Benjamin Edwards was a minor figure on the Stephen H. Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains. His six letters addressed to his father Oliver Edwards briefly mention the expedition, including his attempts to collect pay for his part in the expedition. His letters also discuss his life in Louisiana after the expedition working on the Steamboat Hope and later as overseer of slaves in a sawmill.

The youngest son of Charles Willson Peale, Titian Ramsay Peale was an accomplished artist, naturalist, and explorer. This collection of ink, pencil, and watercolor sketches, with some engravings and lithographs, forms the bulk of Peale's artistic output. The drawings can be grouped into several periods of artistic output: pre-1818 (primarily watercolors of butterflies); from the Stephen Harriman Long Expedition to the American west in 1819-1820, on which Peale traveled as zoologist (there are views of animals, Indians, landscapes, etc.); for his 1821-1838 interlude period, spent primarily on the east coast (insects, animals, moose hunting in Marine, his trip to South America in 1830-1831, coin and medal designs); his period as a naturalist on the worldwide U.S. Exploring Expedition under the command of Charles Wilkes, 1838-1842; from the 1849-1873 period when he sketched around Washington, D. C. and in New Jersey; and there are more than 160 undated sketches of: animal skulls and bones, birds, plants, fish, insects, landscapes, and zoology.