The Burrell family collection includes family correspondence, diaries, family genealogy notes, reminiscences, farm accounts and Reginald R. Stuart's research notes. The Burrell family letters are a straightforward account of the rigors of the overland and sea journeys to California and the trials of placer mining. They are most unique in their later recital of pioneer ranch life in the California foothills, particularly in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Lyman and Clarissa Burrell's son, Birney, kept a diary for several years. His 1852 diary covers the sea voyage to California, while the 1853 to 1862 diaries depict a life of hard farm work, gathering and hunting food in the mountains and doing odd jobs for neighbors.

The Burrells were a pioneer family of Santa Clara County, California. Lyman J. Burrell was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts(1801). By 1816 his family had moved to Lorain County Ohio and in 1839 he there married Clarissa Wright (1805-1857).

Collection is open for research.