These are primarily letters, with some receipts for medical services rendered included. They relate to the general social and intellectural life of Philadelphia and to publications on medical topics. Many of the letters are introductions to Europeans when Pennock first visited there. Letters dated post-1867 are to relatives and colleagues (?).

This journal was kept while Shippen was a student of medicine in London under Dr. Colin McKenzie and Dr. William Hunter. Notable people mentioned are Dennys De Berdt, Mark Akenside, George Whitefield, John Fothergill, David Garrick, and Thomas Penn.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were explorers. This collection contains the manuscript journals kept by Lewis and Clark on their travels to the source of the Missouri River and across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. There are interlineations throughout by Nicholas Biddle, who published his narrative "History of the Expedition of Captains Lewis and Clark" (1814).

Robert Woodruff was secretary to John Anstey, Loyalists' Claims Commissioner. This journal relates his travels with John Anstey. He describes the towns he visited, and comments on episodes of the American Revolution and on the Federal Convention and state ratifying conventions. The journal covers a trip through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Georgia. He and Anstey spent a night at Mount Vernon in 1786. Mentions B. Franklin, G. Washington, APS Hall. Also refers to Five Nations country, Georgia's warfare with Creek Indians, and Chief McGillivray. For identification, see G. Washington's Diary, Dec.11, 1786.

This item is a detailed description of the geography, population, natural resources, and agriculture of the Ouachita River area of the Louisiana Territory. Describes mounds; mentions Cataoulou Indians; also gives figures as to numbers of white and Indian hunters. These pages are a record of travel on a road built between Choctaw and Chickasaw country, with comments on the condition of Indian-white relations, the increase in white population, and Wilson's stay, at Muscle Shoals, with Cherokee chiefs Doublehead and Skiowska. Wilson finds the Indians have good farms, furnishings, fences, and stock, and one Indian runs an inn.

This collection includes three journals bound into one volume: two by Willima Dunbar and one by Zebulon Pike. Both manuscripts by William Dunbar document the expedition up the Red and Ouachita Rivers to the Hot Springs of Arkansas in 1804-1805. The "Journal... to the Mouth of the Red River" (200p.) is the fullest available record of the activities of the expedition from the time of their departure from St. Catharine's Landing on October 16, 1804, until their return to Natchez, Miss., on January 26, 1805. The "Journal of a geometrical survey" includes a record of course and distances as well as a thermometrical log and other brief notes. The two are bound together in a volume with Zebulon Montgomery Pike's journal of a voyage to the source of the Mississippi, 1805-1806. The Pike journal documents the expedition to explore the geography of the Mississippi River led by Lt. Zebulon Montgomery Pike in 1805-1806, and his attempts to purchase sites from the Dakota Indians for future military posts, and to bring influential chiefs back to St. Louis for talks. Less a literary masterpiece than a straightforward record in terse military prose, the journal provides a day by day account of the journey and the activities of Pike and his small contingent during this early exploration of present day Minnesota. It was printed with variations and omissions in An Account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi and through the Western Parts of Louisiana... (Philadelphia, 1810), and was edited in Donald Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Pike: with Letters and Related Documents (Norman, Okla., 1966).

An Irish-born non-commissioned officer in the 49th Regiment of Foot, Thomas Sullivan served with the British Army in North America from the siege of Boston in 1775 through the last days of the Philadelphia Campaign in 1778. He deserted in June, 1778, and became steward to Continental Army Quartermaster General Nathanael Greene.

This collection includes letters, diaries, notebooks, and early photographs, relating primarily to the Wister family of Germantown and Philadelphia. Much of the correspondence concerns domestic news and consists of letters from or to Sarah Wister. These include interesting observations on Germantown and Philadelphia society from other families as well, such as the Bayntons and Bullocks. There are numerous letters from various Wisters, including Casper, Charles Jones, Elizabeth (including a journal of a trip to Bristol, 1783), Hannah, John, Owen Jones, and others. There is also poetry by Sarah.

This diary records the travels of Loammi Baldwin in the Netherlands (then including Belgium), England, and France, with detailed observations and careful pen-and-ink sketches of canals and canal machinery.

The collection contains information on Fox family speculation in western lands, two manuscript maps from the 1790's and 1830's depicting the family's holdings in northwestern Pennsylvania, and a photograph album from the 1890's documenting Chestnutwold, the Fox estate adjacent to Andalusia. Chief correspondents are Samuel and George Fox.

After emigrating from Germany to Philadelphia in 1796, Peter Adolph Grotjahn established himself within the city's mercantile community, trading opportunistically both inland and coastwise as far as the Caribbean. In 1812, he began publishing a commercial newspaper, Grotjan's Philadelphia Public Sale Reports and he became increasingly active in local Democratic Party politics. The APS copy of Peter Grotjahn's memoir is a typescript copy of an original volume held at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Written for his grandchildren, the memoir begins with a relatively brief genealogical discussion, but concentrates on his personal and political life and commercial experiences prior to 1817. The last section of the autobiography was completed posthumously from notes, and includes extracts from Grotjahn's diary as late as 1844.

The natural historian Richard Harlan was a pioneer in the study of comparative anatomy and vertebrate paleontology in the United States during the years following the War of 1812. Having received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1818, Harlan was employed as an instructor of anatomy at Joseph Parrish's school and at the Philadelphia Museum. A practicing physician and member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the American Philosophical Society, Harlan made important contributions in comparative neuroanatomy, paleontology, herpetology, and systematic zoology. He died shortly after moving to New Orleans in 1839. Harlan's journals document two of the three overseas voyages he undertook during his lifetime. The first took place in 1816-1817 when Harlan was still a medical student, accompanying an East Indiaman to Calcutta as ship's surgeon. The second took place when Harlan was at the peak of his career in 1833, venturing to England, France, and Italy to strengthen contacts with European colleagues. Interesting travel narratives in themselves, the journals mingle enthusiasm for the new and exotic with a touch of Harlan's truculance. The European journal includes a valuable account of the 3nd meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Cambridge at which Harlan delivered a paper on fossil reptiles.

