Series III. Shipping Papers contains insurance papers, bills of sale, and ships' papers relating to the individual ships' everyday activities. Subseries A. Insurance Papers contains insurance documentation related to the shipping and merchant activities of Mansfield and his associates. This subseries contains two sub-subseries. Sub-subseries 1. Insurance Policies contains insurance policies that were taken out by H. O. Roberts and N. B. Mansfield. The insurance policies cover individual vessels, as well as office space, merchandise in storage, docks, and cargo. Some of the insurance policies appear to cover personal items, such as homes and furniture in the homes. This sub-subseries also contains account books filled with insurance information. Invoices and receipts for the various insurance policies can be found with the bills, invoices, and receipts. Sub-subseries 2. Insurance Claims contains insurance claims filed, statements of general average, statements of partial loss, statements of salvage loss, and protests.

Subseries B. Bills of Sale contains bills of sale for entire ships or for fractional parts of ships. The sale of fractional parts refers to the sale of a percentage of ownership, not the sale of physical pieces of the ships. This subseries includes declarations of ownership, bills of sale, and mortgages of vessels. Subseries C. Ships' Papers contains bills of lading, disbursements, cargo lists, crew lists, shipping articles of agreement, various certificates, invoices, instructions, inventories, charter party agreements, correspondence, bills of health, bills, receipts, some correspondence, and more. This subseries has been organized alphabetically by ship name.

Subseries D. Other contains materials related to Mansfield's shipping business ventures that do not fall into the other subseries. Included in this subseries are cargo receipts, disbursements, and log books. A number of the receipts for cargo have holes in them where they were either sewn together or were stacked with a piece of wire through them. Also included in this subseries are the papers of Captain Joseph Upton.