The collection primarily consists of correspondence and six small diaries of Joseph T. Mills of Lancaster, dated 1856-1882 (not consecutive). The diaries contain memoranda on law cases, persons he met on his trips as circuit judge or elsewhere, an account of his interview with Lincoln in 1864, description of his trip from Wyalusing to Stillwater, Minnesota, and overland to Superior in 1856, and of his trip to Denver, Colorado in 1880.
Correspondence includes one letter from J.C. Cover in 1862 when editor of the Grant County Herald and one in 1871 when consul at Fayal, Azores; one from Major H.E. Eastman of the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry to Major General James B. McPherson, describing a skirmish south of Vicksburg, and one from A.W. Shewey in Sharon, [West] Virginia in 1868, describing reconstruction measures.
Also included are a typewritten history of the First Congregational Church of Lancaster, and a letter book, 1857-1864, successively used by David McKee, merchant and attorney of Potosi, by McKee and Mills, attorneys of Lancaster, and by Mills alone, dealing with business affairs.
These papers are valuable chiefly for the comments and observations on Mills' trips. The interview with President Lincoln has been frequently published.
