Jonathan Williams, a nephew of Benjamin Franklin, was chief of the Corps of Engineers, United States Army, and first superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point. The genealogical material was "compiled from family records and his own personal knowledge by his son," H.J. Williams.

Born May 26, 1750, to the niece of Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Williams was a prominent merchant, scientist and soldier. Elected to the APS in 1787 as a result of his observations on temperature and barometrical readings, as well as work on sugar production, Williams had a distinguished military career highlighted by his appointment as first superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point. The Jonathan Williams Papers consists of 46 letters and documents, written by or to Jonathan Williams Sr. and Jr., dealing primarily with financial and legal matters. The collection includes five letters written by Benjamin Franklin and many of the others are signed by Williams' father-in-law and brother-in-law, William and Robert Alexander.

Letters written by Julia Rush, wife of Benjamin Rush, mainly to her husband, with one to Samuel Stockton and one to Mary Rush. Eight letters were written during the 1793 yellow fever epidemic. The letters are not included in Lyman Butterfield's edition of Benjamin Rush's letters, vol. 30 of APS Memoirs (1951).

This is principally correspondence between Henriette Girard, niece of Stephen Girard, and her husbands, Henri Lallemand and John Yardly Clark. Correspondents include Stephen Girard and other members of the family.

Benjamin Edwards was a minor figure on the Stephen H. Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains. His six letters addressed to his father Oliver Edwards briefly mention the expedition, including his attempts to collect pay for his part in the expedition. His letters also discuss his life in Louisiana after the expedition working on the Steamboat Hope and later as overseer of slaves in a sawmill.

Principally letters from John Eatton LeConte, John Lawrence LeConte, Joseph LeConte, and Mrs. Jane LeConte Harden to Mrs. Matilda Jane Harden Stevens, Sumner Morrison Ramsey, Mrs. Ann LeConte Stevens, and Louis LeConte pertaining to family matters and natural history.

Includes three letters to his son, Francois André (1783-1801); an act of New Jersey authorizing Michaux to purchase land in the state to establish a botanical garden (1786); five letters to John Wakefield Francis concerning publishing projects and acquisitions of books and journals (1817); a letter from James MacPherson Le Moine to Henry Phillips, Jr. (1890); and, an undated letter from Alexander von Humboldt to Michaux.

These papers include letters from relatives, friends, and former students, chiefly on family affairs, social events, and schools in Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Also included are receipts for personal expenditures, and letters of recommendation for teaching positions and from J. P. Lesley for admission to Yale College, where Moore received the Ph.B. degree in 1855. Moore was Lesley's assistant in preparing the Pennsylvania Railroad maps of western Pennsylvania.

These papers include letters, broadsides, and other documents pertaining to various branches of the Rittenhouse family, in particular, David Rittenhouse and his daughter Elizabeth "Betsey" Rittenhouse Sergeant. Included are references to Benjamin Smith Barton, and copies of documents concerning the Barton family, especially Thomas Barton, in Fanny Abbott's, "Family Records."

These letters are principally to his brother John Cleaves Short, on personal, family, and general topics.

Providing a glimpse in to the private life of a genteel lady in the early republic, the Elizabeth Bordley Gibson Papers consist of over 200 letters and notes written during the years 1795 to 1863. The bulk of the letters cover the period 1848-1863, and involve Gibson's correspondence with members of her extended family. Elizabeth was related to the influential Bordley, Mifflin, and Shippen families, three of the more prominent families in colonial and early republic Pennsylvania and Maryland. Most of the correspondence in the collection comprises letters between Elizabeth Bordley Gibson and her cousin Edward Shippen and her nieces Elizabeth Mifflin, Anne C. Ross, and Elizabeth Stump. Complementing other early American history collections at APS, the Gibson Papers offers important insights in to women's history and the history of influential mid-Atlantic families in nineteenth-century America.

