238-Year-Old ‘Tweet’ Discovered

A 238-year-old “tweet” was just discovered in an old newspaper owned by Ben Franklin. The Deseret News cleverly noticed the obscure and short announcement about America declaring freedom from England in a rare copy of the Philadelphia Gazette, and dubbed it the world’s first tweet.

Benjamin Franklin owned the Philadelphia Gazette and printed a succinct notice on July 3 to announce that freedom was truly ringing in the colonies for the first time. The Deseret News felt the important yet short phrase was a precursor to Twitter’s 140-character limit on the popular social networking platform.

The 238-year-old tweet simply read:

“Philadelphia, July 3: Yesterday the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies free and independent states.”

Although our nation’s birthday is celebrated on July 4 when the Declaration of Independence was bravely signed, a vote to create a new nation was actually taken on July 2. The announcement Ben Franklin printed in his newspaper was not in big, bold text on the front page, but fairly buried under ads about runaway slaves in the classified section.

Fellow Founding Father John Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, telling her that the vote to create a free new country would be the “most memorable epocha in the history of America.”

Just 1,000 copies of the Philadelphia Gazette were printed, according to the Deseret News. One copy found its way to auction last. Collector Brent Ashworth won the auction and reportedly paid about $16,000 for the Ben Franklin newspaper containing the 238-year-old tweet announcing America’s independence from Great Britain. “I was shocked. It’s a very rare paper. It’s a great piece,” Ashworth said.

When asked about the high price tag of Franklin’s newspaper, Ashworth said:

“[It’s] totally immaterial. It’s the least important thing. What something’s worth today? It may be worth less tomorrow; it may be worth more tomorrow. What does that have to do with the inherent value of it? I wonder about the citizens reading this for the first time if they really gathered the important of that.”

Ashworth also stated that he enjoys collecting such documents because it brings history to life. Through his collection he hopes that the public will realize that real sacrifices were made to build the country and that “it’s worth the sacrifice today, too.”

Last year Brent Ashworth displayed some of his rare historical documents at the Man in the Moon event hosted over the Fourth of July weekend that was hosted by Glenn Beck.

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