While July 4, 1776, gets all the glory for being the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, just 12 words in a newspaper owned by Benjamin Franklin announced the historic move that came first in the form of a vote on July 2.

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

That’s all it said in the Philadelphia Gazette.

There were so few characters in this message that Deseret News described it as “America’s 238-year-old tweet,” a nod to Twitter’s 140-character limit.

According to Deseret News, only 1,000 copies of the newspaper were printed holding the text that declared independence from Great Britain. It was buried under pages of classified ads looking for runaway slaves. One such copy turned up at an auction catalog last month and was snapped up by collector Brent Ashworth, who last year displayed some of his other rare items at Glenn Beck’s “Man in the Moon” event held over the Independence Day holiday.

“I was shocked,” Ashworth told Deseret of the copy. “It’s a very rare paper. … It’s a great piece.”

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