Kelsey Family papers

Asa Kelsey (1839-1929) was born near Niagara Falls in Canada in 1839. As a young man he moved to Michigan and became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1860, he married Sarah E. Atwater and they lived in Western Springs, Illinois, with their four children, among whom was Rayner W. Kelsey. Asa Kelsey engaged in the tea and coffee business and was a faithful member of the Society of Friends.

Rayner Wickersham Kelsey (1879-1934) was born in Western Springs, Illinois, to Asa and Sarah Atwater Kelsey. He graduated from Earlham College in 1900, and a year later married Naomi Harrison Binford; their only child, Rayner Wilfred, was born in 1910. From 1901 to 1904, Kelsey was professor of German and public speaking at Pacific College (now George Fox University) in Oregon and then at Whittier College in California until 1909. In 1909, he was appointed professor of American history at Haverford College in Pennsylvania and in 1922, he was named curator of Haverford’s Quaker Collection. He was an authority on Quakers and Native Americans and wrote the book Friends and the Indians in 1917. He was president of Friends’ Historical Association from 1913 to 1915, an association devoted to the study, preservation, and publication of material relating to the history of the Religious Society of Friends. He was editor of the association's Bulletin from 1922 to 1932. He was a member of Haverford Monthly Meeting of Friends and a recorded minister in the Society of Friends.