DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
FIRST PROCLAIMED IN WATERTOWN
18 JULY 1776
- A copy of the Declaration of Independence,
having been sent by John Hancock from Philadelphia, is proclaimed to the populace from a window of the Council Chamber followed
by rousing cheers and hearty toasts.
“We
like it well,” observed Ambrose Var, delegate of the Maliseet Tribe
in town to negotiate a treaty of alliance with the new United States.
-
Now that the Historical Society of Watertown has succeeded in the restoration of the Edmund Fowle House, once the seat of
Massachusetts’s executive branch at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence will once
again be read from a window of the newly re-discovered Council Chamber. The ceremony will begin at 10 AM, Saturday the
18th of July in front of the Fowle House, 28 Marshall St. Watertown. Local colonial re-enactors and Native
American guests will be on hand and the public is welcome to attend this anniversary of Watertown’s first Independence
Day.