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.

Notes about cases heard as Justice of the Peace, 1784-1795

This small paper-bound notebook contains notes Winthrop made concerning the cases he heard between 1784 and 1795 as a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County. These notes provide insight into the nature of crimes being committed in Cambridge in the post-Revolutionary period, as well as the names and occupations of those accused and their victims. The cases involved the following individuals, among others: Samuel Bridge, Benjamin Estabrook, Joseph Jeffords, Cato Bordman, John Kidder, Spenser Goddin, Jacob Cromwell, Benjamin Stratton, Mary Flood, Bender Temple, John Willett, Joseph Hartwell, Nathaniel Stratton, Amos Washburn, Francis Moore, Thomas Malone, Thomas Cook, and Amboy Brown. The cases involved a range of offenses, and occasionally Winthrop decided that a case exceeded his jurisdiction and forwarded it to the General Court or the Supreme Judicial Court.

Letter from Francis Dana to Samuel Langdon, 1780 January 19

This one-page letter from Harvard alumnus Francis Dana (1743-1811; Harvard AB 1762), in Bilbao, Spain, to Harvard President Samuel Langdon concerns the donation of a Spanish book by Dana to the College Library.

[Form of Admission of Francis Oliver (Harvard AB 1795)], 1791 August 19-20

Printed certificate of admission for undergraduate Francis J. Oliver certified by Steward Caleb Gannett on August 19, 1791 and signed by President Joseph Willard on August 20, 1791.

List of books donated by Francis Bernard, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, undated

Bracketed annotation made by John Langdon Sibley in Feb. 1842: "The books on this & the three succeeding pages, I find on examination, to have been given by Gov. Bernard." On the fourth page, presumably also in 1842, Sibley wrote: "This is a list of donations by Gov. Bernard, & not by Hollis."