The Annual Meeting of Friends' Historical Association

Volume 25, No. 2 Autumn Number, 1936 Bulletin of Friends' Historical Association THE ANNUAL MEETING OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION held its annual meeting in the Race Street Meeting House, Fifteenth and Race Streets, Philadelphia, on Second-day evening, Eleventh month 30, 1936, at 8.15 P. M. William W. Comfort, President of the Association, presided; he listed, among the activities of the year, the collection and contribution of $500 toward the bust of William Penn in the Hall of Fame; the placing of a marker on the historic watch box now set up near the east end of the meeting house at Fourth and Arch Streets, Philadelphia; and the holding of two general meetings and the publication of two numbers of the Bulletin. The Chairman of the Nominating Committee, Edward Woolman , presented a report, nominating the Directors whose names appear on the opposite page. The persons named were unanimously elected. The Curator, Lydia Flagg Gummere, reported the gift to the Association of two interesting and valuable items. One was an album, presented by Elizabeth Biddle Conrow, containing photographs of 650 meeting houses wihich she had collected from all over the world. The other, presented by Horace E. Reed and Anna R. Evans, comprised the records and papers of the Aimwell School, which was laid down in 1935. The school was founded by Anne Parrish in 1796, at the close of a scourge of yellow fever in Philadelphia, for the free instruction of female children ; it was held at first in Anne Parrish's home at the corner of Second Street and Pewter Platter Alley. Poor girls who could 55 56 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION not pay for instruction were given this opportunity for training. In 1797 the school with its fifty pupils was moved to a room in the Corporation School House on Fourth Street below Chestnut, and a "constant teacher" was employed to take charge of the sewing. The school finally moved to 869 North Randolph Street. The Aimwell School Association was officially incorporated in 1859, with the motto: "Education is the golden key that unlocks the door to success." The gift includes the records and minutes, the charter, and an interesting picture of some of the scholars in costume taken on the occasion of the 125th anniversary held on Eleventh month 18, 1921. The address of the evening was given by Professor William I. Hull, on his very interesting experiences while hunting for reminiscences of Quakers in Holland. He told of the kind of accident that befalls the persistent and skilful searcher, whereby he found the daughter of a man who had long been called the "last Dutch Quaker," John Etienne Mollet, from whose family he secured access to illuminating family records going back to about the time of the rise of Quakerism; and of another accident by which he found, where others had failed to find, the minute book of Friesland Monthly Meeting, which had been carried to the old Devonshire House in London by unknown hands, and had lain in a basement awaiting his successful search. After the annual meeting, the Directors held a brief meeting, at which the officers of the past year were elected for another year of service. The Association then enjoyed a collation, served in one of the upper rooms of the Meeting House. 1T1HE PRESENT number of the Bulletin contains two¦*- articles on Quakerism or Quaker interests in Russia and Germany. The author of the article on Russian Quakers, Wilhelm Hubben, has written a history of the Quaker movement in Germany ; the author of the article on the meeting house at Bad Pyrmont is clerk of the German Yearly Meeting. These articles fall appropriately in a time when many of us are thinking of the World Conference of Friends to be held in 1937. It is expected that further articles will be printed in later issues, in an attempt to round out the picture of Quakerism in other parts of the world. MEMORIAL MINUTES57 AT THE MEETING of the Directors held Tenth month 15, - 1936, the Board adopted the following memorial minutes in regard to the deaths of Walter Brinton and Lucy Branson Roberts, both beloved and...