Historical News

Historical News Friends Historical Association THE SPRING MEETING of Friends Historical Association was held in Old Merion Meetinghouse, Merion, Pennsylvania , on Sixth Month 3, 1950. President William W. Comfort presided and the meetinghousewas filled to capacity. After a few remarks by the President, Samuel J. Bunting, Jr. gave an interesting talk about the language and cultural background of the British people who journeyed to America and settled in the Welsh Tract of Pennsylvania, or, as announced on the invitation, "Of How the Antient Britons Came to Meirion and Haverford." Samuel Bunting also told something of the beginnings of Merion Meeting and the building of the meetinghouse . A pleasing feature at the beginning and close of the program was the Welsh music, vocal and instrumental, provided by Madge L. Coggeshall, George Gerenbeck, and Jean W. Parcher. After the meeting adjourned, an opportunity was provided for an inspection of the historic meetinghouse and a tour of the burial ground. The Boy Scout Troop had prepared attractive signs marking places of interest, such as the grave of John M. George, founder of George School, and the site of the Saw Pit House. An exhibition of pictures and historic documents, including the earliest minute book of Merion Preparative Meeting, was on display in the new First-Day School building which had just been completed and was open for the first time. The new building provided a convenient place for the box supper and social hour afterwards. The Chairman of the Membership Committee reported to the Board of Directors at its meeting on Fourth Month 14, 1950 that the Association's membership stood at 640. The President, never satisfied with this report, however impressive the statistics, exhorted the Directors and, by extension, all members to consider themselves charged ex officio with a continuing responsibility 105 106Bulletin of Friends Historical Association to add new names to the roster. It may be added that the President , in good Quaker fashion, practices unremittingly what he preaches; it is safe to say that no one has brought more members into the Association than he. He is not jealous of this distinction, however, and would undoubtedly be glad to share it with others! From Quaker Libraries The MS. Journal of William Savery (1759-1804), American Friends minister, has come to Haverford College from the estate of Francis R. Taylor. The journal is in four volumes, beautifully bound, and covers the period from 1794 to 1798, when Savery was traveling in the United States, Great Britain, and Europe. It was this journal which Francis Taylor used as a basis for his Life of William Savery (1925). Other recent accessions to the Quaker Collection at Haverford include a typed copy of a Master of Fine Arts thesis by F. Charles Thum, entitled "Simplicity: An Analysis of the Role of Simplicity in Architecture and Its Development by the Religious Society of Friends"; letters from the autograph collection of Samuel R. Shipley (1828-1908), first president of the Provident Life and Trust Company of Philadelphia (including A.Ls.S. of John G. Whittier, Joseph Sturge, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, George Dillwyn, Samuel Emlen, Sarah Hopper, Mary Howitt, Richard Jordan, and several lines in the handwriting of George Fox) ; and a microfilm copy of The Herald of Freedom (18351846 ), the antislavery periodical edited by Nathaniel P. Rogers, friend of Whittier and other Quakers. * * * By way of supplement to the article on the William Wade Hinshaw Index to Quaker Meeting Records in the Spring Number of the Bulletin, the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College announces that the great mass of unpublished data from the records of Indiana Quaker Meetings prepared originally for Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy has been added to the Index through the generosity of Mrs. Hinshaw. Included are thousands of names from several score meetings in the state which boasts the largest concentration of Historical News107 American Quakers. The material will be made available in the same manner as that already in the Index. The Friends Historical Library has also received lately a typescript of the unpublished diary (1839-63) of Eliza John of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, and a large collection of correspondence of the Committee on Indian Affairs of Baltimore...