Jones Family papers

The collection centers on the papers of Eli (1807­-1890) and Sybil (1808­-1873) Jones, Quaker ministers and missionaries from Maine. They include: personal and family correspondence, including letters to and from Eli Jones about work in Syria (modern Lebanon) and Palestine; letters from Richard Mott Jones, headmaster of William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia and letters about him and the school to his wife, Virginia Costello Jones, 1915­-1918; letters to Susan Tabor Jones, notably from her mother, Sybil Jones, during Sybil's travels in the ministry, ca. 1851-1869, and l12 letters from her father, Eli Jones, about travels and Friends' work in Syria (modern Lebanon) and Palestine, ca. 1852-­1884. The papers also include traveling minutes, journals and diaries, accounts of travels abroad, albums, memorials, poetry, legal and business papers, photographs and sketches, maps of Friends Meetings and missions.

In a 1967 addition to the papers, there are also letters, primarily personal, to Charles and Ellen Jones from family friends while they were in charge of the Eli and Sybil Jones Mission at Ramallah, Jerusalem and Palestine.

In a 1979 addition to the papers, there are 35 letters written between 1852 and 1864 by James Parnell Jones (1835­-1864), the son of Eli and Sybil Jones. James Parnell Jones attended Haverford College, served as principal at the Valley School in Adrian, Michigan and then, as a number of other Quakers did who were committed to the peace principle as well as to ending slavery, Jones joined the Union army of the Civil War. Jones' letters address these topics.

Following is a description of the 1980 addition to the Jones Papers, ca. 1839­-1917... Contents: Primarily letters by Eli, Sybil and Richard Mott Jones, also includes several journals, diaries, photographs, printed items, scrapbook, and other papers chiefly of Eli, Sybil and Richard Mott Jones. Letters and journals of Eli and Sybil Jones discuss their travel and work in the ministry, including time spent in: -Liberia (1851) -England, Ireland, France, Norway, Germany (1852-­1855) -Washington, D.C. (1864-­1865) -England, Ireland, France, Beirut, Jaffa, Jerusalem (1866-­1870) Letters of Eli and Sybil Jones are primarily addressed to their sons, James Parnell Jones and after his death in 1864, to Richard Mott Jones. Letters of Richard Mott Jones are chiefly from the years he was a student at Haverford College (1863-­1867), a tutor in Besborough, Ireland (1867­-1869) and while he was traveling in Europe (1869­-1870). Also included are some letters while a student and later as Principal of Oak Grove Seminary, Vassalboro, Me. Other papers include: diaries (28 vols., 1890-­1917), notebooks while at Haverford College, minute book of Theta Psi Fraternity (China Academy), scrapbook of newspaper clippings. Letters, 1848­-1864, of James Parnell Jones include some written while a soldier in the Civil War. Also a diary, 1851. Other material in this addition to the Jones family papers includes miscellaneous letters chiefly addressed to Eli, Sybil and Richard Mott Jones from various persons and photographs of Eli and Sybil Jones and family.