This diary is an account of a voyage from Newport (R.I.) to London, with descriptions of Boston, Dover, Edinburgh, and London. There are also many references to Benjamin Franklin in the diary.
The first three volumes contain journals of Strahan's travels in Scotland, with records of expenses along the way, for 1751, 1759, 1760, 1766, 1768, 1773, and 1777. Strahan and Benjamin Franklin were in Edinburgh at the same time in 1759. The fourth volume contains "The particulars of the estate of Wm Strahan as it stood on the first of January 1755," and also for 1759 and 1761, with some miscellaneous accounts.
This autobiography relates Rush's experiences in college and medical school; his meetings with notable doctors; his life in Scotland, England, and France; his medical views; the military and politics during the Revolutionary War; and brief sketches of personalities of that period.
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.