John Hancock proclaims the adoption of the Declaration of Independence

“Congress have judged it necessary to dissolve all Connection between Great Britain, and the American Colonies; and to declare them free and independent States…

The important Consequences to the American States from this Declaration of Independence, considered as the Ground and Foundation of a future Government, will naturally suggest the Propriety of proclaiming it in such a Manner, that the People may be universally informed of it.”

Philadelphia, July 8, 1776. Manuscript letter, signed by John Hancock as President of the Continental Congress, and inscribed by him "Honl Convention of (Georgia)", body in a secretarial hand, likely that of Jacob Rush. Silked; creased from old folds; scattered staining; scattered chipping in edges and separations along folds; abrasion at bottom verso, removing "Georgia". Two pages on one leaf, 12 5/8 x 8 in. (322 x 204 mm), with detached second blank leaf.

This historic proclamation is one of 13 signed by John Hancock informing the states of their independence. It is one of only five known surviving letters and is one of only two that remain in private hands.

As these Hancock signed letters preceded by a month the engrossed Declaration (widely but incorrectly thought of as the original Declaration), they represent the earliest official written manifestation of American independence. Along with Dunlap’s unsigned broadsides, they are a testament to the birth of the American experiment. This Hancock proclamation letter is among the most vital and foundational historic documents to be offered for sale.

Philadelphia July 8th 1776.

Gentlemen

Altho it is not possible to foresee the Consequences of Human Actions, yet it is nevertheless a Duty we owe ourselves and Posterity in all our public Counsels, to decide in the best Manner we are able, and to trust the Event to that Being, who controuls both Causes and Events, so as to bring about his own Determinations.

Impressed with this Sentiment, and at the same Time fully convinced, that our Affairs may take a more favourable Turn, the Congress have judged it necessary to dissolve all Connection between Great Britain, and the American Colonies; and to declare them free and independent States, as you will perceive by the enclosed Declaration, which I am directed by Congress to transmit to you, and to request, you will have it proclaimed in the Way, you shall think most proper.

The important Consequences to the American States from this Declaration of Independence, considered as the Ground and Foundation of a future Government, will naturally suggest the Propriety of proclaiming it in such a Manner, that the People may be universally informed of it.

I have the Honour to be
Gentlemen,
Your most obedt &
very hble Servt
John Hancock Presidt
Honl Convention of (Georgia)

“Georgia” scratched out at some point, likely before 1899, but clearly still visible to the naked eye.

Declaring Independence

As a statement of principles, a severing of ties, a list of grievances, and a proclamation to the world, the Declaration of Independence has served many functions, and over the ensuing 246 years has come to represent the highest aspirations of America's vision.

The Continental Congress voted for independence with a brief resolution on July 2, 1776 and approved and adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4. That day, a now-lost manuscript, with the approved text signed only by John Hancock and Charles Thomson, was rushed to John Dunlap, the official printer of Congress. Located only a short distance from the State House, Dunlap’s shop spent the evening setting the Declaration of Independence in type. A proof was made (now at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania), before corrections were incorporated, likely under the supervision of John Adams. Of the 200 or more printed and delivered to Congress, only 28 complete or partial copies are known to survive.

Disseminating the Declaration was paramount in order to spark a commitment to, and a feeling of, nationhood. It would also be key in inspiring the soldiers and citizens who would have to fight in order to secure it. Congress ordered the Declaration to be "sent to the several assemblies, conventions and committees, or 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." As President of Congress, the first part of this task fell to John Hancock. With the assistance of Jacob Rush, his private secretary (January 1776-November 1777), who penned the body of these letters, Hancock signed and sent a letter, along with one or more broadsides, to each of the now-independent states. This historic letter is one of those original 13, and was sent by Hancock to Savannah, then-seat of Georgia's revolutionary government. It was to be read by their Council of Safety, proclaimed to the people and, as Hancock writes in this letter, to be "considered as the Ground and Foundation of a future Government."

The Declaration's arrival in Georgia

It took a month for this letter to make its long journey south. Arriving in Savannah on August 8, 1776, it was delivered to Georgia’s first President and Commander-in-Chief, Archibald Bulloch, who “laid before the Board a letter from the Honorable John Hancock, Esqr., together with a copy of the Declaration of Independency, which being read it was agreed that it be proclaimed in this Town on Saturday next...” (Journal of the Council of Safety, August 8, 1776, in Allen D. Candler's Revolutionary Records of the State of Georgia, Atlanta, 1908, Vol. 1, pp. 174, 176-77).

That Saturday, August 10, President Bulloch and the Council met again to read the Declaration to a crowd of spectators. “They then proceeded to the square before the Assembly House, and read it likewise to a great concourse of people, when the grenadier and light infantry companies fired a general volley. After this, they proceeded in the following procession to Liberty Pole: —The grenadiers in front—The Provost Marshal, on horseback, with his sword drawn—The Secretary with the Declaration—His Excellency the President—The Honourable the Council and gentlemen attending—Then the light infantry, and the rest of the militia…At the Liberty Pole they were met by the Georgia battalion, who, after the reading of the Declaration, discharged their field pieces…Upon this they proceeded to the battery, at the Trustees Gardens, where the Declaration was read for the last time, and the cannon of the battery discharged. His Excellency and Council, Col. Lachlan McIntosh, and other gentlemen, with the militia, dined under the cedar trees, and cheerfully drank to the United, Free, and Independant States of America." (John Hampden Hazelton, The Declaration of Independence: Its History, New York, 1906, pp. 279-81).

