The collection contains his 1905 thesis from Yale University, outgoing/incoming correspondence, a manuscript, some class notes, 70 photographs, a postcard collection [related to European travel depicting medieval architecture and religious themes], and 47 lantern slides.

In addition, the collection contains the correspondence between members of his mother’s family, the Johnston’s, during the Civil War; a scrapbook , and Turkish pictures presented to his mother when she came to America in 1853. The correspondence of the Johnston family of Presbyterian ministers. The father was in Mississippi and the eldest son, Frontis, in North Carolina, both secessionists. The second son is in a theological seminary in Danville, Ky. and is a unionist along with his mother, three sisters and a younger brother living in New Haven while the son is in Yale, and a grandfather living in Ohio. The letter of December 28, 1861 from the mother to William C., the son in Danville, Ky., discusses the proposed engagement of Martha Hall Johnston to James Walker, the father and mother of the donor, Prof. Curtis Howe Walker. This letter had been torn to bits by someone and was fitted together and repaired by E. A. Henry. A side-light on war time conditions is shown by Mrs. Johnston's request to William (in a border state) that, if possible, he communicate the situation regarding Martha and James Walker to Frontis in North Carolina and to the Father in Mississippi.