The William H. Chamberlain papers contain materials from his time as a naval designer and builder and include financial records, correspondence with clients, and design papers. This collection is by no means a complete record of Chamberlain's naval design and building business, it only provides a glimpse into the business as it covers a short period of time and the material relates to only a handful of vessels. This collection is organized into four series.

Series I. Financial Papers contains two charge books, a check book, and a record book, all of which detail Chamberlain's accounts with customers.

Series II. Correspondence contains correspondence to and from clients. The majority of the correspondence is between Chamberlain and William E. Blodgett, who appears to have purchased a couple of vessels from Chamberlain over the years. The correspondence includes two photographs that Blodgett sent Chamberlain of his beach home in Florida.

Series III. Design Papers contains papers related to the design and building of Chamberlain's vessels. It contains contracts between Chamberlain and clients, specifications for the vessels, blueprints and sketches. One of the blueprints is by naval architect John G. Alden for his number 188; it is possible that Chamberlain worked off of this blueprint at one time. There are a set of blueprints for a special design for William Wallace, Jr., it is unknown why these have been included in this collection, as they were drawn up and revised after Chamberlain's death.

Series IV. Other contains miscellaneous items, such as a diary that Chamberlain kept to record daily wind conditions and direction, in addition to how many hours he worked that day. This series includes by-laws from the Burgess Yacht Club of Marblehead, Massachusetts and some information from the Massachusetts Bay Indian Marconi Class Association. Also included is an undated catalog of boats available from Chamberlain, a business card, photocopy of a picture, and some miscellaneous notes.