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Ballard's Valley and Berry Hill Penn were plantations in St. Mary's Parish, Jamaica. The records prior to 1837 document plantation operations and finances, and include details on enslaved persons and apprentices at the two plantations. Later papers include letters from managers of the estate to the owners describing crop conditions, potential land sales and leases, the end of the apprenticeship system in 1838, the importation of Chinese laborers in 1846, sugar traders' reaction to the repeal of the corn laws in that year, and plans for the erection of a Church of England chapel in 1848.

ALS. Introduces Benjamin Rush and Jonathan Potts. Refers to inquiries into Swinton's lands in New Jersey, made on his behalf by Franklin's son, William, then Governor of New Jersey.

ALS relating to financial matters.

Ledger of an unknown merchant in New Bern, N.C. Transactions appear chronologically by account holder, and reflect the sale of general merchandise, such as cloth and clothing, food, rum, seed, pitch, tar, and turpentine. Accounts were settled with either cash or goods. Formerly known as Anonymous ledger C, 1767-1776.

Joseph Clay was a businessman, slave trader, and politician in Savannah, Georgia, during the late 18th century. The Joseph Clay papers consist of a few letters and legal documents related to or written by Joseph Clay, including one referring briefly to the acquisition of two enslaved men from Jamaica, and an unbound volume of depositions regarding the seizure of the brigantine Bachelor, suspected of supplying British troops in South Carolina in late 1782.

Collection contains mainly letters (mostly between 1850-1869) to members of the Sheek family of North Carolina, from relatives who had migrated to Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Texas. The letters concern religion in the West, economic conditions, farming on the frontier, Texas during the 1840s-1860s, sectional strife, Civil War experiences, and conditions in the Confederacy and after the war.

Bryant Bennett was a merchant and planter residing in Williamston, North Carolina (in Martin County). This collection contains correspondence and papers of Bryant Bennett and of his family. Included are mercantile accounts of the firms of Bennett and Hyman in Williamston, N.C. and of Bennett and Price in Hamilton (both places in Martin County), school letters from a normal school in Oxford, North Carolina, deeds, promissory notes, receipts for land sold for taxes, plantation account books containing household and farm accounts, lists of slaves and supplies issued to them, business records dealing with the marketing of cotton at Norfolk, Virginia, agricultural treatises by one S. W. Outterbridge of Martin County, and letters to Bennett after he had moved to Plymouth, North Carolina, in 1869.

James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford and 9th Earl of Balcarres, was a British astronomer, politician, and noted collector of books and manuscripts. Lindsay inherited a considerable library from his father, but during his lifetime he assembled the Bibliotheca Lindesiana, one of the largest private libraries of the nineteenth century. In the 1880s, Lindsay’s fortunes suffered and he was forced to sell much of his rare book library, although he continued to collect proclamations, broadsides, and manuscripts of the French Revolutionary era. After Lindsay’s death, his heirs auctioned off most of what remained of his collections, including his French manuscripts. Collection consists of selected letters, administrative papers, and other manuscripts, chiefly of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, that bear the bookplate and previously formed part of the Bibliotheca Lindesiana, the private library of James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford. Lindsay's collection of French manuscripts was auctioned off by Sotheby's between 1924 and 1925 and a small portion was acquired by Duke in 1960. Duke's collection represents a very small fraction of Lindsay's original collection and consists chiefly of manuscripts, with typed transcripts in French, that document various aspects of civil administration including letters from the prefects of various departments, letters from government ministers, and several letters addressed to Comte Collin de Sussy, Minister of Commerce and Manufacturing, and the Comte d'Antraigues. Other materials in the collection include letters in English from French elites to British nobility, such as to the Duke of York, and letters from French aristocrats to government officials. Examples include a letter addressed to Napoleon Bonaparte from Arnoud Joubert, a lawyer at the imperial court of Paris, discussing the possibility of receiving a medal of honor, and a letter from Cardinal Albani to Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, requesting the Emperor's protection from French authorities. The collection also includes some manuscripts and engravings acquired separately that do not bear the Bibliotheca Lindesiana bookplate.

Scholar, educator, and author of Charlottesville (Albemarle Co.), Virginia. Correspondence, notes, diaries, and literary works of George Frederick Holmes. Also contains correspondence of William Howard Perkinson, educator and son-in-law of Holmes; and of Joseph Henry Herndon Holmes and Mary Ann Pemberton Holmes, parents of George Frederick Holmes. Early papers of Joseph and Mary Holmes concern their life in Demerara, British Guyana, where Joseph Holmes was a barrister, and include legal papers, poems, and a genealogy. The papers of their son, George Frederick, a professor at the University of Virginia, include correspondence, diaries, articles, literary works, and notes, and relate to his interests in philology, grammar, history, political science and economics, and to Southern colleges and universities. The papers of William Howard Perkinson are confined to a few records of his work as a professor of Latin and Greek at the University of Virginia, a few business papers, and records of the administration of his father-in-law's estate.

