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. 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. 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". When Davis withdrew from the partnership Force formed other partnerships, of which he was the master mind. 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. 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. 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. 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, 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. In 1833 he was awarded a contract with the Federal Government for the preparation, printing and publication of his massive compilation of archival material. It extended to nine volumes, which had been carefully arranged with great care and consummate skill, but after the delivery of the ninth volume the officials upon whom the law imposed the necessity of giving a viable review never managed to read the manuscripts, and the prospective publication of the work came to a standstill while Force was still eager to continue, and had many important documents and manuscripts yet to be printed. Futilely Force continued his efforts to prevail upon complacent and uninterested officers to reverse the action of their predecessors, and finally, and reluctantly, relinquished his cherished project, which he had earnestly pursued for more than 30 years. Force's lifelong desire to contribute to the Library of Congress finally came to fruition in 1867 when through an act of
Congress it purchased his collection of original documents for $100,000, During his years of pursuing and buying archival material Force carried off prizes at auctions which the other competitors were not knowledgeable of. Force traveled about the eastern seaboard of the United States "ransacking" the book-shops and attending book auctions from Boston to Charleston in his tireless search for rare volumes. On one such occasion he was a bidder against the Library of Congress for a sizable and valuable library of bound pamphlets, the property of an early collector, who had consigned them to an auction house in Philadelphia. On another occasion while in Boston Force acquired from an
antiquarian bookseller the only collection of Boston Revolutionary newspapers which were offered for sale in the last twenty-five years. He was soon reproached by some visitors from New England and admonished for depriving New England of its archival treasure. He rebuffed them replying, "Why didn't you buy them yourselves, then?" Force was relentless in his efforts to acquire complete and unbroken collections of all the Washington newspapers he could lay his hands on. After some thirty years he had amassed a collection which nearly filled the basement in his home. Into his elder years Force often visited the War Department, approaching various Army officers he knew in his quest for archival material. His collection of the printed "Army orders" from the War Department was considered "a miracle of completeness". In 1867 the Library of Congress and a joint Committee of Congress was formed for the purpose of examining the extensive assortment of archival material in the Peter Force library. Because of its enormous size, totaling approximately 150,000 items, it was necessary for the committee to enter closely into details, and to devote much time and assiduous effort to the task of assessing Force's library. The committee spent at least two to three hours per day, for a two month period, in the examination of every document, manuscript, book, map, etc, that passed through their hands. To help simplify matters the contents of the Force library were categorized into seven basic classes. The committee found Force's archival collection to be encompassing in many respects: "The plan of this work embraced nothing less than a complete publication of all the more important original State papers, letters, narratives, and other documents relating to the settlement and history of the United States, from the discovery of America. His library embraces an immense collection of the early American voyages, in Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, and English, while in books and pamphlets relating to the politics and government of the American colonies, it stands unrivaled in this country." Among the items in Force's collection, and considered the most valuable, are a series of original military maps and plans in manuscript, from the
French and Indian War and the
American Revolutionary War. Claimed by some historians to be of exceeding interest, many of them are the actual work of officers in the American and British armies. The collection of some 300 hand-drawn maps covers the entire United States from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Among the manuscript items in Force's library are 48 folio volumes containing historical autographs of great rarity. In 1867
Ainsworth R. Spofford edited an eight-page report of the Committee's findings and assessments. In 1875, Peter Force's son, William Q. Force, donated various personal papers he had discovered to the Library of Congress.
Final days Force maintained his ardent pursuit of collecting books, newspapers, manuscripts and other documents up until the week before he died, on January 23, 1868, at the age of 77. He is buried alongside his wife in
Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington D.C. Force's grave marker was designed by
German sculptor
Jacques Jouvenal. It is a
marble obelisk that stands 16 feet high and rests on top of a square base. A relief is carved into the obelisk of a bookshelf filled with books. The District opened the Peter Force School in 1879 on the south side of Massachusetts Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets. It was razed in 1962. ==Selected works==