With the exception of John Woolman's well-known Journal, a large part of which was rewritten as autobiography proper, the as yet unpublished diary kept by Samuel Cole Davis from 1 April 1808 to 31 July 1809 may be the best Quaker diary written in America.

Davis's family came to the Americas in the seventeenth century and settled in Salem County, New Jersey. The diarist's father, David Davis (1730-1806), married Martha Coles (1736-1780) in September 1762; Samuel was the eldest of their six children. In 1772 the Davis family moved near Haddonfield and was admitted into the Haddonfield Quaker meeting. In June of 1791 Davis married Ann Rowand, an Anglican out of meeting. They had four children: Hannah Cole Davis, Ann Cole Davis, Mary Cole Davis, and Samuel Cole Davis, Jr. Davis drew a large income by renting property which he was given or inherited from his father and from his maternal grandfather, Samuel Coles. Indeed...