0:00 The official ink used to sign the Declaration of Independence was made from oak galls, iron sulfate, and gum arabic—a recipe almost two thousand years old.0:13 It’s a detail you don't find in the big histories, which is exactly the kind of thing we were exploring last week, finding those forgotten voices in the shadows of iconic moments.0:29 Today, we're with one of those voices...0:32 a junior clerk named Elias, inside the Pennsylvania State House on a suffocating August day in 1776.0:41 The air doesn't move in Philadelphia in August.0:45 It just sits.0:47 Heavy.0:47 Smelling of horses and damp wool.0:50 My job wasn't to debate clauses or worry about treason.0:55 My job was the ink.0:56 Making sure it was the right consistency… not too thick from the heat, not too thin.1:04 And the quills.1:05 I had a dozen goose quills sharpened and ready on a side table, my penknife next to them in case a point broke.1:15 All day, the voices had been a low rumble, a storm in the next valley over.1:22 I tried not to listen to the words.1:25 Words were for them.1:26 My world was the small, dark pool in the ceramic inkwell.1:31 I watched their hands.1:33 The man from Virginia, the tall one who wrote the draft, he kept rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, as if he could still feel the pen.1:46 The stout man from Massachusetts, Mister Adams, he paced.1:51 He wore a groove in the floorboards, I think.1:55 But the old doctor from Philadelphia… he just sat.1:59 And watched.2:00 He was watching everyone else, but I always felt like he was watching me, too.2:07 Making sure I didn't spill.2:10 Then the talking stopped.2:12 That was the worst part.2:14 The silence.2:15 It was heavier than the air.2:17 It meant the time for words was over.2:21 A man I didn't know, a delegate from New Hampshire, was the first to get up after the President, Mister Hancock.2:30 He walked to the desk, and the only sounds were his shoe buckles on the wood floor and a fly buzzing near the window.2:41 My heart was pounding.2:43 Not for him, not for the country.2:46 For the quill.2:47 This is the part I remember.2:49 Mister Hancock, the President of the Congress, he sits in the chair.2:55 He’s a man who likes a grand gesture.2:59 He picks up the first quill—one I had just sharpened an hour before.3:05 He dips it into my ink.3:07 And then he signs his name.3:09 So large.3:10 So… definite.3:11 And my first thought wasn't about defiance.3:15 It wasn't about King George.3:17 My first thought was, 'That's a LOT of ink.' I held my breath, terrified he was going to blot the parchment.3:27 They all left, eventually.3:29 One by one, they came to the desk, dipped a quill, and made their mark.3:35 The room slowly emptied until it was just me and the last of the afternoon light.3:42 I went over to the desk to collect the inkwells and the used quills.3:48 And I looked at the document.3:51 All those names, drying in the heat.3:54 My ink.3:55 My quills.3:55 My hands had trimmed the feathers and sharpened the points that signed a new country into existence.4:04 No one would ever know my name.4:07 But I was there.4:08 My work was there, a part of every single letter.4:13 History is not just the signature, but the steady hand that prepared the ink.
