The Albert Cook Myers research collection of William Penn materials contains the information gathered by Myers in his pursuit to thoroughly research and publish a volume documenting the complete writings of William Penn. Researchers will find Myers’ notes, transcriptions, photocopies of documents, newspaper clippings, various articles, first editions and other early editions of Penn’s works, picture postcards of places related to Penn, and photos and original manuscript material. The bulk of the collection is “The Manuscript” series, which focuses on Myer’s work on Penn’s own writings. Researchers should be aware that the bulk of the collection is Myers’ notes and only a small portion is original manuscript material related to Penn. The collection spans the dates of 1645 to 1960, however, the bulk of the material was collected and created by Myers from 1910 to 1960.

The Albert Cook Myers research collection of William Penn consists of research conducted by Albert Cook Myers for an intended definitive edition of the works of William Penn. Myers proposed to include all of Penn’s published works and all the surviving letters in order to supplant other “meagre and antiquated” published editions. Over time, he added the task of writing a biography to his already ambitious plan. For nearly fifty years, Myers researched and collected information, copies of original manuscripts and works, and organized his research for the eventual writing of the edition. The writing of the volume never occurred.

At the time of donation to the Chester County Historical Society, Albert Cook Myers had organized the collection into 196 volumes of transcripts, photostats, printed material and notes pertaining to the life and time of William Penn. Because the organization of the collection was developed and used by Myers himself, the volume number scheme and folder titles set forth by Myers have been maintained. Spelling, date expressions, capitalization, abbreviations, and title format were all adhered to as closely as possible to retain the structure set forth by Myers. In further respect to Myers’ organization, an existing index (located in box 72) was used extensively in the processing of this collection.

In order for this collection to be used most effectively, researchers should be aware of several factors. First, researchers should be aware that the bulk of this collection consists of copies or transcriptions of original documents which are housed in England, Ireland, Europe and the United States in both repositories of primary sources or private collections. Throughout the collection, dates have been maintained as written on documents due to the Quaker calendar differing from the standard calendar until 1753. Myers’ note taking methodology was unique and as a result there is extensive duplication in this collection. Researchers will probably need to look at many series in order to gain the most complete picture. According to project archivist, Carol Grigson, in 1998 who worked on other Myers’ collections, “when Myers took notes, he never made a single copy. In fact, he always had carbon paper and note tablets enabling him to take notes in triplicate or quadruplicate. What this means for the user of this collection is that his notes show up in different forms and in different places. Sometimes there are just folders of stray notes, with no discernible organization. From this disorganized state, many stages exist in between. His ultimate form of organization, short of a finished manuscript is labeled ‘notes pasted to sheets.’ To reach this state, Myers sorted out all his information, reread everything according to his outline and put them together in a form he would use to produce a manuscript. He then went one step further and pasted these notes to sheets of paper which were then usually placed in binder notebooks. In the mind of Myers, this research was complete and ready for the final writing.”

This collection will be of use to William Penn scholars; Quaker scholars; religious scholars; genealogists; those interested in the early history of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey and areas within each state; and those interested in nautical history.