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Boxes
Jefferson's
Portable Desk
This
is the small, portable lap desk designed by Thomas Jefferson
while a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1776, and
had built by a
*Philadelphia cabinetmaker. IT was on this little “desk” he
drafted the American Declaration of Independence.
The "writing box," as he later called it, is of
mahogany, and of modest size: 9 3/4 inches long by 14 3/8
inches wide by 3 1/4 inches deep. There’s a folding
board, lined with green baize, attached to the top—when
it is opened, the writing surface grows to 19 3/4 inches.
A drawer in one end of the desk has space for paper, pens
and a glass inkwell. The whole is about the size of an attaché case—barely
larger than the first generation of laptop computers in our
own day. But this 18th-century think pad, at least, earned
the name.
The desk on which a new nation announced itself to the world
in 1776—in Jefferson’s script of marvelous clarity
and straight-line precision—had a long career of service.
Jefferson used it for almost 50 years, through all his subsequent
life as politician, ambassador, statesman, inventor, architect,
educator, President and private citizen. And as the United
States grew and prospered with each passing year, the significance
of the writing box grew too. Jefferson passed the box on
to his granddaughter in 1825, telling her in a note, “It
claims no merit of particular beauty. It is plain, neat,
convenient, and taking no more room on the writing table
than a moderate volume, it yet displays it self sufficiently
for any writing. Its imaginary value will increase with the
years...."
Lest the authenticity of the desk be in doubt, Jefferson
attached an affidavit in his own hand—and, it’s
satisfying to suppose, written on the desk—under the
writing board: "Politics as well as Religion has its
superstitions. These, gaining strength with time, may, one
day, give imaginary value to this relic, for its association
with the birth of the Great Charter of our Independence." The
association was not just with that Charter, of course, but
with the long, momentous course of this singularly distinct
life.
The desk wears its status lightly. Up close, you can’t
help but notice a series of ink stains on the surface of
the drawer. They are the careless, reassuring evidence of
life. They mark the desk to this day with the daily humanity
of the man who leaned on the writing box for half a century
and supported on its sturdy wood the immense store of his
mind.
(From an article by Lawrence M. Small, in Smithsonian Magazine)
