This collection includes church, society and private corporation records; property appraisals and tax records; receipts for labor and materials relating to the building of the county jail; school attendance records, penmanship workbooks, essays, notices and reports of the Feoffees to the town; military roll calls; vital statistics; weather records; a scrapbook; and miscellaneous papers pertaining to the inhabitants of Ipswich.

The bulk of this collection relates to the building of the county jail and early court records. This collection includes documents of the Feoffees of Salem, which support the Ipswich public schools. This relationship began in 1651 when the town gave all of the "neck beyond Chebacco River and the rest of the ground up to [the] Gloucester line to the grammar school." Five trustees were chosen to oversee this donation, for which the income from leasing the land supported the Ipswich public schools. The Feoffees are still in existence today. The collection includes daily weather records from 1820 to 1852. The collection also includes a receipt signed by Samuel Adams dated 1790.