Goddard Declaration
On January 18, 1777, the Continental Congress ordered “an authenticated copy of the Declaration of Independency” for each new state. Mary Katharine Goddard printed them.
Goddard was born in New London, CT in 1738. As an adult, she moved to Baltimore, where she became the city’s postmaster – she likely was the first woman postmaster in colonial America – and the publisher of The Maryland Journal. She was well regarded enough that she secured the Congressional commission to produce the second printing of the Declaration of Independence.
The first printing had been authorized before New York had voted, so Goddard’s was the first printing to call the declaration “unanimous.” Goddard’s printing also was the first to list the names of the signers. As printer, her name appeared at the bottom of the page: the only woman’s name to appear on the Declaration of Independence.
This copy of the Declaration is in the Museum of Connecticut History at the Connecticut State Library in Hartford.
Credits
Mary Katharine Goddard’s Declaration of Independence is in the Museum of Connecticut History at the Connecticut State Library in Hartford.