The original letter is a manuscript retained copy in the David Whitmer Papers (Community of Christ Library-Archives, Independence, MO). No complete transcription of the letter is available in any open online repository as of 2026-05-02. The following are the substantive passages preserved in published scholarly transcriptions (Lyndon W. Cook, David Whitmer Interviews [1991], 241; Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents [2003], 5:36, 72, 222), reconstructed in the order in which they appear to have stood in the letter.
Whitmer affirms his published testimony in the Book of Mormon and refuses to elaborate further:
My testimony as published in connection with the Book of Mormon is true — And why Should men ask to know more in regard to all the particulars connected with that all Overshadowing truth — If they will not believe the three and 8 witnesses would they believe though one Should arise from the dead, and testify to its truth again[?]
Responding to S. T. Mouch's inquiry about the August 20, 1878 published interview by P. Wilhelm Poulson, M.D., Whitmer denies that the interview accurately reports what he said:
As to what you Say about the correspondence published by P Wilhelm Poulson M D Aug[ust] 20th 1878. I surely did not make the Statement which you Say he reports me to have made, for it is not according to the facts. And I have always in the fear of God, tried to give a true statement to the best of my recollection in regard to all matters which I have attempted to Explain. And I do not now remember of talking to Mr Poulson on the subject referred to.
The opening sentence preserved in the on-file excerpt above ("Dear sir, in reply to your inquiry, I have this to say, that I am not responsible for what men say in regard to their conversations with me.") is consistent with the letter's subject (Whitmer disclaiming responsibility for the misreported Poulson interview) and is plausibly the letter's opening, but it could not be independently verified against any published transcription in open online sources. Verbatim verification of this sentence and recovery of the remainder of the letter requires direct consultation of the manuscript or of the printed transcriptions in Cook (1991) and Vogel (EMD vol. 5).