THE PAPERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON N June 23, 1826, Thomas Jefferson noted in his "epistolary ledger" the receipt of a letter from V. W. Southall. On June 25 he closed the record of almost half a century's correspondence with a memorandum of letters written to George Stevenson and Ber- nard Peyton.1 The letters received, endorsed with the writer's name and the date and place written, he filed with copies of their answers. On June 28, he made a last entry in his pocket account books, "pd. Isaacs for cheese 4..S4.."2 And on July 4, 1826, he died, leaving behind in good condition the well ordered accumulation of correspondence and papers that has been called "the richest treasure house of in- formation ever left by a single man."3 In bequeathing a watch to his favorite grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson further provided, ". . . My papers of business going of course to him as my executor, all others of a literary or other character I give to him as of his own property."4 From this bequest, the large Jefferson collections at the Library of Congress (about 50,000 pieces), at the Massachusetts Historical Society (about 7000 pieces), and at the Missouri Historical Society (1100 pieces) were acquired. Fragments from the same bequest are scattered in smaller collections, public and private, from California to western Europe. Three other Jefferson collections, at the Virginia State Library (number of pieces undetermined), in the National Archives (number of pieces undetermined), and at the University of Virginia (1400 pieces) are derived wholly or in part from sources independent of the bequest and consist of Jefferson's papers as legislator and governor, as secretary of state, and as the "father" and first rector of the Uni- versity of Virginia. The Rare Book and Manuscript Division of the University of Vir- ginia Library has attempted to trace all surviving letters to and from Jefferson in public repositories, in private custody, and in printed form, a project which has been in progress for upwards of ten years. At the present time this list is in the form of a chronological check 1 Two index volumes in the Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. Photostat, Univer- sity of Virginia. 2 Account Book, 1821-1826. See note 5. 3 Gilbert Chinard, Thomas Jefferson, the Afostle of Americanism (Boston, 1929), xvi. 4 Original holograph will, clerk's office, Albemarle County, Va. Photostat, University of Virginia. 238 D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 THOMAS JEFFERSON PAPERS 239 list written on thousands of temporary slips. It embraces most of the large collections just mentioned, many scattered holdings, fiye of the collected editions of Jefferson's writings, and printed items in his- torical journals and other publications. Like many other educated Virginia planters of his day, Jefferson wrote his own letters, saved copies of them, and preserved his entire correspondence. In this, and in the keeping of orderly daily accounts of cash receipts and expenditures5 Jefferson merely followed a fairly usual custom; but his natural aptitude for organization and system and his insatiable intellectual curiosity led him to improve upon the customary form and to keep, in addition, many other valuable rec- ords. He kept, for example, a garden book,6 a farm book,7 and three separate records of meteorological observations.8 But it was in the amassing of a vast correspondence with writers in every walk of life throughout the United States, England, and the Continent, covering every type of subject from mammoth skeletons to the Napoleonic wars, that Jefferson left his most valuable bequest to posterity. In fact, when his friend Robert Walsh of Philadelphia asked him in 1823 to furnish materials for writing his biography, he declined graciously, on the plea that "the letters of a person, especially one " The dispersal of Jefferson's papers is well illustrated by the following table showing the present location of the Account Books. Photostatic sets of the entire group are now at the University of Virginia and at the Library of Congress. 1767—1770 LC—Kean 1 7 7 1 MHS 1772 MHS 1773 LC 1774 MHS 1775 Huntington 1776-1778 MHS 1779—1782 LC 1779-1782-Index UVa 1783-179° MHS 1791-1803 NYP 1804.-1808 NYHS 1809-1820 NYHS 1821-1826 NYHS MHS (14 miscellaneous pages, various dates between 1799 and 1816, with an index.) 'Garden Book [1766-1824]. Original, Massachusetts Historical Society. Photostat, University of Virginia. ' F a r m Book [1774-1822]. Original, Massachusetts Historical Society. Photostat, Uni- versity of Virginia. "Weather Observations. 3 MSS vols. 1776-1820, 1785-1786, 1802-1816. Originals, Massachusetts Historical Society. Photostats, University of Virginia. See also the article by Fred. L. Francis and Fred. J. Randolph in Monthly Weather Review (U.S. Dept. of Ag., 1895), pp. 456-458. U.S. Weather Bureau Bulletin, No. 11. