Repository: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College / Year: <span class="single" data-blrl-single="1761">1761</span> - Philadelphia Area Archives Search Results

Start Over Repository Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College Year 1761

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]

Extent:: 1.5 linear ft. (3 boxes)
Abstract:: The Lightfoot family was a Pennsylvania Quaker family descended from Thomas Lightfoot, a Quaker minister who emigrated from Ireland to Kennett Monthly Meeting in 1716 with his family. The collection includes three journals which have been attributed to his grandson Thomas on the basis of contextual detail. These accounts document visits to meetings in the mid Atlantic region, New Jersey to Virginia, from 1757 to 1760. Jacob Lightfoot, a son of Thomas and Sarah Lightfoot, married Mary Bonsall, a prominent Quaker minister. The journal of her 1757 religious visit with Grace Fisher to Quaker meetings in the Concord Quarter is included in the collection. Mary and Jacob's grandson, Thomas Lightfoot, was an Indian Agent in southeastern Nebraska during the period of Quaker involvement in President U.S. Grant's "peace policy." Another descendent, Thomas Montgomery Lightfoot, did extensive genealogical research on the Quaker families that settled in Maiden Creek. The papers of Thomas and Mary...(see more)

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

Extent:: 7 linear ft. (17 boxes)
Abstract:: Miers Fisher (1748-1819), a birthright Quaker, was a prominent lawyer, legislator, philanthropist, merchant, and scientist in early Federal Philadelphia. Benjamin Warner, publisher and bookseller, married Fisher's daughter, Lydia, in 1814. Born in 1748 in Philadelphia, the son of Joshua and Sarah Rowland Fisher, Miers Fisher married Sarah Redwood in 1774. He was among a group of prominent Quaker merchants who were temporarily exiled to Winchester, Virginia, during the Revolution. Miers and Sarah had sixteen children, only five of which survived him. Their youngest son, Jabez Maud Fisher, was trained as an Engineer, and worked for a railway company and as a Naval Officer for the port of Providence; he moved to Denver, Colorado, in the early 1860's to be with his sons who had built a ranch. The collection includes journals, correspondence, and financial records of Miers Fisher, his daughter, Lydia Fisher Warner, his son, Jabez Maud Fisher, and their respective families.

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

Extent:: 24.417 linear ft. (49 boxes)
Abstract:: The Painter family was an early Pennsylvania Quaker family that married into the Minshall family of Delaware County. In 1681, William Penn granted Thomas Minshall a land tract which now includes the Tyler Arboretum. The property was home to eight generations of the same family. The collection includes family correspondence, business and legal papers, property records, papers on interests and concerns of the Painter brothers, genealogical papers, and miscellaneous deeds and other papers collected by Minshall Painter. It is a rich source of information not only on the Painter family of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and the origins of the Tyler Arboretum, but also on agriculture, social life and customs, and nineteenth century Quaker concerns through day books, account books, financial records, correspondence, and other documents.

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

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