This series contains manuscripts of sermons or sermon notes written by various New England ministers. Each is accompanied by Gay's brief biographical sketch of the author.

This subseries consists of the correspondence and research notes of John Taylor (1781-1864), author and partner in the publishing firm Taylor and Hessey of London. The papers are related to Taylor's research for his 1816 book The Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Character Established, in which he claims that British politician Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818) was the author of Letters of Junius, a series of letters published in British newspapers that were deeply critical of the administration of George III.

Papers include bills, receipts, and accounts related to Simeon Stoddard, Samuel Welles, Andrew Oliver, and others; a 1762 letter from Timothy Allen regarding land grant petitions; and an undated survey of land lots near New Milford, Conn.

This small book of medical remedies was compiled by physician Zerobabel Endecott of Salem, Mass., the son of Gov. John Endecott. It contains remedies for various ailments including worms, sprains, kidney stones, scurvy, coughs, back pain, skull fractures, and breast cancer; and recipes for pills, balms, ointments, and the preparation of opium. A transcript of this volume was published in 1914 by George Francis Dow as Synopsis Medicinae: Or, A Compendium of Galenical and Chymical Physick, Showing the Art of Healing According to the Precepts of Galen and Paracelus. Fitted Universally to the Whole Art of Healing.

John Lake's student notebook contains a copy of Increase Mather's "Catechismus Logicus," a Latin logic catechism that Mather wrote in 1675 for Harvard students to copy and memorize. It also includes copies of the Ramist text "Aurea Delineatio Verd Logica Sine Dialectica Richardsono Ramea." Lake's attribution of the text to "C. M." (Crescentius Matherus) led a 19th-century owner of the volume to incorrectly attribute it to Cotton Mather.

The copyist of this notebook of excerpts from Latin texts and verses was most likely Joseph Sewall (1688-1769), the son of Judge Samuel Sewall and later, minister of Old South Church in Boston.

Entries describe Miller's journey from Boston to London, including winds and general sailing conditions, where he received his M.A. from Oxford and was ordained in the Church of England. Miller also notes the sermons he preached in London, his marriage to Martha Mottram on 16 November, and other memoranda. Miller would return to Massachusetts to become the minister of Christ Church in Braintree (now Quincy) in 1727.

Written by British lawyer Joseph Bennett about his visit to New England in 1740, this manuscript volume is entitled "An Abstracted Historicall Account of that part of America which is now called New-England, to which I have added the History of our Voyage there to Anno Domini 1740." The manuscript includes accounts of Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Salem witchcraft trials, but also includes contemporary observations of Native American culture and dress, American food, buildings, and forms of government as well as a detailed description of Bennett's voyage from England to Boston. According to one of several annotations in the volume, it may have remained unpublished because of its mention of American political opposition to British government.

This volume contains manuscript copies of "documents from the Archives Coloniales, Paris, relating to Louisbourg," and consists of transcripts (written in French) of correspondence, manuscript maps, and accounts dated from 1745 to 1753. Included are a 1753 account of Isle Royal maritime commerce including the cod fishery and trade, as well as several 1891 printed maps of Cape Breton and Louisbourg.

Written in several different hands, these folios contain accounts related to warehouses and shops on Long Wharf in Boston, including accounts for sundries, wine, rum, and hemp seed, as well as rental payments. Various notes and memoranda are also included.

These three volumes consist of diary entries, personal accounts, and anecdotes kept in interleaved almanacs by Rev. William Smith (1707-1783), pastor of the First (Congregational) Church of Weymouth, Mass., and father of Abigail Adams. Entries include brief mentions of daily activities or events, accounts related to farming, and ministerial duties such as marriages performed. The 1758 volume includes a draft of a subscription to help his neighbor John Torrey rebuild his barn. The 1768 volume largely consists of stories and anecdotes related to politicians and religious figures. Also included is a copy of Smith's 1768 letter requesting payment for boarding the Weymouth schoolmaster.

The 1782 volume includes a memorandum on the national debt, records of Smith's 1782 salary, and a copy of Smith's letter to the First Parish of Weymouth asking that it honor his salary contract of 1734.

This volume contains the 1758 bankruptcy settlement of Hugh Vans (1699-1763), a prominent Boston merchant. It includes a list of Vans's household furniture and books and the amount received for each item in a bankruptcy sale.

This volume contains a list of British Royal Navy vessels in service from 1774 to 1791, including the ships' dimensions, tonnage, the number of men and guns it carried, and where and when it was built. The list also includes information about captured French and Spanish ships, and ships that had been lost at sea. The list's compiler is unknown.

