Cooperative Living January 2020 - 22

Co-opPeople | by George Stuteville, Contributing Writer
'We hold these truths to be self-evident'
Maryland Man Puts Declaration's Words on Display
his will be a big year
in American politics and
Ben Marchi has his eye on
the prize. For him, the prize is
the revolutionary document that
started it all - the Declaration
of Independence.
And Marchi can get a first-hand
look at one of the earliest copies
any time he wants.
Ben Marchi
T
He owns an elegant 1818
engraving, a version renowned as
the first to display the hand-copied
facsimile signatures of the original Philadelphia patriots.
His 200-year-old document is frequently on loan. For
example, he put it on display last September at Maryland's
Talbot County Free Library where he gave a talk about the
document to a chapter of the Daughters of the American
Revolution.
Marchi, who owns Home Instead Senior Care in Easton
with his wife Jenna, said he expects and hopes he will get
more exhibition requests throughout Delmarva during what
promises to be an intense election year when a lot of attention
will be on America's traditions.
" It was meant from the very beginning to be shared, " says
Marchi, speaking quietly and reverentially about not only his
prize but the spirit of the Declaration and how it has meshed
within his life.
YOUTHFUL IMPRESSION
The love started when he was a kid growing up in Albemarle
County in Central Virginia, in the shadow of the hills circling
Monticello, the plantation owned by the Declaration's principal
author, Thomas Jefferson.
" We grew up surrounded with the legacy of Jefferson. You
couldn't get away from it, nor should you want to, " Marchi says.
Add to that, his first name is Benjamin because Marchi's
father had just finished reading the " Autobiography of Benjamin
Franklin " at almost the same time his son was born in 1978.
Also a signer, Franklin worked with Jefferson in editing and
revising the draft.
By age 12, Marchi was already a serious student of American
Revolutionary history and his fascination with politics
continues to this day.
Meant for publication from its inception, about 200 copies
were produced for members of the Continental Congress and
public distribution in the Philadelphia printshop of John
Dunlap on the night of July 4, 1776.
Two days later, the Declaration ran on the front page of
the Pennsylvania Evening Post, the first newspaper to carry
20 | Cooperative Living | January 2020
In a letter to President John Adams, Tyler laid out his
vision: " I have executed and published an elegant copy of the
Declaration of American Independence, being the first and
only copy ever published with facsimiles of the signatures of
that ever venerated band of patriots who signed it. "
Tyler went on to describe it as " the same size of the original
and is afforded at a price which, almost every American can
have it in his power possess a correct copy of the charter of
his freedom. "
Marchi said Tyler's version originated from the concept of
another printer, John Binns, who in 1816 had widely advertised
(continued on page 21)
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the text, scooping Dunlap's newspaper.
Only 24 precious copies of the original Dunlap broadsheet
exist, possessed mostly by institutions and universities.
But collectors like Marchi can acquire important authentic
versions.
SECOND-GENERATION DECLARATIONS
About a decade ago, Seth Kaller, a New York dealer in
historic museum-quality American documents, offered Marchi
an 1818 engraving by another Ben - Benjamin Owen Tyler,
a professor of penmanship from New York.
Marchi, who had long revered the words of the Declaration,
said he fell in love with the sheer artistry of the Tyler
freehanded facsimile, particularly the reproductions of the
autographs of the 56 signers.
Never had the autographs of the original signers been
displayed, a feature Tyler highlighted 200 years ago in
marketing his declaration.
Marchi's copy of the Declaration
of Independence receives scrutiny
at a Daughters of the American
Revolution event.
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Cooperative Living January 2020

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