On October 2, 1862, a group of men sat down to write a letter. The Civil War had been raging for over a year, and then men were writing to report the presence of a traitor.
The letter was addressed to Algernon Jenkins, Esquire, the director of the Springhouse and Sumneytown Turnpike. Jenkins was also a member of Gwynedd Friends Meeting and the father of Howard M. Jenkins, author of Historical Collections Relating to Gwynedd. You can click on the letter to make it larger.
While the anonymous letter writers do not name the traitor who works for the turnpike, they do not mince words, calling him a “rank secessionist” and a “black traitor.”
This letter comes from one of the more extensive collections at the Historical Society, the Charles F. Jenkins Collection.