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The James Patten papers contain letters and documents detailing his capture and captivity by Delaware Indians in Ohio, the funds raised by the family to purchase his ransom, his eventual release, and his life on the Ohio frontier.

The James Patten papers (16 items) contain letters and documents regarding Patten's capture and captivity by Delaware Indians in Ohio, the family's efforts to raise funds to purchase his ransom, his eventual release, and his life on the Ohio frontier (1789-1799). The collection is comprised of 12 letters (1788-1799), 3 receipts (1791), and a subscription list (1791). Also present is a photocopied excerpt from The Choates in America, 1643-1896, by E. O. Jameson, which describes the capture of Patton and Isaac and Francis Choate by the Delaware Indians (pages 125-128).

The earliest item in the collection is a letter of recommendation for David Patten (1761-1836) by the Selectman of Bedford, New Hampshire, and endorsed by Justices of the Peace from Hillsborough and Middlesex Counties (May 1, 1788). It asks "all Civil Officers and others let him pass and repass unmolested." David may well have planned to go to Ohio with his brother James, but changed his mind. Matthew and Elizabeth Patten wrote the next two letters in the collection to James Patterson, who accompanied their son to Ohio (June 13, 1789 and December 1, 1790). They discussed local news like the new style of singing hymns in the meeting house, family news, and news on crop yields. James Patten wrote all his 7 letters after his captivity; these contain details about his time with the Indians and how he was freed (November 1, 1796 -- April 21, 1799). Though many of his comments on the experience are brief, his letter to friend Samuel Patterson provides a day-by-day account of the nearly month-long trek he made across what is now the state of Ohio, from Big Bottom, where he was captured, to "The Grand Auglaize" in the heart of the Northwest Indian Confederacy (Sept. 10, 1797). He described his abduction, daily travel, and forced run through the gauntlet before he was accepted into the village: "I was welcomed into ther town one with his Club[,] a nother with his foot [,] another with his hand [,] another with a tomyhak."

The collection provides considerable information on ransoming a prisoner during the Northwest Indian War. Lacking sufficient funds, James' father Matthew Patten wrote a subscription appeal to friends and neighbors and received 37 signatures (July 4, 1791). The three receipts follow the trail of the 93 dollars collected to ransom James, as it was carried to Montreal by Isaac Choate, Jr.

The papers also document improvements in transportation both in New Englandas well as in the Ohio territory. In his letter of Aug. 18, 1796, David Patten informed his brother James that they had had a bumper hay crop, but had to pay very high wages to harvest it because of the demand for local labor "which is caused by building bridges and digging canals." He also listed the locations along the Merrimack River where bridges were being built: Concord, Amoskeag, Pentucket, Bodwell's Falls, Haverhill, Sweat's Ferry, and Newbury. In letters to his brother David, James Patten described, in detail, new roads, canals, and bridges built in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and mentioned horse powered boats being used on rivers in Ohio (November 23, 1797).

On the back of the September 10, 1797, letter from James Patten to Samuel Patterson is a copy of a poem called O True Times, commemorating American independence.

The Joseph Story papers contain the incoming letters of Joseph Story, a Massachusetts state representative, United States Supreme Court justice, and Harvard Law School professor. The papers deal with a wide range of political and legal issues concerning Massachusetts and the United States in the first half of the 19th century.

The Joseph Story papers (685 items) consist of the incoming letters of Joseph Story, a Massachusetts state representative, United States Supreme Court justice, and Harvard Law School professor. The collection contains 672 letters, 7 financial bills, and five printed items. Included are nine letters written by Story, and four by wife Mary Story. The rest were all addressed to Joseph Story, with the exception of two that were addressed to his daughter Sarah Wetmore Story and 15 written to his son William Wetmore Story. Forty-three items are undated. The papers deal with a wide range of national and state political issues and legal matters.

The collection covers the years 1794-1806, 1819-1825, and 1839-1843, with only a few items representing the remaining years. Included are letters from United States representatives related to congressional news; letters from prominent lawyers, judges, and jurors concerning legal matters and cases; and letters concerning Harvard Law School.

• October 1833: Antoine F. Picquet v. Charles P. Curtis, administrator of James Swan
• October 1843: Augustus H. Fiske v. Lyman Hunt
• October 1843: Bankruptcy case against B____.

The 1794-1806 letters document Story's early days as a Massachusetts lawyer and the beginning of his career as a state representative. Of particular interest are 10 letters from Samuel Sewall, a Massachusetts representative and later Supreme Court chief justice, under whom Story studied law. These mainly deal with Sewall's law office in Salem, Massachusetts, but also contain advice to Story on his reading of the law. Also of note are 14 letters from Jacob Crowninshield, a congress member and later secretary of the navy, concerning legislation affecting Massachusetts, policies regarding the fishing industry, and the presidential election of 1804. Prominent Boston lawyer James Sullivan contributed five letters related to various legal matters of the day.

