Collecting area: Religion

The current Portland Monthly Meeting has its origins in two different monthly meetings taking place in close proximity to each other that later merged into what is now the Portland Monthly Meeting. Friends’ meetings in Portland, Maine began in 1752, and by 1790, joined the neighboring Falmouth Monthly Meeting. In 1850, the group built a new meetinghouse on Oak Street in Portland, and started becoming known as the “Oak Street” meeting. Meanwhile, the other of two originating meetings began when a second meetinghouse was built in 1855 on Forest Avenue to house the Deering Preparative Meeting that eventually became the Forest Avenue Monthly Meeting in 1934. The two separate monthly meetings continued in Portland until 1974 when they merged into one: the current Portland Monthly Meeting.

The current collection consists of materials dating from just before the start of the 1974 merger. Newsletters make up the largest portion of the collection, and have extensive information about the meetings’ activities, including (in some years) biographies of various members. There are newsletters from most years between 1973-2010. Minutes, primarily from the late 1970s and the late 1980s, make up the next largest portion of the collection. In addition, there is a smattering of committee reports and membership directories mostly from the mid-1990s. Material predating the 1974 merger can be found at the Maine Historical Society.

The Providence monthly meeting began in 1705 as a preparative meeting under the care of the East Greenwich Monthly. Set off in 1718, Providence Preparative became Smithfield Monthly Meeting by 1731, when the town of Smithfield was formed from Providence. At its inception in 1718, it joined the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, and has continued with this quarterly meeting–in various forms–ever since. Almost 50 years later, in 1783, this meeting split into four groups, one of which continued as the Providence Monthly. The Wilburite Separation of 1844-1845 affected Providence significantly, but the meeting has remained viable to the present day.

A large and particularly rich collection for a Quaker monthly meetingin New England, the Providence Friends Meeting records include a substantial series of minutes of meetings, vital records, records of Ministry and Counsel, the Women’s Foreign Society, and the run of business with respect to epistles, cautions, admissions and denials, and transfers.

Formed in the Separation of 1844-1845, the Providence Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) was, for a time, a significant presence in the Wilburite community. As part of the Rhode Island Quarterly, Providence oversaw worship groups or preparative meetings in Fall River, Greenwich, Newport, North Providence, Pawtucket, and Warwick. During the challenging years of the Civil War, Providence absorbed the smaller Swansea Monthly (1863) and Rhode Island Monthly (1864), but it persisted only until 1881.

The records of the Wilburite Providence Monthly Meeting consist of a complete set of minutes from both its men’s and women’s meetings.

Founded in 1789, the Providence Society for Abolishing the Slave Trade was an early antislavery organization forged in the unique political and social climate of post-Revolutionary Rhode Island. An interdenominational organization with a membership comprised largely of Quakers, the Society served as a self-appointed watchdog for violations of the act abolishing the slave trade and they provided funds to prosecute violators and to support African Americans fighting for their rights in state courts. The Society lay essentially dormant from 1793 to 1824 , when it was revived as an all-purpose antislavery organization, and it appears to have ceased operations in 1827.

The minute book of the Providence Society for Abolishing the Slave Trade are an essentially complete record of the organization’s formal meetings. The volume begins by laying out the organization’s constitution and includes listings of officers and members and summary records of their activities.

Quakers meetings for worship were held in Putney, Vt., from 1942 to 1944, connected loosely to the Connecticut Valley Association of Friends. An independent meeting for worship was established there around 1963, uniting with Bennington Monthly the next year, before being set off as a monthly meeting of its own in 1969. Quaker City Unity Monthly Meeting was set off from Putney in 1993.

The records of Putney Monthly Meeting consist of State of Society reports, a member’s directory, a letter of release and series of talks for minister John Calvi, minutes of meetings, and assorted publications.

Situated in a rural area halfway between White River Junction and the Massachusetts border, the Quaker City Unity Monthly meeting gathered initially in Friends’ homes beginning as early as 1813. Recognized as a preparative meeting in 1822, the meeting was laid down only a few years later in 1855. Regular meetings for worship were revived in Unity in 1984, using the historic meetinghouse, and Quaker City Unity was set off as a formal monthly meeting in 1993.

The records of Quaker City Unity Monthly Meeting consist of minutes of business meetings beginning 1990, with a set of photocopies of earlier records drawn from the minutes of Weare Monthly Meeting.

Quaker Miscellaneous Manuscripts is an artificial collection that brings together various single items or small groups of related materials relating to Quakers and Quakerism. The materials included within the collection are items that are not formally part of the New England Yearly Meeting records but may relate to or supplement that collection.

