Dear Hannah: A Collection of Letters Depicting Quaker Life in Rural Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1850-1860

Book excerpt: A collection of 145 letters written to Hannah Fells Wilson Roberts from 35 correspondents, containing over 1,000 unique family names, written between 1850 and 1860, and transcribed with original spellings and annotated markings by C. B. Frederick. They tell the story of Quaker life in rural counties near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These letters reveal the local history of Bucks, Chester, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties and the increasingly dominant trend of women's participation in the pre-Civil War society. Hannah Fells Wilson was born in 1828 to George Maris Wilson (1780-1866) and Sarah Fells Schofield (1802-1866) and raised in Gwynedd, Montgomery County. The letters end the year after her marriage to Guy Roberts in 1859. Of special interest are letters from Martha Schofield, who would later found the first school for black boys in South Carolina in 1868, although that endeavor is not mentioned in this collection.