Who prepared the engrossed parchment of the United States Declaration of Independence?

Timothy Matlack prepared the engrossed parchment of the United States Declaration of Independence.

An engrossed document is a carefully written final version, and Matlack served as a clerk associated with the Continental Congress. Congress ordered the formal parchment copy after approving the Declaration's text in July 1776. The document was then signed primarily on August 2.

Matlack's role is often overshadowed by Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration, and John Dunlap, whose shop printed the first broadsides. Those were different stages of the document's creation. Jefferson wrote the initial draft as part of the Committee of Five, while Dunlap produced printed copies for distribution.

The engrossed parchment is now preserved at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Its carefully written text and 56 signatures make it the best-known physical version, even though the original working draft and early printed copies played different historical roles.