What we know of Continental Navy Midshipman Mordecai Matlack comes primarily from two sources: “Col. Timothy Matlack, patriot and soldier, a paper read before the Gloucester County Historical Society at the Old Tavern House, Haddonfield, N.J., April 14, 1908” by Dr. A. M. Stackhouse and “Timothy Matlack, Scribe of the Declaration of Independence” (2013) written by Chris Coelho. Born about 1761 at Willistown, Chester County, Pa; Mordecai Matlack was the son of Timothy Matlack, Jr. (1736-1829) and his first wife Ellen or Nelly, daughter of Quaker minister Mordecai Yarnell. Mordecai’s father Timothy Matlack first appears as proprietor of a hardware store on Market Street near Fourth Street in 1762 and eight years later as a dealer of bottled beer on Fourth, the trade of his father Timothy, Sr. Married to the midshipman’s mother at Arch Street Meeting on 5 October 1758, the couple had five children: William, Mordecai, Sybil, Catherine and Martha, the three girls nicknamed Libby, Kitty and Patty.
Mordecai’s brother Billy, two years his senior, served in the War for Independence as a serjeant in Captain Linton’s Company of Col. Bradford’s Battalion of Pennsylvania troops. Their father served as Colonel of the Philadelphia Associators Militia Regiment, participating in the Battles of Trenton and Princeton. Timothy Matlack would later serve as Secretary of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania and acted as prosecutor in the court martial of Benedict Arnold for treason in absentia. In 1780, Matlack was elected as a delegate to the Continental Congress. With his brother-in-law Samuel Wetherill, Jr. and others, Matlack also co-founded the Society of Free Quakers in 1781 for members of the Society of Friends who had been disowned for actively supporting the war. Today the “Scribe of the Declaration of Independence” is also known for writing a 12 July 1776 letter to John Ashmead, Clerk for the Continental Navy frigate then under construction at Philadelphia autographed by five signers of the Declaration. This letter includes the extremely rare signature of Button Gwinnett which sold for a record $722,500 at Sotheby’s in 2010.
According to William Bell Clark in “Captain Dauntless” (1949), Mordecai entered service on the 36-gun frigate Randolph under Captain Nicholas Biddle at Philadelphia in November 1776 just six months after his father Timothy, as clerk to the Secretary of the Continental Congress Charles Thomson, transcribed the Declaration of Independence from Thomas Jefferson’s draft. Young Midshipman Matlack sailed from home on his first cruise on 3 February 1777. Arriving five weeks later in Charleston, the young midshipman had already seen his share of what men and the sea could throw in a ship’s way including loss of the mainmast, mutiny and death among the crew, over a dozen succumbing to sickness. Later that year in September, the refit Randolph sailed on a brief but successful cruise which netted several valuable prizes including the 20-gun True Briton and 8-gun Severn. Midshipman Mordecai Matlack must have proved his mettle in action as Captain Biddle presented him with a “handsome sword” as a token of esteem afterwards in addition to the sixteen year old’s share of prize money.
On 7 March 1778, Midshipman Mordecai Matlack would join Captain Nicholas Biddle and over three hundred of her officers, “picked seamen” and “gentlemen volunteers” in death in the Continental Navy’s single greatest catastrophic loss of the War for Independence. Two years and nine days later, his father Timothy Matlack, Jr. would publicly remember the gruesome end to seventeen year old Mordecai’s life in congruence with recognizing the greater purpose behind such supreme sacrifice in an emotional oration before the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia on 16 March 1780. “The hardy Sons of America have dared to meet her Enemies on that Element which Britain once, proudly boasting, stiled “her own.”- Alas! too boldly dared the unequal Combat: There the brave neglected Biddle, impelled by too much Virtue, nobly fell.- And, oh! forgive the falling Tear, which a fond Father’s swelling Heart rolls reluctant down his Cheek at the Remembrance. I mourn a darling Son, once the fond Hope and Comfort of my Heart- That dreadful fatal Blast, which rent the Randolph to Splinters, scattered his mangled Limbs in the Air- and they fell, blacked and disfigured, a Prey to the Fishes of the Sea.- I mourn his Loss, but would preserve his Name,- Beloved by all that knew him, esteemed and highly honored by his brave Captain, he fell in the most glorious Cause- and, ’tis just to say, he lived and died unconquered, and from Infancy to that awful Hour the Voice of Fear or of Complaint was never heard from his Lips!- But, wherefore do I weep?- ‘Tis my Glory that I had such a Son to fall in such a Cause.