{"id":536,"date":"2026-06-05T10:42:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T10:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=536"},"modified":"2026-06-05T10:42:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T10:42:59","slug":"a-jewish-merchant-from-market-street-mailed-a-copy-of-the-declaration-of-independence-250-years-ago-its-back-in-philly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=536","title":{"rendered":"A Jewish merchant from Market Street mailed a copy of the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago. It\u2019s back in Philly."},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div><audio><\/audio><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Jonas Phillips had been living with the Declaration of Independence for a little more than three weeks by late July 1776, when one scorching Philadelphia day he decided he should go ahead and send a copy to his relative Gumpel. <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=534\">\u26bd Kickin\u2019 up dust | Sports Daily Newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Gumpel Samson, a cousin and business partner who lived in Amsterdam, must have had a lively curiosity in such things as rebellion and independence. Enough so, anyway, that Phillips, a Jewish immigrant patriot and civil rights leader, folded a broadside of the declaration that he likely had torn from the window of a Market Street shop, stuffed it into an envelope, and sent it on the next tall ship out of Philly.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>This copy of the declaration then took its own trip \u2014 one beginning in those feverish Philly days in 1776 when independence was still new, and spanning nearly two and a half centuries and a continent and an ocean, before finding its way back to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>It is a story that only recently has been pieced back together \u2014 and is now told at the Museum of the American Revolution, where Phillips\u2019 copy of America\u2019s most famous broadside is on display.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIt helps answer some of the \u2018who\u2019 and \u2018how\u2019 and \u2018why\u2019 questions about the initial spread of the Declaration of Independence,\u201d Matthew Skic, director of collections and exhibitions at the museum, said of the rare founding document, now on special loan to the museum from the National Archives of the United Kingdom. \u201cWho were the people that were in the crowd when the declaration was first read aloud on July 8? Who were the people that owned these broadsides and first read from them?\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<h3>\u2018A declaration of that whole country\u2019 <\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>In July 1776, in his creased note to Gumpel Samson \u2014 written in Yiddish to confuse British naval officers searching ships \u2014 Phillips kept it brief, explaining only that he was sharing \u201ca declaration of that whole country,\u201d meaning the newly formed United States. He also included a bill of exchange for some money to send along to his mother in Germany. <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>There are 26 known surviving copies of the roughly 200 original broadside printings of the Declaration of Independence that Philly printer John Dunlap hastily produced on demand on the night of July 4, 1776. Known as \u201cDunlap Broadsides,\u201d these rare finds represent a physical link to that summer in Philadelphia. These declarations were printed on imported Dutch paper to get the word out: America is free!<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Phillips owned a shop just doors away from the printing office owned by Dunlap, an immigrant, too, from Northern Ireland. The German immigrant and his wife, Rebecca, had 21 children. A patriot \u2014 he would later join the Philadelphia militia \u2014 he helped found Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia. In 1787, Phillips addressed the Continental Convention in Philadelphia on religious freedom, even writing to George Washington on behalf of Jewish veterans.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=532\">Gaudreau family unveils new playground at a school they\u2019ve long called home: \u2018I love how it\u2019s in honor of the boys\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>At the time, the Jewish community in Philadelphia was small but thriving, said Emily Sneff, guest curator of the Museum of the American Revolution\u2019s grand 250th exhibit, \u201cThe Declaration\u2019s Journey,\u201d which features Phillips\u2019 copy of the declaration and runs through Jan. 3, 2027.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s advocating to make sure that Jewish people who fought for independence, who pushed for independence and the rights that are promised in the declaration, are able to actually serve in civic life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<h3>Connecting the dots<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>In 2022, Sneff, a Philly-based historian who grew up in Collegeville, was preparing the museum exhibit \u2014 and researching her new book, <i>When the Declaration Was News<\/i>, an account of how word of the declaration spread in 1776, which includes Jonas Phillips\u2019 story \u2014 when she \u201cconnected the dots,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Despite his precaution, Phillips\u2019 broadside of the declaration never made it to Samson\u2019s doorstep. Along with the note and bill of exchange, it fell into the hands of the British, who stashed it away like a bad memory.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Sneff had already rifled through intercepted correspondences in the British archives, where the long known-about confiscated broadside had been stored.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Now, following tiny, jumbled filing codes that British paper pushers had inked onto the contraband documents sometime during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria, Sneff linked the broadside to Phillips\u2019 letter and promissory note for his mother. She had provided what every historian wants \u2014 a backstory \u2014 for a confiscated copy of America\u2019s creed stamped with the mark of \u201cHer Majesty\u2019s State Paper Office.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s such a Philadelphia story,\u201d Sneff said during a recent afternoon at the museum. \u201cIt just shows how Philadelphia was part of the wider world in 1776. This declaration is emanating from Philadelphia, and it\u2019s being enclosed in a letter that\u2019s not written in English. It\u2019s written in Yiddish. It\u2019s a cool way of understanding the founding document from a different perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=530\">Photos Phillies vs Padres<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The copy of the Declaration of Independence Jonas Phillips mailed to his relative Gumpel in July 1776 represents one of the 26 surviving original broadsides of the founding document.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Jewish merchant from Market Street mailed a copy of the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago. 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