# Remains of the Day Treasury Clerk Story

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
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> Cite as: "Remains of the Day Treasury Clerk Story," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/remains-of-day-treasury-clerk-story/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's account of finding the grave of an obscure Treasury Department clerk who, during the 1814 British burning of Washington, rescued the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Washington's military commission from the National Archives, and who, after later being deemed too difficult, was quietly transferred to the National Lighthouse Service, where out of boredom he invented the refractor light still used in American lighthouses today.*

- **Event:** 1814 British burning of Washington, D.C.
- **Rescued documents:** Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Washington's military commission
- **Hiding place:** A barn in Leesburg, Virginia
- **Later invention:** The refractor light, still used in American lighthouses, invented while reassigned to the National Lighthouse Service

The **Remains of the Day Treasury clerk story** is [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s account of finding the grave of an obscure Treasury Department clerk who, during the 1814 British burning of Washington, went to the National Archives after everyone else had fled and rescued the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and George Washington's military commission, rolling the documents into a sheet and hiding them in the rafters of a barn in Leesburg, Virginia until the British were pushed out.[1]

Kiriakou says the same clerk was later considered difficult by his superiors, who, rather than fire him and set a bad precedent, quietly transferred him to a dead-end post managing the National Lighthouse Service. Bored in the job, he invented the refractor light, which is still used in American lighthouses today and now bears his name.[2]

## See also

- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. CIA Spy Breaks Silence On Elon Musk's Twitter Files — John (2023-04-12), at 1:59:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmPpOps1yeI&t=7160s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-12-danny-jones/
2. CIA Spy Breaks Silence On Elon Musk's Twitter Files — John (2023-04-12), at 2:00:52. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmPpOps1yeI&t=7252s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-12-danny-jones/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/remains-of-day-treasury-clerk-story/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt