Imagine if you can, in this time of divisive upheaval and tribalism, a great crowd gathering in the main thoroughfare of a major American city to hear that all men are created equal.
Such was the scene in Boston in July 1776 for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence.
After the Continental Congress approved the language of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, Philadelphia printer John Dunlap labored overnight to produce copies of it for distribution throughout the suddenly independent colonies.
Via express delivery powered by man and horse, the first copies of what would become the preeminent decree for liberty known to man arrived in Boston on July 15. The American Gazette--a newspaper based in Salem, Massachusetts--published the Declaration in full as part of its July 16 edition.
On July 18 a crowd gathered on King Street outside the Town House in Boston. King Street was Boston’s main road, running from the harbor to the Town House, which is known today as the Old State House on State Street, near Faneuil Hall. This was the site of the Boston Massacre.
The Town House was the seat of the colonial government in Massachusetts and would become the seat of the Massachusetts revolutionary government.
The honor of reading the Declaration to the throng on King Street was bestowed upon Col. Thomas Crafts of the Massachusetts Regiment of Artillery, popularly known as “The Train.”
Crafts, who was a decorative painter by trade, had long been a figure associated with the independence movement. He had a knack for participating in historically significant events. In August 1765 he joined a group known as the Loyal Nine, which later merged with the Sons of Liberty.
Crafts assisted in hanging an effigy of colonial stamp distributor Andrew Oliver from an elm tree at Orange and Essex Streets, which became known as the Liberty Tree. Crafts also tossed tea into the harbor during the Boston Tea Party.
His military career commenced with the Boston militia, in which he quickly moved up the ranks as lieutenant. As a colonel in The Train, he defended the port of Boston and helped run British ships out of Boston Harbor. Samuel Adams noted these contributions and achievements, which led to Crafts being selected to electrify the King Street crowd with the document produced by the Continental Congress.
Interestingly, Crafts was “available” to read the Declaration only after having been terribly disappointed by his lack of position in the Continental Army, let down by Gen. George Washington himself in late 1775.
Washington bypassed Crafts in favor of naming Henry Knox to command The Train. Crafts believed he should have held higher rank, given his feats and expertise. Had he been elevated in the Continental Army, however, Crafts may not have been near enough to Boston to give the first reading of the Declaration.
Among the crowd awaiting the recitation was future First Lady of the United States Abigail Adams. The scene is best described by her July 21, 1776, letter to her husband and future president John Adams, a part of the Adams Family Papers collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society (original spelling and punctuation unedited):
“Last Thursday after hearing a very Good Sermon I went with the Multitude into Kings Street to hear the proclamation for independance read and proclamed. Some Field peices with the Train were brought there, the troops appeard under Arms and all the inhabitants assembled there (the small pox prevented many thousand from the Country). When Col. Crafts read from the Belcona of the State House the Proclamation, great attention was given to every word. As soon as he ended, the cry from the Belcona, was God Save our American States and then 3 cheers which rended the air, the Bells rang, the privateers fired, the forts and Batteries, the cannon were discharged, the platoons followed and every face appeard joyfull.”
The reading of the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the Old State House has become a Boston tradition, faithfully observed every year. This event draws impressive crowds of observers desiring to experience history and relate to the magnitude of breaking away from England.
All Americans would do well to carefully read the Declaration of Independence often--but particularly this Fourth of July--to consider the sacred principles therein and become united countrymen once again.
