On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Massachusetts, the Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony of the State House by Col. Thomas Crafts to a crowd of the city’s citizens gathered in King Street. Abigail Adams was in the crowd and later wrote to her husband to describe the event:

Last Thursday after hearing a very Good Sermon I went with the Multitude into Kings Street to hear the proclamation for independance read and proclamed. Some Field peices with the Train were brought there, the troops appeard under Arms and all the inhabitants assembled there (the small pox prevented many thousand from the Country). When Col. Crafts read from the Belcona of the State House the Proclamation, great attention was given to every word. As soon as he ended, the cry from the Belcona, was God Save our American States and then 3 cheers which rended the air, the Bells rang, the privateers fired, the forts and Batteries, the cannon were discharged, the platoons followed and every face appeard joyfull. Mr. Bowdoin then gave a Sentiment, Stability and perpetuity to American independance. After dinner the kings arms were taken down from the State House and every vestage of him from every place in which it appeard and burnt in King Street. Thus ends royall Authority in this State, and all the people shall say Amen.

“Belcona” is an 18th Century alternative spelling of “balcony.” Mr. Bowdoin is James Bowdoin, President of the executive council of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, effectively making him governor of Massachusetts at the time. Bowdoin was plagued with illness throughout the Revolution and had a limited role in government at times, but would be officially elected Governor in 1785.

Sources: https://www.masshist.org/objects/cabinet/july2002/july2002.htm; “Abigail Adams to John Adams, 21 July 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0033. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 2, June 1776 – March 1778, ed. L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 55–57.]; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bowdoin

You can visit the Old State House in Boston today to see the scene of the reading of the Declaration.

Source: https://www.nps.gov/bost/learn/historyculture/osh.htm