The letter is a detailed domestic and town gossip from a school teacher, Lavinia Corbin, to her brother, Abel R. Corbin, in St. Louis, Missouri. At the time that the letter was written, Lavinia was living in the same county as [sentence missing] Joseph Smith's marriage to Emma Hale and "glass looking"/disorderly conduct trials of the preceding decade (Chenango County, New York). The first half of the letter was written in MacDonough, New York, and the second half of the letter was written in Preston, a neighboring city in the same county. Lavinia's father was leaving the next morning with wool for Oriskany, New York, and it is evident that he took the letter with him, as it is postmarked in Utica, which is quite a distance from MacDonough, but in the same county as his destination. The letter mentions a Ben Sympson that joined the Mormons and went to Ohio. There is a record of a Ben Simpson in the 1856 Utah Census, however, there is also a Benjamin K. Simpson in the 1840 Federal Census, recording him in McDonough, New York. Two other men, "Esqu" Canfield and Joel Godard [sic?] sold their farms and went to Ohio. Contact with the Mormons is not known though the names Canfield and Joel Goddard appear in Joseph Smith's History of the Church.