Richard Henderson papers, 1768-1782, accompanied by a few legal documents and newspaper clippings of later dates. Filling nearly two volumes (1 CC and 2 CC) are original manuscripts of Henderson (1735-1785), justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, promoter of the Transylvania colony in Kentucky, and founder of a land company which developed other later grants in Kentucky and Tennessee. In this first volume Henderson's original manuscripts include: his notes (1768-1770) on North Carolina legal cases; contemporary copies of deeds showing lands purchased from the Cherokee in March 1775, and of agreements constituting the Louisa Company (1774) and the Transylvania Company (1775); a copy of Dunmore's proclamation to deter Henderson and his associates from settling the lands sold them by the Indians; and his original journal (March-July, 1775) kept during his expedition to Kentucky, with a few miscellaneous financial accounts (1781) and weather notes (1782).

Also included are three letters by Henderson to Joseph Martin (1775, 1777) about affairs involving the Transylvania Company and the settlement in Powell's Valley; contemporary copies of depositions (1777-1778) about the Henderson purchase taken from such men as Arthur Campbell, William Christian, John Floyd, Patrick Henry, Abraham Hite, James Robertson, and Isaac Shelby. There is also a certified copy of a petition (1779) to the Virginia General Assembly asking that the company's lands on the Ohio and Green rivers be exempt from taxation. Copies of Henderson's journal and other documents about the Transylvania Company's Boonesborough settlement as published in 1840 by Mann Butler were clipped from the Louisville News-Letter.