The March Family Papers are comprised primarily of Alice Little (Hale) and Reverend John C. March's personal correspondence and diaries. The remainder of the collection consists of shipping papers of John's father, Newburyport, Massachusetts, ship owner, Captain John March.

Series I. Reverend John C. March Papers includes correspondence to his wife, from their courtship in 1832 to 1845, one year before his death. These letters describe his personal, civic, and church activities while he was minister of the Belleville church in Newbury, Massachusetts. Letters written to family and friends in 1840 and John's diaries recount his trip to Washington, D.C., and his voyage in the brig Alice to London and Paris. Of note is a description of an antislavery meeting in London (see diary, June 24, 1840). The bulk of John's miscellaneous correspondence consists of letters to his Hale family relatives and friends. His miscellaneous papers include a poetry and essay book compiled while he was a student at Yale University in 1824.

Series II. Alice Little (Hale) March Papers contains correspondence consisting primarily of letters to her husband and family in which she describes daily household and family activities. A number of letters include small appended paragraphs written by Hale brothers and sisters. Of interest are passages bespeaking her grief upon the death of her son James in 1838, and descriptions of her husband's growing illness and his death in 1846.

Series III. Captain John March Papers contains one folder and two volumes of shipping correspondence and accounts. The account book contains general shipping accounts as well as accounts of the brig Vulture (1795-1797), sloop Confidence (1797), sloop Betsey (1807), and the schooner Regulus (1807), vessels which March owned or mastered on voyages to the West Indies. March's shipping correspondence represents his merchant agent activities in Europe, while he resided in Gothenburg and Hamburg, 1811-1816. The letterbook also includes 1819 correspondence from Captain March's wife, Anna, settling the final financial transactions of her husband's estate.