Who likely hand-lettered the parchment copy of the Declaration?

Timothy Matlack likely hand-lettered the parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence.

The famous engrossed document preserved at the National Archives is written in a large, formal hand on parchment. Historians generally credit Timothy Matlack, a Pennsylvania clerk and skilled penman, with producing this fair copy for Congress. Because the surviving records do not provide an absolute written confirmation of the scribe, “likely” is the careful historical wording.

This parchment is different from the earlier working drafts and printed broadsides. Thomas Jefferson wrote the principal draft, and John Dunlap printed roughly 200 broadsides soon after Congress approved the text. Congress later ordered an official parchment version, which the delegates signed beginning on August 2, 1776.

William J. Stone was responsible for a famous 1820s copperplate engraving, not the original parchment handwriting. Charles Thomson was Congress’s secretary, and John Dunlap was the printer of the first broadside edition. Matlack’s elegant lettering is why the original is sometimes called the “Matlack Declaration.”