Michael Scurr, a volunteer at the UK National Archives in Kew, discovered in late May an Exeter printing of the US Declaration of Independence whose opening line begins "In Congress, July 4, 1776." The sheet is one of only 11 surviving Exeter broadsides and is the only copy known outside the United States. Archivists traced the document to papers seized from the American privateer Dalton after the ship was captured off the coast of Spain in December 1776; other seized items, including the ship’s commission signed by Continental Congress president John Hancock, went to the Admiralty Court while the declaration was logged merely as "another document." The broadside was printed in Exeter, New Hampshire, between 16 and 19 July 1776, within weeks of the Philadelphia signing, which highlights how quickly printed news could travel in 1776, Graham Moore, a National Archives records specialist, said. Captain Eleazer Johnson, who likely acquired the sheet while the Dalton stopped in nearby Portsmouth, later declared in a Plymouth court that he considered himself a United States citizen, a fact Amanda Bevan, head of legal records, says helps explain why he might have read the declaration to his crew. The find was recorded by the National Archives Prize Papers project and underlines the role of volunteer cataloguing in recovering overlooked documents and clarifying how news of the Declaration spread internationally in 1776.
Melinda Haunton22
Genny G2
