Handwritten diary, letterbooks, and documents relating to Justin Chenoweth's travel to Oregon and work as a surveyor, mail carrier, and justice of the peace in Oregon and Washington Territory, primarily from the years 1848 to 1862. Includes family correspondence.

Correspondence concerning politics and government, settlement in Oregon and California, legal cases including the Dred Scott case, and Deady family history.

Photocopy letter from William Dodge to his brother and sister regarding family matters and his recent journey to Oregon.

Papers of Robert Newell (1807-1869), a trapper, emigrant to Oregon, and Indian agent. Includes a typescript copy of Newell's diary of an 1868 voyage from Portland, Oregon, to Washington, D.C., with Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) leaders; handwritten copies of letters regarding William Gray's "History of Oregon"; and Newell's account of the 1843 meeting at Champoeg, which formed the provisional government of the Oregon Territory. Only a small number of the items are original documents.