| It seems fitting that it is this year, when so much has changed, that an unexpected copy of the Declaration of Indepence is rediscovered, Wishing you and yours an Independence Day to remember, dear Reader, full of all the usual pleasures and the joy of seeing the freedoms that generation fought for being taken back from those who believe themselves to be our lords and masters. |
The manuscript was discovered at the West Sussex Record Office in the southern English city of Chichester by a team of researchers led by two Harvard University academics.
Tests supported the hypothesis that it was produced in the 1780s, West Sussex County Council said earlier this week -- just a few years after the declaration itself was issued in 1776.
The document "is the only other contemporary manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence on parchment apart from the signed copy at the National Archives in Washington DC," known as the Matlack Declaration, a council statement said earlier this week.
There are other printed parchment copies and handwritten copies on paper but the Sussex Declaration, as it has been dubbed, and the Matlack Declaration in Washington are the only two known ceremonial parchment copies of the declaration.
Researchers said X-ray fluorescence analysis of the document found a high iron content in holes in the corner of the parchment, indicating that nails may have been used to hang it.
DNA tests also revealed the parchment was made of sheepskin.
The parchment is believed to originally belong to Charles Lennox, the Third Duke of Richmond, an army officer and politician known as the "Radical Duke" for his support of American colonists during the Revolution.