The Thomas Leiper family business records include “Letterbooks;” “Estate records;” “Paper, lumber and wood business records;” “Quarry business records;” “Tobacco business records;” and “Miscellaneous and household accounts and receipts,” dating from 1771 to 1947. These volumes document the business efforts of Thomas Leiper and his descendants, including the businesses of Thomas Leiper and Sons, Tobacconists; several quarries; a lumber yard and stable; and the Caldwell and Crosby estates. In addition to his other businesses, Leiper bought and sold real estate.
This collection consists of five disbound volumes of letters written to and from William Dillwyn of London and his daughter Susanna Dillwyn in America from 1770 to 1795; and thereafter until 1818, to and from Susanna and her husband Samuel Emlen, Jr. of Burlington County, New Jersey. Although Susanna lived almost her entire life apart from her father, their letters are frequent and deal primarily with family matters and kin. However, there is frequent comment concerning such topics as yellow fever; abolitionism and slavery; and American and European politics, including the Napoleonic wars and the embargo, as well as their effects upon trade and merchants in Philadelphia and London. Moreover, events such as the Federal Convention of 1787 and topics such as the health of Benjamin Franklin, the popularity of President Washington and the trials of a new republic are addressed throughout the correspondence.
The Library Company of Philadelphia purchased this collection of Pierre Eugene Du Simitière's manuscripts at the auction of Du Simitière's American Museum after his death on March 10, 1785. The books and pamphlets bought at the same auction have been dispersed through the Library Company's collections. Du Simitière gathered or copied these manuscripts during his travels in the West Indies, Boston, New York, and while he lived in Philadelphia, where he was a member of and one of the curators of the American Philosophical Society. After the Library Company of Philadelphia purchased the manuscripts, they were bound together. The Historical Records Survey of the Works Progress Administration described the manuscripts in "Descriptive Catalogue of the Du Simitière Papers in the Library Company of Philadelphia" (1940), from which many of the following series and records descriptions have been abstracted. Since the Historical Records survey, many of the bound volumes have been unbound and foldered by the Library Company of Philadelphia. The unbound volumes in the series descriptions contain folder level description; however, the bound volumes are described only as an overall work. For more detail on the bound volumes, see the "Descriptive Catalogue of the Du Simitière Papers in the Library Company of Philadelphia" (1940). Researchers should be aware that the series titles are drawn from the title of the bound volume. It is important to read the entire scope note for each series, because the volumes often contained additional topics than are listed in the title.
This collection consists of six volumes of writings by Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson who is considered to be the outstanding female poet of her place and time, and a leader in the literary world of colonial Pennsylvania. These volumes, which date from 1752 to 1799, are arranged alphabetically by title.
This collection documents John Dickinson's roles in politics, business, law, nation building, and the American Revolution. The collection is arranged in two series: "John Dickinson" and "Mary Norris Dickinson," with the bulk of the collection contained within the "John Dickinson" series. This collection was organized into its current arrangement, probably in 1978. Prior to that, the collection was described to an item level in a calendar created by John H. Powell. While the 1978 re-arrangement has resulted in the physical order of the calendar being unusable, the information contained therein is of the utmost value and a pdf version of the calendar is attached to this finding aid.