1784: "Being the Anniversary of the Declaration"

The following report appeared in The Independent Gazetteer on Saturday, July 10, 1784. It offers a description of the Fourth of July in Philadelphia the year after the Revolutinary War ended, and the writer worried about the lack of anniversary observance from some civic leaders. 

The capitalizations and italic emphasis are original. 

Philadelphia, July 10.

Sunday last, the 4th of July, being the ANNIVERSARY of the Declaration of our INDEPENDENCE, thirteen changes were rung on the bells of Christ-Church. 

In commemoration of this great and glorious event, a company of select citizens, and the members of the Cincinnati, who were in town, assembled, the two subsequent days, at the City-Tavern, where the occasion was celebrated with that joy and festivity the ever memorable idea of independence must have created and inspired.

It is very extraordinary, says a correspondent, that this illustrious event did not strike the notice of our public bodies — at least in the distinguished manner it has hitherto done in uniform periods within the memory of us all. — O! INDEPENDENCE, whither hast thou fled! Or rather, more pointedly, have th guardinas and directors of our country forsaken thee? And must our freedom spirist be once more subjected with dreadful apprehension of more than British servitude and slavery? 

Source:

"Philadelphia, July 10," The Independent Gazetteer, July 10, 1784, Page 3. Accessed through Newspapers.com