Jasper Yeates (1745-1817) was a lawyer and Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice, one of the state's most successful colonial-era legal practitioners. After moving to Lancaster County in 1765, he became active in colonial and early federal affairs, first by supporting the Revolutionary struggle and later by serving as one of Lancaster's delegates to the State Convention of 1787, which ratified the U.S. Constitution. The Jasper Yeates Papers (1728-1910, bulk 1760-1816) consist mainly of correspondence and business and court/legal records related to the Yeates family. The bulk of this three linear foot collection reflect Yeates' personal life as husband, father, son, and friend, as well as his professional life as lawyer and judge in Pennsylvania; much of the material dated after Yeates' death was created by children and/or grandchildren.

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.

One of the oldest houses in Philadelphia, Wyck is now a non-profit museum listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Nine generations of the Jansen-Wistar-Haines family owned the Wyck property from 1690 until 1973. The last family owner deeded 2.5 acres of land, the house and its contents, several outbuildings, a landscaped garden, and a small endowment to the Wyck Charitable Trust. The Wyck Charitable Trust and the Wyck Association now administer the preservation of the property and its educational services to the public. This collection contains diaries, letters, accounts, bills and receipts, deeds, and photographs. The collection as a whole is deepest for the period 1770-1970. Items of particular note include accounts of household expenses at Wyck from ca. 1790-1970; papers pertaining to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Quaker schools, and social reform groups; agricultural and horticultural practices; and correspondence to and from cultural leaders of 18th and 19th century Philadelphia. The papers of the John S. Haines family (Ms. Coll. 52A) form part of the Wyck Papers. The papers cover the years 1845 to 1949 and are arranged into eight series.

An extensive family collection, the Vaux Family Papers center around the lives of George Vaux V (1721-1803), George Vaux VII (1779-1836), and George Vaux VIII (1832-1915), their business partners, siblings, wives, and children, and encompasses the extended Vaux family of Warders, Sansoms, Heads, Graffs, Morrises, Cressons, and Mayberrys. The collection includes correspondence, financial accounts, receipts, business records, journals, diaries, photographs, and legal documents.

These letters and papers include ten small volumes of letterbooks (1752-1781), and ca. 100 pieces of correspondence with Joseph Shippen (1750-1778). Topics discussed are business in Philadelphia and Lancaster, provincial politics, army supply in the French and Indian War, land purchases and speculation, housebuilding, and family affairs.

The Calendar of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin prepared by Isaac Minis Hays for the bicentennial of Franklin's birth in 1906 provides access to the largest portion of the Franklin Papers at the APS. The items were originally bound into volumes in roughly chronological order, with letters to Franklin preceding those from Franklin and at the end of the collection, Franklin's letters owned by the University of Pennsylvania. Each manuscript is still identified by Hays' reference numbers, which include a roman numeral refering to the original volume followed by an arabic number to identify the folio. The electronic version of the finding aid replicates Hays' calendar, including the introductory material and item-level descriptions. It has been updated to reflect corrections in the metadata, corrections of personal names, dates, and description.

A collection of letters, legal papers and financial records of three generations of the prominent Philadelphia family. Spanning 1745-1955, detailed are the legal cases and political advocacy work of John Kintzing Kane (1795-1858), Robert Patterson Kane (1827-1906), and Francis Fisher Kane (1866-1955). Also includes correspondence, architectural drawings, and photograph albums of the Cope family. Robert Patterson Kane's daughter Eliza Middleton Kane (1863-1952) married the Philadelphia architect Walter Cope (1860-1902) in 1893. The APS papers of Elisha Kent Kane are in call no. B K132.

A collection of business and personal papers of three generations of the prominent Philadelphia Jewish family from 1750-1974. Business records include trade and land transactions (some in Yiddish) of the Gratz brothers, Barnard and Michael (1750-1804) with the business continued by Michael's sons: Simon, Hyman, Joseph, Jacob, and Benjamin (1791-1861). Personal correspondence are primarily letters to Rebecca Gratz from her sisters Rachel and Sarah (1795-1867) with later correspondence to Rachel's children: Horace and Sara Moses (1832-1879). Contains a small group of French letters related to Napoleon III, collected by family member Miriam Fox, and some heirloom artifacts.

In addition to family and business correspondence, the Charles Nicoll Bancker Family Papers contains various documents, such as a furniture inventory volume (30pp.); a Daybook, 1795-1800 (120pp.); and a very interesting journal (unidentified, but by one of the Banckers, and filed under "Description of a trip..."), from New York to Albany and back, between July 20-Aug. 15, 1793 (1 vol., 31 pp.). It contains detailed observations of the Hudson River and the towns along the way. Bancker was involved in business and trade prior to 1826, and in insurance after that date, so there is material relating to those topics in this collection. He owned a substantial library of the period, which was used by Charles Wilkes's Expedition after 1837 (see Reynell Coates to Bancker). This library, along with Bancker's notable scientific instrument collection, was sold after his death and there are published auction catalogues in the collection. There is much family correspondence from: Anne E. Bancker, Charles Gerard Bancker, Evert Bancker, Sarah U. Bancker, Violetta Bancker Talbot, Elizabeth Bancker Teackle, and John Teackle.