DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
FIRST PROCLAIMED IN WATERTOWN
18 JULY 1776
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 from the Mikmaq of Nova Scotia in town to negotiate a treaty of alliance with
the new United States.
Watertown, 18 July 2008 - 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 6:30 Friday 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.
Light refreshments will follow the
ceremony plus a look at the
Council Chamber (as long as daylight lasts).