Rare Books
Copy of John Holt's broadside of the Declaration of Independence with the "Extract from the Minutes" containing the draft version of the resolution of the Fourth Provincial Congress of New York approving the Declaration of Independence; attested by Robert Benson (1739-1823), a secretary of the Fourth Provincial Congress in White Plains. With manuscript annotations by John McKesson (1734-1798), another secretary of the Fourth Provincial Congress in White Plains.
Within an elaborate border of type ornaments; the Declaration of Independence is printed in two columns separated by a line of ornaments. The typeset is similar to the broadside that Holt published on July 11, 1776, as an insert in that day's issue of "The New York Journal or General Advertiser.”
The manuscript notes on the verso are drafts of the minutes taken on the morning and afternoon of July 9, 1776. The morning entry documents the seating of the delegates from Cumberland County, and the afternoon entry, the tally of the votes for the resolution approving the Declaration of Independence. The annotations on the recto expand and amend the text of the resolution to include the clause authorizing the New York delegates at the Second Continental Congress to vote for "all such measures as they may deem conducive to the happiness & welfare of the United States of America." The last note is dated July 30, 1776 and describes the seating of the delegates from Gloucester County.
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