This collection contains miscellaneous letters and papers relating to explorations of South America, Cuba, and Mexico; scientific investigations; Latin American antiquities and linguistics; and publications. There are also copies of 26 letters from Humboldt to Pierre Hyacinth Azais and Jules Berger de Xivrey, from originals at the Duke University Medical Center Library.

Though less well known than their peers Lewis and Clark, William Dunbar and George Hunter played an important role in the early scientific exploration of the Louisiana Purchase. While the original goal of organizing a southern counterpart to the Corps of Discovery proved overly ambitious, Dunbar and Hunter provided important geographic information for future explorations and gave the first scientific description of the Hot Springs of Arkansas and Ouachita Mountains. The four surviving journals of George Hunter provide engaging accounts of travel in the Ohio and Mississippi Valley in 1796, 1802, and 1809, and include the most interesting record of the expedition to the Hot Springs of Arkansas in 1804-1805, complete with his detailed notes on natural history and meteorology. The volumes also contain various references to relations with the Delaware, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, and Osage Indians. The APS owns a contemporary copy of Hunter's journal ("Journal up the Red and Washita Rivers with William Dunbar"; Mss.917.6.Ex7), from which extracts were printed in Thomas Jefferson, Message... Communicating Discoveries Made in Exploring the Missouri (New York, 1806), and which is described by Isaac J. Cox, "An Early Explorer of the Louisiana Purchase," APS Library Bulletin 1946: 73. The journals were edited by John F. McDermott and published in APS Transactions 53 (1963).

This correspondence is principally concerned with business between Pershouse and his brother James in England, with comments on conditions and events in the United States, including anti-British feeling, Thomas Paine's return to America, Jefferson's administration, and immigration. The papers include Pershouse's journal (1800-1838), which includes accounts of travels in England, France, and the United States, letterbooks (1836-1862) of Henry Pershouse, nephew of John, chiefly on business matters, and two volumes of Pershouse genealogical data, compiled by B.M. Pershouse Bayley (1899).

The first volume includes extracts from the journals of Conrad Weiser and Christian Frederick Post (1757), Charles Thomson's "An Enquiry into the causes of the alienation of the Delaware and Shawanese Indians from the British interest" (1759), and a printed version of Judge Bradford's "Statement of facts and observations respecting the penal laws" (1792). The second volume contains selected letters and documents in the Pennsylvania state records on Indian relations, including transcriptions of several treaties between the Province of Pennsylvania and the Delawares and other Indians (1755-1758); the French and Indian War; and Braddock's campaign. Some manuscripts are written by Deborah Norris Logan and Charles Thomson.

James Burd (1726-1793) was well-known in colonial Pennsylvania through his role in the French and Indian War, as well as his connections to many of the colony's leading families (most notably the Shippen family). Initially starting out as a merchant in Philadelphia, Burd became increasingly involved with colonial affairs after moving to Lancaster County with his family in 1752. It would be on the frontier where Burd would make his mark first as a soldier, and later as a magistrate. The Burd-Shippen Papers consist mainly of letters and business documents sent to James Burd, with the bulk of the collection relating to the French and Indian War, 1754-1763, in which Burd served as an officer commanding troops at Fort Augusta and elsewhere. The collection reflects all aspects of Burd's life in Pennsylvania as a merchant, soldier, and magistrate; as well as his involvement with the Shippen family professionally and personally. Intermixed with items sent to Burd are receipts to his wife Sarah Shippen Burd, and correspondence between Edward Shippen and James Hamilton regarding land matters and Indian affairs in Lancaster.

The papers include miscellaneous letters, letterbooks, books, certificates, and diplomas of various members of the Muhlenberg family. Among them are photostats of letters and papers of General John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg and officers of the Continental Army on military affairs in the Southern Department during the American Revolution (1772-1804); photostats of letters to Albert Gallatin, Nathanael Greene, Edward Hand, Winthrop Sargent, Baron von Steuben, William Alexander, and George Washington; photostat of General Muhlenberg's journal of trips to the Ohio (1784, 1797); photostats of letters and notes of Gotthilf H. E. Muhlenberg, including a diary kept at Halle (1771) and extracts of thirty letters to Stephen Elliott of Beaufort and Charleston, South Carolina (1808-1815); photostats of letters of Henry A. Muhlenberg about his biography of General Muhlenberg (1848-1849); and photostats of letters of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711-1787). Also included is an original letterbook of Peter Muhlenberg, paymaster of the United States Army, kept at Augusta and Savannah, Georgia (1836-1842). Henry Muhlenberg's notebooks (1784-1813), written in Latin or German script, in a small hand, includes a wealth of botanical observations, with a focus on Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Henry Muhlenberg journals are a record of daily occurrences, with many features of a commonplace book, containing prescriptions, notes of questions asked candidates for the Lutheran ministry, and the plan of a barn. There is also a biographical account of Rev. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711-1787).

Robert Maskell Patterson (1787-1854, APS 1809) was a professor of chemistry and natural philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania (1812-1828) and professor of natural philosophy at the University of Virginia (1828-1835). He was director of the U.S. Mint from 1835 to 1851. His father, Robert Patterson, was a revolutionary soldier, professor of mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania (1779-1814), and director of the U.S. Mint (1805-1824).