1894 November 16, Sunnyside, Mayfield, Ashbourne, to My dear Friend

The workpeople that Joseph Simpson mentions in his letter are likely the people working at his spinning mill at Mayfield. Joseph and his brother revived the ailing mill and built housing and reading rooms for their workers, gradually improving relations between the workers and themselves and increasing the mill’s profitability. From the Dictionary of Quaker Biography . The “bairns” of whom Joseph sends good news are likely his children Agnes Alderson Simpson (b. 1871), Sara Mildred Simpson (b. 1874), and Joseph Simpson (b. 1875/6) . Francis Reeve Cope sent the following book to Joseph: John Torrey Morse, Jr....Abraham Lincoln. Volumes 25 and 26 in the American Statesman Series. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, first published 1893 . Awbury is the family enclave of the Cope and Evans families and their relations, located in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and founded by Henry Cope.