The William King Coffin Papers include the business and personal correspondence of William King Coffin, William Coffin, and Samuel D. Lockwood, 1832-1929. In addition there are letter press copies of William King Coffin's outgoing correspondence, 1881-1890. William King Coffin's correspondence for the 1860s and the 1870s is mainly personal, but from the 1880s to 1892 it is chiefly devoted to his varied business interests. Between 1892 and 1929 there is very little correspondence, except for the years 1916 to 1919, when Mr. Coffin was corresponding with Milo M. Quaife, director of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. The Samuel D. Lockwood correspondence is largely concentrated in the years 1857 to 1869.
There are two boxes of miscellaneous unsorted business papers of William King Coffin, William Coffin, Nathaniel Coffin, and Samuel D. Lockwood. These papers are mainly indentures, federal land patents, mortgages, and bills and receipts. Although these papers are quite general, there are a considerable number of land indentures executed by Nathaniel Coffin and Samuel D. Lockwood in the 1850s for Illinois College, Jacksonville, Illinois.
The one volume is William King Coffin's diary for 1869.
