Va. Supreme Court says collector can keep Declaration of Independence copy

A wealthy Fairfax County collector can keep a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence claimed by the small Maine town where it was sent in 1776, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled this morning.

The print was copied into a town book on Nov. 10, 1776, found in the attic of a daughter of a former clerk in 1994, and purchased for $475,000 from a dealer in London in 2001 by Richard L. Adams Jr., a private collector in Fairfax County.

The Maine attorney general’s office wanted the 15-by-20-inch piece of paper back, asserting it was a public document that belonged to what is now the town of Wiscasset, Maine., a coastal community of 3,600.

But the justices, in an order released this morning, upheld a Fairfax County judge’s ruling that Adams had the strongest claim to the document.