The collection was assembled by Cephas Brainerd's daughter Eveline Warner Brainerd, a librarian and local historian in Haddam. It includes correspondence, recollections and documents related to the publication of a facsimile of Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech, manuscripts and publications by Cephas, and drafts of a biography of Cephas by his son Ira. The correspondence is primarily among members of the immediate Brainerd family, but includes letters to Cephas by Republican officials. The largest part of the correspondence is comprised of letters from Cephas to his wife Eve, including nearly five dozen letters written between the late 1850s and late 1870s reporting on the political, social, and military situation and over two dozen letters written between 1900 and 1905 as Cephas was traveling extensively in Europe on behalf of the YMCA. The collection also includes extracts of correspondence from Eveline from a YMCA mission she undertook to France during World War I.