Series: 1 Q (Volume 1)
Scope and Content Note

Original manuscripts, miscellaneous correspondence received by Draper, and a few notes, clippings, and other printed items. Ranging in date from 1720 to 1876, most of the papers are in chronological sequence, but a few dated pieces were erroneously bound into the undated section at the rear of the volume.

Eighteenth-century manuscripts include a letter (1720) of Alexander Spottswood; a customs report (1755) on the cargo of the sloop “Neptune” in Barbados; a letter on Indian affairs (1756) from Richard Peters to Edward Shippen; letters (1766) to John Irwin from Boynton, Wharton, and Morgan concerning trade to Pittsburgh and west to Fort Chartres (Illinois); a letter (1775) by James Simpson about Thomas Law Elliott, his family, and his estate; a trade agreement (1780) signed by Abraham Shepherd and Samuel Mason; births, 1766-1791, recorded in German for the Zur Welt family; business letters of Thomas Walker to Daniel Smith (1783) and Stephen Cooke to Daniel Roberdeau (1791); a letter promoting the abolition of slavery (1795) written by Baptist minister William Rogers of Philadelphia to a fellow clergyman, David Rue of Kentucky. Also included are a business letter (1796) by Thomas Allen to Henry Lee; and a note (1797) on relief for fire victims in Savannah, Georgia, sent by Charles Burrall to John Habersham.

Documents pertaining to military matters are a memoranda book, circa 1774-circa 1782, of William and Robert Newell containing notes on the battles of Concord and Lexington (1775); a brief day book (1774) containing Isaac Spratt's faint and difficult-to-read entries for military provisions; a few pay receipts (1783) signed by British officers; a fragmentary legal order (1786) dated in the State of Franklin; and undated petitions to Arthur St. Clair from residents of Hamilton County, Ohio, concerning the appointment of militia officers. Copied material includes a song commemorating the battle waged by John Lovell and his company against New England Indians in 1725, with a narrative about the battle from a pamphlet by Thomas Symmes of Bradford, Massachusetts.

Nineteenth-century correspondence includes letters on business or legal matters by James Burrill (1801), Aaron Goforth (1801), John Beckley (to Isaac Shelby, 1803), and John S. Gano (to Benjamin Lockwood, 1804). Several letters concern political or military affairs: Thomas Mann to Joseph Martin (1801, copy) reporting on the election of Jefferson as president; Mark L. Hill of Georgetown, Maine, to Harrison G. Otis of Boston (1804) on national politics; Ezra Sampson (1814) on the Hartford Convention; Daniel G. Stinson (1830) on proposed South Carolina constitutional changes; E.K. Chamberlin to George W. Bradbury (1847) on Mexican War experiences. Other letters range over varied topics: advice on art, education, and patriotism written (1806) by an unidentified grandparent to a grandson; a recipe for blue dye sent (1808) by Jesse Buel to William W. Worsley; family affairs (1814) by the younger John C. Symmes and his wife; a mastodon discovery and identification of a fish specimen furnished by Samuel Mitchell to Henry A.S. Dearborn (1817); negotiations with the Chickasaw (1818, draft unsigned); an offer to do a portrait (1818) sent by artist Matthew H. Jouett to Isaac Shelby; documentation involved in the Shelby-Campbell controversy over the battle of King's Mountain discussed by J. J. Crittenden (1822, to Shelby) the status of the legal profession in Columbus, Ohio, described (1826) by J.R. Swan; an incomplete, thus undated, discussion of the United States wool industry and its influence on the condition of American black laborers. Of scattered dates (1796, 1824, 1826) are letters of Connecticut lawyer Roger M. Sherman pertaining to legal business and to the American Home Missionary Society.

