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Show A HISTORIC DESK. Hon. Robert C. Winthrop's gift to the United States. It will be remembered that Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, in the course of the centennial oration delivered by him on the Fourth of July, 1876, in Music Hall, Boston, exhibited to the audience gathered there the writing desk upon which the Declaration of Independence was written, and the thoughts suggested by this interesting historical relic formed one of the most eloquent passages of his oration. He concluded his allusion to the desk with there words. Long may it find its appropriate and appreciating ownership in the successive generations of a family in which the blood of Virginia and Massachusetts is so auspiciously commingled. Should it in the lapse of years ever pass from the hands of those to whom it will be so precious an heirloom. It could only have its fit and final place among the choicest and most cherished treasures of the nation with whose title deeds of independence it is so proudly associated. This evening Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, now in Washington, took the occasion of a call at the executive mansion to deliver personally to the president, as a gift to the United States, the little mahogany desk on which Mr. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. It was presented in the name of the children of the late Mr. Joseph Coolidge, of Boston, to whom it was given by Jefferson himself in 1825, whose granddaughter Mr. Coolidge had married, and has an autograph inscription as follows. Thomas Jefferson gives this writing desk to Joseph Coolidge, Jr. as a memorial of his affection. It was made from a drawing of his own by Ben Randall cabinet-maker, of Philadelphia, with whom he first lodged on his arrival in that city in May, 1776, and is the identical one on which he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Politics as well as religion has its superstitions. These, gaining strength with time may one day give imaginary value to this relic for its associations with the birth of the great charter of our independence. It is probable that this desk will be deposited in the fire proof library of the state department, where are kept the original draft of the Declaration, written on this desk, and the engrossed copy which was signed by the members of the continental congress.-A Washington telegram. |