MSS 0097. Diaries, Journals, & Ships' Logs

This volume, entitled “Court Blotter No. 2,” contains the handwritten record of Philadelphia County Court proceedings and testimony from March 21-31, 1829. It includes case titles, lists of defendants and witnesses, descriptions of crimes, testimony, summations, and verdicts.

This weather diary kept by an unknown resident of Phildelphia, Pennsylvania, contains daily entries, June 1, 1836, to July 31, 1842, recording the temperature and wind direction along with brief comments on the weather. There are monthly rain measurements for 1825 through 1842 recorded "as per gauge kept at the Pennsylvania Hospital" as well as newsclippings documenthing especially severe weather events.

This manuscript recipe book was created by Augusta W. Pinkus of Long Island, New York, between 1916 and 1923.

This diary was kept by writer Maria Louise Pool of Brooklyn, New York, for the year 1873. Entries center predominantly around Pool's domestic and social life, the weather, and her ongoing projects involving the writing of fiction.

This diary was kept by an Irish Protestant between January 1, 1847 and September 9, 1849, who described the potato famine and other turmoil in Ireland.

This diary was kept by Anna M. Potts of Chester County, Pennsylvania, between January 1, 1860, and February 20, 1861. Potts recorded information related to the weather, illness and death, social visits, her servants, daily work and domestic details, and her Quaker faith.

In these two journal volumes, Henry C. Pratt recorded his travels through southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey in 1825 and his voyages as Surgeon’s Mate in the United States Navy between 1826 and 1828.

This diary was written by an unknown author in the town of Quincy, Massachusetts, in the early 19th century. The two volumes comprising the diary incude lengthy and detailed entries on business transcations, home life, and social events.

Titled "Receipts for dyeing wool and woolen cloths," this manuscript book of receipts is attributed to John Rauch, dated 1814.

This 1830s-era booklet belonged to an unknown individual associated with the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and contains recipes for lotions, pills, inks, dyes, mouthwashes, plasters, ointments, and other substances for everyday use. It also contains treatments for several medical conditions including whooping cough, drunkenness, dysentery, and toothache.

Although the compiler of this late nineteenth-century manuscript recipe book is unknown, in many instances, names and dates are attributed to the entries. The majority of the recipes in the volume are, as the title suggests, desserts and baked goods such as cakes, puddings, and breads. The remaining entries can be categorized as main dishes or medicinal receipts for treating various illnesses and conditions.

This single volume manuscript, dated 1823-1837, likely created by Mary C. Richards of Lewes, Delaware, functioned primarily as a mathematical and accounting exercise book, but also includes a brief daybook, two ledgers, and memoranda at the end.

Journal kept by Robert Possac Rogers aboard the ship Franklin documenting the voyage from Boston to Rio de Janeiro between October 5, 1842, and November 26, 1842.

The travel journal of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, tinsmith J. Hall Rohrman describes in very detailed language an 1860 trip to Missouri and travels within eastern Pennsylvania from 1871 to 1872. Three religious writings, presumably by Rohrman, have been inserted into the journal.

In this manuscript, entitled “Cours Théoriques de Tissage et de Broderie,” creator Léon Roux described the different methods of weaving and embroidering textiles as well as the patterns one could achieve by employing these techniques. The volume was created in 1902-1903.

This manuscript volume is a student thesis or weaving manual prepared by J. Savey, apparently a student of Professeur F. Brocard, for a course at the École de la Salle Commerciale et Industrielle in Lyon, France, in 1914-1915. Savey’s manuscript reflects a mastering of the mechanical aspects of looms and weaving and includes 180 colorful fabric swatches illustrating patterns and finishes.

This copybook, presumably owned by John Saxon, possibly of Boston, Massachusetts, was used to practice penmanship. It also contains pasted-in newspaper clippings on the topics of farming, flowers, handwriting, frogs, Civil War battles, and women.

This journal was created by Thomas Scattergood (1748-1814), a Quaker minister, pioneer of mental health reform, and early advocate for the creation of Friends Asylum (later Friends Hospital) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It describes his travels to various Quaker Meetings in New Jersey and New York between 1789 and 1792.

These two manuscript notebooks are workbooks of geometric drawings and apparel pattern designs created by Emma D. Schall while she was a student at the Frauenarbeitschule Reutlingen in Reutlingen, Germany, in the late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century.

This album of poems belonged to Delaware resident Caroline Shaw and contains excerpts from the romantic poets and original poems by friends. Some poems are signed and dated at Newark, Delaware, New Castle, Delaware, New York, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The volume also contains laid-in engravings and watercolor illustrations.

Ship's log for the ship Herald documenting two whaling voyages out of Stonington, Connecticut, between September 12, 1843, and August 10, 1845.

Partial ship's log kept by a crew member aboard the bark Jenny Pitts describing the voyage from Galway, Ireland, to Chincha Island, Peru, between April 16, 1862, and November 10, 1862.

These three manuscripts are the seventh, tenth, and twelfth of twelve journal volumes created by a young Englishwoman named Emily Shore (1819-1839). Shore wrote these journals between October 1836 and July 1839, while she traveled around southern England, the Channel Islands, and Madeira, before dying of tuberculosis in Funchal, Madeira.

This manuscript essay describes the legal history of slavery in England, focusing especially on the precedents for and limitations of the 1772 Somerset vs. Stewart decision.

This travel diary written by Edward F. Smith documents his 1869 journey from Dubuque, Iowa, to Omaha, Nebraska, and further west along the Platte River. The journal also served as a commonplace book and features handwritten quotes and poems, assorted facts, sketches, handwriting exercises, records of financial transactions, and debts owed.