Series III: Non-Business Documents, 1790-1850
Extent
Scope and Contents Note
This series includes non business documents including a book of donations for the African Free School, and recollections regarding Isaac Hicks after his passing. This is the smallest series, as a majority of the collection is business related.
Arrangement
There is no particular arrangement to this series, as the series is so small.
Summary of Letters; Recollections about Isaac Hicks; Letter re Isaac Hicks as Director of Merchant's National Bank; Hicks Recollections about voyage
Letters Re Isaac Hicks
Scope and Contents Note
This folder contains letters regarding Isaac Hicks, written after his death. One letter is a statement from the Merchant's National Bank, stating that Hicks was a founding member and acting president of the bank for a period of time. Another letter is from Richard Motts to John W. Hicks (grandson of Isaac Hicks) and recalls meetings with Hicks when Motts was a child, as well as some recollections about the Hicks family in general.
Also included in this folder is a sketch written by Hicks in 1792 regarding a voyage to Savannah, Georgia and the proceedings while there. This document is extremely difficult to read due to bleed-through of the ink, but some early topics include the weather at the time the ship launched, and how early on in the voyage, a large number of the passengers fell ill.
African Free School, Undated, inclusive
Scope and Contents
This book is in regard to the African Free School and donations towards its funding. The book is introduced with "The immediate guardians of the African Free School are induced to apply for aid in support of the institution, as the funds heretofor granted for that purpose are inadequate to the present establishment; and by contracting the plan, many youth, now in a fair way to become useful members of society, would be deprived of the inestimable privileges they now enjoy.—About one hundred & fifty children of Africans and their descendants, at present partake of the benefits of this seminary; they have no particular society to look up to for assistance, their only reliance is on the general benevolence of the citizens of New York on those philanthropic individuals, who know no stronger call on their exertions, than the conviction that those exertions will be useful to their fellow creatures." The rest of the book lists individuals, and how much they donated. Only 3 pages of the book are filled.