Benjamin Franklin's annotated copy of the first printing of the Constitution (Philadelphia: Dunlap and Claypoole, 1787).

The Great Law, or, The Body of laws of ye province of Pennsilvania territorys thereunto belonging past at an assembly at Chester als Upland the seaventh day of ye 10th month.

Much of the material in both volumes is printed in Charter to William Penn, and Laws of the Province of Pennsylvania . . . (Harrisburg, 1879). The first volume, prepared possibly for James Logan, contains copies of Charles II's grant to William Penn of the Lower Counties, 1683, an act of the Privy Council, 1705, the charter of Pennsylvania of 1701, acts of the Assembly, 1682-1719.

This item includes resolutions of the New York General Assembly. It is bound with T. Forsey, "The Report of an Action of Assault, Battery and Wounding, Tried in the Supreme Court of Judicature for the Province of New-York in the term of October 1764, between Thomas Forsey, Plaintiff, and Waddel Cunningham, Defendant" (John Holt: New York, 1764).

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

John Marshall was appointed the fourth chief justice of the United States by President John Adams. In the thirty four years he served on the bench, Marshall presided over the Court's evolution into an institution with power equal to both the executive and legislative branches of the Federal Government. The Marshall collection consists of manuscript drafts for 62 opinions delivered by the chief justice in the Fourth Circuit Court of the United States between 1803 and 1831. These opinions seem to be from cases heard in Richmond, VA. The collection is arranged chronologically by the court term.

This volume contains copies of records of early settlements on the Delaware River in English archives (1664-1682), and Dutch archives (1630-1656), copied from documents in the office of the Secretary of State at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Intended as a model of Jacksonian penal reform, the Eastern State Penitentiary operated in the Cherry Hill section of Philadelphia between 1829 and 1970. Designed to promote the moral reform of prisoners by imposing a regimen of silent, solitary self-reflection, the penitentiary became the purest example of the "Pennsylvania plan" of "cellular isolation." The Records of the Eastern State Penitentiary consist of seven bound volumes and a series of miscellaneous records and correspondence that document aspects of life in Jacksonian America's model prison. The collection has been organized into four series: Series I, Bound Volumes; Series II, Miscellaneous Records; Series III, Correspondence of Elizabeth Velora Elwell; and Series IV, Prisoners' Correspondence. The bound volumes contain records of admission for prisoners between 1830 and 1892 (with some gaps), three of which were kept and annotated by the Moral Instructor at the prison, Thomas Larcombe. Larcombe provided interesting comments on the "moral state" of each prisoner, in addition to data on name, age, gender and race, religious affiliation, the charges, sentence, and final disposition. The unbound materials in the collection are diverse, but include an important 70 page manuscript comprising the records of the joint commission charged with investigating management of the prison in 1835, with a partial transcript of testimony, and a series of 29 letters written to or from prisoners at Eastern State, 1845-1871, most unusually the inmate Elizabeth Velora Elwell, writing to her paramour and fellow inmate Albert Green Jackson.

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

These papers relate principally to Smyth's career in New Jersey before the American Revolution, and includes addresses to grand juries and their reports, and a copy of a petition to the Earl of Carlisle and its response (1778).

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 Sachem and Civil War adjutant to Ulysses Grant, Ely Samuel Parker was an important figure in the Seneca Indian nation during the first half of the nineteenth century. Trained as an engineer, Parker was deeply involved in the Senecas' land disputes with the Ogden Land Company and he played an important role in interpreting Seneca culture for a white audience, most notably as a consultant for Lewis Henry Morgan. Collected by Arthur C. Parker, the Ely Samuel Parker Papers include correspondence, manuscripts, and printed materials relating primarily to Seneca affairs, history, language, and culture, as well as politics, education, engineering, and the Civil War. Among Parker's correspondents were Henry Clay, Millard Fillmore, Henry M. Flagler, Lewis Henry Morgan, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Daniel Webster, and Asher Wright. Several letters relate to Parker's service as engineer of public buildings in Galena, Illinois, and to his Masonic activities. Among the noteworthy items in the collection are several essays on Seneca history and culture, a fragment of Parker's diary, 1847, and a significant quantity of material on the Seneca language assembled by Asher Wright.

The first volume includes extracts from the journals of Conrad Weiser and Christian Frederick Post (1757), Charles Thomson's "An Enquiry into the causes of the alienation of the Delaware and Shawanese Indians from the British interest" (1759), and a printed version of Judge Bradford's "Statement of facts and observations respecting the penal laws" (1792). The second volume contains selected letters and documents in the Pennsylvania state records on Indian relations, including transcriptions of several treaties between the Province of Pennsylvania and the Delawares and other Indians (1755-1758); the French and Indian War; and Braddock's campaign. Some manuscripts are written by Deborah Norris Logan and Charles Thomson.

This rich collection of letters and documents, which was assembled by Sol Feinstone (1888-1980) over a period of fifty years, includes material on almost all notable Americans from before the Revolution to the 1850's, as well as prominent Europeans, and there are documents relating to military affairs. There are substantial groups of letters from: John Adams, Henry Dearborn, Alexander Hamilton, Jedediah Huntington, Thomas Jefferson, Lafayette, George Washington, and a long run of letters from a Massachusetts military surgeon named Samuel Adams. Many letters, though written by Revolutionary figures, relate to events that occurred before or after the War.