Sarah Franklin Bache (1743-1808), a Revolutionary War patriot and daughter of Benjamin Franklin, led an active public life according to the standards of womanhood in the late eighteenth century. As the daughter of Benjamin Franklin she had an unusual access, for a woman, to the political life in revolutionary Philadelphia. Although her primary role was of caretaker of her family and home, Bache played an active role in the Revolution through her relief work and as her father's political hostess. The Sarah Franklin Bache papers consist of incoming and outgoing correspondence ranging from 1768 to 1807 mostly of a personal nature to and from friends and relatives. The correspondence of her relatives includes her nephew William Temple Franklin, her brother William Franklin and her children.

The correspondence (1869-1883) is primarily routine business, i.e. navy orders and letters of recommendation, and also includes some personal letters. In addition, there are several notebooks and diaries, including notes from Pennsylvania Hospital clinical lectures, 1867-1869 (2 v.); diaries, 1865-1875 (7 v.); a volume of poetry; and general study notes. There is also early material (1745-1813) on the Cassin family, including a letter of indenture dated 1758.

The James S. and Frances M. Bradford Collection contains a wealth of letters to and from Polly Stevenson Hewson, intimate friend of Benjamin Franklin. At the heart of the collection are approximately 40 letters from Mary Stevenson to Franklin with a smaller number in return. Friendly, increasingly intimate, these provide a glimpse of the domestic life of Franklin and his warm personal relations with the Stevensons and Hewsons. Among the noteworthy individual items is the manuscript "Craven Street Gazette" (Sept. 22-26, 1770), the mock newspaper Franklin produced while in London. The collection also contains a series of unrelated miscellaneous manuscripts that includes correspondence from William Bradford, Patrick Henry, and George Washington.

These papers include correspondence, marriage settlements, legal papers, genealogical tables, and memoranda of William Montgomerie of Brigend, Scotland, who emigrated to East Jersey, ca. 1701. Also includes the pedigree of Alexander Forbes of Balogie; correspondence (to 1755) of John Burnet, who was a merchant of Edinburgh, London, and New York, and of John Burnet, Jr., of Perth Amboy, N.J., with Elizabeth Forbes; genealogy of the Montgomery family in the United States, prepared by Thomas H. Montgomery (1853); and a seventeenth-century copy of documents, accounts, and patents of East Jersey.

John Neagle was among the better known portrait painters in Philadelphia during the first half of the nineteenth century and was the husband of Thomas Sully's niece, Mary C. Sully. The Neagle Papers is a small assemblage of personal correspondence, documents, and notes assembled by Neagle during his career. The letters are primarily of a personal nature, but along with the five bound volumes, offer insight into Neagle's study of painting and the techniques he employed. Included among the bound volumes are recipes for varnish, megellup, and drying oils and notes on watercolor painting.

Letters of a dutiful child to his parents Richard Bache and Sarah Franklin Bache, and to his grandfather, Benjamin Franklin; also letters to William Jones, Robert Frazer, and Margaret H. Markoe, his fiancée. Also photostats of letters to Robert Alexander of Virginia, from the originals in University of Virginia Library.

Catherine Wistar Bache (1805-1886) was the point of connection between two of Philadelphia's most illustrious families of the late eighteenth century. Daughter of the physician Caspar Wistar, in November 1797 she married Dr. William Bache, who was the son of Richard Bache and the grandson of Benjamin Franklin. Primarily letters to Mrs. Bache (wife of Dr. William Bache) of Philadelphia, from Mrs. David Hosack (nee Mary Eddy), Mrs. Elizabeth Trist, and Mary Jones. The letters are personal and concern family life, activities of husbands, etc., with many references to Caspar Wistar, There are comments on diseases, education (at William and Mary College), war, and politics. References are also made to the deaths of Richard Bache and Caspar Wistar, and to Benjamin Franklin's Stockado (a musical instrument).

These letters relate principally to provincial business and comment on the Indians of Pennsylvania, the French and Indian War, a survey of the Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary, and the Stamp Act. Correspondents include James Burd, Jeremiah Dixon, Joseph Galloway, Humphry Marshall, Charles Mason, Edward Shippen of Lancaster, and Edward Shippen, Jr.

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).