Written in an interleaved almanac, this diary includes accounts, a farm journal, memoranda about government securities, a recipe to prepare beef, and a mention of a small earthquake on 29 Nov. Danton also transcribed a newspaper article about inequality of representation versus taxation among the states. Several loose tax receipts found in the diary suggest that Danton may be from Braintree.

This diary was kept by Ezekiel Price, Jr. while living in Hadley, Mass. Entries describe sleeping and dining at friends' houses, church attendance, "tending store," travels to various towns in Massachusetts and to Dartmouth College, weather, and daily activities.

A Boston teacher, Daniel Staniford (1768-1820) was the author of textbooks including A Short but Comprehensive Grammar (1797), The Art of Reading (1802), The Elements of English Grammar (1815), and Practical Arithmetic and a Short System of Book-Keeping (1818). Staniford's volumes in this series include an English grammar notebook written at Harvard, where he graduated in 1790. It contains notes on the rules of English grammar, including parts of speech, rules for constructing pronouns, and conjunctions.

Staniford's "Introduction to the Art of Gunnery" contains mathematical definitions and sample problems for calculating altitude, elevation, and distance. It also includes tables of velocities, weights of various metals, diameters of French shot, information on making different kinds of fuses, calculations for artillery powder, and transportation for traveling forges and ammunition wagons.

Copybooks contain a manuscript copy of Cicero's Oration for Deiotarus, several speeches by Demosthenes, and an Italian manuscript entitled The Tragic Death of Sig. Perodi. The identification of the copyist is unknown.

This volume is the ledger of Dr. William Aspinwall of Brookline containing names and addresses of his patients and a description of medical services performed. Short notes on payments for visits or medicines are included.

This series of volumes belonged to the family of Freese Dearborn (1778-1862), a merchant and shopkeeper of Exeter, N.H. Volume 4 is a day book listing the commercial transactions of the Folsom and Derbon [sic] Company, a general store that Dearborn owned with Thomas Folsom, selling tobacco, tea, eggs, lemons, rum, cloth, buttons, and other groceries and sundries. It includes lists of customers, their purchases, and their daily transactions. Volume 5 is also a day book, written in the same hand. In addition to sundries and dry goods, it also lists fees for boarding, labor, and taxes. Volume 6 is a ledger for Dearborn's business, listing individual customers, their purchases, and their payments.

Volume 7 was used for several different purposes. It is a day book for an Exeter, N.H. business from Jan. 1838 to March 1837, although not written in Freese Dearborn's hand. As a scrapbook it holds receipts, ephemera, and newspaper clippings dating from 1836 to 1881. Many later newspaper articles chronicle political, religious, and historical happenings, particularly in Boston, Salem, Mass., and Exeter N.H. Genealogical records include family vital statistics from 1657 to the 1850s. Finally, the volume contains the June to August 1881 diary of Dr. George W. Dearborn discussing daily life and activities in Exeter, as well as current events and the history of the region.

This volume includes a manuscript copy of the 1814 Act of Incorporation for the Linum and Duck Manufacturing Company of Lynn, Mass. and the company's bylaws. Also included are records of the meetings of the proprietors and stockholders from 1814 until 1819. Owned by Joseph R. Newell and Amos Binney, the company incorporated to spin flax and hemp with a machine called a "linum spinner."

This subseries contains account books, ledgers, and receipt books kept by Benjamin Knight (1767-1843) in his official capacity as customs collector for the Marblehead, Mass. district, which also included the port of Lynn. A portion of volume 12 includes the diary of Benjamin's son, William Knight (b. 1794).

This volume is an 1896 manuscript copy of the memoir of Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy Waterston (1812-1899), which she wrote in April 1886. The youngest daughter of Boston mayor, U.S. representative, and Harvard president Josiah Quincy, and the wife of Boston clergyman Robert Cassie Waterston, Anna authored several books and pamphlets including Verses (1863). She begins her memoir with vivid and detailed childhood memories in Quincy, Mass., including frequent visits from John Adams and John Quincy Adams and a visit from President James Monroe. She recalls attending the funeral of John Adams, as well as family trips to Niagara and New York, as well as books she read. The memoir ends with a description of her first ball on 31 Dec. 1829 at the Exchange Coffee House in Boston. Editor Beverly Wilson Palmer refers to this autobiographical sketch in the introduction to A Woman's Wit and Whimsy: The 1833 Diary of Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy (Boston, 2003).

This volume is a bound prayer book or language exercise book by an unidentified writer. Psalms I-VII are written in Hebrew and translated into English, with notations and explanations of the Hebrew alphabet and language for use in translation.