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This collection consists of original manuscripts related to Joseph Finegan, the estate of John D. Bellechasse, the Florida Railroad Company, and General H. S. Sanford. These materials should be useful as a biographical sketch of Joseph Finegan. Other subjects covered by the collection include: Jacksonville, Cuba, Lake Monroe, auctions, mill property, Joseph Oliver, St. Mary's Parish in Louisiana, debts, David L. Yulee, Confederate States District Court of Florida, George W. Call, railroad construction, Joseph Finegan & Co, Fernandina, William Phelan, orange groves in Mellonville, Florida, land sales, Orange County, John Forbes, St. Augustine, and Savannah. The collection also contains several maps showing purchase of lands, the "Ross Plantation," and Byrne lands.

Correspondence, papers, records, journals, cashbooks (or account books), scrapbooks, newspaper articles, passport, currency, manuscripts, books, songs, pictures, stamps, clippings and legal papers. This collection contains a wide variety of materials. The correspondence, papers, records, bookkeeping journals and cash books of Julius Diamond reflect the economic conditions of the time and are good examples of how merchandising business was conducted. The scrapbook, assembled by John W. Trench, contains manuscripts, Civil War letters and clippings, describing events such as the battles of Gettysburg, Bull Run and Vicksburg. There is an original holograph passport issued by Consul General at Marseilles, France, to a native of Italy, taken during the war. Newspaper clippings discuss the price of gold, burial ceremonies, and the sale of enslaved persons. Also included are recipes, poems, songs and jokes written during and about the Civil War, as well as other historical documents not preserved elsewhere.

This collection contains banking records from various businesses and banks dating back to the early 19th century. Included are bank receipts, record books, cash and receipt books, and financial ledgers. Such records are from the Gradner Maine General Store, Edwin Robinson, and the York County Water County.

The Sanibel Island Collection consists of photographs that highlight the geographical, environmental, social, and civic aspects of Sanibel Island. There are also letters, telegrams, and newspaper articles that highlight the social and community life on Sanibel Island. All materials in this collection are prior to the damage caused by Hurricane Ian in 2022.

A group of land records, 1856-1935, including mortgages, land grants, promissory notes, and other materials for lands in Santa Rosa County. Includes such firms as Balentine and Whitley, Milton, Florida; S. J. Stewart & Bro., Milton, florida; and Presidential land grants signed in proxy by Franklin Pierce, and William McKinley. An annotated calendar of names and land descriptions is available in the collection inventory.

The Sixto Campano Collection contains 1,076 pieces of original American sheet music dating from 1848 to 1974, with almost 900 titles published before 1924. The bulk of the collection contains pre- and post-Civil War minstrel pieces, commomnly known as "plantation melodies", as well as ragtime, vaudeville, blues, and jazz pieces. Noted composers and songwriters include W.C. Handy, Scott Joplin, John Rosamond Johnson, Bob Cole and Bert Williams. Images, illustrations and photographs demonstrate 19th and early 20th century attitudes towards African Americans and include Gene Buck, Walter Dittmar and the Starmer Brothers.

This collection consists of ten Smith family letters, thirty-three receipted invoices, one bill for tuition, and one diary, all dating between 1782-1864. The letters were chiefly among members of the Smith family and confined to family subjects, but several have educational value in that they represent the thinking of that period, the closeness of family, their religious nature, and in one case a letter by a young lady who moved from Rhode Island to Savannah, Georgia, writes back to her family in Rhode Island and tells of her impressions of the South. One very religious letter by James W. Smith of Thomasville, Georgia, dated 1864, to his uncle, Mr. Remington Smith of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, acknowledges a letter to his father which arrived a week before "his demise."