Part of a series of correspondence Long Island historian Benjamin Thompson undertook, writing members of prominent families on Long Island to collect their family history for his book, The History of Long Island. Thompson wrote to Peter S. Townsend, a nephew of Robert Townsend and a descendant of settlers in Oyster Bay and Queens County, about the history of his family. Included in this correspondence are some of Thompson's early drafts of the section on the Townsend Family, which he asks Peter S. Townsend to help him sort out.