Isaiah Thomas and the Declaration of Independence

Worcester, Massachusetts, claims to be the site of the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in New England. A bronze star and plaque on the sidewalk in front of Worcester’s City Hall commemorates the event. The plaque reads:

Here July 14, 1776 the Declaration of Independence was first publicly read in New England by Isaiah Thomas from the western porch of the meeting-house later known as the Old South Church.

Many writers have repeated one or more aspects of this claim. More surely will. None provide a primary source which indicates the Declaration was read to the public outside Worcester’s meeting-house on July 14, 1776, or that it was read by Isaiah Thomas.

The American Antiquarian Society, which Thomas founded in Worcester in 1812, is more circumspect. The Society’s website indicates that it “is believed” the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in New England took place in Worcester. Thomas, they write, “is said to have intercepted a post rider bound for Boston carrying a copy of the Declaration and subsequently read it to a large crowd from the roof of the portico of the Worcester Meeting House.” The Society goes on to share that: “on July 22, a bigger and more formal celebration took place, coverage of which appeared in the July 24, 1776, issue of Thomas’s newspaper, the Massachusetts Spy.”^[1]