Archibald Samuel Bought a Set of Books in 1819 About George Washington & the new America.
You can read the books too...digitalized by Google!
“In 1819, seven sets of the State Papers and Publick Documents of the United States from the Accession of George Washington to the Presidency, were purchased in Caswell County, North Carolina. Those who added this useful source to their libraries were John Daniel, James Daniel, Fred W. Pleasants, Archibald Samuel, James Sanders, Joseph Sanders and Charles Wilson.”
This bit of history is found in William S. Powell’s book, When the Past Refused to Die, on page 408.
Full disclosure: Archibald was my 4th Great Grandfather. He was also a large landowner, a lawyer, and the sheriff for one term. From his death notice published in the “Milton Spectator,” on 24 October, 1832, Archibald died 18 October, in the evening, at the age 83.
Samuel resided in Milton, Caswell County, N.C., (1777-1832). He was appointed as one of the Commissioners to lay out the town of Milton in Caswell, creating half acre lots. He and the other Commissioners were also charged with setting the site for both a tobacco and flour inspection houses in the same area.
Archibald was a patriot, of course, so when in 1819, a multi volume set of books about George Washington and the creation of the United States was advertised in North Carolina, he wanted to read the whole set.
I wondered if this book was available anywhere today. Yes! I have actually read some of Volume I on Hathitrust.org….and you can too, dear reader! (click above on image caption). The entire set has been digitalized by Google. Worldcat.org has it catalogued and it is available in some locales via interlibrary loan.
The book contains George’s inaugural address (awfully long in my opinion), correspondence of all kinds, legislative reports…. very like the Congressional Record of today. The story of the beginning of this new nation is clearly described in the pages of the book set. Clearly, some clean ups post from the Revolutionary War, relations with England and France too was congressional business. And there was political wrangling over policies and leaders too. There were always money issues too, like paying Revolutionary War soldiers pensions.
So, Archibald sat in his library in his house in Milton, NC, reading all the volumes by candle light in front of a blazing fire. 206 years later, I sat in my favorite chair and read the same book by lamplight. I wonder if Archibald made notes in the margins too?
Thanks for calling attention to this invaluable primary source, Bonnie! I believe the Internet Archive has access to a bunch of volumes of this work, at https://archive.org/search?query=State+papers+and+publick+documents+of+the+United .