El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-10-26
Unpublished Letters of Presidents Add -By
Interest TO National Library Collection Frank Carpenter
OF Burned O H


TT TASHINGTON, D. c., Oct. %
w Have already told you some
thing Of the wonderful colIec-
ton Of manuscripts relating to Ameri-
can history which are now being gath
cred together in the manuscript divis-
ion of the Library of Congress at
Washington This collection is stead
lily increasing, and 1t viii soon be the
largest reservoir Of the raw material
of history known TO the world have
spent the greater part of the week in
going through the collection, and it is
impossible to exaggerate its extent and
value. During my visit to the library
] had a most interesting chat with
Gaillard Hunt, the American historian
and archivist in charge of the division,
about the papers OF the presidents.
said he:
THE Washington papers which we
now have IN hand are the largest col
lection relating to any Individual II
is larger than any collection of papers
concerning any one British statesman
or any famous man of any other cOun-
try. washington became famous when
very young and he was prolific let
ter writer From 1775 on people be-
San 10 save his letters. so that now
new Washington letters are always
appearing, and almost any collector OF
consequence has one or more Wash
1ngton letters He wrote the most OF
his correspondence with his own hand,
and he fas so methOdical that he ac-
compllshed great lot of work. It
was his habit to rise at o'clock
every morning and to write until
breakfast time. We have ourselves
here. In the manuscript division, about
$4,000 letters of Washington, and the
collection, including the letters to him.
numbers considerably over 100000"
Many Papers Were Sold.
Where did these papers come
From various sources. a great many
came from his heirs. When Washing
ton died his estate at Mount Vernon
came 10 Gen. Bushrod Washington
Later on a. number of the heirs sold
the papers which they had inherited to
the government Others Of the heirs
kept theirs and Left rnem at Mount
Vernon, and when Mount Vernon was
sold by Col. Washington, the father OF
Lawrence Washington the papers
weee taken to Alexandra ana were
deposited IN a bank. There must have
been about a dozen barrels of them.
At the opening of the civil war the
papers were still there, but soon after
that the bank was burned down and
the papers were burned with It. This
left as the only group Of Washington
papers the one which the government
had bought It formed about twe-
thirds of the whole.
Papers Of Adams and jefferson.
Where are the papers of John Adj
ans
They are in the hands OF the Mass
achusetts Historical society at Boston,
where are also the papers of John
Quincy Adams. They have been de-
posted there and viii probably never
leave Boston, although they really
ought to be in our collection here
The Adams papers are valuable They
are in the special charge of Mr..
WOrthington Ford who was formerly
chief of this division. They are very
carefully guarded"
Have you many of the Jefferson
papers2H
Yes Our collection is numbered by
tens of thousands. jefferson was very
methodical, and his private papers
were almost as vOiumin0us as those
Of Washington He was one of the
first Americans to use a press copy,
and there are thousands of letters in
press copy by him. Congress bought
JeffersOn's library, and it was carried