Timothy Matlack was the son of Timothy and Martha (Burr) Matlack, members of the Society of Friends, who in 1745 or 1746 removed from Haddonfield, New Jersey, to Philadelphia, where Timothy followed in his father's footsteps as a merchant. Varying dates are given for his birth: a family record says it occurred "At Haddonfield, the 28th day of 3rd month 1736 O. S. "; his tombstone gives April 26, 1734; but in the notice of his death his age was given as ninety-nine years.
He was disowned by the Quakers in 1765 for "frequenting company in such manner as to neglect business whereby he contracted debts, failed and was unable to satisfy the claims of his creditors". In May 1775, shortly after the news of the battle of Lexington reached Philadelphia, he joined the Philadelphia Associators, and in the same month was employed as an assistant to Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress. A few of the minutes of Congress are in Matlack's handwriting and he wrote the commission for Washington as commander in chief (May 20, 1775). The following year, it is probable, he was employed to engross the Declaration of Independence. Congress appointed him a storekeeper for military supplies. He was elected colonel of a battalion of Associators raised early in 1776 and in the same year was a member of the constitutional convention for Pennsylvania, in which he served on the committee to prepare the draft. On July 24, 1776, he became a member of the Council of Safety and on the adoption of the new state constitution, when the executive functions were assumed by the Supreme Executive Council, he was made its secretary (March 6, 1777), which office he filled with great zeal until the end of the war. In the military operations around Trenton and Princeton, he took the field with other Pennsylvania militia as colonel of a rifle battalion. Returning from this campaign he devoted himself to the various offices of secretary of the council, keeper of the great seal, and keeper of the register of persons attainted. In 1779, he was designated a trustee of the newly created University of the State of Pennsylvania. In 1780, he was elected a member of the Continental Congress, in which he was active and influential, serving for two years. On the formation of the Bank of North America by Robert Morris in 1781, he was one of the first members on the board of directors. A member of the American Philosophical Society from about 1780 until his death, he was one of its secretaries, and delivered numerous addresses before that body. In 1782, he was removed as secretary of the Supreme Executive Council on charges of irregularities in his accounts. Judgment was obtained against him and for a time he was imprisoned for debt. He vigorously resented these charges and in 1783 the Council of Safety of Philadelphia, as a mark of confidence, presented him with a silver urn for the many valuable services he had rendered the cause of Independence. After a brief residence in New York in 1784 he returned to Philadelphia. He was one of the commissioners appointed under the act of Septtember 28, 1789, "to view the navigable waters" of Pennsylvania, being assigned with two others to the Delaware River. Later he resided in Lancaster, Pa. , as a minor official of the state government, serving as clerk of the Senate and master of the rolls. He was appointed prothonotary of the United States district court at Philadelphia, March 14, 1817. In 1813 he had been elected an alderman of the city, and served till 1818, when he retired from public life. He was active in forming, in 1781, the Society of Free Quakers, composed of those who had been disowned, or who had resigned from the Society of Friends on account of their wartime activities. Of this society he was a member for the rest of his life, and on his death he was buried in the Free Quaker burying ground in Philadelphia, the bodies from which were later removed to Matson's Ford across the Schuylkill River from Valley Forge.
Matlack served as a clerk to the Secretary of the Continental Congress, Charles Thomson. In this capacity he actually wrote the draft of the Declaration of Independence that was signed by the various members of the 2nd Continental Congress, and that document is now on display at the National Archives in Washington, DC. He also served as Colonel of the Philadelphia Associators Pennsylvania Militia Regiment (the "Shirt Battalion"), and fought with them at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton. He later served as Secretary of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, and aided in the treason trial in absentia for Benedict Arnold. He was elected as a delegate to the Continental Congress, serving in 1780. He co-founded the Society of Free Quakers for members of the church who had been disenfranchised for supporting the Revolution.
He was married, October 5, 1758, to Ellen, daughter of Mordecai Yarnall, a leading Quaker preacher. After the death of his wife, he married on August 17, 1797, Elizabeth, sister of David Claypoole the printer and widow of Norris Copper. By his first marriage he had five children; through the three daughters and one son who lived to maturity, he left numerous descendants.
8 March 1695 - 18 June 1752
1705 - 30 August 1765
13 May 1724 - 31 January 1752
5 November 1726 - ______
5 April 1722 - 1750
12 November 1728 - 22 November 1728
26 March 1736 - 14 April 1826
26 June 1738 - 22 August 1796
4 January 1747 - June 1802
7 October 1745 - 7 January 1824
8 December 1743 - ______
6 December 1730 - 1 May 1759
12 April 1734 - 17 June 1793
17 May 1751 - _____
7 October 1736 - 16 July 1791
11 December 1764 - 18 February 1816
1779 - 1826
8 April 1767 - ______
1761 - 1778
30 July 1759 - 1797
