Series: 1 P (Volume 1)
Scope and Content Note: A notebook of brief biographical and historical entries entitled “Biographical Sketches of the Eminent Men of Massachusetts and Sketches of Other Incidents, No. 2,” written by Draper in 1835. No volume of this nature entitled “No. 1” is in the collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

Series: 2 P-3 P (Volumes 2-3)
Scope and Content Note: Twenty-one notebooks bound into two volumes entitled “Random Biographical Sketches,” most of which Draper copied or abstracted from newspaper obituaries and periodical articles about 1835-1836. Most of the subjects were clergymen, missionaries, educators, and military and naval officers from eastern and New England states. A few women are included. Volume 3 P contains sketches of a few westerners on whom Draper later focused research and collecting activity: Samuel Brady, Philip Doddridge, William Hull, Samuel Mason, and David Williamson. The sketch of Williamson was excerpted from Alexander Withers's Chronicles of Border Warfare, a revision of which Draper undertook late in his life.
Note: See Draper Mss U: Frontier Wars Papers, 1754-1885.