Hunn-Karsner Family Papers

Jesse Sharpless (1759-1832) married Joanna Townsend in 1784 in Old Swede's Church. Both were both birthright members of Concord Monthly Meeting, but Jesse was disowned before their marriage. Joanna Townsend Sharpless made acknowledgement in 1805, and the family removed to Philadelphia where the family affiliated with the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends.

Jesse and Joanna Sharpless had 10 children. Emily (ca. 1786-1832) married Benjamin Stephens and died in New York City. Julia (ca. 1788-1868) married Thomas Wilson. Eliza (1791-1851) married Thomas Parker under the care of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting in 1816. Townsend Sharpless (1793-1873) was a successful Philadelphia merchant and active in prison reform. He married three times, the first to Mary Brinton Jones in 1815 under the care of Birmingham Monthly Meeting. Joseph Inskeep Sharpless (1795-1870) did not marry. Mira Sharpless (1798-1859) married Samuel Townsend in 1828 and was a prominent prison reformer and a founder of the Rosine Association together with her sister, Eliza Sharpless Parker. John Townsend Sharpless (1801-1883) was a prominent Quaker physician. The youngest, Lydia Sharpless (1803-1893) did not marry.

Townsend Sharpless and his first wife Mary Brinton Jones Sharpless had 8 children, five surviving to maturity. Daughter Lydia Jones Sharpless married Ezekiel Hunn in 1836. Ezekiel Hunn was born in Camden, Delaware, a descendant of Jonathan Hunn who established a mill on the St. Jones River. His father Ezekiel Hunn (1774-1824) was one of the sons that inherited the property that became Wildcat Manor. He married Tabitha Newell in 1815. They had six children. The youngest, Ezekiel (1810-1902), was apprenticed to Townsend Sharpless, a successful Philadelphia merchant. Ezekiel married Townsend's daughter, Lydia Jones Sharpless (1818-1911), in 1836 under the care of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (Orthodox). After the death of Tabitha Hunn, his father, Ezekiel (1774-1824), had married second Hannah Alston. They had three children including John Hunn (1818-1894) who was a prominent abolitionist and active in the Underground Railroad in Delaware.

Ezekiel Hunn (1841-1926) married Anna Eliza Jenkins in 1876 under the care of Camden Monthly Meeting (Delaware), and the family became members of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (Hicksite) in 1890. Ezekiel's family was involved with the Underground Railroad in Delaware and owned a farm, "Wildcat," in Kent County. Ezekiel and Anna Eliza Hunn had nine children. Their youngest, Katherine Hunn (1899-1993) married Joseph Reed Karsner in 1930 under the care of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (Hicksite). He worked for the railroad until his retirement in 1950. Joseph and Katherine Karsner lived in Rose Valley, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and then moved to Westtown in 1952. They retired to The Harned in Media, Pennsylvania in 1969. Both were active in Philadelphia Central Monthly Meeting and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting committees. Joseph especially was involved in peace concerns, serving on the Peace Committee and as a traveling minister. Katherine worked for the American Friends Service Committee and wrote poetry and prose for Quaker and other publications. Their daughter Mary Ann Karsner was born in 1932 and was accepted into Quaker membership on the request of her mother.

Mary Ann Hunn Karsner attended the School in Rose Valley and graduated from Friends Central School in 1950. She attende college at the University of Alaska where she met Theodore Lewis ("Ted") Kegler. They were married in 1954 and had three children. In 1971, Mary Ann Karsner Kegler, with her husband Ted, requested membership in Philadelphia Central Monthly Meeting for her children; the clerk expressed reservations because of the distance. Beginning in the early 1950s Mary Ann and Ted with others established an unprogrammed meeting for worship in the Fairbanks area of Alaska. This evolved into Chena Ridge Friends Meeting, a member of Alaska Friends Conference. Ted and Mary Ann Kegler moved to Anchorage in 1966. Mary Ann died in 1983 in Alaska.