Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts 1705-1827 Guide to the Microfilm Edition The Massachusetts Historical Society received a federal grant from the Save America's Treasures program to conserve this collection and digitize select manuscripts. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts provided additional funds.

Table of Contents Collection Summary Biographical Timeline Sources Collection Description Related Materials Acquisition Information Custodial History Other Formats Organization Detailed Description of the Collection Preferred Citation Access Terms

Collection Summary

Biographical Timeline

Sources

For further information on Jefferson's library, see:

Sowerby, E. Millicent, ed. Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983.

Wilson, Douglas. "Jefferson's Libraries." Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography. Ed. Merrill D. Peterson. New York: Scribner, 1986.

Collection Description

The Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts held by the Massachusetts Historical Society, by number of documents, is second only to the Jefferson Collection at the Library of Congress. The Coolidge Collection chronicles the personal life of Jefferson, for it is composed, for the most part, of his private rather than his official papers. There are close to 9,500 items in the collection, including slightly more than 9,000 pieces of correspondence (letters to and from Jefferson); 400 architectural drawings; account books and journals, including Jefferson's farm and garden books (estate and plantation records); the manuscript catalog of his personal library; the manuscript of his only major published work, Notes on the State of Virginia; and other miscellaneous manuscript documents.

Thomas Jefferson retained the letters he received, filing them in his desk. His use of a polygraph (a letter-copying machine) enabled him to keep a copy of each letter he sent out. Late in his life, he made wet letterpress copies of his letters. His meticulous record-keeping accounts for the estimated total of 50,000 letters written by or to him that survive.

The letters penned by Jefferson found in the Coolidge Collection are mainly addressed to relatives, close friends, and business contacts, though many do deal with the politics of the time or are of a more public nature. There are also many letters of introduction and reference written to him. Other documents in his own hand include legal papers, promissory notes, accounts, tax statements, contracts, leases, indentures, and memoranda on Monticello. There are also, not in Jefferson's hand, accounts, bills, receipts, invoices, diplomas, some official papers such as Congressional documents, and some miscellaneous letters not addressed to Jefferson but found among his papers.

All dated letters and documents by Jefferson in the Coolidge Collection have been individually cataloged in the MHS card catalog. The card catalog also contains entries for most letters to Jefferson. Off-site researchers may consult the Catalog of Manuscripts of the Massachusetts Historical Society (1969 and 1980 Supplement) for a list of individual items in this collection. Entries marked with an asterisk (Jefferson*) indicate Thomas Jefferson Coolidge III's 1957 additions to the original Coolidge Collection. These items appear in a separate chronological sequence on Reel 14 of this microfilm.

A list of the undated items in this collection is available in the MHS library.

Related Materials

Other Jefferson Holdings at the Massachusetts Historical Society

A number of other manuscript collections at the Massachusetts Historical Society contain Thomas Jefferson papers. Among the collections that include substantial Jefferson correspondence are the papers of Elbridge Gerry and his descendants, the Robert Treat Paine papers, and, most notably, the Adams family papers. Jefferson's extensive correspondence with John and Abigail Adams, much of which can be found in the Adams family papers, has been edited and published by Lester Cappon in The Adams-Jefferson Letters (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959, 1988). Other smaller collections of additional Jefferson documents and correspondence include: letters given by William Bixby, a noted Jefferson collector, in 1913 and 1915; a letter to James Brown, 1792, given in 1929 by Grenville H. Norcross; letters to Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Smith covering the years 1786-1787, donated by Heyliger de Windt in 1938; and a collection of autograph letters presented in 1957 by four donors.

The Massachusetts Historical Society also holds a 31-reel microfilm set of the papers of Thomas Jefferson filmed in 1944 with funds from Thomas Jefferson Coolidge III (now the "duplicate positive" set at the MHS). Some of the additional Jefferson documents and correspondence mentioned above can be found on Reel 31 of this set. Other microfilms held by the MHS include the 236 bound volumes of Thomas Jefferson manuscripts at the Library of Congress (101 reels of 16mm film), also funded by Thomas Jefferson Coolidge III; the Jefferson collection at the University of Virginia (10 reels); and the control file of all extant Jefferson documents compiled by the editors of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson at Princeton University (52 reels).

