Correspondents were the Friends who facilitated correspondence among meetings.
The yearly meeting correspondent handled mail for the yearly meeting and for the Meeting for Sufferings. (S)he gathered incoming mail, read it, and delivered the mail to the appropriate person. The correspondent also collected outgoing mail to send to the appropriate person. At any given time, Ohio YM had from zero to three correspondents. The minutes appointing someone as correspondent were not always recorded, as on occasion someone was released from this service who had not been officially appointed. The position of YM correspondent was more important when the YM Clerk did not live at Mount Pleasant (prior to 1878) or Stillwater (after 1878).
Monthly Meeting correspondents were appointed by Ohio YM from 1828 until 1921 and by the MMs from 1922 until 1962. They performed the same duties as the YM correspondent, with one additional duty: the MM correspondent added his signature to all outgoing mail as evidence of its authenticity. MM correspondents tended to serve for long periods of time, much longer than clerks. This position was created at the time of the Hicksite division to help ensure that incoming and outgoing certificates were approved by the appropriate bodies. |
