Public readings of the newly minted Declaration of Independence took place in taverns, churches, town greens, or anywhere else people could gather. In New England, the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence is believed to have taken place in Worcester, Massachusetts. Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831)—a Bostonian printer who had resettled in Worcester at the beginning of the war—is said to have intercepted a post rider bound for Boston carrying a copy of the Declaration and subsequently read it to a large crowd from the roof of the portico of the Worcester Meeting House (later known as Old South Church).

Several days later, on July 22, a bigger and more formal celebration took place, coverage of which appeared in the July 24, 1776, issue of Thomas’s newspaper, the Massachusetts Spy. The article describes how “a number of patriotic gentlemen of this town, animated by a love of their country, and to shew their approbation of the measure lately taken by the Grand Council of America, assembled on the green near the liberty pole,” where they displayed the colors of the thirteen colonies, rang bells, beat drums, and read the Declaration of Independence to “a large and respectable body (among whom were the Select-men and Committee of Correspondence) assembled on the occasion, who testified their approbation by repeated huzzas, firing of musquetry and cannon, bonfires, and other demonstrations of joy.” They followed these demonstrations by removing the king’s arms from the courthouse and burning them, after which a “select company of the Sons of Freedom” went to a tavern that had been known as the King’s Arms and tore down the sign proclaiming it as such. According to this article, the tavern keeper—a woman named Mary Stearns—“cheerfully complied” with their wishes. The crowd then celebrated by drinking in her tavern to twenty-four separate toasts, among which were toasts for “Sore Eyes to all Tories, and a Chesnut [sic] Burr for an Eye Stone” and “Perpetual itching without the benefit of scratching to the Enemies of America.”

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> View image of full page]]> The Continental Congress charged five men with the responsibility to commit to paper the American colonies’ Declaration of Independence from Britain: Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), John Adams (1735-1826), Robert Livingston (1746-1813), and Roger Sherman (1721-93). Most scholars today now view the authorship of this document to be highly collaborative both among these five individuals (who made forty-seven alterations to Jefferson’s original draft) and among the members of Congress, who made another thirty-nine alterations after voting for independence on July 2, 1776.

After the Declaration was approved on July 4, it was immediately set in type as a broadside and printed overnight by John Dunlap, the official printer to Congress. Copies of the printed version were immediately distributed to all of the colonies, where in some instances they were reprinted by local printers so that by July 18, twenty-four newspapers had republished the text of the Declaration. The Pennsylvania Evening Post, printed by Benjamin Towne (d. 1793), was the first newspaper to include the text in its pages.

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]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> Although breaking news usually appeared on the interior of colonial newspapers as that side of the paper was generally printed last, this copy of the New-Hampshire Gazette—published by Daniel Fowle (ca. 1715-87)—leads with a front-page breaking news story of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. This account describes the confusion of the early accounts of the battles (“The foregoing is the different Accounts we have receiv’d, but how far and what Part is authentic, Presume not to determine”) and makes references to the “Expresses” carrying news of the engagement. These expresses were fast riders and horses who were sometimes commissioned by the Committees of Correspondences to relay the events as quickly as possible. Publishers often employed post riders as express riders, who would, when not carrying an individual missive, deliver both printed materials as well as letters. Isaiah Thomas, along with fellow printers William Goddard of Baltimore, John Holt of New York, and Thaddeus Burr of Fairfield, Connecticut, established a system of post riders that not only carried their publications but also communications from the various Committees of Correspondence throughout the northern colonies.

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]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> James Rivington (1724-1802), publisher of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, was born in London and was a bookseller in his native land before immigrating to the colonies in 1760. He eventually established a bookstore in New York and then ventured into publishing this newspaper in April 1773. The New-York Gazetteer was a leading loyalist paper throughout the war.

This issue is a good example of how news circulated through colonial print culture, the same text often appearing in multiple mediums. Reprints of two other imprints appear side by side on the front page of this issue: The broadsideA Circumstantial Account of an Attack that Happened on the 19th of April 1775, on His Majesty’s Troops, which portrays General Gage’s account of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, is in virtual dialogue with depositions about the battles taken by order of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress expressing the Americans’ side. These depositions would be distributed in July as part of a pamphlet titled A Narrative, of the Excursion and Ravages of the King’s Troops Under the Command of General Gage, on the Nineteenth of April, 1775, published by Isaiah Thomas.

