Collection of Harvard College admission form letter and bills sent to Charles Walker and his son Charles Walker, Jr., 1785-1816

This collection consists primarily of quarter bills and butler's bills from Charles Walker and Charles Walker, Jr.'s years as students at Harvard College, from 1785 to 1789 and from 1815-1816. It includes the following materials from Charles Walker: a form of admission (a printed form letter with manuscript annotations and signatures) from August 1785, quarter bills and butler's bills from 1785 to 1789, and occasional receipts of payment. The documents from Charles Walker, Jr. are less numerous, consisting solely of quarter bills from 1815 and 1816. The bills for father and son include annotations explaining the basis of additional or unusual charges, including fines for absence from lectures and prayers. The form used for the son's quarter bills, issued in 1815 and 1816, separate the amounts owed into the following categories: Steward and Commons, Sizings, Study and Cellar Rent, Instruction, Librarian, Natural History, Episcopal Church, Books, Catalogue and Commencement Dinner, Repairs, Sweepers, Assessments for delinquency in payment of Quarter Bills, Wood, and Fines. All of the bills are printed forms which were then filled out by hand, by either the steward or the butler, and issued to the students. Caleb Gannett was the College steward during both father and son's era. Joshua Paine, William Harris, and Thomas Adams served, successively, as butler during the father's era. Some of the butler's bills are signed by Roger Vose, a student who appears to have been employed by the butler in 1786 and 1787.

Clerk's Book, A.D. 1742

Handwritten volume containing the Articles, weekly orations, and clerk's journal for the Harvard Latin Society recorded by the club's clerk, Jonathan Mayhew (Harvard AB 1744). The Articles define the Society's mission as to "improve ourselves in the knowledge of the Latin Tongue." The ten articles are signed to by ten members of the classes of 1743 and 1744. The journal which records the weekly meetings from April 14, 1742 through June 17, 1742 includes a transcription of the weekly oration in Latin; the first two entries are also translated into English. On the last page of the book, the "clerk's journal" provides a summary of each meeting with the date, the moderator, and the orators.

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.”

Papers of Helen Lawrence Appleton Brooks, 1822-1985

Mostly correspondence between family members, beginning with Catherine Lawrence and Charles Appleton, the parents of Helen Brooks. Also records of Brooks' voluntary activities, her diaries and personal writings, and material collected by Grace Norton about Henry James.

Letter from Charles C.B. Thompson to William Tudor,

One letter sent from Valparaiso, Chile, in which Thompson discusses the political situation in that country and his own health.