The Original 1776 Document: Examining the Visual Proof of America's Founding Parchment

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Popular folklore depicts all fifty-six Founding Fathers gathering around a desk on July 4 to sign the majestic document that hangs in the National Archives. Nineteenth-century artists like John Trumbull popularized this tableau, but the historical reality followed an entirely different schedule. On July 19, after New York’s provincial congress finally gave its delayed approval, the Continental Congress ordered that the Declaration be "fairly engrossed on parchment" under the title "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America."

The task fell to Timothy Matlack, a Philadelphia brewer and accomplished penman who worked as an assistant to Secretary Thomson. Matlack worked on animal vellum, typically calfskin or sheepskin, using a quill and iron-gall ink formulated from oak galls, iron sulfate, and gum arabic. This laborious hand-lettering process took almost two weeks. The members did not begin signing the finished animal skin until Friday, August 2, 1776.

Even on August 2, not everyone was present. Roughly forty-nine of the eventual fifty-six signatories put their names to the vellum that day. Several prominent signers, including Richard Henry Lee and George Wythe, signed later that autumn. Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire did not add his signature until November 1776, finding space at the bottom right column because the original layout lacked room. A few men who signed the document, such as Benjamin Rush, had not even been seated in the Continental Congress on July 4.