Series II. Business Correspondence, Incoming is comprised of 79 linear feet of correspondence from 1815 to 1869 from merchants, bankers, and business associates. The correspondence is divided into three subseries: letters from United States businesses, European businesses, and chronologically arranged pressbooks and duplicate correspondence. The regional divisions of the business correspondence follow the 1851-1854 letterbook groupings, with United States business letters including South American and Far Eastern correspondence, and European business letters including the Near East, Russia, and India. Both of these sections are arranged alphabetically by business (see Appendices I and II for lists of major American and European businesses).

Company correspondence is sometimes filed with the company’s president or treasurer. All attempts have been made to cross reference individuals with their employing companies. Companies and individuals may be represented in multiple subseries due to change in name, location, or position. Business correspondence may also include personal and political news, especially in letters from close associates as Richard Bell, William Bend, Charles Humberston, and M. Humphries (see also the Personal Papers for further correspondence from these individuals). Of interest is correspondence which Peabody received from his partners over the years: correspondence received from Peabody Riggs & Co. while Peabody was a member of the firm working in London; letters from A.W. Peabody and H.T. Jenkins, junior partners in Peabody Riggs & Co.; correspondence from Wetmore & Cryder, partners of George Peabody & Co. from 1844 to 1847; and letters from C.C. Gooch, a clerk and later a partner in George Peabody & Co. Also of note is correspondence from companies which cooperated with Peabody on special ventures: Corcoran & Riggs and Baring Brothers, which worked with Peabody on the Mexican War bonds of 1848; C.M. Lampson and P. Chouteau, who helped coordinate the sale of British-manufactured rails to United States railroads; Francis Thomas, George C. Washington, and John P. Ingle of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Co., who oversaw much of the marketing of the Maryland bonds; and Cyrus Fields of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, who organized international efforts to establish a transatlantic telegraph line.