CORRESPONDENCE OF THE SECRETARY,, 1896-1908

Summary:Correspondence to and from the secretary of the New Jersey Society of the Order of the Founders and Patriots of America. The secretaries responsible for the creation and maintenance of these files were: Washington Irving Lincoln Adams (1896-1897); Edward Vincent Cary (1898-1899); George Washington Case (1900); the Rev. Joseph Fulford Folsom (1901-1902); Hiram Edmund Deats (1903-1904 and 1907-1908); and James Barnes Pratt (1905-1906). Prominent among the correspondents are officers of the New Jersey Society, the New York Society and the national organization.

These files were originally housed in three alphabetized letter boxes which covered the following date ranges: April 28, 1896, to May 11, 1903; May 12, 1903, to 1907; and 1908. The correspondence files of the secretary were grouped alphabetically by the initial letter of the last name of the person, or by the initial letter of the first word of a company or organization, to which the correspondence was sent or from which it was received. Note that there was no attempt by the various secretaries to actually alphabetize the correspondence within the folders. As with the alphabetization, chronology was not maintained within the folders. Depending on the amount of correspondence for a particular letter or set of letters of the alphabet, there are one to three new file folders for each; however, as with the original files, no attempt was made to arrange the documents alphabetically or chronologically in the folders. A significant number of the letters (those that are copies of correspondence sent by the secretary) are on very poor quality paper.

Also included in this series is a letter book (with very thin sheets of paper copied in a letterpress) which was used from June 2, 1897, until May 12, 1903, to record outgoing letters.

Among the items of interest within the correspondence are: letters exchanged between the New Jersey Society and other state Societies regarding proposed alterations to the national organization's constitution to reflect changes in the definition of patriotic actions (box 2, folder 18); a form letter from Melvil Dewey and the New York State Library requesting a list of publications issued by the New Jersey Society (box 2, folder 3); and the transcription of a letter from George Washington to Jonathan Trumbull, May 15, 1784 (box 3, folder 5).