When visitors view the actual founding documents at the National Archives Rotunda in Washington, the words penned on preserved parchment are heavy and significant. Yet, we seldom ponder just who put pen to page and how these world-changing documents were created.
In this age of short-byte text, when handwriting anything is rare, the art of penmanship seems antiquated. In the 1700s, however, writing tools and professional scribes were essential. It was Thomas Jefferson who authored the Declaration of Independence, but it was Timothy Matlack’s professional hand that penned the original document.
Native New Jerseyan Matlack was 40 years old when he was asked to pen the document that set a revolution ablaze. But before he dipped a quill into a vat of ink and wrote out Jefferson’s words, Matlack, an ardent patriot, had been involved in early-American First Continental Congress meetings. In fact, it was on Oct. 25, 1774, that the First Continental Congress agreed to send a grievance letter to England’s King George III, and Secretary Charles Thomson asked Matlack to pen two copies.
The Process
Today, it’s hard to imagine the tediousness involved in achieving pre-20th century documentation. We simply touch our fingers to a keypad and words appear that can be printed out in countless fonts—one of which, “American Scribe,” supposedly replicates Matlack’s style.In Matlack’s lifetime, and for at least another century, scribes required quality ink, quills, paper, and pounce in order to write a document. Pounce, a powdery product made from gum sandarac mixed with pumice or cuttlefish bone, was sprinkled on the paper and then brushed aside to soak up any ink spills and blots and enable the ink to dry.
Ink came in two forms: dry and liquid. The ink recipe was complicated, requiring oak galls, gum arabic, alum (hydrated potassium aluminum sulfate), and copperas (hydrated ferrous sulfate).
Paper production was also complex. Bits of cloth had to be boiled down, chemically treated, pressed into large sheets, and hung to dry. The sheets were then cut into uniform pieces of various sizes.
Quills were taken from the first five wing feathers of large birds, most often geese. Right-handed people often preferred feathers from a bird’s right wing, with left wing feathers preferred by left-handers. Those quills had to be sharpened to a fine point with a penknife. They did not last long—a few lengthy letters or so. Interestingly, Jefferson raised geese on his property partly for the purpose of garnering quills because he wrote so much and needed a steady supply.
An 18th-century stationer’s advertisement poem helped remind the everyday letter writer as well as scribes about necessary items:
Matlack’s Writing Background
Since developing proper handwriting was an essential aspect of colonial life, it is supposed that Matlack learned his penmanship style early and practiced often, through viewing published penmanship instruction books of the times. It was important that penmanship be “easy to read and quick to write,” according to historians at Mount Vernon.But Matlack did not just pen revolutionary words; he acted on them. In fact, he served as a member of a number of military groups and experienced the thick of Revolutionary War fighting at the Battle of Trenton in December of 1776 and then at the Battle of Princeton in early January of 1777.
He went on to be remembered historically for shaping America, in addition to famously penning the Declaration of Independence. A Journal of the American Revolution report on Matlack notes: “He held various offices in Pennsylvania. ... Finally, the governor forced him to retire at the age of eighty-six. In 1821, on the forty-fifth anniversary of independence, America took special care to honor its aging revolutionary generation.”
Matlack died at age 93 and is buried at Wetherill’s Cemetery in Audubon, Pennsylvania. His gravestone reads in bold carved letters: “Scribed the Original Declaration of Independence.”
