Staff at the Wells, Maine town clerk's office recently located a handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence while researching municipal archives.
The transcription was made in July 1776 by Town Clerk Nathaniel Wells, acting on orders from the Massachusetts Council that each town clerk record the declaration in official town books.
Maine was part of Massachusetts until 1820, and the council had directed that the declaration be read aloud and then delivered to clerks for entry into local records.
The Wells Town Record Book contains both the full declaration text and the original distribution instructions, providing a direct link to the document's initial dissemination.
Printed Dunlap broadsides were distributed to the colonies starting July 4, 1776, but only 26 of those broadsides are known to survive today, according to the National Archives.
Separately, the Massachusetts assembly commissioned Salem printer Ezekiel Russell to produce broadsides for Christian ministers to read to congregations; only an estimated 12 to 21 Russell broadsides remain.
The Maine State Archives holds two of the Russell broadsides, while the Wells manuscript represents a contemporaneous clerk's handwritten record rather than a printed broadside.
The town announced the find in a Facebook post, noting the record has been preserved in the clerk's archives for 250 years.
Handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence discovered in Maine
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