The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 48, December 1, 2002, Article 6

FIRST SENATE ACCOUNT BOOKS RESCUED

  An article by Carl Hulse in the November 25, 2002 issue of
  The New York Times reported that the original accounting
  book of the United States Senate, carrying "careful entries by
  the likes of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr"
  was found and rescued by workers minutes before it would
  have been hauled off to the trash.

  "Misplaced and long forgotten in a dirty underground storage
  room, the original accounting book of the Senate ... known
  as S-1, survived hundreds of years, escaping the torching of
  the Capitol in the War of 1812. But it was almost lost last
  week to an effort to modernize the building."

  "It came just a whisker from workmen whose only orders
  were to clear out the room," said Richard A. Baker, the
  Senate historian, adding that when he first heard of the
  volumes he presumed they were copies.

  "I couldn't believe my eyes," Mr. Baker said. "I have been
  here 28 years and have never seen a find like this."

  Marked as the "Senators Compensation and Mileage"
  ledger, S-1 covers Senate sessions from 1791 to 1881 and
  provides a down-to-the-dollar account of the early costs
  of democracy."

  "Since the ledgers were discovered last Tuesday, Mr. Baker
  and others in the Senate historical office have spent time
  establishing how they came to be lost, and he attributed it to
  a not uncommon government cause. "This is a screw-up,"
  he said.

  From what the historical office can discern, S-1 and the
  other volumes had been shipped to the National Archives,
  perhaps around the 1930's, but for an unknown reason
  Senate officials asked that they be returned in 1963. They
  eventually found their way to the storage space, which the
  Senate disbursing office abandoned in the early 1980's.
  Hardly anyone has been in there since.

  Mr. Baker said the carefully drawn entries on the pages,
  which measure about 9 by 14 inches, show the Senate's
  struggle to keep accurate accounts in its early years as it
  moved from New York to Philadelphia to the District of
  Columbia.

  Another historian, Peter Drummey, librarian at the
  Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, said such
  documents were vivid reminders of the small scale of the
  early federal government, when the president personally
  signed the commissions of military officers."

  "The east front of the Capitol is now under construction
  for a three-level underground visitor center that will
  provide more space for tourists and museum exhibits as
  well as improved security. Visitors will enter the Capitol
  near where the storage room was.  But Mr. Baker does
  not expect any more historical discoveries, saying the
  Senate has become much more careful with its documents
  in recent decades."

  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/25/politics/25CAPI.html

  [Perhaps some interesting tidbits of information on the
  early U.S. Mint await discovery in the long-lost volume.
  -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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