Everything about John Dunlap totally explained
John Dunlap (
1747 –
November 27,
1812) was the
printer of the first copies of the
Declaration of Independence and one of the most successful American printers of his era.
Dunlap was born in
Strabane,
County Tyrone,
Northern Ireland. In 1757, when he was ten years old, he went to work as an apprentice to his uncle, William Dunlap, a printer and bookseller in
Philadelphia. In 1766, William Dunlap left the business in the care of his nephew. John eventually bought the business, and at first made a living by printing sermons and probably broadsides and handbills too. In November 1771, Dunlap began the publication of the
Pennsylvania Packet, or General Advertiser, a weekly newspaper. In 1773 he married Elizabeth Hayes Ellison.
During the
American Revolutionary War, Dunlap became an officer in the
First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, and saw action with
George Washington at the battles of
Trenton and
Princeton. He continued in the First City Troop after the war, rising to the rank of major, and leading Pennsylvania's cavalry militia to help suppress the
Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.
In 1776, Dunlap secured a lucrative printing contract for the
Continental Congress. In July 1776, fighting between the American colonists and the
British forces had been going on for nearly a year. On
July 2, the
Second Continental Congress voted to
declare independence, and on
July 4 they agreed to the final wording of the Declaration of Independence. That evening
John Hancock ordered Dunlap to print
broadside copies of the declaration. Dunlap printed perhaps 200 broadsides, since known as the
Dunlap broadsides, which were the first published versions of the Declaration.
Dunlap also printed items for Pennsylvania's revolutionary government. In 1777 he took over the printing of the
Journals of the Continental Congress from
Robert Aitken, but lost the contract in 1779 after printing in his newspaper a letter from
Thomas Paine that leaked news of the secret French aid to the Americans.
In 1784, Dunlap's paper became a daily with a new title: the
North American and United States Gazette. It wasn't the first daily in the United States—the
Pennsylvania Evening Post beat him to the punch in 1783—but it became the first successful daily.
Dunlap's major financial success came from real estate speculation. During the American Revolution, he bought property confiscated from
Loyalists who refused to take Pennsylvania's new
loyalty oath. After the war, he bought land in
Kentucky. By 1795, when he was forty-eight, he was able to retire with a sizable estate. Retirement didn't agree with him, however: according to his friend, Dr.
Benjamin Rush, Dunlap became a drunkard in his final years. He died in Philadelphia.
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