July 4, 1776: The day Thomas Jefferson went shopping

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN

(CNN) — As dawn broke in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, the weather was a pleasant 68 degrees. The temperature crept up to 72.25 degrees at 9 a.m., reaching a balmy 76 by 1 p.m. before dipping slightly to 73.5 at 9 p.m.

We know this because on the day that the Continental Congress adopted the final wording of the Declaration of Independence, severing ties with Britain’s King George III in an act of rebellion that would create the independent United States of America and reverberate around the globe for centuries, Thomas Jefferson measured and recorded the temperature four separate times.

While Jefferson’s drafted thoughts about how “all men are created equal” were being certified as the voice of a brand-new nation, the man himself was evidently focused on the weather. According to the meticulous memorandum books in which he logged his personal expenditures, on July 4, he purchased a thermometer from John Sparhawk, an apothecary and bookseller on Second Street who also apparently sold meteorological instruments, for three pounds and 15 shillings. It was part of something of a spending spree, as the day also saw him buying seven pairs of women’s gloves for 17 shillings. He further reported giving one shilling and six pence to charity.

How to explain the free time that Jefferson had on his hands on what is now billed as one of the most consequential days in US history? Was he merely an exceptionally productive man? Was he shirking the work of transcendent politics and destiny to run household errands?

Or was July 4, 1776, for the revolutionaries who founded the US, actually an undistinguished day?

“It’s a mundane day, except it’s a revolutionary one,” said Andrew Davenport, vice president of research at Jefferson’s estate, Monticello. “It’s a reminder for us that even during the most frenetic times in our history, that daily business still needs to be attended to. And daily business is the fabric of civic life, and civic life, of course, is the fabric of the nation.”

Cara Rogers Stevens, a Jeffersonian scholar and historian at Ashland University in Ohio, offered another theory: “The fact that he was able to run a few errands on the same day maybe indicates that he wasn’t on as many committees as some of the other members of Congress, like John Adams.”

It wasn’t inevitable that July 4, 1776, would become the day celebrated by generations of Americans to come as the turning point of history. For the people gathered in and around the Pennsylvania State House — the building now known as Independence Hall — it was one more day toward the end of more than a year’s worth of debate, deliberation and committee work, alongside the administration of military and public affairs in a rebellion.

The formal decision to declare independence from Great Britain was actually made on July 2, when the Continental Congress approved Richard Henry Lee’s “Resolution for Independence.” At the time, this seemed like the more momentous day, as John Adams wrote in a letter to his wife Abigail on July 3.

“The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival,” Adams wrote. “It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

By July 4, much of the grunt work of declaring independence from the empire was already complete, said James P. McClure, general editor of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson project and a historian at Princeton University. Thomas Jefferson — along with Robert Hemmings, an enslaved teenager who attended to his daily needs — arrived in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress in May 1776. On June 11, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five members to draft the Declaration of Independence, with Jefferson as the primary author. McClure said Jefferson worked on the draft in between other obligations, and on June 28, the committee submitted it to Congress.

It’s not clear how exactly the Continental Congress’ day went down on July 4, McClure said, but historical records suggest the Declaration was likely approved and ordered to be printed in the morning. In addition to the adopting the Declaration, he said the Continental Congress attended to approximately 14 other matters of business that day: They took steps to plan for the defense of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, ordered gun flints belonging to the Continental Army be sent to General Washington, appointed delegates to meet with Indigenous tribes in Pittsburgh and resolved the next day to fill vacancies on the Committee for Indian Affairs. Notably, they also assigned Benjamin Franklin, Adams and Jefferson to a committee charged with designing a seal for the United States.

During the week, Jefferson seemed to have had matters other than his draft declaration on his mind. Otherwise a remarkably precise man, he made a glaring clerical error: He noted in his expense log that he paid for riding expenses on “June 31.”

“I love it as an example of humanity,” Stevens said, “that even in one of the most eventful weeks throughout the course of recorded human history, that the man whose brilliance gives us the Declaration of Independence also makes an ordinary mistake, like losing track of the date.”

Nicole Brown, a historian of Martha Jefferson at Monticello, suspects that the impossible date was the result of turmoil in Jefferson’s personal life. She noted that, according to the historian Virginia Scharff, Martha Jefferson suffered a miscarriage in June 1776 while her husband was away in Philadelphia drafting the Declaration of Independence.

In a letter believed to be written around June 30, two days after submitting the draft of the Declaration, Jefferson asked Edmund Pendleton, president of the Virginia Convention, for someone to replace him at the Continental Congress. “I am sorry the situation of my domestic affairs renders it indispensably necessary that I should sollicit the substitution of some other person here in my room,” he wrote.

The “June 31” entry raises further questions: If Jefferson inadvertently added a day to the calendar, did he really buy a thermometer and seven pairs of gloves on July 4? Or would it be more instructive to look at the expenses he recorded for July 3 (the doctor and a visit to a local tavern)?

Answers to such questions are ultimately unknowable. But the absence of an entry on July 2, followed by an unbroken string of entries from July 3 to July 13, suggests that Jefferson eventually realized his mistake, said Jeff Looney, an editor of Thomas Jefferson’s papers at Monticello. In other words, Looney thinks that Jefferson did indeed buy a thermometer and gloves on July 4.

Probing deeper into these records only inspires more questions. For one, Jefferson appears to have begun his daily routine of recording the weather on July 1, 1776. (If there are any earlier temperature records from Jefferson, McClure noted they have not survived.) This means that when he wrote of purchasing a thermometer on July 4, he had already been recording the temperature for at least three days. Did he purchase a new thermometer on July 4? Did he actually purchase the thermometer earlier and merely note the purchase on July 4? Did he even make the purchase himself? McClure noted that it’s possible Jefferson could have deployed Hemmings, his enslaved attendant, to run the errand instead.

Why, also, did Jefferson purchase seven pairs of women’s gloves? Though the quantity seems excessive, Jefferson likely couldn’t easily access such goods at his primary residence of Monticello, and McClure said his stint in Philadelphia offered an opportunity to stock up for his wife.

Brown, the Martha Jefferson historian, said the purchase might also reflect the global implications of signing the Declaration of Independence. Gloves were predominately an imported good, and she said this particular act of rebellion stood to halt trade with Britain and its allies for quite some time.

More likely, though, Brown said Jefferson’s stockpiling of gloves reflects his sentimentality toward his wife and possibly other women in the family. “He’s taking time out of one of the most stressful moments in his life to think about them and what they might want or need,” she said.

On the night of July 4 into the early morning hours of July 5, some time after recording the temperature, purchasing a thermometer and stocking up on gloves, Jefferson — perhaps joined by Franklin and Adams — is believed to have taken the handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence to be set in type, printed and disseminated, said Davenport.

At least in terms of spending, July 5 appeared to be a slower day for Jefferson. He recorded one expense: Two shillings and six pence for a quire of paper. On July 6, things seemed to pick up again, with Jefferson purchasing four pairs of cotton cards and some pamphlets. Perhaps to celebrate his achievement or unwind after a long week in Congress, he also bought some beer.

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