Also located at the MHS are early editions of many of Jefferson's published works, including Notes on the State of Virginia; the Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States, 1801; and A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1774. The MHS also holds copies of the following pamphlets: "Proceedings of the Government of the United States in Maintaining the Public Right to the Beach of Mississippi Adjacent to New Orleans Against the Intrusion of Edward Livingston," 1812; "Jefferson Against Madison's War," 1812; and "A Supplementary Note on Mouldboard," described in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, March 23, 1798, published in the American Philosophical Society Transactions, Vol. 4.

Other Collections of Jefferson Manuscripts

The Coolidge Collection contains almost 9,500 of the approximately 50,000 Jefferson-related manuscripts that are extant. While many are in the hands of private collectors, the bulk of the manuscripts are held by twelve major repositories.

1. Library of Congress (ca. 25,000 items, bound in 236 volumes)
Contains correspondence and documents from 1763-1826, most notably Jefferson's "public" papers, a draft of the Constitution of Virginia, letters on the University of Virginia, and several memoranda books.
On microfilm, 101 reels.

2. National Archives (number of items unknown)
Mostly transcripts of official correspondence dealing with the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention.
On microfilm, 12 reels.

3. University of Virginia (ca. 1,400 items)
Includes the Edgehill Randolph papers, the Carr and Cary papers, and the Maury deposit. Many documents and letters concern the University; there are 62 architectural drawings of the University.
There is a published calendar of this collection.

4. Missouri Historical Society (ca. 1,100 items)
Bixby-Jefferson collection.
On microfilm, 3 reels.

5. Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California (ca. 800 items)
Covers the years 1764-1826. Includes estate papers of Jefferson's father Peter and documents of his own legal career.

6. New York Historical Society (ca. 700 items)
Letters from 1779-1826. Highlights include Jefferson's correspondence with General Von Steuben and Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
Partial microfilm, 2 reels.

7. College of William and Mary (ca. 300 items, part photocopies)
There are about 600 additional items in the Tucker-Coleman papers.

8. Historical Society of Pennsylvania (ca. 650 items)
Includes incoming and outgoing correspondence.

9. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia (several hundred items)
Covers the years 1775-1826. Five boxes of miscellaneous letters and writings, some official papers of the American Philosophical Society when Jefferson acted as president.

10. Virginia Historical Society (80 items)
Covers the years 1771-1826. Letters found in several collections.

11. Virginia State Library (55 items)
Papers cover the period in which Jefferson served as a state legislator and governor: drafts of bills and resolutions, land grants, patents, and tax rolls.
On microfilm, 5 reels.

12. University of Michigan (45 items)
Mostly letters sent to Jefferson.

Other small collections of Thomas Jefferson manuscripts are located at the New Jersey Historical Society, the Princeton University Library, the University of South Carolina Library, and the South Carolina Historical Society.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, 1898, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Jr., 1911, 1937, and Thomas Jefferson Coolidge III, 1957. Jefferson's manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence, which is included on this microfilm but is not a part of the Coolidge Collection, was a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander C. Washburn, 1893.

Custodial History

The Coolidge Collection held by the Massachusetts Historical Society was compiled from four separate gifts by members of the Coolidge family over a span of 60 years. The Thomas Jefferson papers in their possession came to them through a circuitous route.

Jefferson bequeathed his entire personal collection of correspondence, documents, and manuscripts to his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph in 1826. Randolph published a four-volume edition of the papers, Memoirs, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson in 1829. In 1837, Jefferson's close friend, George Tucker, wrote a Life of Thomas Jefferson, relying on Randolph's collection and also a selection of letters held by Nicholas P. Trist, husband of one of Jefferson's granddaughters. Trist's collection indicates some division in the correspondence, but Randolph maintained possession of the bulk of the collection until he offered to sell it to the government in 1848.

