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The correspondence is mostly of a business nature, although there are a great many love letters from Lucy MacMillan, later Mrs. Lyman Cooley, written in the early 1870's and a few letters from his children. Aside from the many engineers who wrote to him in 1884-1885, when he was editor of The American Engineer. his correspondence includes letters from J.A.L. Waddell in 1885, April 5, 1885, June 24, 1885, Nov. 20, 1885 describing conditions in Japan where he was engineering professor at a Japanese University. Other correspondents include: Edward Cragin, Oct. and Nov. 1897; Frank Flower, 1895; C. S. Harrison, Isthmian Canal Commissioner and later associated with the Denver Water Union (throughout), Senator John T. Morgan (Illinois), March 25 and Sept. 25, 1905; Rep. John Corliss (Michigan), January 16, 1899; William Lorimer, U.S. Representative and Senator from Illinois, 1909-1910; Senator Shelby M. Cullom (Illinois) Dec. 1895, Feb. 1895 (2 letters), July 1897; Rep. Martin B. Madden (Illinois),1914-1915; Judge John P. Altgeld (later governor), March 16, 1891, Mortimer E. Cooley, 1884-1895 and 1914-1916, Harry B. Hutchins, May 27, 1916; James B. Angell, 1895-1898. Angell along with Cooley and John F. Russell was a member of the International Deep Waterways Commission.

In addition to correspondence, there are miscellaneous notes and reports and one bound notebook, including genealogical material, receipts, accounts, and engineering reports. These reports are concerned with such projects as the Sanitary District of Chicago, public works project, Huron River waterpower in Michigan, flood control in Saginaw and in Grand Rapids, Denver Water Union and Lake Cheesman, Erie Barge Canal, and Great Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterways. Also included are such things as notes for speeches and some compositions written in the 1860's while a student at Canandaigua Academy.