One of only two parchment copies of America’s Declaration of Independence was found in a record office in West Sussex. It was filed away without fanfare for half a century. The only other parchment copy is maintained by the National Archives in Washington, D.C., according to Bostonglobe.com.
The newly discovered document, which the two have dated to the 1780s, was found in the town of Chichester archives. Believed to have originally belonged to Duke of Richmond who was known as the “Radical Duke,’’ for the support he gave to Americans during the Revolutionary War, the researchers said.
Researchers from Harvard University were shocked when they found the manuscript while compiling a database of later reproductions of the declaration. However, staff at the West Sussex Record Office, in Chichester, had not taken a particular interest in the copy, before the team from Harvard got in touch.
Danielle Allen, a Harvard professor, said “They had not dated it and they did not know what they had,” she told The Telegraph. “There are lots of later reproductions floating around. The assumption was probably there are lots of copies so this one didn’t stand out. It was news to them to discover what a special document this was.”
“It was super surprising to discover such a very precious item tucked away in a local record office. We want to celebrate them for having preserved it for the last 50 years, she added.”
Researchers are now trying to work out how the copy came to be in the corner of England.
According to staff at the records office, a local man, who apparently worked for a law firm representing the Dukes of Richmond, handed it into them in 1956.
The record office is now working with the university as well as historians at the British Library and the American Library of Congress to carry out further tests on the manuscript.
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