This commonplace book includes quotations, definitions, reflections, and anecdotes arranged alphabetically. There are some otherwise unrecorded anecdotes by Benjamin Franklin.

This commonplace book is filled mostly with poetry and quotations from printed materials.

Commonplace book reproduced from the original in the possession of Mrs. John Robinson, Cranford, N.J., 1975.

Having made his fortune as a goldsmith and silversmith, John Leacock (1729-1802) became one of Philadelphia's most energetic entrepreneurs in viticulture and a playwright and parodist in the cause of American Independence. Despite bearing the title, "Observations, Experiments etc. extracted from the Philosophical Transactions respecting farming, gardening, etc.," the notebook kept by the silversmith, viticulturist, and writer, John Leacock, is actually a combination of commonplace book, notebook, and receipt book. Consisting of 58 folio pages, the book contains a hodgepodge of entries reflecting Leacock's varied interests from 1768 through at least 1781, including not only material copied from other sources on viticulture, agriculture, engraving and etching, but medicinal and culinary receipts and two original poems, a "Song [of] the Stamp Act" and "A parody on the Tempest, by R. H. Esq." It also mentions diet drinks made by James Logan and Cadwallader Evans.

This commonplace book consists of brief writings and observations on agriculture, arts and manufactures, commerce, the army and navy, canals and roads, weights and measures, general politics, finance, and population. It includes a sketch of the Battle of Quebec groundworks and layout.

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.

Commonplace book of Alexander James Dallas, with biographical sketch of Dallas by his son, George Mifflin Dallas.

These papers contain seven letters to his wife (1808-1833), a fragment of autobiography on his painting and studies, a notebook containing copies of correspondence about his portrait of Washington, John Godman's Ode suggested by Rembrandt Peale's National Portrait of Washington (1824), and a commonplace book containing kitchen and medicinal recipes.

These papers include two pages by Rubens Peale concerning landscapes, a notebook by Rembrandt Peale relating to the portrait of Washington, and a commonplace and recipe book, with sketches of gas lights.

This small volume records excerpts from British natural philosophy and scientific journals, written sometime after 1799. It covers a wide range of subjects, from astronomy to zoology.

This volume contains letters (a few in shorthand) relating to his pursuit of the position as principal recorder, and then, upon accomplishing this, his problems in publishing. There are sales accounts and a diary (April, 1793 to June, 1794), written while he was imprisoned in Newgate Prison, London (1793 to Jan., 1796). Included for this period is an interesting description, brought to him at Newgate by an Englishman, John Ford, who was seeking support and American contacts for his plan to take an English textile process to America: "A Manufacture of Wollen & Cotton Cloth & Without spinning or weaving," August, 1794.

There are notes on the colonial history of Pennsylvania, with emphasis on William Penn and his family, the Society of Friends, James Logan, and the charters granted by Penn, with some notes on the study of languages and definition of words.

Harriet Verena Evans was born in Lancaster, Pa., on April 28, 1782, the daughter of John and Sarah Musser. On May 21, 1807, Harriet married Cadwalader Evans (1762-1841), a former surveyor who went on to a distinguished career in politics, as one of the directors of the Bank of the United States, a promoter of the Schuylkill Canal, and president of the Schuylkill Navigation Company. The couple had nine children, including a set of twins. The diary of Harriet Verena Evans is an unusual example of a woman's spiritual diary from early national Philadelphia. Beginning on her 46th birthday in 1827, the same day her seventeen year-old son John died, Evans made sporadic entries in her diary for seventeen years, marking birthdays, holidays, special events, and anniversaries of various kinds. Fixated upon praying (or fretting) over her spiritual state and future, Evans continued to mourn over John's loss for many years, remembering him regularly on the date of his birth, death, and burial. She was also particularly prone to composing (or copying) religious poetry, and in sections, the diary verges on a poetical commonplace book. Other entries reveal Evans' concern for her other children, three of whom were students at the University of Pennsylvania, and on July 25, 1832, she made a particularly long entry discussing the arrival of the cholera in Philadelphia.

