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There is a letter book / account book of 347 p., 1790-1856, containing 466 draft copies of his commercial and social correspondence with shipping agents in Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Germany, China, Canada, as well as in the United States. The correspondence concerns Bell's business arrangements, the various cargos he shipped and their disposal, political affairs affecting the shipping trade, laws and treaties of various countries to be dealt with, taxes, embargoes, piracy, threats of war, and other pertinent events. A second account book of 84 p. (many are blank), 1787-1852, for the Ship Stephania and others contains ships' records for 1799 to 1828 and miscellaneous accounts up to 1857. There is a one volume carbon typescript (113 p.) of genealogical notes and reminiscences by Gordon Knox Bell (Regent of the University of the State of New York and grandson of Isaac Bell) and others, ca.1940. There is also an essay and lists of the residents of Greenwich Street (including the Bell and Rogers families) by Elizur Yale Smith with related correspondence, 1940.

Papers of Stillman include over 100 items pertaining to the business enterprises of his father, Charles Stillman of Brownsville, Texas, who was engaged in shipping and trade, real estate, and railroad investment. A large portion of the collection documents of James Stillman's activities in banking, in railroad financing, and in other of his business and industrial interests. The letters, legal documents, and miscellaneous papers are representative of the entire span of his career. Included in the correspondence are letters from many prominent financiers and industrialists of his day, including many from William Rockefeller; letters from President Grover Cleveland, some personal in nature and some concerned with business transactions; nine letter books of James Stillman, covering the years 1886-1897, 1906-1918; letter books of his secretary Miss K. Bredin, 1908-1916; journals for the years 1889, 1891, 1898, 1899; bank book recording Stillman's drafts, 1911-1914, on the London firm of Baring Brothers; four diaries, 1881-1884; six notebooks; one cash and journal and one ledger, 1868-1871.

Letters, documents, accounts, papers, broadsides, pamphlets, and other printed and manuscript materials assembled by Seymour Adelman and presented to the Libraries in a series of gifts. The material ranges in date from 1724-1945 and is largely American, having to do with banking business, the arts and sciences, agriculture, the free press and commerce in the 18th and 19th centuries. Included are a number of autograph letters by Joseph J. Henry, William Henry, Jr., and Joel Roberts Poinsett. There are a number of letters addressed to Joseph Story and John B. Jervis. There is a group of letters from the immediate family of John Jay concerning references to him and another group of documents and letters by and concerning Matthew Clarkson