The manuscripts are a veritable gold-mine of Masonic information, for they constitute, as far as we are aware, the most complete set of early Scottish Rite rituals in the United States. Each of the five books was copied from rituals belonging to Giles F. Yates, Thirty-third Degree, a member of both the Northern and Southern Supreme Councils, who had most, if not all, of the manuscript rituals of Mr. Frederick Dalcho, one of the founders of the first Supreme Council.