Series 8: Books and Scrapbooks, 1659-1917, inclusive

The Books and Scrapbooks series contains a variety of books which were either created by or maintained by the Lefferts family or acquired by the attendants of the Lefferts Historical House Museum. Books were kept within the collection if they had a strong connection to the Lefferts family or the Lefferts Historical House, if they had a strong connection to the life of the Lefferts particular to colonial American history, or if they included important inscriptions, marginalia, or notations and correspondence.

There are a variety of religious books and bibles within the series including four very large bibles. Three of these bibles are in Dutch and date from the mid-17th Century to the mid-18th Century. The oversized Dutch Bibles are published by Hendrick and Jacob Keur and the oversized English Bible is published by Benjamin Kennicott. These family bibles were likely important pieces of the Lefferts household and many included handwritten accounts of family births, deaths, and marriages. Many of these documents have been moved to the Genealogical Material series but the Dutch Keur Bible from 1741 still includes some inscriptions of Cowenhoven family and Lefferts family births and deaths. In addition to the large family bibles, there are also several editions of the small Het Nieuwe Testament. The Reformed Dutch Church of Flatbush pointed out in its "Quarter Milllennial Anniversary" booklet (1904) that "it is probable that all the Dutch families own one or more of these books still" indicating the importance of this New Testament in Dutch to the religious families of Flatbush with Dutch heritage even into the 20th Century.

There are some cookbooks and housekeeping guides included in this series. Most notable of these is the handwritten cookbook that was likely compiled by Maria Lott Lefferts and Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt. This cookbook also contains a loose page of recipes and some sewing threads that were left inside the book. Some of the printed cookbooks also contain handwritten recipes in the margins. The Receipts donated by the members of Saint Anna's Chapter of Saint Paul's Church in the Village of Flatbush includes a handwritten recipe for "Mother's Muffins" (page 42) and Housekeeping in old Virginia: Containing contributions from two hundred and fifty ladies in Virginia includes a handwritten recipe for "Sweet Pickled Fruit." Some more recipes, these used by Cornelia Stuyvesant, can be found in the Lefferts House and Ephemera series.

Other notable books in the series include the arithmetic workbook of Maria Lott Lefferts, a scrapbook belonging to the Alexander family containing an assortment of collected and hand-drawn book and advertisement designs, the rare Batavische Arcadia by Johan van Heemskerk (1662), and several old-Dutch religious books from the 17th and 18th Centuries.