On August 12, 1848, Congress authorized $20,000 to acquire the papers. As a condition of the purchase, the papers were deposited in the State Department for examination by Henry A. Washington, the librarian of the State Department. He was to divide and keep the "public" manuscripts and return the "private" papers, in which there then was little interest, to the family. Apparently, Washington divided the manuscripts inconsistently and neglected to return the "private" papers. In 1869, Randolph demanded recovery of this part of the collection in accordance with the act of 1848. The "private" papers finally were returned to him a year later in 1870.

Upon the death of Randolph in 1875, possession of this collection of "private" papers that would later form the core of the Coolidge Collection passed to his daughter, Sarah Nicholas Randolph. In 1889, she again offered the papers to Congress, but the bill for purchase failed to pass in 1892. The collection passed into the hands of Sarah's sisters, Carolina Ramsay and Cary Ann Nicholas Randolph, after Sarah's death in 1898.

Thomas Jefferson's great-grandson, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge of Boston, had become interested in the collection, and he obtained it from Carolina Ramsay. He presented this collection of approximately 9,000 items to the Massachusetts Historical Society in June 1898. His donation comprises the bulk of the present collection: approximately 8,800 pieces of correspondence, of which 3,280 are letters Jefferson wrote, 4,630 letters received; the garden book, 1766-1824; the farm book, 1774-1824; annotated almanacs from 1771-1776; account books for 1783-1790; manuscript expense accounts from 1804-1825; notes on the weather spanning the years 1782-1826; plans of American forts in 1765; law treatises, 1778-1788; legal papers, 1770-1772; and Jefferson's 1783 catalog of his personal library.

Thomas Jefferson Coolidge's son, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Jr., visited Monticello in 1911 and found there Jefferson's original architectural drawings for his home in the hands of two of Thomas Jefferson Randolph's granddaughters, Mary Walker Randolph and Cornelia J. Taylor. After buying some of them, he deposited them at the Massachusetts Historical Society the same year. In December 1937, he presented to the MHS additional Jefferson-related material, including three volumes of "Acts of the Virginia Assembly," 1764-1765 and 1770-1772, two of which are believed to be Jefferson's own copies; correspondence between Jefferson and his business agents; correspondence between his daughters Martha and Maria and their respective husbands, Thomas Mann Randolph and John Wayles Eppes; and over 200 of the deposited architectural drawings.

The collection was completed in November 1957 with the gift of papers by Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Jr.'s son, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge III. He contributed 282 Jefferson letters dating from 1775-1827, including correspondence with business agents and overseers and letters between Jefferson, his daughters, and their husbands.

Other Formats

For digital images of the 1783 and 1789 Catalogs of Books, the manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence, the farm and garden books, and Jefferson's architectural drawings, see the Thomas Jefferson Papers: An Electronic Archive.

Jefferson's farm and garden books have been published in facsimile as: Thomas Jefferson's Garden Book, 1766-1824 (Philadelphia, 1944; Charlottesville, 1976, 1987) and Thomas Jefferson's Farm Book (Princeton, 1953; reprinted 1974, 1985), both annotated and edited by Edwin M. Betts, and The Garden and Farm Books of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Robert C. Baron (Golden, Colorado, 1987).

The Jefferson architectural drawings in the Coolidge Collection are reproduced in Fiske Kimball's Thomas Jefferson, Architect (1916; 1968). Frederick Doveton Nichols's Thomas Jefferson's Architectural Drawings (1960 and more recently revised editions) contains a somewhat less complete and less detailed inventory of the MHS Jefferson architectural drawings.

The Massachusetts Historical Society also holds a 31-reel microfilm set of the papers of Thomas Jefferson filmed in 1944 with funds from Thomas Jefferson Coolidge III. This microfilm edition and guide supersede that set.

Organization of the Collection

The collection is organized into the following series:

Detailed Description of the Collection

Preferred Citation

Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Access Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.