Series: 1 Y (Volume 1)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, April 18, 1808 - July 24, 1809. Although his daily life and business affairs were recorded, the emphasis is on Hinde's religious thoughts and the proceedings of church meetings he attended.

Series: 2 Y (Volume 2)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, January 1, 1825 - January 20, 1826. Religious and philosophical reflections were mingled with an assortment of recipes for medicines and a few pencil sketches of persons, objects, and places, most of which are unlabeled or unidentified.

Series: 3 Y (Volume 3)
Scope and Content Note: Notebook containing agricultural hints, religious thoughts, and dated diary entries, September 23, 1830-September 12, 1831. The entries for December 12-13, 1830, contain Hinde's recollections, anecdotes, and biographical information about two Methodist clergymen, William McKendree and Samuel Parker.

Series: 4 Y (Volume 4)
Scope and Content Note: Diary and notes, April 19, 1833 - February 21, 1836, with annotations made in 1844. Several entries in 1833 refer to the cholera epidemic, and a list of books apparently describes those comprising his library in 1834.

Series: 5 Y (Volume 5)
Scope and Content Note: A large volume entitled by Hinde as “Sketch Book-1839.” Diary entries, February 6, 1839 - April 16, 1840, are interspersed with writings, including numerous articles intended for publication. A series of eleven “Pioneer Letters” and a series of eight “Memoirs of the West” give not only historical accounts but also Hinde's personal recollections of the West and the pioneers he had known in the areas surrounding Point Pleasant, Wheeling, Boonesborough, and St. Louis beginning in his boyhood. Drafts of a few outgoing letters he copied into this volume include one to an unidentified correspondent on abolitionism, and another (1839) to Governor Thomas Carlin of Illinois on internal improvement legislation. A few annotations were made in 1844. An index by Hinde is at the rear of the book.

Series: 6 Y (Volume 6)
Scope and Content Note: A large volume entitled “Sketch Book-1840,” similar in size and format to 5 Y. Diary entries, April 28, 1840 - January 8, 1841, are interspersed with religious notes and sermons, occasional historical reminiscences, political letters addressed to Martin Van Buren and Richard Johnson during the 1840 presidential campaign and written under the pseudonym “The Fredonian,” and a petition seeking compensation from Congress for his services in detecting the conspiracy of Aaron Burr. Several diary entries describe Hinde's leadership of a series of Methodist camp meetings including one for young children. A very few annotations were made when Hinde reread the entries in 1844.

Series: 7 Y (Volume 7)
Scope and Content Note: Two pocket memoranda books bound together. Entries, 1827-1844, record miscellaneous notes and accounts, with brief fragmentary diary notes covering 1841 and the first four months of 1842. Entries for the latter year relate to a trip he made to the eastern states.
Note: See also Volume 15 Y.

Series: 8 Y (Volume 8)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, September 9, 1842 - January 16, 1843.

Series: 9 Y (Volume 9)
Scope and Content Note: Diary and notes, January 19 - March 11, 1843.

Series: 10 Y (Volume 10)
Scope and Content Note: Three notebooks bound together, containing diary entries, March 11 - June 15, 1843, and other notes primarily on religion.

Series: 11 Y (Volume 11)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, June 15 - July 15, 1843, accompanied by Hinde's “Notes on Aaron Burr's Conspiracy of 1805-1806,” containing his personal recollections and anecdotes about Burr.

Series: 12 Y (Volume 12)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, July 20 - September 6, 1843, interspersed with copies of a few letters to Hugh Smith and the Reverend Charles Elliott, and an article entitled “A Hint to Emigrants,” written under the pen name of “A Western Pioneer.” Some journal entries contain recollections of his pioneer experiences in the Ohio Valley.

Series: 13 Y (Volume 13)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, September 7 - October 21, 1843.

Series: 14 Y (Volume 14)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, November 4 - December 5, 1843. Within the entry for November 21 is a draft of a lengthy letter to Dr. I.J. McIlhenny giving Hinde's reminiscences of “milk sickness” and other diseases which afflicted horses, pigs, and cattle in early Kentucky and Ohio.

Series: 15 Y (Volume 15)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, December 6, 1843 - January 6, 1844. In his opening entry Hinde incorporated a detailed account of his trip to Baltimore, New York, Boston, Albany, and Philadelphia from January to April, 1842, during which he conferred with the Episcopal bishop of New York, Benjamin Onderdonk, on Protestant unity.

Series: 16 Y (Volume 16)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, January 6-20, 1844. Among the entries are a letter (January 10) on his many historical interests addressed to Francis Markoe of the National Institute; a description (January 12) of the forest wilderness and its birds and animals as Hinde recalled them in early Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Indiana; recollections and anecdotes (January 15) about Methodist bishop Francis Asbury; and a reminiscent narrative (January 17) about the Indian council at Chillicothe in 1807 with his impressions of Blue Jacket, Round Head, and Tecumseh.

Series: 17 Y (Volume 17)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, January 22 - February 5, 1844.

