Editing Graff House (section)

== Jefferson's Lodgings ==

Thomas Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia in May 1776 as a Virginia delegate to the [[Second Continental Congress]], seeking lodgings away from the noise and bustle of the city center. He rented two rooms on the second floor of the newly constructed Graff House, then on the outskirts of town, paying 35 shillings per week for a parlor and bedroom. The young bricklayer Jacob Graff Jr. and his wife lived on the first floor of the three-story brick house, which featured a kitchen in the cellar and additional rooms above. Jefferson appreciated the relative quiet and the fresh air, conditions conducive to the intense intellectual work that lay ahead.<ref name="malone">{{cite book |last=Malone |first=Dumas |title=Jefferson the Virginian |year=1948 |publisher=Little, Brown |location=Boston}}</ref>

On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a Committee of Five—Jefferson, John Adams, [[Benjamin Franklin]], Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston—to draft a formal declaration explaining the reasons for independence. The committee assigned the actual writing to Jefferson, whose literary reputation had been established by his pamphlet "A Summary View of the Rights of British America" (1774). Over approximately seventeen days in his Graff House lodgings, Jefferson composed the draft that, with revisions by the committee and Congress, became the Declaration of Independence. He worked at a portable writing desk of his own design, a piece of furniture he treasured for the rest of his life and that now resides at the Smithsonian Institution.<ref name="ellis">{{cite book |last=Ellis |first=Joseph J. |title=American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson |year=1997 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |location=New York}}</ref>