Manuscript copy of the book of Harvard, 1767

Handwritten copy of the Book of Harvard written on one large sheet of paper and signed Boston, January 10th, 1767.

Memorandum Concerning the Holyoke Bowl, 1904 June 14

One-page typed document reflecting the donation of the Holyoke Caudle Cup by Charlotte A. Hedge in 1903. Provenance information is also included. There is a handwritten note at the bottom of the page regarding the cup’s inclusion in an exhibition catalog published by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

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.

" Lines upon the late proceedings of the College Government" collection, 1787-1917

This collection contains various manifestations of a humorous poem, most often called "Lines upon the late proceedings of the College Government," written by classmates John Quincy Adams and John Murray Forbes in 1787. Both Adams and Forbes were members of the class of 1787, and the poem recounts events surrounding the pranks and ensuing punishment of two members of the class behind them, Robert Wier and James Prescott. Wier and Prescott had been caught drinking wine and making "riotous noise," and they were publicly reprimanded by Harvard President Joseph Willard and several professors and tutors, including Eliphalet Pearson, Eleazar James, Jonathan Burr, Nathan Read, and Timothy Lindall Jennison. The poem mocks these authority figures, but it spares Samuel Williams, whom it suggests was the only professor to find their antics humorous.

Receipt book of Francis Kittredge, 1780

Contains instructions for preparing and administering medicine for adults and children, and generalized uses for certain ingredients, written by Dr. Francis Kittredge. Preparations include ointment for scurvy, bone ointment, nerve ointments, procedures to soothe a sore mouth and to stop excessive bleeding, and treatment to kill worms. The materials used to prepare bone ointment include fresh butter, hog fat, chamomile, garlic, and night shade, among other ingredients. The recipe for “simple nerve ointment” instructs the preparer to simmer half a pint of neet foot oil, a pint of rum, and one jell of oil of turpentine over a “gentle fire.” Kittredge writes that oil of St. John’s Wort is effective in treating swelling of the legs, for cold and aches, and for burning and scalds, while oil of Elderflower is indicated for belly aches. The manuscript is housed in a binding created by the Harvard Medical School library. Tipped into the binding is one letter from Frederick O. West, M.D., Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, that accompanied his donation of the Kittredge receipt book to the library in 1919. There is also one letter of unknown provenance enclosed with the receipt book, which contains an inventory of the estate of Antipas Brigham, of Grafton, Massachusetts, signed by Worcester County Judge Joseph Wilder on 7 November 1749. It is unclear if this letter has any connection to Frederick O. West or Francis Kittredge.