[The original manuscript is held at the Community of Christ Library-Archives (CCLA), Independence, Missouri, in P13, folder 255. The B. H. Roberts Foundation has published photographic scans of two pages of the manuscript and a transcription of the seer-stone paragraph. A more extended transcription of the body, including the preamble in which Vancleave explains the context of his inquiry, was published in the LDS-research compilation 'Joseph Smith Uses Stone in a Hat' (citing Cook 1991, pp. 239–240). The complete annotated transcription appears in Lyndon W. Cook, ed., David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness (Orem, UT: Grandin Book Co., 1991), 239–240, which is not digitally available. The opening salutation excerpted above ("Dear brother, your letter of 27th reached me yesterday evening...") does not appear in any digitized secondary source surveyed and is verifiable only via Cook 1991 (print) or the CCLA original. The two longest published portions of the body follow below.]
Extended body transcription (preamble + seer-stone paragraph), as published in 'Joseph Smith Uses Stone in a Hat,' citing Vancleave to Joseph Smith III, 29 Sept. 1878, CCLA P13, fd 255, and Cook, David Whitmer Interviews (1991), 239–240:
Regarding seers and seer stones I am completely at sea, but am glad that you have given me the information you have: Three weeks ago today Elders Orson Pratt, and Joseph F. Smith (Your Cousin) of Salt Lake were here to see David Whitmer, . . . During Mr. Pratt['s] visit I inquired of him regarding his belief in the seer stone and he answered that he knew they were of God: He says that after he was ordained an Elder in the Church of Christ, he was anxious to know what his mission was, and would be and at Peter Whitmer Sr's residence he asked Joseph whether he could not ascertain what his mission was, and Joseph answered him that he would see, & asked Pratt and John Whitmer to go upstairs with him, and on arriving there Joseph produced a small stone called a seer stone, and putting it into a Hat soon commenced speaking and asked Elder P[ratt]. to write as he would speak, but being too young and timid and feeling his unworthiness he asked whether Bro. John W[hitmer]. could not write it, and the Prophet said that he could: Then came the revelation to the Three named given Nov. 4th 1830 as can be found in the book of D. & Covenants[.]
Seer-stone paragraph as transcribed directly from the manuscript scans by the B. H. Roberts Foundation (essentially identical to the closing portion of the above):
...on arriving there Joseph produced a small stone called a seer stone, and putting it into a Hat soon commenced speaking and asked Elder P. to write as he would speak, but being too young and timid and feeling his unworthiness he asked whether Bro. John W[hitmer]. could not write it, and the Prophet said that he could: Then came the revelation to the Three named given Nov. 4th 1830 as can be found in the book of D. & Covenants[.]
Van Cleave, son-in-law of David Whitmer's granddaughter Josephine Schweich, wrote this letter from Richmond, Missouri, to Joseph Smith III in Plano, Illinois, recounting an interview with Apostle Orson Pratt during Pratt's September 1878 visit (with Joseph F. Smith) to David Whitmer in Richmond. Pratt described the circumstances under which the revelation now published as Doctrine and Covenants 34 was received in November 1830.