Commonplace book of Hector Orr, 1789-1804

Hector Orr began recording entries in this commonplace book during his first year as a student at Harvard and continued writing in the volume sporadically until 1804. The entries written while he was a student, from 1789 to 1792, include themes written on the following topics: Time, Discontent, Patriotism, Virtue, Conscience, Patience, Avarice, Compassion, Mortality, Self-knowledge, Benevolence, Morning, Anger, Profanity, Bribery, Autumn and Winter, Hermitage, Conscience and Anticipation. He also wrote detailed entries about the forensic disputations in which he and his classmates participated, explaining both the affirmative and negative positions. One of these disputations involved discussion of the Stamp Act, which was then quite recent history. Orr's entries about the disputations list the names of students involved and specify their position in the argument.

Diary of Elias Mann, 1796-1800

Elias Mann kept this diary during his undergraduate years at Harvard College. The diary begins August 17, 1796 and ends in August of 1800 and also includes several undated sheets filled with excerpts of poems. The daily entries describe many aspects of Mann's life, including not only his experiences at Harvard but also his involvement in the larger community. Entries related to life at Harvard describe club meetings (coffee club, Hasty Pudding Club and Phi Beta Kappa); trips to the theater; dinners at taverns; games and recreation, including a card game called "Loo," cribbage, backgammon, bowling, playing ball, fishing, skating and going for sleigh rides; gathering, and sometimes taking from others' gardens, food (most often plums, peaches, nuts and apples); what he ate (including one breakfast of three raw eggs and two glasses of wine); what he read (including Tristram Shandy and one of "Mrs. Ratcliffe's novels"); his friends, often mentioned by name; and academic work and formalities. In one entry he mentions the theft of several possessions from his room, and there are several entries about trips to Fresh Pond.

[Letter from William Ashurst to Harvard President John Leverett], 1710 July 13

One-page handwritten letter from William Ashurt to President Leverett discussing the annual payment on an unspecified donation, and the progress of the Hopkins' bequest recovery. The folder also contains a handwritten 19th century copy of the letter.

Student notes from medical lectures by Benjamin Rush, undated

The volumes contain student notes on a course of medical lectures given by Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) while he was Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Clinical Practice at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, likely in circa 1800-1813. The notes indicate Rush often referenced the works or teachings of contemporaries such as Scottish physicians William Cullen, John Brown, John Gregory, and Robert Whytt, and Dutch physician Herman Boerhaave. He frequently included anecdotes and case histories of his own patients, as well as those of other doctors, to illustrate his lecture topics. He also advised students to take notes on the lectures after they ended to allow them to focus on what they were hearing. Volume 1 includes notes on: physician conduct during visits to patients; human and animal physiology; voice and speech; the nervous system; the five senses; and faculties of the mind. Volume 2 includes notes on: food, the sources of appetite and thirst, and digestion; the lymphatic system; secretions; excretions; theories of nutrition; differences in the minds and bodies of women and men; reproduction; pathology; a table outlining the stages of disease production; “disease and the origin of moral and natural evil”; contagions; the role of food, drink, and clothing in producing disease; worms; hereditary diseases; predisposition to diseases; proximate causes of diseases; and pulmonary conditions. Volume 3 includes notes on: the pulse; therapeutics, such as emetics, sedatives, and digitalis, and treatment of various illnesses like pulmonary consumption, kidney disease, palsy, and rheumatism; diagnosis and prognosis of fever; treatment of intermitting fever; and epidemics including plague, smallpox, and yellow fever, with an emphasis on the yellow fever outbreaks in Philadelphia in 1793 and 1797.

Barnstable, Massachusetts 15 Minute Digital Raster Graphic

This layer is a digital raster graphic of the historic 15-minute USGS topographic quadrangle map of Barnstable, Massachusetts. The edition date is 1893 and the map was reprinted in 1907. A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of the DRG matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The names of quadrangles which border this one appear on the map collar in their respective positions (N,S,E,W) in relation to this map.

Barre, Massachusetts 15 Minute Digital Raster Graphic

This layer is a digital raster graphic of the historic 15-minute USGS topographic quadrangle map of Barre, Massachusetts. The suvery (ground condition) date is 1887, the edition date is March, 1894 and the map was reprinted in 1942. A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of the DRG matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The names of quadrangles which border this one appear on the map collar in their respective positions (N,S,E,W) in relation to this map.

