This collection contains papers relating to town business and daily life in Newburyport and includes documents dating from 1670 to 1913. The series were organized chronologically or alphabetically depending on contents.

Series I. Town Records is comprised of six subseries: Court Documents, Militia Records, Overseers of the Poor; Town Records, Notes on History and Taxes. The bulk of the collection is comprised of tax records which include Polls and Estate for personal returns, warrants issued by the Commonwealth to individual collectors, and shareholder lists submitted to the Assessors of Newburyport in response to "An act requiring corporations to make returns to the assessors of cities and towns" approved by the state Legislature on April 29, 1863. The Town Records subseries also includes a record book dating from 1791 of "People Warned Out of Town."

Series II. Fire Department includes records of tax abatements for firemen and engineers, record and account books for various fire societies and a history of the Newburyport Fire Department from 1761 to 1900 by former Chief S. C. Reed.

Series III. Schools is organized into two subseries. Subseries A. School Records includes attendance registers, school record books and reports, and a bound volume of The Putnam Experiment, the weekly school newspaper, from the 1850s and including volumes V to IX. Subseries B. Student Work includes a large number of penmanship books, mainly belonging to members of the Short family, sketch books and an oversized companion exercise (including original poems) entitled "Lady Harriet" from 1834.

Series IV. Church Records includes original and transcribed records from St. Paul's Church, records from the First Religious Society in Newburyport, records from the Christian Church, and an organ tax list. This series also includes transcriptions from gravestones located in Newburyport.

Series V. Other Records consists of Corporations, Societies and Miscellaneous Papers of Newburyport. Subseries A. Corporations contains four volumes of Transfer Books for the Essex-Merrimack Bridge Corporation, records pertaining to the bankruptcy of the Essex Hat Manufacturing Company, a record book tracking employee time sheets and various local bank records. Subseries B. Societies includes records of the Adelphi Society, Declaiming and Debate Club, Knights of Honor, Old Town Farmer's Club and correspondence of the Merrimack Humane Society. Subseries C. Miscellaneous includes local shipping records, the log book for the magnetic telegraph for 1848, the religious notebook of Elizabeth Gerrish, a petition to oppose the reelection of General Butler, and letters to Reverend Fiske from his daughter while performing mission work in Hawaii.