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Eli and Sybil Jones Family papers
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Held at: Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections [Contact Us]370 Lancaster Ave, Haverford, PA 19041
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Eli Jones (1807-1890) was born in China, Maine, the son of Abel and Susannah Jepson Jones. He married Sybil Jones in 1833. He was acknowledged a minister and began traveling in the ministry with his wife to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Together they also visited most of the Yearly Meetings in the United States; in Africa, they visited Liberia; and in Europe, they journeyed to England, Ireland, France, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, and Greece. Finally, they went to do religious work in the Middle East. Jones was active in most New England Yearly Meeting committees, working for the causes of temperance, education, and peace. He served in the legislature in Augusta, Maine, in 1854, and was responsible for re-opening Oak Grove Seminary in 1856, serving as principal that year.
Sybil Jones (1808-1873) was born in Brunswick, Maine, the daughter of Ephraim and Susannah Dudley Jones. She taught in a Friends School in 1824-1825, then in public schools for eight years. Jones was acknowledged a Quaker minister, traveling with her husband in the ministry. In 1850, she felt moved to minister in Africa; she and her husband were guests of President Roberts in Liberia. During the Civil War, she tended the wounded in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia. She comforted Mrs. Lincoln after the President's assassination and gave spiritual advice to President Johnson. In 1867, Sybil and Eli Jones began their last missionary journey to Europe, Athens, Syria, Egypt, England, and Palestine, establishing missions on Mt. Lebanon and Ramallah, Palestine. Sybil Jones was a member of China (Maine) Monthly Meeting.
James Parnell Jones (1835-1864) was born in Dirigo, Maine, the son of Eli and Sybil Jones. He was a cousin of Rufus M. Jones and older brother of Richard Mott Jones. He married Rebecca Runnels in 1857. He attended Haverford College from 1851 to 1852 (he received his bachelor's and master's from the University of Michigan). He became a teacher and principal of Valley School in Michigan. Still a Quaker, he determined that the outrage of slavery was a stronger principle than his pacifism and became an officer in the Union army, achieving the rank of major. He was disowned by his Meeting in China, Maine. He died in battle at Crystal Springs, Virginia.
Biographical information from Dictionary of Quaker Biography, internal evidence and an article by Peter Curtis, "A Quaker and the Civil War." <emph render="italics">Quaker History</emph>, vol. 67, 1978, no. 1, p. 35.
This collection contains materials from Eli and Sybil Jones, as well as Susan Taber Jones, James Parnell Jones, Virginia Costello Jones, and other materials related to the work and ministry of Eli and Sybil Jones.
These are all materials which were previously removed from collection 1009, the Jones Family papers.
Processed by Mary A. Crauderueff; completed December, 2015.
People
Subject
- Temperance
- Education
- Women clergy -- United States -- Diaries
- Quakers -- Travel
- Quakers -- Diaries
- Quakers
Place
- Publisher
- Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections
- Finding Aid Author
- Mary A. Crauderueff
- Finding Aid Date
- December, 2015
- Access Restrictions
-
The collection is open for research use.
- Use Restrictions
-
Standard Federal Copyright Laws Apply (U.S. Title 17).
Collection Inventory
This series includes materials from Eli Jones, including journals, notebooks, account books, and two passports.
Physical Description19 items
This notebook includes recordings of distances traveled, and correspondence recieved by Eli Jones, during 1851 - 1853.
Sybil Jones' materials include notebooks and diaries related to Yearly Meeting sessions, her spiritual struggles in deciding to go abroad to minister, and her children's encouragement.
Physical Description18 items
foldered.
Journal of visits to other Quaker Meetings in New England, circa 1850.
Physical Descriptionfoldered.
Volume includes Sybil's thoughts and reations to her son's death.
2 items
This item is a book of abstracts, created by F. Annie Budge for Eli and Sybil Jones, dated 1868.
This album contains three main subjects: French Bible verses signed by pupils of Friends School at Nimes, March 1854; Friends' autographs on the occasion of Eli Jones' 78th birthday, China, Maine, March 12, 1885; and from an English Friend, China, Maine, June 27, 1889.
1 items
3 items
This volume contains the second book of Xenophon's Anabasis, translated by James P. Jones at Haverford, Summer of 1852
This volume contains latin excercises, some of which have correction marks.
This volume contains Ciceroni's Oratio 3rd, translated by James P. Jones.
1 items
Notebook includes various writings from journaling to recipes and grocery lists.
3 items
Includes pressed marine plants collected at Longport, New Jersey.
Includes sketches and pressed flowers from Europe, including England (undated), also laid in Brumana sketches (1875 - 1876)
1 items
This item contains the constitution and minutes for the Kennebec County Temperance Union. It has 5 items laid in.
1 items
This is a pocket case containing maps of Friends Meetings in Great Britain and Ireland, with a schedule of times and places for meetings, and Discipline of the Society, 1846
This series contains two volumes of record books from the School District No. 11, Town of China, Maine. The records include names of students, and often their age, their attendence, and their marks for each class. They are oversize materials.
Also includes laid and pasted in momentos and notices of Eli and Sybil, including meetings abroad and pressed flowers.
Includes minutes from the Sons of Temperance, State of Maine, Lake Division No. 100, which began in 1859. Laid in the back are formed used for annual reports to its parent organization, forms for membership certificates, and the charter from the Grand Division of the State of Maine to 18 men, including Eli Jones, making them the Lake Division No. 100.
Album includes photographs of Friends Training Home, its pupils and teachers, at Brumana, Ain Salam, Mt. Lebanon, Syria. Laid in: pencil sketch of land at Brumana, 6 photographs, one of the Friends Mission in 1883. Oversize material.