University of Virginia Library

Jefferson's Papers

Thomas Jefferson was not discovered in 1943. That was merely
his bicentennial year. The many persons from whom we have had
somewhat anxious inquiries may be assured that in this biennium
the University has continued to be the principal institutional collector
of Jefferson's papers, acquiring in this period 127 original
manuscripts of our Founder. Our collection of 2,500 autograph
manuscripts is small compared with the great one in the Library
of Congress, but it has many unique features of peculiar interest.
Mrs. Thurlow and I will have ready for publication early in 1950
an indexed calendar of every manuscript in the collection.

We may as well confess that our most valuable "find" of Jefferson
papers during the past year was the discovery of fifty-eight letters
from Jefferson to Arthur S. Brockenbrough, first Proctor of the
University, tied in a neat bundle and lying where they had lain
for 125 years in the office in which Brockenbrough received them,
less than 300 yards from my desk. Rarely has a 300-mile journey
yielded comparable treasure!

Mr. Jefferson, who selected and purchased our original library,
died before he could see personally to the moving of the books
from Pavilion VII to the central building he had erected for them.
He lived long enough, though, to beg for us in 1825 our first manuscript
collection. During the past year he has assisted us in our
collecting work. He was aided in this by various alumni chapters.
Following a timely suggestion by Mr. Harrison Mann of Washington,
D. C., Jefferson's witty letter of 9 September 1817, to Joseph
Cabell, was issued in facsimile in a handsome leaflet entitled Mr.
Jefferson on Lawyers' Language. The leaflet, containing also brief
notes on our collecting interests and an appeal on our behalf by
President Darden, was printed and distributed in several thousand
copies by the alumni chapters in Washington, D. C.; Louisville,
Kentucky; Charleston, West Virginia; New York City; and by a
Richmond alumnus. These helpful friends of the library have the
satisfaction of knowing that their work has assisted materially in
strengthening our collections.

The Jefferson publications sponsored or assisted by the University
in recent years are too well known to need mention here. Two
more will be published in coming months by the McGregor Library
(which has issued since the appearance of our last report Hugh T.
Lefler's A Plea for Federal Union: North Carolina, 1788). Letters
to a Bookseller, edited by Professor Elizabeth Cometti of Marshall
College, will concern Jefferson's work in establishing the University
Library (to a man of affairs, not a bookseller, Jefferson wrote that
the building of the library was much more important than the
remission of the University's debt). Professor Luther P. Jackson,
of Virginia State College, is editing the memoirs of Isaac Jefferson,
a household servant at Monticello, as dictated in old age a century
ago to the historian Charles Campbell.