This is a volume of "Aitken's General American Register" for 1773, with entries dated 1774, and 1782-1786. The notes are in two different hands, and record receipts, expenses, and activities, the last probably not Wilson's.

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.

Jacob Hiltzheimer, farmer and assemblyman, emigrated from Germany to Philadelphia in 1748 and lead a moderately active political and social life. He was a successful farmer and raised select livestock in the city of Philadelphia. He also boarded horses including those of John Penn and George Washington. He served in the Pennsylvania Assembly for 11 consecutive years beginning in 1786. He was an active contributor in civil affairs and took a remarkable enthusiastic interest in events, in persons, and in every day life all of which he wrote down in his diary. As a result of his Revolutionary War and political acquaintances his contacts were numerous. Hiltzheimer's record of social affairs are for the most part routine daily events such as buying and trading horses, attending barbecues and funerals, and drinking punch. However it is his every day accounts that also records significant events such as the Revolutionary War, transactions of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemics, as well as the dealings of significant people including George Washington, Thomas Mifflin, and John Hancock.

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.

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 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.

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.