[1] Starting in the 1838, Lyman Draper corresponded with people who were early settlers in the Trans-Allegheny region during the second half of the 18th century.

Draper's professed purpose was to shed light on the era and gain knowledge before it was completely forgotten.

[2] He planned to write a series of biographies on early settlers in the region and document the Indian Wars in the Ohio River Valley.

Although Draper never finished his biographies, his correspondence with survivors of the time and their relatives provide the largest single first-hand account of the settlement of the region.

Among the most notable of the figures whose papers he collected are Joseph Brant, Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, Thomas S. Hinde, John Donelson, James Robertson, General Joseph Martin, and Simon Kenton.