Papers documenting canal engineer and cement manufacturer Canvass White's career.

Includes 24 scrapbooks and 12 notebooks compiled by Mulks with material relating to Tompkins County and nearby areas..

Mortgages and deeds for lands in Genesee County, for David Cook, Elias Cook, and Irving D. Cook. Also, reminiscences by Irving Cook recalling pioneer days in western New York, including living conditions, farming practices, the coming of the railroad, potash manufacture, the Erie Canal, the country school, and other matters.

Reminiscences relating to New York frontier life and correspondence between Smith's children concerning problems besetting early settlers in New York, Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa.

Diary of a trip to New York City by mail car, back up the Hudson, across the Erie Canal to Montezuma, along the Seneca Canal, to Ithaca; thence to Owego by railroad, by horse to Friendsville and Montrose Pennsylvania; by stage to Tunkhannock and Wilkes Barre; by boat on the Pennsylvania Canal, and back to Philadelphia.

List of claims against canals (1861); record of employees, wages, appointments, and locations (1878-1881): includes Erie Canal, Oswego Canal, and Champlain Canal.