The Sussex Declaration
Slits in the centre of the parchment: these may indicate that, when folded, the Sussex Declaration could have been sealed or pinned in some fashion
Seal/rodent damage: this symmetrical damage occurred when the document was folded. One hypothesis is that it is the result of rodent damage; the document may have been stored in a garden shed before being deposited at WSRO. However, documents deposited at the same time from the same source do not show signs of rodent damage which may suggest that the areas of loss on the Sussex Declaration were caused by a seal or clasp.
Nail holes: X-ray fluorescence analysis revealed high iron content in holes in the corner of the parchment, providing supporting evidence for the use of iron nails to hang the parchment at some point, suggesting that it may have been displayed publicly.
Scrambled list of names: on the original Declaration of Independence the names of the signers are grouped by state, running from north to south when read from right to left. On the Sussex Declaration the clerk appears to have deliberately broken up the geographically related names. No state grouping remains intact and the north to south geography of the original list of signatories is thoroughly obscured.
Misspelled names: several of the names on the Sussex Declaration are misspelled. Three are alternative spellings (Pinn for Penn; Rutlidge for Rutledge; Hayward for Heyward). Others seem to be genuine misspellings (Floys for Floyd; Harnson for Harrison; M. Keap for McKean; Storkton for Stockton; Witherspoare for Witherspoon). These are probably mistakes made by the clerk when reading the signatures on another version of the declaration.
Scraped area at top: This scraped area suggests the erasure of an error; the clerk would have scraped off the top layer of the parchment to remove the mistake, leaving a clear surface on which to write the correction. X-ray fluorescence capture revealed a partially inscribed date in this area reading either ‘July 4, 178’ or ‘July 4, 179’.
Manuscript copy, on parchment, of the Declaration in Congress of the thirteen United States of America, 4 July 1776
