We’re gathered here today to read the Declaration of Independence, adopted 200 years and one day ago, in Philadelphia, signed by delegates from the thirteen original colonies and sent out, by horseback, to all the land.
It arrived here in Massachusetts sometime after July 13, and before the 17th, when it was printed in Worcester by the presses of the Massachusetts Spy, owned by Isaiah Thomas — whose printing office now resides in Old Sturbridge Village just down the road.
The website <revolution250.org> tells us that…. Tradition states that Isaiah Thomas, the “Patriot-Printer” read the broadside form the front steps of the First Parish Church on Worcester Common.
The Provincial Congress considered how best to publicize the arrival of the Declaration and on the 17th of July, 1776 they reported to the House:
“In Council, Ordered, That the Declaration of Independence be printed; and a Copy sent to the Ministers of each Parish, of every Denomination, within this State; and that they severally be required to read the same to their respective Congregations, as soon as divine Service is ended, in the Afternoon, on the first Lord’s-Day after they shall have received it . . .
We’re reading this Document today, because this is the time and the place where it was read in 1776 – on the steps of the church building that stood here in those days (and under the trees because it’s too darned hot to actually stand out on the steps today)
It’s important to remember, that what you are hearing is not a description of how things were in 1776, not a description of how things are in 2026. What the Declaration is, is the declaration of an American Dream. This is what our ancestors wanted; it’s what we want our world to be too, this is the goal towards which we always work.
It was never perfect — The Boston Globe noted this week that there were changes in the text of the Declaration right up to the last minute.
There are 27 detailed grievances against the king outlined in the Declaration — but there was meant to be a 28th. Thomas Jefferson’s scathing indictment of the slave trade was struck from the document on the eve of the signing, after protests by southern and northern delegates alike.
Slavery then, racism now, help us see the distance between the dream and the reality. So we read to remind ourselves of the task we join in as citizens of this country — to acknowledge the gaps and to work for the dream.
You’ll be invited, at the end of the reading, to join us in pledging your lives, your fortunes, your sacred honor to this dream, this American dream, just as our ancestors did on that first Independence Day.
Let the reading begin!
© 2026, Virginia H. Child
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 