Our first president failed to return two volumes borrowed in 1789 from New York Society Library. Fines owed? $300,000.
From a piece in the Guardian...
The library's ledgers show that Washington took out the books on 5 October 1789, some five months into his presidency at a time when New York was still the capital. They were an essay on international affairs called Law of Nations and the twelfth volume of a 14-volume collection of debates from the English House of Commons.
The ledger simply referred to the borrower as "President" in quill pen, and had no return date.
Sure enough, when the librarians checked their holdings they found all 14 volumes of the Commons debates bar volume 12.
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