The Rockwell Family Papers consist of two cartons of letters, business papers, bound diaries and account books, photographs, newspaper clippings, and other papers. The chronological span of the collection is from 1854 to 1972, with the great majority of the papers dating from the 1850s to 1929. Most of the materials in the Rockwell Family Papers relate to Ell B. Rockwell's many years of service on Lake Champlain steamboats.

Richard Spear (1737-1788) moved to Shelburne, Vermont, from Braintree, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1783. He died five years later, but his sons Asahel (1778-1849) and Elhanan W. Spear (1782-1869) remained in Shelburne and raised families there. The Spear Family Papers contain an interesting variety of manuscripts from the 1790s to the 1940s.