Handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence discovered in record book

Executive Producer

One of Maine’s rare copies of the Declaration of Independence is touring the state right now. It is one of just 26 surviving copies of the historic Dunlap Broadside, which was printed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, to announce American independence to the colonies.

There are also other copies of the Declaration in the state, and one was just discovered.

Staff members in the Wells Town Clerk’s Office were recently researching town records when they found a handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence. The copy was recorded in the Wells Town Record Book in July 1776 by Town Clerk Nathaniel Wells.

One of the state’s oldest towns, Wells, Maine, is located around 33 miles from Portland.

Following the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, printed copies were distributed, and the Massachusetts Council ordered that the Declaration be read aloud and then delivered to each town clerk, who was instructed to record it in the town’s official record book “there to remain as a perpetual Memorial thereof.”

“The Wells Town Record Book contains both the Declaration and those original instructions, which is an incredible connection to one of the most significant moments in American history! The record has been preserved in the Town Clerk’s archives 250 years after it was originally written as an incredible piece of Wells’ history,” the town wrote on Thursday.

“It’s beautiful. It’s capturing the time, the excitement of what they were dealing with,” said Wells Town Clerk Michele Stivaletta-Noble.

“Back in the day, you didn’t have the spread of information as easily as you do now. By recording something like this and by transcribing it, you memorialize it in history for generations to come,” said Wells Public Information Officer Rebekah Kelley.

The Maine State Archives houses and protects two copies of the Declaration of Independence. The identical twin broadsides were printed by Ezekiel Russell, a Salem, Massachusetts, printer who was ordered by the Massachusetts Assembly to print a copy of the Declaration to be “sent to the ministers of each Parish, of every Denomination, within this State.” The ministers were “required to read the same to their respective Congregations…on the first Lord’s-Day after they shall have received it.” These broadsides were received and read aloud at the Meetinghouse Under the Ledge (in what was then North Yarmouth), and at Fort Western (then part of Hallowell). Several hundred of Russell’s broadsides were printed and disseminated in July of 1776. Only 21 copies are known to still exist today.