“The Freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestic”: Reporting the Declaration of Independence in Boston

Posted on July 22, 2026

“The Freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestic”: Reporting the Declaration of Independence in Boston

Benjamin Edes promised in the masthead of his newspaper, the Boston Gazette and Country Journal, to provide “the freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestic.” On July 22, 1776—250 years ago today—his front-page news, while not entirely fresh, was seismic: the full text of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration was adopted by Congress on July 4, but it took time for the document to travel through the new United States. The first copies arrived in Massachusetts on July 13, and on July 18 it was read publicly in Boston. 

This issue of the Gazette, a weekly paper, was beaten to the scoop by the other Boston papers. The Declaration didn’t arrive in Boston in time for Edes to print it in his July 15 issue, but papers published on July 18 had enough time to typeset and print the full text. While Edes’ paper was behind the curve, it is likely that many of his subscribers first saw the text that their representatives had pledged to adopt on this page. From there, the Declaration spread farther, as subscribers lent their copies to friends or read them out loud to small audiences. 

The Declaration wasn’t the only fresh news Edes had for his readers. The same Bostonians who gathered to hear the Declaration read were mired in a smallpox epidemic, and much of this issue concerns laws passed to help end the epidemic through controlling inoculation and movement. The issue is also packed with war news, including a reprinted letter from Philadelphia. 

The letter describes the Declaration’s adoption as “the most important event that ever happened in the American Colonies, an event which will doubtless be celebrated through a long succession of future ages…and be considered as a grand Era in the history of the American States.” The writer was almost entirely right, except for the date they thought would be celebrated, “the first instant”—that is, the first day of the current month, July 1.    

See this issue of the Gazette in our “A Revolutionary Anthology: Revolutionary Possibilities” exhibit! Or learn about it (object ID MS.7317, property of Robert Nittolo) on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database: https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/31117