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The Bland family papers contain correspondence, documents, and genealogical information related to the family of Theodoric Bland, a Continental Army officer, delegate to the Continental Congress, and Virginia politician.

The Bland family papers contain correspondence, documents, and genealogical information related to the family of Theodoric Bland, a Continental Army officer, delegate to the Continental Congress, and Virginia politician. The earliest items in the Correspondence and Documents series are related to his ancestors, including a court document from "James Citty," listing a "Theo. Bland" as a member of the court (October 16, 1665), and a 1720 letter regarding British military affairs. The Theodoric Bland in this collection wrote the majority of items, often copies of his outgoing correspondence related to local and national politics in the latter years of the American Revolution; among these are letters to Benjamin Harrison and to Patrick Henry. Two items concern the Siege of Gibraltar, including a 1778 warrant for John Sweetland and a letter by Thomas Cranfield to his mother and father about his experiences during the siege (September 7, 1783). The collection also holds a muster roll of Lt. Purviss's Company, in a regiment of guards, from 1779. Later legal documents pertain to the career of Maryland judge Theodorick Bland, of another branch of the Virginia Bland family. Later material includes several personal letters to "Mr. and Mrs. Bland" from family and friends dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as responses to genealogical inquiries.

The Genealogy and Images series contains engravings and drawings of several Bland family members, including a detailed pencil drawing of P. E. Bland, who served as a colonel in the Civil War. Other genealogical notes trace branches of the family through the mid-19th and early-20th centuries.

The Bookplates and Printed Items series holds several bookplates, 20th century newspaper clippings, and pages from books.

The Burd-Shippen papers contain personal and business documents concerning Edward Shippen, Edward Burd, and their families and Philadelphian colleagues. Many of Major Edward Burd's items concern the 1st Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiment of Foot in the early years of the Revolutionary War.

The Burd-Shippen papers (184 items) contain personal and business documents concerning Edward Shippen, Edward Burd, and their families and Philadelphian colleagues. Many of Major Edward Burd's items concern the 1st Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiment of Foot in the early years of the Revolutionary War.

The bulk of the collection is comprised of approximately 75 letters addressed to Edward Burd and his son Edward Shippen Burd, with a small group of correspondence from Edward Shippen. The collection also contains ten items concerning Edward S. Burd and his legal colleague William Tilghman. The remainder of the collection is composed of receipts and various legal documents, most relating to Edward Shippen, including a receipt for a slave and a woman's petition against her husband for abandonment of their child.

Edward S. Burd's legal notebook (95 pages) covers from 1817 to 1846, and contains real estate transactions, illustrated plans of lots, title briefs, and cost lists.

The Hubert S. Smith Naval Letters and Documents collection is made up of individual manuscripts relating to naval and commercial maritime operations.

The Hubert S. Smith Naval Letters and Documents collection is made up of over 380 manuscript letters and documents relating to maritime military, commercial, financial, and legal subjects from the 15th to the 20th centuries, primarily concerning Great Britain and America. The collection includes materials relating to Continental European wars, the American Revolution, the African slave trade, the Civil War, and exploratory ventures. The collection also reflects day-to-day ship operations and naval employment, diplomacy, marine technology, the purchase and sale of ships, insurance, and publications and books relating to maritime affairs. While primarily focused on English and American navies, the contributors discuss a wide variety of places, including continental Europe, the Baltic region, Russia, Asia, Turkey, South America, and Africa.

The Humphry and Moses Marshall papers primarily document the careers of botanist Humphry Marshall and his nephew and business associate, Moses Marshall.

The Humphry and Moses Marshall papers consist of 233 items: 181 letters (including drafts), 15 legal documents, 11 manuscripts, 10 poems, 4 account books, and several each of books, letter books, arithmetic notebooks, and broadsides. The materials span from 1721-1863.

The first series contains correspondence and a few legal documents and writings, arranged chronologically. The correspondence dates from 1733 to 1863 and is predominantly incoming. Humphry Marshall is the recipient of the bulk of the material (approximately 40%), followed by Moses Marshall (approx. 30%). The majority of the outgoing correspondence comes from the two "letterbooks" kept by Moses Marshall in 1791 and 1793. These books contain correspondence from a couple of days each, but provide a record of Marshall's response to inquiries from clients.

