A letter written in 1824, by President Andrew Jackson, prior to his presidency, has been recovered and returned to the New York State State Library, from which it was stolen.
The letter was for sale in an on-line auction site for $35,000. UT Professor Tom Coens spotted the item online, recognized it, and reported the it to the authorities. Now we find that Investigators with the Attorney General‘s office have tied the document’s theft to convicted record raider Daniel Lorello, who is serving a two to six year jail term for document thefts for the New York State archives. The letter was being offered for sale by someone who did not know its provenance.
University of Tennessee research professor Tom Coens has helped recover other documents in the past.
For more information, see the April 29, 2009 edition of WBIR.com.
Thanks to Pat Morrow for correcting me on the difference between the Public Library and State Library. I knew better, but typed the word “public” in the first draft anyway…
The New York Public Library is located in New York City. This article refers to the New York State Library, which is in Albany. Oddly there has been no mention yet of this document’s recovery in the Albany, NY Times Union, which first broke the story last year about Daniel Lorello’s theft of documents from the New York State Archives.