Consists of extracts from rare published works on American Indian, African, and Asian languages, together with the notes and comments of Du Ponceau; linguistic essays, vocabulary lists (mostly of numerals) for North, Middle, and South American languages; materials on Chinese, Pacific, Asian, and African languages; notes on the languages of the Tartars, Arabs, Greeks, Polynesians, and others. Included are copies of several manuscripts as well as copies of two letters of Wilhelm von Humboldt. One of them is dated Berlin, April 9, 1822; L. 6p. In French. Exchange of publications [with the APS?]. Indian languages. Languages. Refers to A.von Humboldt, Heckewelder, Zeisberger, Eliot and Vater. See vol.5, 19-24. Important for references to the Historical and Literary Committee of the APS; to Du Ponceau's publications on Delaware, Chippewa, and Chinese; and to his correspondence with philologists Adelung, Heckewelder, Humboldt, Gallatin, and Vater.

The notebook includes descriptions of land surveys in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, and notes in various hands on early history and settlers there. The maps include boundary descriptions, and there are copies of two deeds.

These papers include diaries (1777-1782), expense books (1794-1804), notebooks, a commonplace book, drafts of essays, excerpts from minutes of Friends' Monthly Meeting, Tortola (1741-1761), newspaper clippings, sketches, and correspondence. Also included are letters and papers of Mrs. Thornton.

The collection of about 850 items covers the period from 1782 to c. 1936, with the bulk dating to the 1780s to 1840s. The collection is divided into four series. Series I contains correspondence relating to a wide variety of topics, including French and English politics, business, trade, religious matters, and personal affairs. Many of the items are letters of introduction. There is also information on John Vaughan's immigration to America, Joseph Priestley, vaccines and inoculation (with Jefferson's comments on the same), Vaughan's business in Philadelphia, and the American Philosophical Society. Also included in this series are 2 boxes with copies of Vaughan correspondence as well as miscellaneous notes by E. W. Madeira, gathered in the course of his research on Vaughan in the 1930s. Series II consists of three volumes. Included are two of Vaughan's commonplace books. One, entitled, "J. Vaughan's book," May 17, 1779 (47 pp., in Latin; 870/L34), includes mostly Latin notations. The other commonplace book, dated 1783 (ca. 66 pp.; B V 462.c), includes comments on several prominent Americans, such as Benjamin Rush and David Rittenhouse, as well as American society generally. The third volume is a copybook with thirty letters spanning the period 1784 to 1801 (B V462.1). Series III includes material relating to Vaughan's administration of the estate of the Philadelphia merchant Samuel Merrick, 1796-1822 (Vaughan-Merrick Papers, B V462.m; 2 boxes). Series IV consists of correspondence between Vaughan and the DuPont Co. for which he served as agent (B V462.4; photocopies of 73 letters).

This collection includes notes and an unpublished manuscript (275 pages), entitled "Journals and Note-books of Benjamin Smith Barton, 1785-1806," by Waldo L. McAtee. The manuscript includes an introduction with biographical and bibliographical notes, an annotated glossary-index, and an indexed bibliography of works referred to in the various journals. The photocopies of journals and notebooks by Barton include his survey of the boundary of western Pennsylvania and Ohio, 1785; a commonplace book, 1789; journey through New York to Niagara Falls, 1797; Pennsylvania journal, 1798; visit to Virginia, 1802 (published); Salt Pond Mountain, Virginia, 1806; notes on vertebrates and miscellany.

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.

This item contains entries about prominent people (primarily accounts of their deaths); Philadelphia events and gossip; the Pennsylvania Hospital; questions for Meriwether Lewis on Indian physical history, medicine, morals, and religion; and his views on marriage, religion, physicians, etc. Also includes meeting with Captain Wells and Little Turtle; speculations on Indian skin color at the equator.