The Dorothea Barton Cogswell Papers, 1647-1975 (bulk 1710-1853) is a collection divided into three groups. The first is a collection of applications to the Society of Stukely Wescott Descendants of America from 1937-1975, evidently copies she retained while secretary of that organization. The second is a gathering of ancestral charts and notes compiled by her mother, Theodora (Bates) Cogswell (1883-1955); her grandfather, Edward Russell Cogswell (1841-1914); and E.R.C.'s uncle, Edward Russell (1820-1907). This includes a Phillips genealogy that was copied in 1799 from an earlier work. The third is a collection of 139 original documents that span from 1647 to 1864 that have been removed from a scrapbook.

These documents include accounts, agreements, appointments, bonds, church covenants, commissions, correspondence, court orders, deeds, minutes, mortgages, notes, probate records, receipts, resolutions, returns, shares and slave bills of sale which have been handed down from the intertwined families of Cogswell, Russell and Northend mainly from Gloucester, Ipswich and Rowley, Mass. Several items of interest are: correspondence from Henry Halstead of Torby Bridge, Yorkshire, England, to his sister Edna Northen of Rowley in 1650 and 1652, and brother Ezekiel Northend of Rowley in 1661; 1662 English court copy of Massachusetts Bay Colony charter reconfirmed; many military commissions up to 1815; undated (but likely late 1700s) covenant for the First Church of Christ, Rowley; shares from 1796 to 1806 from the Union Wharf in Boston on the backs of playing cards; New Year's resolution of Elizabeth (Payson) Northend giving a family record; minutes for the Committee of Safety of Rowley for 1776; broadcloth sample for wedding coat bought in 1794 at Boston; Cumberland Co., Mass. (now Maine) wills (no longer extant); 1799 genealogy of the Phillip family; two 1805 hollow-cut silhouette by William King of Salem, Mass., of Northend Cogswell (1762-1837) and Charles N. Cogswell (1797-1843).

[Items of interest (continued)] and photographs of portraits created in 1819 of Col. William Chaloner (1775-1868) and his wife Louisa (Foster) Chaloner (d. 1873).

The final collection was pulled together and organized in the scrapbook by Charles Northend Cogswell (b. 1865) in 1918 when he received it from his father Edward R. Cogswell's (1841-1914) estate. His father had also received parts from his cousin Edward B. Russell and uncle Edward Russell (1820-1907). The documents were removed to better protect them.