Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, transcripts of letters relating to Delaware

The University of Delaware’s collection of Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Transcripts consists of one box of typescript letters related to the Delaware activities of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), a London-based missionary society created in 1701 to broaden the ministry of the Church of England in the North American colonies. The majority of the letters were written by missionaries posted in America and were directed to SPG administrators in London. The collection, which dates from 1703 to 1782 (bulk dates 1703-1776), was given to the University of Delaware Library in 1964 by noted Delaware historian Henry Clay Reed. Reed created these transcripts and the accompanying index from a collection of copies, microfilm, and transcripts at the Library of Congress. It is likely that most of the original letters reside in the Lambeth Palace Library in London, the principal repository for records related to the Church of England. More information about these records, including permission to quote from them, can be obtained through the Manuscript Department of the Library of Congress.

Reed organized his transcripts according to the same series-volume-number arrangement given to the parent collection at the Library of Congress. However, he only transcribed select letters, so there are significant gaps in this order. For context, researchers may want to consult the finding aid to the Library of Congress papers, available in the collection folder. Series A covers the first seven years of the SPG ministry in Delaware and Series B encompasses the years 1713-1782, although the letters are not in precise chronological order. Lastly, Reed’s unpublished index provides a thorough record of all personal names and places mentioned in the transcripts. The index includes the date of the letter beside each index entry, and is an indispensable tool for navigating through the transcripts. Unfortunately, however, it occasionally references letters that are not included in this collection.

The letters reveal much about the Society’s operations and the work of its missionaries. Recurrent subjects include the need for additional priests; reports on progress or setbacks in the ministry; requests for financial support and other business matters; the personal health of the missionaries; reports on the number of parish members and recent converts; the state of other local churches, including Presbyterian, Catholic, Quaker, and other Anglican congregations; and activities of other SPG missionaries.

These were the principle concerns of SPG missionaries prior to the Revolution. Letters written during the early period of the ministry are especially vivid in depicting the colossal challenges facing the SPG clergy. One desperate letter, written by John Talbot in 1709 (Series A, Vol. 5, No. 42), lists ten Delaware ministers who had either died or run away, for few could withstand the extreme weather and the disease-carrying mosquitoes. Indeed, the retention of missionaries was an issue discussed throughout this collection. Letters from the 1730s and 1740s (Folders 6 and 10) reveal that ministers were occasionally driven from their congregations due to illicit activities.

Because of the date span of this collection, little information is available here about the difficulties that the Revolutionary War brought to the missionaries. However, one ten-page letter (Series B, Vol. 21, No. 186 in Folder 12) offers a vivid account of one loyalist priest’s trying experience proselytizing during the Revolution, and his efforts to renew his ministry in New York 1782. Another letter from 1779 (Series B, Vol. 21, No. 36 in Folder 11) also emphasizes the desperate situation of the Anglican missionaries during the War. The collection is most valuable, however, as a means for studying the development of the Church of England in colonial Delaware before the Revolutionary War. The collection may also interest Delaware genealogists, for Henry Clay Reed’s index allows researchers to efficiently search this collection for names of early Delawareans.