Nine letters written by Caleb Thomas Curtis of Boston, Massachusetts during his travels by steamboat on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

Original journals, correspondence, photographs, engravings, newsclippings, together with some typed copies, documenting the career army officer's tenure as military governor of Alaska, 1867-1870, and his and his wife's tour of Mexico in 1878.

Descriptions of farm life in Tazewell County, Illinois, including discussions of routine farm activities, farming expenses and property valuations, illnesses and medicinal cures, family births and deaths, local events, and weather conditions. Also trip accounts by Roberts and his wives, descriptions of the technical aspects of making lithographic plates and miscellaneous sketches of Robert's home and towns he visited in Illinois.