This collection consists of materials related to the history of St. Charles, Missouri, and spans the lives of three generations of the Benjamin Emmons family. Persons involved in the early transactions include Edward Bates, Frederick Bates, Charles Dehault Delassus, John C. Edwards, Archibald Gamble, Hamilton Gamble, J. Mackay, William G. Pettus, Amos Stoddard, and Zenon Trudeau. Manuscripts include St. Charles land documents from the French and Spanish periods, including Zenon Trudeau's decree to the inhabitants of St. Charles (1796), materials relating to the Louisiana Purchase, and documents relating to the St. Charles Commons. Also includes a diary of a trip from Virginia to Missouri, and from Dardenne Prairie to Jefferson City by William M. Campbell (1830); correspondence and legal documents of Benjamin L. Emmons, attorney; tax assessments in St. Charles County for 1843; lists of lands and town lots and taxes thereon for 1842 (filed May 3, 1844); list of citizenship papers (1859); a muster roll of the St. Charles Home Guards (filed 1862); emancipation certificates for slaves released by Radical Emancipationist owners in St. Charles (filed September 29, 1863); an annual report of the St. Charles Library Catholic Association (January 7, 1868); and a scrapbook. Some typescript translations.