Fairfax Hall records, 1920-1936, contain account books, catalogs, correspondence, financial records, ledgers, registers, stock certificates, yearbooks, and other papers detailing the history and operations of Fairfax Hall, a girls' school operated by John Noble Maxwell (1888-1932) and Octavia Goode Maxwell (1892-1974). Yearbooks, 1921-1936, highlight the school and student life and activities; catalogs, 1920-1932, detail the operations of the school and classes offered; correspondence, 1928, 1932-1936, mainly concerns the school's difficulties during the Great Depression; and financial records, stock certificates, registers, account books, and ledgers, 1926-1936, concern the financial operations of the school.

Octavia Goode Maxwell papers, 1918-1965, contain accounts, administrator and executor papers, correspondence, financial records, invoices, scrapbooks, tax records, yearbooks, and other papers concerning Octavia G. Maxwell's personal life and her life as a teacher and educator. Papers include personal and income tax forms, 1920-1937, for John Noble Maxwell and Octavia Goodloe Maxwell; administrator and executor papers for estates of Laura Virginia Maxwell (-1928) and John Noble Maxwell; John Nobel Maxwell's personal correspondence, 1923-1932, including his purchase of a dog; correspondence, 1932-1938, and account book, 1952-1953, regarding Octavia Maxwell's personal finances; yearbooks, 1921, 1952-1953, for the Staunton Military Academy (Staunton, Virginia) and North River High School (Augusta County, Virginia); certificate, 1939, for completion of a course in typing and shorthand from the Dunsmore Business College; and a scrapbook, 1918-1965, containing obituaries, wedding announcements, other clippings, cards, poems, and other papers. Papers were originally housed in a scrapbook, but were not adhered to the page. For preservation purposes, the papers were removed from the scrapbook and placed in folders. The folders are in the order that the clippings and papers were originally stored in the scrapbook.