This collection contains primarily the business, political, and personal papers of Harrison Gray Otis (1765-1848), plus material of other immediate family members. Otis was a prominent Federalist, lawyer, congressman, U.S. Senator, and Mayor of Boston during his lifetime.

Among the business papers, scholars will find receipts, deeds, and important accounts documenting Otis's speculation in undeveloped Maine and western Massachusetts lands. The political correspondence includes letters to and from John Adams, Mathew Carey, Lewis Cass, Henry Clay, Josiah Quincy, Theodore Sedgwick, and Daniel Webster on such topics as the Embargo of 1807, the Hartford Convention, slavery, Massachusetts state politics, and the Bank of the United States.