Goodwill Workers Find Original 1774 U.S. ‘Rebel’ Newspaper

BELLMAWR, N.J. — A quick eye by Goodwill workers in New Jersey has turned up an original 1774 Philadelphia newspaper with the iconic “Unite or Die” snake design on the masthead.

The frayed Dec. 28, 1774, edition of the Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser boasts three items signed by John Hancock, who pleads for the Colonies to fight back “enemies” who would divide them.

Rewards are offered for a lost horse or runaway apprentice, while one man pledges not to pay his wife’s debts anymore.

Bob Snyder, of the New York auction house Cohasco, says the “rebel” paper shows how “everyone was good and mad” just months before the American Revolutionary War began.

He estimates the value at $6,000 to $16,000. Goodwill Industries hopes to sell it to help fund its educational and job-training services.