Of interest are several journals, diaries, and narratives. Two journals contain concise records of distances, stopping places, and expenses for journeys by Asa Turner and companions from Kentucky through western Virginia and Tennessee in September and October, 1804. Much more full and descriptive are the diary entries kept by Diaper's distant relatives, Asahel and Eliza Munger, while they trekked to Oregon in 1839 to join Marcus and Narcissa Whitman as missionaries. Two undated narratives were authored by Thomas Gummersall Anderson (1779-1875), one recalling his life as a British fur trader and his experiences during the British capture of Prairie du Chien during the War of 1812, the other describing his participation in the Canadian government's Indian mission project at Manitoulin Island in the 1830s and 1840s. Much of the first narrative was edited and published by Draper in Wisconsin Historical Collections, IX, 138-206 (1882).

Draper's own papers in the volume are composed of incoming correspondence, lists of Revolutionary pensioners, copies of pension applications, biographical notes, and miscellaneous memoranda and collected records. Persons about whom he gathered substantial references, usually on military services, include Thomas and George Berry, Walter Finney, David Fouts, John Gunsaulus (Gunsaullis, Philip Grove, Robert Hanna, Micajah and Wiley Harpe, Samuel McDowell, Silas McDowell, Stephen Oliver, Yelverton Peyton, Adam Poe, William Russell, and Joseph Tomlinson.

Also found are papers on British land grants near Oswego, New York, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; a constitution and by-laws (1823) for the Cincinnati Library; an agreement (1848) for the apprenticeship of Mary A. Coyle to Peter A. Remsen, Draper's longtime patron; and undated notebooks by unidentified writers on religion, law, and the early history of England. A large undated broadside entitled “Time and Eternity...,” contains a long unsigned religious poem.

Series: 2 Q (Volume 2)
Scope and Content Note

Papers, 1831-1887, consisting mainly of incoming letters to Draper in the 1842-1847 period, arranged chronologically and followed by undated notes and miscellany. Three letters prior to 1842 include genealogical data (1831) on descendants of Thomas Crutcher and his brothers and sisters in Kentucky and Tennessee, a letter (1833) on legal matters by Roger M. Sherman, and a letter (1835) by the noted physician Benjamin Waterhouse explaining the necessity of good wells and pure water for good health.

Draper's correspondence pertains to his ceaseless search for manuscripts, printed sources, and persons to interview; thus there are allusions to most of his early major research and publication projects. Several letters (1872-1886) concern his interest in autograph collecting and his study of collections of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Letters of his friend Henry Beard include an original woodcut letterhead by Beard promoting the “log cabin” presidential campaign of William H. Harrison (1840, but bound out of order as 2 Q 110) and later mention (1854) of his work with Indian delegations and treaty negotiations in Washington, D.C.

Among the letters of S.H. Laughlin are a proposal (1846) for a lecture tour with Draper and discussion of the significance of Virginia senator and writer John Taylor (1754-1824). Several letters describe the activities and problems of early historical societies and state libraries in Kentucky (1845-1846), Ohio (1848, 1849, 1852), New York (1849), Maryland (1849, accompanied by a printed copy of rules for access), and Virginia (1875). Recollections of Stephen Ruddell, an account of the Indian captivity of Absolom Hicklin and his subsequent life with Indians west of the Mississippi River, and discussion of the writer's attempts to gather information on the language of the Sauk and Fox tribes and of his experiments with a new phonetic alphabet fill a long letter by Lewis Masquerier (1859). In 1865-1866 Taliaferro P. Shaffner, former secretary of the Kentucky Historical Society, described his Civil War service with Grant and his years in Europe as a professional soldier, instructor, and writer on artillery and telegraphy. The Civil War and Reconstruction also brought expressions of dismay, denunciation of the Lincoln administration and federal Reconstruction policies, and a spirited defence of the Ku Klux Klan in letters by Pat Clark (1864) and John H. Logan (1871). Draper's interest in spiritualism was evidenced by an account of an unusual spiritualist experience related (1874) by Silas McDowell and a report (1883) of a reputed “spirit portrait” in London.