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 240 THE AMERICAN ARCHIVIST whose business has been chiefly transacted by letters, form the only full and genuine journal of his life, and few can let them go out of their hands while they live. A life written after these hoards become opened to investigation must supercede any previous one. . . ."9 This vast hoard was first opened by his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, who published a Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscel- lanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson (4 vols., Charlottesville, 1829). Until this time, the papers had remained more or less undis- turbed as Jefferson had left them; but in 1832, George Tucker undertook to write a life of Jefferson, chiefly to answer Henry Lee's Observations on the Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1832). H e made use of an unpublished selection of the letters made by Nicholas P. Trist, who had married Virginia Jefferson Randolph, daughter of Martha Jefferson and Thomas Mann Randolph.10 This suggests a first possible division of the correspondence. Before this, in 1815 ,when the Library of Congress purchased Jefferson's library, and again at their purchases from the auction of his second library in 1829, they had acquired some manuscripts. In addition to the un- published selection, Tucker was able to recover from John Page, Jr., a series of letters to Jefferson's lifelong friend, John Page of Rose- well, written before 1770. In February, 1770, when the family plan- tation Shadwell burned, Jefferson had written Page that he had lost every paper he had in the world, and almost every book.11 The Page letters, therefore, are among the few early letters that have survived. Any other letters antedating 1770 may be expected to have survived among the papers of their recipients. The collection of public papers was offered to Congress in 1848, and on August 12 of that year, an act was passed authorizing their purchase for $20,000 from Thomas Jefferson Randolph and their deposit in the State Department for a separation of public and private papers. Then began a leisurely process of selection in the State De- partment as the private papers were culled, probably by Henry A. Washington, the librarian of the State Department, who in 1853- 1854 edited the somewhat inadequate Congressional edition of the writings.12 " T h o m a s Jefferson, Monticello, April 5, 1823, to Robert Walsh, Philadelphia. Origi- nal, University of Virginia. I George Tucker, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (2 vols., London, 1 8 3 7 ) , I, xv. I I Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jef- ferson (20 vols., Washington, 1 9 0 3 ) , IV, 18. Hereafter cited as Lipscomb and Bergh. 12 Henry A. Washington, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson . . . ( 1 0 vols., New York and Washington, 1 8 5 3 ) . D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 THOMAS JEFFERSON PAPERS 241 Early in 1851, Henry S. Randall began work on his life of Jeffer- son, visiting the descendants of Edgehill and interviewing old neigh- bors for personal recollections of the sage of Monticello. At the Randolph home, Edgehill, was found a large collection of papers and accounts of Peter Jefferson, Jefferson's father, dealing chiefly with the administration of the estate. These are now in the Henry E. Huntington Library in California.13 By about 1870, the Randolph collection of papers had finally been scrutinized by a joint committee of the Library of Congress and the Department of State, and the private papers not purchased were re- turned to the family. The subsequent career of the residuum can be traced only in part. The selection of public papers had been neither thorough nor consistent: papers of public interest had been returned and some private ones retained. Part of the collection retained by Congress14 was then "arranged and bound in a manner defying every rule governing due historical treatment."15 Moreover, after this had been done, and twenty-six years after the private papers had been returned to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, A. R. Spofford, then Li- brarian of Congress, found a large parcel, evidently selected as public papers by the committee, which had been overlooked. These were bound in nineteen additional volumes.16 Nor was the entire collection yet together, for the Department of State turned over to the Library of Congress additional letters in 1905, and in 1906 or 1907 a box containing more than 2000 additional pieces was found in Mr. Spof- ford's office. The transfer of this box finally brought the govern- ment's holdings from the Randolph heirs together under one roof and one direction.17 In the meantime, the private papers were being subjected to that scattering of manuscripts among a "multitude of inheritors," as Randall feared in 1851.18 They were used, while still together, by Sarah Nicholas Randolph, daughter of Thomas Jefferson Randolph, 13 Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (3 vols., New York, 1858), I, i6n. 14 Calendar of the Corresfondence of Thomas Jefferson. Part I, Letters from Jefferson. Part II, Letters to Jefferson. Part III, Supplementary. Bulletin of the Bureau of Rolls and Library of Department of State, NosJ 6, 8, 10. (Washington, Dept. of State, 1894- 1903). Hereafter cited as Bur. of Rolls. 