Single leaf, measuring 11½ × 7½ inches (29 × 19 cm). The leaf was trifolded twice in letter style before it was addressed, and it was later refolded for filing.

The document was docketed by , who served as JS’s scribe from December 1841 until JS’s death in June 1844 and served as church historian from December 1842 until his own death in March 1854. The document was also docketed by , who served as JS’s scribe from 1843 to 1844 and as clerk to the church historian and recorder from 1845 to 1865. In summer 1845, Richards directed Bullock to include the letter in JS’s history, and it was copied into the 17 December 1842 entry. Presumably, this letter was among the “letters” and other “old Papers” that an 1846 inventory of the Church Historian’s Office (later Church Historical Department) indicated had been “recorded in the history.” A notation by an unidentified Church Historian’s Office clerk was inscribed presumably in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. The document was listed in an inventory that was produced by the Church Historian’s Office circa 1904. By 1973 the document had been included in the JS Collection at the Church Historical Department (now CHL). The document’s early dockets and notation, its likely inclusion in the 1846 inventory, and its inclusion in the circa 1904 inventory and in the JS Collection by 1973 indicate continuous institutional custody.