Revolutionary fervor at the news of Independence took on many forms of celebration throughout Georgia. On that same Saturday in Savannah, a mock funeral was held for King George III: "In the evening the town was illuminated, and there was exhibited a very solemn funeral procession, attended by the grenadier and light infantry companies, and other militia, with their drums, muffled, and fifes, and a greater number of people than ever appeared on any occasion before in this province…‘Forasmuch as George the Third, of Great Britain, hath most flagrantly violated his coronation oath, and trampled upon the constitution of our country, and the sacred rights of mankind, we therefore commit his political existence to the ground, corruption to corruption, tyranny to the grave, and oppression to eternal infamy; in sure and certain hope that he will never obtain a resurrection to rule again over these United States of America; but my friends and fellow citizens, let us not be sorry, as men without hope, for TYRANTS that thus depart; rather let us remember America is free and independent, that she is, and will be, with the blessing of the Almighty, GREAT among the nations of the earth. Let this encourage us in well doing, to fight for our rights and privileges, for our wives and children, for all that is near and dear to us. May God give us his blessing, and let all the people say AMEN.’” (Hazelton, pp. 279-81).

In the following days, as word spread, more celebrations broke out. “With similar joy was the Declaration of Independence welcomed in the other parishes of Georgia. St. John’s Parish, the home of Hall and Gwinnett, two of the signers, was most pronounced in its demonstrations of approval.” (Charles C. Jones, Jr., The History of Georgia, 1883).

According to Harvard University's Declaration Resources Project (2016), there were no newspaper appearances of the Declaration of Independence printed in Georgia in either July or August 1776. This makes John Hancock's signed proclamation letter, and its accompanying Dunlap broadside, the earliest known means of proclaiming independence to Georgians.

Colonial and Revolutionary Georgia

Chartered in 1732, Georgia was the youngest, the most remote, and the most sparsely populated of the 13 colonies. In 1775, of the roughly 35,000 inhabitants, more than half were enslaved. Revolutionary fervor was slow to take root in the colony largely due to the effective leadership of Royal Governor Sir James Wright, as well as the colony's distance from the hotbed of rebellion in the north, its proximity to British Florida to the south, and its containment by English-aligned indigenous groups along its frontier. Despite those factors, in January 1775 a Provincial Congress met at Savannah to respond to Britain’s punishment of Boston with the Intolerable Acts. Although only five of the colony's 12 parishes were represented, this set the course for Georgia to break from British allegiance. Sensing the changing mood, in the spring of 1775, Governor Wright, adjourned the legislature to prevent it from supporting the Provincial Congress. By June, a 14-member Council of Safety was elected, and between July-August, the Provincial Congress joined the Continental Association's trade embargo, and appointed five delegates to the Second Continental Congress. On August 4, 1775, upon hearing this news, George Washington wrote, "The accession of Georgia to measures of Congress, is a happy event and must give pleasure to every friend of America."

By the time Governor Wright called the legislature to reconvene in November 1775, the province was in the hands of the Patriots. In mid-January 1776, a small British fleet arrived in Savannah harbor. Fearful of an imminent invasion, the patriots briefly took Governor Wright prisoner, but on February 11 he escaped to the HMS Scarborough. In early March, British troops seized a number of rice boats from Savannah harbor for provisions to be sent to their beleaguered colleagues in Boston. After an exchange of prisoners and the British seizure of several arriving vessels, the British fleet departed for Nova Scotia with 1,600 barrels of rice, and the deposed governor.

In April 1776, Georgia’s Provincial Congress established a temporary government in Augusta. Two of the five delegates appointed to represent the colony at the Continental Congress had competing responsibilities that kept them in the state: Archibald Bulloch who was appointed as President and Commander-in-Chief, and John Houstoun, as head of the Committee of Safety. The other delegates, Lyman Hall, Button Gwinnett, and George Walton, went to Philadelphia, voted in favor of independence, and in August each signed the engrossed Declaration.

As the war raged in the North, President Bulloch ordered that a convention be held in October 1776 to establish a new Georgia Constitution. In February 1777 it was adopted, including a number of basic rights, such as the free exercise of religion, freedom of the press, and trial by jury.

After the war had reached a stalemate in the north, British commanders turned to the south, looking for more Loyalist allies and a possible strategic edge. In December 1778, a British expeditionary force captured Savannah, followed by Augusta a few weeks later. By July 1779, former Governor Wright had returned, making Georgia the only colony restored to royal rule. The British then advanced to Charleston. Following a two-month siege in the spring of 1780, American General Benjamin Lincoln was forced to surrender that city and his force of 5,000 men to the British. The following months saw skirmishes between Georgia's militia and British troops, but in the summer of 1781, Patriot forces led by General Andrew Pickens and Colonel Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, successfully recaptured Augusta.

