Correspondence and miscellaneous papers, including a letter (1720) of Alexander Spottswood; a Barbados customs report on the cargo of “Neptune” (1755); letters (1766) concerning trade to Pittsburgh and Fort Chartres; a list of births, 1766-1791, of the Zur Welt family; business letters of Thomas Walker to Daniel Smith (1783) and Stephen Cooke to Daniel Roberdeau (1791); a memoranda book, circa 1774-circa 1782, of William and Robert Newell, with notes on the battles of Concord and Lexington; miscellaneous business and legal correspondence, with references to political affairs, including Jefferson's election as president (1801), national politics (1804), the Hartford Convention (1814), proposed South Carolina constitutional changes (1830), and Mexican War experiences (1847). Also includes a recipe for blue dye (1808), letters on a mastodon discovery (1817), negotiations with the Chickasaw (1818), the U.S. wool industry and the condition of its black workers, and correspondence of Roger M. Sherman (1796, 1824, 1826) concerning business and the American Home Missionary Society.
Includes journals of Asa Turner's trip from Kentucky through western Virginia and Tennessee (1804); Asahel and Eliza Munger's trip to Oregon in 1839; and Thomas G. Anderson's life as a British fur trader, the British capture of Prairie du Chien (Wisconsin) during the War of 1812, and his work in the Canadian government's Indian mission at Manitoulin Island in the 1830s and 1840s.
Draper's own papers include lists of Revolutionary War pensioners, biographical notes, papers on British land grants near Oswego (New York), constitution and bylaws of the Cincinnati Library (1823), incoming correspondence including genealogical data (1831) on descendants of Thomas Crutcher, a letter (1835) on water purity by physician Benjamin Waterhouse, Henry Beard's letters concerning William Henry Harrison's presidential campaign (1840) and Indian treaty negotiations (1854), concerning state historical society and library activities in Kentucky (1845-1846), Ohio (1848, 1849, 1852), New York (1849), Maryland (1849), and Virginia (1875); Stephen Ruddell's recollections, Absolom Hicklin's Indian captivity, and Lewis Masquerier's studies of the Sauk and Fox language and of phonetic alphabets (1859); Taliaferro P. Shaffner's description of his Civil War service with Grant and European experiences as a professional soldier, instructor, and writer on artillery and telegraphy (1865-1866); opinions of the Lincoln administration, Reconstruction, and the Ku Klux Klan (1864, 1871); spiritualist experiences (1874, 1883); genealogical data on the William North family and Fairlie family; and Juliette A. Kinzie's comments (1865) on the Potawatomi Black Partridge and Billy Caldwell.
Also includes biographies of John Bannister Gibson (Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice), William Davies, and several Mecklenburg Declaration participants; copies of John McPherson's correspondence, 1775-1776; notes on Draper's letters, 1843, 1862-1863; memoranda books concerning border events from about 1750-1800, mainly in New York State; copies of British intelligence reports and correspondence (1780-1783) of Canadian governor Sir Frederick Haldimand. Prominent correspondents include Ira and Ethan Allen, Joseph Brant, Sir Guy Carleton, Thomas Chittenden, Sir Henry Clinton, Joseph Fay, George Germain, Baron Wilhelm von Knyphausen, Alexander McKee, and Baron Friedrich A. Riedesel. Topics include negotiations concerning Vermont, the military situation on the northern and western borders, and lists of American prisoners (1782).
Also includes clippings from English newspapers, 1758-1802, concerning the French and Indian War, American Revolution, events in England after 1783, travel, English social life and attitudes; maps of Franklin County, Kentucky, the Battle of Lundy's Lane, the Guyandotte area of West Virginia, the North and South Carolina border, and forts in the Wyoming valley of Pennsylvania.
