The collection focuses on Pusey Graves's experiences in the California goldfields from 1850 to 1852.  The letters are unusually detailed in their observations about life during the Gold Rush. The Graves Collection consists of a biographical sketch of Pusey Graves by his son, Charles B. Graves, apparently written about 1900; twenty-eight letters written on the overland trail and in California between 1850 and 1852, and an account of a visit to the "spirit room" of Jonathan Koons in Athens County, Ohio, in 1855.  Also included in the collection are transcripts prepared by Archives staff in 1970 and correspondence relating to their donation to Earlham.