Gen. James Grant (1722-1806) was the first British governor of East Florida in 1763-1771 and an officer who served in increasingly responsible commands in the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. The Grant papers in the Library of Congress are a remarkably rich trove that provides an abundance of information about a number of significant episodes in the administrative and military history of the future United States during the Revolutionary Era.
The story of how copies of those papers, in a Scottish Castle and brought to the attention of the Library in 1999, came to be available at the Library of Congress is a fascinating tale of serendipity.
In the spring of 1999, John W. Kluge, chairman of the Library's
James Madison Council, confided to Librarian of Congress James H.
Billington that he had learned of a manuscript collection in a Scottish
castle that might contain important new information about American history.
Kluge told Billington that he had recently been entertained at Ballindalloch
Castle (in Banffshire, northwest of Aberdeen) by his friends the Laird
of Ballindalloch, Clare Macpherson-Grant Russell and her husband, Oliver
Russell, who had mentioned to him that the castle tower contained papers
of an ancestor - a British Army officer - who had been active in 18th
century America. The Russells indicated to Kluge that they would welcome
the advice of Library of Congress experts about the significance of the
collection.
