In the hand of Benjamin Franklin, "from the manuscript. Translated from the High Dutch."

This collection consists of six manuscript books kept by members of the Coates family of Philadelphia, including two bank books, a day book, a receipt book, an account book, and a commonlace book.

This is a collection of Francis Hopkinson's prose writings, prepared by him for publication. These volumes are numbered 1-4 and 6. Volume 5, missing here, contains his verse.

Plan of the ground and lots belonging to the State House. Docketing by Benjamin Franklin. Housed in its own red case (17x19.5").

This material includes a typescript of Roach's "An Account of Elfreth's Alley and Its People from the Earliest Times," an unpublished manuscript prepared for the Elfreth's Alley Association in 1958, and also research material related to this study, such as land and deed abstracts, and miscellaneous notes.

There are letters, songs, menus, etc. Members included William Strickland, N. Chapman, A. D. Bache, R. Dunglison, and others, who brought their bottles already decanted and ready to drink.

The minutes cover 1749-1776, 1786-1833, and Treasurer's accounts, 1759-1843.

Born in Schiffdorf (near Bremerhafen), John Bohlen became one of Philadelphia's most prominent merchants at the turn of the nineteenth century. Running a profitable concern in partnership with his brother Bohl (1754-1836), John Bohlen imported commodities from their native Holland. Thanks to an insatiable American thirst for gin, Bohlen amassed an immense fortune that enabled him to travel in the same social circles as Stephen Girard and others among the mercantile elite and to win a spot in 1816 as one of the Directors of the Bank of the United States. By the time of his death, he was one of only eleven Philadelphians whose personal estates exceeded one million dollars in value. The Bohlen Collection contains a scant ten letters that appear to have been retained, as much as anything, for their autograph interest. Although they shed relatively little light on the life of John Bohlen, they do offer interesting glimpses into the personalities of Bohlen's famous correspondents, including Stephen Girard, Francis Scott Key, Meriwether Lewis, Virgil Maxcy, Oliver Hazard Perry, and Timothy Pickering.

Twice a refugee from the revolutionary violence in the French colony of Saint Domingue, John Thomas Carré became head of the Clermont Seminary in Philadelphia from 1804-1825, a select boarding school for boys. Carré's diary from 1807-1809 provides a basic chronology of his life at the Clermont Seminary, with a few comments on his students and their families. The entries are typically very brief and are confined to a relatively limited range of topics, including the weather, Carré's poor health, his visitors, and correspondents.

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.

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

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 papers consist chiefly of essays presented by the members, with such titles as "Ambition," "On Avarice," "State of Literature in the United States," and "Consequences of the French Revolution." Also included are several letters, including one from Benjamin Say, Jr.

The transactions of Binny and Ronaldson's Philadelphia type foundry are recorded in the volumes.

This manuscript is by an unknown author who was coming to America to live. It records his voyage from Liverpool, England, to Philadelphia.

These volumes are lists of quit rents due in Philadelphia County, 1 March 1688/9, and in Philadelphia and Lancaster Counties, 1788-1793.