These volumes are lists of quit rents due in Philadelphia County, 1 March 1688/9, and in Philadelphia and Lancaster Counties, 1788-1793.

Born in Schiffdorf (near Bremerhafen), John Bohlen became one of Philadelphia's most prominent merchants at the turn of the nineteenth century. Running a profitable concern in partnership with his brother Bohl (1754-1836), John Bohlen imported commodities from their native Holland. Thanks to an insatiable American thirst for gin, Bohlen amassed an immense fortune that enabled him to travel in the same social circles as Stephen Girard and others among the mercantile elite and to win a spot in 1816 as one of the Directors of the Bank of the United States. By the time of his death, he was one of only eleven Philadelphians whose personal estates exceeded one million dollars in value. The Bohlen Collection contains a scant ten letters that appear to have been retained, as much as anything, for their autograph interest. Although they shed relatively little light on the life of John Bohlen, they do offer interesting glimpses into the personalities of Bohlen's famous correspondents, including Stephen Girard, Francis Scott Key, Meriwether Lewis, Virgil Maxcy, Oliver Hazard Perry, and Timothy Pickering.

These are letters to Thomas Clarke, Isaac Roberdeau, and Jonathan Williams, Jr., about the defense of Philadelphia against possible British attack.

Captain William Scott (b.1752) was a company commander in the British 17th Regiment of Foot. He participated in many battles and campaigns during the American Revolutionary War, including the Philadelphia campaign. This three-page memorandum describes the events leading up to, and the conduct of, the Battle of Germantown, on October 4, 1777.

In October 1719, the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends for Philadelphia and the Jersies reached consensus on a "book of discipline" governing the "establishment and order of meetings." The regulations covered both the conduct of the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings and the personal comportment of individual members, refining the bureaucratic structure of the meetings and laying out the powers of Overseers and other officials. It touches upon marriage (mandating endogamy), burial, and attendance at meetings, and cautions Friends to plainness of speech and dress, drinking, smoking, backbiting, and gaming. This version of the Book of Discipline is a manuscript copy made for the American Philosophical Society in 1820 "from and antient Copy in the possession of Timothy Matlack, Esqr."

This volume contains copies of depositions sworn before Peter Miller, letters of attorney, bonds, receipts, bills of sale, and contracts of marriage, etc. There is an index of names, which lists, among many others, George Glentworth, John Kearsley, Reese Meredith, Frederick Phile, and James Ralph. See date of 18 May 1768 for B. Franklin; 30 October 1773 for Kearsley. Film 54-67 Frame 136.

Intended as a model of Jacksonian penal reform, the Eastern State Penitentiary operated in the Cherry Hill section of Philadelphia between 1829 and 1970. Designed to promote the moral reform of prisoners by imposing a regimen of silent, solitary self-reflection, the penitentiary became the purest example of the "Pennsylvania plan" of "cellular isolation." The Records of the Eastern State Penitentiary consist of seven bound volumes and a series of miscellaneous records and correspondence that document aspects of life in Jacksonian America's model prison. The collection has been organized into four series: Series I, Bound Volumes; Series II, Miscellaneous Records; Series III, Correspondence of Elizabeth Velora Elwell; and Series IV, Prisoners' Correspondence. The bound volumes contain records of admission for prisoners between 1830 and 1892 (with some gaps), three of which were kept and annotated by the Moral Instructor at the prison, Thomas Larcombe. Larcombe provided interesting comments on the "moral state" of each prisoner, in addition to data on name, age, gender and race, religious affiliation, the charges, sentence, and final disposition. The unbound materials in the collection are diverse, but include an important 70 page manuscript comprising the records of the joint commission charged with investigating management of the prison in 1835, with a partial transcript of testimony, and a series of 29 letters written to or from prisoners at Eastern State, 1845-1871, most unusually the inmate Elizabeth Velora Elwell, writing to her paramour and fellow inmate Albert Green Jackson.

This volume contains the names of the indentured and to whom bound, the length of time, and the occupation to be learned or performed. An alphabetical index of names follows page 839.

This ledger is a record of Muir's work for Robert Bell, Francis Bailey, Joseph Crukshank, Mathew Carey, Thomas Dobson, William Prichard, William Young, and Charles Varlo, including other accounts.

The New Sweden Company was founded as a joint stock enterprise in 1637 including Swedish, Dutch, and German investors seeking to trade in American furs and tobacco. Centered at Fort Christina, near present day Wilmington, Delaware, the colony expanded up both sides of Delaware Bay and the Delaware Reiver to present day Philadelphia, but capitulated to the Dutch in 1655. This volume contains selected transcripts in Swedish and German of documents in Swedish archives relating to the settling and governance of the colony of New Sweden in Delaware and Pennsylvania, made at the expense of Jonathan Russel, United States minister to Sweden, 1820. The documents have all been translated into French, and were printed in Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania, vol. 4 (1829), 177-8,200, 314-315, 373-374, 398-400; vol. 5, 14-15, 219-221. No. 27 was not printed. Bound in at the end of the volume is Ch. 5 of Per Lindeström, "Description de la nouvelle Suède et des Indes Occidentales, 1691."

