Guide to the Philadelphia Home Missionary Society Records
Open for research.
The Philadelphia Home Missionary Society, after 1840, commissioned and supported home missionaries of the New School Presbyterian Church.
The roots of the Philadelphia Home Missionary Society reach back to the Missionary Society of Philadelphia, Auxiliary to the Board of Missions, organized in 1818. When this society was abolished in 1832, The American Home Missionary Society, New York City, assumed its work, forming in 1834 the Philadelphia Agency of the AMHMS to carry on work in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. After the schism of l837, the New School Presbyterians in 1840 formed (or reconstituted) the Philadelphia Home Missionary Society as an Auxiliary to the American Home Missionary Society to commission and support New School missionaries. After 1862 the Society no longer sent out missionaries, but channeled funds raised through the Permanent Committee of Home Missions of the New School General Assembly.
The Rev. Robert Adair (1802-1890) served as corresponding secretary of the PHMS from 1848-1862. These records come from the period of his service and consist of reports of missionaries, largely in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, requests of churches for aid and financial records.
SERIES I: Incoming Correspondence, 1855-1856
SERIES II: Financial Records and Incoming Correspondence, 1848-1863
Some of these records were found with the records of the Second Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, and the remainder came from the library, which has annual reports and a minute book, l853-1882.
This organization should not be confused with the Philadelphia Missionary Society founded in 1812, nor with The Home Missionary Society of the City of Philadelphia, a social service agency established in 1835.
Collection processed and finding aid prepared: 1989
Glenn Colliver, Assistant Archivist
| Box | Folder | Description | |
| 1 | 1 | Finding Aid to Record Group 242 | |
| SERIES I: INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE, 1855-1856 | |||
| 1 | 2 | Incoming Correspondence, 1855 January-March | |
| 1 | 3 | Incoming Correspondence, 1855 April | |
| 1 | 4 | Incoming Correspondence, 1855 May | |
| 1 | 5 | Incoming Correspondence, 1855 June | |
| 1 | 6 | Incoming Correspondence, 1855 July | |
| 1 | 7 | Incoming Correspondence, 1855 August-September | |
| 1 | 8 | Incoming Correspondence, 1855 October | |
| 1 | 9 | Incoming Correspondence, 1855 November | |
| 1 | 10 | Incoming Correspondence, 1855 December | |
| 1 | 11 | Incoming Correspondence, 1856 January-February | |
| SERIES II: FINANCIAL RECORDS AND INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE, 1848-1863 | |||
| 1 | 12 | Financial Records (Accounts, Vouchers, Reports) and Incoming Correspondence, 1848-1859 | |
| 1 | 13 | 1860-1863 |