Administrative History | The Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, was established in England in the first half of the 17th century. Towards the end of the 1600s, the level of persecution being experienced by the Quakers had risen to such an extent that they sought refuge in America. This refuge was found in Pennsylvania on land that had been granted by Charles II to the prominent Quaker William Penn in 1681. Penn arrived in America the following year having sailed from England aboard the Welcome. His fellow passengers included Nicholas Waln, his wife Jane and their three children. The writer of two of these letters, Mary Ridgway (neƩ Grant) was the daughter of John Grant and Jean Fraser of Inverness. Mary married John Ridgway, a Quaker, and was living in Illinois in the 1820s. The recipient of the letters, her sister-in-law Sarah Ridgway Waln, maintained the tradition of Quakers marrying within their faith. |