Coal Lands Securities Co. was one of several mining companies owned in large portion by Thomas J. Foster (1843-1936), a publisher. Lackawanna Coal and Lumber Company and Highland Lumber Company were also part of Foster's holdings. The album contains photographs taken during an inspection trip made by a party from the Coal Lands Securities Company to properties in West Virginia owned by the Lackawanna Coal and Lumber Company and the Highland Lumber Company.

Keys & Miller Lumber Company were dealers in lumber, grain, hay, lime, fertilizers, and coal. Located in Elkton, Maryland, the company incorporated in 1892. The records consist of inbound correspondence regarding orders received primarily between the years 1892 and 1895.

Penn Virginia Corporation was an oil and gas company, incorporated as the Virginia Coal & Iron Company on January 6, 1882. It was one of many firms established by a group of interrelated entrepreneurs headed by John Leisenring (1819-1884), a Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, civil and mining engineer. The name changed to Penn Virigina Corporation in 1967. The records of Penn Virginia Corporation cover the development and operations of the Virginia Coal & Iron Company, a large southern Appalachian land company, with some information on its immediate neighbors and local support facilities.

The Stockly/Stockley family were merchants and bankers in Smyrna, Delaware, during the nineteenth century. The family papers consist primarily of account books for various Stockly enterprises, recording shipments of grain, barley, and hides between Delaware and Philadelphia.

Vanuxem papers, including those of James Vanuxem (1778-1837) and Louis C. Vanuxem (1811-1832), consisting of financial and legal papers and correspondence. James Vanuxem (1745-1824) was a Philadelphia shipping merchant and helped establish several insurance companies. His son Louis C. Vanuxem (1788-1832) had several occupations: he was a shipping merchant, he leased grist and saw mills from his father in Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and he later relocated to Matanzas, Cuba where he took up farming and was a merchant.

William J. Barnard (1867-1957) was a merchant and general storekeeper of Westtown, Pennsylvania, and later of Newark, Delaware. The collection contains four account books that describe his dealings in produce, sponges, and lumber at various points in the Midwest and Delaware Valley.