Henry Drinker Letters to Isaac Hicks

Henry Drinker (1734-1809) was a successful Philadelphia Quaker merchant and active in the Society of Friends. He was the son of Henry and Mary (Gottier) Drinker and married first Ann Swett in 1757 (died 1758) and second, Elizabeth Sandwith, with whom he had nine children. A member of the shipping and importing firm James and Drinker, he also was a significant landowner. In 1777 Drinker was one of the "Virginia Exiles," a group of pacifist Quakers who were forcibly exiled to Winchester, Virginia, on claims that they were loyalists. He served as clerk of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting and as an elder. A strong proponent of education, he was on the first committee of Westtown School and on the Board of Overseers of Public Schools in Philadelphia. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society and served as President of the Abolition Society and Director of Pennsylvania Hospital.

Isaac Hicks (1767-1820) was a cousin of the Quaker artist and minister Edward Hicks and Quaker minister Elias Hicks. A prominent New York City merchant, in 1796 he established a large fleet of international trading vessels. He retired in 1806 and became deeply involved in Quaker concerns, traveling widely with his cousin, Elias Hicks (1748-1830), the prominent New York Quaker minister.