The Declaration arrived in Massachusetts on July 13, 1776, amid a citywide smallpox inoculation campaign. On July 18, Abigail Adams joined a crowd at King Street to hear it read from the State House balcony by Colonel Thomas Crafts. The Massachusetts government then spread the Declaration throughout the colony by commissioning an authorized broadside from Salem printer Ezekiel Russell and ordering ministers of every denomination to read it to their congregations on the first Sunday after receiving it—after which it was delivered to town clerks as a perpetual memorial. James Warren reported from Brattle Street Church on August 11 that the reading was attended with great solemnity and satisfaction. Not all responses were positive. Loyalist Elizabeth Murray left her pew before the reading began, and Anglican minister Jacob Bailey of the District of Maine—who ultimately fled to Nova Scotia—denounced the Declaration as both treasonous and sacrilegious.
Interviewees
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Sara Martin
- Editor in Chief, The Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society
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Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai
- Peter Drummey Chief Historian, Massachusetts Historical Society
