Description:

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence, Huntington Printing

Hartford engraver and master calligrapher Eleazer Huntington followed Benjamin Owen Tyler’s example, but reduced the size to make this scarce early engraving of the Declaration of Independence more affordable.

Engraved document by Eleazer Huntington, ca. 1820-1824. Although the best bibliographies state that the Huntington prints were made in 1820-1824, we haven’t seen original evidence to confirm. It is possible that Huntington created this facsimile after the Stone/Force printings. 1 p., framed to 30.5” x 35.75”.

In the period following the War of 1812, Americans began to look back for the first time on the nation’s founding; the Republic was forty years old, and the generation that had signed the Declaration of Independence was passing away. Many founding documents, such as the debates of the Constitutional Convention, had not been widely published. Even the Declaration of Independence itself, as created, was largely unknown to Americans. Several entrepreneurs, sensing the national mood, set out to print reproductions of the document.

The first to do so was a writing master named Benjamin Owen Tyler, who created a decorative version of the Declaration and published it in 1818. Then, a Hartford engraver and penmanship author named Eleazer Huntington followed Tyler’s example by creating a calligraphic facsimile of the Declaration. Huntington stripped out the ornamentation that Tyler had added, and reduced the size to make it more affordable.

Eleazer Huntington (1789-1852) was born in Connecticut and became an engraver, printer, and publisher in Hartford. He married Maria Hinsdale in 1817, and they had eight children. In 1816, he published "Introduction to the Art of Penmanship; or, a New and Improved System of Round and Running Hands", a brief pamphlet of eighteen pages with illustrations, and he published a second edition in 1821. Three years later, he published "The American Penman, Comprising the Art of Writing, Plain and Ornamental; Designed as a Standard Work, for the Use of Schools", and issued other editions in 1825 and 1830. In 1832, Huntington acquired Benjamin Owen Tyler’s Declaration of Independence plates. In 1839, Huntington announced that he was changing his business for the benefit of his health and sold his engraving plates, including the one for the Declaration of Independence. In 1841 or 1842, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he lived in 1850, with his wife and two of their daughters. Huntington died in Madison, Wisconsin, and was buried in Cincinnati.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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