A Guide to the Manuscripts Collection of the New Jersey Historical Society
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a I B RAR.Y OF THE UN IVE.RSITY Of ILLINOIS 016091 N4lg Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/guidetomanuscripOOshel A GUIDE TO THE MANUSCRIPTS COLLECTION OF THE NEW JERSEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY By FRED SHELLEY LIBRARIAN Newark THE NEW JERSEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1957 A GUIDE TO THE MANUSCRIPTS COLLECTION OF THE NEW JERSEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY By FRED SHELLEY LIBRARIAN Newark THE NEW JERSEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1957 Collections of The New Jersey Historical Society Number xi Dedicated to All the Officers, Members, and Friends of The New Jersey Historical Society who through One Hundred and Twelve Years $ have gathered and preserved o this Manuscripts Collection ". I learn with great satisfaction that you are about com- mitting to the press the valuable historical and State papers you have been so long collecting. Time and accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. The late war has done the work of centuries in this business. The lost cannot be recovered, but let us save what remains; not by consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplica- tion of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident." From a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to Ebenezer Hazard, 18 February 1791 FOREWORD The New Jersey Historical Society was organized in 1845 for the stated purpose of "collecting and preserving" whatever pertained to the history of New Jersey. Today the Society is no less interested in placing its incomparable holdings at the service of all who wish to learn about the State's past. With the publication of this first comprehensive Guide to our manuscript; collection, we both give an accounting of our stewardship and extend assistance and encouragement to the historical researcher. To scan the items listed in the Guide is to be impressed with the great variety of the source materials represented in the collection. Letters, diaries, account books, church records, orderly books, court dockets, surveyors' journals—the categories are endless. Each in its own way reveals to the imaginative student some fascinating aspect of life in New Jersey in another time. Taken as a whole, this body of records has enriched every serious book written about the history of New Jersey over the past century. Our collection must continue to grow. We confidently expect that the publication of this Guide will encourage our members and friends to augment our holdings. All of us can share a responsibility for collecting, preserving, and making available to future generations the manifold recorded evidences of our heritage. Richard P. McCormick President INTRODUCTION This publication has been prepared in the hope that it will make the manuscripts in the library of the Society readily accessible to scholars and other users. The number of manu- scripts now in the library is thought to exceed seventy-five thousand items. This figure does not include the archives of the Society or the archives of the Newark Library Association. Also omitted from the count of manuscripts and from this Guide are certain sets of manuscript cards, papers, Bible records, etc., of value to genealogical searchers, and original drawings such as those of Robert Fulton, Benjamin Latrobe, and others. While of undoubted usefulness and value, these materials could not have been, without violence to the general scheme, fitted into this publication. The entries in this Guide have been prepared after an exami- nation of each manuscript group, though not of each individual document. What is recorded about manuscript groups or indi- vidual documents is self-evident, or recorded in the accession records, or can otherwise be proved to be correct. In any case of uncertainty only what is known to be true is recorded. The descriptions are general, but in certain cases a selection of correspondents in a set of papers has been added. Each selection represents a subjective judgment on the part of the compiler. It should be understood, therefore, that many individual manu- scripts of great interest and value are not necessarily listed. Since the Society's collection is primarily of New Jersey interest, New Jersey may be understood where no other state is indicated. No attempt has been made to keep the manuscript groups in alphabetical order, but those who wish an alphabetical list may refer to the index where group titles are found in capital-and- small-capital letters. Future acquisitions will be assigned numbers in the order received. In general technical library terms, specialized accounting terms, and the like have been avoided. The index as a whole is intended to index this Guide only and not the manuscript collection itself. Persons interested in particu- lar counties or towns should be reminded that county and town boundaries have been changed often through the centuries. For example, materials