Matlack, Timothy, 1736-1829

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.

Born in Haddonfield in the Province of New Jersey, his family moved to Philadelphia in 1738. After attending Quaker schools, he was apprenticed to the prosperous Quaker merchant John Reynell in 1749. 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.

In 1774 Matlack was hired by Charles Thomson, Secretary of the First Continental Congress, to transcribe an address to the King of England. In May, 1775, he became clerk to the Second Continental Congress and in June he composed George Washington's commission as General and Commander-in-Chief of the army of the United Colonies. Congress elevated him to Storekeeper of Military Supplies. He was also a member of Philadelphia's Committee of Inspection and Secretary of the Committee of Officers of the city's three militia battalions. Philadelphia added two more battalions to its militia brigade in January 1776, and Matlack was elected Colonel of the Fifth Battalion of Rifle Rangers. He was a delegate to the Conference of Committees which met in June to plan a new constitution for Pennsylvania. Later that month, he engrossed the United States Declaration of Independence on parchment, and members of Congress began signing it on August 2.

Matlack was named a trustee of the University of the State of Pennsylvania in 1779. In 1780, he was elected as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. 1790, Matlack was commissioned to survey the "headwaters of the Susquehanna River and the streams of the New Purchase," the northwestern portion of the state purchased from the American Indians. They were also charged with exploring a route for a passageway to connect the West Branch with the Allegheny River. He lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania from 1799 until 1808 when Lancaster was the capital of Pennsylvania, and he worked as a clerk of the Pennsylvania State Senate. He died in Holmesburg, Pennsylvania on April 14, 1829 and was interred in the Free Quaker Burial Ground on South Fifth Street, Philadelphia. His remains were removed in 1905 and reinterred in the Wetherill Cemetery opposite Valley Forge.