On July 8, 1776, John Nixon read the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. John Trumbull, the artist commissioned to paint the four portraits documenting the revolution, traveled the East Coast during a four year span to paint miniatures of the founding fathers for accuracy. The Declaration House The President's House On July 8, 1776, Colonel John Nixon strode to a platform behind The Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall) and read The Declaration of Independence aloud to the throngs of people gathered to hear this revolutionary news. Colonel John Nixon, Behind Independence Hall, July 8, 2019 Independence Hall, to prepare a memoir of the life of John Nixon to be presented at the meeting of American literati, requested to assemble in Independence Chamber on July 2, 1876, the centennial anniversary of the adoption of the 44 Resolutions respecting Independency," I was doubtful if I should be able to fulfil my engagement, so little was At noon, Colonel John Nixon publicly read the Declaration of Independence for the first time. Following the event and continuing long into the night the bells of the city rang in celebration. Photo, Print, Drawing Reading the Declaration of Independence by John Nixon, from the steps of Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 8, 1776 / drawn by E.A. Abbey. Philadelphians first heard the document on July 8, when John Nixon (1733-1808), a Lieutenant Colonel in the Philadelphia militia, read the Declaration of Independence in the State House Yard. The public reaction was passionate and widespread. John Nixon was the first person to read the Declaration of Independence in public. Nixon went on to fund the Revolutionary War by directing one of America’s first banks. This broadside of the Declaration of Independence was printed by John Dunlap at the request of the Second Continental Congress on the evening of July 4, 1776. Four days later on July 8, 1776, nine-year-old James Forten and many others witnessed the first public reading of it by Colonel John Nixon behind the Pennsylvania State House (now The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. (1765 - 1896). John Nixon reading the Declaration of Independence to the people in front of the State House immediately after its passage. Retrieved from Then on July 8, 1776, Colonel John Nixon of Philadelphia read a printed Declaration of Independence to the public for the first time on what is now called Independence Square. And who was the first person to read them? According to our embraced heritage, the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence happened in Philadelphia on July 8, 1776. This moment in history is reenacted every year in Independence Square. There was, in fact, a reading that day, but it was not the first one. Colonel John Nixon reads the Declaration of Independence to a crowd on the State House Yard (now known as Independence Square). This is the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. Congress orders the Declaration engrossed for signatures. When the Declaration was read publicly in the State House yard on July 8th, 1776, John Nixon stood on a platform that had been erected by the APS for David Rittenhouse to observe the transit of Venus in 1769. On July 8, 1776, he made the first public proclamation of the Declaration of Independence, reading it from the steps of Pennsylvania State House, now Independence Hall in Philadelphia. He commanded the defenses of the Delaware at Fort Island and the Philadelphia city guard. Nixon, however, is best known as the first person to publicly read the Declaration of Independence, which he did from the steps of the State House on July 8, 1776. What they saw and heard was Colonel John Nixon reading the document that had been signed inside just a few days earlier: The Declaration of Independence. Monday, July 8, 1776. It’s a “warm sunshine morning” in Philadelphia and the revolutionary Col. John Nixon, the city’s sheriff and distant relative of present-day Missouri Gov. Jeremiah Nixon, stands upon a platform in front of the Pennsylvania State House — now Independence Hall. The ink was, proverbially, barely dried on the Declaration of Independence, which had been finished four Colonel John Nixon read the document aloud in Independence Square on July 8th, 1776, to a crowd of colonists. 3. The Declaration of Independence was actually approved on July 2nd, 1776. The 30th President of the United States shares his birthday with the nation, making him the only president born on Independence Day. The first public reading of the Declaration happened in Philadelphia. Colonel John Nixon read the document aloud in Independence Square on July 8th, 1776, to a crowd of colonists. July 8, 1776. Colonel John Nixon gives the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, spreading word that the American colonies have declared themselves free from British rule.
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