15 Worthington C. Ford in "The Jefferson Papers," preface to Fiske Kimball, Thomas Jefferson, Architect (Boston, privately printed, 1916), 6. For Ford's later comments, see his introductory note to the Bixby collection: Thomas Jefferson Corresfondence . . , (Boston, 1916). 13 Bur. of Rolls, No. 10 (1903), iii. " Ford, of. cit., 7. 18 Randall, of. cit., I, viii. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 242 THE AMERICAN ARCHIVIST to write her charming Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1871). In 1889, she offered the papers to the United States, and a bill, H.R. 1305, was referred to the committee on the library. Sarah Randolph died in 1898, leaving the papers to her sisters, Caro- lina Ramsay Randolph and Cary Ann Nicholas Randolph. In 1892, the committee reported on the bill, describing a portion of the col- lection in detail, as containing 3 060 pieces bound in 21 portfolios, none of them duplicated in the Department of State collections. The committee urged the purchase of the collection for its historical as well as its biographical value, but the bill failed to pass, and the chance to reassemble Jefferson's correspondence in one place was lost." Thomas Jefferson Coolidge of Boston, a great-grandson of Jeffer- son, purchased a collection of about 7000 pieces from these private papers in 1898, which he presented to the Massachusetts Historical Society in June of that year. A selection of these was printed in 1900 in the society's proceedings. From Mrs. Wilson Cary Nicholas Randolph in 1907, the Library of Congress received 178 drafts of Jefferson's letters on the Uni- versity of Virginia, and some years earlier Wilson Cary Nicholas Randolph had presented to the University of Virginia 62 of Jeffer- son's sketches and plans of its original buildings.20 In 1912, William K. Bixby acquired a collection of about 2500 pieces from Mr. George P. Coleman of Williamsburg and Richmond. Mr. Coleman's ancestor, St. George Tucker, "the American Black- stone," was a close friend of Jefferson. Mr. Coleman's mother had married Henry A. Washington, and after his death, Dr. Charles Washington Coleman. It seems probable that part of the Coleman collection had been in St. George Tucker's papers, and another por- tion in Mr. Washington's, in connection with his work on the Con- gressional edition of the writings. There is still a collection of about 200 pieces, chiefly letter-press copies and incoming letters owned by Mr. Coleman and deposited in the Department of Research and Records of Colonial Williamsburg, Inc., which he had generously permitted the University of Virginia to microfilm for reference pur- poses. Mr. Bixby distributed upwards of 500 pieces of his collection "House Miscellaneous Reports. 55th Congress, 2nd Session. Nos. 17-245. Report to accompany H.R. 1305, Jan. 21, 1898. "Report of the Librarian of Congress, 1907, 135. Memorandum by Wilson Cary Nicholas Randolph, April 2, 1898. University of Virginia. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 THOMAS JEFFERSON PAPERS 243 among 46 individuals and institutions which he thought should own them, and 1100 he presented to the Missouri Historical Society. A selection of these was printed in Boston in 1916 with notes by Worth- ington C. Ford, Thomas Jefferson Correspondence, Printed from the Originals in the Collection of William K. Bixby; and the Missouri Historical Society has since printed another selection,21 but the greater part of the Bixby group is still unpublished. Collections of the private papers have continued to come into pub- lic repositories. Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Jr., in 1911 visited Monticello and was inspired by the idea of reproducing in Manches- ter, Mass., his ancestor's famous dwelling. H e found Jefferson's architectural drawings for Monticello owned by Mrs. William Mann Randolph (nee Mary Walker Randolph, daughter of Thomas Jeffer- son Randolph, Jr.) and Miss Cornelia J. Taylor (daughter of Thomas Jefferson Randolph Taylor, who had married Martha Jef- ferson Randolph, daughter of Thomas Jefferson Randolph). These he acquired and presented to the Massachusetts Historical Society. He also sponsored their publication in Fiske Kimball's definitive work on Thomas Jefferson, Architect?2 The Library of Congress added 121 "inedited letters" to its collec- tion at a sale in Philadelphia, and has since acquired other Jefferson items as part of other collections, or as separate purchases or gifts.23 These, with scattered holdings among the "multitude of inheritors," complete the record of the collection which Jefferson bequeathed to Thomas Jefferson Randolph in 1826. It is interesting to note that in connection with the records of the commonwealth of Virginia, Jefferson evinced that interest in the preservation of historical documents that characterized his entire adult life. While he was still a law student at the College of William and Mary in 1762, and the records of the colony were kept in the Public Record Office in the capital at Williamsburg, he took a keen interest in the frail and crumbling records of the colony's earliest laws and made extensive transcriptions from them.24 Beyond this, he collected as many of the printed and manuscript laws of the colony 21 "Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson, 1788-1826," Missouri Historical Society, Glimfses of the Past, III, Nos. 4-6 (April-June, 1936), 77-133. Also separately reprinted. 