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The Martha Leach Packard commonplace book contains inscriptions, correspondence, autographs, and ephemera that Packard collected from the 1850s to 1890s. Inscriptions and autographs are written directly into the volume; additional items are pasted or laid in. The volume represents prominent individuals such as politicians and academics, as well as Packard's personal acquaintances.

The Martha Leach Packard commonplace book (200 pages) contains inscriptions, correspondence, autographs, and ephemera that Packard collected from the 1850s to 1890s. Packard used about half of the pages; additional items are laid into the volume.

Most inscriptions and autographs are written directly into the volume, and many are dated at Poughkeepsie, New York. Most entries are dated from the 1850s-1890s, though some letters pasted into the book are dated as early as 1837. Prominent individuals such as politicians, artists, and writers contributed autographs (see list below), and historian Benson J. Lossing provided a personal inscription (p. 39). Packard's other contributors included academics and personal acquaintances, 5 of whom mentioned participating in the Civil War (pp. 77, 145).

Laid-in letters include items by famous persons and personal correspondence to Martha Leach Packard and E. W. Packard. The volume also includes visiting cards, a menu from a dinner at the Stevens House (p. 157), a lock of hair (p. 178), and a swatch of fabric (p. 198). The album was originally published with printed illustrations, mainly portraits of women; some later pages contain cut-out colored illustrations of flowers.

• Benson J. Lossing (inscription, p. 39; letter, p. 200)
• John Jay Hyde (inscription, p. 41; calling card, front endpaper)
• Henry P. Tappan (autograph, p. 45)
• Thomas Nast (autograph on card, p. 61)
• Samuel F. B. Morse (autograph, p. 97)
• William W. Belknap (autograph, p. 99)
• Henry Clay (autograph, p. 115)
• Lydia Huntley Sigourney (autograph, p. 115)
• DeWitt Clinton (autograph, p. 115)
• Francis Napier (letter, p. 193)
• P. T. Barnum (autograph, back endpaper)

This scrapbook contains correspondence, newspaper clippings, and other material related to Samuel P. Lyman, a lawyer from Utica, New York. Most items are incoming letters to Lyman about his involvement with the Anti-Masonic Party and Whig Party in the 1820s and 1830s.

This scrapbook (10" x 14") contains correspondence, newspaper clippings, and other material related to Samuel P. Lyman, a lawyer from Utica, New York. The volume's primary contents consist of around 230 letters, newspaper clippings, and documents about Samuel P. Lyman's political interests and professional career. Lyman frequently received letters from New York residents such as Robert H. Backus, Thomas Beekman, and William N. Maynard, and his nationally prominent correspondents included Thurlow Weed, Edward Everett, Daniel Webster, Millard Fillmore, William H. Seward, Henry Clay, and Rufus Choate. Most of the correspondence pertains to the Anti-Masonic Party, the Whig Party, and New York state politics. Some letters from the mid-1830s concern national elections and the careers of John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster.

Other manuscript items include speech notes and occasional diary entries. Newspaper clippings often reprint accounts of Anti-Masonic Party conventions, in which Lyman frequently participated. Other clippings, circular letters, and reports relate to temperance societies, the Utica Female Academy, and the New York and Erie Railroad. Also included are invitations, menus, certificates, a political cartoon, a ribbon, and numerous calling cards.