Original manuscripts, miscellaneous correspondence received by Draper, and a few notes, clippings, and other printed items. Ranging in date from 1720 to 1876, most of the papers are in chronological sequence, but a few dated pieces were erroneously bound into the undated section at the rear of the volume.

Eighteenth-century manuscripts include a letter (1720) of Alexander Spottswood; a customs report (1755) on the cargo of the sloop “Neptune” in Barbados; a letter on Indian affairs (1756) from Richard Peters to Edward Shippen; letters (1766) to John Irwin from Boynton, Wharton, and Morgan concerning trade to Pittsburgh and west to Fort Chartres (Illinois); a letter (1775) by James Simpson about Thomas Law Elliott, his family, and his estate; a trade agreement (1780) signed by Abraham Shepherd and Samuel Mason; births, 1766-1791, recorded in German for the Zur Welt family; business letters of Thomas Walker to Daniel Smith (1783) and Stephen Cooke to Daniel Roberdeau (1791); a letter promoting the abolition of slavery (1795) written by Baptist minister William Rogers of Philadelphia to a fellow clergyman, David Rue of Kentucky. Also included are a business letter (1796) by Thomas Allen to Henry Lee; and a note (1797) on relief for fire victims in Savannah, Georgia, sent by Charles Burrall to John Habersham.

Documents pertaining to military matters are a memoranda book, circa 1774-circa 1782, of William and Robert Newell containing notes on the battles of Concord and Lexington (1775); a brief day book (1774) containing Isaac Spratt's faint and difficult-to-read entries for military provisions; a few pay receipts (1783) signed by British officers; a fragmentary legal order (1786) dated in the State of Franklin; and undated petitions to Arthur St. Clair from residents of Hamilton County, Ohio, concerning the appointment of militia officers. Copied material includes a song commemorating the battle waged by John Lovell and his company against New England Indians in 1725, with a narrative about the battle from a pamphlet by Thomas Symmes of Bradford, Massachusetts.

Nineteenth-century correspondence includes letters on business or legal matters by James Burrill (1801), Aaron Goforth (1801), John Beckley (to Isaac Shelby, 1803), and John S. Gano (to Benjamin Lockwood, 1804). Several letters concern political or military affairs: Thomas Mann to Joseph Martin (1801, copy) reporting on the election of Jefferson as president; Mark L. Hill of Georgetown, Maine, to Harrison G. Otis of Boston (1804) on national politics; Ezra Sampson (1814) on the Hartford Convention; Daniel G. Stinson (1830) on proposed South Carolina constitutional changes; E.K. Chamberlin to George W. Bradbury (1847) on Mexican War experiences. Other letters range over varied topics: advice on art, education, and patriotism written (1806) by an unidentified grandparent to a grandson; a recipe for blue dye sent (1808) by Jesse Buel to William W. Worsley; family affairs (1814) by the younger John C. Symmes and his wife; a mastodon discovery and identification of a fish specimen furnished by Samuel Mitchell to Henry A.S. Dearborn (1817); negotiations with the Chickasaw (1818, draft unsigned); an offer to do a portrait (1818) sent by artist Matthew H. Jouett to Isaac Shelby; documentation involved in the Shelby-Campbell controversy over the battle of King's Mountain discussed by J. J. Crittenden (1822, to Shelby) the status of the legal profession in Columbus, Ohio, described (1826) by J.R. Swan; an incomplete, thus undated, discussion of the United States wool industry and its influence on the condition of American black laborers. Of scattered dates (1796, 1824, 1826) are letters of Connecticut lawyer Roger M. Sherman pertaining to legal business and to the American Home Missionary Society.

Of interest are several journals, diaries, and narratives. Two journals contain concise records of distances, stopping places, and expenses for journeys by Asa Turner and companions from Kentucky through western Virginia and Tennessee in September and October, 1804. Much more full and descriptive are the diary entries kept by Diaper's distant relatives, Asahel and Eliza Munger, while they trekked to Oregon in 1839 to join Marcus and Narcissa Whitman as missionaries. Two undated narratives were authored by Thomas Gummersall Anderson (1779-1875), one recalling his life as a British fur trader and his experiences during the British capture of Prairie du Chien during the War of 1812, the other describing his participation in the Canadian government's Indian mission project at Manitoulin Island in the 1830s and 1840s. Much of the first narrative was edited and published by Draper in Wisconsin Historical Collections, IX, 138-206 (1882).

Draper's own papers in the volume are composed of incoming correspondence, lists of Revolutionary pensioners, copies of pension applications, biographical notes, and miscellaneous memoranda and collected records. Persons about whom he gathered substantial references, usually on military services, include Thomas and George Berry, Walter Finney, David Fouts, John Gunsaulus (Gunsaullis, Philip Grove, Robert Hanna, Micajah and Wiley Harpe, Samuel McDowell, Silas McDowell, Stephen Oliver, Yelverton Peyton, Adam Poe, William Russell, and Joseph Tomlinson.

Also found are papers on British land grants near Oswego, New York, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; a constitution and by-laws (1823) for the Cincinnati Library; an agreement (1848) for the apprenticeship of Mary A. Coyle to Peter A. Remsen, Draper's longtime patron; and undated notebooks by unidentified writers on religion, law, and the early history of England. A large undated broadside entitled “Time and Eternity...,” contains a long unsigned religious poem.