21 Of. cit. "Refort of the Librarian of Congress, 1912, 38. See also the later reports. "Thomas Jefferson, Philadelphia, May 9, 1798, to Hon. St. George Tucker, Wil- liamsburg. Jefferson Papers, Lib. of Cong. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 244 THE AMERICAN ARCHIVIST as possible, and of these he wrote Judge George Wythe from Monti- cello on Jan. 16, 1796: . . . These I preserve by wrapping and sewing them up in oiled cloth, so that neither air nor moisture can have access to them. Very early in the course of my researches into the laws of Virginia, I observed that many of them were already lost, and many more on the point of being lost, as existing in only single copies in the hands of careful or curious individuals, on whose deaths they would probably be used for waste paper. I set myself therefore to work, to collect all which were then existing, in order that when the day would come in which the public should avert to the magni- tude of their loss in these precious monuments of our property, and our history, a part of their regret might be spared by information that a portion had been saved from the wreck, which is worthy of their atten- tion and preservation. In searching after these remains, I spared neither time nor expense; and am of the opinion that scarcely any law escaped me, which was in being as late as the year 1790 in the middle or southern parts of the State. In the northern parts, perhaps something might still be found. In the clerk's offices in the ancient counties, some of these manuscript copies of the laws may possibly still exist, which used to be furnished at the public expense to every county, before the use of the press was introduced. . . . This collecting saved for Virginia its earliest laws, because after the removal of the capital to Richmond in December, 1779, the state's records were also transported, and there many were destroyed or seized by the British in 1781. Jefferson placed his collection at the disposal of William Waller Hening, who was compiling the Statutes at Large, and in doing so realized an ambition to insure its preserva- tion "from the worm, from the natural decay of the paper, from the accidents of fire, or those of removal when it is necessary for any pub- lic purposes . . . [from] ravages of fire and ferocious enemies."25 In his advice to Hening on the publication he advocated another sound principal of preservation, " I shall have no doubt of the exact- ness of your part of the work, but hope you will take measures to have the typography and paper worthy of the work"—advice which Hening was unfortunately not able to follow.26 Nor did his efforts to recover the state's official archives end there. On May 8, 1791, he wrote the president of the United States that 23 Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, Jan. 16, 1796, to Judge George Wythe, in Lipscomb and Bergh, IX, 319-323. [Incorrectly dated by Hening as Jan. 16, 1795.] The letter was first printed in broadside form in 1796. See Evans, 30637. 29 Thomas Jefferson, Washington, Jan. 14., 1807, to William Waller Hening, in The Statutes at Large-, Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia . . . , edited by William Waller Hening (Richmond, 1809-1823), vii-viii. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 THOMAS JEFFERSON PAPERS 245 he was attempting to restore the records destroyed by the British, particularly the transactions of the Revolution between June 1, 1779, and June 1, 1781. He asked to be allowed to borrow official letters he had addressed to Washington of those dates.27 Two years later he was still engaged in this task, and wrote to Major General Horatio Gates from Philadelphia on March 12, 1793, "I am endeavoring to recover copies of my letters from the hands to whom they were ad- dressed, and have been happy to find this more practicable than I had apprehended. . . . The whole shall be sacredly returned."28 The first two pages of Jefferson's epistolary ledger are quite ap- parently a record of official letters during his governorship which he recovered in this manner. With the records which survived the Brit- ish raid, and a copy of the Executive Letter Book from July 27- September 8, 1780 (captured by the British and later deposited in the British Museum), the Virginia State Library in 1928 was able to bring out a fairly complete record of the official letters, under the editorship of H. R. Mcllwaine.29 Jefferson's drafts of bills and reso- lutions presented to