Letter, 4 August 1843, written by Josephine E[stelle] Boutan from Charleston, South Carolina, and addressed to "My Respected Friend," Robert McKay, Greenville C[ourt] H[ouse], South Carolina, thanks him for his recent letter and expresses pleasure with the "account of your delightful village" conveyed therein. "…from your description no one could otherwise than wish to be enumerated as one of its inhabitants," she adds, noting however that "we have little in our City for enjoyment such as you have described but still we must be devoted to the home of our Childhood [and] those scenes must ever be green in our memory."

The letter wishes McKay success in his election, presumably for the office of ordinary, which he subsequently held, and in sharing with him news of mutual friends in Charleston, she quips that she had not yet "‘Ketched’ a beau."

The Fourth of July she had celebrated with others who gathered in Broad Street "where we saw the whole military in full as they passed to the Battery, where they usual[l]y fire a feu de joié in honor of the day." "The Washingtons," she recounts, "were the handsomest among them…." That afternoon, a "Sabbath School Pic Nic" had been held "in the Mall, in front of Flin’s Church," and "on the Neck they had a procession of several Hundred Children…."

Boutan married Dr. Zachariah James Dehay in September 1849 and later lived in Camden, South Carolina.