This collection consists primarily of correspondence between members of the Hook family of Salem and Boston, Massachusetts. Many of the letters are of a personal, informal nature, while others deal with the furniture making and organ building businesses. In addition, there are children's copybooks, records of accounts with local merchants, plans for furniture design, and envelopes addressed to the organ builders. The collection as a whole reveals the day-to-day life led by prosperous business people in early nineteenth-century Salem.

Letters in Folder 1 are to Eliza Hook from her family and friends, and letters in Folder 2 are to other Hook family members, again mostly from family and friends. These letters reflect daily life in early nineteenth-century Salem and Boston among active, well-educated citizens. They describe visits and partings, illness and death, suitors and courtships, sermons and lectures, and travel and meetings with dignitaries like John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster. Very little of an unpleasant nature is mentioned, although two letters (1837) to Eliza from Elias concern James Franklin's recent death, one letter (1839) refers to a 20-year estrangement between two members of the family, and another (undated) refers to dissension within the South Church (Salem) choir.

Letters in two folders pertain to William Hook. In Folder 3 are five letters concerning the delivery and sales of his furniture. Furniture pieces mentioned include counting house desks, night cabinet tables, dining tables, small secretaries and folding writing desks. Some of these pieces were sold on consignment in New Orleans (1834-1835) or to a Captain Thomas Cloutman writing from Valparaiso, Chile (1835). In Folder 4 are three letters to William Hook from his sons Elias and George Greenleaf Hook concerning details of bank loans to the organ company. They also refer to the sale and delivery of organs to Beverly, Massachusetts, Buffalo and Albany, New York, and Baltimore, Maryland. Also included is one promissory note to William Hook from his sons.

Folder 5 contains three other letters pertaining to the organ company. Two (1857, 1862) are addressed to Elias and George Greenleaf Hook, and one (1838) to George Ward in New York, New York, from George Kingsley praising the superior quality of Hook organs.

Additional Hook family papers include children's copybooks and lessons (Folder 6), miscellaneous family accounts such as payments for medical treatments, musical instruments, dressmaking supplies, carpentry supplies, and poll taxes (Folder 7), and plans and specifications for a worktable or desk, for capitals or other decorative parts of furniture, and for a "Captain Fairfield sofa" (Folder 8).