Subscription for John Wadsworth Monument, 1801 October 10

Handwritten document acknowledging the receipt of money by Caleb Gannett from a subscription drive to erect a monument for Harvard tutor John Wadsworth who died in 1777 and was buried in the Cambridge burying ground. The document is signed by fourteen individuals and lists their contributions.

Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1801 February 12

Two folio-sized leaves containing a one-and-a-half-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley discussing lunar tables, plans to publish, and a recent gem acquisition. The letter ends, "So Adams is OUT," referring to United States President John Adams's reelection defeat.

Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1801 July 21

Two octavo-sized leaves containing a one-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley with a brief reference to the skill of Mexican metal craftsmanship.

Letter from William Winthrop to William Bentley, 1801 January 14

Two leaves with a two-page handwritten letter from William Winthrop to Bentley discussing biographical questions about Harvard alumni Joseph Browne (AB 1666), James Bayley (AB 1669), and Joseph Gerrish (AB 1700).

Letter from Samuel Willard, Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to William Willard and Katherine Willard, Petersham, Massachusetts, April 4, 1801

Willard informs his parents of the death of Deacon Fairbank. He assures them that on his return to Cambridge, he was “received with great apparent cordiality both by the government + the president’s family.” He also reports on the health of President Willard, whose health has improved. Willard concludes the letter by asking for money to pay his expenses.

Letter from Samuel Willard, Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Catherine Willard, Petersham, Massachusetts, May 1, 1801

Willard alludes to a situation regarding his father and praises him profusely.

Letter from Samuel Willard, Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Abigail Willard, Petersham, Massachusetts, May 1, 1801

Willard thanks his sister for writing to him and asks her to write as often as possible. He also mentions his cousin Sophia Chadwick, who has been living with President Willard.

Letter from Samuel Willard, Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Catherine Willard, Petersham, Massachusetts, June 26, 1801

Willard discusses various articles of clothing.

Letter from Samuel Willard, Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to William Willard, Petersham, Massachusetts, October 16, 1801

Willard reports on President Willard’s travels and general well-being and asks his father to apologize to his sister for not writing to her often enough. He also tells his father that he is in debt, details his purchases, and asks for money.

Letter from Josiah Quincy to Francis Sales, 1835 October 12

Brief one-page handwritten letter to Francis Sales from Harvard President Josiah Quincy that accompanied the diploma for Sales's honorary master's degree.

Letter from Frances Sales to Josiah Quincy, 1835 October 22

One-page handwritten letter thanking President Quincy for his October 12, 1835 message and accompanying diploma. The document is pasted on the verso of a sheet also holding Sales's 1854 letter of resignation (HUG 1763 Box 1, Folder 3, Item 2).

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.

Massachusetts, 1801 (Raster Image)

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of the historic paper map entitled: Map of Massachusetts proper, by Osgood Carleton ; engraved by Joseph Callender and Samuel Hill. It was published by B. & J. Loring in 1801. Scale [1:253,400]. The image inside the map neatline is georeferenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Massachusetts State Plane Coordinate System, Mainland Zone (in Feet) (Fipszone 2001). All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, or other information associated with the principal map. This map shows features such as roads, bridges, academies, meeting houses, court houses, drainage, mountains, iron ore deposits, coastal navigational hazards, state, county, and town boundaries, distances of individual towns from Boston and the shire towns, and more. Relief is shown pictorially. Includes illustrative cartouche. This layer is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps of Massachusetts from the Harvard Map Collection. These maps typically portray both natural and manmade features. The selection represents a range of regions, originators, ground condition dates (1755-1922), scales, and purposes. The digitized selection includes maps of: the state, Massachusetts counties, town surveys, coastal features, real property, parks, cemeteries, railroads, roads, public works projects, etc.