The Virginia Gazette No. 1302, July 20, 1776
Date1776
MediumInk on laid paper.
DimensionsOverall: [4] p. ; 24.8 x 18.8cm (9 3/4 x 7 3/8in.)
Credit LineSpecial Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Object numberSCNP1969.1.8
DescriptionAdopted on July 4, 1776, it would be more than two weeks before the text of the Declaration of Independence appeared in the Virginia Gazette. Its first appearance was in Alexander Purdie’s issue of July 19, 1776. However, Purdie only printed the final three paragraphs, which may suggest the recent arrival of the text from Philadelphia. Eight days prior to this, the full text had already been printed as far south as Annapolis in Maryland. One day after Purdie’s partial printing, the full text of the Declaration appeared in Dixon and Hunter’s Virginia Gazette of July 20th. On that day, Virginia’s Council of State had ordered the printers to publish the Declaration “in their respective Gazettes” and called on sheriffs to read it on the first court day following its reception. That notice, and the text of the Declaration appeared in Purdie’s Virginia Gazette of July 26th. The previous day, the Declaration was proclaimed in Williamsburg at the Governor’s Palace, Courthouse and Capitol. Due to paper shortages occasioned by the war, beginning June 1st, Dixon and Hunter printed their Gazette on a reduced sheet of paper. This accounts for the smallness of their printing of the Declaration which appears in a very small type face on page two of the issue of July 20th. The only names following the text are those of John Hancock, and Charles Thomson, the president and secretary of the Continental Congress. The signing of the Declaration did not occur until August 2nd, nearly two weeks after its first printing in Williamsburg.
ProvenanceBefore 1969 Mrs. Leo Ornstein; 1969-present, purchased by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
April 1, 1773
Alexander Wilson
1809 (although dated October 1. 1808)
