The text of this work is conveniently divided into two parts, one historical and the other documentary. The historical section is a broad survey of Hopewell Meeting from its origins nine years before the creation of Frederick County right up to the present time. It is the documentary section, however, that commands our attention, for here are records of 200 years of births, marriages, deaths, removals, disownments, and reinstatements, a good many of which cannot be found in public record offices. (For example, Quaker marriages, as a rule, were not reported to the county clerks or recorded by them until 1825.) Many thousands of individuals are identified in these records, the index to which runs 115 pages and contains countless thousands of entries.