Online Content: Not Available / Subject: Lay ministry -- Society of Friends / Language: English / Year: <span class="single" data-blrl-single="1869">1869</span> - Philadelphia Area Archives Search Results

Public Friends manuscripts collection, 1656-1899 (inclusive)

Extent:: .3 linear ft. (1 document box)
Abstract:: While the Society of Friends is a "ministry of all believers," historically certain members have been recognized for their spiritual gifts. Those who undertake to travel and preach with the approbation of their home meeting are known as Public Friends. Especially in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century, traveling ministers served a key role in forming Quaker social and theological networks, fostering unity within the Society of Friends, and providing spiritual enrichment to Quakers across the world. Ministers who felt a spiritual opening directing them to travel would tell their Monthly Meeting, and if approved, the meeting would write a minute for the minister to carry on their journey and present to the Meeting(s) they visited. Quaker Meetings would often keep records of the Public Friends who visited them. This collection consists of lists of Public Friends, as well as minutes from Quaker meetings approving ministers to travel. Items were written by various Quaker meetings or...(see more)

Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]

Friends Historical Library collection of memorials, 1760-1920 (inclusive)

Extent:: .1 linear ft.
Abstract:: Memorials are brief biographical essays which testify to the spiritual values of a Quaker's life. Early meetings only wrote memorials for ministers, but today some meetings continue the practice to memorialize all deceased members. In the 19th century, in particular, some Yearly Meetings periodically published compilations of memorials. This collection consists of miscellaneous memorials, from various meetings and regarding various Friends, collected by the Friends Historical Library over time.

Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]

Smedley Family Papers, 1751-1996 (inclusive) 1821-1950 (bulk)

Extent:: 12 linear ft. (23 boxes plus photographs)
Abstract:: The collection contains correspondence, journals and other writings, business and legal papers, and miscellaneous items of the Smedley family, a large and prominent Quaker family of Penncrest Farm, Middletown Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The family was related to the Kite and Sharples/Sharpless families of Chester and Delaware Counties. The papers include significant correspondence of the Kite family, especially Thomas Kite (1785-1845) and Mary Kite (1792-1861), both prominent Quaker ministers, and Thomas's daughter, Susanna Kite (1809-1844) who married Aaron Sharpless. Their daughter, Elizabeth S. Sharpless married Edward G. Smedley of Middletown, thus merging the Smedley-Sharples-Kite families. In the 20th century, the property became the home of Edward Smedley's nephew, Walter Smedley (1862-1939), a Philadelphia architect, and his wife, Ida Wilkins Roberts Smedley (1896-1993). She married second C. Canby Balderston. The papers cover a wide range of subjects...(see more)

Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]

Hunn-Karsner Family Papers, 1809-1985 (inclusive) 1947-1974 (bulk)

Extent:: 4.75 linear ft. (10 boxes)
Abstract:: The collection contains correspondence, writings, and other papers of the family of Ezekiel Hunn and Lydia Jones Sharpless Hunn, Philadelphia and Delaware Quakers. The papers were compiled by their granddaughter Katherine Hunn Karsner (1899-1993). She was a Philadelphia Quaker minister and married Joseph Reed Karsner in 1930 under the care of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (Hicksite). The bulk of the collection is composed of correspondence from their daughter, Mary Ann Karsner Kegler (1932-1983) who moved to Alaska in 1950 and was one of the founders of Chena Ridge Monthly Meeting. The collection also contains earlier family correspondence between Ezekiel and Lydia Jenkins Hunn and other members of the Hunn family. The writings include diaries and writings by Katherine Hunn Karsner, her sister Lydia Hunn Williamson, Joseph Karsner, and Mary Ann Karsner Kegler.

Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]

Sharpless-Reeve family papers, 1852-1957 (inclusive)

Extent:: 2.5 linear ft. (5 boxes)
Abstract:: The collected papers of the Sharpless and Reeve family of New Jersey and Philadelphia. Much of the correspondence is between Edward Sharpless (1831-1894), a New Jersey Quaker minister, and his sister, Anna N. Sharpless, who married John Newbold Reeve in 1857. Their daughter, Mary Offley Reeve, worked as a school teacher when young and became involved in temperance and evangelical Christianity. She shared these interests, reflected in diaries and other writings, with Annie Way Smith, a long-time friend and member of Fishertown Monthly Meeting. The collection illustrates Quaker responses to early twentieth century social and religious trends.

Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]

Records of Primitive Friends, 1832-1922 (inclusive)

Extent:: 3.25 linear ft. (3 boxes, 27 volumes)
Abstract:: Nineteenth and twentieth century records, especially minutes of Primitive Friends (Quakers) in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Held at: Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections [Contact Us]

Sheppard Family papers, 1656-1887 (inclusive)

Extent:: .8 linear ft. (2 boxes)
Abstract:: The collection particularly provides connections between the Irish and Philadelphia Friends in the 18th century, especially by the Sheppard and Wansborough families who intermarried. Included are letters of John Wilbur, central in the Gurney-Wilbur controversy.

Held at: Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections [Contact Us]

Ash-Schofield Family Papers, 1796-1933 (inclusive) 1833-1912 (bulk)

Extent:: 1.5 linear ft. (3 boxes)
Abstract:: Samuel Shinn Ash and his wife, Sarah Jane Schofield Ash, were prominent Quakers, active in a variety of philanthropic activities, including anti-slavery, peace, temperance, women's rights, and education. Samuel Shinn Ash was apprenticed as an engineer and machinist and worked in manufacturing. This collection consists of family papers, manuscript letters and memorabilia, largely of a domestic nature. Includes some descriptions of Meetings and religious journeys, of the early struggles of Samuel S. Ash in engineering and business, and references to the Schofield Normal and Industrial School in Aiken, S.C. of which Martha Schofield, one of the correspondents, was Manager. The exchange of letters between Mary S. Ash and her mother, Sarah Ash, describes student life at Swarthmore College in the 1890's.

Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]

Samuel M. Janney Papers, 1815-1880 (inclusive)

Extent:: 4 linear ft. (8 boxes)
Abstract:: Samuel McPherson Janney was a Virginia Quaker minister, author, educator, and reformer. In 1839 he opened a boarding school for girls in Loudoun County. He traveled widely in the ministry, meeting with other denominations as well as being immersed in the contemporary issues facing the Society of Friends. Among his activities were establishing schools for African Americans and women, creating public schools in Virginia, and the abolition of slavery. In 1869 he was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Nebraska. The collection contains primarily correspondence of Samuel M. Janney with family and with friends such as John Comly, Joseph Dugdale, Benjamin Ferris, William Dudley Foulke, Isaac T. Hopper, Halliday Jackson, Dillwyn Parrish, Edward Parrish, Moses Sheppard, John Jackson, Deborah Wharton, Halliday Jackson, Barclay White, William Dorsey, and George M. Truman. Also letters of members of his family to one another, his manuscript journal (published 1881 as Memoirs),...(see more)

Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]

Perry and Rebecca John Papers, 1805-1873 (inclusive)

Extent:: 0.25 linear ft. (1 box)
Abstract:: Rebecca (Underwood) John and her husband, Perry John, were ministers in the Society of Friends, members of Roaring Creek Monthly Meeting, and worshipped in the Quaker meeting house at Bear Gap (Shamokin), Pennsylvania. The bulk of this collection is correspondence, primarily from the 1840s through the 1850s. It includes some letters between Rebecca and Perry John, but the collection also includes letters received by the couple from relatives and friends. Many of the letters relate to Rebeccas life as a traveling Quaker minister, including the period of time when her children were young. Much of the correspondence describes local events and family news. Of particular interest are letters from her nieces who were students at Sharon Female Academy, Darby, Pa.

Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]

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