The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collecting area: Quakers

Acadia Friends Meeting

Acadia Friends Meeting Records

1978-2007
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 A233

The Acadia Friends Meeting in Northeast Harbor, Maine, began as an independent worship group in 1975 under the care of Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting. It was accorded status as a monthly meeting in 1978.

This small collection consists of an imperfect run of meeting minutes and newsletters for the Acadia Monthly Meeting.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Northeast Harbor (Maine)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MaineSociety of Friends--Massachusetts

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Acton Monthly Meeting of Friends

Acton Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

1954-2012
3 boxes 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 A286

Acton Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends began in 1956 as a worship group under care of Cambridge Monthly. By 1965, Acton was set off as a monthly meeting of its own, part of Salem Quarterly.

The records of Acton Monthly Meeting include a nearly complete set of minutes from its days as a worship group through its formal establishment as a monthly meeting to the present, along with less complete material on membership and finances. The minutes are somewhat sporadic in the early years, but have been regularly maintained since 1965.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

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

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Allens Neck Monthly Meeting of Friends

Allen's Neck Monthly Meeting Records

1990-2010
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 A454

Desiring a more convenient place of worship in 1758, Quakers in Allen’s Neck, Mass., built a meetinghouse on a hill overlooking Buzzards Bay, six miles from the Apponegansett Meeting House of their parent meeting, Dartmouth Monthly. A relatively small worship group, the meeting was designated the West Preparative Meeting under Dartmouth in 1813, but after experiencing modest growth during the mid-twentieth century, they were formally set off as a monthly meeting in 1956.

The sparse records for Allen’s Neck Monthly Meeting consist of a broken run of newsletters with three annual directories and a brief run of State of the Society reports, all from the 1990s.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

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

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Newsletters
American Friends Service Committee. Western Massachusetts

American Friends Service Committee Records

1960-2007 Bulk: 1975-2005
25 boxes, 1 oversized folder 36.2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 459

Established in 1968 in response to the war in Vietnam, the AFSC office in western Massachusetts did not limit its focus to draft and military counseling, instead the organization broadened its focus over time to include educational and outreach programs for a variety of peace and socal justice issues. Today the chapter focuses on economic justice, campaigns against U.S. military intervention, and actions to combat racism and classism. With an emphasis on serving the community of western Massachusetts, the program is equally committed to calling attention to issues of both national and local importance. Recent campaigns range from ending the war in Iraq and supporting peace in Columbia to preventing the construction of a new jail in Chicopee.

The collection consists chiefly of subject files that together provide a picture of the various issues in which the western Massachusetts AFSC was involved. Topics range from the organization’s earliest focus, the Vietnam War, to the first Gulf War, landlord/tenant relations, immigration, and landmines. The collection also includes materials relating to public figures, some of whom traveled to the region to speak.

Subjects

Activists--MassachusettsMassachusetts--Economic conditionsPeace movements--MassachusettsSocial justice--Massachusetts

Contributors

American Friends Service Committee. Western Massachusetts
Amesbury Friends Meeting

Amesbury Friends Meeting Records

1700-2010
11 vols., 3 boxes 2.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 A447

The Amesbury Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends, tied historically to the Hampton and Seabrook Monthly Meetings, has met on the coast of Massachusetts and New Hampshire for over three hundred years.

The records of Amesbury (Hampton and Seabrook) Monthly Meeting document over three centuries of Quaker practice in New England coastal communities. The meeting minutes for both men’s and women’s meetings are relatively complete for the period 1701 to the late 1880s, and after nearly a century-long hiatus, pick up again in the mid-1980s.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Amesbury (Mass.)--Religious life and customsHampton (N.H.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsQuakers--New HampshireSeabrook (N.H.)--Religious life and customsSociety of Friends--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--New Hampshire

Contributors

Hampton Monthly MeetingNew England Yearly Meeting of FriendsSeabrook Monthly Meeting

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)NewslettersVital records (Document genre)
Austin, Samuel

Samuel Austin Collection

1718-1920
2 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 937

An historian and educator, Samuel Austin (1816-1897) was known for his long association with the Friends Boarding School in Providence, R.I. (later renamed the Moses Brown School). An alumnus who married an alumna, Elizabeth H. Osborn, Austin taught at the Boarding school for decades and was instrumental in gathering and preserving documents relating to the school. He wrote and lectured regularly on the history of Friends’ education and on the Boarding School, and its noted teachers and alumni.

