Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1876 — The First Public Reading of the Declaration. [ARTICLE]

The First Public Reading of the Declaration.

The declaration was written by J.eflerson, as be himself stated in a letter to Dr. Mease, in his lodging house at the aouthwest J borncr of Market and Seventh streets. The house is still standing, and is occupied by a tailor, who shows his patriotism by calling his shop the “ Temple oi Liberty Clothing Store.” The Instrument was sigqed, ss oar readers know, in the east room of the State Houae, on the lower floor. It appeared in the next day’s paper side by side with an advertisement of a negro child for sale who had had measles and small-pox, but was not officially given to the people until noonday on the Bth of July, when it was read to • large concourse of people in the State House yard by John Nixon, deputed to the task by the Sheriff of Philadelphia, who had received it from the committee. The stage on which the reader stood was a rough wooden platform on the line of the eastern walk, about half-way between Fifth and Sixth streets. Deborah Logan, who lived in the neighborhood, states that she heard from the garden every word of the instrument read, and thought the voice was Charles Thompson’s. In spite of all evidence in favor of Nixon, we choose to believe her. The man of truth should have first made known those words to Humanity. Cheers reni the welkiu, a feu-de-joie was fired, the chimes of Christ Church rang through al4the bright summer day, and the old bell gave at last to the world the message it had received a quarter of a century before, and proclaimed liberty to all the world. The daily papers—little thin sheets a few inches square—gave us for weeks afterward accounts of the rejoicing and wild enthusiasm of the other provinces as the Delaration reached them. In New York one singular ettect produced was that “a general jail delivery of all prisoners took flace, in pursuance of the Declaration of ndependence by the honorable Congress.—RebeccaHwding Davie,in Harper'» Magaeine.