Draper Manuscripts: William Preston Papers, 1731-1791

Container Title
Series: 4 QQ (Volume 4)
Scope and Content Note

Papers, 1775-1778. Many concern Preston's involvement in negotiations with the Cherokee and Shawnee tribes. Pertaining to the Cherokee are letters about negotiations in 1775 and the Cherokee expedition of 1776, and correspondence, speeches, and related records of the negotiations conducted in the following year by the Virginia commissioners, Preston, Christian, and Evan Shelby. Letters in 1778 attest to the successful attempts by William Fleming and Preston to pacify the Shawnee aroused by the murder of Cornstalk.

From relatives and friends east of the mountains, Preston received occasional reactions to the conflicts in Boston and Ticonderoga (1775), to events in Williamsburg and the movements of Governor Dunmore after his flight from the Virginia capital (1775), to the entrance of the French into the war (1778), and to conditions at Valley Forge and to other northeastern military operations (1778). Opposition to Richard Henderson's plan of settlement in Kentucky in 1775 was expressed in letters by Lord Dunmore, Thomas Lewis, and Preston. Other news from Kentucky, extolled by John Donelson as “that Land of promise, that Terrestrial paradise and garden of Eden” (1778), came to Preston from surveyors and settlers throughout the period. One letter (1778) by Thomas Walker was written as a physician as well as land speculator.

Writers of three or more letters or documents were John Brown, William Christian, William Fleming, Patrick Henry, Thomas Lewis, William Russell, Evan Shelby, John Todd, and Walker. Other correspondents or authors of one or two pieces include Anthony Bledsoe, Alexander Breckinridge, Matthew Brooks, John Brown, James Buchanan, John Buchanan, Thomas Burk, William Byrd, John Camm, Arthur Campbell, John Carter, Archibald Cary, Richard Caswell, and Gilbert Christian. Also included are George Clymer, William Cocke, the Shawnee chief Cornam Fleming, Patrick Henry, Thomas Lewis, William Russell, Evan Shelby, John Todd, and Walker. Other correspondents or authors of one or two pieces include Anthony Bledsoe, Alexander Breckinridge, Matthew Brooks, John Brown, James Buchanan, John Buchanan, Thomas Burk, William Byrd, John Camm, Arthur Campbell, John Carter, Archibald Cary, Richard Caswell, and Gilbert Christian. Also included are George Clymer, William Cocke, the Shawnee chief Cornstalk, Alexander Craig, John Dickinson, James Estill, David Gass, Edward Hand, Aaron Lewis, Andrew Lewis, Samuel McDowell, James McGavock, William Madison, Sampson Matthews, Hugh Mercer, John Montgomery, John Page, James Robertson, Alexander Ross, Gabriel Shoat, Thomas Smallman, Jethro Sumner, John Tayloe, James Thompson, The Reverend John Todd, Stephen Trigg, and Edmond Winston. A few letters were addressed to Camm, William Christian, Dunmore, Henry, and Edmund Pendleton, and one to Oconastota, Little Carpenter, and other Cherokee chiefs.

Appendix D lists by page number names found in 4 QQ (Volume 4).