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AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS NAME OF COLLECTION: LOCATION(S): Curwen Family Papers, 1637-1808 Mss. boxes C SIZE OF COLLECTION: 3 manuscript boxes SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON COLLECTION: SOURCE OF COLLECTION: A portion of the collection was the gift of Rosseter Cotton, 1815. COLLECTION DESCRIPTION: Samuel Curwen (1715-1802), Tory diarist, graduated from Harvard in 1735 and returned to his home in Salem, Mass., to engage in trade and real estate. He was a captain under Sir William Pepperrell in the expedition to Louisbourg but had to resign his commission. Until the Revolution, he occupied a socially prominent position in Salem and made his living by trade. As his Toryism became public knowledge, he was threatened with violence, and in May 1775 he sailed for England, where he remained for the duration of the war. The papers in this collection consist of wide-ranging correspondence and documents touching on many events throughout the American colonial period. Those items that were donated by Rosseter Cotton (descendant of the famous divine, John Cotton) are listed in the AAS Donation Book for 18 April 1815. (See also a listing filed in Box 1, Folder 1 of this collection.) The provenance of the remaining items is unclear, but all were evidently gathered together early in the 19th century and labeled Curwen Family Papers. A few of the items were written by Samuel Curwen, and some correspondence is addressed to members of the Curwen family. Two brief diaries of Samuel Curwen, 1751 and 1757 (both originally interleaved in Nathaniel Ames' Almanack), Curwen's notebook, 1768-1771, containing financial memos, and a volume titled "His Colledge Laws," which Curwen apparently kept from 1731 to 1732, while a student at Harvard College, are also included. It is possible that those items relating to the Louisbourg Campaign, the French and Indian War, and Salem, Mass., were once in the possession of Samuel Curwen, who was an antiquarian and who gave the choicest items of his collection to his friend, William Bentley, (1759-1819). The collection consists of letters, deeds, contracts, rough sermon notes, government documents, maps, and charts. The bulk of the collection is significant correspondence concerning religious and political developments in Old and New England, especially in colonial Massachusetts, during the 17th and 18th centuries. For example, there are letters written to or by the Mathers, John and Josiah Cotton, Joseph Dudley, Jeremiah Dummer, Jonathan Edwards, Samuel and Stephen Sewall, Dennis DeBerdt, Edward A. Holyoke, Nicholas Street, Robert Wodrow, and Thomas Walley. Several letters and documents refer to troubles with (especially King Philip's War) and poor treatment of Indians, e.g., letters of George Shove, Josiah Cotton, Thomas Walley, Henry Dering, Benjamin Colman, Noah Newman, William Bradford, and Jeremiah Dummer. The letters and orders of William Shirley, Benjamin Green, Sir William Pepperrell, and the New York and Massachusetts legislatures refer to the Louisbourg and Crown Point Expeditions of 1745 and 1755, respectively. Several items concern smallpox outbreaks and inoculation, e.g., letters of Samuel Sewall and Thomas Robie. There is business correspondence between Robert Hale and his estate agent in England, Bennett Swayne, as well as business correspondence of bookseller Samuel Gerrish and George Curwin. Peter Collinson's letters from London to John Custis at Williamsburg, Va., 1734-1745/46, concern horticultural subjects, and a letter written by Cadwallader Colden, 1741, objects to the treatment of blacks in New York. There are Indian wills and deeds, an account, 1808, by Ashley Bowen of a 1750 shipwreck, and a copy of the Records of the Salem, Mass. Social Library, 1760-1761. The latter includes the covenant and articles, list of subscribers, rules of borrowing, and a catalog of the books and their cost. AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY MANUSCRIPTS DEPARTMENT Curwen Family Papers, 1637-1808 CONTENTS LIST Manuscript Folder Date/Contents Box 1 1 Unidentified, undated and miscellaneous items 2 1637-1655 3 1658-1661 4 1662-1669 5 1670-1675 6 1676 7 1677-1679 8 1680-1684 9 1685-1690 10 1691-1693 11 1694-1699 12 1700-1703 13 1704-1707 14 1708-1711 15 1712-1713 (March) 16 1713 (April)-1714 17 1715-1716 18 1717-1719 2 1 1720-1721 2 1722 3 1723-1724 4 1725-1727 5 1728-1730 6 1730-1731 7 1732-1734 8 1735-1736 9 1736-1738 10 1739-1742 11 1743-1745 (April) 12 1745 (May-October) 13 1746-1749 14 1750-1754 15 1755 (January-February) 16 1755 (March)-1756 17 1757-1760 18 1761-1767 3 1 1768-1774 2 1775-1780 3 1781-1808 4 Samuel Curwen’s Diaries, 1732; 1751; 1757 5 Salem Social Library .