NEWBURYPORT – The Custom House Maritime Museum, which has been awarded $150,000 over three years by the prestigious Cummings Foundation, has added a second historical copy of the Declaration of Independence for display during the 250th national anniversary this July.
A rare 1833 copy of the Declaration of Independence will be on display at the museum for one month in celebration of the 250th anniversary of our nation. Printed on fine rice paper, the highly prized early American artifact, one a few hundred that are known to survive, will be on loan for the public at the museum.
“It is amazing that our museum will have not one but two exquisite examples of the Declaration of Independence. We are extremely grateful to the private collector who graciously agreed to loan us this rare artifact for the occasion of our 250th birthday,” said Bob Cronin, chair of the museum board.
The other copy is an extremely rare textile with the Declaration printed on it in 1820, and which was recently purchased by the Custom House.
“In addition to these presentations, a portrait of George Washington by 19th-Century artist Jane Stuart will be displayed alongside other artifacts that link Washington and Hancock to Newburyport. The Washington portrait is on loan from the Newburyport Public Library, along with a fine painting of Nathaniel Tracy,” executive director James Russell said.
“A special exhibition, titled “Ink, Iron & Independence,” will open to members on June 18 and to the public on June 19. The print will be on display from June 19 through July 17 when it will be returned to the private collector”, states Julia Bradley, Senior manager and Director of Collections.
Custom House was among 150 non-profit organizations to receive funding through the Cummings Foundation’s annual grant program, which awarded $35 million this year. Chosen through a competitive review process that drew a record 959 applicants, the museum will receive $150,000 over three years.
“The CHMM has made significant strides in new initiatives since 2024”, Russell said. “These initiatives, like the kids’ Discovery Center, need time to mature and will strengthen the fabric of this community. Cummings Foundation support provides the much-needed runway to let these transformations incubate, take root and flourish, while simultaneously providing the breathing space for the museum’s Board to build up a robust major-donor support structure.”
This year, the Woburn-based Cummings Foundation shifted to fully unrestricted funding, allowing recipients to direct grant dollars where they are needed most. Foundation executive director and trustee Joyce Vyriotes said that “nonprofit professionals are closest to the challenges facing their communities, making them best positioned to determine where and how new funds will drive the greatest impact. By providing increased, flexible funding, we hope to strengthen organizations’ long-term stability and help them respond to evolving community needs.”
Cronin said, “The CHMM pivoted from its traditional focus of adult programming and moved into a space that increasingly serves younger audiences.”
In 2023, children and youth accounted for 5-10 percent of attendees. Rapid implementation of new initiatives increased children and youth participation to 35 percent.
“Importantly, today our attendees represent a broad span of ages, race and ethnicities, plus a much broader socioeconomic spectrum. The driving factor in this shift was a major renovation and build-out of a children’s Discovery Center, which will soon be full handicap accessible.”
This Center now commands a third of the total museum space. It has expanded and now operates outdoors during the summer.
As a largely volunteer-run museum with two full time staff, volunteers contributed 7,700 hours donated in 2025. In 2026, the paid summer internship program attracted six Newburyport High School students and six college students from the area.
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who earlier studied law with Theophilus Parsons in Newburyport (1787-1789), commissioned engraver William J. Stone to create an exact, full-size facsimile of the Declaration of Independence. He was concerned because the original 1776 Declaration was already fading and deteriorating before the young nation’s 50th anniversary.
The signatures of the 56 delegates were carefully copied. Stone spent two years perfecting the plate and after he had printed the 200 copies ordered, his original engraved plate remained with the Department of State.
A decade later, Peter Force (1790-1868), historian, publisher and mayor of Washington D.C., created a massive 20-volume anthology entitled American Archives, containing copies of key letters, documents, and broadsides from the Revolutionary War. Congress agreed to fund an edition of 1,500 sets, but sales were disappointing and only 500 to 1,000 copies were printed.
The Declaration was first read in Newburyport on July 19, 1776.
The Museum of Old Newbury, the Custom House Maritime Museum, Lowell’s Boat Shop, the First Religious Society, Theater in the Open, the City of Newburyport, the Greater Newburyport Chamber of Commerce and many more community partners will present Newburyport 250 Declaration of Independence Day: The Die Is Cast at 1:30 p.m., Sunday, July 19, with a procession to Market Square, commemorating the 250th anniversary of the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Newburyport.
This event is sponsored in part by the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism (MOTT) as part of the statewide MA250 campaign. A public commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Newburyport’s first reading of the Declaration of Independence, with community readings, Revolutionary soldiers, sailors, and colonial-era townspeople, ceremonial music and salutes, the arrival of two schooners honored by privateers on board, and with public access to the schooners until 5:30 p.m., plus activities for families at the Custom House.