Planter, state legislator, and U.S. Representative, from Lawrenceville (Brunswick Co.), Va. Papers of G. C. Dromgoole, son Edward Dromgoole, and other members of the Dromgoole family, including the papers of Richard B. Robinson, George's nephew by marriage. George's papers concern family, business, and political matters and include a large number of letters dealing with plantation work and the management of slaves; items on the Democratic Party before the Civil War; and letters from Edward when he was a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Richard B. Robinson's papers include correspondence, business papers, and a daybook. Edward Dromgooles papers deal largely with legal and business matters and contain plantation records, accounts of cotton sales, and letters from tenants after the Civil War, and from a student at the Virginia Military Institute in the 1870s. The collection also includes Brunswick County, Va., legal records, including justice of the peace, county, and Circuit Court minutes, orders, summonses, warrants, and depositions. There are volumes, including daybooks, plantation books, an account book for the estate of Thomas Dromgoole, and a description of Edward Dromgoole's home and family genealogy.

Autograph letter and prescriptions, signed. Pringle writes to the Earl of Buchan regarding Buchan's work on right-handedness.

Collection consists almost entirely of photocopies of documents held in the Public Records Office (London) originally belonging to James Rogers, Bristol, England, a merchant, ship owner, and slave trader who engaged in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The material, dating from 1768-1794, largely consists of incoming correspondence, bills of sale, receipts, and other items related to ships' voyages and trading activities. Many of these voyages were for the purpose of acquiring and trading enslaved laborers from Africa. A paper guide to the collection created by the donor of the collection and available to researchers includes descriptions of most of the ships' voyages.

Although filed under the name Leckie, the collection primarily consists of the papers of two individuals: W. Robert Leckie, and his son-in-law, William Hendrick. The papers of Leckie, who was educated in Scotland, are concerned with construction of public buildings, canals, arsenals, aqueducts, fortifications, masonry of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and surveying and building of walls in the District of Columbia. The papers of Hendrick and those of his wife, after his death, constitute a long record of the sales of plantation products and the purchase of supplies from commission merchants in Petersburg, Virginia, and the operation of a series of corn and grain farms.

Lawyer, political leader, ironmaster, railroad promoter, and banker, of Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. Correspondence and business papers reflecting the major part played by Bell and his family in the economic development of central Pennsylvania and other areas. Among the subjects dealt with are the building of internal improvements, the charcoal iron industry in the Juniata Valley, land titles and speculation, and early growth of the Pennsylvania Railroad under J. Edgar Thomson and others, tariff bills, the economic cycle of booms and depressions, the evolution of the monetary and banking system, telegraph companies, coal mining, Lake Superior copper mining, and Bell's active interest in Whig and Republican Party politics. Papers of the Civil War period illustrate the impact of the conflict on the business community in the North, and on the people of Pennsylvania during Confederate raids and invasions. Some papers relate to tests of Pennsylvania iron made at the Washington Navy Yard by Captain Dahlgren, to Bell's service as agent of Jay Cooke in floating Federal loans in Pennsylvania, and to the effect of the war on the banking system. Included are two early railroad broadsides from Bellefontaine and Indiana Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad (1856 and 1867).

Eleanor "Elly" Elliott was a women's rights activist, a board member of NOW's Legal Defense and Education Fund, a Barnard College Board Member, served on the National Advisory Council on Women's Educational Programs and was an editor at Vogue magazine. These materials consist of personal papers from the Elliott family and administrative files from Elliott's work in various women's rights organizations and philanthropic activities. It also includes photographs, scrapbooks and some audio/visual materials.

The family of Joseph Ingram Sr. owned a plantation in Anson Country, North Carolina in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The collection contains family and business papers, legal records and correspondence of Joseph Ingram, Joseph's son Dr. Eben Nelms Ingram, and various other members of the Ingram family. The collection also contains legal records and business papers of Thomas Chiles Jr., dating between 1790 and 1820. The bulk of the collection belongs to the first half of the nineteenth century and includes materials pertaining to the cotton industry, cider, brandy, slavery, transportation, and social and economic conditions in Anson and surrounding counties in North and South Carolina along the Pee Dee River.

Merchant and plantation owner of Charleston, S.C., later of Philadelphia, Pa. Collection comprises business and family correspondence, accounts, and receipts, including papers related to several of Hamilton's business partnerships (dating mainly from 1785 to 1818) and numerous private transactions, including purchases of slaves (1784-1785, 1801, 1808). There also are papers from voyages of ships in which he had a major interest, including routes to India, the Mediterranean, and the West Indies. The collection concludes with accounts and records related to the settlement of his estate from 1832 to 1870.

Fragment of an ALS, dated 1769, Aug. 16, Edinburgh, and a holograph manuscript in an anonymous hand with biographical information.

Louis Narcisse Baudry des Lozières was a white French soldier, advocate, and author, of Paris, France. Correspondence and documents, mainly dating from 1770-1825, regarding Baudry des Lozières' career in French military and diplomatic service in Hispaniola and elsewhere.