Despite the continuing occupation of Savannah, the American and French victory over the British Army in Yorktown, Virginia in October 1781 allowed the American peace negotiators in the summer of 1782 to include Georgia as one of the 13 independent states. The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, formally ended the Revolution and recognized America’s independence. (see lot 28).

The Engrossed Declaration of Independence

When the Declaration passed on July 4, 1776 it was not a unanimous declaration as New York had abstained. After Hancock's letter to New York was received with a Dunlap broadside the state voted to support independence. Now that it was unanimous, on July 19, Congress ordered that the Declaration be engrossed on parchment with a new title, "the unanimous declaration of the thirteen united states of America," and "that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress." Engrossing is the process of copying an official document in a large neat script. The task to engross this document fell to Timothy Matlock, an assistant to Charles Thomson, secretary to the Congress.

On August 2, John Hancock, as President of the Congress, boldly signed the engrossed copy. Some of the delegates not present that day signed later. The last of the 56 signers added his name around 1781.

Freeman's welcomes this historic letter's return to both Philadelphia and America's auction house, almost 100 years after we first offered it.

Provenance

John Hancock to the Convention of (Georgia, Council of Safety, Archibald Bulloch, et al.)

Col. Thomas Corwin Donaldson (d.1898)

Stan V. Henkels, Philadelphia, The Collection of Autographs of the Late Col. Thomas Donaldson, October 26, 1899, lot 198

Arthur P. Howard (“Howard” noted as buyer in a copy of Henkels’ catalogue located at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. According to Sotheby's, this is likely Arthur P. Howard)

George Clifford Thomas, acquired before 1907 and published in Catalogue of the More Important Books, Autographs and Manuscripts in the Library of George C. Thomas (Philadelphia, 1907). He was a banker, partner of Jay Cooke, later of Drexel & Co., director of the Philadelphia & Reading Railway, and collector of art, rare books and manuscripts

Samuel T. Freeman, George C. Thomas Collection, November 18, 1924, lot 94

Harry F. Marks, acquired prior to 1937, prominent NY dealer

Private, descended in family for more than 50 years

Sotheby’s, New York, Fine Manuscript and Printed Americana, January 27, 2020, lot 2271

Seth Kaller, Inc. and Private Collector

Other Hancock Letters Announcing the Declaration to the States

Connecticut: July 6 - Current location, if it survives, is unknown

Delaware: July 5 - Current location, if it survives, is unknown

Maryland: July 8 - Current location, if it survives, is unknown. This letter was last recorded in 1893 in the Collection of Mrs. J.H.C. Watts (Official catalogue: Exhibition of Revolutionary Relics and Fine Arts..., Maryland Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, 1893, p. 9, item 122)

Massachusetts: July 6 - Current location, if it survives, is unknown. This letter was last recorded in 1865 in the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office (The State House in Boston, Massachusetts, David Pulsifer, 1865, p. 22.)

New Hampshire: July 6 - Currently in a private collection

Stan V. Henkels auction of the Hampton L. Carson collection, Oct. 26, 1904, lot 2247 (incorrectly catalogued as the Massachusetts copy)

Dodd & Livingston, London

The Rosenbach Company, catalogues, 1911-37

Philip D. Sang, placed on deposit at Rutgers University

Sotheby Parke-Bernet auction of the Philip D. Sang collection, April 26, 1978, lot 113

Sotheby's, May 23, 1984, lot 157

Sotheby’s, private sale, 2020

Private collection

New Jersey: July 5 - Currently in the Gilder Lehrman Collection

Abraham Tomlinson

Parke-Bernet Galleries, Mercantile Library Association of New York auction, Jan. 20, 1947, lot 349

The Rosenbach Company, catalogue 14, lot 34 (1949)

Raymond E. Hartz

Private collector

Acquired privately in 1990 for the Gilder Lehrman Collection, donated in 2000 to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History on deposit at the New-York Historical Society

New York: July 6 - This letter was likely burned in the 1911 fire that destroyed much of the state archives

North Carolina: July 8 - Current location, if it survives, is unknown. The New York Times, August 13, 1865, reports that it was taken by a Union soldier when Sherman’s troops entered Raleigh on April 14, 1865

Pennsylvania: July 5 - Currently at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Acquired by Simon Gratz after 1870, as per historian and collector Lyman Copeland Draper in his An Essay on the Autographic Collections of the Signers... (New York, 1889)

Part of the Gratz Collection of Declaration Signers, then donated to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1917

Rhode Island: July 6 - Currently in the Lilly Library, Indiana University (this is the only letter that is still with the copy of Dunlap's broadside that it was originally sent with)

Henry Flynt. New York lawyer

Scribner’s, sold to Lilly in 1950

South Carolina: Date Unknown - Current location, if it survives, is unknown

Virginia: July 8 - Current location, if it survives, is unknown

Note

Record keeping during the Revolutionary period--and after--was highly disorganized. At the time, practically no plans were in place--or systematically implemented on a national or state level--to ensure important documents were protected or retained in archives. The Georgia State Archives was not established until 1918, and contains only a handful of records pertaining to the Revolutionary War.