Scope and Content Note
The papers of Nicholas Low (1739-1826) span the years 1773-1897, with the bulk of the material from 1784 to 1828. The collection consists largely of financial papers and correspondence and includes family and business correspondence of Low & Wallace, New York, New York, ship records, legal records, accounts of voyages to Asia, Europe, and South America, and printed matter. Included are correspondence with foreign merchants, letters from Low’s brother, Isaac Low (1735-1791), and his nephew, Isaac Low (commissary-general, British army), dealing with trade conditions, Loyalist matters, progress of British-American relations, and the proceedings for recovery of property seized from Isaac Low during the Revolution. Correspondence of Mordecai Lewis & Company, merchants of Philadelphia, relates in part to events in Congress during the first session following the adoption of the Constitution. The collection also includes papers relating to Low’s lands in Kentucky, Ohio, and New York; the founding of Ballston Spa and Lowville, New York; the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures; and other matters relating to life in New York. Prominent as well is material relating to commercial contacts abroad, mainly in Britain, Ireland, and the European continent, with connections also in Argentina, Canada, China, India, Mexico, the West Indies, and Uruguay.