Series: 1 YY (Volume 1)
Scope and Content Note

Draper's notes and bibliographical references on Tecumseh's life, accompanied by an assortment of letters and newspaper clippings on miscellaneous topics. In varying detail, the notes cover Tecumseh's ancestry and parentage; the death of his father at Point Pleasant; the warlike expeditions of the Shawnee (1780-1792); the attack on Ziegler's Station (1792) in which Tecumseh was reported to have participated; his part in the campaign against Anthony Wayne (1794) the Prophet's religious revival; Tecumseh's visits to the Menominee, Potawatomi, and Sauk tribes; his conference at Vincennes (1810) with William Henry Harrison; his visit to the southern tribes; his death; and his physical appearance, personality, and eloquence as a speaker.

Draper's correspondents included a few former missionaries, Indian agents, and members of the Shawnee tribe. Several of these letters discuss Tecumseh's relations with Black Hawk and with Pierre Juzan; the Shawnee known as Captain Tommy; Daniel Curtis (Curtiss); Nathaniel Harrison and Harrison genealogy; Richard Kinnon; the Miami chief Le Gros (or Le Gris), the Chippewa chief Little Pine; the family of Francis Maisonville to whom Tecumseh's sister was married; the Potawatomi chief Shaubena (Shabonee, Chambly, et cetera), and Richard Taylor. A small pocket notebook contains miscellaneous notes about Tecumseh by Benjamin Drake.

Series: 2 YY (Volume 2)
Scope and Content Note

Mainly papers concerning Shawnee history and the career of Tecumseh, which were copied, written, or collected by Benjamin Drake during the preparation of his Life of Tecumseh (Cincinnati, 1841). Among these papers are a Shawnee vocabulary compiled by John Johnston, longtime Indian agent; recollections of a council at Springfield, Ohio, in 1806 in a letter by Joseph Vance; a description of Tecumseh's appearance in 1810 extracted from a letter by George Rogers Clark Floyd; reminiscences about Tecumseh by Stephen Ruddell, who as a young white captive had been adopted by the Shawnee and was a friend, companion, and warrior with Tecumseh during their youth; portions of Anthony Shane's statements about Tecumseh given to Daniel Drake in 1821 (see also 12 YY); Daniel Drake's manuscript on the location of Indian tribes between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River; and a large printed broadside advertising the book Sketches of the Civil and Military Services of General Harrison by Charles S. Todd and Benjamin Drake (Cincinnati, 1840).

Other letters, 1818-1822, to Benjamin Drake, by W.G. Ewing, Richard M. Johnson, Duncan McArthur, and Stephen Ruddell concern Tecumseh's participation in Ohio councils in the early 1800s, his intercession on behalf of the Americans at Dudley's defeat, and the circumstances of his death. Bound in the volume but unrelated to Tecumseh are a few letters and a biographical sketch sent to Draper relating to John Coffee (1782-1836), congressman from Georgia, and to the alleged relationship of the Coffee family to Thomas Sumter.

Series: 3 YY (Volume 3)
Scope and Content Note

Papers relating chiefly to Tecumseh's life before 1810. Original early manuscripts include an address (1807) by the Shawnee (or Wyandot) leader Round Head (Stayeghta, the Bark Carrier), interpreted by Isaac Zane and recorded by William McCulloch; a letter (1807) to Daniel Drake written at Blackhoofs town “by the light of an auld rag... twisted up & immersed in a pan of fat” by William Kirk, discussing the Prophet's preaching, Indian relations with the British and the Americans, and Kirk's treatment of the ague; and one (1808) by Alexander Edwards at Fort Wayne describing Indian herbal medicines for Drake. Among later letters to Draper, those by Francis V. Lesieur discuss his father Godfrey Lesieur (1798-1872) and grandfather Francois Lesieur; Tecumseh in the Shawnee village of Apple Creek, Missouri; and the dispersal of the population of the French-Canadian settlements in Missouri following the earthquakes of 1811-1812. A few other correspondents, both white and Shawnee, discussed the influence wielded by the wife of the Prophet.

