Primary Texts from 18th Century America

Historians are a bit like ministers in this respect:  they summarize, and inevitably interpret, vast tracts of the text so that the central idea can be squeezed between two points of the clock.   Unfortunately, many times the “central idea” is not even “central” nor is it an “idea” even remotely conveyed by the original material.

With that reality in mind, we encourage everyone to read the original history — the diaries, journals, letters, and statutes of the past.

Here’s a good start..

The Documentary History of the Destruction of the Gaspee
(Colony Bay Exclusive)

The Works of John Adams — Volume 2

John Adams Old Family Letters, Alexander Biddle Ed.

The Diary of Matthew Patten of Bedford, NH

Letters and Diaries of John Rowe, Boston Merchant, 1759-1762, 1764-1779

The Diary of Anna Green Winslow

Sally Wister’s Journal

The Literary Diary of Rev. Ezra Stiles

The Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 2, 1770-1773

Philip Vickers Fithian
Journal and Letters 1767-1774

A Method For Prayer — Rev. Matthew Henry
(Insights into the prayer life of the 18th Century)

The Diary of Joshua Hempstead 1711-1758

The Frontier Missionary:  A Memoir of the life of Rev. Jacob Bailey, A.M.
(18th Century Congregationalist Turned Anglican Minister)

Letters from An American Farmer
(J. Hector Saint John de Crevecoeur 1735-1813)

Glimpses of Colonial Society and the life at Princeton College 1766-1773

Edmund Burke’s Speeches and Letters on American Affairs

The Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson, Esq.

Letters of Nathaniel Walker Appleton to his Classmate
Eliphalet Pearson, 1773-1784

Deacon Tudor’s Diary, A Record of More or Less Important Events in
Boston from 1732 to 1793 by an Eye Witness

Political and Social Letters of a Lady of the 18th Century
(Sarah Byng Osborn)

The Life of Benjamin Franklin Written by Himself, Vol. II

George Rogers Clark Papers 1771-1781

A History of the Destruction of His Britannic Majesty’s Schooner, The Gaspee,
Accompanied by the Correspondence Therewith

Acts and Laws of His Majesty’s Province of New Hampshire 1759

New Hampshire Provincial and State Papers 1725-1800

Acts and Laws of the English Colony of Rhode-Island, 1767

Journals of the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1770-1772

A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd Edition

Journal of Occurrences during the Late American War, R. Lamb

A French Volunteer of the War of Independence
(The Chevalier de Pontgibaud)

Memoirs of the Reign of George III, Volume II

Journal of the Reign of King George III, 1771-1783
Horace Walpole

New Travels in the United States of America — 1788

Orderly Book of Capt. Ichabod Norton, Col. Mott’s (Conn.) Regiment

Travels in American 100 Years Ago (Thomas Twining)
(An account of America in 1795)