Watertown leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1909-1911, 1910-07-15
SAVING The
DECLARATION,

COMPARATIVELY few Of the
81 present generation know how
~ near to being lost was once
the most precious of our ma
tional documents, the Declaration Of
Independence. 1t was during the war
of 1912. The Declaration of Independ-
ence hung for many years in a frame
in the state department in the room
then occupied by Stephen Pleasonton.
who moved to Washington in 1900
with the government. Mr.. Monroe.
when he was elected president. created
a new Office, which was conferred
upon Mr.. PleasOnton, that of chief
of the lighthouse establishment, to
which was added the auditing of the
ministerial and consular accounts. This
Office was retained by Mr. Pleasonton
under all the succeeding administra-
tons until his death, which occurred
in 1855.
Mr.. BeaseIey. commissary Of prison
ers of war in London, forwarded to the
state department some London news
papers stating that the English fleets
and transports were receiving troops
at Bordeaux, France, with the inten-
ton of operating against Washington
and Baltimore Soon after it was
learned that the British fleet was in
the Chesapeake bay and that it was
ascending the Patuxent. The officials
and citizens of the little Capital City
were hourly expecting an attack
Mr.. PleasOntOn purchased some
coarse linen and had it made into bags
Of suitable size, in which he, assisted
books and other papers.
While engaged in this work General
Armstrong, then secretary of war,
passing the state department on his
way to his own Office, remarked that
he thought they were unnecessarily
alarming themselves, as he did not
think the British were serious in their
intentions Of coming to Washington.
Fortunately Mr.. PIeasonton was Of
different opinion.
For the papers which Mr.. Pleasonton
had placed in the coarse linen bags
comprised the secret journals Of con-
gress, then not published; the CORE
spondence of General Washington, his
commission, resigned at the close of
the war; the correspondence Of Cen
eral Greene and other officers of the
Revolution, as well as laws, treaties
and correspondence of the department
of state from the adoption of the con-
stitutiOn down to that time.
Mr.. Pleasonton had the bags carted
to a gristmill, which he selected as a
suitable depository, two miles above
Georgetown.
The last load had left and Mr.. Pleas
OntOn was just quitting the vacant
rooms when, turning back suddenly to
see whether anything had been left
behind, to CONSERVATION he saw
the Declaration of Independence, which
had been overlooked, still hanging
upon the wall. He hastily cut it out
of the frame and carried it away with
the other papers.
He then began to be uneasy about
the place he had chosen, for if the
British took Washington, which he
firmly believed they would do, and
very soon at that, they would in all
probability detach a force to destroy
a foundry for the making of cannon
and shot in the neighbOrhoOd and, Of
course, would consider a gristmill too
valuable a thing to be left standing
in a country they meant to subdue.
Mr.. Pleasonton therefore visited some
of the Virginia farmhouses, whose
owners were only too willing to lend
him wagons in which to convey the
documents to Leesburg, a distance Of
thirty-ive miles. There they were de-
posted in an empty house.
Worn out with his labOrs, Mr.. Pleas
onton states in a letter, he retired early
to bed that night and slept soundly.
Next morning he was informed by the
people of the little tavern where he
had stayed that evening that they had
seen during the night, the same being
the Oath Of August, a large fire in the
direction of Washington, which proved
to be the light from the public build
ings, which the enemy had set on fire
and burned to the ground.
When he returned to Washington on
the 26th he found the public buildings
still burning and learned that the Brit
ish army had evacuated the city the
DracedinU evening