Single leaf measuring 8 × 9⅞ inches (20 × 25 cm). Embossed in the upper left corner of the recto is the round insignia of a paper mill. The design has an illegible word at the top, the word “LEE” in the middle, and the word “MASS” along the bottom. The leaf is ruled with twenty-seven horizontal lines. All edges of the leaf are unevenly cut. The verso of the leaf is blank. The letter was trifolded twice in letter style.

The letter’s custodial history is uncertain prior to its acquisition by Charles L. Woodward, a well-known bookseller and document collector, sometime before 1880. Woodward inserted the letter into the first volume of “The First Half Century of Mormonism,” a scrapbook he compiled and edited. New York City merchant William Berrian acquired a majority of Woodward’s collection, including the scrapbook, when it was sold at auction in 1880. Berrian expanded the collection over the next sixteen years. Helen M. Gould obtained the collection sometime between 1896 and the end of 1899 and then gave it to the New York Public Library in January 1900. The letter was removed from Woodward’s scrapbook and sent to the Manuscript Division of the New York Public Library on 3 March 1938.