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The correspondence consists of letters from Richard Harison to his wife, Frances, 1790-1794, from his trips to Albany and one to Philadelphia. There seem to be periodic meetings with various well-known legal figures including Egbert Benson, Josiah Ogden Hoffman, Abraham Ten Broeck, Morgan Lewis, and William North, who are mentioned in the letters. Two letters from Princeton and Philadelphia, Jan.-Feb. 1794, have interesting reference to Citizen Genet. Of his wife's letters to him, from New York, sixteen were while he was in Poughkeepsie at the Constitutional Convention in 1788, and three letters, 1783-1784, were sent to him in New Jersey while she was attending to family affairs in New York during his exile from the city. The manuscripts include his commonplace book, entitled "Extracts from various authors, upon several subjects" [after 1763]-1781, and ten genealogical and biographical records from his family papers.

Correspondence and legal and business papers of Peter Van Schaack and his family. The collection includes letters to and from Egbert Benson, Henry Cruger, James Duane, William Laight, Theodore Sedgwick, Peter Silvester, John Vardill, and many others. The letters deal with such subjects as taxation, the siege of Boston, George Washington, Tories, the Jay Treaty, Shays' Rebellion, and the many prominent people with whom Van Schaack was acquainted, including the Jay family and Gouverneur Morris. There is a large number of letters to and from his brother, Henry Van Schaack (1733-1823). The correspondence contains many political and social opinions regarding America and England before, during, and after the Revolutionary War. Many of the legal documents concern the disputed claims to the Van Rensselaer properties in Claverack and Westenhook, N.Y., as well as land claims around Kinderhoek, N.Y. Henry Cruger Van Schaack added to the collection more letters from well-known people as well as legal and family papers. These are mostly dated in the mid-19th century, and deal in part with the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, the Berkshire Iron Works, and similar business ventures. Many documents are Colonial-era deeds or concern early land disputes such as the New York-Massachusetts boundary dispute.