Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1788 February 27

Two leaves containing a one-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley that mentions Rev. John Prince (1751-1836) and briefly discussing the state of Winthrop's microscope and five volumes presented to Harvard that were printed in Calcutta, India.

[Admittatur of John Capen], 1836

Printed copy of the 1833 abstract of laws and regulations with the admittatur of undergraduate John Capen signed by President Josiah Quincy on August 30, 1836. The admittatur also includes a certificate of removal from probation signed December 20, 1836.

Letter from Robert Winthrop to Loammi Baldwin, 1836 September 2

One-page handwritten letter from Robert Charles Winthrop regarding Baldwin's appointment as vice-president of the second Centennial Festival at Harvard.

Subscription for John Wadsworth Monument, 1801 October 10

Handwritten document acknowledging the receipt of money by Caleb Gannett from a subscription drive to erect a monument for Harvard tutor John Wadsworth who died in 1777 and was buried in the Cambridge burying ground. The document is signed by fourteen individuals and lists their contributions.

Bond, Robert, 2 autographed letters signed to John Winthrop; East Hampton, Conn., 1651 March 8-March 10

Correspondence regarding advice Winthrop had given to Bond's family, and requesting he remit instructions for treating an illness of a neighbor's children.

Fuller, Robert, autographed letter signed to John Winthrop; Rehoboth, Mass., 1 side (2 pages), 1652 September 29

Correspondence seeking advice from Winthrop about an illness that afflicted his children's heads and caused hair loss, and his sister's case of worms.

Letters from Benjamin Welles to John Henry Tudor, 1799-1801

Benjamin Welles wrote these six letters to his friend and classmate, John Henry Tudor, between 1799 and 1801. Four of the letters are dated, and the dates of the other two can be deduced from their contents. Welles wrote Tudor four times in September 1799, at the onset of their senior year at Harvard, in an attempt to clear up hurt feelings and false rumors that he believed had caused a chill in their friendship. The cause of the rift is never fully explained, though Welles alludes to "a viper" and "villainous hypocrite" who apparently spread rumors and fueled discord between the two friends. In one letter, Welles asserts that "College is a rascal's Elysium - or the feeling man's hell." In another he writes: "College, Tudor, is a furnace to the phlegmatic, & a Greenland to thee feeling man; it has an atmosphere which breathes contagion to the soul [...] Villains fatten here. College is the embryo of hell." Whatever their discord, the wounds were apparently eventually healed; in a letter written June 26, 1800, Welles writes to ask Tudor about his impending speech at Commencement exercises. In an October 29, 1801 letter, Welles writes to Tudor in Philadelphia (where he appears to have traveled in attempts to recover his failing health) and expresses strong wishes for his friend's recovery and return to Boston. This letter also contains news of their classmate Washington Allston's meeting with painters Henry Fuseli and Benjamin West.