Becket, Massachusetts 15 Minute Digital Raster Graphic

This layer is a digital raster graphic of the historic 15-minute USGS topographic quadrangle map of Becket, Massachusetts. The survey (ground condition) date is 1886. A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of the DRG matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The names of quadrangles which border this one appear on the map collar in their respective positions (N,S,E,W) in relation to this map.

Belchertown, Massachusetts 15 Minute Digital Raster Graphic

This layer is a digital raster graphic of the historic 15-minute USGS topographic map of the Belchertown, Massachusetts quadrangle. The suvey (ground condition) dates are 1885 and 1887; the edition date is November, 1893. A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of the DRG matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The names of quadrangles which border this one appear on the map collar in their respective positions (N,S,E,W) in relation to this map.

Berlin (N.Y.) Massachusetts 15 Minute Digital Raster Graphic

This layer is a digital raster graphic of the historic 15-minute USGS topographic quadrangle map entitled Berlin, (N.Y.) which also shows towns and features in Massachusetts. The survey dates (ground condition) for this map are 1885-88, and the edition date is 1890. A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of the DRG matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The names of quadrangles which border this one appear on the map collar in their respective positions (N,S,E,W) in relation to this map.

Blackstone, Massachusetts 15 Minute Digital Raster Graphic

This layer is a digital raster graphic of the historic 15-minute USGS topographic map of the Blackstone, Massachusetts quadrangle. The survey date (ground condition) of this map is 1886 and the edition date is October, 1893. A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of the DRG matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The names of quadrangles which border this one appear on the map collar in their respective positions (N,S,E,W) in relation to this map.

Boston (1900), Massachusetts 15 Minute Digital Raster Graphic

This layer is a digital raster graphic (DRG) of the historic 15-minute USGS topographic map of the Boston, Massachusetts quadrangle. The survey date (ground condition) of this map ranges from 1898 to 1900, the edition date is July, 1903 and it was reprinted in 1918. A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of the DRG matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The names of quadrangles which border this one appear on the map collar in their respective positions (N,S,E,W) in relation to this map.

Boston North (1943), Massachusetts 15 Minute Digital Raster Graphic

This layer is a digital raster graphic (DRG) of the historic 15-minute USGS topographic map of the Boston North, Massachusetts quadrangle. The survey date (ground condition) of this map is 1943, the edition date is 1946. A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of the DRG matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The names of quadrangles which border this one appear on the map collar in their respective positions (N,S,E,W) in relation to this map.

Boston South (1950), Massachusetts 15 Minute Digital Raster Graphic

This layer is a digital raster graphic (DRG) of the historic 15-minute USGS topographic map of the Boston South, Massachusetts quadrangle. The survey date (ground condition) of this map is 1943, it was revised in 1949 and reprinted with corrections in 1950. A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of the DRG matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The names of quadrangles which border this one appear on the map collar in their respective positions (N,S,E,W) in relation to this map.

Boston Bay (1886), Massachusetts 15 Minute Digital Raster Graphic

This layer is a digital raster graphic of the historic 15-minute USGS topographic map of the Boston Bay, Massachusetts quadrangle. The survey dates (ground condition) dates for this map are 1886 and 1887. This map includes coverage of Cohasset, Hull, Quincy, Marblehead, Lynn, Swampscott and, in general, the coastal areas encompassing Boston Harbor and the larger area of the Bay. The Boston Harbor Islands are also depicted. A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of the DRG matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The names of quadrangles which border this one appear on the map collar in their respective positions (N,S,E,W) in relation to this map.

Boston Bay (1900), Massachusetts 15 Minute Digital Raster Graphic

This layer is a digital raster graphic of the historic 15-minute USGS topographic map of the Boston Bay (1900), Massachusetts quadrangle. The survey date (ground condition) of this map is 1899-1900, the edition date is July 1903, and this map was repinted in 1928. This map includes coverage of Cohasset, Hull, Quincy, Marblehead, Lynn, Swampscott and, in general, the coastal areas encompassing Boston Harbor and the larger area of the Bay. The Boston Harbor Islands are also depicted. A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of the DRG matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The names of quadrangles which border this one appear on the map collar in their respective positions (N,S,E,W) in relation to this map.