Collections

This collection contains miscellaneous single items authored by, signed by, or relating to members of the Continental Congresses, the Confederation Congress, and the United States Congress. The bulk of the collection dates from 1761 to 1862, and while some content relates to political positions and actions, most of the items concern congressional representatives' financial and business affairs, legal practices, and various personal matters.

This collection contains miscellaneous single items authored by, signed by, or relating to members of the Continental Congresses, the Confederation Congress, and the United States Congress. The bulk of the collection dates from 1761 to 1862, and while some content relates to political positions and actions, most of the items concern congressional representatives' financial and business affairs, legal practices, and various personal matters. Of particular note are items relating to the military during the American Revolution, including one item from January 27, 1778, that appears to have a separate message visible by backlight. The collection also contains materials relating to wampum and Native American relations, as well as Shay's Rebellion. See the Detailed Box and Folder Listing below for more information about each item.

These volumes contain typed transcriptions of King George III's correspondence between December 1783 and 1810. Windsor Castle librarian Sir John Fortescue compiled this collection in the early 20th century as part of a larger project to publish the king's entire correspondence. The transcripts include manuscript revisions and additions.

These volumes contain typed transcriptions of King George III's correspondence between December 1783 and 1810; most items are incoming letters to the king. Windsor Castle librarian Sir John Fortescue compiled this collection in the early 20th century as part of a larger project to publish the king's entire correspondence; these typescripts are a companion to several volumes that Fortescue published in 1927-1928, which cover the period from 1760 to November 1783. The transcripts include manuscript revisions and additions. The letters (10,327 pages) pertain to a wide array of political issues and to the king's various interests, and many of Great Britain's most influential political leaders from the late 18th and early 19th centuries are represented throughout the collection. Topics include the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, the 1800 Act of Union with Ireland, and the ministries of William Pitt (1759-1806).

Forms part of the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive. This collection includes material related to non-edible kitchen products and household activities, including appliance manuals, catalogs, housekeeping guides, product promotions, and cook books. Publications date from the 1700s to 2005, with the majority of material dating from the mid-twentieth century.

This collection includes material related to non-edible kitchen products and household activities, including appliance manuals, catalogs, housekeeping guides, product promotions, and cook books.

The Cushing family collection is made up of correspondence, financial records, and other items pertaining to the family and descendants of Boston merchant Hayward P. Cushing.

The Cushing Family collection is made up of correspondence, financial records, and other items pertaining to the family and descendants of Boston merchant Hayward P. Cushing, including his son, Hayward W. Cushing.

The Correspondence series (124 items) is primarily made up of incoming letters to Hayward P. Cushing, Maria Peirce Cushing, and Hayward W. Cushing. The first item is a letter to Betsy Barber in Epping, New Hampshire (May 9, 1790).

Hayward P. Cushing received personal and professional letters from family members and business acquaintances from 1828-1870. His brother Nathaniel wrote of his life in Brooklyn and Grand Island, New York, in the 1830s and 1840s; one letter concerns his journey to Grand Island on the Erie Canal (August 9, 1835). Jane Cushing, Hayward and Nathaniel's sister, discussed her life in Scituate, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century. Sophia Cushing, Hayward's cousin and his most frequent correspondent, reported on her financial difficulties, thanked him for his assistance, and shared news from Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Hayward P. Cushing received letters from his wife Maria while she vacationed in Maine, and from his daughter Florence. His business correspondence includes a letter about the sale of the brig Ann Tyler (January 23, 1858).

Maria Peirce Cushing's earliest incoming letters are courtship letters from Hayward P. Cushing, her future husband. After the mid-1850s, he wrote to her from Boston, Massachusetts, while she vacationed in Scituate, Massachusetts, and Frankfort, Maine. He provided news about his life and their children. Maria's sister Caroline discussed her life in Bridgeport, Maine, and a cousin named Abby described her life in Boston. In the mid-1870s, the Cushings' daughters Florence and Jenny wrote to their mother about their courses, textbooks, and experiences at Vassar College.

