Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1911 — Restoring George Washington's Will [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Restoring George Washington's Will

sJ": HE last will and testament of M> George Washington perH haps the most precious and SgPgf, A H the most interesting of all / pi the relics of the Father of His Country—has recently been saved to the nation. Moreover this rescue of the \ most significant document JnjySgl \ i>enned by our first presldent took place just in the nick of time. A few years more and the country might have had to mourn the loss of this priceless •oavenir just as it has been mourning these many years past the disappearance of the original penned drafts of some of the famous 'speeches delivered by some of our most famous men on historic occasions. jtheft threatened the Washington relic—al- .. though It must bo admitted that there is a r:: {possibility of toss by either of these means jBO long as It remains in its present depository. However, the destructive agent that recently aroused some of the nation's most prominent [officials to the peril of the Washington will its nothing less than the ravages of time. Until

Within the past few months the public at large kid not know of the whereabouts of the Washington will, if indeed it even knew of the existence of the paper. However, the officials of the state department and the library of congress knew Its resting place in an obscure county courthouse in Virginia, and whereas they realized the futility of their ambition to ever get permission to transfer it to Washington. where it ought to repose as a great national relic, they still had sufficient interest in it to keep a watchful eye on it, so to speak. Some mouths ago it suddenly came to the ears of these interested parties that the will—long known to be in a poor state of preservation —was in imminent danger of going utterly to ruin. Obviously quick action and heroic measures were necessary and thereupon there .was inaugurated that project which has lately .witnessed the complete restoration of the will by means of a miracle of manuscript surgery and document restoration carried on by the greatest experts in the country in this highly specialized line of work. Persons who are at all conversant with the care with which Uncle Sam fosters and safeguards all the important state and private papers of historical value that are In his keeping—for instance, the Declaration of Independence which is never even exposed to light—may naturally marvel that so priceless a trophy as the will of Washington should have been allowed to fall into decay. The explanation is found In the fact, above noted, that the will Is not and never has been In the possession of the federal government. It was filed for probate In the year 1800 at the county seat of the county In Virginia where Washington resided and In that state it has remained ever since. A century of wear and tear might be expected to play havoc with almost any document and at times during this cycle the

Washington relic saw some rather rough handling for so fragile an object During the

Civil war, for example, it was carried to Richmond for safe keeping and came near being lost entirely in the confusion that attended the fall of the Confederacy. However, the worst experience of all came only a few years ago and resulted from an error of judgment on the part of the custodians of the will, w’ho supposed that they were acting for the best. It had come about that as a result of the handling of the will the pinning together of the 23 pages and the wear along the lines of the creases in which it had been folded almost every one of the sheets was completely severed through the middle. The persons in charge of the will realized in a vague sort of way that something ought to be done and they finally hit upon the plan of sewing together the severed sections of each sheet. When the government officials and other prominent men interested in all existing mementoes of George Washington heard what had been done they were all but ready to weep. As though It were not bad enough to

attempt to sew delicate sheets of paper, It transpired that subsequent handlings of the sewed sheets had caused the threads to wear and cut their way through the paper and ultimately the pages were literally In shreds. All the while the relic was on display' In an ordinary wooden box with a glass cover which permitted the will to be constantly exposed to the light while on exhibition at the county seat of Fairfax county and which would probably have faded out the handwriting entirely had not the document been penned with an exceptional quality of ink. It was at this juncture that the government officials who volunteered

their services were allowed to take a hand to save the wreck. The work of restoration was placed in the hands of a federal expert who has made a life work of the saving of damaged papers and manuscripts. He devoted weeks to the work and what he has wrought Is little short of a miracle. In so far as the casual observer can detect the will Is In practlcalfy the same condition as It was when it left the hands of its distinguished author. It is only when a page is held to the light that one realizes that, technically, the document is but a ghost of its former self. All sorts of obstacles were encountered in connection with the restoration of the will. It was at first planned to have the odd salvage work undertaken by the department of state, the maunsertpt surgeons of which branch of the government had already worked wonders with the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence and other documents. However, In order to get the benefit of the skill of the state department’s ex-

perts it.would be necessary to remove the wt to Washington for the Interim while the work of restoration was In progress, and the county officials at Fairfax who hath the say in the matter refused flat-footed to allow the document to leave Virginia. It looked for a time as though this might block the whole plan, but finally the officials of the library of congress, who have on their staff a manuscript surgeon almost as skillful as the one at the state department, offered to send this wizard to Fairfax Courthouse and have him carry on the work there. This was done and the outcome has been as satisfactory as though the work of rejuvenation Jiad been conducted in the well-equipped plant at the national capital. However, there were many handicaps and not the least of-these was found in the necessity for transporting to Fairfax a heavy press and other paraphernalia needed for the intricate piecing of the torn and ragged pages and mounting them on the cardboard mounts, one of which has been provided for each page of the will. Unquestionably the gratifying success which has attended this attempt to restore the Washington will to the appearance it bore one hundred years ago has been duo in no small meas ure to the aid afforded by a number of blank sheets of paper made especially for George Washington and watermarked with his name. When the -government officials first inspected the torn and tattered will with a view to applying their ingenious “first aid” treatment they at once realized that an inordinate amount of piecing and patching would be necessary and they were in a quandary where to obtain material that would match the original, for, of course, the will was written on very distinctive paper, and to patch it with ordinary paper of presentday manufacture would have resulted In only partially concealing the wounds made by time and careless hands. There was a long search for paper that could be used with confidence that no person examining the restored document without the aid of a magnifying glass could tell where the original left off and a patch began. Finally the officials discovered in a second-hand bookstore In Washington a number of sheets of the writing paper which General Washington had manufactured especially for his personal use and this paper was used wherever new tissue had to be grafted on the original document, with the result that the appearance of the original has been simulated so as to defy detection. Each sheet of the will has been so backed or mounted upon "crepeline” that it will stand any reasonable amount of handling and the ink of the will has been “set” so that there is little danger of further fading. However, for all that the precious document has been put In condition to stand another century <£f strenuous existence* ts-need be, it is not likely that it will ever again be called upon to suffer such neglect or abuse* as In the past. The county officials who are the custodians of the will appear to be aroused to the necessity of giving it more intelligent care than it enjoyed In years gone by. To that end the pages of the will have been bound in the form of a book with bandsome red levant cover and a special fireproof, burglar-proof steel safe, made specially for the purpose under the supervision of the government officials will henceforth be the repository of this relic. The attention which this restoration of the will la receiving is expected to result in the visits In future of considerable numbers of tourists and sightseers to Fairfax Courthouse, the Virginia hamlet where the will has its home—the more so since this historic spot can now be reached by trolley from the national capital. The county seat of the county where Washington lived and died haa many picturesque landmarks not the least Interesting of which is the old courthouse in which Washington’s will was probated and which presents today the same appearance that it did on that historic day more than a century ago. The will la not kept In the courthouse but in the office of the clerk of the court, which occupies a separate building. The work of restoring the Washington will, had it been entrusted to any manuscript sargeon outside the government service—and there are only a few such in the country—would have cost S2OO to S3OO at least and it la probable that several times the latter sum 'might have been demanded for the service, for which the government made no charge.