This collection consists of six manuscript books kept by members of the Coates family of Philadelphia, including two bank books, a day book, a receipt book, an account book, and a commonlace book.

William Tilghman (1756-1827; APS 1805) was a jurist and chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He held several positions as a judge and lawyer in the Philadelphia area and was active in the American Philosophical Society. He helped form and served as the head of the Committee of History, the Moral Sciences and General Literature for the APS and was elected the President of the APS in 1824, a position he held until his death.

This volume is a listing of Philadelphia individuals claiming bankruptcy, with a corresponding list of their creditors.

These are accounts of expenditures for various legal services rendered as magistrate, as well as some miscellaneous personal accounts.

Papers of jurist Samuel Bayard (1767-1840), including a diary from his time in London as American Claims Agent; correspondence with William Bradford (1755-1795), second attorney general of the United States; and a 1778 letter from William Alexander, Lord Stirling, to Governor William Livingston of New Jersey that discusses troop deployment in that state.

These papers concern business and legal affairs, and include Price's writings on the law of real and personal property, and private wrongs. Also includes a letter to Daniel Webster.

Associates of Benjamin Franklin and his grandson William Temple Franklin, the Fox family of Philadelphia were holders of considerable property in Philadelphia during the eighteenth century and speculated extensively in lands in the northern and western parts of the state. The son of Dr. George Fox, Charles Pemberton Fox inherited the estate Champlost at which the papers of Benjamin Franklin were left in 1790. He donated the collection to the American Philosophical Society in 1840. The legal records that comprise the William Temple Frankln-Charles Pemberton Fox collection relate to real property held by members of the Fox family and to the land holdings and financial interests of George Fox's close friend, William Temple Franklin. The collection includes about 100 deeds for properties in or near Philadelphia and in Luzerne County, Pa., along with a small quantity (about 31 items) of miscellaneous correspondence addressed to George Fox by Gouverneur Morris, Robert Morris, N. Cantwell Jones, Thomas Eddy, and others; and from William Constable and Sir Robert Herries and Co. (17 pieces) relating to the investments of William Temple Franklin.

Jasper Yeates (1745-1817) was a lawyer and Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice, one of the state's most successful colonial-era legal practitioners. After moving to Lancaster County in 1765, he became active in colonial and early federal affairs, first by supporting the Revolutionary struggle and later by serving as one of Lancaster's delegates to the State Convention of 1787, which ratified the U.S. Constitution. The Jasper Yeates Papers (1728-1910, bulk 1760-1816) consist mainly of correspondence and business and court/legal records related to the Yeates family. The bulk of this three linear foot collection reflect Yeates' personal life as husband, father, son, and friend, as well as his professional life as lawyer and judge in Pennsylvania; much of the material dated after Yeates' death was created by children and/or grandchildren.

Three volumes contain letters, laws, charters, reports, proclamations, petitions, and other official and semi-official documents relating principally to early Pennsylvania and New Jersey, signed by or addressed to William Penn, among others. A fourth volume is Penn's cash book, 1699-1703, which records expeditures, payments of quit rents, etc. Tipped in is "Catalogue of Goods left at Pensbury," and of goods left at Philadelphia, 1701.

A pioneer in ethnographic and linguistic studies of the American Indian and one of the most active members of the American Philosophical Society, Peter Stephen Du Ponceau helped to establish the American Philosophical Society's reputation as one of the world's foremost centers for the study of American Indians and their languages. The Peter Stephen Du Ponceau collection consists of correspondence on legal matters, Indian linguistics, silk culture, maritime law, the American Philosophical Society, and various publications of the early nineteenth century. The collection also includes several essays by Du Ponceau, most of which deal with maritime law.

This is a collection of letters, letterbooks, account books, scrapbooks, etc., concerning the families of Robert Hare and Thomas Willing. The letters and other documents include early family material, as well as documents written by numerous family relations, and some obviously only collected by them. The Willing family letters (1744-1901) are diverse, concerning family matters, business, society, comments on the Civil War, etc. There are numerous letters from Thomas Willing, many concerning his banking career, as President of the Bank of North America and later at the first Bank of the U.S. The Hare family letters (1724-1965) are more extensive and diverse, including much on travel in the U.S. and elsewhere. There is a letter from Robert Hare Jr. concerning steam engines, and letters from Horace Binney Hare concerning his education at Harvard, 1860, his trip to San Francisco and the west, 1862, and numerous letters written while a soldier in the Civil War. There are many letters from Horace Binney (1780-1875, DAB) to his daughter Esther, who was married to John Innes Clark Hare (1816-1905, DAB), concerning family travel and court cases. There are also letters from outside the family, such as those from Dorothea L. Dix. The bound volumes include, among others: Robert Hare letterbooks (1824-1825, 1841-1857), estate records, and laboratory expense accounts (1818-1860); G. H. Hare's journal or log of cruises aboard the U.S. United States (1841) and U.S. Flint (1845); Horace Binney Hare's 1862 journal of his trip to San Francisco. There are account books and accounts (1754-1795) kept by Thomas Willing; accounts of the controversy over the estate of John Innes Clark; and records of the First Colored Wesley Methodist Church of Philadelphia (receipt book, 1820-1848; minute book, 1827-1844). There are also Philadelphia court records, and minutes of the Common Council of the city, 1832.

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.