The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
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Collecting area: Religion

Falmouth Quarterly Meeting of Friends

Falmouth Quarterly Meeting Records

1965-1996
3 vols. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 F3568

Part of the Society of Friends’ New England Yearly Meeting, Falmouth Quarterly Meeting was set off from Salem Quarter in 1794 and has subsequently given rise to quarterlies in Vassalboro (1813) and Parsonsfield (1888-1938).

With the majority of records for Falmouth Quarterly Meeting housed at the Maine Historical Society, SCUA maintains records that include only the minutes from 1988 to 1996, and records of Ministry and Counsel, 1965-1988, with a small gap near that end.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

New Hampshire--Religious life and customsQuakers--New HampshireSociety of Friends--New Hampshire

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)
Farmington Monthly Meeting of Friends

Farmington Monthly Meeting Records

1984-2012
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 F376

After eight years as a Quaker worship group, Farmington Monthly Meeting was set off from Pondtown in 1991, becoming one of the newest members of Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting. Worship at Farmington is unprogammed.

Particularly for the early years, minutes for the Farmington Monthly Meeting were recorded (or preserved) somewhat irregularly, though continuously from 1984 to 2012. The collection also contains a set of state of the society reports. information on membership, and memorials.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Farmington (Me.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MaineSociety of Friends--Maine

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)
Flint and Lawrence Family

Flint and Lawrence Family Papers

1642-1798
2 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 273

Personal, financial and legal papers of Flint and Lawrence families of Lincoln, Massachusetts including wills, estate inventories, indenture documents, receipts of payment for slaves and education, correspondence; and records of town and church meetings, town petitions and receipts relating to the construction of the meeting house. Papers of Reverend William Lawrence include letter of acceptance of Lincoln, Massachusetts ministry, record of salary, a sermon and daybook. Personal papers of loyalist Dr. Joseph Adams, who fled to England in 1777, contain letters documenting conditions in England in the late 1700s and the legal and personal problems experienced by emigres and their families in the years following the Revolutionary War.

Subjects

American loyalists--Great BritainAmerican loyalists--MassachusettsChurch buildings--Massachusetts--Lincoln--CostsEngland--Emigration and immigration--18th centuryFlint familyImmigrants--England--17th centuryLand tenure--Massachusetts--LincolnLandowners--Massachusetts--LincolnLawrence familyLincoln (Mass.)--Economic conditions--18th centuryLincoln (Mass.)--HistoryLincoln (Mass.)--Social conditions--18th centuryMassachusetts--Emigration and immigation--18th centurySlaves--Prices--Massachusetts--Lincoln

Contributors

Adams, Joseph, 1749-1803Flint, Edward, 1685-1754Flint, Ephraim, b. 1714Flint, Love Adams, d. 1772Flint, Thomas, d. 1653Lawrence, William, 1723-1780

Types of material

AccountsGenealogiesIndenturesInventories of decedents estatesWills
Fowler, Robert

Robert Fowler Diary

1831-1854
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 174 bd

A native of Salisbury, Massachusetts, Robert Fowler (b.1805) was a prosperous shipbuilder and merchant with a trade extending from Nova Scotia to the Gulf South. He and his wife Susan Edwards, whom he married in 1830, had at least four children.

Kept by Robert Fowler between 1831 and 1854, the volume includes both diary entries (primarily 1841-1846) and accounts. With occasional commentary on local political matters, commerce, weather, and family matters, the diary is largely a record of Fowler’s spiritual concerns and his wrestling with doctrinal matters and the relationship of religion and daily life. An ardent temperance man, he commented on religious topics ranging from the Millerite movement to the resurrection, salvation, and the duty of prayer.

Subjects

FatherhoodFitch, Charles, 1805-1844Merchants--Massachusetts--SalisburyMillerite movementReligious life--Massachusetts--SalisburySalisbury (Mass.)--HistorySecond AdventTemperance

Types of material

Account booksDiaries
Framingham Friends Meeting

Framingham Friends Meeting Records

1963-2023
4 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 f736

Beginning as an informal gathering in the home of Margaret Welch in 1959, Framingham Friends Meeting of the Society of Friends evolved organizationally into a formal worship group under the care of Cambridge Monthly Meeting in 1961 and then a preparatory meeting (1964). It was set off as an independent monthly meeting in 1979.

