The Draper Manuscript Collection

Includes copies of the material in all 491 bound volumes of Lyman C. Draper's original collection, calendars of eight of the series (J, U, CC, XX, DD, QQ, ZZ, SS, TT, UU, and VV), and the following works: Pioneer's mission : the story of Lyman Copeland Draper / by William B. Hesseltine -- Frontier advance on the upper Ohio, 1778-1779 / edited with introduction and notes by Louise Phelps Kellogg -- Frontier retreat on the upper Ohio, 1779-1781 / edited with an introduction and notes by Louise Phelps Kellogg -- Documentary history of Dunmore's War, 1774 / compiled from the Draper manuscripts in the library of the Wisconsin Historical Society and published at the charge of the Wisconsin Society of the Sons of the American Revolution ; edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites and Luise Phelps Kellogg -- Frontier defense on the Upper Ohio, 1777-1778 / edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites and Louise Phelps Kellogg -- The revolution on the Upper Ohio, 1775-1777 / edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites and Louise Phelps Kellogg.

In the mid-nineteenth century the Wisconsin Historical Society's first director, Lyman C. Draper, gathered outstanding materials such as the Daniel Boone papers, which include Draper's interviews with Boone's son, and the papers of Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark. These two collections alone are of vast significance to frontier history before 1830, but the full collection comprises nearly five hundred volumes of records, including military and government records, interviews, Draper's own research notes, and rare personal letters. For scholars, genealogists, and local historians, the Draper papers offer a wealth of information on the social, economic, and cultural conditions experienced by our frontier forebears. The 180-page index lists thousands of names and is an indispensable guide for all who wish to use the collection, which is available in libraries across the country on microfilm.

This is an index to films 889179 and 889180 of the Draper manuscript collection.

Draper, the first secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, collected more than 500 volumes of material on the famed frontiersman Daniel Boone. His biography of Boone remained unfinished for 100 years until Ted Franklin Belue, a widely read scholar of early Americana, added his authoritative editing. This long-awaited work is filled with little-known information on Boone and his family, long hunters, the Shawnee, the fur trade, and frontier life in general.

After 1855 the society's annual reports were included in its Proceedings.