The 1819-1825 letters document Story's activities as overseer of Harvard University and Supreme Court justice, during which time he split his residency between Salem and Washington D.C. Of special interest are 18 letters from Massachusetts congress member John Davis, in which he discussed international maritime law. Other notable contributors include Simon Greenlead (12 items), who discussed court decisions in Maine; Isaac Parker (6 items), who wrote about legal cases in Boston; Bushrod Washington (4 items), who reported on his legal cases before the Philadelphia circuit court; and Henry Wheaton (10 items), who shared judicial matters about New York. Also of note are letters from 1825 that relate to the need for altering instructional methods at Harvard, and a controversial election of members to the Corporation of Harvard College.

The Story papers contain only 27 items that date from 1826 to 1838. Of these, six are from French jurist Jean-Jacques Gaspard Foelix containing requests for Story to contribute to his journal Revue du droit français et étranger.

The 1839-1842 letters document the end of Story's career as an active justice, scholar, and law professor. Story received letters from prominent lawyers and judges from Portland, Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Story also received requests for speeches and was given honors from scholarly institutions throughout New England.

• John C. Calhoun (1 item)
• Henry A.S. Dearborn (9 items)
• William Fettyplace (7 items)
• Joseph Hopkinson (5 items)
• Susan Ledyard (12 items)
• Francis Lieber (10 items)
• Jeremiah Mason (10 items)
• Theron Metcalf (5 items)
• Richard Peters (15 items)
• John Pickering (8 items)
• John Pitman (20 items)
• William Prescott (5 items)
• Jared Sparks (5 items)
• Charles Sumner (8 items)
• George Ticknor (10 items)
• Bushrod Washington (4 items)
• Daniel Webster (3 items)
• Stephen White (16 items)
• Nathaniel Williams (15 items)

• September 12, 1796: Leonard Woods to Story concerning religion and containing maxims on happiness
• February 12, 1799: Samuel Sewall to Story concerning advice for reading law
• January 15, 1800: Samuel Sewall to Story concerning the death of George Washington
• April 3, 1800: Sewall to Story concerning advice for reading law
• February 13, 1804: Jacob Crowninshield to Story concerning the Louisiana Purchase
• February 26, 1804: Jacob Crowninshield to Story concerning the presidential and vice-presidential elections of 1804
• March 23, 1804: Jacob Crowninshield to Story concerning the sinking of the Ship Philadelphia off the coast of Tripoli and the Barbary conflict
• November 3, 1804: James Sullivan to Story concerning probate court decisions from 1776-1779
• January 28, 1806: Jacob Crowninshield to Story concerning Napoleon's victories in Europe
• April 13, 1819: Henry Wheaton to Story concerning an "Ann Act to protect Banks against embezzlement by their agents, Clerks, or servants, and for other purposes."
• January 15, 1821: Elizabeth H. Walker to Story concerning arguments against slavery in congress
• July 9, 1821: Henry Dearborn to Story concerning a military officer's trial before a Boston circuit court
• August 25, 1821: Theodore Lyman to Story concerning the constitutionality of new laws concerning slaves and abolition in Massachusetts
• December 10, 1821: Elijah Paine to Story concerning the selection of a president of Dartmouth College
• June 1, 1822: Benjamin Livingston to Story concerning William Johnson's Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of Nathaniel Greene
• June 11, 1822: Francis Scott Keys to Story, concerning Ralph Randolph Gurley and the American Colonization Society
• August 15, 1822: Ralph Randolph Gurley to Story concerning American Colonization Society and the "African cause"
• February 23, 1823: Sarah Dunlap to Story requesting help with her son will soon disgrace her family by marrying a divorced wife and profligate actress
• August 22, 1823: William J. Spooner to Story concerning Phi Beta Kappa
• December 7, 1823: John Mason to Story concerning the national debt and the Monroe Doctrine
• June 5, 1825: Massachusetts Governor John Davis to Story concerning the Corporation of Harvard College
• July 7 and October 24, 1825: Justice Smith Thompson to Story providing legal summaries of important cases appearing before Story
• August 20, 1828: Joseph Hopkinson to Story regarding thoughts on the presidential election between Jackson and Adams and on becoming a federal judge
• March 18, 1839: Charles Sumner to Story concerning Lord Brougham gifting Sumner his wig
• August 26, 1839: Charles P. Curtis to Story, proposing the appointment of Edward G. Loring as a master in chancery of the United States Circuit Court.
• January 7, 1842: H.G.V. Colby to William Wetmore Story concerning Colby's remarks in the case of Sampson vs. Stoddard
• March 19 and May 13, 1842: Alexander Maxwell & Son of London to Story concerning a bill for books
• June 7, 1842: Artist Augustin Edouard to Story concerning making a "silhouette likeness" of Story
• December 31, 1845: Harriet Martineau to Sarah Wetmore Story, concerning Joseph Story's death

This collection contains incoming letters, legal and financial documents, photographs, genealogical notes, writing fragments, and printed items related to Moody Kent, a lawyer who practiced in Deerfield and Concord, New Hampshire, in the early 19th century. Kent corresponded with his siblings, personal friends, and professional acquaintances about financial matters and with fellow Harvard graduates about their personal histories.

