A detailed letter from a Georgia lawmaker quietly trying to put a case together against a man for taking a female slave to New York—and freedom. This letter, from William Young Hansell to Archibald Russell Spence Hunter, provides a synopsis of the situation around a (former) slave named Katy and.....
![Item #5920 Historical Notes of Burlington [Connecticut.] Written by J.C. Hart in 1871, formerly a...](/pictures/thumb/5920_1.jpg?v=1603315503)
An archive of materials bearing on the early history of Burlington, Connecticut, particularly interesting for its accounts of many citizens of whom little or nothing would otherwise be known. At the center of this archive is the manuscript text Historical Notes of Burlington by one Mr. J. C. Hart (1792–1881).....
![Item #2100 [Manuscript Journal of a Boston Merchant]. Ralph Haskins](/pictures/thumb/2100_1.jpg?v=1560463139)
Manuscript journal of a Boston merchant—an uncle of Ralph Waldo Emerson—illuminating trade, shipping, and life in Boston during the early years of the American republic. Ralph Haskins, born in Boston on April 5, 1779, was apprenticed to Theodore Lyman, a well-established merchant, at a time when Boston was a......
A letter written aboard the steamer Natchez from Vicksburg to New Orleans in 1885, describing events and conversations on board as well as the countryside, agriculture, and Civil War sights along the route. This letter from New York State apple grower Silas Seward Hopkins is written on Natchez letterhead showing.....
An interesting fair-copy manuscript account of an 1883 American tour by English carpet manufacturer William Horsfall with his wife and niece, chronicling their visits to Connecticut, Philadelphia, Niagara Falls, New York City, New Hampshire and Boston. William Horsall was a manager of Naylor’s Carpet Factory in Kidderminster, located in the.....
A Confederate surgeon’s letter illuminating medical aspects of the Civil War. Tazewell Howard, newly arrived assistant surgeon to George Paul Harrison’s training camp outside Savannah, Georgia, describes his new appointment and attempts to use his connections to secure a higher paying post. He reports a certain dissatisfaction with his lot.....
![Item #5163 [Journal of a Harvard student and teacher at Phillips Academy, Andover.] Diary from...](/pictures/thumb/5163_1.jpg?v=1591192443)
A journal kept by noted Ipswich, Massachusetts minister David T. Kimball during his final year of studies at Harvard University and Harvard Divinity School, and a year of teaching at Phillips Andover Academy. Rev. David Tenney Kimball (1782–1860) was a prominent abolitionist and Pastor of the First Parish in.....
A manuscript pass authorizing two men to join the forces defending Fort Ticonderoga, issued less than two months prior to the siege of the Fort (2–6 July 1777) by British General John Burgoyne during the Saratoga Campaign. The pass reads in its entirety: Norwich [Mass.] 20th of May 1777 by.....
A French and Indian War-era letter addressed to Thomas Hancock Esq. of Boston concerning men and supplies at Fort Cumberland, written three years after the fort fell to British and colonial forces. George Lewis is recorded in 1750 as a “boatmaster” in Gorham’s Rangers—one of the most notable ranger units.....
A compelling group of letters, all retained copies, written in response to the upcoming election of 1848 by a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Lewis Cass. Marshall argues for the removal of the Quartermaster General of New Orleans, Major Daniel D. Tompkins (1798–1863), whose scheming on behalf of Whig.....
This letter by slaveowner and future North Carolina legislator Thomas David Smith McDowell (1823–1898) charges its recipients to sell “my man Harry” as soon as Harry arrives, via raft, in Wilmington: If you can get five hundred dollars, you can take it, nothing less than that sum, and as much.....
![Item #5491 [Manuscript compilation of official reports for the Battle of Port Gibson.]. George...](/pictures/thumb/5491_1.jpg?v=1563205789)
A compelling brigade battlefield report composed in the immediate wake of the Battle of Port Gibson (Mississippi, 1 May ‘63), an assault that set the stage for Grant’s pivotal siege of Vicksburg; the eight reports of Army of the Tennessee regiments and batteries chronicle extensive combat; the capture of Confederate.....
A group of papers documenting book donations made by the Maryland State Library to the Library of Congress in 1841, including personal correspondence between librarians John S. Meehan of the library of Congress and D. Ridgley of State Library of Maryland. A form issued by The Committee on the.....
