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Contrary to popular belief, the Declaration of Independence was not signed on July 4th, the day it was officially adopted by the Continental Congress. On the evening of July 4, 1776, a manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence was taken to Philadelphia printer, John Dunlap. Has the Declaration of Independence been defaced? Did someone rewrite and enhance signatures on the hallowed parchment? And is that — and the grimy handprint on the document — the result of After almost 250 years, the Declaration of Independence has had quite the rocky road of preservation - hopefully that stays in the past. July 4, 2012 This holiday gives me a perfect opportunity to discuss the lovely handwriting behind The Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft. Corrections were made by Adams and Franklin and then the document was passed on to Timothy Matlack to engross. Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler and Catherine Nicholson wrote a highly informative article about the state of the Declaration in Prologue Magazine, a publication of the NationalArchives titled The Declaration of Independence and the Hand of Time. Ritzenthaler and Nicholson commented that, “The Declaration continues to instill a sense of awe. The Unknown Patriot According to a popular story, on July 4, 1776, the delegates at the Continental Congress were finally convinced to sign the Declaration of Independence by a rousing speech made by an " unknown patriot," who exhorted the delegates, Sign! if the next moment the gibbet's rope is round your neck! This handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence was sent to the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, and was one of the first reports of American independence to reach Britain. The USA still celebrates Independence Day every year, on 4th July. Photography also revealed another piece of damage—a handprint at the lower left corner of the Declaration of Independence. Discovered in 1940, the handprint doesn't appear in a 1903 photo. The United States' Declaration of Independence was handwritten by Thomas Jefferson. Why was this done instead of being printed with a printing press? The Dunlap broadside was the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence and was printed the night of July 4, 1776. Other broadsides were subsequently printed. Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original. Only seven manuscript versions of the Declaration of Independence are known to survive in the hand of Thomas Jefferson, its principal author. Jefferson made this copy for a friend shortly after the July 4th, 1776, ratification of the Declaration, which announced to the world the American colonies’ political separation from Great Britain. The 1776 “engrossed” copy of the Declaration of Independence—sometimes referred to as the “official” or “signed parchment” version—stands on display in the rotunda of the National Is there a handprint on the Declaration of Independence? Today looking closely at the lower left corner of the Declaration, you will see the distinct image of a handprint—first noted in 1940—that is not present in the 1903 photograph. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence and ordered that it be printed and copies disseminated to the colonies. The copies were printed by the Visit our July 4th webpage to learn more about the Declaration of Independence and our celebration of it at the National Archives. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? If you answered “Thomas Jefferson,” you are both right and wrong. There is also a handprint is embedded into the paper in the bottom corner, possibly having seeped through from the back. The size is smaller, as if from the hand of a woman. It was approved on July 4, 1776, with the purpose of documenting the interests in, and formally declaring, independence from Great Britain. Today, the National Archives in Washington, D.C., holds the handwritten parchment copy of the Declaration. The classic picture of the Declaration of Independence is a handwritten document made of calfskin. But printing presses existed in 1776 — Benjamin Franklin was even a printer in Philadelphia. While it is often said that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, this isn’t actually correct. In fact, nobody signed it on the 4th. This is contradictory to Thomas Jefferson’s, John Adams’, and Benjamin Franklin’s account of events. On top of their accounts, the public congressional record of events back their story. So how do we know it didn’t happen this way On July 19, 1776, the Continental Congress ordered the Declaration of Independence to be engrossed—or written out in a large legible hand. Timothy Matlack, a clerk in the Pennsylvania State House, was the scribe charged with this task.
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