Other topics on which there are notes, letters, or printed articles include: the massacre of Nicholas Carpenter and his party at Carpenter's Bar near Marietta, Ohio (1791); the attack (1792) on Buchanan's Station in Tennessee; the locations of American forts in the Ohio region in 1793-1795 and in the War of 1812; the visit (1806) of Tecumseh and a party of Shawnee to the governor of Virginia in Richmond; the Indian council at Springfield (1807); Tecumseh's meeting with Harrison at Vincennes (1810); Harrison's Vincennes residence, “Grouseland”; the site of Old Town in Ohio; the Shawnee chief Silverheels; Shingaba W'Ossin or Image Stone, a nineteenth-century Chippewa leader near Sault Ste. Marie; and incomplete portions of Benjamin F. H. Witherell's reminiscences of Tecumseh clipped from Wisconsin Historical Collections, III.

Series: 4 YY (Volume 4)
Scope and Content Note

Draper's annotated correspondence, 1881-1889, concerning Tecumseh's visit to the southern tribes in 1811 to promote Indian confederation. Correspondents include members of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations as well as white missionaries, educators, government representatives, and others with close associations with these tribes. Among the recollections about Tecumseh are accounts of his prediction of unusual natural phenomena: the earthquakes of 1811-1812 and the appearance of a brilliant comet.

In addition to information directly related to Tecumseh and the Prophet, letters contain material from or about numerous other Native Americans. Relating to the Cherokee are references to the Proctor family, to David Brown and his sister Catherine, to John and Luney Riley, and to the association of Tah-neh or Naomi with the adopted Mohawk chief John Norton. Materials pertaining to the Creek Indians include: statements from Tustenuckochee, from John McIntosh, son of Rolley McIntosh, and from the brothers John R. and N.B. Moore; anecdotes and genealogy about Sophie Durant and the Durant family and about William Weatherford and the Weatherford family; and references to Andrew Jackson and the Creek War, to Chief Tuskegee, and to Joe Ellis, a Creek who settled among the Shawnee. Choctaw data is found in the portion of Henry S. Halbert's correspondence filed in this volume. (See 10 YY for most of Halbert's papers.) From interviews with members or associates of the Choctaw Halbert provided biographical sketches or notes on David Folsom, Hoentubbee, Hopaii Iskitini, Mashulatubbee, Nettakachi, Puckshenubbee, John Pitchlyn, Pushmataha, Red Pepper, and Stonie Hadjo. References to the other southern tribes are scant: a statement from a Seminole, John Jumper, and scattered comments about the Chickasaw and their leader, George Colbert.

Series: 5 YY (Volume 5)
Scope and Content Note

Draper's annotated correspondence, 1867-1888, accompanied by newspaper clippings, and a few interviews all of which concentrate on Tecumseh's life, 1811-1813, and on the War of 1812 in the West. Among the major topics are William H. Harrison and the battle of Tippecanoe; Daniel Curtis and the siege of Fort Wayne; Isaac Brock, William Hull, and the surrender of Detroit; the battle of Frenchtown or the Raisin River defeat; the battle of the Thames and Tecumseh's death; and Henry Dodge, Pierre Menard, John B. St. Gem and the Shawnee of southern Illinois and Missouri. Draper's correspondents included soldiers and other participants in or observers of these events and their descendants.

A series of letters of Detroit banker C.C. Trowbridge, once secretary to Michigan governor Lewis Cass, contain reminiscences and commentary about Cass, his Shawnee interpreter Joe Parks, James D. Doty, Thomas L. McKenney, the Prophet, and Henry R. Schoolcraft. Other persons and families about whom there are references in other correspondence are George Coffinberry, Hubert Lacroix (La Croix, d. 1824), the Miami chiefs Little Turtle and White Loon, John McCawley, Abraham and Stephen Ruddell, James Simrall (1780-1823) and Simrall genealogy, John Tipton, and Walter Wilson (1782-1837).

Only two early records are in the volume: a manuscript detailing the proceedings and speeches at a meeting between the Shawnee led by Black Hoof and whites led by G.B. Whiteman held in Champaign County, Ohio, on December 4, 1811; and an undated draft of a narrative on the Tippecanoe campaign dictated by Peter Funk, one of Harrison's captains.

