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Pusey Graves Collection

 Collection
Identifier: FMS-2

Scope and Contents

The collection focuses on Pusey Graves's experiences in the California goldfields from 1850 to 1852.  The letters are unusually detailed in their observations about life during the Gold Rush. The Graves Collection consists of a biographical sketch of Pusey Graves by his son, Charles B. Graves, apparently written about 1900; twenty-eight letters written on the overland trail and in California between 1850 and 1852, and an account of a visit to the "spirit room" of Jonathan Koons in Athens County, Ohio, in 1855.  Also included in the collection are transcripts prepared by Archives staff in 1970 and correspondence relating to their donation to Earlham.

Dates

  • 1850-1855

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open without restriction.

Conditions Governing Use

Some materials may be protected by copyright. Permission to reproduce and to publish for commercial purposes must be requested from the Archivist.

Biographical or Historical Information

Pusey Graves was born Pusey Grave, only later changing the spelling to Graves.  He was born in New Castle County, Delaware, Nov. 10, 1813, the son of Nathan and Hannah (Howell) Grave.  The family moved to Wayne County, Indiana, in 1816.  They were Quakers, and Pusey received his early education in Quaker schools.  As a young man, he taught school and considered becoming a lawyer, but finally decided that it was incompatible with honesty and integrity.  He subsequently worked as a plasterer, mason, and cooper. When Hicksite separation took place among Indiana Quakers in 1827-1828, young Pusey's sympathies lay with the Hicksites.  In 1837 he married Jane Mitchell in a Hicksite Quaker ceremony.  Early in the 1840s, however, he became increasingly interested in radical reform, especially adjoining counties.  In 1844 Pusey and his family joined a utopian community in Randolph County, Indiana, organized by Hiram Mendenhall, another Hicksite Quaker.  The community collapsed in 1846 and Pusey returned to Newport in Wayne County.  About this time, the Hicksite Friends disowned him for his radial activities and "disunity." In 1850 Pusey joined a group of men from Newport who traveled overland to the California gold fields.  He remained there until 1853.  On his return, he joined his family in Fulton County, Illinois.  Failing in business there, in 1859 he moved to Woodson County, Kansas, where he became active in local politics and rejoined Friends.  He died there December 27, 1899. Pusey Graves was a leading radical abolitionist, freethinker, reformer, and spiritualist in Wayne County, Indiana, in the 1840s and 1850s.

Note written by

Extent

1 Boxes

Language of Materials

English

Method of Acquisition

Donation, Rev. Paul Markham of Monroe, Michigan, in 1970. Transcripts had also been placed by the family in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

Title
Archon Finding Aid Title
Description rules
Other Unmapped
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
und

Repository Details

Part of the Friends Collection and Earlham College Archives Repository

Contact:
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