Scope and Content Note for Additions to the Collection
The papers of George Washington (1732-1799) were organized in eight series and microfilmed and indexed prior to publication of the Index to the George Washington Papers by the Library of Congress in 1964. From 1998 to 2000 the collection was digitized for online presentation as The George Washington Papers , available on the Library of Congress website.
Items omitted from the first eight series as extraneous to the papers and other Washington material acquired since 1970 have been added to the papers as Series 9, Addenda. The Addenda spans the years 1732-1943 and includes original documents, contemporary copies, reproductions of letters, accounts, diaries, surveys, memorabilia, printed matter, clippings, and items relating to the preservation and study of Washington documents. Series 9, Addenda, is organized in subseries identified by the year each addition was processed.
The 1973 addition includes the material omitted from the microfilm copy of the first eight series of the papers. It includes originals and reproductions of Washington correspondence, diaries, surveying and business records, and miscellaneous items in other repositories and in private hands. Other items document the work of collectors, transcribers, and indexers. A volume of material compiled by Worthington Chauncey Ford includes an original Washington letter of 1781.
The 1979-1985 addition, formerly designated as Series 10, includes four original letters by Washington, 1770-1788, and reproductions of twenty others primarily from Washington dated 1770-1798. The originals and reproductions are arranged separately in chronological order.
The 1996 addition contains two original letters. One letter conveys orders from Washington by Aquila Giles, aide-de-camp of General Israel Putnam, 1777. The second is a fragment of a letter from Washington to his nephew, Howell Lewis, acting manager of Mount Vernon, 1793. A photocopy of a Washington letter to Jeremiah Olney, 1799, is also included.
The 1999 addition includes four letters from Washington, a survey, and a collection of Washingtoniana formerly cataloged as part of the Library's Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection. Three of the letters are originals and include a letter dated 1773 from Washington to Robert Cary concerning the finances of Washington's step-son, John Parke Custis, a letter dated 1777 from Washington to John Cadwalader offering him a commission in the continental forces, and a letter dated 1780 from Washington to Cadwalader discussing the need for a United States regular army. The fourth letter is a facsimile of a letter dated 1785 from Washington to Francis Hopkinson agreeing to sit for a portrait to be painted by a "Mr. Pine." The holograph survey of a tract of land in Frederick County, Virginia, was prepared and signed by Washington and is dated 1750.
The Washingtoniana collection in the 1999 addition includes correspondence and reports about Washington documents and commemorative broadside prints, ribbons, portraits, seals and signatures, cloth from a bier, hair samples, and memorial copies of letters and commissions.
None of the papers in Series 9, Addenda, has been microfilmed. Selected original items from the Addenda have been digitized and added to the online collection.