The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the official records-management agency of the United States federal government, established in 1934. NARA operates the National Archives Building in Washington, regional federal records centres, and the system of presidential libraries.
For Oak Island research, the principal NARA holdings of relevance are within the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum (Hyde Park, New York) and adjacent Roosevelt papers. Roosevelt invested in the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company that worked on Oak Island in 1909, retained correspondence and documents from that period, and corresponded subsequently with later searchers including Frederick Blair into his presidential years. This material is held within the Roosevelt collections at NARA.
Other NARA holdings of potential relevance include U.S. State Department and consular records of the period bearing on cross-border Canadian-American business activity, and any federal records where these touch on the various American-investor treasure-hunting companies.
What this source documents
Franklin D. Roosevelt papers held within the FDR Presidential Library at NARA, including correspondence and documents from his involvement in the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company (1909) and subsequent correspondence between Roosevelt and the Oak Island searchers continuing into his presidential period; U.S. consular and federal records of relevance to the various American-investor companies that participated in the search.
Why it matters
For research questions involving the Roosevelt-era American investor presence in Oak Island and the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company in particular, NARA via the FDR Library is the principal archival reference. The Roosevelt-Blair correspondence is a primary source for the period bridging the Old Gold venture and the Hedden era.