Digital Commons Network^™

Letter From Josiah Masters To John Reade About An Enslaved Man Named Dick Whom (Masters) Wishes To Sell. New York, 1796., Josiah Masters

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

Masters writes to Reade that Dick "has been somewhat uneasy with me, the first cause [was] my separating his wench from him."

"The lowest price is one hundred pounds."

Addressed to Reade in Poughkeepsie, NY.

'Farewell' Address To The People Of The United States, Announcing His Intention Of Retiring From Public Life At The Expiration Of The Present Constitutional Term Of Presidency, George Washington

Zea E-Books in American Studies

President George Washington’s farewell address “To the People of the United States” was delivered to the public through the medium of the Philadelphia Daily Advertiser newspaper and was immediately reprinted in other newspapers and in pamphlet form throughout the country, and in England, Ireland, and Scotland as well. All contemporary editions derived directly or indirectly from the Daily Advertiser newspaper source.

The composition of the address was a collaborative effort, with James Madison co-authoring with Washington an early draft that was reviewed and revised at least twice to incorporate suggestions by Alexander Hamilton. The final draft, in Washington’s handwriting, was …

Blunt's American Coast Pilot, Edmund March Blunt

Guarding Ossabaw Island: History and Archaeology of the 47th N.Y.V.I. Camp

An excerpt from Blunt's American Coast Pilot on navigating around Ossabaw Sound and surrounding waterways, published originally in 1796

Blunt, Edmund.1796. American Coast Pilot. Newbury, ME.

1793 License For Elizabeth Prinner(?) To Keep And Inn Or Tavern That Sells Liquor, New York City, 1793. Signed By Richard Varick, Mayor., Richard Varick, Elizabeth Prinner

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

Elizabeth Prinner(?), a grocer, is granted a license to keep an "Inn or Tavern for retailing strong or spiritous liquors" until March 1, 1794. She is forbidden from keeping a "disorderly" establishment or one that permits "any Cock-fighting, Gaming, or Playing with Cards or Dice, or Keep any Billiard-Table, or other Gaming-Table, or Shuffle-Board, within the Inn" or "any Out-House, Yard or Garden belonging thereunto." Signed by Richard Varick, 45th mayor of New York City.

Essay On Negro-Slavery., James O'Kelly

Stone-Campbell Books

No abstract provided.

List Of Prisoners In Jail, Worcester, Massachusetts, September 6, 1785., Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

List of prisoners "confined in the common goal in Worcester in the County of Worcester," September 6, 1785. Next to the prisoners' names are the charges for which they are confined.

List Of Prisoners In Jail, Worcester, Massachusetts, June 6, 1785., Worcester County

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

List of prisoners "confined in the Common Goal in Worcester." List includes names of prisoners and charges for which they were imprisoned.

Worcester County Court Of General Sessions Document Determining That A New Jail Should Be Built, June 10, 1784., Worcester County Court Of General Sessions, Worcester County, Abel Wilder

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

This document notes that the current jail is "Very inconvenient + insufficient for the safety of the County[,] Comfort of the Prisoners" and it is necessary to build a new jail on a new plot of land.

The Discovery, Settlement And Present State Of Kentucke, John Filson

Zea E-Books in American Studies

This is an open-access electronic text edition of Filson’s seminal work on the early history of Kentucky, including the first published account of the life and adventures of Daniel Boone. Filson’s work was an unabashedly optimistic account of the western territory, where Filson had acquired large land claims, whose value he sought to enhance by the publication of this advertisement and incitement for further settlement. Scarcely two years after the violent and tragic British and Indian invasion of 1782, Filson portrayed Kentucky as a natural paradise, where peace, plenty, and security reigned. Of some significance is Filson’s recognition that the …

The French Gazette, Norman Desmarais, Carl Becker

Primary Sources

The French Gazette is an English translation of the Gazette Françoise, the French newspaper published in Newport, RI by the French fleet that brought the Count de Rochambeau and 5800 French troops to America in July, 1780. The newspaper intended to translate various news items printed in American newspapers to keep the officers and men abreast of political events in this emerging nation. It is the first known service newspaper published by an expeditionary force. The French facsimile edition is also available elsewhere on this site.

Gazette Francoise

Primary Sources

The Gazette Françoise is a facsimile edition of the French newspaper published in Newport, RI by the French fleet. The newspaper intended to translate various news items printed in American newspapers to keep the officers and men abreast of political events in this emerging nation. It is the first known service newspaper published by an expeditionary force. The English translation is available elsewhere on this site.

Orderly Books Of The 3rd Pennsylvania Regiment, 1778-1780 [Book 1 Of 8], 3rd Pennsylvania Regiment

Orderly Books of the 3rd Pennsylvania Regiment, 1778-1780

Clark University's Archives & Special Collections holds eight Orderly Books of the command of Captain Thomas Lloyd Moore of the 3rd Pennsylvania Regiment serving under Brigadier "Mad" Anthony Wayne. The first orderly book begins April 14, 1778 and ends in late July 1778. These books contain a day-by-day account of orders, court martials, guard duty, and other events, and are similar to what the U.S Navy calls the "rough log".

These materials were among the contents of Dr. William Libbey's library, which was donated to Clark University in 1928 following his passing.

Portions from the first orderly book were transcribed …

Letter From Henry Laurens To General Mcintosh, Henry Laurens

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

Letter of encouragement in reply to General McIntosh, signed Henry Laurens, dated April 12, 1777.

