The Danforth-Bush Family Collection spans the years 1721-2007, with the bulk of the material dating from 1814 to 1850. The collection consists of correspondence, journal, essays, sermons, articles, autograph collection, photographs, and other papers of the Danforth and Bush families, chiefly of Joshua N. Danforth, a Presbyterian minister in the area of Washington, D.C., and an agent for the American Colonization Society. The collection is organized by type of material.

Subjects include the Presbyterian Church in Delaware, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C.; the American Colonization Society; and the allied Danforth, Janvier, and Whilldin families. Included is a journal of the foundation of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., later of Bethesda, Maryland. Also in the collection is a bound volume used by Jane Janvier Whilldin Danforth, Joshua N. Danforth’s wife, and other members of the Janvier family as a ledger, scrapbook, and daybook. Among the printed items is a biography of Joshua N. Danforth published by Annette Danforth Bush Doolittle in 2007.

A volume of autographs collected by J. Danforth Bush and other family members contains the signatures of members of the Thirty-third Congress (House and Senate) and United States governors, circa 1853-1854. Also in the collection are other clipped signatures; notes and letters written by prominent individuals including Edward Bulwer-Lyton and Booker T. Washington; and a scrapbook of news clippings from various periodicals, circa 1797-1800, concerning political debates, John Adams's presidency, and the Napoleonic wars.

Family correspondents include Joshua N. Danforth; Jane Janvier Whilldin Danforth; John Galloway Whilldin, the first husband of Jane and a physician in Philadelphia who died in the West Indies; as well as other Danforth family members. Additional correspondents include Lewis Condict, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Jackson, and Franklin Pierce.