In 1776, Thomas Jefferson traveled to Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress, where he arranged to stay with a local cabinetmaker named Benjamin Randolph. Using Jefferson’s design concepts, Randolph built a portable, solid mahogany desk for Jefferson to use during his travels. Designed to be neat and practical, the lap desk could be taken anywhere, including Jefferson’s long coach trips from Virginia to Philadelphia. Most significantly, Jefferson used the small desk to draft the original Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.

Jefferson used the desk for the remainder of his life, and the original is now a prized possession at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.