Letter from Thomas Jefferson - Thomas Jefferson was elected to membership on June 1, 1814. Anticipating that age and distance would preclude an active role, he presented the Society with a bound manuscript and the observation that “this being the department of our history in which materials are most defective, it may perhaps offer something not elsewhere preserved.” Jefferson thought it might be useful to a scholar in the future and so it was. Close study by Daniel K. Richter (Daniels Fellow, 1981-82) resulted in “Rediscovered Links in the Covenant Chain: Previously Unpublished Transcripts of New York Indian Treaty Minutes, 1677-1691” (Procs. AAS 92 [April 1982]: 45-85). Richter identified minutes of treaty sessions in the late 1670s and early 1680s between the English and the Iroquois and Mahicans from the long-missing first volume of records of the Albany Commissioners for Indian Affairs. Jefferson to S. M. Burnside, August 8, 1814. AAS Correspondence, 1812-1819.
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The Amerian Antiquarian Society, 1812-2012 - A View at the Bicentennial