the Virginia House of Delegates while he was a member of that body, have been rediscovered recently in the capitol and deposited in the archives of the new Virginia State Library build- ing, where they are being catalogued under the direction of Dr. Wil- liam J. Van Schreeven, the archivist. The University of Virginia is the fortunate possessor of a collection of more than 1400 items, some of which accumulated as official uni- versity archives. Others were acquired by gift and purchase. The col- lection includes a large photostatic and microfilm collection acquired for research, such as the complete file of Jefferson's account books from 1767 to 1826 copied from many different sources, copies of un- published letters in the Massachusetts Historical Society collections, and copies of scattered single letters still in private hands. A catalogued and indexed calendar of this collection has been prepared by the writer for publication in the near future. The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, which owns Monti- cello, and is engaged in its restoration and maintenance as a national shrine, has received many gifts of Jefferson manuscripts, and has 27 Thomas Jefferson, Philadelphia, May 8, 1791, to George Washington, in Lipscomb and Bergh, VIII, 194. 28 Thomas Jefferson, Philadelphia, Mar. 12, 1793, to Major General Horatio Gates, in Ibid., IX, 35-36. 29 Official Letters of the Governors of the State of Virginia. Vol. II. The Letters of Thomas Jefferson. Edited by Henry R. Mcllwaine (Richmond, 1 9 2 8 ) . D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 246 THE AMERICAN ARCHIVIST purchased others. All of these have been microfilmed for the library's collection, and are thus available for research. This collection in- cludes, in addition to a few legal papers, a magnificent collection of music owned by Jefferson and his daughters and grandchildren at Monticello, presented by Miss Fanny Maury Burke, a descendant. There are some manuscript music books in the lot, which may or may not be original compositions by Jefferson, still others are copies by him, his daughters, and grandchildren of well chosen selections by leading eighteenth and nineteenth century composers. One music book contains Jefferson's directions for tuning the harpsichord. In the University of Virginia's group of papers which could be classed as official are the original architectural drawings of the uni- versity already mentioned; a pocket memorandum book containing specifications; a few drawings and calculations used by Jefferson in directing the building operations; Minutes of the Board of Visitors of Central College (May 5, 1817-Feb. 26, 1819) and of the Uni- versity of Virginia (to April 7, 1826) kept by Thomas Jefferson as rector; papers from the proctor's office dealing with financial affairs of the university and written or endorsed by Jefferson. An extensive correspondence with Jefferson's good friend and fellow sponsor of the university, Joseph Cabell, much of which pertains to the founding of the university, was presented by Mr. Robert C. Taylor.30 Eighteen letters written by Jefferson to John Hartwell Cocke, a fellow member of the Board of Visitors, were presented by William Andrews Clark, Jr., an alumnus who collected and pre- sented a number of other Jefferson manuscripts. A collection of 434 manuscripts and 17 printed items in the Mc- Gregor Library consists of legal papers, surveyor's drawings, and correspondence relating chiefly to Jefferson's lands in Albemarle, Bedford, and Campbell counties, and a lawsuit over land at Milton, Virginia. A group of 35 items are of Jefferson's dealings, during his term as president, with George Barnes, a Georgetown merchant. Some important single items, particuuarly manuscript volumes or printed volumes with Jefferson's notations have also been acquired by the McGregor Library. Among materials of this type at the uni- versity library are the following: 30 Many of these were printed with tactful omissions in Nathaniel Francis Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia as contained in letters of Thomas Jefferson and Josefh C. Cabell . . . (Richmond, 1856). D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 T H O M A S J E F F E R S O N PAPERS 247 Collection of Ordinances and Bills prepared by the Committee of the Convention for the Revision of the Laws of Virginia. 1776-1784. 205 pp., and index 4 pp. by Thomas Jefferson, with notes on the bills. Copy of Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, with his manu- script revisions, additions, maps and plates, which was used by J. W . Randolph to bring out a revised edition in 1853. The copies of the New Testament from which Jefferson clipped, in the preparation of The Philosofhy of Jesus of Nazareth . . . Inscribed copy of the Notes which Jefferson had presented to La- fayette. An Essay or Introductory Lecture towards Facilitating Instruction in the Anglo-Saxon and modern dialects of the English Language. For the use of the University. AD 64pp., and rough draft, AD 55 pp. President Jefferson's Catalogue of Books for the University of Vir- ginia Library. 