The papers of the James Wadsworth Family of Geneseo, New York, span the period 1730-1959 and describe the activities of four generations of the family in both regional and national affairs. The collection consists chiefly of the correspondence of James and William Wadsworth, who founded the Geneseo branch of the family and occupied land there in 1790; James S. Wadsworth, Civil War general who commanded the First Division, I Corps, at Gettysburg and was later killed in the Battle of the Wilderness; James Wolcott Wadsworth, United States representative from 1881 to 1885 and 1891 to 1906; and James Wolcott Wadsworth, Jr., who represented New York in the United States Senate from 1915 to 1927 and in the House of Representatives from 1933 to 1951. Consisting primarily of personal correspondence, the papers reflect the changing problems of the nation in the careers of succeeding generations.

Included in the collection is correspondence of John Hay, whose daughter Alice married James Wolcott Wadsworth, Jr., and whose letters, chiefly in the years 1882-1903, comment on life in London and Washington, D.C., in the late nineteenth century.

Also in the collection are a letter from Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley, 9 July 1864, in which he promises safe conduct for any person or persons “professing to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis in writing for peace embracing the restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery,” and an album containing autographed photographs of scores of the nation's leaders during the Lincoln administrations. Letters of Theodore Roosevelt are also among the correspondence.