Launched by Harold D. Weaver in 2019, the Quakers of Color International Archive is part of a global initiative to document the beliefs, experiences, and contributions of people of color within the Society of Friends. Supported collaboratively by the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends and the archives at UMass Amherst and Haverford College, the archive uses oral history and other approaches to document as fully as possible, the range of ideas and practices from all faith traditions within the Society.

An on-going project, the oral histories comprising the archive were conducted by Weaver and associates beginning in 2019. Representing Friends from several Yearly Meetings, the interviews include discussions of faith background and spiritual growth, theological orientation, Quaker identity, relations with monthly and yearly meetings, and the conduct of Quaker “business.”

Background

4to, 237 x 170 mm., 53 leaves, the complete Juzʾ (جزء) Qāla ʾalam (قال ألم) (XVI), containing text from the 18th Sūrah, Sūrat al-Kahf (ٱلْكَهْف), beginning with verse 57, up until the 20th Sūrah, Sūrah Ṭāʾ Hāʾ (طه), verse 135. This manuscript was likely part of a 30 volume section, sometimes copied into independent volumes. Each subsection, or Juzʾ, is a complete section of the Qurʾān itself. For manuscripts of this style, the Qurʾān is usually divided into 30 equal-length Juzʾ sections in order to preserve not only the whole work, but to produce a manuscript in a legible font, a manuscript that is not too large, and one that can be illuminated elegantly. This style of division is most popular in North Africa. 

This manuscript is an example of a Baḥrī Mamlūk Sulṭānate (1250-1382 CE/648-784 AH) Qurʾānic Juzʾ. The Baḥrī Mamlūks (al-Mamalik al-Baḥariyyah, المماليك البحرية), sometimes referred to as the Baḥrī dynasty, were the rulers of the Mamlūk Sultanate of Egypt following the earlier Ayyubid dynasty. These rulers were of Kipchaq Turkish origin, and their name, “Mamlūk,” derives from the Arabic word mamlūk (مملوك, plural mamālīk, مماليك), literally meaning “owned person/slave.” The Baḥrī component of their name comes from their connection to the Nile River. Baḥrī literally means “of the river,”  and refers to the location of their original barracks on Roda Island in the Nile (Nahr al-Nīl, نهر النيل) in Cairo, at the citadel of Ar-Rawdah which was built by the Ayyubid sultan aṣ-Ṣaliḥ Ayyūb. This particular manuscript was likely made for a wealthy member of the Baḥrī Mamlūk court.

The chapters (sūwar, سور, sing. sūrah,  سورة) include passages related to Maryam and ʿĪsā (Mary and Jesus), God’s call to Mūsā ibn ʿImrān (Moses), the Exodus of the Israelites and the crossing of the Red Sea. 

Contents of Collection

Text is in a single column throughout the manuscript, with 7 lines of fine scribal muḥaqqaq (محقَّق) script in black. Vocalization marks are in red. As is standard, all ḥarakāt  (حركات), i.e., diacritics, are provided to ensure proper pronunciation. The opening two pages feature text blocks framed with gold borders, each containing rectangular panels at the top with headings in white muḥaqqaq against blue, green, and orange arabesque designs. Likewise, there are three circular floral medallions extending into the margins on each side. Additionally, there is a recto of the first leaf with a large circular device heightened in gold with decorative rays extending outwards. Two of the Sūrah headings are illuminated in the text, each with white thuluth (ثلث) text against gold polychrome banners, with a circular device extending into the outer margins. Verses are marked throughout with gold roundels, each decorated with red and blue. The covers of the manuscript are in leather, with large medallions on each cover. These medallions contain floral imagery, which has been pressed into the leather. The border around each cover is in gold, with a swirling pattern surrounding the medallion. 

Some spotting can be found throughout the text, along with some smudging. Some page corners have been damaged, and wormholes appear on some pages without disrupting the text itself. Some of the paint has faded or scuffed since the manuscript’s creation. On occasion, spacing between words and letters is reduced to fit into the margins of the manuscript. Because of this, reading is ever so slightly impaired for certain verses. Lastly, there is additional commentary or notes toward the end of the manuscript. This text is in much smaller, black handwriting, notably different from the calligraphy of the Qurʾānic text.

Processing Information

Processed by Andrew Bielecki, May 2024.

Established within the Wilburite Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting in 1844, the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) was a small product of the Separation of 1844-1945 within the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends. By 1863, the men’s meeting had declined to such an extent that only a single member remained, and therefore for a year, join meetings were held with the women’s meeting. The meeting was laid down in April 1864, with members transferring to Providence Monthly Meeting (Wilburite), although a handful of members rejected the decision to disband and continued to meet through the end of the year.

This small collection contains a nearly comprehensive minutes for the men’s and women’s meetings of the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting (Wilburite), along with a volume of records of births, marriages, and deaths.