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.

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.

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

Peter S. Du Ponceau translated Gérard de Rayneval's "De la liberté des mers" (Paris, 1811) as an exercise, but not for publication.

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 contains copies of depositions sworn before Peter Miller, letters of attorney, bonds, receipts, bills of sale, and contracts of marriage, etc. There is an index of names, which lists, among many others, George Glentworth, John Kearsley, Reese Meredith, Frederick Phile, and James Ralph. See date of 18 May 1768 for B. Franklin; 30 October 1773 for Kearsley. Film 54-67 Frame 136.

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 include a catalog of his library (1 v., 67 p.); Narative of the difference between Dr. Alison, vice provost of the college of Philadelphia & Robert Strettell Jones late student in the senior class of the said College; Hugh Williamson to Isaac Jones, dated May 7, 1763; An abridgement of metaphysicks, written March 20,1761 & A system of rhetoric wrote Nov. & Dec. 1762, by Robert Strettell Jones; Depositions in re indictment for high treason against Robert Strettell Jones, Sept. 28, 1779; Certificate naming R.S. Jones as one of the Corporation of Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital, dated Dec. 3, 1773; and a copy of the will of his aunt Ann Strettell, Aug. 6, 1767.

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.

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 the names of the indentured and to whom bound, the length of time, and the occupation to be learned or performed. An alphabetical index of names follows page 839.

There are letters, petitions, and reports concerning the Loyalists and the losses they sustained in the Revolutionary War. Includes the Committee of American Merchants, Observations on trade (1783), Banished American merchants petition (1789), and Classes of American loyalists and their claims.

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.

This material relates to Alexander B. Grosart's biography of Wilson. There are notes and copies of letters and documents, including a copy of Wilson's will. There is one poem by Wilson, "The Last Wish," and an 1806 letter to William Bartram.

This collection of documents includes letters, broadsides, bills of sale, deeds of purchase, and wills, relating to various slaves. There are also documents from notable Americans concerning the slave question, such as John Brown, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Andrew Jackson.

This group includes wills for Benjamin Franklin Bache (B/B122.w), Richard Bache (B/B121.w), George Clymer (B/C625.w), Benjamin Franklin (B/F85.w), Francis Hopkinson (B/H768.w), Jared Ingersoll (Misc. Ms. Coll.), Thomas McKean (B/M195.w), Thomas Mifflin (B/M586.w), Robert Morris (B/M835.w), George Ross (B/R735.w), and Benjamin Rush (B/R89.w).