Letters from John Leighton Tuttle to William Tudor,

Two letters describing the social and cultural atmosphere in Amherst and Northampton, Massachusetts.

Letters from John Thornton Kirkland to William Tudor,

One letter regarding a stone chapel being built at Harvard, and one letter providing biographical information on James Otis.

Letters from William Tudor to John Thornton Kirkland,

Four letters written from Birmingham, England, in which Tudor suggests changes to Harvard’s grounds and facilities, hiring practices for tutors, and university publications. He also alludes to the War of 1812.

Letters from William Tudor to John Thornton Kirkland,

Four letters written from Boston regarding plans to establish a new literary periodical, the North American Review. Tudor asks Kirkland to contribute to the periodical and describes plans to establish a lecture series at the Boston Athenaum.

Letters from William Tudor to John Thornton Kirkland,

Six letters written from Boston mainly discussing Tudor’s efforts to obtain content for the North American Review and printing deadlines.

Letters from William Tudor to John Thornton Kirkland,

Five letters mainly regarding the status of the North American Review. Tudor asks Kirkland to submit content and also inquires whether the Review could be made an official publication of Harvard. Other topics include a project to unite the libraries of local literary institutions and create a classification scheme, and the defense of Harvard’s Unitarian principles.

Letters from William Tudor to John Thornton Kirkland,

Four letters regarding the North American Review, as well as Tudor’s request to be considered for a position as Smith Professor of French and Spanish Languages and Literature at Harvard.

Letters from William Lee to William Tudor,

Five letters in which Lee relays his efforts to obtain a political appointment for Tudor from President James Monroe. He also reports on the activities of Tudor’s brother-in-law, Charles Stewart, and a meeting between John Quincy Adams and Tudor’s brother-in-law, Robert Hallowell Gardiner.

Letter from John Lowell to William Tudor,

One letter regarding a report from Tudor’s brother, Frederic, on piracy, and Lowell’s thoughts on the North American Review and domestic politics.

Letter from John Pickering to William Tudor,

One letter explaining his decision to decline membership in the Anthology Society, critiquing Rees’s Cyclopaedia, and discussing the North American Review.

Letter from John Collins Warren to William Tudor,

One letter inviting Tudor to his wedding to Susan Powell Mason, daughter of their mutual friend, Jonathan Mason.

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.

Collection of Harvard College quarter bill and butler's bills sent to Charles Davis, 1793-1796

This collection consists of one quarter bill and three butler's bills, all sent to Charles Davis while he was an undergraduate at Harvard College. The quarter bill is from August 1795 and the butler's bills are from February and November 1793 and July 1796. John Pipon and Timothy Alden were the butlers at this time, and Caleb Gannett was the steward (responsible for the quarter bill).