The Nathan Dane Papers contain legal documents, letters, office daybooks, and account books, all related to Dane's law practice in Beverly, Massachusetts. The collection has been organized into two series.

Series I. Correspondence contains letters and documents primarily concerned with Dane's law practice. Of particular interest are the Heyleger Estate Papers, (Folder 1) which represent the correspondence between Dane and successive generations of the Heyleger family, with branches in St. Croix and in Ireland. William Heyleger, born in St. Eustatius, in the Dutch West Indies, had moved to Beverly, Massachusetts, and in 1740-1741, had acquired lands in Beverly and an interest in a wharf and warehouse. He and his wife, Hannah, had three children, Anne (Nancy), William, and Mary. Subsequently, the family removed to St. Croix in the West Indies, at that time a Danish colony. One of the major difficulties in settling the Heyleger estate revolved around the birthplace of the aforesaid Heyleger children and subsequent heirs, and the inability, under Massachusetts state law, of certain aliens to inherit land in Massachusetts after the War for Independence. These letters cover a period of fifty years, from 1784 to 1844, even extending ten years after Dane's death, when the executors of Dane's estate and their legal representatives attempted finally to settle the involved affairs of the Heyleger family. Dane's letters to members of the Heyleger family include explanations of the prevailing inheritance laws of Massachusetts, as well as laws governing the ownership and inheritance of land by aliens, and the application and interpretation of certain provisions of Jay's Treaty of 1794, which provided reciprocal arrangements between England and America for land owned by citizens of those countries.

The Heyleger Estate letters also contain informal evaluations by Dane of the estate's landholdings, and Dane's general observations on the value of land in Essex County after the War of 1812. Dane comments on the deterioration of the economy of seaport towns of Massachusetts as a consequence of that conflict. His apparent dismay at the depressed state of shipping and business in the area, caused by embargoes and interruption of commerce, is particularly interesting in light of Dane's participation in the Federalist's Hartford Convention. The Hartford Convention was a meeting of Northeast Federalists which convened at Hartford, Connecticut, in December of 1814 for the purpose of considering the grievances of the Northeastern states arising out of governmental policies before and during the War of 1812.

Folder 3, containing papers relating to the Estate of Thomas Appleton, of Beverly, Massachusetts, include an "Inventory and Appraisement" of the estate assets, both realty and personally, and provides some additional idea of the value of land and other assets during that period.

A letter dated April 1802, from Dane to Fisher Ames, in Folder 6, will be of particular interest to legal historians. It concerns the legal representation of Judge March, a Senator and Justice, who had been charged with libel. In his letter to Ames, Dane comments on the reasoning of the presiding judge who (mistakenly, according to Dane) entered a verdict against March. Dane explains his own reasons, based on his understanding of the prevailing law, for believing his client innocent of the alleged libel. Also among the contents of Folder 6 is a note to Dane from John Pickering, dated December 16, 1831, containing a postscript referring to Dane's "work on Nullification." Nullification was the act by which a state, within its territorial jurisdiction, suspended a federal law. In 1831, the object of the nullification movement was most probably the protective tariff enacted during the Jackson administration. Dane apparently intended to place his statement before Congress.

Series II. Financial contains account books, bank books, and a settlement of the Nathan Dane estate. The series is arranged chronologically.

Box 1 Folder 8 contains a "Book of Executions," recording executions issued from 1782 to 1813. (An "execution" in this context is the judicial enforcement of a money judgment.) The entries in the Book give the names of the parties, the kind of execution issued, date of judgment, the amount of debt or damages, etc.

In Box 2, there are three daybooks which record Dane's cases, the tasks performed for his clients, and the amounts charged for each such service. The activities listed therein will be of particular interest to legal historians, as it provides an account of the day-to-day activities of a civil practice in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The daybooks are sequential, covering the period from July, 1794, to August, 1823.

In Box 3 the account book, which Dane has marked as "Ledger B," records bills, expenses and receipts for the years 1800-1826. "Ledger 6" in Box 2 Folder 6 is a record of accounts from 1824 to 1834, shortly before Dane's death. It includes, in Dane's own words on the frontpiece, "1824 matters of accounts, bonds, notes, shares in corporations, not settled transferred to this Ledger from Ledger B...." Ledger 6 also includes records of rents due and paid "since 1824," memoranda of donations and other financial matters. Dane's notation in the front of the Ledger makes it clear that his purpose in organizing the records in ledger 6 was to explain all his financial affairs to anyone who might thereafter need such information, probably to settle his affairs.

Eight bankbooks are labeled as Volumes 1 through 8. Volumes 1 and 2 (Box 2 Folder 5) are the bankbooks of a Committee, of which Dane was a member, commissioned to "build a stone goel" (jail) in Salem, Massachusetts. The remaining six books (Box 2 Folder 2) are Dane's personal bankbooks.

An unlabeled notebook in Box 2 Folder 7 contains memoranda and accounts for the settlement of the Nathan Dane Estate, from 1835 to 1844.