Religion

  • Special Collections
    Selina H. Bean (1828-1860) was the second child of Phinehas Bean (1784-1870) and Susannah S. Bean (1796-1872). She was born near Concord, N.H., and lived in Fisherville (now part of Penacook). Her siblings were Joshua S. Bean (1827-) and Sophronia E.…
  • Special Collections
    The New Hampshire Council of Churches (NHCC) is a non-profit organization founded in 1945. It works to promote Christian Unity, ecumenical and interfaith dialogue, and prayer throughout the state. It has a strong commitment to social justice and the promotion of spiritual growth. The New Hampshire…
  • Special Collections
    The Newfields Methodist Church was established in 1836. In 1935 it joined with the Newfields Congregational Church and the Newfields Universalist Church to form the present Newfields Community Church. This small collection consists of a book of…
  • Special Collections
    The Hillsborough Methodist Church was founded in 1839, and continues today as the United Methodist Church of Hillsborough. In 1875 the building was moved to its present location on Hennicker St. Activities included worship, outreach, and community care. The minutes for the Quarterly Conference…
  • Special Collections
    The Osborne Family of Weare, NH were farmers, teachers, and members of Weare Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Three generations are represented: Samuel Osborne Sr. (1789-1858), Lindley H. Osborne (1833-1920), and Charles…
  • Special Collections
    Roland Douglas Sawyer, a Protestant minister and Massachusetts state legislator, was born in Kensington, New Hampshire on January 8, 1874. Sawyer graduated from Revere Lay College in 1898 and worked as pastor. During his ministerial career, Sawyer was…
  • University Archives
    Arthur Stanton Adams was born on July 1, 1896 in Winchester, Massachusetts. He received degrees from Norwich University, The University of California and the Colorado School of Mines. He served as president of UNH from June of 1948 through 1950. The Papers of Arthur Stanton Adams cover the years…
  • University Archives
    The Christian Fraternity was formed in 1881 at the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts in Hanover, NH. in 1893, when the College moved to Durham, the Fraternity dissolved and formed the New Hampshire College Young Men's Christian Association. This series contains three ledger…
  • University Archives
    The University of New Hampshire branch of the student Y.M.C.A. club was first organized in the fall of 1899. Collection includes the University of New Hampshire branch of the Y.M.C.A. club for the years 1926-1933.
  • Special Collections
    Frederick Solomon was born in Berlin, Germany in 1899, fled the Nazis to England, and emigrated to the United States in 1955. He died in 1980. He was a German Expressionist artist and a rabbi. The collection consists of correspondence, essays,…
  • Special Collections
    Thomas Wilson Thorndike (1797-1888) was born in Concord, N.H. and married Ruth Dow in 1823. He was a carriage maker, first of Concord, then, as of 1839, a manufacturer of Weare, N.H. He died in Weare in 1888. A 18 pp. manuscript in two parts (14pp. and 4pp.), mostly written in 1884, outlines his…
  • Special Collections
    The First Congregational Society was located in the Great Falls, NH (Somersworth/Rollinsford) area. This folio lists the income and expenses of the First Congregational Society from 1835-1844, including the names of its various donors and subscribers…
  • Special Collections
    Rice Rowell Whittier (1817–1897) was a deeply religious Free Baptist Elder, subscription agent, and missionary from Deerfield Centre, New Hampshire. During the years covered in the diaries Whittier lived in Greenwood, Illinois, 1862–1870, New Orleans…
  • Special Collections
    Established on June 3, 1812, the New Hampshire Bible Society was created with the purpose of extensive distribution of the Bible. It was one of the earliest Bible Societies incorporated in the United States; its founding preceded the establishment of…
  • Special Collections
    The Hardy family of Nelson, New Hampshire, was a well-to-do group of farmers, schoolteachers, and ministers in nineteenth-century New England. The Hardy Family papers are almost entirely composed of the family's internal correspondence, dated 1862-…
  • Special Collections
    Brothers Frank Everett Steele and Roger Steele were Seventh Day Adventists from the rural farming community of Campton, New Hampshire. Both served as medics in WWII, despite their pacifist convictions. Frank Everett was mostly employed in Texas as a…
  • Special Collections
    Members of the Sterns Family of Epping NH included: Rev. Josiah Stearns (1732-1788), wife Sarah (Ruggles) Stearns (1731-1808), their son Rev. Samuel Stearns (1770-1834), Jonathan Stearns of Andover, MA, and Ebenezer S. Stearns. Also included is…
  • Special Collections
    First Unitarian Church of Manchester's first place of worship was a small wooden chapel built in 1841 on the corner of Hanover and Chestnut Streets by the Second Methodist Episcopal society. In 1843 the society purchased a chapel and moved it to the…
  • Special Collections
    The Works Projects Administration (WPA) was created under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program in 1935. The Historical Records Survey of New Hampshire, established in 1936, was one of its public works projects. The University of New Hampshire assumed…
  • Special Collections
    This collection was primarily assembled by Mary P. Thompson (1825- 1894) and her nephew Lucien Thompson (1859-1924), Durham historians. Their prominent ancestors included “Judge” Ebenezer Thompson (1737-1802), and Benjamin Thompson (1806-1890). This…
  • Special Collections
