This collection contains 15 letters from several relatives and friends in West Chester, Pennsylvana, to U. S. Army officer Mott Hooton, received while Hooton was serving at posts in Dakota Territory, Iowa, Kansas, and Minnesota. Eight of the letters are from a writer identified only as "Aunt Sue" (likely Susan Carpenter, living in the home of Mott Hooton's brother Frank in 1870). Also included are letters from "Sallie" (probably Hooton's half-sister, Sallie Rhodes), Hammond, and H. Hildeburn, all of Chester County, Pennsylvania, and all conveying news of relatives and mutual acquaintances. A letter from A. Hooton (probably Hooton's paternal grandfather, Andrew Hooton) relays news of a relative who had been caught in a snowstorm while prospecting for gold and also offers some opinions on the political climate of the day. ("I have well nigh out lived this government, some think it expired (constitutionally,) on the shedding of blud at Sumpter, and that we are now experimenting in governmental matters at Washington ... the governmental bungallers have well nigh addled my brain.")

Also included in the collection is a single 1879 letter from Mrs. S. N. Pettibone of Bakersville [Connecticut] to former pupil Vinnie Dowd, of Monterey [Massachusetts?]. The relationship, if any, to the Hooton letters is unknown.