The final group of dated correspondence consists of incoming letters to Hayward Warren Cushing, including news from Massachusetts medical organizations operating in the 1880s and a series of 10 letters by his wife Martha, who described her trip to Europe in 1928. She discussed her transatlantic voyage and Mediterranean cruise on the Canadian Pacific ship SS Empress of Scotland, as well as her experiences in countries including Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Turkey, Italy, Israel, Egypt, Monaco, France, and England. She enclosed a postcard from Naples, Italy, in one of her letters.

Undated correspondence includes additional letters to members of the Cushing family, as well as picture postcards showing French surgeons, statues, and buildings.

The Journals and Notebooks series consists of 2 items. Florence M. Cushing kept a diary while visiting London from January 2, 1880-January 18, 1880. Her sightseeing excursions included trips to the British Museum, National Gallery, Windsor Castle, and Westminster Abbey. The notebook contains recipes, instructions, and scientific notes compiled by Hayward W. Cushing. Entries about building animal traps and tying knots are accompanied by explanatory illustrations. Other topics include medicinal formulas and chemistry, instructions for making types of ink (including invisible inks), and lists of items used on camping trips.

The Financial papers series is comprised of account books, receipts, and other records related to members of the Cushing and Peirce families.

• An appraisal of Hayward Peirce's estate in Scituate, Massachusetts, recorded in March 1827, with two sections listing the value of his personal property and transactions involving his land.
• H. M. Peirce's record of purchases, primarily of school supplies, from May 1834-April 1835. A printed notice about the estate of Silas Peirce is laid into the volume (May 21, 1920).
• Nathaniel Cushing's account book, pertaining to transactions with Nathan Cushing, from whom he primarily purchased groceries between October 1853 and August 1861.
• Hayward P. Cushing's account book concerns shares that he and Jane Cushing owned in railroad companies and banks (July 1849-July 1855). Additional financial notes relate to the settlement of related financial accounts.
• Account book recording Maria P. Cushing's investments and dividends (October 1870-January 1894); she received income from the estate of Silas Peirce, Sr., among other sources.

The Receipts, Checks, and Accounts (over 300 items) are arranged by person and company; each group of items is arranged chronologically. Nathaniel Cushing materials pertain to board, taxation, food, and other miscellaneous expenses. The Cushing, Hall, and Peirce documents concern financial affairs, including stock and bond investments. The group of items related to Hayward W. Cushing includes a large number of personal checks from many different banks, as well as additional accounts and documents. Among the financial papers related to Hayward P. Cushing is a receipt for Jane Cushing's board at the McLean Asylum for the Insane (December 31, 1869). The series contains additional accounts and financial records.

The Documents series (20 items) is made up of legal and financial contracts related to business partnerships, estates, and land ownership. The final item is an "Apple Pest Survey in Worcester County" for 1929-1931 (April 15, 1932).

The Drawings (3 items) are architectural drawings of methods for dropping masts (February 25, 1888), several floor plans (1919-1931), and an overhead view of an orchard (undated).

The Printed Items and Ephemera series includes 3 newspapers (1800-1864), 2 annual reports of the Boston Lyceum (1838 and 1840); a lecture by Benjamin Scott about the Pilgrims (1866); a reprinted love letter from John Kelly to an unidentified recipient (original 1817; printed in 1892); a group of check tickets from the Pullman Company; a printed calendar for 1870; a facsimile of The New-England Courant from February 1723; calling cards and invitations; and an embroidered piece of cloth.

The Genealogy series (14 items) consists of pamphlets, bulletins, newspaper clippings, and other items related to various members of the Cushing family from the 19th century into the early 20th century.

The Dalton family papers document three generations of the Dalton family of Boston, Massachusetts: Captain James Dalton, Peter Roe Dalton, and Peter Roe Dalton, Jr. This wealthy family was involved in transatlantic shipping and local Boston politics.

