With approximately 150 pages of brief, but closely written records of daily transactions, the Hemenway daybook documents the range of activities of rural tannery in antebellum Massachusetts. Along with the names of clients, the date and amount, and a brief notation on whether the work was for dressing, tanning, currying, or (apparently) the sale of finished product, Hemenway records work in a variety of leathers, from calf to sheep, hog, and horse and from sole leather to upper leather, sometimes specified as for shoes. The daybook also includes credit entries for labor performed, the purchase of hemlock bark or hides, or more rarely for cash to settle accounts.

Laid into the front of the volume is a copy of a letter to the Overseers of the Poor for the town of Shutesbury, Nov. 1, 1823, requesting reimbursement for support given to Ebenezer Burpee and family following Burpee's illness, along with a loose leaf of paper containing some calculations.