Omaha daily bee., 1913-10-26
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nous man of any other country. Wash
ington became famous when very young.
and he was a prolific letter writer. From
ITO on people began to save his letters,
so that now new Warrington letters are
always appearing. and almost any col
lector Of consequence has one or more
Washington letters. He wrote the most
OF his correspondence with his own hand.
and he wns so methodical that he ac-
oomplished a great lot Of work. II was
his habit 10 rise at O'Clock every morn
ing and to write until breakfast time
We have ourselves here in the manu-
script division. about 5000 letters OF
Washington. and the collection. includ-
ing the letters to him, numbers consider
ably over $4,000
Gathering the Papers.
Where did those papers come from?"
From various sources. great many
came from his heirs. When washing
ton died his estate at Mount Vernon
came to General 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 them at Mount Vernon.
and when Mount Vernon was sold by
Colonel Washington, the father of Law
renee Washington, the papers were taken
to Alexandria and were deposited in a
bank. There must have been about a
dozen barrels of them. The papers were
still there at the opening of the civil
war, but soon after that the bank wos
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. II formed about
two-thirds of the whole.
Where are the papers of John
Adams?"
They are in the hands OF the Massa-
chusetts Historical society at Boston,
where are also the papers OF John Quincy
adams. They have been deposited there.
and will probably never leave Boston, al
though they really ought to be in our col
lection here. The Adams papers are val
liable. They are in the special charge of
Washington Ford who was formerly chief
Of this division. They are very carefully
guarded"
jefferson Collection Complete.
Have you many of the Jefferson pa
pers?'
Yes. Our collection Is numbered by
tens of thousands. Jefferson was very
methodical, and his private papers wern
almost as voluminous as those OF WASH
ington. He was one OF the first Amer
leans to use a press COPY, ana thero are
thousands of letters In press copy by
him. Congress bought Jefferson's library
and Il was carried in wagons from Monti-
cello TO washington. The Jefferson pa,
pers were not part of the library They
were acquired after Jefferson's death and
were bought OF his descendants for about
$4,000. These papers contained a record
OF the whole career of Jefferson. Only
about one-fifth of them have ever been
published. and It is out of the question
for the government to ever publish them
all"
Tell me something about the papers
of James Madison7"
'our Madison collection came from two
separate purchases. Madison prepared
\ certain Of his papers for publication be-
fore he died, and congress bought some
of these shortly after his death Later
on he bought the remainder. Then some
of the papers fell into the hands of his
stepson. Payne Todd. who deposited them
with James C. Mcclure of Washington.
Mcclure was collector OF manuscripts,
He had loaned Todd money and Todd
ndu given MIN lue papers db Security
and when the debt was not paid they
fell into his hands. Later on the Nc
Guire collection was sold to the Chicago
Historical society. and II was only a
year or so ago that I persuaded that
society to sell them 10 us. The heads of
the society were business men. They
thought that the Madison collection
rightly belonged to the National library.
and they gave II 20 us at just what II
cost them. These Madison papers COM
prised 1i0 volumes. and the items in our
Madison documents altogether are In the
neighborhood OF $1,000
Some Andy Jackson Documents.
We have also some papers OF Monroe
and some which were bought from the
descendants OF John Quincy Adams.
Many OF these have not been bound as
yet We have large collection OF docu-
ments relating 10 Andrew Jackson The
chief collection left by Jackson was given
by General Jackson's adopted son 10 his
friend Francis p. Blair, and BIair's
descendants turned them all over to the
government about five years ago. In ad-
dlton TO this collection there were
large number OF Jackson's letters and
papers in the hands OF his adopted sons
widow. I bought these manuscripts from
her about two years ago, 80 that alto
gether we have now a remarkably com
plete collection Of the Jackson papers
They number about 5000 documents or
items. They begin. with Jaekson's early
youth and run on down TO his death"
How about your collections Of Van
Buren. Tyler, and Polk?"
ivan Buren, did not leave a great
many papers" said Mr.. Hunt He was
a very cautious man and he destroyed
many OF his letters. SuH We have a
large collection which was presented to
the library about six years ago by his
descendants We have very many papers
Of James X. Polk which the government
bought from his descendants. Polk was
careful and methodical. He saved letters
and papers, and we have altogether thirty
or forty thousand OF his documents
Among these is his diary. which we
bought from the Chicago Historical So
eiety. As to the Tyler papers. the most
Of them are In the hands OF his descend
ants at Williamsburg. and l have no
doubt but that they win In ume come 10
the library. Lyon G. Tyler. the presi-
dent of william and Mary college. has