The daily Alaskan., 1916-10-17
HE WHO WROTE IT
The Man Who Penned the DeC-
 Iaration of Independence.
WORK OF TIMOTHY MATLACK.

He Was a Clerk tn tho Continental
 Congress When That Immortal Doou-
 ment Was Adopted and Wss Also ths
 Finest Writer In &he Country.
 Who wrote the Declaration of Inde- pendence2 Thomas Jefferson, of course; every one knows that But who held the pen and formed the letters on the great piece of parchment that the members of the Continental congress signed? It Is one of the largest official papers in exIstence-one skin of parch- ment nearly three feet long and more than two feet wide. The writing Is nearly twice the normal size and Is unusually handsome and clear.
 The secretary who was ordered to promulgate the work was Charles Thomson, a man of high character, who had been the principal of a school at New Castle, Del, and an active pa- triot. The first congress chose him as secretary in 1774, and he held the of flee until the Continental congress passed out of existence on March 2, 17S9. During all those fifteen years 1t was only on rare occasions that any other hand than his wrote in the jour nal.
 One of the clerks in Thomson's office In 1775 and 1776 was Timothy Matlack, who died at Holmesburg, Pa, in 1929, when he was nlnety-nine years of age.
 To carry out the order of the con- greSs that the Declaration be pro claimed, Thomson needed more than score of copies, for he had to send 1t to every one of the states and to the army. So to save time, he did not attempt to have any copies written oh with the pen. but sent the original draft, which the congress had passed, to the official printer, John Dunlap The following morning the printed copies were in Thomsons hands. They were printed on one side of the paper on large sheets eighteen inches long and fourteen and a half inches wide in the form known as broadsides.
 It was from one of those copies that Philadelphia first heard the Declara- ton read, and 1t was one of them that became the official copy, for Thomson had not copied the Declaration even into the journal of the congress before he gave it to the printer; but when he wrote the journal for July 4 he left blank space for the Declaration, and the next day, with two waters of red wax, he fastened in the printed broad side.
 have said that sometimes an entry was made in the journal of the con- gress by another hand than Thomson's. The first of those occasions was on June 12, 1775, when Timothy Matlack recorded a resolution to set aside day for fasting and prayer to avert the desolating calamities that seemed to be impending. Matlack had been appoint ed clerk fin Thomson's office on May 15, and five days later, on May 20, he wrote out the most important docu- ment that the congress had issued up to that time-the commission to George Washington to be commander in chief of the American army. The idendhca- ton of the penmanship of the commis- sion with that of the entry in the Journal and of both with an autograph letter of Matlack's that is among the papers of the Continental congress is certain.
 Probably there was not at that time man in the country who was Mat lacks equal as a penman. Forum ately, Matlack was still clerk In Thomsons office when the Declara- tion of Independence was ordered to be engrossed for final signature. and the task of copying it was assigned to him. He copied from the printed broadside. That Is clearly shown by the heading of the broadside, 'In Con- gress, July 4, 177B." which is repro duced in the written Declaration in the same form of lettering.
 A few years ago some of the officials in the library of congress, who knew that Matlack was the best penman en- ployed by Thomson, made q compari- son of General Washington's commis- sion, which was known to have been written by him, with the Declaration.
 The first peculiar letter In the com mission Is the capital "N'' in New Hampshire, and we find its counter part in Natures" in the second line Of the body of the Declaration. The graceful flourish at the top of the "T" in the word ITO" In the commission Is repeated in the second of the sentences beginning "That" in the Declaration. In the word offer" in the commission there Is a marked pecullarity in the double "f." The first 'f'' Is made like the old fashioned long S." It appears in the word effect in the Declaration, then in suffer and 'sufferable." That Is the most noteworthy peculiarity in MatIack's writing. The capital ID" in {1 1oct line OT