The papers include Hinde's account of a trip to Baltimore, New York, Boston, Albany, and Philadelphia (1842); reactions to an 1845 comet sighting; philosophical reflections and medicinal recipes. Also includes comments on Western geography, history, and pioneers, including Methodist clergymen William McKendree, Samuel Parker, and Bishop Francis Asbury; Kentucky notables Daniel Boone, John Breckenridge, James and John Brown, Henry Clay, Joseph H. Daviess, Simon Kenton, Humphrey Marshall, G. Nicholas, John Pope, John Rowan, and Isham Talbot; Indian leaders Blue Jacket, Little Turtle, Logan, Round Head, and Tecumseh, and an 1807 Indian council at Chillicothe; Aaron Burr and his 1805-1806 conspiracy; an 1833 cholera epidemic; Hinde's library in 1824 and 1834; abolitionism; church and camp meetings; and “milk sickness” among farm animals.
Hinde's many diaries, or “Sketch Books” as he often termed them, were written in home-made notebooks on papers which he salvaged from old ledgers or other blank pages of varied sizes and shapes. Interspersed are also copies of many of his articles, essays, and letters. In 1844 he reread his earlier journals, annotated them, and used any blank sheets for current 1844 diary entries. His comments in his volumes clearly state that they were written to be read after his death and not kept merely as a private personal record.
Also present is correspondence with John C. Calhoun concerning Hinde's and John C. Symmes' proposals for Indian government (1824); Illinois governor Thomas Carlin and Indiana governor David Wallace on internal improvements (1830); and Martin Van Buren and Richard Johnson on the 1840 presidential campaign. Includes Hinde's manuscript on demons, “The Infernal Conclave”; a pamphlet, “News from the Infernal Regions,” by Caleb Jarvis Taylor (circa 1803); a paper on the history of Methodism in the United States; and a map of Otter Creek, Kentucky.
Volume descriptions emphasize materials of special historical and biographical interest, but these are not all-inclusive; no mention is made of the multitude of brief allusions to the same or similar subjects or to many of Hinde's reactions to current events of his time.
