This notebook contains short essays on various topics, such as public singers ("the Mountebanks of the Voice"), the embarrassments of public men (Daniel E. Sickles and Philip Barton Key), songs, wit, wealth, suicide, Benjamin Rush, "that little sneak Kossuth," and modern authors ("the present wretches of the pen").

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.