For the Town Clerk
This broadside was sent to Portsmouth in the summer of 1776 and has remained in the town clerk’s office ever since
You can find many documents in a town clerk’s office. Birth, marriage, and death certificates, licenses, meeting minutes, property records—the list goes on, depending on the town. And, in the town of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, you can see the Declaration of Independence.
Solomon Southwick, Broadside of the Declaration of Independence, ca. July 13, 1776, Portsmouth Town Hall
In nearby Newport in July 1776, Solomon Southwick printed broadsides of the Declaration of Independence by order of the Rhode Island General Assembly. He formatted the text in a single, wide column, as John Dunlap had done in Philadelphia. What distinguishes Southwick’s broadside is the order at the bottom with the assembly’s publication instructions. Henry Ward, the assembly’s secretary, authorized these broadsides with his signature before they were sent out to be read at town meetings throughout Rhode Island. The back of the broadside was addressed: “For The Town Clerk Portsmouth,” John Thurston.
Detail (reverse), Solomon Southwick, Broadside of the Declaration of Independence, ca. July 13, 1776, Portsmouth Town Hall
This inscription came as a surprise to the woman who was the town clerk more than two centuries after Thurston held the position. In the 1980s, after many years framed and hanging in the town clerk’s office, the Southwick broadside was taken down and stored behind a copier and file cabinet. When the Public Works Department moved the cabinet to paint the office, the broadside was rediscovered. Portsmouth’s longtime police chief, John Pierce, had remembered seeing the Declaration hanging in the town clerk’s office for decades and, believing that it was important, he urged the then-clerk, Carol Zinno, to have the broadside examined. Through expert analysis and comparison with other Southwick broadsides, Zinno and Pierce confirmed that it dated to July 1776. When the document was removed from the frame, they got further confirmation from the note on the back. This broadside was sent to Portsmouth in the summer of 1776 and has remained in the town clerk’s office ever since.
The Southwick broadside in Portsmouth is still framed, but in a new frame that allows the address on the back to be seen. It is kept in the vault in the archives and is available to view by appointment with the town clerk.
Portsmouth Town Hall
Where to See It In Person: Portsmouth Town Hall