The bulk of correspondence prior to 1800 relates to Marshall's horticultural and botanical operations. Substantial numbers of orders are for plants and seeds from clients in other parts of the United States, England, Ireland, France, and Germany, and communications with middle men in the operation detail methods of packaging and shipping. Also of botanical interest is the correspondence with Marshall's "agents" in the field, including Moses Mendenhall, John and James Watson, Matthias King, Samuel Kramsh, and James Kenny. These men were admirers and friends of Humphry Marshall, and provided him with specimens collected from various regions of the country. The unsuccessful search for wild Franklinia alatamaha is mentioned in several letters (April 8, 1788: "There is not a plant of the Franklinia to be found"), and other letters include discussions of scientific expeditions either actualized or planned, mostly involving the participation of Moses Marshall. On November 14, 1786, Humphry described the logistics of tracking down ginseng, providing insight into the duties of plant collectors: "both of you being obliged to…encamp in the mountains strike up a fire & lie by it all night in the morning…climb up the sides of the mountains and dig towards evening…about 20 days in Going and Coming home again & digging the roots packing up &c." The content of the letters does not indicate the Marshalls' scientific interests or abilities, but this correspondence provides documentation for the complex network used by the Marshalls to collect, sell and distribute plants.

Approximately 18 letters relate to the Revolutionary War (see "Subject Index" under "Additional Descriptive Data"). These include letters that indicate Marshall's support for the nonimportation agreements (January 6, 1775), second hand reports of the Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 25, 1775) and of Yorktown (August 24, 1781), and an important series of correspondence from Samuel Preston Moore relating to the resignation of the trustees of the General Loan Office when American revolutionaries seized control (June 17 and 21, 1777). Also significant are two letters from Quaker conscientious objectors on the morality of paying taxes to support military activities (undated c. 1780 letter; July 14, 1781), a letter relating to the North Carolina Regulator insurrection (March 3, 1771), and one concerning the arrest by American forces of Quakers suspected of Loyalist sympathies (September 6, 1777). Finally, in the pre-Revolutionary period, the letters of James Kenny provide excellent descriptions of plant collecting and the area around Fort Pitt in 1759-60.

The items from 1840-1863 mainly relate to Moses Marshall, Jr. Most notable in among them are several letters from William Darlington written as he was preparing his Memorial to Humphry and Moses Marshall in 1848 and 1849. Moses, Jr's pro-Confederacy political views are clearly expressed in the series of three speeches written during the Civil War, also included in the series.

The Poetry series includes 10 undated poems. The Bound Materials series comprises the arithmetic notebooks of Jacob Martin, whose relationship to the Marshalls is unclear; Darlington’s manuscript, Historical Introduction to Bartram & Marshall, Marshall's copy of Dover's Useful Miscellanies; and nine uncut and unfolded sets of signatures from Arbustrum Americanum.

The Robert McCallen papers are the personal and military documents of a captain in the Revolutionary War from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The collection contains letters, military records, a muster roll book, financial records, and legal documents. Of note is a letter from McCallen to his wife, giving his eyewitness account of the Battle of Trenton.

The Robert McCallen papers (84 items) are the personal and military documents of a captain in the Revolutionary War from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The collection contains nine letters, 31 military records and accounts, six regimental orders, one muster roll book, 29 receipts and financial records, one town tax record, and six legal documents.

The letters contain both personal and military information and are addressed both to McCallen and to his wife Isabella.

• October 22, 1774: From Agnes and James Lock to Robert and Isabella McCallen, mentioning the "Indian War" in western Pennsylvania where over 2,000 men were stationed at a Shawnee town. Also mentioned is a massacred by the Cherokee of several families in Houston, Pennsylvania
• October 19, 1776: From servant William Grear to his "Dear and loving Master and Mistress," written the Battle of White Plains while he was in Kingsbridge
• December 26, 1776: From McCallen to his wife containing his eyewitness account of the Battle of Trenton
• Undated: From Agnes Lock to her daughter Isabella McCallen concerning family life and remarriage

The military records relate primarily to outfitting, arming, and paying McCallen's Pennsylvania company. Included are five lists of firearms borrowed from the local citizenry, which detail the types, conditions, and owners of the weapons (May 15, 1776, and four undated items from 1776). Also of note is the pledge from McCallen's militia agreeing to join General Washington's army (December 7, 1776). The regimental orders contain instructions for troop movements in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and the 11-page muster roll book, kept by McCallen in the summer of 1776, is comprised of multiple lists of members of McCallen's regiment and an absentee roll.

The receipts and financial documents record McCallen's personal transactions for goods, land, and services, before and after the war. The tax collecting document for Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is made up of printed instructions for the tax collector and four pages of accounts of the person who paid the tax (August 12, 1778). Legal documents include the will of Sarah McCallen (Robert's mother) and documents related to Robert McCallen's estate, such as an inventory of his property and a record of sale of land by his executors William Boal and Robert Geddis. Of note is a broadside advertisement, in German, of the sale of a piece of Pennsylvania property owned by Thomas McCallen: "Oeffentliche Vendu. Dienstags, Den 30sten Dieses Instehenden Novembers, Wird Auf Dem Vermögen Selbst, öffentlich Verkauft Werden… (Lebanon, Pennsylvania, 1824).