of interest to Union Township may be found under Connecticut Farms, and parts of Mercer County were once in Burlington County. It is a matter of genuine regret that several manuscript groups must be listed as incompletely organized or in storage. Had we waited until all materials were processed and described to the complete satisfaction of every responsible person, this Guide probably would never have been published. Let it also be said that the Society does not arrogate all knowl- edge to itself. In some of the entries more information is needed, especially in identifying and locating individuals and commu- nities and in giving proper credit to donors. The Society wel- comes additional information and pledges itself to use all per- tinent and authentic data in the next edition of this Guide. Manuscripts have been flowing into the Society's quarters from 1845 to the present moment. The presentation of individual items or groups of manuscripts was invariably recorded in the Proceed- ings until recent years. Many documents have been printed in full in the Proceedings and in the Collections. In addition three sets of index cards and several nineteenth-century indexes make available to the staff and the public many individual documents. However, only two attempts to describe the whole manuscript collection have been made, the first in 1895, the second in 1941. William Nelson made a list of the "more important collections of manuscripts," which was published in the Collections, VIII (Newark, 1900), 135-36. The W.P.A. Historical Records Survey in its Guide to the Depositories of Manuscript Collections . New Jersey (Newark, 1941) gave a brief description of the So- ciety's manuscript holdings on pages 24-25. Though each in its way is useful, neither is adequate to the needs of modern scholar- ship, nor, of course, does either account for recent valuable acquisitions. The publication of this Guide has been possible because of the establishment in 1956 of a revolving publication fund. It was created through the generosity and efforts of a trustee. The compiler would like to express appreciation to the many persons who have encouraged and aided in the preparation of this Guide, among whom are Dr. Richard P. McCormick, Robert M. Lunny, Alexander }. Wall, Jr., Richard V. Lindabury, Mrs. Joseph W. Greene, Walter N. Eastburn, Donald A. Sinclair, Howard W. Wiseman, Roger S. Boardman, Orest J. Dutka, Phyllis M. Allard, and Catherine M. Shelley, but he assumes full responsibility for errors of commission or omission. F.S, Newark 15 May 1957 Guide to the Manuscripts Collection ALPHABETICAL SERIES, ca. 1664-1920. Approx. 10,000 items. A grouping of miscellaneous documents relating to New Jer- numeral system, sey, organized by an alphabetical letter and Indexed in special indexes. Included are letters of Franklin Badgley, Sally Force, Peter Murphy, Bayard, Thomas F. Ford, David Ogden, Aaron Samuel Biddle, Clement Frelinghuysen, Theo. Ogden, Bloomfield, Joseph Gaine, Hugh Olden, Charles S. Boudinot, Elisha Gallatin, Albert Olden, David Cortland Burnet, William Haines, Daniel Parker, Cadwalader, Lambert Hammett, Alexander Patton, Francis L. Charles Caldwell, James Hayes, Samuel Pettit, Camp, Caleb Herbert, Henry Wm. Rhea, Jonathan Rutherfurd, Clark, Abraham Howe, Henry John Winfield Clinton, George Jackson, Joseph Scott, Erastus Crane, Eliakim Kearny, Philip Sergeant, William G. Crane, Esther Livingston, William Simms, Crane, William McCarter, Thomas N. Simpson, John Dayton, Jonathan McCosh, James Sparks, Jared Richard Dickerson, Mahlon Mann, Horace Stockton, Gilbert Erskine, Margaret Manning, Forman Tennent, Daniel Erskine, Robert Manning, Marianna W. Webster, Charles Ewing, Grenville Mercer, Charles F. Wilkes, EAST JERSEY MSS, ca. 1672-1873. Approx. 160 items. A grouping of miscellaneous documents relating to East Jersey. Index. Included A 19th century list is available. Indexed in MSS Frank- are letters of James Alexander, Lord Cornbury, William Partridge, lin, William S. Livingston, Robert Morris, Richard and Benjamin Wright. WEST JERSEY MSS, ca. 1649-1829. Approx. 60 items. A grouping of miscellaneous documents relating to West Jer- a sey, including John Fenwick MSS. A 19th century list and Included typed copy of it are available. Indexed in MSS Index. are letters of Joseph Bloomfield, John Fenwick, Richard Inglods- by, Joseph Read, Richard Smith, Richard Stockton, and Anthony Wayne. REVOLUTIONARY ERA MSS, ca. 1765-1790. Approx. 55 items. A grouping of miscellaneous documents. A 19th century list is available. Indexed in MSS Index. Included are letters of Joseph Bloomfield, John Craig, Abraham Lyon, Robert Morris, Charles Pettit, and Richard Stockton. ELIZABETH-TOWN MSS, ca. 1699-1804. Approx. 115 items. A grouping of miscellaneous documents relating to Elizabeth. A 19th century list is available. Indexed in MSS Index. PROVINCIAL CONGRESS MSS, 1775-1777. Approx. 135 items. A grouping of miscellaneous documents of and pertaining to the New Jersey Provincial Congress. A 19th-century list is avail- able. Indexed in MSS Index. NEW JERSEY MSS, ca. 1681-1800.