Postmark on this sfl is light in the middle but clear.  ASCC price for this postmark is $100. There is significant value added by the content of the letter.  Letter is a report from Rev. Chamberlin (this is the way he signs his name. Records refer to him as Chamberlain) to Rev. Badger on Missionary work in the West.  Both are members of the American Home Missionary Society.  Rev. Badger was Associate Secretary of the Society and received field reports from missionaries on a regular basis.  Rev. Chamberlin says a Brother Gordon will supply the bulk of their report, but he notes preaching 37 times and traveling 1054 miles.  “My horse took sick and died. But through the kindness of Esquire Smith, aided by members of Synod, another horse was procured for me and paid for into $15, andI was not hindered by the circumstance for a moment This was of the Lord and I would bless his holy name.” He reports his “labours during the last quarter have been mainly performed in Fayette County. We think that will be an excellent field for a missionary.”

“If we should succeed in organizing a church there, it must be made up of those who have belong to or educated in several different denominations. And they will be for some time be in danger of being driven back to their old prejudices.  There is in my opinion a great deficiency in educating ministers for this western country and how that deficiency is to be remedied I know not. Ministers for the west should be well educated in what we call common sense.” “The people of the west are generally shrewd and versed in common sense. “

“Effingham County…is fast filling up with Catholics from Germany. They have commenc3ed a town and are fast spreading over the county.  Those who speak only the English language do not expect to stay there long.  They have now no regular preaching by any denomination except the Catholics in the county.  I found a few there that were mourning over their destitute condition If we had a missionary there who could preach both in the English and German languages, he might do much good.”

Oklahoma –work among Indians

Mission Among The Cherokees.

This mission was established in 1817. It has three stations:—Brainard, Creek-Path, and Taloney. Brainard—Is the oldest station of the Board among the Indians; and is situated within the chartered limits of Tennessee, Oh the Chh kamaugah creek, 250 miles N. W. of Augusta; 150 S. E. of Nashville; and 110 S. V\. of Enoxville. Rev. Ard Hoyt, Rev. Oaniel S. Butrick, and Rev. William Chamberlain, missionaries; Dr. Elizur Butler,physician; Messrs. Ahijah Cougar, John Vad, John C. Ellsworth, Erastus Dean, Sylvester Ellis, and Ainsworth E. Blunt, assistant Missionaries ; and John Arch, a converted Cherokee, interpreter.                                       --from a mission report.

"But no denomination has exerted a larger, if so large an influence as educators among us, as the Presbyterians. At my request, Rev. A. N. Chamberlin has furnished me data in regard to their educational work, which I will present partly in his own language: in 1816 the American Board sent out Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury, who located Brainerd, near the now historic Missionary Ridge in 1817. In September, 1818, the board reported sixty children and youth comfortably fed, and instructed for the present world and for the world to come. Other missionaries arrived including Rev. Ard Hoyt, William Chamberlain, William Potter, Rev. Mr. Berkrich and their families, and later, Doctors Worcester and Butler, and other stations were established.

The American Home Missionary Society was formed in 1826 by the Congregational, Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, and Associate Reformed Churches with the purpose of financially assisting congregations on the American frontier until they could become self-sufficient. During its history, the Society assumed a "noninterference" position on the great social issue of slavery, especially since many of its large contributors from the South were slaveholders. Later, growing pressures from the North, where the Society received most of its financial backing, finally forced an official anti-slavery position in 1857. In 1893, the Society came under the complete domination of the Congregational Church and, with its interdenominational character gone, was renamed the Congregational Home Missionary Society.