Sermon notes compiled by Solomon Prentice, 1724-1726

Leather top-bound volume containing notes kept by Solomon Prentice on sermons he attended between April 1724 and December 17, 1726, while he was an undergraduate at Harvard College. The volume contains one-to-two page entries on specific sermons and provides the biblical text and related questions and conclusions.

Student mathematical notebook of William Emerson Faulkner, 1795

Leather hardcover notebook with unruled pages containing the handwritten mathematical exercises of William Emerson Faulkner, begun in 1795 while he was an undergraduate at Harvard College. The volume contains rules, definitions, problems, drawings, and tables on geometry, trigonometry, surveying, calculating distances, sailing, and dialing. Some of the exercises are illustrated by unrefined hand-drawn diagrams, including some of buildings and trees.

Student mathematical notebook of William Tudor, 1795

Notebook containing the handwritten mathematical exercises of William Tudor, kept in 1795 while he was an undergraduate at Harvard College. The volume contains rules, definitions, problems, drawings, and tables on geometry, trigonometry, surveying, calculating distances, sailing, and dialing. Some of the exercises are illustrated with hand-drawn diagrams. The Menusration of Heights and Distances section contains color drawings of buildings and trees, and some have been altered with notes in different hands and with humorous additions. For instance, a drawing of a tower was drawn into a figure titled “Egyptian Mummy.” Some of the images are identified: “A rude sketch of the Middlesex canal,” Genl Warren’s monument on Bunker Hill,” “Noddles Island,” “the fields of Elysium,” and the “Roxbury Canal.” The annotations and additional drawings are unattributed.

Grammatica graeca, 1763

Bound volume containing a handwritten Greek grammar compiled by Joseph Drury beginning in 1763. The last sixteen pages contain a historical poem beginning, “Mason might once assert a Poets Claim. / But he must needs write.” The poem contains references to the “Great Patriot P—,“ the Roman conquest of Gall, Caeser, Versailles, and includes the verses, “How the King doth all his Cooks excel / Besides he longs to kiss his P / Saving your presence Louis keeps a whore.”

Student notebook of Marston Cabot, ca. 1720-1735

This leather-bound volume contains excerpts copied by Marston Cabot from books he read while he was a student at Harvard in 1723. The volume includes extracts from Charles Morton's 1687 Compendium Physicae (titled "of Phisicks" by Cabot), Dr. Adriani Heereboord (Adrianus Heereboord), Philosophia Naturalis and Johanne-Henrico Alstedio’s (John Henry Alsted) geometry text Compendium Geometria. The excerpts from Compendium Geometria include both figures and text, primarily in Latin with some Greek. The volume also includes “Theses quaedam extractae potissimum ex Enchiridio Metaphysico Domini Johannis Clerici" a précis of Jean Le Clerc's Ontologia et Pneumatologia made by Jonathan Remington, a Harvard Tutor from 1703 to 1711, to serve in place of printed textbooks. The names Jonathan Jackson and Edward Jackson are written on the inside cover, suggesting the book may have been handed down to Edward Jackson (Class of 1726) and his son Jonathan Jackson (Class of 1761). The text of the volume is in Marston Cabot's hand.

I. Embroidered pocketbook, 1774

This series contains one rectangular, embroidered pocketbook with foldover flaps embroidered with wool thread in green, red, blue, purple, and cream colors. The interior is lined with pink silk and has cardboard inserts. "FISHER AMES 1774" is embroidered on one of the interior flaps of the wallet. This object was most likely made for Fisher Ames by a female member of his family or a friend, possibly to commemorate his graduation from Harvard in 1774. A child’s leather glove that was inserted in one of the pockets is also housed in HUM 96 Box 1.

Binding papers, 1775-1928

The binding papers contain lists of volumes bound for the Harvard library in the form of lists and bills. The books are generally identified by title, volume size (octavo, quarto, folio, etc.), or both. The series includes two 18th century documents. The first document is a one-page January 22, 1775 bill to Harvard College from "Dr. And'r Barclay" for the binding and numbering of books. Books are identified by volume size. The second document is a one-page "List of books belonging to the Library which it is necessary should be new-bound" with an initial list signed by James Winthrop the Librarian on December 13, 1786, an additional list made on April 7, 1787, and subsequent notes made in May 1787. The books are indicated by title and size.

Mathematics notebook : manuscript, 1785-1789

Sections on numeration, interest, square root, geometry and surveying with accompanying diagrams.

Journal of the British expedition from Detroit to Vincennes and its defeat by George Rogers Clark : manuscript, 1778-1782

Account of the British forces' expedition which captured Vincennes, Indiana in Dec. 1778, with an account of their eventual defeat in 1779 at the Battle of Vincennes by the American Revolutionary forces led by Col. George Rogers Clark.

Nouveaux memoires touchant le Mexique ou la Nouvelle Espagne: recueillis sur les lieux avec une attention particulière par Mr. de Montségur, capitaine de vaisseaux du roy catolique pendant les annees 1707 et 1708 : manuscript, [17--]

Manuscript, in an unidentified hand, with revisions and corrections in a different hand [Monségur?].

Rabbinical manuscripts of Judah Monis, ca. 1700s

This leather-bound volume contains ten handwritten Hebrew texts presumably compiled by Judah Monis in the early 18th century. The pieces range from three to 150 pages on different sized leaves and appear to be in multiple hands. The last page of the volume has the struck-through inscription, "Judah Monis' Book" and accompanies a 44-page text. The texts are unattributed and undated, but have been identified as transcriptions of cabalistic writings and include a short biography of Isaac Luria (1533-1572) and extracts from the work of Luria, Hayyim ben Joseph Vital, Jacob ben Hayyim Zemah, Abraham ben Isaac of Granada, and Naphtali Bachrach. The transcriptions appear to be unattributed and undated.

Hādhā kitāb Kurūm ʻarāyis al-tahānī sharḥ Ṣalawāt Ibn Mashīsh al-Dānī / taʼlīf al-Imām al-Fāḍil al-Ṣūfī al-Humām al-Shaykh Muṣṭafá al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddīqī al-Khalwatī : manuscript, 1840

Author's own abridgement of his longer commentary on Moroccan sufi Ibn Mashīsh's prayer book known as Ṣalawāt. Longer version is titled: Rawḍāt al-ʻarshīyah fī al-kalām ʻala al-Ṣalawāt al-Mashīshīyah.

Kitāb Adab al-kātib fī al-maṣāḥif wa-fīhi ʻadad al-āyāt wa-ḥarfuhā wa-al-ḥurūf fī akhir al-āyāt / li-al-Shaykh ʻAlam al-Dīn al-Sakhāwī : manuscript, 1602

Written in one column, in a nastaʻlīq script in black ink, rubricated in red, 13 lines per page, with marginal corrections. Catchwords on the verso of each leaf.

Kaside icazeti : manuscript, 1882 or 3

An ijāzah issued by Aḥmad Ḍiyāʼ al-Dīn ibn al-Ḥājj ʻAbd al-Raḥmān-zādah Muṣṭafá to ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Maḥmūd al-Rifqī (?) for Qaṣīdat al-Burdah of al-Būṣīrī. Includes a Turkish section which explains how the Qaṣīdah should be read and for what purposes.

Baḥr al-jawāhir : manuscript, 1767

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم وبه ثقتي حمد العلام اجدي ذوي الافهام بتحقيق دقايق اللغات ... :Incipit