reports that only two copies are known to survive.

Miller’s printing filled the entire first page of his newspaper below the masthead and about half of page 2. Steiner and Cist fit more type into each column and thus got the whole text onto one side of a broadsheet.

Both printings rendered the Continental Congress’s president as “John Hancock” and its secretary as “Carl Thomson.”

Counting Votes in Independence Hall

As quoted yesterday, Edward Rutledge hoped that John Jay would return to the Continental Congress by 1 July so he could help to argue against declaring independence, at least at that time.

Jay didn’t make it, and on that date the delegations in Philadelphia took a test vote in their committee of the whole.

Nine colonies voted for independence. Four voted otherwise.

Rutledge’s South Carolina voted against. That colony contained the fourth largest port in North America and was very tied in with trade to the Caribbean and Africa.

Pennsylvania voted against independence. Its large delegation was split. Such heavyweights as John Dickinson and Robert Morris opposed the measure while a minority including Benjamin Franklin favored it.

Delaware had sent three delegates to Congress, but only two were present. Those men, Thomas McKean and George Read, disagreed. As a result, that delegation had to abstain.

New York also abstained because its delegates had received no guidance from its provincial congress. That colony contained the second-largest port along the coast, under imminent threat from the British military.

The vote was thus 9 delegations for independence, 2 against, and 2 abstaining.

The committee of the whole thus supported independence, but a big chunk of the Middle Colonies, including the two largest cities, were missing from the pro-independence bloc. There was no formal requirement that the vote be unanimous, but everyone realized that reporting disunity would hamper any ongoing resistance to the Crown.

The next day, Caesar Rodney returned from Delaware, “detained by thunder and rain,” as he wrote. McKean later said his colleague appeared “at the State-house door, in his boots and spurs.” Rodney’s arrival tipped the Delaware delegation into the pro-independence camp.

10 – 2 – 1.

Rutledge saw the trend. He decided that the danger of displaying disunity was worse than the danger of declaring independence before finishing the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. He moved for a new vote, signaling that South Carolina would switch to approval.

11 – 1 – 1.

Thinking along the same lines, Dickinson and Morris chose not to attend the 2 July session of the Congress. That meant most of the Pennsylvania delegates in the assembly hall supported independence, changing that colony’s vote.

12 – 0 – 1.

The Congress could thus report that the vote for independence was unopposed.

“The Exertions of the Honest and sensible part of the Members”

Last week I shared sources detailing how the Declaration of Independence was drafted.

This post jumps back a few days to a last-ditch effort to head off the vote on independence.

Richard Henry Lee proposed that the Continental Congress declare the thirteen colonies separate from Britain on 7 June.

Delegates debated that measure in a committee of the whole, meaning everyone was involved but secretary Charles Thomson didn’t take official notes.

Meanwhile, Thomas Jefferson and his committee were drafting a Declaration just in case it would be handy, then or later. Other committees worked on what ultimately became the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union and a model treaty with a foreign power like, oh, say, France. (S’il vous plait!)

After a while, it became clear that most colonies favored independence, including Virginia and Massachusetts, populous anchors of their regions. But was that enough? Men on both sides of the question knew that resisting royal power required unity. If a chunk of colonies, or a big central colony, wasn’t ready to leave the British Empire, it would be a weak point for the rest. Thus, opponents of independence could win the argument by showing not that most colonies wanted to stay in the empire but that too many colonies wanted to stay to make leaving safe.

On 29 June, the South Carolina delegate Edward Rutledge (1749–1800, shown above) wrote to John Jay, another delegate known to oppose independence at that time. Jay had gone home to New York to serve in that colony’s legislature. Rutledge wrote frankly:

I write this for the express Purpose of requesting that if possible you will give your Attendance in Congress on Monday next [1 July]. I know full well that your Presence must be useful at New York, but I am sincerely convinced that it will be absolutely necessary in this City during the whole of the ensuing Week.

A Declaration of Independence, the Form of a Confederation of these Colonies, and a Scheme for a Treaty with foreign Powers will be laid before the House on Monday.

