Matlack, Timothy, 1736-1829

MATLACK, Timothy, a Delegate from Pennsylvania; born in Haddonfield, Camden County, N.J., in 1730; attended Quaker schools in Haddonfield and Philadelphia; engaged in mercantile pursuits in Philadelphia; was in command of a battalion of ``Associators'' during the Revolution; member of the provincial conference held in Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, June 18, 1775; delegate to the convention of July 15, 1776, and appointed secretary of state; member of the committee of safety in 1776; in 1777 was appointed keeper of the great seal; member of the board of trustees of the University of Pennsylvania in 1779; Member of the Continental Congress in 1780; moved to Lancaster, Pa.; master of the rolls of Pennsylvania 1800-1809; moved to Philadelphia and was prothonotary of the district court for several years; member of the board of aldermen 1813-1818; died at Holmesburg, near Philadelphia, Pa., April 14, 1829; interment in the Free Quaker Burial Ground, Philadelphia, Pa.; reinterment in 1905 in Fatlands, on the Schuylkill River, opposite Valley Forge, Pa.

<ul><b>RACES</b>
<li>12/31/1780 PA Continental Congress Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
</ul>

<p>Timothy Matlack (March 28, 1736 – April 14, 1829) was a brewer and beer bottler who emerged as a popular and powerful leader in the American Revolutionary War, Secretary of Pennsylvania during the war, and a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in 1780. He became one of Pennsylvania's most provocative and influential political figures, but he was removed from office by his political enemies at the end of the war; however, he returned to power in the Jeffersonian era. Matlack was known for his excellent penmanship and was chosen to inscribe the original United States Declaration of Independence on vellum.</p>

<p>Timothy Matlack was born in Haddonfield, New Jersey on March 28, 1736, to Elizabeth Martha Burr Haines and Timothy Matlack. His grandparents were William Matlack and Mary Hancock, and Henry Burr and Elizabeth Hudson. His siblings were Sybil, Elizabeth, Titus, Seth, Josiah, and White Matlack; his half siblings were Reuben Haines and Mary Haines. His first cousin was Quaker abolitionist John Woolman. In 1738, the family moved to Philadelphia, and he was apprenticed to the prosperous Quaker merchant John Reynell in 1749. At the end of his term, he married Ellen Yarnall, the daughter of Quaker minister Mordecai Yarnall, and their children were William, Mordecai, Sibyl, Catharine, and Martha.</p>

<p>In 1760, Matlack opened a store called the Case Knife, and he and Owen Biddle purchased a steel furnace in Trenton, New Jersey in 1762. His shop failed in 1765, and he was disowned by the Quakers who complained that he had been "frequenting company in such a manner as to spend too much of his time from home". He was confined to debtors' prison in 1768 and 1769. By 1769, he had set up a new business selling bottled beer and opened his own brewery near Independence Hall.</p>