27 letters addressed to either Nancy Eastman Delano or her son Benjamin Eastman Delano, or to both of them, in Strong, Maine.

The correspondence comes from friends or relatives, many living in seven different small Maine towns, as well as from Massachusetts, Missouri, and Alabama. There is one letter from a friend to Benjamin in which he describes his army camp in Port Royal, Virginia.

Nancy and son Benjamin are addressed variably as "sister," "aunt," "brother," "cousin," or "dear friend," so in some cases it is difficult to establish the actual family relationship between the writer and the Delanos. References to church-going and camp meetings suggest a religious association, and the many recollections of happy social visits might indicate friendships rather than family get-togethers. Main themes of many of the letters are a preoccupation with illnesses and deaths, fervent hopes for a fulfilling after-life, wishes for either sustaining or attaining good health, reports of children and marriages, and news about absent sons and neighbors serving in the army along with other small-town gossip.

Several interesting letters in the collection were written by Nancy Delano's former son-in-law, Nathan D. Stanwood, and his second wife, Emily, whom he married in 1857. Stanwood had traveled to California in 1860 for business and by 1864 was living and working in San Francisco. However, by October of 1865, Emily writes to Nancy that Nathan is in Montgomery, Alabama, buying cotton for his brother Jacob's business. He has written to her that "…the Southern merchants are willing enough to repair the damages of the last four years and are very glad to have the Northern capitalist come to their aid with the cash." In August 1866, Emily writes to Benjamin that Nathan has bought a large plantation near Montgomery where he will stay to superintend the raising of corn and cotton. Stanwood was a Radical Republican, and in two letters he describes his postwar operation of his Alabama plantation, the state of his freed workers, and his fervent drive to register all Freedmen to vote. Stanwood served as a delegate from his district to the Alabama Constitutional Convention, held at Montgomery, November 5-December 6, 1867. Emily, having joined Nathan with their two children, found it hard to adjust to the "sunny south", but tells Benjamin that she is teaching her "very good servants" to read.