Whether we shall be able effectually to oppose the first, and infuse Wisdom into the others will depend in a great Measure upon the Exertions of the Honest and sensible part of the Members. I trust you will contribute in a considerable degree to effect the Business and therefore I wish you to be with us.

Recollect the manner in which your Colony is at this Time represented. [George] Clinton has Abilities but is silent in general, and wants (when he does speak) that Influence to which he is intitled. [William] Floyd, [Henry] Wisner, [Francis] Lewis and [John] Alsop though good Men, never quit their Chairs. You must know the Importance of these Questions too well not to wish to [be] present whilst they are debating and therefore I shall say no more upon the Subject.

I have been much engaged lately upon a plan of a Confederation which [John] Dickenson has drawn. It has the Vice of all his Productions to a considerable Degree; I mean the Vice of Refining too much. Unless it is greatly curtailed it never can pass, as it is to be submitted to Men in the respective Provinces who will not be led or rather driven into Measures which may lay the Foundation of their Ruin. If the Plan now proposed should be adopted nothing less than Ruin to some Colonies will be the Consequence of it.

The Idea of destroying all Provincial Distinctions and making every thing of the most minute kind bend to what they call the good of the whole, is in other Terms to say that these Colonies must be subject to the Government of the Eastern Provinces [i.e., New England].

The Force of their Arms I hold exceeding Cheap, but I confess I dread their over-ruling Influence in Council, I dread their low Cunning, and those levelling Principles which Men without Character and without Fortune in general Possess, which are so captivating to the lower Class of Mankind, and which will occasion such a fluctuation of Property as to introduce the greatest disorder.

I am resolved to vest the Congress with no more Power than what is absolutely necessary, and to use a familiar Expression to keep the Staff in our own Hands, for I am confident if surrendered into the Hands of others a most pernicious use will be made of it.

I don’t think we know when Jay received this letter. However, he was too busy with provincial business to respond until 6 July, and by that time the question of independence had been decided.

TOMORROW: And Rutledge had changed his vote.

How Philadelphia Printers Shared News of the Declaration

John Dunlap printed official broadsides of the Declaration of Independence for the Continental Congress, but other printers were issuing the same text in other forms.

And that was how the Congress wanted it. The point was to spread the news through newspapers, broadside reprints, and public readings, not to keep it confined.

Back on Tuesday, 2 July 1776, the Pennsylvania Evening Post was the first newspaper to report that the Congress had voted for independence. Since Benjamin Towne and his staff laid out and printed the last page of that paper in the afternoon, they could slip in one more line of fresh news:

This day the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS declared the UNITED COLONIES FREE and INDEPENDENT STATES.

The next morning, David Hall and William Sellers’s Pennsylvania Gazette shared the same item.

The only Philadelphia newspaper to publish on Friday, 5 July, was Heinrich Miller’s Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote, printed in German. Miller ran two paragraphs about independence and the Declaration being on the press at the start of his local reports.

On Saturday, 6 July, 250 years ago today, the Pennsylvania Evening Post ran the full text of the Declaration starting on the front page. Towne’s print shop had probably laid out that text the previous day since newspapers usually printed the front page first.

Only a few Americans saw the Dunlap broadside and other government publications, but thousands would read the Declaration text in newspapers over the following weeks.

John Hancock’s Enclosures

The Continental Congress approved its edited text of the Declaration of Independence in the middle of the day on 4 July 1776.

The delegates moved on to other business while a clerk—most likely Timothy Matlack—wrote out the final text neatly.

John Hancock signed that document as Congress chairman. Charles Thomson signed as secretary. Then it went to printer John Dunlap.

Years later, a handful of Philadelphians recalled hearing the Declaration, or part of it, read to the crowd outside the Pennsylvania State House that afternoon. This wasn’t the official proclamation, just someone like Matlack sharing news.

Dunlap’s shop set the text in type and printed copies that evening and into the next day. Those broadsheets were to go to the delegates, the army, and the Patriot governments of the new states.

On 5 July, 250 years ago today, Hancock started to fulfill his duty of distributing copies. He wrote to the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety:

I do myself the Honour to enclose, in Obedience to the Commands of Congress, a Copy of the Declaration of Independence; which I am directed to request, you will have proclaimed, in your Colony, in the Way and Manner, you shall judge best.

