Letterpress volumes contain copies of outgoing correspondence from the offices of the J. B. Watkins Land Mortgage Company. These copies were made by pressing the original letters against moistened letterpress pages. Most letterpress volumes contain an index of recipients at back or front of the volume, although some indexes are missing.

Correspondence pertains to all of the various business enterprises of Jabez Bunting Watkins, especially his land mortgage business. Included are letters to the J. B. Watkins Land Mortgage Company offices set up in New York (1876) and London (1878) to solicit capital for western farm mortgage loans made through Lawrence, Dallas and Greeley, Colorado. Some letters relate to Watkins' other business ventures in Lawrence: the Lawrence Canning Company, the Watkins National Bank, and the Record Publishing Company.

Many letters also pertain to Watkins business ventures in southwest Louisiana, where he developed the town of Lake Charles, to which he sought to encourage migration. His business interests here included the Watkins Banking Company; American magazine; the Orange Land Company; the Kansas City, Watkins and Gulf Railroad; the Calcasieu Sugar Company; and the North American Land and Timber Company, the latter two of which were United States subsidiaries of British-owned businesses (Watkins served as president and American manager).