![Item #2918 [Ipswich Massachusetts Livery Owner’s Daybook]. Frederick Mitchell](/pictures/thumb/2918_1.jpg?v=1560463212)
Day book of Frederic Mitchell, an Ipswich, Massachusetts innkeeper, recording the daily rentals from his livery. Recorded herein are daily rents and rates for all manner of horse-drawn transportation. With customers, by and large renting chaises in the warmer months and sleighs in the winter. Beyond chaises and sleighs, Mitchell’s.....
Two manuscript journals in one volume of Maine ship captain Josiah Mitchell (1812?–1876), best known as Captain of the burned and sunken ship Hornet, famously described by Mark Twain in the Sacramento Daily Union in 1866. Documented in these sea journals are the two angst-filled final voyages of Captain.....
A letter of inquiry from Maryland Secretary of State Thomas O’Neal, on behalf of Governor Enoch L. Lowe, relating to a notorious case in which slave-catcher Thomas McCreary kidnapped free Black teenagers Rachel Parker and Elizabeth Parker in Pennsylvania. The letter reads in full: (copy) Executive Department, Annapolis March 24th.....
A delightfully written and richly illustrated journal and scrapbook chronicling a bike tour undertaken by four friends through England and Scotland, written and compiled by a young American woman completing her doctoral thesis in English literature. “This journal starts properly with two soaked, blistered, dust-blown, bedraggled travellers pulling up to.....
A lively travel diary kept over a span of thirteen months, documenting a Pennsylvania man’s trips to Massachusetts, Maine, and Indiana. Born in Norridgewock, Maine, Dr. Elias Morse Pierce (1824–1911) practiced dentistry in Pennsylvania throughout much of his life. At the time of this journal he was living in Erie.....
Muster roll of the 3rd Wisconsin Volunteer Cavalry, a unit celebrated for doing battle with the famed Quantrill’s Raiders in the Department of Missouri during the US Civil War. Listed here are the names of two Medal of Honor Recipients, the brothers James and George Pond. As a family the.....
![Item #5162 [A Massachusetts doctor’s daybook.]. Doctor Richard](/pictures/thumb/5162_1.jpg?v=1572624618)
A brief but striking account of a widowed doctor’s visit to his wife’s tomb to look upon her once more, recorded in his daybook. Kept by a doctor with the surname Richard in Braintree, Massachusetts, this day book consists mainly of entries relating to his medical practice (primarily the.....
![Item #3904 The Making of an American. [With two autograph letters inserted]. Jacob A. Riis](/pictures/thumb/3904_1.jpg?v=1560463450)
The autobiography of social reformer Jacob Riis, along with two letters from Riis to influential Ellis Island immigration doctor Victor Safford. First published in 1901, this is a 1902 printing. Riis’s autobiography begins with his youth in Denmark (including his initially one-sided bond with his beloved wife Elizabeth), and his.....
An engaging group of letters between the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Maine historical novelist and a former marine Captain stationed in Haiti turned author, concerning research for the former’s novel, Lydia Bailey. Kenneth Lewis Roberts (1885–1957) of Kennebunk, Maine, was a renowned journalist and author of American historical fiction. His Lydia.....
A Reconstruction-era archive including a vitriolic anti-Reconstruction letter and a plea for character reference from a white banker embroiled in a bribery scandal with South Carolina’s first prominent Black politician. Thomas J. Robertson (1823–1897) was a South Carolina plantation and slave owner who supported the Union during the Civil War.....
![Item #7036 [Business archive of New Hampshire mill owner Alfred I. Sawyer.]. Alfred I. Sawyer](/pictures/thumb/7036_1.jpg?v=1631726193)
A substantive archive of New Hampshire mill-owner Alfred I. Sawyer including extensive business correspondence, a journal documenting his business operation in 1841, and more; taken as a whole, the archive documents Sawyer’s operation of the mill conglomerate from the 1820s to his death in 1849, as well as the afterlife.....
Tavern owner Thomas Scott’s formal pledge not to “barter, give away, sell or furnish, to any slave or slaves, any measure or quantity of distilled or spiritous or intoxicating liquors without the verbal or written consent of the owners or employees of such slave or slaves, or without the like.....