Peter Force (November 26, 1790 – January 23, 1868) was an American politician, newspaper editor, printer, archivist, and early American historian. He served as Mayor of the city of Washington from 1836 to 1840.
Born in New Jersey, Force served in the Washington militia as a lieutenant during the War of 1812 and afterward was a printer. Politically, he belonged to the Whig Party and supported John Quincy Adams, leading to several government appointments in the 1820s. Later, during the international political unrest caused by the American Civil War, Force was sent to Europe by the Lincoln Administration to stabilize diplomatic relations with France and England.Columbia Historical Society, 1899, pp. 219-233
Force amassed among the most extensive collections of books, manuscripts, original maps and other archival material from statesmen, and American and British military officers of the American Revolution.Spofford, 1898, pp. 4–5Stevens, 1913, pp. 97, 99Peter Force library, Library of Congress, 2016Library of Congress Reading Room, Essay, 2010 He is also noted for editing and publishing a massive collection of historical documents, books and maps in several volumes relating to colonial and revolutionary American history which were ultimately purchased by the Library of Congress for a large sum.
Life and career Peter Force was born near the Passaic Falls in New Jersey, the son of William Force and Sarah Ferguson. William was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and a descendant of French Huguenots who arrived on America's shores in the 17th century. His father's participation in the war largely inspired Peter's interest in history. Force grew up in New Paltz, Ulster County, New York, and afterward moved to New York City, where he was schooled in the printing trade. Force married Hannah Evans; together they had ten children, including sons William Quereau Force (1820–1880), Charles Force (no DOB available) and Manning Force (1824–1899), who was a noted Major General from Ohio during the American Civil War.Spofford, 1898, p. 2William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan Force was not considered a jovial man, but rather quiet and reserved, yet had an amiable personality that attracted people to him.Dictionary of American Biography, Volume 3, 1964, p. 512
In 1812 Force became a member of the New York Typographical Society, which was the city's printer trade union at the time. He was initiated at its general meeting on February 1, 1812. He was elected a director on December 5, 1812, and at age twenty-two was chosen president on July 3, 1813, with his re-election following in 1814 and 1815.Stevens, 1913, p. 95
During the War of 1812, Force served in the New York State Militia and rose to the rank of Sergeant and then to Lieutenant.
Force began his varied career as a journeyman printer working for William A. Davis in New York City, and performed so well he was soon made the director of the office at age sixteen.Kaplan, 1944, p. 234 In 1815, Force's employer secured a contract for the printing of Congress, and moved to Washington, D.C., and Peter Force, at age twenty-five, followed and also became a resident and a printer in that city. Soon he formed a partnership with Davis working as the foreman and public printer in the congressional printing plant, which at the time was quite small, having only four single-pull, wooden hand presses, which were sufficient to do all the work of the Government in 1816. In that same year he joined the Columbia Typographical Society and in 1826 became its first "free member".Stevens, 1913, pp. 94–97 When Davis withdrew from the partnership Force formed other partnerships, of which he was the master mind.Stevens, 1913, pp. 96–97
Early in his career in Washington Force attracted the attention of distinguished statesmen, and he was a leading character in the city throughout his life. Four years after arriving in Washington he founded and published an annual devoted to recording the facts of early American history, with its wide scope of official and statistical information.Spofford, 1867, p. 3 From 1820 to 1836, with a three-year interval involved in politics, he published the National Calendar, which later became the National Calendar and Annals of the United States. On November 7, 1836, the National Typographical Convention assembled in Washington, and appointed a committee of three "to wait upon Mr. Force, Mayor of this city (a member of the Columbia Typographical Society), to tender to him the good wishes of the convention, and to invite him to honor it with his presence ...and welcomed in an ardent manner by an address from the president, and by congratulations of the members of the convention individually."Stevens, 1913, p. 96
During the 1820s, Force was a member of the prestigious society, Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences and served as the president. In 1820 he began publishing the National Calendar, a statistical annual, which lasted 16 years, ending in 1836. From November 12, 1823, to February 2, 1830, Force published the National Journal, with moderate-conservative views about public concerns and issues, which became the official newspaper during the presidency of John Quincy Adams, and which also drew to its columns from some widely known contributors, including John Quincy Adams himself. At the same time the journal tried to remain neutral in politics. The journal became a daily newspaper in 1824 and continued in this capacity until 1831. In 1830, however, Force gave up his position as the newspaper's editor.
