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Letters written to Gay from political and literary contemporaries such as Horace Greeley, Charles Sumner, and William Bryant; reports in letter form from his reporters at the front during the Civil War; and personal correspondence including many letters from his wife, Elizabeth Neall Gay. Letters written to Mrs. Gay from family friends and business associates including many from her husband. Correspondence of other members of the Gay family including Walter Gay, Sarah Gay, and Allan Gay. Diaries, notebooks, and journals of Sydney Howard Gay.

Letters, manuscripts, and documents collected by Crary primarily for use in the writing of her book on American Tories, THE PRICE OF LOYALTY (1973). Many of the items relate to the Continental Army, and especially to the Company of Captain Nathan Peirce in the Green Mountain Boys Regiment of Seth Warner (1743-1784). Also included are letters from John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), Indian agent Israel Chapin, William Harris Crawford (1772-1834), Charleston merchant and loyalist John Cruden, Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), Woodbury Langdon (1738/9-1805); and others. Also, documents relating to the commands of Benedict Arnold, John Burgoyne, Lord Cornwallis, David Wooster, and many others; deeds to land in Montgomery County, N.Y. signed by Jeremiah Van Rensselaer (1738-1810), and others; an orderly book belonging to Ichabod Norton; and a journal kept on Gibralter, apparently by the governor, George Augustus Eliott (1717-1790). A volume of muster rolls and troop encampment data of the Army of Great Britain contains copies of letters intercepted from Alexander Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris.

The General Manuscript Collection is an artificial collection of correspondence, diaries, lecture notes, class work, essays, administrative documents, minutes, and other documents collected by the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Single items or very small collections are generally classified as part of the general manuscript collection rather than assigned an individual manuscript number. Additionally, small additions to existing RBML manuscript collections may be classified as part of the General Manuscript Collection.

Correspondence, manuscripts of poems, and manuscripts of lectures by Benjamin. The correspondence consists of original letters of Benjamin, typescript and photostatic copies of Benjamin letters in other libraries, and letters to Benjamin from some of his literary contemporaries including Paul Hamilton Hayne, Willis Gaylord Clark, John Lothrop Motley, and Fitz-Greene Halleck. Many of the letters relate to Park Benjamin's lecture tours. There are other family letters and many documents relating to the Benjamin family,and two letterbooks of John Lothrop Motley. Also, a large amount of genealogical material of the Benjamin family, and its related families from the 16th century to the present day. There are also financial records, monographs, clippings, and photographs.