The Dalton family papers (168 items) contain 29 letters, 35 financial records, 30 receipts, 1 account book, 66 legal documents, 2 genealogical booklets, 2 genealogical essays, and an image of the Dalton house. These document three generations of the Dalton family of Boston, Massachusetts: Captain James Dalton, Peter Roe Dalton, and Peter Roe Dalton, Jr. See the Detailed Box and Folder Listing section for a list and description of each item in the collection.

The Documents, Letters and Receipts series contains commercial papers and letters, including business letters, contracts, insurance agreements, estate documents, deeds and leases, bills of lading, wage-payment receipts, customs house receipts, and army provision orders and receipts.

• Records of transporting building material (boards, shingles, staves), and food (beef, herring, mackerel, molasses, sugar) between Boston and the West Indies.
• Shipping records for the following ships: Abigail, Mauritius, Nancy, Packett, Polly, Resolution, Sarah, Swallow, Two Friends, and Willmill.
• Documents detailing James Dalton's losses from the Great Boston Fire (March 20, 1760 and April 16, 1761)
• A letter from Peter Roe Dalton to James Dalton (his father) discussing trading efforts in Charleston, South Carolina, and noting sickness in the area (November 27, 1766)
• Documents concerning the Revolutionary War relating to supplying Boston troops (1777-1781)
• Two letters about the Mexican War written on board the US Ship Lexington (March 15, 1847 and June 4, 1848)
• A letter from N.J. Dalton, in which he described travels in California and an Indian hunt that killed 125 Indians for murdering a rancher and stealing 7 head of cattle.
• Voucher for the Honorable William Stoughton Esquire, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (April 26, 1693)

The Account Book series consists of a 44-page volume of accounts for the estates of Peter Roe Dalton (1743-1811) and his son Peter Roe Dalton, Jr. (1791-1861).

The Genealogy and Miscellaneous series (6 items) is comprised of two booklets with birth and death information on the Dalton Family and Simeon Skillin's ancestors; two essays on the lives of James Dalton and Peter Roe Dalton; a list of Dalton-owned church pews in King's Chapel in Boston (1754-1876); and an image of the Dalton house in Boston, on the corner of Water Street and Congress Street, which was occupied by James and Peter Roe Dalton.

The Daniel Morgan collection is made up of financial records, legal documents, correspondence, and other items related to General Daniel Morgan and to Willoughby Morgan, his son.

The Daniel Morgan collection is made up of 63 financial records, legal documents, correspondence, and other items related to General Daniel Morgan and to Willoughby Morgan, his son. The majority of the collection consists of accounts, bonds, promissory notes, and other documents pertaining to Daniel Morgan's financial affairs. Accounts and invoices record Morgan's purchases of clothing, wagon-related equipment and services, and other items. Some of the later items do not concern Morgan directly but have his legal endorsement. Also included are two outgoing letters by Morgan, a 9-page legal document about a lawsuit against Morgan, and a deposition that Morgan gave in a different dispute. Other items are a bond regarding Morgan's marriage to Abigail Curry (March 30, 1773) and Morgan's political address to the citizens of Allegheny County about politics and the militia (January 17, 1795). Three of the documents pertain to enslaved and free African Americans (November 6, 1773; June 13, 1789; and March 28, 1799). Later items mostly pertain to the estate of Willoughby Morgan, Daniel Morgan's son. James Graham wrote two letters to unknown recipients in 1847 and 1856 about his efforts to write Daniel Morgan's biography, which he subsequently published.

Printed items include a map of the surrender of Yorktown (undated), a newspaper article from a Winchester, Virginia, paper about the possible disinterment of Daniel Morgan's remains (August 18, 1951), and printed portraits of Daniel Morgan with manuscript and facsimile autographs.

The Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Slave Records is a register of black and mulatto children born in Dauphin County between 1780 and 1825. The volume contains approximately 170 bound slave records giving each child's name, date of birth, sex, race, as well as owner's name, occupation, and place of residency.

The Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Slave Records is a register of the names of black and mulatto children born in Dauphin County between 1780 and 1825. The volume contains approximately 170 bound slave records, with 7 loose copies, a memorial for John Ewing, and a printed notice in the book’s front cover.

The ledger contains a seven-page index at the front, followed by 49 pages of entries, with three to four entries per page. Glued inside the front cover is a printed copy of the March 29, 1788, law regarding the registration of the children of slaves -- An act to explain and amend an act, entitled, "An act for the gradual abolition of slavery." The ledger contains 6 officially embossed copies of entries copied in the volume, and an undated letter with a tribute to a lawyer named John Ewing, who died at the age of 40. The content of this letter is highly religious and laudatory.

The volume lists 105 female children and 92 male children. Only 17 of the 197 children have recorded surnames. Of the 97 different slave owners most of them (76%) registered only one or two children. Only 7% of owners registered more than four. Notable slave owners include John Andre Hanna, a Revolutionary War general and U.S. congressman; Cornelius Cox, a Revolutionary War colonel and elector from Pennsylvania in the 1792 presidential election [he voted for Washington]; and Mordecai McKinney, whose son defended numerous fugitive slaves in Pennsylvania in the 1850's. For a complete list of slave owners see the Additional Descriptive Data section below.

The register lists the names, birthdates, and owners of 197 children born to slaves in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, in the 45-year period between 1780 and 1825. The registrar often recorded estimated ages of those born prior to April 1, 1789, but for those born after that date, he noted exact birthdates. In one case, the record shows the actual hour of birth. The racial designations are Negro, Mulatto, Negro or Mulatto, and colored child. In only one case is a parent named:

"Be it remembered that on the Seventeenth day of April A.D. 1819 William N. Irvine, Esq. Attorney at Law...maketh return on Oath that a female Mullatto child was born by his Negro Servant Ann, on the seventeenth day of November 1818 and that the said female child is called Harriet, is now living and has been supported by the said William and is of the age of 5 months and twenty-nine days."

The children born after the 1780 act for Pennsylvania's gradual abolition of slavery became free men and women in 1808. The last child registered (Eve, a Mulatto, born June 6, 1825) would have been able to obtain her freedom in June of 1853. Covering a 45-year period, this volume demonstrates that abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania was a gradual process.

This collection documents the activities of David Baldwin, a prominent Connecticut merchant, free mason, and Revolutionary War militia general, and his heirs, from 1790 to 1870. Included are legal documents relating to land sales, associated correspondence, and a short diary accounting a trip from Milwaukie to Chicago in 1836. Many of the later documents are letters and deeds related to his son, David Van Brooks Baldwin.

The David Baldwin papers contains correspondence, legal documents, financial records, and a diary, with the bulk of the material dating from just after the Revolutionary War through the 1820s.

The Correspondence series (26 items) contains four lengthy letters from Flora Jewett, David Baldwin's newly married daughter, from Galway New York (1807-1811). Topics range from furniture and housekeeping to details the loss of a child (April 14, 1808); consolation to Baldwin, who is seriously ill (February 1811); and business matters (Jan 3, 1812).

The bulk of the correspondence after Baldwin's death are business letters to Baldwin's son, David Van Brooks Baldwin, that deal with the sale of land and collections of debts.

The Document series consists largely of items documenting transfers of land and contracts for merchandizing, buying, selling, and vending. Included are a land deed transfer from Philo Norton to David Baldwin, 1794, and deeds of land purchased in Kentucky (1795) and Virginia in (1796); and a deed of gift for land in Connecticut to his son (1809). This series also contains official signed documents appointing Baldwin to Surveyor of Revenue and Assessors for Newton and Brookfield. Most post-1812 documents are deeds from Connecticut and New York concerning David Van Brooks Baldwin.

The Financial Records series contains items documenting payments of debts to David Baldwin and his descendants. Many of these items are brief (half a page or less) and some have descriptions of the loan.

