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A declaration of gratitude to John Dunlap Kevin Blaum In the Arena

Sunday July 05, 2009 | 01:00 AM

JOHN DUNLAP was 29 years old when he found himself at the banks of the Delaware River on a wet and cold Wednesday evening in the month of December.

On its best day the Delaware River is a tricky cruise for boats of any kind. The slightest wind against the river’s current creates a chop so interesting that those in smaller vessels must be ever vigilant.

On that Wednesday, however, John Dunlap had more to worry about than a slight breeze upon the waters. A full-fledged winter storm had descended upon the Philadelphia region, making the water before him an angry, ice-filled mess. If that were not bad enough, it was Christmas and John Dunlap had to be away from his Philadelphia home because the man he had to protect was crossing the Delaware at 11 p.m. sharp. Dunlap was an officer in the Philadelphia cavalry and he crossed the Delaware on Dec. 25, 1776, guarding Gen. George Washington.

That night Washington and his Continental Army were bound for New Jersey on a risky mission to surprise a celebrating force of British and Hessian troops stationed at Trenton. In the morning light of that fateful day, as the commander in chief of the Continental Army arrived at Trenton, John Dunlap was probably still at Washington’s side.

Dunlap was born in County Tyrone, Ireland in 1747 and immigrated to the American Colonies at the age of 10. He settled with an uncle in Philadelphia. At 18 he entered the business world and his friend Dr. Benjamin Rush described him as being so poor that he would sleep on the floor of his shop. At 24, however, Dunlap began publishing a weekly newspaper, “The Pennsylvania Packet.”

In 1773 he married Elizabeth Ellison and by 1780 Dunlap’s business ventures had met with some success. He donated significant sums to the Continental Army and to the entire Revolutionary War effort. In 1784 John Dunlap launched the first daily newspaper in the United States. He called it, “The North American and United States Gazette.”

Yet Dunlap is barely remembered for any of this. Instead, it is what he did prior to crossing the Delaware in 1776 that made him a notable figure.

On July 2 of that year delegates to the Second Continental Congress approved a resolution introduced by Richard Lee of Virginia declaring, “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” At that moment, on that day, American delegates declared their independence from Great Britain and committed, in the eyes of King George, treason.

Two days later those same delegates approved a document declaring to all mankind, “the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Later that evening the original hand-written declaration, signed only by the president of Congress and its secretary, Charles Thompson, was rushed to a printer with instructions that 200 broadsheet copies be made.

John Dunlap worked throughout the night to fill the order. He was able to touch the awesome original as he set type for the “Dunlap Broadsides,” replicas of which we are accustomed to seeing today. Of the 200 printed “originals,” only 25 remain in existence. The extraordinary hand-written Declaration, which Dunlap worked from, has been lost.

On the morning of July 5, 1776, however, thanks to John Dunlap, those 200 printed Declarations were ready for distribution to the delegates who had approved it, European nations across the sea and the 13 governments of the newly formed United States of America.