Religion and Spirituality

The collection includes bills, receipts, letters, and account books of Josiah Albertson's lime and lumber business in Plymouth, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, which he later held in partnership with his brothers, Jacob and Benjamin. Also included are papers relating to the Plymouth Railroad Company (1831-1844), the Gwynyd Friends Meeting, and family correspondence.

The collection consists of the papers of Charles Gilbert Beetem, a Carlisle, PA rug manufacturer, local historian and genealogist, amateur artist, and omnivorous collector. Diaries, manuscripts, letters, advertisements, greeting cards, and extensive runs of Philadelphia and Carlisle turn-of-the-century theater programs are all included in the collection, as well as accounts of Carlisle and Cumberland County history. College memorabilia includes his own drawings for Dickinson's yearbook. The collection also contains the Conodoquinet Yacht Club Archives. Miscellaneous materials include journals and accounts for homes he designed and built as well as those for proposed real estate development in Carlisle. The correspondence reflects Beetem's longtime interest in U. S. island possessions, which is the subject of his large collection of publications and books housed in our library.

The collection contains correspondence, pamphlets, and photographs of Dr. Annie (Wood) Besant (1847-1933), a prominent and revolutionary freethinker of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Besant was a Christian wife and mother who later in life became an Atheist doctor and activist. She became active in social reform after her children had been taken from her following her separation from her husband. In her later years Besant moved to India to help champion the cause of home rule in that country. The correspondence consists mainly of letters from Besant to her friends, family, and colleagues in the United States, England, and India. A particularly noteworthy letter is one written to Besant from Mohandas Gandhi. Also included in the collection are pamphlets written by Besant, a stamp from India dedicated to her honor, and several photographs of Besant.

The collection consists of correspondence and miscellaneous materials relating to Andrew Blair (1789-1861), a layman and founding member of the Second Presbyterian Church of Carlisle. In 1833, Blair successfully petitioned the Presbyterian Church in favor of founding a second church; he had become disenchanted with the current minister, George Duffield. Some of the correspondence relates to Blair's attempts to downplay the scandal that followed. Most of it, however, is written by Blair to his son-in-law, Rev. J.A. Murray, discussing both personal and church-related topics. The miscellaneous materials of the collection consist mainly of newspaper clippings, including obituaries for Blair, as well as items relating to town matters.

The papers of the Board of Trustees of Dickinson College, 1833-1879, include correspondence, reports, financial statements, printed materials, and legal documents, and have been arranged into thirteen series.

Series 1 – Membership contains correspondence regarding membership on the Board of Trustees, lists of members, and attendance records.
Series 2 – Reports to the Board of Trustees consists of reports by the college president on the overall status of the college as well as reports from the heads of the college departments.
Series 3 – General Business includes bound and loose copies of minutes of the trustees’ meetings, resolutions passed by the various trustee committees, and correspondence in which general business is conducted.
Series 4 – College Personnel includes materials dealing with the college presidents.
Series 5 – Physical Plant consists of deeds, mortgages, certificates, bills, and correspondence dealing with the construction of the campus buildings.
Series 6 – Financial Affairs contains reports of the treasurer, ledger books, student accounts, and other financial materials.
Series 7 – Scholarships contains hundreds of scholarship certificates as well as correspondence and reports related to the sale of scholarships to raise funds for the college.
Series 8 – Conferences consists of materials which pertain to the control of the college by the Baltimore and Philadelphia Conferences of the Methodist Church.
Series 9 – Honorary Degrees contains correspondence relating to the granting of honorary degrees to prominent individuals.
Series 10 – Publications contains printed materials produced for use by the general community such as lists of college rules and regulations.
Series 11 – Dickinson Preparatory School contains reports of the principal to the Board as well as such financial materials as the treasurer’s list of students.
Series 12 – Dickinson Commercial College includes ledger books used in conducting the business of the commercial department of the college.
Series 13 – Executive Committee contains two bound volumes of the minutes of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees.

A fuller description of each series is given before each series inventory.

Thomas Emerson Bond, Sr., was a well-known Methodist Episcopal minister and author who served as a trustee of Dickinson College from 1833 until 1835. The collection includes correspondence to and from Bond dating mostly from 1840-1848, as well as journals and records of the Methodist ministry of John Wesley Bond from 1814-1818. Also included are documents of several Methodist Conferences.

This collection is comprised of three journals containing notes on lectures delivered by Pieter Burman during his tenure at the University of Leiden, sometime between 1715 and 1740. It is not known precisely who took these notes. The notebooks themselves are believed to have been donated to Dickinson College by Rev. John Erskine not long after the college was founded, as the binding and content is consistent with numerous other works he donated.

Burman’s lectures follow the basic structure of Torsellino’s History, (i.e. the division of chapters and sections), but they expand on those divisions, adding further information and context. More specifically, the focus of the lectures appears to be on the language, history, and poetry of the United Provinces.

The lectures are recorded through three journals. The first journal, Volume 1, contains a prologue as well as Book I of Torsellino’s History, concerning biblical history divided according to important figures and patriarchs. The second journal, Volume 2, follows Torsellino’s Books V-VIII. The third journal, Volume 3, follows Torsellino’s Books IX-X.

The collections consists of the diaries of Joseph Clemens and his wife, Mary Knapp Strong Clemens. Joseph Clemens was born in Cornwall, England. He left England and entered Dickinson College at the age of 28, graduating in the class of 1894. He entered the Methodist ministry and served as a United States Army Chaplain, 1901-1918. After studying at the University of Southern California from 1912 to 1922, he returned to the Far East as an evangelist and botanist, working in the Philippines and in New Guinea; it was there that he died during a botanical expedition. Joseph Clemens' diaries cover his early career as a student and chaplain: 1892-93, 1895-98, and 1902-21; Mary Clemens' diaries are from 1903 and 1905.

Moncure Daniel Conway was born into a southern aristocratic family, but ultimately became one of the nation's leading abolitionists and humanitarians. Conway was a graduate of Dickinson College in 1849 and was trained for the ministry at Harvard Divinity School. The collection consists mainly of correspondence relating to all phases of Conway's career; his student days at Dickinson and at Harvard, his anti-slavery witness, and his pastorate at South Place Chapel in London. His letters reflect his wide acquaintance with leading intellectual and political figures of his day; some of his correspondents include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Dr. Annie Besant.

The journal in this collection has been digitized and is available for reading online (see the link for related entries below).