Series: 6 YY (Volume 6)
Scope and Content Note

Draper correspondence, 1863-1887, accompanied by many newspaper clippings, periodical articles, and extracts from books, most of which pertain to western military events in 1813: the Raisin River (Frenchtown) defeat (January), the two sieges of Fort Meigs (April-May and July), William Dudley's defeat (May), the siege of Fort Stephenson (August), the battle of the Thames (October), and the Creek War. The deaths of both Tecumseh and William Whitley in the Thames battle are discussed in a few pieces.

The papers also contain information on John Anderson, Blue Jacket, Thomas Coleman Graves, Jesse P. Green, Truman Guthrie, George Ironside, Sr. and his family, Hubert Lacroix and Paul Lacroix (1779-1868), Little Turtle, William Weatherford, and Jonathan Wright. A narrative about his service in the War of 1812 by Joseph R. Underwood (d. 1876) was composed much later (1871) than his article (1828) on Dudley's defeat filed in 1 WW, but included in the later account are the names and marriage dates for his two wives, Eliza M. Trotter (d. 1835) and Elizabeth Cox. One original letter by John O'Fallon to his uncle William Croghan in August, 1813, alludes to the second siege of Fort Meigs. A manuscript copy of a letter by Leslie Combs to Green Clay in 1815 describes the treatment of Combs and other prisoners taken by the British and Indians at Dudley's defeat.

Series: 7 YY (Volume 7)
Scope and Content Note

Draper correspondence, 1861-1889, interspersed with numerous newspaper and periodical articles; the majority of the papers are centered about the battle of the Thames and the circumstances of Tecumseh's death there, including the controversial identity of the soldier who slew him. Smaller groups of papers pertain to three other topics: description and location of relics, such as the medals, belt, powderhorn, and hatchet stripped from the fallen Indian leader; the question of his possible membership in freemasonry; and the sieges of Fort Meigs and Fort Stephenson in the summer of 1813. Draper's correspondents were primarily descendants of combatants, both Indian and American, in the battle of the Thames, but also filed in the volume are a few earlier letters bearing on this battle addressed to Benjamin Drake (1823) and to Charles S. Todd (1835-1840).

Persons other than Tecumseh mentioned in the materials include Samuel Baker, the Sauk Black Hawk, William Henry Harrison, Abraham Holmes (b. 1797), George Ironside, Sr. (1761-1831), Richard M. Johnson, Peter Navarre, the Ottawa called Noonday, the Chippewa chief Ooshawunoo (Shawahwaunoo), the Potawatomi Shaubena, and William Whitley. There is a large measured drawing of a hatchet alleged to have belonged to Tecumseh.

Series: 8 YY (Volume 8)
Scope and Content Note

Letters, 1866-1891, and narratives about Tecumseh and some of his allies and contemporaries gathered by Draper from varied sources, including the families of persons who had been prisoners of the Shawnee, notably descendants of John and William Connor and of Abraham and Stephen Ruddell; relatives of Tecumseh's aide-de-camp at the battle of the Thames, Andrew Clark, who was the son of Margaret McKenzie (also a Shawnee prisoner) and the British trader Thomas Alexander Clark; relatives of Thomas Forsyth, Indian agent in Illinois; published writings, such as those of Joseph C. Guild of Nashville, Tennessee, and of Godfrey Lesieur of New Madrid, Missouri. Many facets of Tecumseh's career from birth to death are touched upon.

Other persons and topics discussed include: Tecumseh's brother the Prophet; the education of Shawnee boys; the founding of the settlement of New Madrid; the persecution of witchcraft among the Missouri Shawnee in 1808-1809; the Potawatomi chiefs Billy Caldwell, the Main Poque, and Shaubena; Andrew Jackson, William Weatherford, and the Creek War; and the Black Hawk War of 1832. Draper's extracts from The Letters of Veritas... (Montreal, 1815) give a British viewpoint of the northwestern campaigns (1812-1814) and of George Prevost's command in Canada. Letters, 1866-1868, of Juliette A. Kinzie contain numerous allusions to her book Wau-Bun and to Indian affairs, both past and current, in Wisconsin and the Midwest.

