Ashley Cataldo, Curator of Manuscripts, (acataldo@mwa.org) explains how two manuscript poems by Phillis Wheatley (1753 – 1784) entered the AAS collection. "To the University of Cambridge," dated 1767, was evidently written to the students at Harvard College, admonishing them to learn and live virtuously through their Redeemer. The second poem, entitled "On the Death of the rev'd Dr. Sewall," and dated 1769, is an elegy to her pastor, Joseph Sewall (1688-1769), minister for fifty-six years at Boston's Old South Church.

Scanned images of both of the poems are available.