A combined notebook and scrapbook, kept by Beckwith for his grandson and namesake, contains his handwritten histories of himself and his forefathers, including his account of soldiering at Sackett's Harbor in the War of 1812; political opinions, including a long essay entitled "Our Nation, Slavery: Its Worst Evil," describing slavery in the United States, the public attitude towards the Fugitive Slave Law, and national excitement over the Compromises of 1820 and 1850 and documenting Beckwith's predictions that slavery must inevitably decline and that the South would be defeated in the event of a Civil War; autographs and comments of state legislators and executives; and didactic poems selected and copied by Beckwith. In addition, there are mounted items including family correspondence and two undated letters from Francis Elias Spinner; press clippings, 1845-1875, among which are Beckwith's remarks in the Assembly on capital punishment and aid to schools, his letters to newspapers opposing a state-supported college of agriculture and the mechanic arts, the Maine Law, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, voter registry and temperance laws and the Know-Nothings, and a letter urging the use of force in the South Carolina secession crisis of 1860; the printed proceedings of the New York State Electoral College of 1860 on which Beckwith sat; obituaries; scrapbook; and reminiscences. Also, "The Descendants of Abijah Beckwith and Lurena Chadwick," compiled by Grace W. Brown, 1977.