Series: 9 YY (Volume 9)
Scope and Content Note

Draper correspondence, 1874-1889, notes, and clipped newspaper and periodical articles pertaining to Native American associates and contemporaries of Tecumseh, particularly the Miami chiefs Black Loon, Le Gros, Little Turtle, Osage, and White Loon, and the Potawatomi leaders Blackbird, Black Partridge, Billy Caldwell, Senachewin, Shaubena (Shabonee), Shickshack, and Wau-bun-see. Some papers discuss early days at Fort Dearborn, Illinois, especially the massacre in 1812 in which several of the Potawatomi were involved.

Two original early manuscripts are found in the volume; both are fur trade engagements or contracts made between the firm of Kinzie and Forsyth and Toussaint Seraphim and Pierre Lapanse at Fort Dearborn in 1804; one bears the signature of Billy Caldwell as witness. From a paper in private ownership Draper made a manuscript copy of Caldwell's certificate (1816) attesting to the courage and humanity displayed by Shaubena during the War of 1812. There are also carte-de-visite photographs (from daguerreotypes) of Shaubena and one of his wives.

Series: 10 YY (Volume 10)
Scope and Content Note

Entirely letters and articles written for Draper in the 1880s by Henry S. Halbert (1837-1916), a native of Alabama and resident of Mississippi. Following the Civil War, Halbert engaged in educational work among the Choctaw and began to gather recollections and traditions on the Revolution in the South, on the southern Indians, and on the Creek War. Much of his material on the Revolutionary era pertains to persons and events in or near South Carolina: the battle of Cowpens; the Tory William Cunningham; Horatio Gates; Mrs. John Harrington and Patrick Moore; the massacre at Hays's Station; Edward Lacey, his wife, and Mrs. Christian Huck. One paper relates to the battle of Nickajack; another contains detailed reminiscences from Stephen Smith about Thomas Sumter and the pursuit of a runaway Negro slave harbored by the Catawba.

Most of Halbert's writings, however, concern the Creek and Choctaw Indians in the decade from 1810 to 1820.

Included are narratives about Tecumseh's visit to the South in 1811 discussing his oratory; his companion, the Shawnee prophet Seekaboo; and Tecumseh's association with Pierre Juzan, a trader among the Choctaw. Other biographical accounts and anecdotes relate to two other leaders, William Weatherford of the Creek Indians and Pushmataha of the Choctaw. Extensive articles cover the Creek War: the massacre at Fort Mims; the battles of Burnt Corn, the Horse-shoe, the Holy Ground and Caleebe Swamp; the attack on Fort Sinquefield; depredations in the vicinity of Fort Madison; the capture of Mrs. William Jones in Georgia; the participation of the Choctaw in the conflict; and the barbarity of whites as well as of Indians in this warfare. Scattered through this volume are recollections of a black participant, Dick Embree (Embry), who had been at Fort Madison and Fort Mims and had known Weatherford and others in the Creek War. Among other names mentioned in the Halbert papers are Stephen Lacey; Nehemiah Page; “Wild Bill” Thurman; Charles Weatherford; the Choctaw leaders, Hoentubbee, Hopaii Iskitini, Mashulatubbee, and Stonie Hadjo; and the Muscogee chief Semottie. Much of his data on the Creek War Halbert and his co-author, T.H. Ball, published after Draper's death in their book, The Creek War of 1813 and 1814 (1895). Other papers of Halbert, Draper filed in 4 Y.

Series: 11 YY (Volume 11)
Scope and Content Note

Primarily correspondence, 1811-1855, of John Johnston (1775-1861). A native of Ireland, Johnston emigrated to America in 1786; served in the supply business for Wayne's army in 1793-1794; and became factor at Fort Wayne, 1798-1812, and Indian agent at Upper Piqua, Ohio, 1812-1829. Appreciating and respecting the desire of Tecumseh and other Indian leaders to have territory secure from white encroachment, Johnston attempted to promote federal endorsement and enactment of such a policy. His observations and recollections ranged widely over contemporary affairs, frontier events, and Indian culture, and often reflected conversations and reminiscences obtained from his Native American friends.

