The collection consists chiefly of a document written by Stanley Goddard detailing a 1766-1767 voyage by canoe from Michilimackinac up Lake Superior to the Mississippi. There is a docket title given on verso: "Copy of Mr. Goddard's Journal - 29th August 1767." These pages, ostensibly copied from Goddard's daily journal in his capacity as secretary to the detachment, describe a voyage under the command of Captain James Tute, with Goddard as second and secretary.

Appended to the journal pages there is a document entitled, "Return of such Western Indians as are now at this Post” (that is, the post at Michilimackinac). The document may have been created after 1805, because it appears to contain a reference to the Shawnee Prophet (Tenskwatawa, 1775-1836). The page includes a table of demographic information for Indigenous tribes, including numbers of men, women, children, and total population figures. The people enumerated include the Kickapoo (Kiikaapoa or Kiikaapoi); the "Sawkee" (Sauk, Sac, or oθaakiiwaki) and Meskwaki (Meshkwahkihaki) (also known as Fox); the Wyandot (or Wendat); Shawnees of "the Prophet's Band" and other bands of Shawnees (Shaawanwaki, Ša˙wano˙ki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki); Ottawa and Chippewa (Odaawaa or Odawa and Ojibwe); Muensee (mə́n'si·w); Delaware (or, Lenape); "Moravians" (probably Christian, or Moravian, Munsee); and Seneca-Cayuga (Guyohkohnyo or Gayogohó:no).