Books and Manuscripts

The Pennsylvania Committee of Safety Pays for the Delivery of John Dunlap's Printing of the Declaration of Independence

(Philadelphia), July 10, 1776. One oblong sheet, 5 1/8 x 8 1/4 in. (130 x 209 mm). Manuscript document in a secretarial hand, inscribed and signed by Owen Biddle, as a member of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, ordering John Nixon of the Committee of Accounts to pay Michael Kuhn "£11..12..6" for his delivery of copies of John Dunlap's printing of the Declaration of Independence to Chester County, Lancaster County, Bucks County, and Potts Grove, Pennsylvania; docketed on verso. Creasing from old folds. This document is reproduced in Owen Biddle in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Oct., 1892), p. 309.

The day following the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, Congress authorized that "copies of the Declaration be sent to the several Assemblies, Conventions, and Councils of Safety, and to the several Commanding Officers of the Continental Troops, that it be proclaimed in each of the United States, and at the head of the Army." The Pennsylvania Committee of Safety received Congress's resolution on Saturday July 6, entered it into their minutes, and ruled that "In consequence of the above Resolve, Letters were wrote to the Counties of Bucks, Chester, Northampton, Lancaster, and Berks, Inclosing a Copy of the said Declaration, requesting the same to be publish'd on Monday next, at the places where the Election for Delegates are to be held." (John Hampden Hazelton, The Declaration of Independence: Its History, 1906, p. 241). In accordance with the resolution, transmittal letters were immediately written to accompany copies of Dunlap's printing, and Michael Kuhn, who owned a stable in Philadelphia, was hired and provided four couriers to deliver them by horseback. This receipt records Kuhn's services, providing couriers to deliver the country's founding document to Chester, Lancaster, and Bucks counties, as well as Potts Grove, in Pennsylvania. On Monday July 8, before a large crowd, the first public reading of the Declaration took place in Philadelphia at the State House Yard by John Nixon, to whom this document is directed.

A unique and fascinating document related to America's founding charter.

Passed down within the Biddle family and never before offered for sale.