Business Correspondence, 1799-1861 and undated

This series relates to the law practice of William P. Preston, including correspondence to and from him regarding the various clients he represented. Included are letters from his clients explaining the circumstances that required legal advice. In one 1870 letter, William Preston received an anonymous account of the life and work of Father James Dolan of Baltimore. The account begins in 1847 with the arrival of Irish emigrants to Baltimore and their "destitute condition" which aroused Father Dolan and members of the Hibernian Society, a charitable organization for Irish emigrants in the state of Maryland, to provide assistance to them and continues with entries from Father Dolan’s diary describing work among the Irish emigrants in Baltimore. The series is arranged alphabetically by recipient.