This Day in History: May 17

On May 17, 1775, more than a year before the Declaration of Independence was presented in Philadelphia, the inhabitants of Coxsackie signed a Declaration of Independence of their own. The faded yellow parchment, found in an Albany attic some years ago, bears the names of 225 signers, most of them Dutch names of freeholders from the Coxsackie District of the Colony of New York.