Correspondence and petitions to Henry Seymour regarding canal routes in northern New York, personnel, etc. Mentions David Thomas, Wells Hatch.

These documents are principally of Pennsylvania interest, 1757-1809, including letters to Richard I. Manning from John C. Calhoun, Marquis de Lafayette, George McDuffie, and William Wirt. There are also letters of Clement C. Biddle, James Buchanan, Francis J. Grund, James Madison, Timothy Pickering, and William H. Seward. In addition, there are several musical scores (n.d.) and 19 cancelled checks (1861-1871) drawn by Ticknor and Fields in Boston, to the order of various American authors.

These papers include correspondence, marriage settlements, legal papers, genealogical tables, and memoranda of William Montgomerie of Brigend, Scotland, who emigrated to East Jersey, ca. 1701. Also includes the pedigree of Alexander Forbes of Balogie; correspondence (to 1755) of John Burnet, who was a merchant of Edinburgh, London, and New York, and of John Burnet, Jr., of Perth Amboy, N.J., with Elizabeth Forbes; genealogy of the Montgomery family in the United States, prepared by Thomas H. Montgomery (1853); and a seventeenth-century copy of documents, accounts, and patents of East Jersey.

Containing over 4 linear feet of letters and documents, the Franklin-Bache Papers comprises the second largest collection of letters and documents relating to Benjamin Franklin in the APS Library. Although the scope of the collection is broad, including materials from the time of Franklin's arrival in Philadelphia to his death, the heart of the collection documents the period of Franklin's ministry in France (1776-1785) and his diplomatic efforts to win financial and military support for the revolutionary cause, as well as less intensive coverage of his ministry in England before the Revolution. Franklin's correspondence with American and French officials, financiers (personal and otherwise), and savants provides tantalizing details on the social context of Franklin's ministry in France, his intellectual life, and his growing celebrity. Much of the correspondence documents the efforts to convince French officials early in the war to support the American cause, but there is valuable material relating to the peace negotiations as well. The collection is equally rich in personal correspondence, including a rich set of letters from Mary Stevenson Hewson, Georgiana Shipley, Catherine Ray Greene, Jane Mecom, Deborah Franklin, and a number of Franklin's other relatives. The collection is arranged chronologically.

The Smith-Houston-Morris-Ogden Family Papers document the history of the Houston, Smith, Ogden, Morris and allied families, beginning in the late 17th century, and continuing through to near the end of the 20th. Among the many treasures in this vast collection are the papers of Pennsylvania Railroad executive Henry Howard Houston (1820-1895), his son, Samuel Frederick Houston (1866-1952), and of Pennsylvania attorney and treasury official, William Meredith (1752-1816). Although the collection contains a great deal of interest with respect to land speculation, commerce, and trade emanating from Philadelphia, the bulk of the Smith Family Papers consists of personal and family correspondence and other papers. Among the largest and most interesting bodies of papers are those of L.M.C. Smith and Eleanor Houston Smith, daughter of Samuel F. Smith. These document the family's progressive attitudes regarding and resource conservation, historic preservation, and their social activism. This very large collection includes much material that is not itemized below.

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.