Friends and acquaintances, we thank you for returning for more transcriptions from the George F. Parry Civil War diaries (George F. Parry family volumes, Collection 3694). If you're just joining us, in 2012 HSP acquired the diaries of Bucks County resident and Civil War veterinary surgeon George F. Parry. In that collection are three diaries he kept during the Civil War dating from 1863 to 1865, when he served with the 7^th Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Elias Hicks (1748-1830) was born in Long Island, New York, and worked as carpenter and farmer before becoming a Quaker minister around 1775. A few years later he set out as an itinerate preacher, which comprised most of his work during the 1800s, and visited congregations in Eastern states from Vermont to Maryland, including several in and around Philadelphia. He promoted the notion of the Inner Light (internal guiding principles) over the belief in the authority of the Bible.