Ledger for the Classes of 1732-1743, 1728-1749

The volume, bound in a modern green leather binding, contains accounts for the Classes of 1732-1743. The Steward's accounts with Harvard College are interspersed throughout the volume.

Ledger for the Classes of 1795-1804, 1795-1804

The leather bound folio account book kept by Steward Caleb Gannett contains accounts for members of the Classes of 1795-1804, as well as accounts for President Joseph Willard, Tutors, Fellows, and Faculty. The volume also contains the Steward's accounts with the Harvard Treasurer, as well as his "Cash" accounting. The volume does not have the detailed transaction descriptions found in earlier ledgers; both Credit and Debit entries are described as being paid by, or being owed to, cash, balance, sundry accounts, or the Treasury.

Quarter bill book for the Classes of 1770-1787, 1770-1789

Leather hardcover bound volume containing quarter bill tallies for the Classes of 1770-1787 arranged alphabetically and covering the bill period ending on March 9, 1770 through the period ending February 27, 1784. After each quarter's tallies, an additional section provides the totals for all students in each of the categories.

Quarter bill book for the Classes of 1784-1801, 1784-1797

Leather hardcover bound volume containing quarter bill tallies for the Classes of 1784-1801 arranged alphabetically and covering the bill period ending on May 27, 1784 through the period ending on November 23, 1797. After each quarter's tallies, an additional section provides the totals for all students in each of the categories, and "Orders on the above bill" listing individuals, including the Butler and sweepers, paid with the money.

Quarter bill book for the Classes of 1798-1815, 1798-1812

Leather hardcover bound volume containing quarter bill tallies for the Classes of 1798-1815 arranged alphabetically and beginning with the bill period ending on February 22, 1798 through the period ending April 2, 1812. After each quarter's tallies, an additional section lists students delinquent in payment, and provides the totals for all students in each of the categories.

The laws of Harvard College, 1767

Leather hardcover volume containing a draft of the 1767 College Laws with portions crossed out and edited. The volume appears to be a working copy and includes page references in the front of the volume and additional notes inserted between pages.

The Summary of a Course of Experimental Philosophical Lectures, 1746-1747

Leather hardcover notebook containing a handwritten copy of John Winthrop's course of experimental and philosophical lectures presented between March 10, 1746 and June 16, 1746. The first one-hundred pages of the volume are divided into twenty chapters which were presented in thirty-three lectures. The chapters contain text and diagrams on mechanical powers, the lever, the pulley, the axis in peritrochio, the inclined plane, the wedge, the screw, compound engines, the laws of motion, gravity, attraction of cohesion, the power of repulsion, magnetism, fluids, electricity, opticks, and astronomy. There is a five-page addenda to the course summary added in 1747, and a sixty-page text titled "The Method of Astronomical calculations" containing thirteen problems related to calculating distances with a list of astronomical characters, and followed with charts related to the eclipse of Jupiter's satellites.

[Salary of the minister of the first parish of Cambridge for 1792], undated

Small scrap of paper with a handwritten calculation of the January 1792 salary of an unidentified minister, presumably the minister of the first Parish of Cambridge based on lines for "Parsonage" and "Lexington farm fund."

Records of the Geographical Society, ca. 1796

This small blue-covered paper notebook contains four leaves with the handwritten records of the Geographical Society, an undergraduate organization at Harvard in the late 1790s. The records consist of ten handwritten "Laws of the Geographical Society" and a short list of fines dispensed on October 7th. A list of six student surnames is written on a scrap of paper and attached with pins to the notebook's inside front cover. The surnames likely correspond to six members of the Harvard Class of 1798: John Abbot (1777-1854), Isaac Adams (d. 1807), Francis Brigham (d. November 14, 1796), Humphrey Devereux (1779-1867), Joseph Emerson (1777-1833), and Artemas Sawyer (d. 1826). The notebook is undated but was presumably kept in 1795 or 1796 around the time of Brigham's death on November 14, 1796. While Brigham's surname appears in the list of fines, it is crossed out on the inside front cover.

Notebook of Tristram Gilman, 1757-1761

The small volume holds the notebook of Tristram Gilman interleaved on unlined pages in a printed engagement calendar. The original leather cover accompanies the notebook, but is no longer attached. The inside covers of the original leather binding are filled with scribbled words and notes. The volume holds a variety of handwritten notes including account information, transcriptions of biblical passages and related observations, travel information, community news, weather, and astronomy. The volumes does not follow a chronological order, and instead seems to have been repurposed at various times.

Notebook of Obadiah Ayer, 1708-1716

The leather-bound notebook contains academic texts copied by Obadiah Ayer while he was a student at Harvard, and after his graduation in 1710. There is a general index to the included texts at the end of the volume.

Student notebook of Samuel Dunbar, 1721-1722

This leather-bound volume contains substantial transcriptions copied by Samuel Dunbar from textbooks while he was a student at Harvard in 1721 and 1722. There is a general index to texts at the end of the volume. Dunbar's notebook provides a window into the state of higher education in the eighteenth century and offers a firsthand account of academic life at Harvard College. Notably, he often indicated the number of days spent copying texts into his book.

Diary and commonplace book of Peres Fobes, 1759-1760

The diary and commonplace book of Perez Fobes is written on unlined pages in a notebook with a sewn binding at the top of the pages; only the edge of the original leather softcover remain. The volume holds handwritten entries added irregularly from August 23, 1759 until December 1760 while Fobes was a student at Harvard College. The topics range from the irreverent, to the mundane, to the theological and scientific. The notebook serves to chronicle both his daily activities, such as books he read, lectures he attended, and travel, as well as a place to note humorous sayings, transcribe book passages, or ponder religious ideas such as original sin. In the volume, Fobes devotes considerable space to the subject of astronomy, and drew a picture of the "The Solar System Serundum Coper[nici] with the Or[bit] of 5 Remarkable Comets." At the back of the book, on unattached pages is a short personal dictionary for the letters A-K kept by Fobes.

Some account of a paper call'd the Telltale, begun in colledge Sept 1721

The small leather-bound volume holds two sections, a manuscript student periodical, and written tête-bêche, an exchange on smallpox inoculation followed by notes on the rules and activities of a Harvard College student club. The volume begins with thirteen numbered manuscript issues, written in one hand, of the Tell-Tale running from September 9, 1721 to November 1, 1721. Prefaced, "This paper was entitl'd the Telltale or Criticisms on the Conversation & Beheavour of Scholars to promote right reasoning & good manner," the work is modeled after literary periodicals of the time, including the "Spectator," and is considered the oldest student publication at Harvard. The periodical appears to have circulated in manuscript form. The content varies in format and includes letters between Telltale and correspondents, short essays, and advertisements. Topics discussed include conversation, detraction, and flattery. While not specifically about Harvard it does provide some information about the College including evidence of various student activities and organizations at Harvard in the 1720s. The entry explaining the rules of the Telltale Club is heavily faded and nearly illegible. The Telltale records multiple dreams, which are populated by various characters, such as “beautiful” Kate, two “learned Physicians” debating inoculation, “four Fellows” “pushing and shoving one another,” and a “person of a very Dark & swarthy complexion in a Slovenly Dress with 7 patches & 5 sparks on his Face.”

Commonplace book of Jonathan Belcher, 1725-1727

This leather-bound volume contains excerpts copied by Jonathan Belcher from books he read while he was a student at Harvard. The excerpts come from a variety of sources including periodicals and contemporary publications. The inside cover has Belcher's bookplate with the motto, "Sustine. Abstine." The back cover has some additional personal information including reference to French lessons with "Mr Law Merciers," and notes of the dates when he began certain books/essays.