The Nathaniel Peaslee Sargent Papers contain the judge's court notes in pamphlet-type notebooks and loose papers, letters, orders, Grand Jury charges, receipts, land surveys and related documents, verdicts, wills, accounts, and personal writings on the history of Haverhill and the American Revolution.

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.