Collecting area: Religion

Independent Order of Scalpers club, ca.1900

One of five villages comprising the western Massachusetts town of Montague, Lake Pleasant was founded by the New England Spiritualist Campmeeting Association in 1870 as a rustic summer resort. Formally incorporated in 1879 under the guidance of Henry A. Buddington and Joseph Beals, Lake Pleasant grew into a community of nearly 200 small cottages, hotels, train station, and a Spiritualist temple on the edge of a serene lake, with a high-season population approaching 2,000. The village began a slow decline in fortunes after a disastrous fire in 1907, but retains its small cottage feel to the present.

The collection includes an assortment of materials relating to the history of Lake Pleasant, including over forty 8×10 glass plate negatives taken by local photographer George L. Scott (ca.1900-1907), other assorted photographs (ca.1885-1905), deeds to village properties, publications, and materials relating to the Lake Pleasant Water Commission. The collection also includes a handful of other images taken by Scott from elsewhere in Franklin County.

The Lawrence Monthly Meeting of Friends evolved from Boston Monthly in the late 1880s and 1890s, achieving status as a monthly meeting in 1899. Although they became inactive in 1985, they were revived in 1994, and joined with a preparative meeting in Andover to form the present Lawrence-Andover Monthly Meeting.

The records of Lawrence-Andover Monthly Meeting include a relatively complete set of minutes, extending back to the earliest days as a preparative meeting to about the time of its becoming inactive in the mid-1980s. The collection also includes minutes and accounts for its Elizabeth Fry Missionary Circle, its Leprosy Mission, Missionary Society, and Sabbath School, along with records of births, deaths, and marriages in the meeting, 1892-1975.

An oecumenical ministry based in Amherst, Massachusetts, that sought to inspire local citizens to act upon their religious faith in their daily lives and occupations, and to reinvigorate religious dialogue between denominations.

Includes by-laws, minutes, membership records, news clippings, press releases, treasurer’s reports, letters to and from David S. King, correspondence between religious leaders and local administrators, and printed materials documenting programs and organizations in which the Laymen’s Academy for Oecumenical Studies (L.A.O.S.) participated or initiated, especially Faith and Life Meetings. Also contains questionnaires, announcements, bulletins, and photographs.

The Society of Friends has had a long, but discontinuous history in Lewiston, Maine. After periods of activity from 1785-1851 and 1867-1911, Quaker worship in Lewiston was revived in 1972, leading to reinstatement of a monthly meeting in 1980. Oxford Hills Monthly Meeting was set off from Lewiston in 1993.

The records of the Quaker meeting in Lewiston, Maine, cover its third and most recent iteration, including minutes from 1980 to 1993 ad a handful of state of society reports. The collection also include limited documentation of the Oxford Hills Worship Group prior to its setting off as a monthly meeting in 1993.

The Quaker Litchfield Hills Monthly Meeting began as a worship group in Watertown, Conn., that met under the care of Hartford Monthly Meeting from 1969 to 1974. Set off as a monthly meeting in 1975, the name was changed to Litchfield Hills in 1980. The meeting has been part of Connecticut Valley Quarter since its establishment.

The scant documentation of the Litchfield Hills Monthly Meeting consist solely of an incomplete run of meeting minutes from 1979-1984 and a state of the society report from 1980.

Includes letters addressed mostly to Mary Lyons or her brother Frederick D. Lyons about friends and family in Greenfield and Colrain, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. Topics discussed are sickness, death, accidents, an instance of probable wife abuse, recipes, Greenfield scandals, clothing, quilting, Methodist/Universalist bickering, and Aunt Mary’s investments.

After meeting as a worship group for thirty years in Fort Fairfield in the northern reaches of Maine, Maple Grove Monthly Meeting of Friends was set off Unity Monthly Meeting in 1890. It was a part of Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting until it was laid down in 1962 to Vassalboro Monthly.

The single volume of surviving records from Maple Grove contain a nearly complete run of minutes for the duration of the monthly meeting, lacking only the last seven years.

Quakers have a tangled history in Marion, Mass., a coastal town located on the northwestern edge of Buzzards Bay. As early as 1702, Friends established a preparative meeting in the village of Sippican (currently part of Marion), however this fed particular meetings in the neighboring towns of Rochester or Mattapoisett, rather than Marion itself. An independent worship ground was established in East Marion in 1946, followed in 1970 by a separate independent meeting in Marion under the care of Sandwich Quarter. This latter became the core of Marion Monthly Meeting, which was formally set off in 1973. The meeting was laid down in 1992.

Somewhat intermingled, this collection documents the complete, though comparatively brief history of the Quaker monthly meeting in Marion, Mass. It includes a thorough set of minutes for all but the final two years of the meeting, plus a small quantity of correspondence and financial information.

A Quaker worship group was held on Martha’s Vineyard from 1946 to 1953 under the care of Providence Monthly Meeting and was revived as an independent worship group in 1978. The group was accorded status as a monthly meeting under Sandwich Quarter in 1984.

The collection contains a nearly complete set of minutes for the Martha’s Vineyard Friends Meeting from its inception in 1984 to 2007.

The Stockbridge Auxilliary of the Massachusetts Indian Association was formed by prominent local women in western Berkshire County who sought to aid in educational and missionary work for and among Indians, and to “abolish all oppression of Indians within our national limits.”

Records include minutes that document the group’s committees, meetings, dues, and contributions to Indians on reservations nation-wide, accounts, membership lists, and a letter.