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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.

1992-1995 Additions: 138 volumes of his diaries, 1920-1994, have been added, as well as 12 letters from W.A. Craigie concerning new entries for the Oxford English Dictionary, 1 drawing in the style of John Leech, 2 19th century drawings, the manuscript of his "Young John of Gaunt; a poem in fourteen cantos", 22 engraved American portraits, 5 maps of the American Civil and Revolutionary Wars, 3 scrapbooks, World War I to 1976, his commonplace book, 1927-1990, several of his published books, and "The Sheriff's Prisoner", an autobiographical account of his 8 months in Brixton Prison for Obscene Libel on the publication of "Guido and the Girls", along with letters and documents re. this case.