Special Collections was open on Saturday, October 24th, and we had about 35 visitors for Family and Friends Weekend.  Some came with very specific interests, including viewing the 1711 charter of the William Penn Charter School signed by Penn and with his great seal, but others came in as family clusters and were drawn to the displays we made available for them.  There was a good bit of ooh-ing and ahh-ing, as they inspected:

• The 1711 King James Bible and its miniature version
• A 1683 plat survey of Philadelphia by William Penn’s surveyor, Thomas Holme (see illustration), which is essentially the  lay-out of Philadelphia even today

• Amos Nattini’s lithographic illustrations of all 100 cantos of Dant’e Divine Comedy, along with a miniature version of the famous text
• The Germantown Quaker Protest Against Slavery, 1688, the first such protest in North America
• Maxims by William Penn published in the Select Works of William Penn, 1771, along with a miniature of the maxim on Time
• A photograph of a dorm in Barclay with army gear in evidence in the 1940s when a percentage of the students were army men
• A pointed letter by Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas to his friend Fred Rodell, class of 1926, indicating dismay at a meeting of the other justices while he (Douglas) was away that overturned his vote for a stay of execution in the Rosenberg spy case
• And last, but by no means least, the extraordinary illustrated chemistry notebook of Maxfield Parrish while a student at Haverford in 1890.

The event by all counts was most satisfactory.

William Penn’s publication on The Excellent Priviledge of Liberty & Property was the first American printing of his translation of the Magna Carta and Haverford’s copy is the sole surviving example. In addition to the text of the Magna Carta, Penn includes in his pamphlet a summary of his charter for the colony of Pennsylvania, the Second Frame of government, and the Constitution of 1683. In all, the small publication serves to express Penn’s views on the political and civil rights of his colonists as English citizens. Once owned by Phineas Pemberton, an original member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and passed down to his grandson John Pemberton, the volume was deposited at Haverford by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1932. Additional material relating to the establishment and early governance of Pennsylvania may be found in the Papers of William Penn and other parts of the Quaker Collection.

As part of a city-wide celebration of William Penn and the founding of Pennsylvania, Haverford Special Collections has a small number of items on exhibit in our Reading Room in Magill Library for the remainder of the week.  Materials on display include:

• An engraving of William Penn, aged 22, as well as a carved bust depicting him later in life
• A polyglot bible in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew from Penn’s personal library
• A letter from Penn to his Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania
• The only surviving copy of Penn’s English translation of the Magna Carta
• A section of the Haverford Treaty Elm, descendant of the tree under which Penn met with the Indians at Shackamaxon

We invite you to pay us a visit to see these and other items, this Wednesday through Friday, November 8-10, 9:00 am – 12:30 pm and 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm.  Information about other events comprising William Penn’s Welcome Week is online at: www.ushistory.org/penn/.

J. William Frost, Senior Research Scholar and Emeritus Professor, Swarthmore College, will give the Honorary Curator’s lecture at Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College, Monday, April 17, at 7:30 pm in Sheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall.  The title of the lecture is “The Enigma of William Penn: A Biographer’s Dilemmas.”

The author of many books and articles on Quaker history and peace studies,  including The Quaker Family in Colonial America: A Portrait of the Society of Friends (1973), The Quakers (1988), A Perfect Freedom: Religious Liberty in Pennsylvania (1990) and A History of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim Perspectives on War and Peace (2004),  Jerry Frost’s work has profoundly influenced the understanding of Quaker history.  In addition to his publications and teaching, J. William Frost also served as Director of Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College from 1973 to 2001.

Free and Open to the Public

For information, contact Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081-1399, 610-328-8498 or friends@swarthmore.edu.