The New York delegation at first abstained from adopting the declaration at the July 4 meeting. Jefferson left explicit instructions that he wanted his gravestone to be inscribed, “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom and Father of the University of Virginia.” 6. He received help from John Adams and Benjamin Franklin to draft the revolutionary document he called “an expression of the American mind.” Thomas Jefferson was just 33 years old when he wrote the declaration, but already a well-known and accomplished writer. The collection includes a copy of the Philadelphia newspaper, as well as newspaper reports from other colonies. Additional printings quickly multiplied throughout the colonies to spread the news of independence. On July 5, Hancock had the broadsides distributed to be read and posted. The Pennsylvania Evening Post featured the declaration in its July 6 edition, the first to print it after the Dunlap broadside. It is in poorer condition and only made available to qualified researchers. The library also owns an additional copy that it purchased in the 1950s. “Its provenance can be traced back to the early 19th century, when it was in Tobias Lear’s possession. Lear, who was Washington’s personal secretary late in life, is known to have taken a number of documents, possibly including this broadside, from Washington’s papers shortly after Washington’s death in 1799.”
Whitesell, curator of special collections. “There is a strong possibility that the Albert Small copy of the Dunlap broadside, now at UVA, once belonged to George Washington,” said David R. The library’s copy was likely stolen from George Washington. His subscription book contains the signatures of Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams and other notables of the new republic.ģ. On display in the “Declaring Independence” exhibit are rare, early printings, as well as the subscription book in which Benjamin Owen Tyler took orders for his facsimile. The only names that appear on that first copy are those of John Hancock, Congress’ president, and secretary Charles Thomson. UVA's permanent exhibit includes one of only 26 known surviving copies of that first printing – just without all those signatures affixed at the bottom. John Dunlap, the official printer of Congress, worked all night and into the morning of July 5 to produce the “broadside,” a large, single-sided sheet, similar to a poster. The Second Continental Congress adopted it that day, but the 56 representatives did not take up the quill pen until Aug. The Declaration of Independence was not actually signed on July 4, 1776.
In observance of the holiday, brush up on 10 things you may not have known about the document. He began collecting rare books and manuscripts, and presented his extraordinary Declaration of Independence collection to the University beginning in 1999. Small, a native of Washington, D.C., graduated from the School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1946. The University owns two copies of a rare early printing of the declaration, and “Declaring Independence: Creating and Recreating America’s Document” is a permanent exhibit on display in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.Īlbert H. The Declaration of Independence is near and dear to the University of Virginia.
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