A rare — and rarely seen — copy of the Declaration of Independence is going on display at the Cincinnati Museum Center.
The copy of the Declaration of Independence is known as the Holt broadside printing. It was made by New York printer John Holt on July 9, 1776. Of the 500 copies made by Holt, only five are known to still exist and have been authenticated.
Cincinnati Museum Center Collections Technology Manager Anne Kling says the document is almost never removed from storage and this will be just the second time it's ever been displayed. It was first removed from the vault, briefly, for an exhibit in 2015.
"The real significance of this document is that it represents the colony of New York agreeing with the other colonies to go for independence, to approve the Declaration of Independence," Kling explains.
"When the Continental Congress, in July of 1776, ... voted on July 2 for the colonies to become independent, 12 of the colonies voted yes, but New York hadn't gotten specific instructions about whether they were supposed to vote yes or no, so they abstained."
A few days later, copies of Declaration of Independence known as the Dunlap broadside were made and then distributed to the colonies. Once the New York assembly received that document, its members voted unanimously to approve the document.
"New York then printed up a broadside, and that's what we have here," Kling says. "This broadside has at the top the two resolutions from the New York Assembly, and at the bottom has the text of the Declaration of Independence."
New York sent a copy of the Holt broadside to the Continental Congress, at which point that body knew all 13 colonies were on board with the plan and a clerk began penning the iconic version of the Declaration of Independence that everyone is familiar with today.
"It's only after that point — when it was unanimous — that they wrote that one out, and then on August 2, the delegates started signing that one. So [Cincinnati's Holt broadside] is actually older than the iconic one that people think of in the National Archives," Kling points out.
On Tuesday, conservators at the Cincinnati Museum Center removed the Holt broadside from its climate controlled vault and transferred it, carefully, to a display case. It will be on display as part of the museum's Declarative Acts and Revolutionary Actors exhibit, showcasing the museum’s national treasures as part of the America 250 celebration.
The exhibit runs July 3 through August 23, 2026.
There are only five Holt broadside copies known to still exist. Along with Cincinnati's, the New York Public Library has one, as do the Westchester County Archives in New York, and the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. A private collector purchased the fifth one at auction for $1.8 million in 2017, according to Kling.
Cincinnati's copy arrived in the Queen City in 1810 along with Richard Fosdick of New London, Connecticut, whose signature is found on the reverse side. Fosdick moved to Cincinnati and was considered the city's first pork packer. He also was a member of Cincinnati’s first town council and a county treasurer, according to the museum.
The document passed to his children upon his death and was eventually donated to the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio — which would become the Cincinnati History Library and Archives — in the 1870s.
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