Correspondence of the Dean, Bond, Gore, and Mason families of Connecticut and Illinois. Includes many letters from Lucretia Mason Dean and her daughter Lucretia Dean Gore, whose husband was a Congregational minister first in Groveland, and later LaMoille, Illinois. Also letters between a young Lucretia Mason Dean and her cousins and Hitty, Lucy, Moses, and Betsey Bond, and letters of Ezra and Pamelia Dean. Topics in the correspondence include courtship, religion, illness, death, and family news. The collection also contains several deeds of the Dean family for property in the Windham County, Connecticut area, estate papers of Ezra and Pamelia Dean, and two sermons written by Reverend Darius Gore. All material is correspondence unless otherwise noted.