Most of the material in the collection deals with Dr. Hoyt's services in the Mexican and Civil Wars. There are invoices and receipts, requisitions, provision and ration returns, inventories of hospital and medical supplies, official correspondence and orders, a prescription and diet book, and reports of patients' conditions for 1847-1848, during a part of the time he was in charge of an army hospital at Jalapa, Mexico. There are similar documents for the Civil War. The papers in each of these groups are numerous enough to give a good idea of hospital equipment, soldiers' rations, and care of the sick and wounded.
There is very little material concerning Dr. Hoyt's civilian activities. A few legal papers for 1857 deal with the affairs of the St. Croix and Lake Superior Railroad. One volume contains records of cases tried before Hoyt as justice of the peace in 1850 and 1851. Two other volumes record household expenses and patients' accounts. Perhaps the most interesting piece in the collection is a daily record of patients visited and charges made from 1869 to 1874. It shows that the doctor's practice extended over a wide area, from Burnett County to River Falls and as far as White Bear, Minnesota, where he treated the gamut of human ailments.
The collection also includes correspondence concerning the selection of the Reverend Increase N. Tarbox as pastor of the Evangelical Church in Framingham, Massachusetts, in 1844; letters from Caleb Cushing, in whose regiment Dr. Hoyt served as surgeon during the Mexican War, concerning appointments and land deeds; three quartermasters' books kept during the Mexican War; some addresses written by Dr. Hoyt; and certificates and commissions issued to him and to his son-in-law, Dr. Charles F. King, also of Hudson.
