From 1776 to 1823 - The Declaration of Independence & the Rhode Island State Archives

The oldest copy at the State Archives is a broadside printed by Solomon Southwick, printer to the colony and editor of the Newport Mercury. He printed the document on a printing press once owned by James Franklin (older brother to Benjamin and husband of Ann Franklin).

The printing press used by James Franklin, and eventually Solomon Southwick, is on display at the Museum of Newport History. 
A model recreation is featured earlier in this story. 

By authority of the General Assembly, the Southwick Broadside was set from the Dunlap Broadside sometime on or around July 12, 1776 and was the official state copy of the Declaration. 

Southwick’s Broadside was distributed to the twenty-eight (at the time) towns in the colony of Rhode Island. 

The first printing was incorrectly dated June 13th. The second printing correctly dates the document as July 12th.

The copy here at the Rhode Island State Archives is one of six-eight copies known to have survived from 1776.

Following Dunlap, the next official broadside is known as the Goddard printing, named after Mary Katherine Goddard (printer and postmaster of Baltimore) and was the first to include the names of the signers. 

The Rhode Island copy, seen here, received conservation work in 2018 at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in North Andover, MA to restore the document following deterioration from age. 

This copy is one of nine known to exist today. 

The document was the first printing to include the names of all signers of the Declaration, and additionally lists Mary Katherine Goddard, the printer's, name on the bottom, yet, it is crossed out. 

This version is signed and endorsed by John Hancock as a True Copy and was sent to the General Assembly in 1777. This is one of the documents at the State Archives bearing his signature, but not the only one!

In 1820, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned William J. Stone to engrave a facsimile of the engrossed and signed vellum, which was already fading. 

Stone completed his copper engraving by 1823, and 200 copies of the Stone engraving were printed and sent out to dignitaries, surviving signers, and other prominent early Americans. 

It is a facsimile of the original engrossed copy on view at the National Archives in Washington, DC. Of the copies at the State Archives, this is the printing most identify with because it harkens so directly to the original and is a faithful recreation, both art and document.

Stephen Hopkins was born in Scituate (then a part of Providence), Rhode Island, on the seventh of March, 1707. A self-educated man, he served as a member and Speaker of the Rhode Island Assembly, and in 1754 was a Delegate to the Albany Convention in 1776.

William Ellery was born in Newport, Rhode Island, in December of 1727. Under the tutelage of his prominent father, Benjamin Ellery, he attended Harvard College and graduated at the age of 15. He searched for the right career for many years, worked as a merchant, then a collector of customs, and later as the Clerk of the Rhode Island General Assembly. 

Representing the balance of the pendulum between citizens and government, the “Bill of Rights” is one of the most significant & cherished documents guaranteeing American liberty.  

In 1789, during the debates on the adoption of the United States Constitution, opponents, including Rhode Island, feared the document as drafted did not provide redress from future tyrannical governments or the violation of individual civil rights.  

The original Constitution as drafted did not contain important guarantees including limiting and placing checks on federal power. As a consequence, the First Congress proposed to the State legislatures amendments that would ensure the liberty of its citizenry. 

An original copy of these amendments as signed by President John Adams, dated March 4, 1789, is in the custody of the Secretary of State in the Rhode Island State Archives.   

James Madison had originally included the amendments into the text of the Constitution rather than adding them at the end, but this changed at the intervention of Roger Sherman of Connecticut. The original order of amendments coincides with the order of the sections of the Constitution they would have modified.

Ratified on December 15, 1791.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia waited until 1939 to ratify.