This commonplace book was compiled by Eliza Howe Evertson Saltus in the mid-nineteenth century and passed on to her son Edgar Saltus. The volume contains clippings of poetry, short stories, news, and local events taken from various sources as well as handwritten notes and passages from various works such as Hamlet and the Bible.

This mid-nineteenth-century American commonplace book was created by Eleanor Peale Jacobs (1805-1877) of Philadelphia and New York, with contributions from various friends and members of the artistic Peale family, who copied extracts of poetry and prose throughout. The volume also contains calligraphic writing and several ink and watercolor illustrations.