1825. In the writing of Jefferson's granddaughter, Vir- ginia Randolph. Signed by Jefferson as rector of the university. Scrap book of political songs and poems compiled by Jefferson, chiefly of the period of his presidency and clipped from newspapers and periodi- cals. Thomas Jefferson's designs for the President's House and Capitol in Washington. 1792. Four sheets with rough pencil drawings and two finished floor plans of the designs submitted anonymously by Jefferson in the competition announced by the Commissioners of the Federal Build- ings (of which he was one). Letters continue to accumulate at the university, both from the descendants who still retain fragments of the great mass of "private papers," and from descendants of those to whom the original letters were addressed. Just this year the McGregor Library obtained a col- lection of 509 items, chiefly intimate letters between members of the Carr, Cary, Randolph, Nicholas, and Jefferson families. In this group were 124 letters to and from Thomas Jefferson, including a series from Peter Carr concerning his education at William and Mary and his beginning law practice; Jefferson's correspondence with his brother Randolph of Snowden over family finances, agriculture, spinning jennies, and the latter's domestic difficulties (now ready for publication by the McGregor Library under the editorship of Pro- fessor Bernard Mayo); and letters of Wilson Miles Cary asking for advice in educating his grandchildren. It is hoped that in the coming year the check list can be brought nearer to completion by the addition of records of letters to or from Jefferson in repositories having only small holdings. The epistolary ledger will then be transferred to this check list, and many letters now D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 248 THE AMERICAN ARCHIVIST undated, or to or from unknown correspondents can be assigned their proper designation. This list will be mimeographed or printed and circulated widely in the hope of locating as far as possible all Jeffer- son correspondence, whether original, polygraph or letter press copy, or printed. In this connection, the Missouri Historical Society has arranged through Miss Brenda Richard, its assistant archivist, to contribute a list in card form of its holdings; Dr. Earl G. Swem of the College of William and Mary has sent a list of his library's Jef- ferson collection to be recorded in the check list; the Maryland Historical Society has permitted photostating of its collection; and Dr. William Smith Mason has contributed photostats of the Jefferson material in the Franklin Papers at Yale University Library. This co-operative work of institutions and individuals is bringing order back to the confusion resulting from the wide scattering of the rich treasure house that was once a single collection. In anticipation of the Jefferson bi-centennial celebration in 1943, the University of Vir- ginia hopes to contribute as an aid to Jefferson scholarship a printed calendar of its holdings, and an extensive checklist locating all pos- sible Jefferson papers, and will welcome any lists which can be con- tributed. One is reminded, in this task of Jefferson's own tireless labors on behalf of the preservation of the records of the state of Virginia and of the United States; and of his labor in amassing and organizing a vast correspondence, only to have it scattered by various mischances. The man who made use of copying presses and polygraph to preserve his correspondence, and who urged printing as another means of multiplying copies, would have welcomed microfilming. That he anticipated some of the soundest principles of modern archival prac- tice is evidenced in his letter31 to Ebenezer Hazard, which is dated Philadelphia, Feb. 18, 1791: Sir I return you the two volumes of records, with thanks for the oppor- tunity of looking into them. They are curious monuments of the infancy of our country. I learn with great satisfaction that you are about com- mitting to the press the valuable historical and state papers you have been so long collecting. Time & accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. The late war has done the work of centuries in this business. The lost cannot be recovered; but let us "Thomas Jefferson, Philadelphia, Feb. 18, 1791, to Ebenezer Hazard. Original, His- torical Society of Pennsylvania. Facsimile copy, University of Virginia. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 THOMAS JEFFERSON PAPERS 249 save what remains; not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such multiplication of copies as shall place them beyond the reach of acci- dent. This being the tendency of your undertaking be assured there is no one who wishes it more complete success than Sir Your most obedient & most humble sert T h : Jefferson Mr. Hazard. H E L E N D U P R E Y B U L L O C K University of Virginia D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.4.4.3107545250354r73 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021