This collection consists of real estate and legal papers from Bridgeport, West Haven, Orange, Woodbridge, and Fairfield County, Connecticut. The earliest are deeds and other papers concerning land of Elijah Burritt (1743-1841) and his grandsons Oliver and William Sherman in Bridgeport and Fairfield County; these date between 1800 and 1860. The largest portion of the collection pertains to the Smith family of Orange, and includes deeds and other papers from the estates of Bradford Smith (d. ca. 1840), Esther Smith (d. ca. 1862), and Sidney Smith (d. ca. 1887). The final segment of the collection consists of correspondence and legal papers from the 1880s from Walter A. Main's real estate and loan business in West Haven; there is also a prospectus for the Olin H. Clark subdivision in Woodmont.
These papers were purchased from Whitlock's in 1945 as one group, which also included papers of the Alling family of West Haven, now transferred to the Alling Family Papers, Ms. Gr. No. 1091. It is possible that Walter A. Main obtained the Smith and Burritt-Sherman papers through his real estate business.