Zebulon Montgomery Pike (1779-1813) was an explorer and soldier, most often remembered two exploratory trips to the newly acquired Louisiana territory. The first of these trips was to the source of the Mississippi River in 1805; the second was to explore the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers in 1806. Because General James Wilkinson was responsible for organizing Pike's two expeditions, when the conspiracy charges again Aaron Burr implicated Wilkinson, suspicion was, for a short time, also focused on Pike. Pike worked his way up the ranks of the United States Army, becoming a brigadier-general during the War of 1812. He was killed in the Battle of York in Upper Canada (now Toronto) in 1813.

The collection contains information on Fox family speculation in western lands, two manuscript maps from the 1790's and 1830's depicting the family's holdings in northwestern Pennsylvania, and a photograph album from the 1890's documenting Chestnutwold, the Fox estate adjacent to Andalusia. Chief correspondents are Samuel and George Fox.

George Clymer was a successful merchant, well-known politician, and a generous philanthropist, but is today most famous for being a signer of the Declaration of Independence. As a proponent of independence, he joined various local political committees including six of the seven Philadelphia resistance committees. From there, he entered the national political arena and in 1776 was elected to the Second Continental Congress where he signed the Declaration of Independence. The George Clymer Collection is a small one and not reflective of his varied pursuits. There are twenty-seven documents, most of which are not signed by Clymer; those that are signed by Clymer are dated between May 3, 1800 and January 22, 1813. The items represent not Clymer's political activities but his ordinary legal and real estate transactions.

An early settler and prominent citizen in the Moravian heartland near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Timothy Horsfield was named justice of the peace when Northampton County was formed out of Bucks in 1752, and was one of those given responsibility for the defence of the local white and Christian Indian populations during the French and Indian War. The Horsfield Papers offer a window onto the tumultuous history of northeastern Pennsylvania during the 1750s and 1760s. Comprised largely of correspondence and related documents between Horsfield, William Parsons, and provincial and military authorities, the collection includes important information on the Native tribes' actions (previously described as "Indian assaults") in the region in 1756 and 1757 and the military and diplomatic response of settlers.

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 most stellar member of a stellar family, Elisha Kent Kane was among the most popular American explorers of the mid-nineteenth century, a hero in the tragic mode. Born in Philadelphia in 1820, the son of John Kintzing Kane and Jane Duval Leiper, Kane studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania before earning a commission as a naval surgeon. While in the Navy, Kane embarked on the succession of voyages to exotic locales that became the basis for his extraordinary fame. In 1843, he attended Caleb Cushing's first diplomatic mission to China as ship's physician, and subsequently traveled to the Philippines and Western Africa. Distinguishing himself in the Mexican War, Kane's greatest fame came from two expeditions to the arctic, aiming to locate the lost explorer, Sir John Franklin and to explore for evidence of the open polar sea. Kane died in 1857 while attempting to organize a third arctic voyage. Part of the Kane Family Collection, the Papers of Elisha Kent Kane contain a mix of personal and family correspondence with correspondence relating to all of Kane's explorations. Intelligent, articulate and very much a romantic, Kane's letters are expressive and passionate. The collection provides fine documentation of youth, his relationship with the Spiritualist Margaret Fox, and of course his travels to China and off the coast of Africa in 1846. Kane's two expeditions to the arctic are particularly well documented, with correspondence, notes, logbooks, diaries, and sketches, as well as Kane's post-expedition notes, writings, and lectures recounting his experiences.