This collection contains correspondence regarding the purchase and sale of property in Washington D.C. The documents were primarily written by General M. C. Meigs and his family members during the 1850s up until 1890. The majority of letters are in dialogue with his children. This collection contains a number of letters regarding domestic matters between family members that stretches across three generations, and it also contains letters and documents regarding professional matters such as bills of sale, deeds, property trusts, England’s Women’s Property Act of 1882, a letter addressed to General Meigs from the Library of Congress, and lastly, a civil engineering diagram of a hot water heating plant in Boston, MA. Taken as a whole, the papers give a picture of the private everyday life of a notable family with elite military traditions. The papers also give a picture of the administrative and legal process that General Meigs undertook in collecting information in the purchase and sale of property in Washington D.C.