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> View more issues]]> As they had been in the pre-war years, broadsides continued to be a way to spread and provide commentary on the news. This broadside features two poems about the surrender of Yorktown. The first is “A Poem Spoken Extempore, by a Young Lady, on hearing the Guns firing and Bells chiming on account of the great and Glorious Acquisition of their Excellencies Gen. Washington and the C. de Grasse, by the Surrender of York-Town, in which were Ld. Cornwallis and Army, consisting of Nine Thousand Troops, a Forty Gun Ship, a Frigate, an armed Vessel and One Hundred Sail of Transports.” The purported extemporaneous nature of the poem speaks to the unbridled joy the victory inspired, while its alleged authorship by a “young lady” implies the breadth of patriotism in the colonies and provides a useful way for the poem to laud General Washington (1732-99) as an unparalleled hero. The magnitude of the victory is also emphasized in the introduction of the poem by the inclusion of the specific numbers of surrendered troops and ships. The second poem, “His Lordship Humbled: or, Cornwalis’s Lamentation,” is a poem from the point of view of the defeated Lord Cornwallis (1738-1805), listing his failures and those of other British leaders while praising Washington’s prowess.

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> This engraved map was published in London in March 1787. It details the siege of Yorktown in 1781, the last great battle of the American Revolution. It clearly shows the American and French forces as they surround the British forces under the command of General Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805). The map also details the no. 9 and no. 10 redoubts taken by the American and French forces, which destroyed the British perimeter, allowing the Americans and French to intensify their bombardment and secure passage of the French navy, which cut off any possible water escape by the British. Cornwallis’s surrender on October 19, 1781, forced the British to negotiate for peace.

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> View larger image]]> Maps were an important form of news gathering and reporting during the American Revolution. Most were created by engineers in the British army and often they depicted military campaigns or battles, providing not only important intelligence about the topography and geography of a region, but also, as in the case with this map, a narrative of the events of the conflict.

This is the first battle map of the Revolutionary War. This copperplate engraving by J. De Costa was printed in London three months after the Battles of Lexington and Concord and is based on a manuscript map drawn by an unknown cartographer in Lord Percy’s command.

The use of pictorial symbols, rather than rectangles and lines to represent the troops and their movements, was unusual but not unprecedented. This map is the only one to feature the marches of the British forces and battle sites. It shows actual British troops moving out of Boston and engaging with the colonials, complete with gunfire and fallen soldiers, as well as the location of the “Bridge where the attack began.” It also illustrates the British retreat, noting “Provincials firing behind the walls”; minutemen who just got the call on the road to join the fight; encampments and fortifications; and a keyed list of all the ships in Boston Harbor. But this map also indicates the situation after the battles, as it includes representations of the encampments of American forces in the siege of Boston that occurred throughout the spring and summer of 1775. The key also references Bunker Hill and the battle that took place there on June 17, 1775.

De Costa dedicated the map to Richard Whitworth (d. 1811), a member of Parliament from 1768 to 1780, who was likely his patron. Whitworth and others in politics and influential positions used maps throughout the war to better understand the conflict and its progression and to make political and military decisions and policies.

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> View larger image]]> This broadside, printed in Boston in April 1773, contains the text of a letter from the Virginia House of Burgesses informing Boston of the creation of a standing Committee of Correspondence and assuring the New Englanders of Virginia’s continued support in the constitutional crisis. The letter also asks that other Committees of Correspondence be maintained in the assemblies of the other colonies. As the rancor toward British policy grew, it became increasingly important for the colonies to show support for one another, share information, and expand the communication network. This letter, and the reprinting of it, was one means of accomplishing those goals.

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> In 1690, a recent immigrant to Boston, Benjamin Harris (d. 1716), decided the time was right to launch a newspaper. In the wake of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the royal regime change in England, colonists longed for news from home. Harris, who had been a printer and publisher in London and now ran a bookstore and coffeehouse in Boston, recognized this need. His fledgling newspaper was called Publick Occurrences, Both Forreign and Domestick. The paper looked like an English newspaper and had an array of news from Europe and America. Harris promised that it would appear “once a month (or if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener)” and would include accounts of the “Circumstances of Public Affairs” as well as “Memorable Occurrences of Divine Providence.”

But the first issue of Publick Occurrences was also the last. The paper was suppressed by the colonial authorities in Massachusetts and never appeared again. Most copies of the paper were destroyed; the only known surviving copy is in the Public Record Office in London. But several copies of the broadside cease-and-desist order have survived, such as the one shown here. It is not entirely clear what the governor and council found objectionable, but certainly the most important objection was that the paper was published without their approval. At that time, Massachusetts had a licensing system in force, and the authorities looked over the shoulders of all the printers in the colony. By the eighteenth century licensing for printing had ended in both Britain and America.

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