WITHDRAWN. 4 pp on a single folded sheet. Each leaf approximately 13½x8". Framed unfolded between two panes of glass so all text is viewable. Overall 16x18½".

John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail on July 3rd, 1776 about the momentous event that had taken place the day before on July 2nd, and declared that the day the vote was taken to declare independence, "The Second Day of July 1776, with be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America." Though it took until the fourth to hammer out the exact language that everyone would accept in the formal declaration, the present issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette for July 3, 1776 was the first printed mention of the historic event. Appearing on page 2, in the far right column and sandwiched between other bits of decidedly less momentous news appears the following single sentence: "Yesterday the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS declared the UNITED COLONIES FREE and INDEPENDENT STATES." Evans 15003. Very rare, we have traced only one copy to appear at auction in the past 30 years.