Tag: Samuel Ward

Posted on September 19, 2023

Margaret (Moncrieffe) Coghlan: The Descent from Riches to Rags (Part One of Two)

In 1805, Margaret (Moncrieffe) Coghlan’s options were running out. For more than a decade, she had been back and forth to the King’s Bench prison in London, known then as debtors prison, with a reputation for filth, overcrowding and typhus outbreaks. She had written a lengthy letter to King George III, seeking a pension for […]

by Jane Strachan

Posted on August 24, 2021August 23, 2021

Timothy Matlack, Scribe of the Declaration of Independence

The scribe of the Declaration of Independence—and perhaps the first man to read it in public—was born on March 28, 1736 in Haddonfield, New Jersey. His family moved to Philadelphia eight years later. At the age of thirteen, Timothy Matlack began an apprenticeship under a prosperous Quaker merchant named John Reynell. Looking forward to a […]

by Chris Coelho