ng with his Mansion
House, to his nephew, Bushrod Washington, an associate justice of the
Federal Supreme Court. Judge Washington failed to appreciate fully the
seriousness of the obligation thus incurred and instead of safeguarding
the papers with the utmost jealousy gave many, including volumes of the
diary, to visitors and friends who expressed a desire to possess
mementoes of the illustrious patriot. In particular he permitted
Reverend William Buel Sprague, who had been a tutor in the family of
Nelly Custis Lewis, to take about fifteen hundred papers on condition
that he leave copies in their places. The judge also intrusted a
considerable portion to the historian Jared Sparks, who issued the first
considerable edition of Washington's writings. Sparks likewise was
guilty of giving away souvenirs.

Bushrod Washington died in 1829 and left the papers and letter books for
the most part to his nephew John Corbin Washington. In 1834 the nation
purchased of this gentleman the papers of a public character, paying
twenty-five thousand dollars. The owner reserved the private papers,
including invoices, ciphering book, rules of civility, etc., but in 1849
sold these also to the same purchaser for twenty thousand dollars. The
papers were kept for many years in the Department of State, but in the
administration of Theodore Roosevelt most of them were transferred to
the Library of Congress, where they could be better cared for and would
be more accessible.

Bushrod Washington gave to another nephew, John Augustine Washington,
the books and relics in the dining-room of the Mansion House. In course
of time these were scattered, some being bought for the Boston
Athenaeum, which has decidedly the larger part of Washington's library;
others were purchased by the state of New York, and yet others were
exhibited at the Centennial Exposition and were later sold at auction.
Among the relics bought by New York was a sword wrongly said to have
been sent to the General by Frederick the Great.

One hundred and twenty-seven of his letters, mostly to William Pearce,
his manager at Mount Vernon during a portion of his presidency, were
bought from the heirs of Pearce by the celebrated Edward Everett and now
belong to the Long Island Historical Society. These have been published.
His correspondence with Tobias Lear, for many years his private
secretary, are now in the collection of Thomas K. Bixby, a wealthy
bibliophile of St. Louis. These als