Eulogy of George Washington, ca. 1800

This manuscript, which White entitled A faint sketch of the character, history & services of the Immortal Washington, appears to be a draft of the eulogy on Washington that he delivered publicly in Methuen and which was printed by Seth H. Moore and published by in February 1800.

Letter from Henry Ware to William Tudor,

One letter notifying Tudor Harvard's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa had selected him to deliver an oration.

Letter from William Winthrop to William Bentley, 1810 November 24

Two octavo-sized leaves with a two-and-a-half-page handwritten letter from William Winthrop to Bentley responding to a request to return a book, speculating about the identity of Harvard graduate Peter Cutler (Harvard AB 1698), and questioning Bentley about the interests of "F. Moore," likely referring to Francis Moore (1782-1856).

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.

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.

Letters from Timothy Pickering to his brother and father, 1797-1798

These two handwritten letters by Timothy Pickering were written on February 14, 1797 and June 14, 1798 to his brother John Pickering and his father Timothy Pickering, respectively. The letter to his brother, John, discusses mutual friends, classmate Thomas Lee, and John’s recent attendance at a sermon by Dr. Joseph Priestley. The letter from Timothy to his father includes a discussion of Timothy’s expenses and the amount of money needed to pay his debts, a request for new shoes for commencement, the news of Timothy’s invitation to join honor society Phi Beta Kappa, and a few comments on his forensics course at Harvard.