The American States being now for ever divided from those who wished to destroy them, it has become absolutely necessary for their Security and Happiness to adopt some Government of their own. In this View of the Matter, the important Consequences, flowing from a Declaration of Independence, considered as the Ground & Foundation thereof, will naturally suggest the Propriety of proclaiming it in such a Mode, that the People may be universally informed of it.

On the same day Hancock put two of those three sentences into a letter to the New Jersey Convention that first discussed moving prisoners to York, Pennsylvania.

On 6 July, Hancock signed more letters. These went to the New York Convention, Gov. Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut, Gov. Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island, the Massachusetts General Court, and the New Hampshire Assembly:

Altho it is not possible to foresee the Consequences of Human Actions, yet it is nevertheless a Duty we owe ourselves and Posterity in all our public Counsels, to decide in the best Manner we are able, and to trust the Event to that Being who controuls both Causes and Events so as to bring about his own Determinations.

Impressed with this Sentiment, and at the same Time fully convinced that our Affairs may take a more favourable Turn, the Congress have judged it necessary to dissolve all Connection between Great Britain & the American Colonies, and to declare them free and independent States, as you will perceive by the enclosed Declaration, which I am directed by Congress to transmit to you, and to request you will have it proclaimed in your Colony in the Way you shall think most proper.

The important Consequences to the American States from this Declaration of Independence, considered as the Ground & Foundation of a future Government, will naturally suggest the Propriety of proclaiming it in such a Manner, that the People may be universally informed of it.

Hancock finished that task on 8 July, sending the Declaration to states to the south. His letter to Georgia has been sold a couple of times in the last decade.

TOMORROW: Publication.

“Avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body”

Two hundred fifty years ago today, the Continental Congress finished polishing the Declaration of Independence and voted to approve the final text.

True to his character, Thomas Jefferson chose to be “a passive auditor” as his colleagues hashed over the words he’d drafted. But, he admitted to James Madison, the debate affected him:

during the debate I was sitting by Dr [Benjamin] Franklin, and he observed that I was writhing a little under the acrimonious criticisms on some of it’s parts; and it was on that occasion that, by way of comfort, he told me the story of John Thompson the Hatter, and his new sign. 

Jefferson didn’t explain that allusion in his letter to Madison, but he put it into his notes on Franklin:

When the Declaration of Independance was under the consideration of Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it which gave offence to some members.

the words ‘Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries’ excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that country.

(Yes, suggesting that the Scottish were foreigners from outside the British Empire would have prompted complaints.)

severe strictures on the conduct of the British king, in negativing our repeated repeals of the law which permitted the importation of slaves, were disapproved by some Southern gentlemen, whose reflections were not yet matured to the full abhorrence of that traffic. altho’ the offensive expressions were immediately yielded, these gentlemen continued their depredations on other parts of the instrument.

I was sitting by Dr Franklin who percieved that I was not insensible to these mutilations. ‘I have made it a rule, said he, whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you.

when I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprentice Hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. his first concern was to have a handsome sign-board, with a proper inscription. he composed it in these words ‘John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats. for ready money,’ with a figure of a hat subjoined. but he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments.

the first he shewed it to thought the word ‘Hatter,’ tautologous, because followed by the words ‘makes hats’ which shew he was a Hatter. it was struck out.

the next observed that the word ‘makes’ might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats. if good & to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. he struck it out.

a third said he thought the words ‘for ready money,’ were useless as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. every one who purchased expected to pay. they were parted with, and the inscription now stood ‘John Thomson sells hats.’

‘sells hats’ says his next friend? why nobody will expect you to give them away. what then is the use of that word? it was stricken out, and ‘hats’ followed it, the rather, as there was one painted on the board.

so his inscription was reduced ultimately to ‘John Thomson’ with the figure of a hat subjoined.’

I don’t know any examples of authentic eighteenth-century hatters’ shop signs in the British Empire, but Colonial Williamsburg and the Adverts 250 Project have shared images of hatters’ wordy newspaper advertisements.

TOMORROW: Spreading the word.