Ten Pound (£10) Note Of South Carolina Currency, 1775., Provincial Congress Of South Carolina, Gideon Dupont, Edward Blake, Thomas Corbett, Aaron Loocock, William Parker

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

This South Carolina certificate no. 36967 "entitles the bearer to Ten Pounds Current Money." Signed by Gideon Dupont, Aaron Loocock, Thomas Corbett, William Parker, and Edward Blake.

Order To Choose Juror For Grand Jury And Petit Jury, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1765., George William Frederick

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

This record orders the selection of jurors from the "good and lawful men" of Worcester to serve on the Grand Jury and Petit Jury at the Court of General Sessions of the Peace. February 15, 1765. On the verso a handwritten notice enumerates the men chosen for each jury.

Memoir Of The Indian Wars, John Stuart

Primary Sources

No abstract provided.

The Journal Of Major George Washington, George Washington

Zea E-Books in American Studies

In October of 1753, George Washington, a 21-year-old major in the Virginia militia, volunteered to carry a letter from the governor of Virginia to the French commander of the forts recently built on the headwaters of the Ohio River in northwestern Pennsylvania. The French had recently expanded their military operations from the Great Lakes into the Ohio country, and had spent the summer of 1753 building forts and roads along the Allegheny River, with the design of linking their trade routes and sphere of influence down the Ohio to the Mississippi. Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie believed them to be in …

A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission And Non-Resistance To The Higher Powers: With Some Reflections On The Resistance Made To King Charles I. And On The Anniversary Of His Death: In Which The Mysterious Doctrine Of That Prince’S Saintship And Martyrdom Is Unriddled, Jonathan Mayhew

Zea E-Books in American Studies

After the Restoration of the English monarchy in the person of Charles II in 1660, the new king and his first Parliament declared the anniversary of the beheading of his father Charles I (January 30, 1649) a religious holiday with a special commemoration in the Book of Common Prayer, naming the late monarch a saint and martyr. This holiday was not generally celebrated in Massachusetts until the emergence of several Anglican churches there in the early eighteenth century. In 1750, Jonathan Mayhew, the twenty-nine-yearold pastor of the West (Congregational) Church in Boston, took occasion to dispute the first Charles’ credentials …

An Arrow Against Profane And Promiscuous Dancing Drawn Out Of The Quiver Of The Scriptures, Increase Mather

Electronic Texts in American Studies

When a dancing master arrived in Boston in 1685 and offered lessons and classes for both sexes during times normally reserved for church meetings, the Puritan ministers went to court to suppress the practice. Increase Mather (1639-1723) took the leading part, writing and publishing this tract, which compiles arguments and precedents for the prohibition of “Gynecandrical Dancing, [i.e.] Mixt or Promiscuous Dancing, viz. of Men and Women … together.” These justifications were certainly shared with the court, which found the dancing master guilty, fined him £100, and allowed him to skip town.

Mather’s tract on dancing is an overwhelming compendium …

The Cry Of Sodom Enquired Into, Samuel Danforth

Zea E-Books in American Studies

This is a well-known execution sermon from seventeenth-century Massachusetts, delivered on the occasion of the sentencing to death of a young man convicted of bestiality—specifically of copulation with a mare, in which he was discovered in the open in broad daylight. Samuel Danforth, who wrote and delivered the sermon, would have known the condemned young man very well. Benjamin Goad had been born into Danforth’s congregation at Roxbury and had grown up under his pastoral care. Danforth was also familiar with the anguish of a parent over the death of a child, having suffered the deaths of eight of his …

The Life And Death Of That Reverend Man Of God, Richard Mather, Teacher Of The Church In Dorchester In New-England. A Facsimile Reprint With An Introduction ..., Increase Mather, Benjamin Franklin V, William K. Bottoroff

Electronic Texts in American Studies

We most often turn to American Puritan prose to glean historicalor biographical data. If we seek a biography that spans the evolution of American Puritanism from its nadir in England through its zenith in the New England of the 1630's to 1650's, and to the beginning of its decline as symbolized by the "Half-Way Covenant" in 1662, we may turn to Increase Mather's biography of his father, The Life and Death of That Reverend Man of God, Mr. Richard Mather. It includes the background for the elder Mather's decision to emigrate to New England (events leading to his suspension from …

A Declaration Of The Sad And Great Persecution And Martyrdom Of The People Of God, Called Quakers, In New-England, For The Worshipping Of God, Edward Burroughs

Zea E-Books in American Studies

From 1656 through 1661, the Massachusetts Bay Colony experienced an “invasion” of Quaker missionaries, who were not deterred by the increasingly severe punishments enacted and inflicted by the colonial authorities. In October 1659, two (William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson) were hanged at Boston; in June 1660, Mary Dyar (or Dyer) became the third; in March 1661, William Leddra became the fourth (and last) to suffer capital punishment or “mar-tyrdom” for their Quaker beliefs.While members of the Society of Friends rushed to Massachu-setts to test the harsh sentences under the newly enacted laws, other Friends in England simultaneously petitioned Parliament and …

Four English Histories Of The Pequod War, P. Vincentius, John Underhill, Lion Gardener, John Mason

Zea E-Books in American Studies

P. Vincentius, A True Relation of the Late Battell fought in New England, between the English, and the Salvages : With the present state of things there (1637)

John Underhill, Newes From America; or, A New and Experimentall Discoverie of New England; Containing, a Trve Relation of Their War-like proceedings these two yeares last past, with a Figure of the Indian Fort, or Palizado (1638)

Lion Gardener, Relation of the Pequot Warres [1660]

John Mason, A Brief History of the Pequot War: Especially of the memorable Taking of their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637 (1736)