This collection is a journal from the 1830s-1840s that features handwritten essays, songs, and poetry from various people.

The inside cover of the journal bears the date October 2, 1838, and also the year 1841. The first fifty-one pages of the journal consist of a collection of essays on various topics, apparently written as school assignments. Of the twenty-three essays, nine are initialed “J A McN” or some variation, eight bear the initials “J H T,” and six are labeled “M L B.” The essays are short and the topics range from descriptions of scenery, imaginative paragraphs written from the points of view of animals or inanimate objects, appreciative essays on people, or paragraphs that encourage good morals. The handwriting varies making it possible that more than one person wrote in the journal.

The last twenty pages include fragments and variations of 19th-century songs, lyrics, and poems. Most are unsigned or unidentified in the journal itself. The last page also includes a list of textbooks used by the Brownsville Female Academy in 1838.