Old ledger, full of history, saved from trash

Sometimes it's amazing how pieces of history come to light. Take the case of the dusty ledger found earlier this month in our nation's Capitol.

Construction workers were clearing out a basement area of the stately Capitol building to make way for a new visitors center. In the process, a lot of items that had found their way to the basement for storage were being tossed into the trash.

Fortunately, two aides to the Senate Democratic Policy Committee were in the basement and spied a plain brown ledger. When they opened it, they saw the signatures of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, John C. Calhoun and other vice presidents who had meticulously kept records of expenses in the U.S. Senate from January 1790 through 1881.

Thanks to the alert aides, a significant piece of American history will be preserved.

And historians will have yet another valuable resource from the time when a young nation was establishing the policies and doctrines that guide us today.