The 9 February 1834 chronicled in these minutes was evidently called to help church leaders in , Ohio, including JS, better understand the situation of the of the church in , Medina County, Ohio, and to provide instruction to members living there. The New Portage branch was relatively new; several , including , , , and , had preached in the area to counteract ’s derogatory letters against the church that had been published in the Ohio Star in fall 1831, but no one in the area reportedly joined the church until spring 1833, when “a number of persons, some of whom belonged to the Methodist Church.” Soon thereafter, baptized sixteen people in New Portage, and by early 1835, according to one estimate, more than sixty church members lived in the area. The New Portage branch continued to grow after the 9 February conference was over.

In the minutes featured here, church members in were instructed to build a “temporary house” for meetings. The proceedings of several councils and conferences held in the New Portage area over the next two years were recorded in Minute Book 1, and the last such meeting of record, dated 10 June 1836, was held at the home of , suggesting that branch members may not have built the meetinghouse as they had been instructed to do.