Charles Phelps Williams (1804-1879) was a prominent shipowner and businessman in Stonington, Connecticut, during much of the 19th century. By 1825 he was a ship master, but soon thereafter invested in the Stonington sealing industry, which was to provide the foundation for his subsequent fortune. The 1840s found Williams in the whaling business, and during this period he was recognized as being one of the largest whaling shipowners in New England. By the early 1850s he was involved with the creation of the Ocean Bank of Stonington, serving for a while as that institution's president. He also invested in railroads, and for many years was president of the Providence and Stonington Railroad. Williams' keen business foresight led him to investments in the development of the West, and the management of his property and diversified business interests occupied the later years of his life.

This collection, with one exception, covers the period from January 1863, when Charles Phelps Williams was 59 years of age, to his death in October 1879, as well as papers relating to the management of his estate for the eighteen years following his death. [The exception is one document concerning his purchase in November 1840 of the homestead of Dr. Charles Phelps, his maternal grandfather, situated on Front Street in the Borough of Stonington, Connecticut.] The letters, bills, records of investments, copybooks and other material in the collection have to do with the management of the investments of a wealthy man whose money had come primarily from his whaling and sealing ships, but who had withdrawn from active commercial life. While he continued to act as part owner and agent for some ships, barks, and coastal schooners during the later period of his life, the bulk of the collection concerns Charles P. Williams' investments in land in the mid-west, in oil wells in western Pennsylvania, in phosphate, rice and sea island cotton in South Carolina, in railroads, utilities and machinery, and in two abortive ventures into gold mining.

The collection cover the period of economic development and expansion in the United States. The Homestead Act of 1862, which opened up large areas of the mid-west for farming; the expansion and proliferation of the railroads; the 'laissez-faire' philosophy and the gradual deflation of the currency following the Civil War provided opportunity for the knowledgeable investor to make money, and Charles P. Williams was a very canny and careful investor. Letters to him indicate that he investigated each enterprise thoroughly before investing. He did make a few serious mistakes, but on the whole he was very successful, leaving an estate at his death valued at about $3,000,000. The collection, since they include the period of the Chicago Fire of 1871, the panic and depression of 1873, and the loss of the Sea Island cotton crop to caterpillars in 1869, shows how natural and man-made disasters affect the life of an astute businessman.

However, the collection is not merely a group of business letters and accounts of the purchases and sales of stocks and bonds. Many letters give a picture of a man with strong family ties and friendships. Related as he was to nearly every prominent family in the area, he found it expedient to place some of these relations in positions where they could better themselves and also be of benefit to him. He loaned one son-in-law the money to purchase a brewery in Chicago, and gave the other a great deal of legal business. He paid the college expenses for his grandson, and then loaned him money to buy into a bank in Kansas with his cousin. He got jobs in New York and elsewhere for his nephews, and helped his nieces to buy houses and educate their children. Former servants could count on his help when they were in need or out of a job, and many an indigent inhabitant of Stonington came to him for small sums of money to tide him of her over hard times. While he was reputed not to be a churchgoer, he was carefully generous in giving money to church-related societies, schools, and colleges. A strong teetotaler (although bills seem to indicate he had a well-stocked wine cellar), he was a strong force behind the Temperance movement. Politically, he was a conservative Republican who chose to remain behind the scenes. He grew prize fruit and sold barrels of pears through a cousin in New York. He was continually on the lookout for a good piece of horseflesh. He had farmlands both in the area around Stonington and in Rhode Island, where he kept cattle and other livestock under the care of tenant farmers, and he was interested in any new invention - windmills, pumps, etc. - that might help his land yield better crops. He was obviously respected by the ship masters of the vessels for which he was owner and agent, and he was openly devoted to his second wife and two young children by that marriage.