Note 17 — CHAPTER EIGHT
Reading edition
Colonial Records, X, 634-635. The following resolution of Congress was entered in the minutes of the Council of Safety on July 5, 1776:
Resolved, That Copies of the Declaration be sent to the several Assemblies, Conventions, and Councils of Safety, and to the several Commanding Officers of the Continental Troops, that it be proclaimed in each of the United States, and at the Head of the Army.
By order of Congress. sign'd, JOHN HANCOCK, Presid't.
Provision was also made for the reading in Philadelphia at 12 noon on July 8, and letters were sent to Bucks, Chester, Northampton, Lancaster, and Berks counties with copies of the Declaration to be posted on Monday the 8th where elections for delegates were to be held. For some reason, the frontier counties of Bedford, Cumberland, Westmoreland, York, and Northumberland, contiguous to the Fair Play territory, were omitted from these instructions.