The Annual Meeting of Friends' Historical Association, 1934

Volume 23, No. 2 Autumn Number, 1934 Bulletin of Friends' Historical Association THE ANNUAL MEETING OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION, 1934 Friends' Historical Association held its annual meeting at the Friends Institute, 20 South Twelfth Street, Philadelphia, on Second-day, Eleventh month 26, 1934. Charles Francis Jenkins, President of the Association, presided at the business meeting. The annual reports of the President and Treasurer were given, and Directors of the Association were elected for the ensuing year as shown on the opposite page, William Wistar Comfort being elected to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Rayner W. Kelsey. The meeting felt keenly the loss of Rayner W. Kelsey, and adopted the following minute: Rayner W. Kelsey Rayner W. Kelsey died at his home in Haverford, Pennsylvania, on Tenth month 29, 1934. Thus passed from the activities of earthly life one of the most devoted and useful members of Friends' Historical Association. He served the Association as President, 1913-1915; as Vice-President, 1928-1931; as Editor of the Bulletin, 1922-1932; and as a member of the Board of Directors, 1923-1934. Rayner W. Kelsey ,was a trained historian, and he applied the scientific methods of research and judgment to historical problems. He realized more fully than most the inestimable value of the collections of source material in the custody of the Society of Friends. His work in arranging and indexing the valuable collections at Haverford College has put present and future generations under distinct obligation to him. The type of custodial care that he organized secured for the Haverford Collections some of its most valuable items. For all these reasons, but very specially also for his genial goodfellowship and enthusiasm in his associations with us, we record our profound sorrow at his early death. We assure his widow and their son Sl 52 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION of our heartfelt sympathy, and we appeal to the membership of Friends' Historical Association to emulate his noble example in devotion to worthy causes. The address of the evening was delivered by Horace Mather Lippincott, who read a very interesting paper entitled Some Old Quaker Houses in the Phifadelphia Neighborhood. The paper was made the more interesting by a set of beautiful photographs of the exteriors and interiors of many of the houses discussed , taken by Philip G. Wallace and mounted for the occasion by Walter F. Price. After the presentation of the literary program, the meeting adjourned to enjoy a refreshing collation, which was served in the tearoom on the second floor. ENOCH FLOWER By George Wheeler The first Frame of Government for Pennsylvania signed in England by William Penn on the "five and twentieth day of the second month, vulgarly called April, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and eighty-two," provided in the Editor's Note.—The writer of this article was for many years (190929 ) Associate Superintendent of Schools in Philadelphia, and in that capacity often heard of the first schoolmaster in Penn's colony. It was largely through fais efforts that the Schoolmen's Club of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Historical Commission were stirred to interest in the 250th anniversary of the death of Enoch Flower, and erected a tablet, a picture of which accompanies this article, at 234 South Front Street, Philadelphia, the site of Enoch Flower's school. (See Pennsylvania School Journal, 82:194, for Jan., 1934; 82:290, for Feb., 1934.) By research among the original records of early colonial times he ascertained that Enoch Flower owned the twelfth lot south from Walnut Street, on Front ("which later, following various consolidations, became the ninth), and by adding the frontages of the eight lots between Flower's and the corner (which measured 102, 20, 20, 20, 42, 20, 30, and 20 feet respectively), and measuring off the sum along Front Street, he ascertained which modern building is erected on the ancient site of Flower's house, and hence where the tablet should be placed. Enoch Flower has been only very briefly referred to by those who have hitherto written of Pennsylvania or its school system. The general histories mention him, if at all, as the first schoolmaster, and say...