FMS, or Friends Manuscript Series, contains the personal records of individual Quakers. For example, D. Elton Trueblood’s personal papers. (As opposed to his college related papers, which would be housed with the college records.) FMS collections cover a wide variety of topics and include letters, photographs, clippings, genealogical material, artifacts, poetry, and anything else that an individual or family might create in their lifetime with enduring value. A member of the Archives' staff will be happy to assist you if you wish to study one or more of these collections.
FMS 4: Harlow Lindley Collection, 1788-1957
The Harlow Lindley Collection, although relatively small, is rich in material related to Quaker history and the history of Wayne County, Indiana, especially its educational history.The collection consists of historical materials collected by Lindley and of Lindley’s correspondence with such prominent nineteenth- and twentieth-century Friends as Charles F. Coffin, Joel Bean, Allen Jay, Timothy Nicholson, and Barnabas C. Hobbs.
FMS 13: Eli and Mahalah Jay Collection, 1840-1910
The Eli and Mahalah Jay collection contains material regarding their lives and families from roughly the 1840s to the early 1900s. The major strength of the collection is its correspondence section including Jay family correspondence, Ballard correspondence, and Mahalah Jay's Missionary correspondence. The collection also includes journals, addresses, compositions, and essays that express the Jays opinions on many topics. This is a rich collection for nineteenth century Quakerism.
FMS 15: Huff-Nixon Family Papers, 1760-1976
The Huff-Nixon family papers consist of correspondence, legal and business papers, reminiscences, clippings, and genealogical materials of five generations of Quaker families in North Carolina and Indiana. Most of the material concerns the families of Samuel Nixon (1781-1865), his son-in-law Daniel Huff (1816-1899), and his son Dr. Oliver Nixon Huff (1852-1937) of Fountain City, Indiana, and Oliver Nixon Huff's wife, Sophia (Bogue) Huff (1866-1931). It includes letters from family and Quaker friends, including letters from Friends at the Friends Shawnee school near what is now Lawrence, Kansas, and correspondence on business, politics, antislavery, education, and Quaker affairs.
The Elkanah Beard Papers consist of two diaries kept by Elkanah Beard, a prominent Gurneyite Quaker minister of Winchester, Indiana, from 1868 to 1875 and 1877 to 1878. They reflect his participation in the missionary and revival movement that swept Gurneyite meetings in the Midwest in the 1870s. Elkanah Beard was born near Lynn in Randolph County, Indiana, Oct. 28, 1833, the son of William and Lydia (Cox) Beard. In 1852 he married Irena Johnson (1835-1920), a fellow Lynn Quaker. He was recorded a Friends minister in 1863, and Irena soon afterwards. That same year, the Beards went to Mississippi to work among the freed people, remaining there until 1869. They then went by way of England to India as missionaries, where they remained until 1872. Returning to the United States, they worked as Quaker evangelists on the east and west coasts. In 1877 and 1878, he was a traveling inspector for Quaker mission stations among Oklahoma Native Americans. After 1879, the Beards lived in Winchester, and Lynn, Indiana, traveling as Quaker evangelists. Elkanah beard died in Biloxi, Mississippi, where he had gone for his health, February 8, 1905.
FMS 22: George N. Hartley Papers
The Hartley Papers consist of a diary for 1869-1870, a sermon notebook, and miscellaneous papers reflecting Hartley's career. The largest single item is an account book spanning 1876-1930. George N. Hartley (1844-1938) was an Earlham College alumnus and Quaker minister and educator of Fountain City, IN. Hartley also served as a missionary to the Shawnee and Kickapoo Indians in Oklahoma.
FMS 55: Achilles Pugh Papers, 1832-1990
The Achilles Pugh Papers consist of correspondence, diaries, and genealogical material relating to Achilles Pugh (1805-1876), a Quaker printer and reformer of Cincinnati, Ohio and his family. They are significant for Orthodox Friends in the Midwest, anti-slavery, and Quaker work among western Indians in the 1860s.
FMS 93: Charles and Rachel Kirk Papers, 1864-1916
The Charles and Rachel Kirk Collection reflects the careers of two Gurneyite Friends from the Midwest who were missionaries in the Indian territory in the 1880s and 1890s. It is valuable for the development of Quakerism among Native Americans in what is now Oklahoma, and for Quaker missionary activities in the late nineteenth century.
FMS 120: Lawrie-Tatum-Stanley Family Papers, 1674-2004
The Lawrie-Tatum-Stanley Family Papers consist of diaries, correspondence, commonplace books, financial records, genealogical materials, and other documents of several generations of Quaker families in Scotland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. They are especially rich in materials on Orthodox Friends in the period of the Hicksite Separation of 1827-1828 and its immediate aftermath. Of particular interest, however, is one of the earliest documents in the collection, a proposal, probably ca. 1760, for the formation of the New Jersey Association for Helping the Indians.
FMS 196: Castle Family Collection, 1613-2016
The Castle Family Collection is composed of research materials collected by Charlotte (Castle) Neal, Sharon Castle, and Shirley (Walthall) Fanucchi for use in writing a genealogical family history entitled George and Ruth Castle: Our Family’s Journey 1613-2016. Additional documents, photographs, and artifacts continue to be added by family members. Included are letters, photographs, genealogical documents, books, newspaper clippings, family trees, oral history interviews (and transcriptions), videos (and transcriptions), photocopies of original documents (mostly birth, marriage and death certificates and land acquisition deeds), research papers, family reunion proceedings, magazines, maps, cookbooks, research notes, and scrapbooks. The time period covered is 1613-present.
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