Correspondence, logs and journals, financial and business papers, ships' papers, printed material, and other papers of various members of the seafaring and merchant Palmer and Loper families of Stonington, Conn. Includes papers of Nathanial Brown Palmer relating to his discovery in 1820 of the Antarctic subcontinent, to various whaling and sealing enterprises, to the China trade, and to mercantile and shipping interests; papers of his younger brother Alexander Smith Palmer relating chiefly to mercantile and shipping interests; and papers of R.F. Loper relating principally to shipbuilding activities, the operation of Loper, Dorman, and Company, and business contracts with the U.S. Army and Navy during the Civil War. Subjects include local and national events, trans-Atlantic packet ship voyages, sailing vessels including clipper ships, yachts and yachting, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War in Cuba, and the Philippine American War.

Includes logs or log extracts for the Annawan, Charles Adams, Garrick, Hero, Mary of London, Olive Branch, Penguin, and Southerner. Also includes a 1776 census of Long Point, Stonington, receipts and other documents relating to the yacht Madgie (later renamed Magic), diaries of journeys to New York and New Orleans, La., by Priscilla Dixon Palmer, Elizabeth Dixon Palmer Loper's diary recording a family trip through France and Italy in 1871-1872, late 18th century sermon notes by Ira Hart, and correspondence of Louis Lambert Palmer from his years at Yale College, New Haven, Conn., and as a businessman and lawyer in Chicago, Ill.

Correspondents include Frederick T. Bush, Frederick Albert Cook, J. Schuyler Crosby, Nathan Fellows Dixon (1812-1881), Nathan Fellows Dixon (1847-1897), Edmund Fanning, R.B. Forbes, William Grant, Francis H. Gregory, William Herbert Hobbs, Elizabeth Dixon Palmer Loper, Richard F. Loper, Jr., William H. Loper, Alexander Smith Palmer, Jr., Louis Lambert Palmer, Nathaniel B. Palmer II, Priscilla Dixon Palmer, Theodore Dwight Palmer, Benjamin Pendleton, Francis H. Smith, John R. Spears, Charles T. Stanton, Joseph W. Stanton, and Thomas P. Stanton and the firms of A.A. Low & Bros., Baldwin and Spooner, G. Woodhull and Minturns, Lawrence Giles Company, and Russell & Company (Guangzhou, China).