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Friendly Sons of St. Patrick who subscribed 103,500 pounds “ in order to support the credit of a bank to be established for furnishing a supply of provisions for the armies of the, United States.”
He served, too, as a member of Philadelphia’s First City Troop, and, indicative of his high standing in the community, he >was later elected captain. In 1709, he said in a letter: “With pleasure I toll you, that when the laws and Government of this happy country require defense, the First Troop of Philadelphia Cavalry want but one hour's notice to march.”
He was an enterprising man, and even tried his hand at publishing a German language newspaper. Nor were his interests limited to Pennsylvania. He had newspaper partnerships in Baltimore, in Charlottesville, and in Richmond at various times.
When he died in Philadelphia in 1812, he had acquired a substantial fortune. It was due only indirectly to the printing business, however. The Government had given him some city lots in payment'for printing, and they had increased in value. One city block in downtown Philadelphia he had sold in 1809 for more than $100,000.
But of all John Dunlap’s distinctions, none is equal to that one small line of print at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence. 4
Of that first printing, 14 copies are known to exist today. Three are at the Library of Congress. One there is a fragment of about three fourths of the original; it is in the Washington papers and is presumably the one read to the troops when he was facing the British in New York. Another there is pasted into the manuscript journal of the Congress at the appropriate place, saving the labor of writing out the Declaration in longhand. The third copy is in the collection of Consinental Congress broadsides. _
In addition to the 15 copies on paper, there is one copy of a printing on vellum by Dunlap. It is in the Library pf the American Philosophical Society.
There are 17 other known variants or editions by, various hands, tc^&ling in all 58 copies. They arc more rare, but they are not the first printing with the line at the bottom—
“Philadelphia: Printed by John Dunlap.”
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