Series: 18 Y (Volume 18)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, February 5-13, 1844, and miscellaneous notes made in 1831, 1833, and 1841-1842. Among Hinde's 1844 entries are autobiographical anecdotes about wolves, panthers, and foxes and discussions of Indian life and crafts. This diary and notes were recorded on the official roster of the yeas and nays of the Ohio House of Representatives for the 1809-1810 session when Hinde was clerk. Because of the overwriting, both the archival and the personal entries are very difficult to read.

Series: 19 Y (Volume 19)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, February 10 - March 13, and April 10, 1844.

Series: 20 Y (Volume 20)
Scope and Content Note: Four notebooks bound together comprising Hinde's diaries, March 13 - July 22, 1844.

Series: 21 Y (Volume 21)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, July 22 - September 22, 1844, with a table of contents by Hinde at the front of the volume, for many entries were historical in topic or interest. Such entries included sections on birds, animals, insects, reptiles, and fruits in the West; Methodism and slavery; the Buckeye log school near Boonesborough in the late 1790s; reactions to a Cherokee Indian preacher; a Squire Boone “blaze” or “way mark” near Madison, Indiana; and fictional autobiographical soliloquies by Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton.

Series: 22 Y (Volume 22)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, September 23 - October 24, 1844. A section entitled “Western Wilderness” (October 19) contains recollections about William McKendree.

Series: 23 Y (Volume 23)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, October 25 - November 19, 1844. One entry (October 26) contains an abstract of his letter to presidential candidate Henry Clay; another (November 14) discussed the silent method of walking used by Indians and white hunters.

Series: 24 Y (Volume 24)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, November 19 - December 22, 1844.

Series: 25 Y (Volume 25)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, December 22, 1844 - January 25, 1845.

Series: 26 Y (Volume 26)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, January 26 - March 8, 1845.

Series: 27 Y (Volume 27)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, March 8 - May 3, 1845.

Series: 28 Y (Volume 28)
Scope and Content Note: Four diaries bound together, with entries for May 6 - June 27, 1845. The opening section written partially in pencil and partially in ink on porous water-stained paper is barely legible.

Series: 29 Y (Volume 29)
Scope and Content Note

A large volume containing diary entries, June 27, 1845 - January 1, 1846, and other writings. Couched as letters to Henry Clay (August 7, 8, and 12) are Hinde's reminiscences of Kentucky with biographical notes on more than a dozen of the men mentioned: John Allin, James Blair, Jesse Bledsoe, John Breckinridge, James and John Brown, Henry Clay, Joseph H. Daviess, James Hughes, Humphrey Marshall, William Murray, G. Nicholas, John Pope, John Rowan, and Isham Talbot.

Other autobiographical recollections of Kentucky beginning in 1797 were written by Hinde in his July 1 entry entitled “A Review of the Great West,” and other correspondence with Clay is discussed or quoted in entries of July 29 and August 11. Topics of other entries include Hinde's religious publishing ventures, past and future, discussed in a letter to the Reverend Robert Breckenridge (July 3); the reburial of Daniel Boone and his wife in Kentucky (August 7); public reactions to a brilliant comet (August 8, 12, and 21); numerous commentaries on American slavery (July 29; August 4, 29, 30; December 20); recollections of Revolutionary soldier Thomas Martin, his brother John, and other members of the Martin family, given in an essay titled “The disbanded officer” (December 8); and Hinde's own ancestry and parentage (December 17).

Series: 30 Y (Volume 30)
Scope and Content Note: Diary, January 2-25, 1856. Presumably this was Hinde's final diary, for he noted at the end of this volume that he had decided to write no more.

Series: 31 Y (Volume 31)
Scope and Content Note: A large manuscript volume entitled by Hinde “Notes: Philosophical Enquiries & Western Researches.” Written in 1830-1832 with alterations and annotations made in 1844, the first portion of this volume contains religious and philosophical thoughts, poetry, a song on the horrors of the slave trade, scattered dated notes and diary entries, an essay on Indian chiefs Logan and Little Turtle, recollections of the Reverend John Sales of Ohio and of Mrs. Charity Hendershott. The bulk of the volume, however, is composed of Hinde's autobiographical memoirs covering his life from birth until 1831-1832. Several of his pseudonyms are attached to writings in this notebook: “Theophilus Arminius,” “Pilgrim Pioneer,” and “A Western Christian Pioneer.”

Series: 32 Y (Volume 32)
Scope and Content Note: A large manuscript volume with miscellaneous notes, some historical in topic, begun in 1833. Diary entries with his customary religious/philosophical commentaries, February 14, 1837 - February 5, 1839, fill most of the book.

Series: 33 Y (Volume 33)
Scope and Content Note: A notebook containing the constitution and minutes, 1814-1815, of the United Society, a ministerial group organized by Hinde and three other clergymen in Chillicothe, Ohio; a brief autobiography written in 1828-1829, but copied and enlarged in the memoirs in 31 Y; dated “reflections,” primarily religious, written from February 19 - May 23, 1830.