A product of the historical work of Samuel Austin, the collection contains both essays, notes, and talks on the Friends’ Boarding School in Providence and on Moses and Obadiah Brown, and some significant original documents used by Austin in his research. Noteworthy among the original materials are a fascinating series of records from monthly and quarterly meetings in and near Rhode Island, mostly in 1787-1793; a rich series of epistles received by Smithfield Monthly Meeting from other meetings in New England (1718-1767); some key printed epistles from Yearly Meetings, including those on war (London, New England, and Philadelphia Yearly) and slavery (London and Philadelphia). Of equal note are a series of letters from Elisha Thornton (a New Bedford merchant, educator, and antislavery advocate), a lengthy letter on doctrine from John Wilbur, and a 1765 sermon from Rachel Wilson.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, 2016

Subjects

Antislavery movementsBrown, Moses, 1738-1832Friends Boarding School (Providence, R.I.)Peace movements--Rhode IslandQuaker women--Rhode Island--18th centuryQuakers--Education--Rhode IslandRhode Island--History--18th centurySociety of Friends--History--Rhode Island

Contributors

Thornton, Elisha, 1748-1816Wilbur, John 1774-1856

Types of material

CorrespondenceMinutes (Administrative records)
Beacon Hill Friends Meeting

Beacon Hill Friends Meeting Records

1960-2008
3 boxes 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 B433

The Beacon Hill Friends Meeting began in 1958 as a worship group in Boston under the care of Cambridge Monthly Meeting and was set off as its own monthly meeting in 1980. Since that time it has fallen under the aegis of Salem Quarterly Meeting.

Since their establishment as a monthly meeting in 1980, Beacon Hill Friends have regularly maintained minutes of business meetings and published a newsletter, although some gaps persist.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

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

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Belfast Area Friends Meeting

Belfast Area Friends Meeting Records

1990-1994
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 B454

The Belfast (Maine) Area Friends Meeting began as an independent worship group under the care of Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting in 1982. Two years after being set off as a monthly meeting in 1988, it changed its name slightly to the current Belfast Area Friends Meeting.

The Belfast Area Friends Meetings is sparsely documented, with only three state of the society reports from the early 1990s and an address listing of members.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

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

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends
Bennington Monthly Meeting of Friends

Bennington Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

1958-2004
4 boxes 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 B466

Beginning as an independent worship group in Arlington, Vermont, in 1949, the Bennington Monthly Meeting settled in Bennington in about 1959. It has been affiliated with the Northwest Quarterly Meeting in 1962, and two monthly meetings have been set off from it since: Putney (1969) and Wilderness (1978). Bennington has also cared for worship groups in Pawlet (1988-1989), Putney (1964-1968), and Williamstown, Mass. (1989-1992), as well as the Wilderness Preparative Meeting in Plymouth, Vt. (1977-1978).

Although lacking the earliest years of the meeting minutes, the records of the Bennington Friends Meeting contain consistent coverage between 1970 and 2004, along with a handful of state of the society reports and a disbound scrapbook that includes some details on the early years.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Bennington (Vt.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--VermontSociety of Friends--Vermont

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Berwick Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)

Berwick Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends) Records

1802-1975
10 vols., 1 box 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 B479

The fortunes of the Berwick (Maine) Monthly Meeting reflect the rise and decline of Quakerism in southern Maine more generally. Worship began in North Berwick in about 1750 and the Berwick Monthly Meeting was formally set off from its parent, Dover, in 1802. Following the Wilburite split, however, the meeting gradually declined. Regular meetings were suspended in 1919 and the meeting was formally laid down in 1952.

The surviving records of the Friends Monthly Meeting in North Berwick, Maine, contain the minutes of men’s, women’s, and joint meetings from throughout 1802, when it was set off from Dover Monthly Meeting, until it was laid down in 1952. The collection also contains records of births, deaths, and marriages under auspices of the meeting from the first worship in North Berwick in 1750 into the mid-nineteenth century.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

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

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Vital records (Document genre)