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The bulk of the collection has been arranged into a chronological series: Correspondence and other papers of family members. This series dates from 1761 to 1916 and contains an amalgam of personal, business, and political materials. As these papers were accumulated by different family members, it was not always possible to separate papers into series by name of either Burrows, Avery, or Smith family member. To facilitate access, therefore, the papers were arranged into one chronological sequence.

The earliest materials in this series were of Latham Avery, a Connecticut businessman. This is followed by papers of his daughter, her husband Roswell Burrows, and two of their children Roswell Burrows Jr. and Lorenzo Burrows. Papers from the period when Lorenzo Burrows was served in Congress consist primarily of letters to him requesting his aid in obtaining positions within the government and letters about his Whig party activities. It is in the papers for the years 1849 to 1853, that the researcher will find correspondence from Whig politicians, Washington Hunt and Millard Fillmore.

For the mid to late nineteenth century, the correspondence is primarily to Julia Smith from her sister and her nieces about family matters. For the twentieth century, the letters are mainly addressed to Emeline Burrows and also relate to family matters. Business correspondence is interspersed throughout with the family letters.