The series includes material on the career and personal life of Uriah Hendricks, who established a successful import trade with England and the West Indies. His correspondence and business records reflect association with some of the leading English exporters of copper, lead, and spelter, including Pieschell and Brogden and John F. Freeman and Company. He also dealt with other prominent London merchants including the Oppenheim family, into which his sister had married. In the West Indies, his contacts included such notable merchants as Isaac Gabay, David P. Mendez, and the De Leon family. The series contains loose correspondence, inventories, indentures, letterbooks, ledgers, and account books, marriage contracts, and estate records.

Uriah Hendricks (1737-1798) came to New York from London in 1755 to set up as a shopkeeper. His father, Aaron Hendricks, was a prominent London merchant with connections both in England and the colonies. Through his connections, and his own good business sense, Uriah was able to expand fairly quickly from a small-time dry goods shopkeeper to a successful merchant importer involved in the carrying trade with England and the West Indies. On the road to making his fortune, Uriah married Eve Esther Gomez, daughter of a second-generation colonial, in 1762. Together the couple had eleven children, eight of whom survived to adulthood. Uriah took an active role in the Jewish community in New York. He was a member and President of synagogue Shearith Israel and a regular contributor to charity and cemetery funds. A devoted father, he made certain his children learned Hebrew and received a proper Jewish education. He was a fixture in the economic life of the city as well, becoming one of the richest merchants in New York while still a young man. Wishing to maintain the safety of his family and his business, Uriah was not as active in the political life of the city or the country, but did profit by supplying the military during both the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War.

The series contains papers of Harmon Hendricks relating to his importing business, trade in copper, and growing interest finding American sources of copper manufacture. It includes loose correspondence, inventories and other business records, letterbooks, ledgers and account books, indentures, and mortgages. It is arguably the most historically important of the collection and one of the richest pertaining to a New York merchant in the carrying trade who subsequently helped to build one of America's basic industries. Notable are Harmon's correspondence with Paul Revere & Son (Subseries II.C) and records regarding his ship, Ophelia.

Harmon Hendricks (1771-1838), Uriah's only surviving son, began working in his father's business as an apprentice, becoming a partner in 1792 at age twenty. Harmon was especially interested in the metals trade in which Uriah had recently become involved. After Uriah's death six years later, Harmon took over completely, discontinuing the West Indian trade to focus exclusively on the carrying trade with England and trade in America, particularly in copper and other metals.

The business correspondence is ordered chronologically and then by person or subject. Some of the correspondence in Subseries B includes annotations and transcriptions as well as original materials. The personal papers, household expense records, and estate papers are ordered chronologically by subject.

The series is organized into four subseries:

Subseries II.A. Ledgers and letterbooks

Subseries II.B. Correspondence

Subseries II.C. Material on Paul Revere

Subseries II.D. Estate-related papers

The series includes records of businesses owned by the Hendricks family, wholly or in partnership.

The series is arranged into three subseries

Subseries III.A. Partnership with Solomon I. Isaacs in Soho Copper Company

Subseries III.B. Hendricks Brothers

Subseries III.C. Business and property of the Soho Copper Company and Belleville Copper Rolling Mill

The series contains deeds, mortgages, indentures, contracts, maps, and blueprints for various properties owned by members of the Hendricks family in New York City and New Jersey, excluding Belleville. The material is organized chronologically and by individual property, whenever possible.

This series contains the personal papers of members of several generations of the Hendricks family and other families related to them by marriage, in the form of personal papers, correspondence, wills, marriage contract, and other religious and legal documents, photographs, and memorabilia. It also contains genealogical research and notes, charts, stamps, coats-of-arms, and other background information.

The records describe the Hendricks family's involvement in the social, religious, and economic life of the city. Member of the Hendricks family were leaders of synagogue Shearith Israel, the Jewish Benevolent Society, and the American Jewish Historical Society. Members of several related families, such as Edwin Einstein, husband of Uriah Hendricks's daughter Fanny and candidate for mayor in the early 1900s, became involved in political life. Given the extent of intermarriage with other prominent New York Jewish families and the Hendricks's position as community leaders, the material in this series contains a wealth of information on the New York Jewish community and New York society in general, from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries.

For additional material, see Series IX. Hendricks and Related Families Supplement (1790-1976).

The series includes newspaper clippings, brochures, pamphlets, advertisements, invoices, and other printed material, organized chronologically.

The series contains several drafts and the finished manuscript for Maxwell Whiteman's 1971 book, Copper for America, on the Hendricks family and its role in the American copper industry. The N-YHS Library also holds the published book, Copper for America: The Hendricks Family and a National Industry, 1755-1939, under call number HD9539.C7 U58.

Like Series V, this supplemental series contains the personal papers of members of several generations of the Hendricks family and other families related to them by marriage, in the form of personal papers, correspondence, wills, marriage contract, and other religious and legal documents, photographs, and memorabilia. It also contains genealogical research and notes, and other background information.

The records describe the Hendricks family's involvement in the social, religious, and economic life of the city. Member of the Hendricks family were leaders of Congregation Shearith Israel, the Jewish Benevolent Society, and the American Jewish Historical Society. Given the extent of intermarriage with other prominent New York Jewish families and the Hendricks's position as community leaders, the material contains a wealth of information on the New York Jewish community and New York society in general, from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries.

For additional material see Series V. Hendricks and Related Families Personal Papers (1713-1966).