A newer monthly meeting, Framingham is well documented through a continuous set of meeting minutes from 1983-2022 (with some extending back to 1963) and a long run of newsletters and directories of members. The minutes often include official reports and other documents.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Framingham (Mass.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--Massachusetts

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Freedman, Jacob

Jacob Freedman Papers

1937-1981
2 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 135

A scholar, linguist, and bibliophile, Jacob Freedman (1903-1986) served as Rabbi at Temple Beth-El in Fall River, Mass., during the 1930s and early 1940s, and later at congregations in Pittsfield, Springfield, and Stratford, Conn., among others.

The collection contains the published newsletter of Temple Beth-El from 1937-1941, as well as other published materials and a photograph of Rabbi Freedman.

Subjects

Congregation Knesses Israel (Pittsfield, Mass.)Fall River (Mass.)--HistoryTemple Beth-El (Fall River, Mass.)

Types of material

Newsletters
Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting of Friends

Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

1995-2010
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 F747

Since the merger of the Boston Monthly Meeting with the Independent Cambridge Monthly during the second quarter of the twentieth century, the Society of Friends has expanded in the Boston area. Fresh Pond began as an allowed meeting under Cambridge Monthly in 1989 and was set off as a monthly meeting of its own in 1991. It has been under care of Salem Quarterly Meeting since its inception.

The records from Fresh Pond include a nearly complete set of minutes for the meeting’s first five years and a nearly comprehensive set of newsletters.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Cambridge (Mass.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--Massachusetts

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Friends Meeting at Cambridge

Friends Meeting at Cambridge Records

1911-2010
8 vols., 15 boxes 10 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 C363

The present-day Friends Meeting at Cambridge began as an independent, informal, unprogrammed meeting for worship that met between 1899 and 1901, and then again beginning in 1911. After holding joint meetings with neighboring Boston Monthly Meeting starting in 1926, Cambridge became an official independent monthly meeting in 1937, and during the Quaker union of 1944, merged with Boston Monthly to create the new Friends Meeting at Cambridge.

Although records from Cambridge are beset with significant gaps, they nevertheless provide a rich opportunity for examining the growth of a monthly meeting in New England during the post-World War II era and the commitment shown by its members to creating social justice. The collection includes extensive records of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee (and related endeavors), documenting peace activism during the Cold War and Vietnam years, and initiatives to fight poverty and racial injustice.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Cambridge (Mass.)--Religious life and customsPeace movements--Massachusetts--CambridgeQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--MassachusettsVietnam War, 1961-1975--Protest movements--Massachusetts--Cambridge

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)NewslettersPhotographs
Fuglister, Cecilia Bowerman

Cecilia Bowerman Fuglister Collection

1797-1983 Bulk: 1797-1844
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 964

A Cape Cod Quaker, and lifelong member of the West Falmouth Friends Meeting, Cecilia Bowerman Fuglister was born in West Falmouth, Mass., in 1906. After receiving a BA in mathematics and biology at Earlham College in 1928, she went on to earn an MA in Library Science from Columbia (1932), where she remained as a librarian. Two years after marrying the oceanographer Frederck C. Fuglister in 1939, however, she returned to Cape Cod when he took a position at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. She helped to establish the document library at Woods Hole and served as its librarian until her retirement in 1977. She died in Falmouth on Jan. 14, 2005, at the age of 98.

The Fuglister collection consists of a miscellaneous assemblage of records, mostly from Sandwich Monthly Meeting from 1797 through the 1840s, with a few later items. The collection also included fifteen memoirs and memorials for Friends, nearly all from the mid-nineteenth century.

Gift of NEYM, April 2016

Subjects

Smithfield Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)
Gonic Friends Meeting

Gonic Friends Meeting Records

1982-2003
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 G665

Quaker worship in Rochester, New Hampshire, began in 1742 under the care of Dover Monthly Meeting, becoming the Pine Grove Worship Group by 1846. After the meetinghouse was moved to the Gonic neighborhood of Rochester in about 1862, the name of the meeting was changed to Gonic. Gonic became a preparative meeting in 1950 and was finally set off from Dover as a monthly meeting in 1981.

The scant records of Gonic Friends Meeting consist solely of newsletters: one run from Gonic in the late 1980s and another from the West Epping Preparative Meeting from 1982-1996.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Quakers--New HampshireRochester (N.H.)--Religious life and customsSociety of Friends--New Hampshire

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of FriendsWest Epping Preparative Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Newsletters