THE REVOLUTIONARY SHORE – Add Your Name to History: Sign the Declaration of Independence Online

August 4, 1776

On this very day, 250 years ago . . . 

The ink was still drying on official signatures to the Declaration of Independence. Though Congress had approved the Declaration’s language on July 4, on July 19 an official handwritten copy or “engrossing” on parchment was ordered.  

On August 2, Massachusetts merchant John Hancock, President of Congress,  placed his famed and flourished autograph foremost on the new copy.  Other available delegates signed in geographical state order from north to south—New Hampshire to Georgia—and affixed their signatures from the top right corner, downward, and up left to a new column.  The Virginia signatories were George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, and Carter Braxton.  Representatives of all thirteen colonies signed; Benjamin Franklin was the oldest at seventy and the youngest representatives were twenty-six year old Edward Rutledge and Thomas Lynch, Jr., of South Carolina.  

SIGN THE DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE!! 

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/sign-the-declaration

Take a few moments to attach your signature to a copy of the present-day Declaration!  It is quick, easy, and fun. Once at the website above, just choose your signature style and type in your name. 

Why is this important document so faded?  The Declaration stayed with the new government during the Revolution and was regularly rolled, unrolled, and displayed with no protections. It traveled from Philadelphia to New York to the new capital of Washington, DC, where it was handled by various agencies, exhibited for decades in the sunlight, and exposed to extremes of heat and humidity.  By the time it was transferred to the National Archives from the Library of Congress in 1952, it was severely distressed. Only the most complete conservation storage and careful handling allow it to be on permanent display in the National Archives Rotunda. 

Enough image remains on the digital copy of the Declaration of Independence to confirm that you are adding your signature to an unassigned place on one of the nation’s Charters of Freedom.  It belongs to you; it belongs to us.  It invites everyone to be part of the America 250 story.  Marvelous. 

Join WESR on the 4th of each month to learn more about Virginia and the Shore’s role in the War for Independence.  America’s 250th Anniversary is here!