The Joseph Story papers are comprised of correspondence to and from Joseph Story as well as legal documents, accounts, receipts, commercial papers, and portraits and silhouettes of Story.

This collection consists primarily of legal papers, which include court issued "writs" (legal forms) serving notice to named defendants to answer to charges brought by plaintiffs against them, writs of execution enforcing a judgment, or writs summoning parties to the Court of Common Pleas, on appeal from the decisions of the Justice of the Peace.