\u201cRead This! The History of Media in Northampton County, exploring the power of print, information, and misinformation in Northampton County during the American Revolution and beyond,\u201d<\/a> historian Tim Betz is poking holes in the long-told story.<\/p>\nBetz, the museum\u2019s curator of exhibitions and programming, has spent years researching the reading and found only a single document describing the event \u2014 a short Philadelphia newspaper article.<\/p>\n
In the flowery prose of the time, the July 11, 1776, article describes the local light infantry marching to the Northampton County courthouse with drums and fifes playing, while a large crowd cheered \u201chuzzah!\u201d and spontaneously chanted \u201cMay God long preserve and unite the free and independent states of America!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would take it with a grain of salt,\u201d Betz said. \u201cThere were certainly people in that crowd who would not have celebrated. This was treason against one of the largest empires on the planet. And it\u2019s 1776, so they don\u2019t know what we know, that America is going to win the war.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furthermore, Betz said, there\u2019s no hard evidence that Levers did the reading. While Levers\u2019 role is widely accepted, modern historians cannot explain why Levers never wrote about it, though he wrote prolifically on other subjects. For Betz, that makes it \u201cpossible, but highly unlikely\u201d that Levers read the document to the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of what we rely on are passed-down stories, kind of like whisper down the lane of history,\u201d Betz said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no connection of Levers to the reading of the Declaration, other than family myth,\u201d said Sigal Museum Executive Director Megan van Ravenswaay. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting, as an American, to see how little we know about the event.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ravensway likened the Levers connection to the Betsy Ross story. While generations of the Ross family passed down the legend of George Washington\u2019s hiring seamstress Elizabeth Griscom Ross to sew the first American flag, historians have found no contemporary diaries, letters or government records supporting the 1776 meeting with Washington or a special flag commission, according to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.<\/p>\n
Levers\u2019 family still lives in Easton and has been active in its Heritage Day tradition, with numerous family members reenacting the reading. Robert Levers, 83, a direct descendant who read the declaration aloud at the 1976 bicentennial festival on Centre Square, issued a statement about the exhibit on behalf of the family: \u201cTo dispute 250 years of history presented\u00a0for generations through family history, Heritage Day celebrations, historical markers, courthouse artwork and community memory\u00a0because of an unproved\u00a0opinion is absolutely preposterous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another long-held belief \u2014 that the Easton Flag, one of the first non-Colonial flags in the 13 colonies and now the city\u2019s municipal flag, was flown during the reading \u2014 is likely also false, Betz said. Historians now believe it was created closer to the War of 1812.<\/p>\n
Even if Easton\u2019s reading of the Declaration of Independence has been embellished over the centuries, there is no doubt that Northampton County played a pivotal role in the birth of the nation. With its proximity to natural waterways and strategic location between Philadelphia and New York, the city of about 500 people was a meeting place and supply route for revolutionary fighters.<\/p>\n
The Easton community will celebrate the city\u2019s unique connection to the Declaration of Independence at Heritage Day on July 11.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cAmerica\u2019s 250th anniversary presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to showcase Easton\u2019s significance in our nation\u2019s history,\u201d said Jared Mast, executive director of the Greater Easton Development Partnership, which organizes the festival. \u201cThis year\u2019s Heritage Day is more than just a repeat of an annual tradition. It\u2019s part of a larger national celebration that recognizes the people, places and moments that helped shape the United States. We hope to set a new standard this year and build on it in the years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sigal Museum exhibit, which includes a wide range of media, including a register of the Lehigh Valley\u2019s enslaved persons and an interactive retelling of Richard Nixon\u2019s \u201cIn Event of Moon Disaster\u201d alternate Apollo 11 speech, continues through July 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The July 8, 1776, reading of the Declaration of Independence on the steps of Easton\u2019s courthouse is celebrated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,2181,182,139,434,28,432],"class_list":["post-235078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-easton","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-northampton-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}