Catalog and calendars, principally to the general correspondence and letterbooks of James J. Hill, with occasionally references to other series of correspondence in the papers. The index is arranged alphabetically by surname of correspondent and occasionally subject. It is not a complete index to every letter and each correspondent. Each index card references the date (or dates) of the letter(s) giving the name of the correspondent and, occasionally, a short description of the contents. The calendars contain chronologically-arranged cards for each item of correspondence from or to John S. Kennedy, George Stephen/Donald Smith (in one chronological sequence), Paris Gibson, and Edward T. Nichols. The cards were microfilmed in April 1971 for the Hill Reference Library; the originals of the cards are available in the Weyerhaeuser Reading Room of the Minnesota Historical Society. The microfilm is available for Interlibrary Loan or sale from the Minnesota Historical Society.

Compilations on the biography of James J. Hill, the genealogy of the Hill family, and histories of Hill's companies and home, created both during Hill's lifetime and throughout the 20th century. Additional printed features regarding the biography and history of James J. Hill are included in the Printed Materials series.

Diaries and memoranda books kept by James J. Hill during his first 25 years in St. Paul. The diary entries are short and undetailed, containing primarily business notations. Most of the books have accompanying transcriptions.

Series is comprised of a long series of correspondence both to and from James J. Hill, and also to and from his secretaries. The correspondence, which dates primarily from the 1880s to 1916, is mainly concerning business matters but also some personal matters. The series also includes small sections of correspondence segregated by subject or author.

Series is comprised of the office files of John J. Toomey, a long-time book keeper and private secretary to James J. Hill. Toomey seems to have held recent correspondence for a time before filing them into the main body of correspondence; the correspondence in this series are the files he had not yet interfiled at the time of Hill's death.

The letterpress books reproduced in this microfilm edition consist largely of Hill's outgoing business and personal correspondence, 1866-1916. T he books are organized into six subseries and reflect his involvement in a wide variety of activities in Minnesota, the Upper Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, Western Canada, Brazil, and Japan, as well as his relationship with prominent financiers and others in New York, Chicago, Boston, Canada, and Europe. Hill's voluminous incoming correspondence, financial records, and other documents are not included in this microfilm edition. If some parts of particular volumes are difficult to read, it is due to the poor condition of the original document. Blank or illegible pages have not been filmed. Retakes of illegible frames in the personal and private, pre-railroad business, and railroads series are filmed on supplemental rolls at the end of each series.

Series is comprised of a small selection of records related to a number of railroad companies, both companies James J. Hill owned and operated and competitor companies with whom he was involved. Additional material on each of these companies can be found in the Great Northern Railway records, the Northern Pacific Railway records and the Soo Line Railroad Company corporate records.

Series comprises the records of four newspaper and publishing companies owned or partially owned and controlled by James J. Hill in the 1880s and 1890s.

Small series consists of a research file compiled by a James J. Hill agent in Asia, possibly Herman Rosenthal. The material includes Japanese and Chinese publications in English and German, annotated clippings and handwritten notes containing information on customs, duties, exports and imports. See also a letter from the American consul at Hong Kong to Herman Rosenthal, January 6, 1893, in general correspondence.

Series is comprised of records of a collection of enterprises, mainly coal mining but also land and railroad, located in Iowa and managed by Hamilton Browne. Hill maintained a separate file for each concern and one special file for some of the correspondence with Browne; however, these files are very interrelated, with Browne a chief correspondent for each, so they have been grouped together into a single series with a subseries for each individual file. The records of the Climax, Clyde, Lower Vein, and Boone Valley Coal Companies, the Webster County Mining and Railway Company and its successor the Webster County Coal Company are further related as each was concerned with mining coal in Iowa and numerous consolidations occurred among them. These properties were sold to the Chicago Great Western Railroad in 1901, but the mining had already largely been abandoned as Illinois coal was far superior. The records document coal mining, employment of African-Americans, strikes, wages, and life in central Iowa.

Records cover the operations of a steamboat fleet on Lake Minnetonka in western Hennepin County, Minnesota. The outfit was managed by Charles Zimmerman, who used an $850,000 loan from James J. Hill to purchase four initial boats in 1881. In 1883 this company and the Minnetonka Steamboat Company, a competing venture also backed by James J. Hill, incorporated together under the former’s name. After buying out a competing W.D. Washburn outfit in 1889 it operated at least 8 boats. The company worked in close concert with Hill’s rail lines, which brought passengers to and from the lake. Full financial records document the company’s decline; after years of losses due to excess expenditures it became insolvent in 1896 and was dissolved the next year. Other records include lists of boat commuters, data on crews, earnings of individual vessels, and litigation over a dock at Excelsior, Minnesota.

Papers relate to transportation matters in the mining districts of British Columbia contiguous to the states of Idaho and Washington. The chief centers of interest were Crows Nest Pass coal fields and the gold, silver, copper and lead deposits around the Great Northern line, Kootenay River and Lake (spelled Kootenai in the United States), and the Columbia River. Hill’s Crow’s Nest and Kootenay Lake Railway Company, incorporated in 1888, formed a trust with four rival companies in 1898 called the Kootenay Railway and Navigation Company to effectively compete with the Canadian Pacific Railway in the region. The records document the so-called Nighthawk Claim legal case, involving a member of parliament, in which a rival railway director was ultimately found to have improperly attempted to profit through resale of railroad lands.

Series is comprised of the records of railroad, mining, water power and townsite ventures in Montana and of the holding company created to consolidate ownership of those ventures. The small amount of general records of the Montana Securities holding company (1 cu. ft.) consists primarily of correspondence and stock records. Five subseries, one for each individual company, form the bulk of the series.