    David Proper (1933-2014) was Librarian at Historic Deerfield (Massachusetts), and a former Trustee of both Shaker Village, Inc., Canterbury, N.H. and Sabbathday Lake, ME. The David Proper Shaker Manuscript Collection contains over 200 titles of…
  • Special Collections
    Papers of the Howell, Beatty, and Grier families are included. The Howell family consisted of Presbyterian missionary to Brazil John Beatty Howell (1847-1924), wife and author Elizabeth Hibler Day (b. 1850), doctor/author Archibald Alexander Howell II…
  • Special Collections
    Eleanor Parmenter (1914-1994) was brought up with the Shakers at East Canterbury for several years along with several other orphaned and abandoned children. While at Canterbury, Eleanor attended school taught by Sister Marguerite Frost. She worked…
  • Special Collections
    Anonymous author. Hand-stitched pamphlet: “An Elegy upon the fall of 53 men, at Wilton, [N.H.,] September 1773" is an anonymous ballad recounting the occurrence in 1773 of the collapse, during the raising of its frame, of the meetinghouse in Wilton, New Hampshire, the death of five workers, and the…
  • Special Collections
    Viola C. Codman (1832-1931) may have been a Shaker for some period of her life, though she later married and had children. She may or may not be the original author of the music portion of the book. Has the name Viola C. Codman of Brattleboro, Vermont written inside. About half the book is…
  • Special Collections
    Minister, Epsom, N.H., lived 1755-1813 Seven holograph sermons, 1786-1813, written on rag paper notebooks and sewn into 7 marbled protective covers. Haseltine, a Dartmouth College graduate, was the minister in Epsom, N.H. from 1784 until his death in 1813…
  • Special Collections
    Free Will Baptist roots can be traced to England as early as 1611. In 1780, under the leadership of Benjamin Randall, Free Will Baptists were established in the northeast at New Durham, New Hampshire. Free Will Baptist churches voluntarily organized…
  • Special Collections
    Harvard University graduate (1697) and Congregationalist minister. Manuscript sermon preached by Reverend Hugh Adams to the Congregationalist church in Durham, N.H. on Oct. 21, 1739.
  • Special Collections
    John Lyon was an Elder of the North Family at the Enfield Shaker Community, in Enfield N.H. Sermon written by Elder John Lyon of the Enfield, N.H. Shakers. The sermon, titled “The Apocalypse Explained,” is a commentary on the Book of Revelations from the New Testament of the Bible.
  • Special Collections
    The Reverend Alvan Tobey was born in Wilmington, VT on April 1, 1808 and graduated from Amherst College in 1828 and at Andover Seminary in 1831. He succeeded the Rev. Robert Page at the Congregational Church in Durham, NH and began preaching there on…
  • Special Collections
    American philosopher, author of 22 books, resident of Madison, New Hampshire Two letters written by Ernest Hocking, on May 28, 1963 and Nov. 18, 1964 accompanied by an inscribed photo. In the first letter, written to Marshall Bean, Hocking expresses some of his basic philosophical beliefs,…
  • Special Collections
    Shaker Ministry of Canterbury, N. H. Three-page letter to John Beck of Enfield, N.H. January 22, 1836, containing a wealth of information about evolving dietary practices among Believers and the perceived benefits resulting from them. It also notes the decreased use of alcohol and, especially among…
  • Special Collections
    Betsey Kaime lived at Canterbury Shaker Village. A 120 page leather-bound book filled with occasional poems written over a period of two years (August 1846-October 1848) at Canterbury Shaker Village.
  • Special Collections
    Eight page typed pamphlet and original minutes documenting the proceedings of the New Hampshire Christian Conference held at Durham, May 25, 1832. Also included is an 1839 resolution of the Conference to establish “an Academy of a strictly literary character” in Durham.
  • Special Collections
    Jessie Evens lived from 1867-1937. “Birthday Ode” written by Jessie Evans to celebrate the one hundredth birthday of Sister Myra Green of Canterbury Shaker Village on March 9, 1935. Words without music to tune of "Auld Lang Syne”.
  • Special Collections
    Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, 1926-1948. Scrapbook kept by John Thomson Dallas during his trip to Japan May 27 to June 20, 1936. It documents Bishop Dallas’s travels and activities in Japan and includes photographs, postcards, telegrams, and letters, as well as programs from events staged in…
  • Special Collections
    Harvard graduate (1746) and minister. Letter written by James Hobbs Nov. 11, 1751 accepting an invitation to settle as a minister in the town of Pelham, N.H.
  • Special Collections
    Nancy Doe (1798-1880) was a resident of Durham, N.H. Letter written by Nancy Doe April 29, 1825 to the Congregational church in Durham. In the letter, Doe confesses that she had “criminal connexions with the man who is since my husband” and she asks for the forgiveness of the church. Also included…
  • Special Collections
    Reverend Curtis Coe was born in Middleton, CT in 1750. He graduated from Brown University in 1776 and began preaching in Durham, NH in 1779. He was ordained and installed as Durham minister on November 1, 1780 and served until 1806. Three manuscript sermons written in 1787, 1797, and 1800 by the…
  • Special Collections
    The Congregational Church in Hampton, N.H. was established in 1638. The first minister was Rev. Stephen Bachiler. Contains the minutes of a meeting in which the Congregational Church of Hampton, N.H. decided to invite Ebenezer Thayer to settle. Also includes a petition and statement by members of…
  • Special Collections
    Lawrence Wallace Henderson (1921-2003) was born in Yankton, South Dakota and grew up in Tacoma, Washington. He graduated from the College of Puget Sound with a major in History and received a graduate degree in Theology from Yale Divinity School as…