The Financial Reports series holds records of the transactions of David Van Brooks Baldwin. Also included are receipts for purchased items such as hot air heaters, wood, coal, water, and local taxes.

The Diary series contains a 24-page notebook, that recounts a trip from Milwaukie to Chicago and the points in-between. Written by a descendent of David Baldwin in 1836 (possible David V. Baldwin), the journal mentions the Indians at Prarie-du-Chien:

"out of some 5000 Indians there are left only some 3 or 400, 200 remains lie unburied, the smallpox occasioned the mortality among them- the Indians steam the patient & plunge him into cold water..."

The Miscellaneous series holds a 1855 pay book and a 1856 exchange account book belonging to David Van Brooks Baldwin, a ticket to a Banquet for the Utica Continentals, various notes, and a folder of empty envelopes separated from the Correspondence series.

The David McKinney papers consist primarily of letters written by McKinney while serving as a quartermaster during the Civil War and include detailed descriptions of his work.

The bulk of the McKinney papers, 57 items, consists of letters written by David McKinney to his sister, Jeanette, and other siblings between June 25, 1863, and December 9, 1865, covering most of the period of his military service. As quartermaster, McKinney had little combat experience, though his descriptions of conditions during the siege of Vicksburg (13) and the battles of Sabine Cross Roads and Pleasant Hill (30) are detailed and colorful. He comments frequently and forthrightly about generals, generalship, and Copperheads and often alludes to the French presence in Mexico. McKinney's letters are perhaps most noteworthy for the interesting and unusual glimpse they offer into the workings of the Quartermaster's Department. Particularly in his letters from Mouth of White River (47-63), McKinney provides detailed discussions of his responsibilities and his brushes with the ubiquitous profiteers. In a later letter (66), he describes his personal role in the reconstruction of the South -- the hiring of a former Rebel colonel as a teamster.

The remainder of the collection, 24 items, consists of miscellaneous materials relating to various members of McKinney's family. Among these items are two Revolutionary-War-era letters (1, 2), a will from 1796 (3), and a series of five letters of recommendation written for David McKinney by his professors at Jefferson College (5). In the post-war period, three items relating to Abraham Smith McKinney's involvement with the Ingleside Plantation are noteworthy (70-72), as are three short letters written by David McKinney just prior to his death (78). Genealogical charts and material regarding the provenance of the papers are located in the last folder of the collection (82).

The most important of these family letters is one written in December, 1859, that includes a discussion of the role of Chambersburg, Pa., as headquarters for John Brown's forces prior to the raid on Harper's Ferry, and an account of the fate of some of the insurrectionists (11).

The David Ross papers contain financial documents and correspondence regarding the estate of Pennsylvania merchant Mark Freeman and the Revolutionary War-era tobacco business of Virginia planter David Ross, who handled Freeman's financial affairs after Freeman's departure for Europe in 1779.

The David Ross papers contain financial documents and correspondence regarding the estate of Pennsylvania merchant Mark Freeman and the Revolutionary War-era tobacco business of Virginia planter David Ross, who handled Freeman's financial affairs after the latter's departure for Europe in 1779.

Most early items are financial documents, such as accounts related to Mark Freeman's estate. These pertain to Freeman's purchases in the 1770s and to debts owed after his death. Also included is a power of attorney granting Mark Freeman, William Temple, and Robert Wilson, all of Middletown, Pennsylvania, the right to represent the estate of James Forbes, also of Middletown (May 4, 1776). Other financial records concern the firm Forbes & Patton's purchases of snuff, rolling paper, tobacco, and other goods.

Later items primarily pertain to David Ross, who took over Freeman's affairs in 1779. The collection contains a copy of an indenture allowing Ross to become Freeman's attorney (August 2, 1779) and records regarding Freeman's finances. These documents reflect the difficulties of conducting trade during the American Revolution. Ross traded indigo, tobacco, and other products throughout the war, often in the Caribbean, and repeatedly mentioned the complications presented by the war. In one item, Ross discussed the possible future of Kentucky (January 29, 1781).