The correspondence consists of family letters, including a quantity from members of the Loy and Schell families in Bedford and Somerset counties, Pennsylvania. Among them are a number from the elder Loy's brothers: John F., a resident of Pittsburgh; Joseph F., an attorney in Green Bay, Wis., who served in the state senate in 1854 and 1855 and fought in the Civil War; and William E., who engaged in various business enterprises in Wisconsin. There are letters addressed to the elder Loy, 1839-1841, at Pittsburgh, where he was agent for the United States Portable Boat Line; a quantity from Joshua F. Cox of Somerset, Pennsylvania, with whom Loy was closely associated in business at De Pere, particularly in the Fox-Wisconsin improvement project; several from Cox's son, Edwin, at Shasta City, California, and elsewhere in the West; and a series of letters, 1859-1867, from William P. Ankeny of Minneapolis regarding the development of that city. A biographical sketch of the elder Loy and some genealogical notes on the Loy and Schell families and the Arndt family of Green Bay were prepared by Peter S. Loy.
Business records contain information on the Loys' activities in sawmilling and gristmilling, fisheries, real estate transactions, transportation, and contracting for the construction of railroads, dams, bridges, roads, and city streets and allied operations in eastern Wisconsin and later in the vicinity of Alhambra, California, after Peter S. Loy moved there about 1905.
