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).