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).

These are receipts from tradesmen, mechanics, and storekeepers for sewing, carriage work, the making and repair of shoes, madeira, fabrics, sugar, hair-dressing, and clothing.

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.

These are letters of William Hewson, Mary Stevenson Hewson, and Thomas Tickell Hewson, chiefly to members of the family on personal affairs. There are also a transcript of a draft of William Hewson's account of his quarrel with Dr. William Hunter and a letter from Barbeu Du Bourg to Mary Stevenson Hewson.

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, 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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

This autobiography relates Rush's experiences in college and medical school; his meetings with notable doctors; his life in Scotland, England, and France; his medical views; the military and politics during the Revolutionary War; and brief sketches of personalities of that period.

This correspondence is chiefly of a personal nature between Short and Alexandrine Charlotte de Rohan-Chabot, the Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld, concerning his desire to marry her and bring her to America. The Duchesse's letters describe life in a powerful, wealthy, and noble French family under the ancien régime, including events of the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, and life in France thereafter. The collection also includes letters from Lafayette, Count Luigi Castiglioni, Pauline Castiglioni, and the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt.

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.

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.

The only son of Benjamin Franklin, William Franklin served as Royal Governor of New Jersey during the critical years between 1762 and 1776. An ardent Loyalist, William split with his father over their political differences in the early days of the Revolution, and after enduring two years of imprisonment, became a leader in the Loyalist cause. He settled in London in 1782, where he worked as an agent for Loyalist claims. The William Franklin Papers are a miscellaneous assemblage of letters and documents, dealing largely with Franklin's years as Royal Governor of New Jersey. The majority of the letters are perfunctory, however they provide some information on Franklin's land holdings in New Jersey and the Ohio country. The collection includes two letters relating to Franklin's imprisonment in Connecticut during the Revolution, two affectionate letters to his sister Sarah, and one to his son William Temple Franklin.

Written from China to his family, the letters of James Bancker contain descriptions of the social life of the Americans and English in China, of Hong Kong after the British acquisition of that place, and of anti-British riots in Canton. A long letter describes the outward voyage from New York to Canton; several letters given an account of a visit to the Philippines; and there is a partial journal of Bancker's return home through the Red Sea.