Series is composed of the records of a flour and feed mill located in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, incorporated in 1881 and sold by Hill in 1899. Material is comprised mainly of correspondence, deeds, insurance policies, and financial records, which document the routine operation of the mill including purchases of wheat and other grain from farms and sales and shipment of grain products. Records relating to the land on which the mill stood can be found in the real estate series.

Records of an unsuccessful gold mining venture in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state. James J. Hill was a major investor of a German syndicate, the Phoebus Exploring Association, which began explorations for potential mines in the region in 1897; the Constance Mining Company was incorporated in 1899 while exploration was still ongoing. Troublesome Creek and Monte Cristo mines were the major claims in the region. Notable material includes the reports by mining engineer C. E. Haber and others on mines and mining areas, and a detailed report by C. C. Coley on a prospecting expedition to Alaska. Phoebus ceased exploration in 1900 and mining operations ended abruptly in 1902.

Records of a logging, lumbering, and sawmilling company with operations in Anoka and Milaca, Minnesota, and a head office in St. Paul. It was incorporated by Andrew G. Tod, nephew of John S. Kennedy, banker Weston Hammons, and James J. Hill’s secretary William Secombe in 1882. Series is comprised primarily of correspondence, records of lands purchased by the company and sold after logging including deeds and abstracts of title, legal case files, and routine financial records.

The company was the original owner of the townsite of Milaca, and many aspects of the town are documented in the papers, including the company store, Forest Hills cemetery, and a colony for Russian Jews promoted by Hill’s lawyer Jacob Schiff which was never realized, as well as routine records of lot sales in the town and operations of the sawmill. The company ceased logging and manufacturing lumber in 1895 once all their lands had been harvested of oak; after that year the records are concerned with the sale of cut-over lands and with numerous lawsuits regarding faulty titles acquired by Tod. Tod and Hammons had run the company so unsuccessfully that Hill and Kennedy took over operations; by 1915 all titles had been settled and lands sold, and the company was dissolved.

Limited amount of financial records of two Twin Cities area wood and coal fuel businesses founded by James J. Hill. Hill, Griggs and Company was formed in 1869 in partnership with competitor Colonel Chauncey W. Griggs and dissolved in 1875. Hill, Saunders and Acker was formed immediately thereafter with George S. Acker and Edward N. Saunders; it incorporated as the Northwestern Fuel Company in 1877.

Papers related to the St. John River area of Quebec, where James J. Hill owned property and would travel for sport and recreation. Hill began leasing rights to fish on the river in 1898 and purchased land and began to build a lodge in 1900. Notable material includes maps of and reports on fishing in the local rivers, full salmon fishing records for 1900-1919, specifications, plans, and inventories for the lodge, and a collection of pamphlets on fishing in the region. The correspondence documents Hill’s first research on the area, maintenance of the vacation property, and organization of fishing trips. Many images of the area may be found in the James J. Hill photograph collection.

Papers related to James J. Hill’s personal steam yacht the Wacouta, previously known as the Eleanor, which he purchased in 1900 for $150,000. The records consist primarily of correspondence, inventories of articles on board, and records related to expenses; this material documents Hill’s three-year effort to purchase the ship and the minutia related to operating a personal ship, including provisioning and crew management.

Records of a Catholic educational institution founded and largely supported through its first years by a gift of $500,000 from James J. Hill. Series is comprised largely of correspondence, including a file of letters between the architect Cass Gilbert, Hill, and various contractors and workmen. Other material consists of legal documents including articles of incorporation and the trustee gift agreement, a typed copy of Hill’s 1895 dedication address, maps and appraisals of church property in the name of Archbishop John Ireland, and financial and insurance data. The trusteeship was to last through the lifetimes of Hill’s sons and twenty-one years thereafter, but there are few records dating to after Hill’s death in 1916.

Records of St. Paul religious institution consist entirely of statements of expenditure and receipt and indebtedness and small amount of correspondence related thereto.

Records relating to a convent and its academy in St. Paul, Minnesota. Material primarily concerns purchases of property and construction of convent buildings 1911 to 1913.

Records of this association are related primarily to its enterprise, the St. Paul Driving Park horse racing track. Material is comprised of financial records including bills, statements of expenditure and receipt, and related correspondence, stock data, and a racing result record book listing the names and other data on all horses in each race.

Small series is comprised of data relating to James J. Hill's art collection, which he referred to as 'pictures', and the semi-public art gallery he maintained in his Summit Avenue home beginning in the 1890s. Some of the material relates to the division of the collection amongst his heirs after his death.

Series consists of records of James J. Hill’s three farm properties: Humboldt Farm in Humboldt, Minnesota, Northcote Farm in Northcote, Minnesota, both in Kittson County, and North Oaks Farm, in North Oaks, Minnesota, 10 miles north of St. Paul in Ramsey County. A small amount of material pertaining to Hillier Farm, on Lake Minnetonka in Hennepin County, Minnesota, is included with the North Oaks Farm records. The North Oaks and Humboldt Farm joint series is comprised of a series of cancelled checks written from an account serving both farms.

Files contain two main types of material: correspondence and financial records concerning daily operations of each of the farms, and records documenting the raising and breeding of livestock, primarily cattle, but also pigs, sheep and horses. This material consists primarily of pedigrees, certificates of registry, livestock registers, and files detailing Hill’s efforts to import, breed and distribute animals from Europe. Additional correspondence and financial records for North Oaks and Humboldt Farms can be found in letterpress books F-1 to F-8; later records for North Oaks Farm are included in the Louis W. Hill papers.