From 1820 until 1828 Force compiled, printed and published the Biennial Register, the official directory of the U.S. government. In 1827 Force was given the job of printing a 109-page supplement to the Catalogue of the Library of Congress at his printing shop in Washington on the corner of Eleventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. The supplement included an author index and titles contained in supplements of 1820 and 1825.Johnston, 1904, p. 517
During his lifetime he was also a member of the Smithsonian Institution and the United States Naval Observatory, and played a major role in organizing the American Historical Society, in Washington in 1836. On August 22, 1822, Force was granted US Patent 3573X for a method of color printing. He also founded, published, and wrote in the National Journal (1823–1830) and would later donate a stone to the Washington Monument. After vigorously supporting John Quincy Adams' election to the presidency in 1824, he served locally as councilman and alderman. During the seventh year of his residency in Washington he was elected to the City Council, then to the Board of Aldermen, and was chosen president by both bodies. He was elected mayor of Washington in 1836 and again 1838 without opposition, but when he ran again in 1848 he was defeated by a wide margin, all as a member of the Whig Party. Thereafter he became president of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science.Peter Force: Library of Congress, Essay Force was also elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1851.American Antiquarian Society Members Directory
Up until the early 1850s, the Library of Congress lacked a geographical department and an adequate collection of maps for an institution of its size and station. Lieutenant Edward B. Hunt of the U.S. Army formulated a plan and proposed a resolution for such a department and appointed a committee to review the proposal. Force was on the committee that passed that resolution in 1856. The committee stated, "There is not in the United States nor on this continent a single collection of geographical materials which is even tolerably complete." Many original and rare maps from the Force library were provided to this department.Johnston, 1904, pp. 341–344
Civil War In November 1861, Force was sent to Europe at the recommendation of influential friends in President Lincoln's administration in a diplomatic effort to appeal to the political circles in Paris and London concerning their precarious relations with the Union and the Confederacy. Force was accompanied by Archbishop Hughes and Bishop McIlvaine with the hopes of inducing the respective governments to refrain from giving aid to the Confederacy. Force established healthy permanent relations with the various British and French statesmen. Upon returning to America in early June 1862, he received from the Corporation of New York the honor of Freedom of the City. On June 9 of that year the Typographical Society expressed their gratitude for Force's safe arrival from a mission "fraught with the safety, honor and welfare of our country," and invited him to visit its chambers so that his fellow-members could express their thanks and congratulations for his diplomatic efforts in convincing the governments and people of Europe of the Union Government's ability to defeat the Confederacy.Stevens, 1913, p. 99
During the American Civil War, Peter's son, Manning Force rose through successive ranks to become a major-general in the Militia of the District of Columbia. He was present at the Battle of Vicksburg and served under William Tecumseh Sherman during Sherman's March to the Sea. During that war Peter and his son corresponded frequently.Force, Manning, 2007 , p. 185
During the Northern Virginia campaign of 1862 General Robert E. Lee and his army were getting dangerously close to Washington D.C.Hennessy, 1999, p. 240 Charles B. Norton, a Union colonel on the staff of General Fitz John Porter was, in civilian life, also an archivist and publisher, and offered to hide and store Force's large library of Americana over the concern of a possible Confederate attack on the capitol, but Force declined his offer.
Historian
Force's methods as an archivist and publisher of source materials was different in various ways from that of some of his contemporaries like Jared Sparks. Unlike Sparks, Force rarely added editorial notes and was content to let the raw documents speak for themselves. Force methodologically followed his primary rule that no manuscript should be altered, which is what set him apart from some of the editors of his day. Nothing was to be added and nothing substituted. Conversely, when Sparks edited the Papers of George Washington, as an admirer of his hero, Sparks would often correct Washington's mistakes in grammar and would sometimes alter the meaning of a statement so as to make it conform to what he felt was in Washington's mind. This was a practice Force abhorred and would never tolerate.Kaplan, 1944, p. 236
Force was the first historical scholar to discover that the so-called Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence of 1775 was not what it was claimed to be. Subsequently he published the declaration of independence, or Notes on Lord Mahon's History of the American Declaration of Independence.Dictionary of American Biography, Volume 3, 1964, p. 513
Force's greatest achievement came as a collector and editor of historical documents. He published Tracts and Other Papers, Relating Principally to the Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North America (4 vol Washington, 1836–1846), which comprised rare pamphlets. His nine volume American Archives, published at intervals from 1837 to 1853, was a collection of the most important documents of the American Revolution, 1774–1776.American Archives: Table of Contents, 2001, Northern Illinois University Library