DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE DESK — BROWN 459 



of your studies, and the instrument of diffusing tlieir results ; that it has been 

 the witness of a philosophy which calumny could not subdue, and of an enthu- 

 siasm which eighty winters have not chilled, I would fain consider it as no 

 longer inanimate, and mute, but as something to be interrogated, and caressed," 



The desk remained in the Coolidge family for the next 50 years, and, 

 true to Jefferson's prophecy that the relic would become valuable for 

 its association, it was held in veneration not only by the Coolidge 

 family but by the whole city of Boston. The desk was exhibited at 

 a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1857. It received 

 even greater honor and veneration in 1876 when it was exhibited at 

 the Centennial Exhibition being held in Boston in that year. 



The Coolidge family realized that an object of such historical im- 

 portance should not remain in private hands, and on April 14, 1880, 

 Robert C. Winthrop of Boston, prominent statesman and orator and 

 president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, wrote to President 

 Rutherford B. Hayes about the desk : ^ 



I have been privileged to bring with me from Boston, as a present to the 

 United States, a very pretty historical relic. It is the little desk on which 

 Mr. Jefferson wrote the original draught of the Declaration of Independence. 



This desli was given by Mr. Jefferson himself to my friend, the late Joseph 

 Coolidge, of Boston, at the time of his marriage to Jefferson's granddaughter, 

 Miss Randolph ; and it bears an autograph inscription of singular interest, writ- 

 ten by the illustrious author of the Declaration in the very last year of his life. 



On the recent death of Mr. Coolidge, whose wife had died a year or two pre- 

 viously, the desli became the property of their children, Mr. J. Randolph Coolidge, 

 Dr. Algernon Coolidge, Mr. Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, and Mrs. Ellen Dwight — 

 who now desire to offer it to the United States. . . . 



They have done me the honor to make me the medium of this distinguished gift, 

 and I ask permission to place it in the hands of the Chief Magistrate of the 

 nation in their name and at their request. 



President Hayes informed Congress of this gift to the Nation in 

 a letter written on April 22, 1880, giving the history of the desk and 

 advising them of the offer made by the Coolidge heirs. 



The desk was thereupon accepted by joint resolution of both Houses 

 of Congi-ess,^ approved on April 28, 1880, and by order of the Congress 

 a copy of the Resolution of Thanks signed by the President of the 

 Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives was trans- 

 mitted to the donors.* 



The desk was first placed in the custody of the Department of State, 

 and for a number of years it was exhibited there with the original 

 document of the Declaration of Independence. 



In the meantime the United States National Museum, under the 

 administration of the Smithsonian Institution, had grown from a 



' Extract from letter in Massachusetts Historical Society. 



•Journal of the House of Representatives, 46th Cong., 2d sess., vol. 1879-90, p. 1086. 



' Ibid., p. 1085. 



» Ibid., p. 1088. 



