Diary of Cornell as the Superintendent of the New York & Western Union Telegraph Company. Includes details of travel, line repairs, and line overhauls.

Dairy of work on New York telegraph lines. Includes details of travel, line repair, building of lines, conflicts with Smith, purchase of Ohio, Indiana & Illinois Telegraph Company, and other telegraph business. Also includes some family news.

Diary of work in the telegraph business. Includes travels in New York, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, the leasing of the Ohio, Indiana & Illinois line, and sales of telegraph stock.

Diary of work in the telegraph business in New York and the west. Includes the consolidation with the House Company, Cornell's work as superintendent of part of the Union line (responsible for the Erie & Michigan line from Buffalo to Milwaukee and also of the circuit west of Cleveland), and a description of Hughes printing telegraph. Also includes details of travel and some family news.

Diary and cash accounts. Includes details of visit to oil wells in Titusville, travels on telegraph business, work with the New York State Agricultural Society, and the coal oil business.

Diary and cash accounts. Includes details of life in Ithaca where Cornell is "home all day" and involved in the Tompkins County Agricultural Society, the Farmers Club, raising sheep and cattle, and collecting agricultural statistics. Also includes travels to Washington, D.C. and attendance at Lincoln's inauguration.

Diary and cash accounts. Includes work in the New York State Legislature, interest in agricultural machinery, and a proposal to rescue the agricultural school and start an agricultural and military school. Also includes some detail of trip to England and Europe.

Diary of trip to England, with details of the crossing from New York to Liverpool, travels in England and herds of pedigreed shorthorns visited. Also includes an alphabetical listing of Cornells in the United States with addresses and dates.

Diary of travels in England, herds inspected and animals purchased.

Diary and cash accounts. Includes records of telegraph stock and various financial records. Note in back of diary to "enquire what the effect of large endowments are upon colleges in the Old World -- How many graduates do they send out, & c."