Series: 34 Y (Volume 34)
Scope and Content Note: Dated reflections, April 29, 1833 - January 14, 1837, intermingled with copies of letters to John Bailhache and other newspaper and periodical editors. Although many of the entries are religious in content, there are writings on other topics: the cholera epidemic of 1833, with biographies of two victims, Hinde's sister Mrs. Anne Winston Hinde Southgate (Mrs. Richard Southgate) (1783-1833) and Mrs. Eliza Doddridge Recoy Collins (Mrs. David Collins) (circa 1800-1833); a guide and hints for western immigrants; historical and geographical description of Hanover County, Virginia; the scenery and vegetation of the great Illinois prairies; scattered reminiscent biographical data about Daniel Boone and his wife in 1797, Simon Kenton, Jane McNeil (1802-1814), and Samuel Parker (born 1772). One letter (October 18, 1833) addressed to Governor Thomas Lucas of Ohio discusses the frontier scourge of “milk sickness” and its possible cause.

Series: 35 Y (Volume 35)
Scope and Content Note: A theological volume containing Hinde's manuscript on demons entitled “The Infernal Conclave”; a pamphlet entitled “News from the Infernal Regions; or a Conference of the Black Brotherhood,” written by Caleb Jarvis Taylor and published about 1803-1804 in Lexington, Kentucky; and commentary and notes for a proposed reprint of Taylor's work with additions by Hinde.

Series: 36 Y (Volume 36)
Scope and Content Note: Several diaries bound together covering the following periods: June 10 - July 11, July 29 - September 17, 1830; May 3 - June 19, 1831; February 24 - March 3, 1833; May 22, 1842; May 31 - June 11, 1844. These are followed by notes for a series of Biblical lectures, 1837, with annotations in 1844.

Series: 37 Y (Volume 37)
Scope and Content Note: A small notebook, 1824, containing Biblical texts and comments which appear to be sermon outlines.

Series: 38 Y (Volume 38)
Scope and Content Note: Miscellaneous notes, sermons, and writings, circa 1829-1831. Among them is an anecdotal biographical memoir about his parents Dr. Thomas Hinde (born 1737) and Mary Todd Hubbard Hinde (1747-1820), written in 1831.

Series: 39 Y (Volume 39)
Scope and Content Note: Miscellaneous notes, sermons, poetry, and articles, 1824-1827. Among materials of historical interest are a plan for government for Indian tribes, 1824, sent to John C. Calhoun by John Cleves Symmes and Hinde; an anecdote about Tecumseh told to Hinde by Thomas Bryant of Kentucky; a list of Hinde's books in 1824; a series of political articles and letters, 1824-1825, involving the Burr conspiracy, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson; a prospectus for a proposed political, literary, and historical journal to be titled The Western Pioneer; a paper on the history of Methodism in the United States; and a biography of his father Dr. Thomas Hinde, written in 1826.

Series: 40 Y (Volume 40)
Scope and Content Note: A volume of miscellany including diaries covering July 21 - August 10, 1832, and April 3-11, 1843; scattered correspondence; manuscript articles; and clippings of some published historical and religious pieces. Several articles were written under such pseudonyms as “Theophilus Arminius,” “Western Emigrant,” and “Visiter ( sic ) of the West.” A biography of his first wife, Belinda Bradford Hinde (1791-1827), and an account of the military career of her father James Bradford, Hinde wrote for his daughter Martha Hinde Constable (Mrs. C.H. Constable) in 1845.

Series: 41 Y (Volume 41)
Scope and Content Note

Miscellaneous original manuscripts, 1787-1883. The earliest piece (1787) pertains to the provisioning of Harmar's troops. Most of the papers during Hinde's lifetime are legal in content and relate to his involvement in land transactions, his attempts to secure inheritance for his first wife from the estate of her father, and to Hinde's business of searching out and pursuing land claims for Revolutionary War veterans.

From 1824 to 1830 Hinde focused his thought on the plight of the American Indians. This interest is documented by letters (1824) to James Barbour and John McLean and one from John C. Calhoun; a petition to Congress detailing the proposal by John C. Symmes and Hinde that they establish a government-sponsored trading company among the Indians of the far Northwest along the Columbia River with provisions for schools, churches, and transportation for tribes en route and land bounties for each white man who married an Indian; and other articles on Hinde's schemes for Indian territorial government in the West.

Several items of interest on other topics may also be cited: a letter (1808) by Edward Tiffin on the Embargo laws and United States policy toward England; a certificate (1809) written and signed by Governor John Tyler of Virginia; a letter (1813) on Methodist affairs by William McKendree; medicinal formulas (1813); and a letter (1820) by Dr. Thomas Hinde. Also included are letters (1814) on military matters by Charles S. Todd; a military bounty land warrant (1819) signed by President James Monroe; a letter (1826, badly mutilated) on publications to Lorenzo Dow; a letter (1837) by John Mason Peck with a prospectus for his proposed history of Illinois; and a letter (1839) addressed to Governor David Wallace of Indiana on internal improvement projects on the Wabash River. Among Hinde's other correspondents were Philip Doddridge, Andrew Ellison, John Law, William Lytle, Benjamin Temple, and David Zeigler.

After Hinde's death, a group of letters and notes, 1846-1883, concerns Draper's acquisition of Hinde's papers and his troubled relations with the heirs over his retention and use of them.