Failure to prove a rare 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence was ever a Wiscasset official town document was lost in the Virginia Supreme Court.
The court ruled Friday in favor of Richard Adams, Jr. of Fairfax, Va. the current holder of the broadside since 2001, which substantially ends Maine’s quest for its return, since no federal issues give it entrance for a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Throughout the arguments, Maine’s Asst. Atty. Gen. Thomas Knowlton insisted Wiscasset never gave up ownership of it and that the broadside printed in Salem, Mass. qualified as a public record.
Public documents are supposed to remain public property unless the government expressly relinquishes them, according to a state statute used in the state’s arguments.
However, Atty. Robert Richardson representing Adams argued to the contrary. He presented evidence the town clerk in 1776 copied the text of it in the town’s record books on Nov. 10, 1776.
The record book constitutes the public record, not the document itself, he argued.
Adams purchased the copy $475,000 from a London book dealer at auction in 2001. It was among 250 copies Ezekiel Russell printed in Salem, Mass. for distribution throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony to which Maine belonged at the time.
Founder of the first commercial Internet service UUNet Technologies, Inc., Adams filed suit to settle the title of the document as the rightful owner.
In his argument, Knowlton tried to prove the document itself fulfills the definition of a “public document.”
“We think we made it clear it (the copy) falls within the definition of a public document,” he said.
Edmond Bridge, the town clerk at the time of the town’s acquisition of the historic document, entered the fact of the town’s possession of it in the town record on Nov. 10, 1776.
For years no one in the community was aware of the document until is showed up in 1994 in the attic of the home of the former Town Clerk Sol Holbrook’s daughters on Middle Street, only 75 yards from Holbrook’s house on Main Street.
Holbrook died in office in 1929 in an age when town clerks did business for the town from their homes.
In his brief, Knowlton stated the print was found in the Middle Street home of Holbrook’s daughters with no evidence they had acquired it lawfully.
“If it’s mislaid or not on the town’s consciousness, it doesn’t mean the town doesn’t own it,” he said. “It takes a town act to divest itself of property.”
The 19th Judicial Circuit Court of Virginia ruled a year ago the holder of the copy originally found in the Middle Street home in 1994 retains quiet title of the historic document.
Adams filed suit with the court for quiet title to the print on the basis that he is a bona fide purchaser for value.
In May 1995, Harold Moore, an auctioneer, found the copy in the Middle Street duplex home of the late Anna Plumstead and her sister, Mildred Holbrook, both daughters of Sol Holbrook, town clerk 1886-1929.
At an estate auction May 21, 1995 in Byfield, Mass., Moore sold the print to David O’Neal, who bought it for $77,000 in partnership with Seth Keller of Keller Historical Documents, Inc.
Later Simon Finch, a rare book dealer in London, England purchased it for $300,000 and then sold it to Adams for $475,000.
