Much has been written in the history of the Pacific Northwest of the missionaries and pioneer settlers of the Columbia and Willamette Valleys. The romantic episodes of the years 1830 to 1850 have been subject for fiction and drama, and much applause has justifiably been accorded those who ventured the journey in the covered wagon across “The Great American Desert,” or by ship and pack-horse via the Isthmus route, or by the long and dangerous sea voyage around the Horn, to establish missions among the Indians, and homes in the wilderness. But with the decade of the 'fifties came another type of pioneer: the business man from New England whose cautious nature was not attracted by the gold flurries of California's “forty-nine,” but rather by the inducements of sober trade in the rapidly growing communities of the Oregon country.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has in its files many collections of manuscripts, a great number of which pertain to the business records of Philadelphia merchants and institutions, both commercial and municipal. The collections are as varied in content as they are in size and in periods covered. Any student of Pennsylvania industrial, commercial, or financial history, from the earliest days of the colony to the more familiar recent years, will find many contemporaneous records to assist him.