Among the varied topics discussed in his letters, interviews, and articles are the Shawnee in the battle of Point Pleasant; the deaths of William Crawford and John Hardin; Clark's campaign in 1782; history of the Delaware, Miami, Shawnee, and Wyandot tribes; the status and conditions of women in Indian society; the site of Fort Washington (Cincinnati, Ohio); Whig politics, especially Harrison's candidacy for president in 1840; the inventor James Rumsey and his use of steam power particularly as applied to boats; and the careers and deaths of two of Johnston's sons in the Mexican War. In his personal reminiscences he recorded his experiences in transporting money and supplies for the army in the 1790s, his subsequent opinions on banks and changing economic conditions in the West, information on the treaties of Fort Wayne (1809) and Fort Greenville (1814), and historical accounts about the Piqua and Cincinnati areas of Ohio. One of his early letters (1811) refers to the Prophet and the battle of Tippecanoe and also contains Indian instructions for raising a baby porcupine on maple sap.

Other persons prominently mentioned include: the Delaware chiefs Big Cat, Buckingehelas, Captain Pipe, Killbuck, and the Montour family; James Flinn; Simon Girty and his halfbreed relative, George Girty; Francis Hamtramck; Henry Jackson, prisoner of the Seneca; William Martin; the Miami chief Little Turtle; Joseph Nicholson, a Seneca by adoption; Oliver Pollock; the Potawatomi leaders, Blackbird and Keethas; Abraham and Stephen Ruddell; and Anthony Shane, Ottawa halfbreed interpreter. Also mentioned are many Shawnee, including Bieseka or the Wolf (John Wolf) who was a son of the noted Cornstalk, Black Hoof (Blackhoof) or Cutewekasa, Blue Jacket, Captain Tommy or Chiacksea, Captain Johnny, Francis Duchoquet known as the Fork or Sowaghquathoque, Captain Jim Logan, Red Pole, Silverheels, Tecumseh, Yellow Feather or Chacalaway, and Wapaghkonetta; William Spicer, a Wyandot captive; Robert Taitt; Francis Vigo; Samuel and William Wells, and the latter's halfbreed children, William Wayne Wells and Mary Jane Turner Wells; and Wyandot chiefs and halfbreeds, including Duumquot (D'Unquat), Half King, Scoutash, the Walkers-William, Joel, and Matthew, the War Pole or Rontondu, and Whitaker. Preceding Johnston's papers are a few letters, 1874-1882, written about Tecumseh by one of his nephews. Concluding the volume are reminiscences of Harmar's campaign and defeat in 1790 recorded in 1845 by Thomas Irwin.

Series: 12 YY (Volume 12)
Scope and Content Note

A volume containing four small memoranda books, of which only the first pertains to Tecumseh. In this Benjamin Drake recorded statements in 1821 about Tecumseh narrated by Anthony Shane. Topics include the Prophet's talks and their influence on Indian superstition and social behavior; Tecumseh's parentage, wives, and family; his boyhood; early skirmishes; hunting exploits; removal to Tippecanoe in 1808; trip to the South; and the warfare of 1813 in which his life was ended. A few of Drake's other notes about Tecumseh were copied into this notebook by Draper.

Of less significance are three of Draper's own undated pocket notebooks which follow; these contain lists of books and pension statements he intended to consult, a list of pensioners residing in 1840 mainly in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, western Virginia, and Ohio and brief notations about pension statements and other manuscripts in the Library of Congress.

Series: 13 YY (Volume 13)
Scope and Content Note: A volume filled principally with early periodical articles, 1830-1850, about Tecumseh and a play entitled Tecumseh or, The Battle of the Thames (New York, 1836) by William Emmons. A few printed letters (1881) by A.H. Edwards describe early days at Fort Dearborn. Several newspaper clippings (1910, 1931) were added long after Draper's death and pertain to descendants of James Galloway in Xenia, Ohio; to a monument erected to Tecumseh in Xenia; and to Thomas W. Alford, great grandson of Tecumseh.