Other miscellaneous letters include: Joseph Martin's introduction of Draper to his brother William Martin (1842); an extensive description of the Kanawha River by Ben Rush Floyd (1848); brief genealogical data on the William North family and Fairlie family by H.E. Ludewig (1848); discussion of emancipation of slaves by Lewis Collins (1849); description of the falls of the Dan River at Danville, Virginia by Nathaniel T. Greene (1852); comments on the Potawatomi Black Partridge and Billy Caldwell by Juliette A. (Mrs. John H.) Kinzie (1865); report of mastodon bones in Grant County, Wisconsin by J. Taylor (1875).

Also included are a biographical account of John Bannister Gibson, chief justice of the,Pennsylvania Supreme Court by Charles H. Smiley (1875); and an undated biographical sketch of William Davies, son of Samuel Davies (1723-1761), who was president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton University), by Miss E.G. Whittle. Numerous notes by Draper, some accompanied by clippings, are on assorted topics such as Andrew Jackson's birthplace; the South Carolina Yazoo Land Company; Thomas Paine; the attitudes and practices toward slavery of Edward Coles, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson; Thomas Heyward and the poems and songs he composed as a prisoner in St. Augustine. Many biographical references relate to Jonas Clark, Burr Harrison, David Hendrick, Benjamin Stites, and particularly to the many participants in the Mecklenburg Declaration. Copies of Revolutionary correspondence, 1775-1776, of John McPherson, furnished (1845) by McPherson's son, include one letter by Philip Schuyler.

Series: 3 Q (Volume 3)
Scope and Content Note: Brief biographical and bibliographical notes by Draper on participants in the Revolution in the West. Interspersed are occasional clipped newspaper obituaries. The entries are arranged alphabetically by the first letter of the surname.

Series: 4 Q (Volume 4)
Scope and Content Note: Four of Draper's notebooks bound together, containing drafts and summaries for letters he wrote in 1843; notes on correspondence and collecting activities in 1854 in which Benson J. Lossing was involved; notes on Draper's letters in 1862-1863; and plans for his projected but never achieved edition of articles on western themes written by William Darby (1775-1854) and first published in The Casket from 1829 to 1838.

Series: 5 Q (Volume 5)
Scope and Content Note: Three of Draper's small pocket memoranda books bound together. The first contains names and addresses of possible informants and notations on other sources to be pursued. The other two are filled with notes on border events from about 1750 to 1800 mainly in New York state; they appear to relate primarily to Draper's early research on Joseph Brant.

Series: 6 Q (Volume 6)
Scope and Content Note: A volume of manuscript transcripts, 1780-1783, entitled “American Manuscripts of the Revolution-Quebec, Montreal, New York, Vermont, et cetera.” The correspondence and British intelligence reports appear to have been copied from British or Canadian archives. The majority of the letters were written by or to Sir Frederick Haldimand, governor of Canada. Other 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. Many of the records pertain to negotiations concerning Vermont, but others relate to the military situation throughout the northern and western frontiers. There are lists (1782) of American prisoners under Haldimand's jurisdiction, who had been taken in Kentucky, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Draper purchased this volume in 1879, when papers of Thomas Aspinwall, onetime United States consul in London, were sold at auction in Boston.

Series: 7 Q (Volume 7)
Scope and Content Note

A scrapbook of clippings, 1758-1802, from English newspapers. Pages 1-56 contain selections about American affairs, chiefly military events during the French and Indian War and the Revolution.

The bulk of the volume (pages 57-400) contains only news of events in England after 1783; most of these clippings concern accidents, crimes, and court cases, but a few relate to theatrical and musical performances. The identity of the compiler is not known.

Series: 8 Q (Volume 8)
Scope and Content Note: A scrapbook of clippings, chiefly undated, from English newspapers of the eighteenth century. A few dated pieces range from 1775 to 1789. In content the clippings include many poems and articles descriptive of travel and of English social life and attitudes. The compiler has not been identified.