Jane Aitken (1764-1832) is a significant historical figure for several reasons. One of the first American female printers, Jane Aitken was also a bookseller, bookbinder, businesswoman, and employer during the early nineteenth century, a time when the independence of women was actively discouraged. There is a dearth of personal information about Jane Aitken, an unfortunate fact that is reflected in her surviving papers. This small collection, 145 items, is representative of her severely compromised financial situation and her constant failed efforts to rectify the situation. Her correspondence consists primarily of appeals to John Vaughan, a member and librarian of the American Philosophical Society, for loans. Vaughan was evidently a reliable and sympathetic supporter.

Twice a refugee from the revolutionary violence in the French colony of Saint Domingue, John Thomas Carré became head of the Clermont Seminary in Philadelphia from 1804-1825, a select boarding school for boys. Carré's diary from 1807-1809 provides a basic chronology of his life at the Clermont Seminary, with a few comments on his students and their families. The entries are typically very brief and are confined to a relatively limited range of topics, including the weather, Carré's poor health, his visitors, and correspondents. There is also a biographical memoir by his granddaughter, Ann Virginia Sanderson Farquhar.

After William Temple Franklin returned to Europe in 1792, he left oversight of his financial interests in America in the hands of his intimate friend and fellow land speculator, George Fox. A physician and member of the American Philosophical Society, Fox also took possession of the remainder of Benjamin Franklin's papers, which eventually passed through his son, Charles Pemberton Fox, to the APS. The Franklin-Fox Collection contains 98 items, consisting mostly of letters from William Temple Franklin to George Fox regarding land holdings and finances, and retained copies of Fox's letters to Franklin. The correspondence is fairly relentlessly focused on business matters and rarely contains personal comments, however there are occasional requests for books and two reference to the yellow fever epidemic of 1798 and the death of Benjamin Franklin Bache.

These papers include a catalog of his library (1 v., 67 p.); Narative of the difference between Dr. Alison, vice provost of the college of Philadelphia & Robert Strettell Jones late student in the senior class of the said College; Hugh Williamson to Isaac Jones, dated May 7, 1763; An abridgement of metaphysicks, written March 20,1761 & A system of rhetoric wrote Nov. & Dec. 1762, by Robert Strettell Jones; Depositions in re indictment for high treason against Robert Strettell Jones, Sept. 28, 1779; Certificate naming R.S. Jones as one of the Corporation of Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital, dated Dec. 3, 1773; and a copy of the will of his aunt Ann Strettell, Aug. 6, 1767.

Letters written by Julia Rush, wife of Benjamin Rush, mainly to her husband, with one to Samuel Stockton and one to Mary Rush. Eight letters were written during the 1793 yellow fever epidemic. The letters are not included in Lyman Butterfield's edition of Benjamin Rush's letters, vol. 30 of APS Memoirs (1951).

This volume includes several printed and manuscript items related to the death of Caspar Wistar, in January 1818.

This volume contains letters relating to the purchase and shipment of goods in America, Europe, and the West Indies, commecing 22d, 12mo. 1744, ending 6th, 2mo. 1747. Some are signed by Matthias Aspden, John Reynell, and John Smith.

This volume contains medical notes by Wistar, including observations on yellow fever and arguments to prove its foreign origin, facts relative to the progress of the fever in 1797, the infection and death of Colonel Van Emburgh, the infection of the crew of the ship "Deborah" and of the Durham boat (1802), an account of the diseases which afflicted the family of James Hammar in Montgomery County (Pa.), facts relating to the typhus fever of 1812-1813, case histories (1796-1803), temperature chart (1758-1759, 1760), and a thermometrical journal (1760-1765) kept by Charles Norris and copied by Wistar from notes in possession of Joseph Parker Norris.

This group includes wills for Benjamin Franklin Bache (B/B122.w), Richard Bache (B/B121.w), George Clymer (B/C625.w), Benjamin Franklin (B/F85.w), Francis Hopkinson (B/H768.w), Jared Ingersoll (Misc. Ms. Coll.), Thomas McKean (B/M195.w), Thomas Mifflin (B/M586.w), Robert Morris (B/M835.w), George Ross (B/R735.w), and Benjamin Rush (B/R89.w).

Sarah Franklin Bache (1743-1808), a Revolutionary War patriot and daughter of Benjamin Franklin, led an active public life according to the standards of womanhood in the late eighteenth century. As the daughter of Benjamin Franklin she had an unusual access, for a woman, to the political life in revolutionary Philadelphia. Although her primary role was of caretaker of her family and home, Bache played an active role in the Revolution through her relief work and as her father's political hostess. The Sarah Franklin Bache papers consist of incoming and outgoing correspondence ranging from 1768 to 1807 mostly of a personal nature to and from friends and relatives. The correspondence of her relatives includes her nephew William Temple Franklin, her brother William Franklin and her children.