Lay ministry -- Society of Friends

Overview The collection is composed of correspondence of the family of David Sands Shearman and his wife, Hepsa Hathaway Howland Shearman of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Poughkeepsie, New York. The Shearman and Howlands were prominent New England Quaker merchant and whaling families, intertwined by business and marriage. Much of the correspondence is directed to Hepsa, largely from her children who pursued a range of careers. Early correspondence is with her husband Captain David Sands...

Overview The collected papers of the Sharpless and Reeve family of New Jersey and Philadelphia. Much of the correspondence is between Edward Sharpless (1831-1894), a New Jersey Quaker minister, and his sister, Anna N. Sharpless, who married John Newbold Reeve in 1857. Their daughter, Mary Offley Reeve, worked as a school teacher when young and became involved in temperance and evangelical Christianity. She shared these interests, reflected in diaries and other writings, with Annie Way Smith, a...