Rare Papers Are His, Figure in Stolen Documents Case Says

Charles Merrill Mount, describing himself as “a perfectly normal Edwardian gentleman,” said Thursday that he did not steal rare letters and other government and historic documents found in his possession and that he expects the “hysteria” over his recent arrests to subside once he gets the chance to tell his side of the story.

Although federal authorities have accused him of possessing stolen documents from the National Archives and the Library of Congress, the 59-year-old artist and author was a portrait of calm as he discussed his circumstances in an interview at his Capitol Hill rooming house.

“All this is just hysteria . . . the whole thing has been blown out of proportion,” Mount said. The rare letters and other historical material, he asserted, “were always mine and had been in my possession for 25 years.”

Mount has been arrested and jailed twice in the last week after FBI agents discovered more than 200 historical documents, including letters of Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Henry James, in Mount’s possession here and in Boston. The items allegedly were stolen from the National Archives and the Library of Congress. Thursday, a day after his release from jail here, he refused to discuss specific allegations against him, citing the advice of his attorneys.

Sitting in his tiny room, amid an eclectic clutter of art prints, books, household goods and Civil War-era memorabilia, Mount said he took special umbrage at news media descriptions of him as eccentric.

“I’m not eccentric, everyone else is,” Mount said. “I’m just a perfectly normal Edwardian gentleman.”

Mount said he began collecting autographs and other rare and historic materials in 1954.