The Historic Preservation Trust of Berks County in cooperation with Amity Township, the Friends of Hopewell Furnace and the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology John Shrader Chapter 21 will host a reading of the Declaration of Independence accompanied by music, including traditional patriotic songs. The program will be staged on the porch of the 18th-century White Horse Inn at 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 7. Admission is free. People are encouraged to bring a blanket or lawn chair for seating.

The reading at the White Horse Inn is on the eve of the first public readings of the Declaration of Independence which took place on July 8, 1776, in Philadelphia, Easton and Trenton, N.J. The document was subsequently read in villages throughout the area. 

The program will feature Berks Opera Company's Francine Black and Isabelle Stetka providing patriotic songs. Christine Emmert, who will read from the Declaration, is a writer, actress, director and educator. Her works have been read and performed throughout the United States, as well as in Canada and the United Kingdom. She recently launched her novella "Dreaming of Storms" one year after the release of her film of the one-woman play about women of Hopewell though the Friends of Hopewell Furnace.

The White Horse Inn is located at 31 Old Philadelphia Pike, Douglassville.