The papers consist of eleven volumes of a journal kept by Wright from his first years at Yale College in 1828. While there he reports on a lecture by Elias Boudinot on behalf of the Cherokee nation and various temperance and abolition activities. The journals are chiefly devoted to religious meditations and describe the various revival movements of his era and his evangelical work with black residents of New Haven. He also records various aspects of his personal life including five mental breakdowns between 1828 and 1853, his family's health, and gives an account of the birth of his fourth child. The journals also include transcriptions of his sermons as well as those by others. With the papers is a letter from James Heyden Wright to Marion Wright Messimer on the journal.