This collection contains 395 incoming letters, 39 legal and financial documents, 2 photographs, and 5 printed items related to Moody Kent, a lawyer who practiced in Deerfield and Concord, New Hampshire, in the early 19th century. Kent corresponded with his siblings, personal friends, and professional acquaintances about financial matters and with fellow Harvard graduates about their personal histories. Genealogical notes, poems, and writing fragments complete the collection.

The Correspondence series (395 items) is comprised primarily of incoming letters to Moody Kent from family, friends, and professional acquaintances, written between 1798 and 1860. Early items include letters that Kent received at Harvard from his father and siblings, who wrote about their lives in Newbury, Massachusetts. After his graduation in 1801, he often received letters from correspondents about their legal and financial matters; frequent writers included members of Kent's family and Ezekiel Webster, Daniel Webster's brother. After his retirement in 1832, Kent's correspondents wrote most often about personal matters. One person, A. A. Parker, commented about domestic political issues in the late 1850s. Some letters written during the 1860s directly concern the Civil War. Several of Kent's Harvard classmates shared information about their lives and family histories.

The Documents series (39 items) contains original and copied depositions, indentures, wills, and financial agreements, dated between 1771 and 1860. They primarily concern land ownership and inheritance issues. Few pertain directly to the affairs of Moody Kent, though many relate to his correspondents. Copies of the wills of Joseph Kent and Moody Kent are also included.

Two cabinet card Photographs depict an unidentified child and adult in and near a gazebo.

Poetry, Writings, and Fragments (5 items) include two patriotic poems by Hannah F. Lee (dated February 1862), 8 bars of manuscript sheet music, and other manuscript fragments and writings.

The Genealogy series (11 items) consists of genealogical notes related to various members of the Kent family.

The Printed Material series (5 items) is made up of an 1861 copy of New Hampshire legislative act regarding funding for New Hampshire soldiers' clothing and equipment; an advertisement for the Elmwood Literary Institute, Boscawen, New Hampshire; a circular advertisement for books on health sciences; an abbreviated version of Moody Kent's will; and a program for a 1912 Congregational church service.

The Stephen Cross Journal details the Massachusetts shipbuilder's journey to Fort Oswego to help with the French and Indian War effort, his capture after the fall of Fort Oswego in 1756, and imprisonment in Quebec City and Dijon, France.

The Stephen Cross journal consists of 60 pages of entries, spanning March 1, 1756-January 22, 1757. The journal begins with Cross' agreement to travel to Fort Oswego with eighteen others from his town, in order to "build some vessels for the King's service" (March 1, 1756). In mid-March and April, he provided a detailed account of his travel from Newbury, Massachusetts, to Oswego, New York, via Boston, Providence, Newport, Block Island, New York City, and Albany. During this period, Cross frequently described the difficulty of navigating the terrain of upstate New York, his encounters with Native Americans, and the details of his work, which included cutting and hauling timber to construct ships and to rebuild Fort Bull after its destruction by the French (April 27, 1756). On May 12, 1756, Cross mentioned an incident in which friendly Native Americans saluted his party with their muskets, resulting in confusion and a supposition that their greeting was "an ambush laid for us." Luckily, the misunderstanding was quickly discovered.

Cross and his party arrived at Fort Oswego on May 14, 1756, and he subsequently recounted the process of preparing for a siege. On May 23, 1756, he reported a bizarre incident in which a soldier survived a scalping while in a drunken stupor. He also described several desertions (May 30, 1756), the frequent discovery of enemy spies, and occasional skirmishes. On August 14, 1756, he gave a detailed description of the Battle of Fort Oswego and its aftermath, including his capture and the drunken antics of his fellow prisoners.

After his capture, Cross described his experiences as a prisoner of war, including imprisonment in Quebec City, crossing the Atlantic en route to France (August 22, 1756: “[W]e are confined to our dark and wretched hole below both decks, only allowed to come on deck twice a day”), several near shipwrecks, and various plots to escape. On November 20, 1756, he gave an account of the escape of several prisoners from Brest and their eventual return to prison because of starvation. He also noted his dislike of General Shirley's regiment (the 50th Regiment of Foot), consisting of fellow captives on their way to France and, Cross supposed, "convicts" (November 15, 1756). The last entries concern imprisonment in a castle and the kindness of a wealthy widow to the prisoners (December 27, 1756). In January, he expressed his fear of going to the hospital, where an increasing number of men were dying. The journal ends with Cross' admission to the hospital on January 22, 1757.