This collection contains a typed copy of the travel journals of William Colbert. It recounts his work as a Methodist preacher in parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and Virginia. There are ten volumes in this collection. The total work is approximately 1,120 pages in length. There is no notation about who completed the transcription of these journals.

The collection contains Thomas C. Nixon's journals beginning from 1815 to 1872. The journals reflect Nixon's daily activities including personal and business relationships, preaching, and his plantation activity among other topics. Here we see how Nixon's character develops over time and details related to his ministry, especially preaching, and his emotional reactions regarding suspension from the annual conference and the issue of slavery. The early journals discuss a great deal about his dedicated circuit-riding days whereas the later journals reflect on his life as a plantation owner. The collection also contains notebooks, loose journal pages, sermon notes, financial records, and clippings. There is also a photocopied collection of material related to the Nixon Family’s history which contains correspondences, copies of photographs, journals, notebooks, and sermons material along with additional family records.

The diaries of Rev. Frederick Krecker cover a span of almost fifty years (1838-1888). There are twenty-five (25) individual volumes. The reveal in a very personal manner the lifetime experiences of an itinerant evangelical preacher in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. Among the topics discussed are the conversion numbers of prospective new members to his congregations; a highly detailed record of the seasonal weather paterns; a recounting of the challenges in traveling from one samll town to another on very basic roads in the worst of weather conditions, as well as a heartfelt description of the uttler loneliness he must cope with in his service to God.

The earliest volumes in these journals were written in German, but Krecker switched to English when his wife, Isabella, complained to him that she could not read German, their native language, well enough to comprehend his writings. The English use started in the sixth volume in 1848.

The diaries of Krecker record the ordinary work of an itinerant preacher who pastors to his congregations and the experiences of life in mid 19th century Pennsylvania in a way not too dissimilar to many of his contemporaries.

The collection consists of two manuscripts. Both manuscripts include a section called, "Circuit Rider, or Seven Sides of the Itinerancy." The theme of itinerancy is present throughout both manuscripts. The photocopy of the original manuscript is incomplete. Other topics within these manuscripts are sermons, sermon outlines, life during the Civil War, poems, and an obituary.

The Elmer T. Clark Collection reflects Clark's work as a writer, editor, and church historian. Record types include essays, articles, manuscripts for books, correspondence, and a collection of promotional materials -- posters, pamphlets, booklets -- for the Missionary Centenary in 1918. A few personal records, such as correspondence and wills, and an audiotape of an interview between Clark's wife, Mary Alva Clark, and Ellen Lasely are included as well. The Essays and Articles series contains a subseries of addresses delivered by various speakers at the Aldersgate Session of the General Missionary Council, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1938. Clark and the other editors on the Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury publishing project corresponded with several outside researchers. That correspondence is included in the collection.

Bishop Roberts was a typical itinerant circuit rider for the Methodist Episcopal Church. The saddlebags were a common tool for such men. Methodist ministers literaly lived out of their saddlebags for large blocks of time. These bags reflect the wear and tear that accompanied their normal usage.

Also included in this collestion is Robert's pocket watch, Bible and rocking chair.

This collection is comprised of correspondence, sermons, clippings, articles, postcards, poems, and manuscripts. The manuscripts cover topics such as biographies, camp-meetings, history of the denomination, sermons and sermon notes, devotionals, and published texts.