This collection includes family letters of the Eccles, Jones, and Lanneau families of North Carolina and Florida. Some letters were written from Philadelphia (and speak of the Peale family), New York, and New Haven.

The papers consist of correspondence, diaries, journals, financial records, writings, lectures, reproductions of sketches and documents which detail the lives of three generations of the Peale family. Material relating to the Peale Museum is also included.

This collection of letters, diaries, and other types of documents (both original and copies) was assembled primarily by Mary Jane Peale, who copied, or had copied, many family documents. The bulk of the collection centers on Charles Willson Peale, James Burd Peale, and Mary Jane Peale.

Albert Charles Peale (1849-1913), the great-grandson of Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), was a geologist for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and its predecessor agency, a member of the Ferdinand Hayden expeditions that explored and mapped the western United States, an author in geology, mineralogy, and paleobotany, and an aide at the United States National Museum (today the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History). Edwin Roger Kirk (1884-1955) corresponded with Frank Springer about crinoids; assisted Edward Ulrich in studying sediments of the Appalachians; surveyed the Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin, and southeastern Alaska as a USGS paleontologist; and collected the papers of Peale and other geologists. Peale's correspondence (1868-1912, bulk 1870s-80s) relate to various federal geological expeditions. Letters between Peale and William Rush Taggart, the largest single portion of the series, focus on matters of congressional funding. Kirk's series (1900-09) contains the correspondence of Kirk and other geologists; most frequent are letters from Frank Springer to Kirk relating to rock formations. The collection also contains several diaries and sketchbooks from Peale (bulk 1872-77), including those kept during the Hayden expeditions, correspondence relating to the Geological Survey of Kentucky (1888-1893), and miscellaneous letters and memorabilia (c. 1820s-1940s), often relating to the Peale family.

The Peale family is best known as a family of artists; however, family interests and activities were much more wide-ranging. The best known Peale is Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827, APS 1786), who produced more than one thousand paintings, including hundreds of portraits of leading Americans during the colonial and early national periods. Peale was married three times, to Rachel Brewster (1744-1790), Elizabeth de Peyster (1765-1804), and Hannah More (1755-1821). He had eighteen children, eleven of whom reached adulthood. Three of Charles Willson Peale's sons became artists: Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825), Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860), and Rubens Peale (1784-1865). A fourth son, Titian Ramsay Peale (1799-1885, APS 1833), was a naturalist (who made drawings on the exploring expeditions he accompanied) and pioneer in photography, and another son, Benjamin Franklin Peale (1795-1870), became a naturalist and paleontologist. Peale's daughter Sophonisba Angusciola was married to Coleman Sellers (1781-1834), an inventor and manufacturer of machinery, including locomotives. Two of their sons, George Escol Sellers (1808-1899) and Coleman Sellers (1827-1907, APS 1872), were inventors and engineers. The latter served as director of the construction of the hydro-electric power development at Niagara Falls. He was married to Cornelia Wells Sellers (1831-1909). One of their grandsons was Charles Coleman Sellers (1903-1980, APS 1979), a librarian and historian and the author of several studies of the Peale family, including a Charles Willson Peale biography.

The collection of Charles Coleman Sellers (1903-1980) contains copious and detailed documentation of the art of Charles Willson Peale and his family. It consists of working files for Sellers's numerous publications, including his Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale (1952); Charles Willson Peale with Patron and Populace (1969); C. W. Peale's Portraits of Washington (1951); Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture (1962); Mr. Peale's Museum (1980). Most files include photographs of the art work, notes on the piece, and correspondence with authorities or owners. Other series include one relating to the paintings of various other Peales, including Anna C., James, Mary Jane, Raphaelle, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Sarah Miriam, and a miscellaneous artist file, which includes the same type of material and information on many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artists, including Thomas Eakins, George Healy, Robert Edge Pine, William Rush, Thomas Sully, Benjamin West, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, etc. There is a separate Sellers collection at Dickinson College, primarily personal in nature.