PREFATORY NOTE. THIS correspondence between Dr. JEREMY BELKNAP and EBENEZER HAZARD covers a period of about twenty years. It is quite probable that we have here the earliest letters that passed between them; and we may conjecture, in the absence of more trustworthy information, that their acquaintance was made at the time Mr. Hazard was visiting New Hampshire in the pursuit of materials for the great work he was engaged in, of which two volumes only were finally published, the "Historical Collections," in 1792 and 1794. Mr. Hazard's letters were part of the Belknap donation to this Society, in 1858, and are referred to in a report on that valuable gift in the "Proceedings " for March of that year, at page 295, in which it was said that "it would be desirable to receive Dr. Belknap's part of that correspondence, which is in possession of some member of the family of Mr. Hazard." Application for Dr. Belknap's letters had been made to Mr. Samuel Hazard, the eldest son of Ebenezer Hazard, by Miss Jane Belknap, now Mrs. Marcou, at the time she was preparing the excellent Life of her grandfather, published in 1847. But Mr. Samuel Hazard was not aware of the existence of the letters. He supposed they had been destroyed by his father. It appears that the letters were then in the possession of the Rev. Richard Webster, the historian of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, who lived at Mauch Chunk, Pa., and who 83774 died there, 19th May, 1856. In a letter from him to Mr. John Langdon Sibley, written about two months before his death, he says: "The Belknap letters are the property of Erskine Hazard, Esq., No. 1 Clinton Street, Philadelphia. His brother Samuel, an antiquarian, who has published, under the direction of the State, several volumes of Pennsylvania Archives, supposed his father had destroyed them. I am transcribing all that is serviceable for my purpose, in a large volume, to be deposited with the Presbyterian Historical Society." Our associate, the Rev. George E. Ellis, D.D., who had been commissioned by the Historical Society, with the concurrence of Miss Elizabeth Belknap, to procure these letters for the Society, then opened a correspondence with Mr. Webster, and continued it with Mr. Samuel Hazard, which fortunately resulted, after some delay, in securing the letters. They were sent to Miss Belknap in 1860, and were in the following year presented by her to the Society, as reported by Dr. Ellis at the meeting in January, 1861. In a letter to him from Mr. Samuel Hazard, dated 6th July, 1860, he says: "I am now happy to learn that she [Miss Belknap] presented her father's papers to the Society; and to carry out her good designs, by adding, as a part of her donation, the letters to my father lately come into my hands from Mr. Webster's estate, they are sent, as you request, by express," &c. In this letter, he refers to the great intimacy which existed between his father and Dr. Belknap, and to the unreserved character of the correspondence. "The Doctor," he says, "was one of the most agreeable letterwriters I ever read.". The freedom with which this correspondence was conducted on both sides, after the acquaintance of the parties to it had ripened into friendship and intimacy, would have operated as an obstacle to its publication at a much earlier period; but time disposes of all such questions. There is much relating to Dr. Belknap's private and per |