Series 2 Edward Williams Family Papers
Scope and Contents
The Williams Family Papers contain the diaries, correspondence and a small number of miscellaneous paper of Quaker teachers who lived in Mississippi and Texas in the post-Civil War Period. The diaries, 1869 and 1871-1873, of Edward Williams include accounts of removing to the South to teach freedmen and his December 1871 meeting with American Indian chiefs who were incarcerated in the penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. The correspondence, largely to family in Ohio, describe daily life and schools. By 1874, the letters reflect increasing financial and social pressures as the new structure for public school cut pay to teachers and limited free education to age 14. By 1876, Edward Williams wrote that their situation and that of African Americans in Texas were "surrounded by uncertainties." The papers are organized in three groups: Journals, Correspondence, and Miscellaneous Papers.
Limitations on Accessing the Collection
Collection is open for research.
Biographical / Historical
Edward Williams, son of Richard and Sarah Williams, and his wife, Sarah, were members of Upper Springfield Monthly Meeting, Columbiana Co., Ohio. Edward was born 2 month 5, 1821, and died 9 month 2, 1894. Sarah was the daughter of James B. and Sarah Bruff and born 8 month 27, 1823, and died 10 month 11, 1882. They were married under Upper Springfield Monthly Meeting in 1849, and their daughter Sarah was born in 1850. In the 1863 Separation of Orthodox Friends, Edward and Hannah affiliated with the Wilburites. Edward Williams was a member of the Ohio Yearly Meeting Freedmen's Committee which provided clothing for formerly enslaved people and sent teachers to the south to start schools. In late 1867, Edward Williams removed to Jackson, Mississippi, which was also the location of a penitentiary, and his wife soon joined him. When their service was extended, their daughter Sarah joined them. The original intention had been to find a married couple to be in charge of the Teachers' Home with the Williams family staying until another couple could replace them. However, their mission in the South continued for many years with only visits to their families in Ohio.
By 1870 the family was in Huntsville, Texas, on a mission to educate formerly enslaved people during the era of the controversial Freedmen's Bureau in Texas. The family lived in a rural area outside town, and Hannah wrote to her mother with description that they "seldom see any white people to converse with." The final letter in the collection, written by Edward Williams to his mother in 1876, reflects the increasing tension and violence in Texas as well as the lack of financial support for the newly centralized public schools and growing objection to the education of African Americans.
The family returned to Ohio. Edward and Hannah were released from membership in Upper Springfield Monthly Meeting in 1881, but the following year requested to be restored. Both are buried at Upper Springfield. Sarah, their daughter, left the Wilburite meeting in 1889, but was returned to membership in 1898. A year later she married Abraham Maris, a member of Upper Springfield Monthly Meeting, Gurneyite.
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