Ohio History Journal

JAMES L. BURKE

DONALD E. BENSCH

 

Mount Pleasant and

The Early Quakers of Ohio

 

 

 

 

In the charming old village of Mount Pleasant, Jefferson County, Ohio, stands a

monument to one of America's small but influential denominations, the Society of

Friends, or Quakers. People of other religious affiliations settled in Mount Pleasant

too, but the early history of the Mount Pleasant area was strongly influenced by

those Friends who were among its first settlers. Their monument is the large brick

meeting house, erected in 1814 for the Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends, which is

owned today by the state of Ohio and administered by The Ohio Historical Society.

For a better understanding of the events leading to the construction of the Mount

Pleasant Meeting House, as well as the contributions of the Society of Friends to the

development of Ohio, we must begin our story considerably before 1814.

Quaker Origins

Though there were Quakers in America as early as the 1650's, the origin of the

Society of Friends was in England where George Fox (1624-1691), its founder,

chafed under a government and a society where deviation from accustomed reli-

gious practices brought persecution to dissenters. As a young man, Fox believed

that he had received a divine call to witness to the Lord and especially to preach to

men the renunciation of worldly pleasures so that they might more clearly see God's

way. Fox said:

When I came to eleven years of age, I knew pureness and righteousness; for while I was a

child I was taught how to walk so as to be kept pure. The Lord taught me to be faithful in

all things, and . .. that my words should be few and savory, seasoned with grace; and that I

might not eat and drink to make myself wanton, but for health, using the creatures in their

service, as servants in their places, to the glory of him that hath created them....

 

None of the established religious groups seemed to give Fox the inner peace

which he was seeking. He talked to ministers and priests but found none who could

help in his search. Eventually, with divine guidance, Fox discovered that "being

bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough to fit and 'qualify men to be ministers

of Christ'; and I wondered at it, because it was the common belief of people." It

was shortly after this realization that Fox began to preach that "Christ speaks

 

Dr. Burke is associate professor of history and former chairman of the department of history at Capital

University, and Mr. Bensch is professor of history and current chairman of the department of history at

Capital. This article was edited by Marilyn G. Hood, editor of special publications at The Ohio Histori-

cal Society.

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Ohio Quakers                                                         221

directly to each human soul who seeks Him; spiritual life depends upon direct com-

munion with Him; all men may find salvation and life in Him," as phrased by

Charles P. Morlan. Thus, Fox arrived at the conclusion that religion was a matter

of the spirit, not of the intellect.

Fox established the Society of Friends in 1652. The Friends were popularly

called Quakers because in 1650 Fox allegedly commanded an English magistrate to

"tremble [quake] at the word of the Lord." Fox taught his followers about the pres-

ence of the "Inner Light" in all individuals, which should aid each person's

conscience in guiding his faith and actions. From the very beginning the Friends

emphasized inward spiritual experiences rather than specific creeds. They devel-

oped radically unique worship services and business meetings. Fox taught that

these forms were based on a trust in the Holy Spirit and a faith that ordinary lay-

men were capable of receiving the Holy Spirit. Hence, trained ministers to lead a

congregation were unnecessary when in essence every man could be his own min-

ister.

(Later on, in America and Ohio, Quakers disagreed on this point and split into two

factions. Elias Hicks insisted in 1827 upon the guiding experience of the "Inner

Light" at a time when others were coming to support a discipline which would place

"recorded" ministers and elders in authoritative positions on theology. This con-

troversy and schism reached the Mount Pleasant Meeting House in 1828, where, at

the Ohio Yearly Meeting, Orthodox Friends guarded the door to keep the Hicksites

out. However, the Hicksites managed to get in and created such a disturbance that

bedlam resulted. Thinking that the building was collapsing, people rushed for doors

and windows and in the melee some Friends were injured.)

The Quaker form of worship, especially with its emphasis on silence, was alien to

the accepted religious ceremonies of seventeenth-century England. The Quakers

did not believe in any special sacraments since to them all life was sacramental.

Business and worship meetings were often conducted jointly in monthly, quarterly,

and yearly meetings. Under Fox the Quakers met wherever and whenever they

could in places which provided for periods of group silence. Eventually the Friends

constructed meeting houses for their places of worship and for the conduct of

business.

These beliefs and practices were heresy to the Church of England. The feeling

among the ruling class of England was very strong against the Friends for if the

Friends preached that there was no necessity for trained, appointed leaders in reli-

gion, might not this same principle be applied to government? The ruling class

soon branded the Quakers as revolutionaries and disciples of division because of

their beliefs and unusual forms of worship. For these reasons the Friends, and es-

pecially George Fox, were persecuted, imprisoned, publicly punished, and "harried

out of the land."

 

Movement to America

To escape persecution at home, many Quakers sought refuge in America. In fact,

George Fox conceived the idea of a separate colony in America. Although that

project did not materialize, there were Friends among the earliest arrivals of British

colonists who settled Massachusetts, Maryland, and Virginia. Fox preached to

these scattered groups of Friends when he traveled throughout the colonies in

1671-1673. While one of the major motives for settlement in the New World was

to find religious freedom, Quakers discovered that religious toleration was often no

more available to them in the established communities of North America than it

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MOUNT PLEASANT, OHIO WALKING TOUR GUIDE

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Ohio Quakers                                                        223

 

had been in England.

Due to this unfriendly and often hostile reception, the Quakers realized that their

only immediate solution to the harassment was separatism--the establishment of

their own colony or, at the very least, their own communities. The year 1674 was a

turning point for the Quakers. In that year Lord Berkeley offered to sell half of

New Jersey, and two Quakers, John Fenwick and Edward Billings, accepted the of-

fer. Of even greater significance was the fact that William Penn, who had inherited

a large estate from his father, Admiral William Penn, together with a claim for

16,000 pounds sterling against the British Crown, became interested in purchasing

land for the followers of this religion to which he had been converted.

Consequently, in 1680 Penn asked King Charles II for a proprietary grant in con-

sideration of "the debts due to him and his father from the Crown." The grant was

allowed and in 1681 Penn opened the colony of Pennsylvania to Quakers, who be-

gan to pour in by the hundreds from Wales, England, Germany, and the

Netherlands. Even though Pennsylvania was established as a refuge for Quakers,

the form of government which Penn established was so liberal that before long there

were more non-Quakers than Quakers living there and, in time, some Quakers be-

gan to think of moving farther west.

The first movement of Friends from the Atlantic Coast westward naturally

headed toward the western reaches of Pennsylvania because the colony had such a

favorable relationship with most of the Indians in the region. Members of the

Society of Friends began to appear in the regions west of the Alleghenies in the late

1750's, and in 1773 two Quaker missionaries, Zebulon Heston and John Parrish,

made a successful journey into the Indian country of the Ohio Valley. Also, a num-

ber of Friends left Virginia and North Carolina during the Revolutionary War in

order to escape the violence of the war in those colonies.

As more and more families began to move from their quarterly meeting districts,

Quaker leaders began to worry that the migrants would lose contact with the Society

of Friends. The Hopewell, Virginia, Monthly Meeting sent an investigating com-

mittee into western Pennsylvania in 1780 to discover how many Friends were then

living in the area. When it was revealed that over 150 Friends had migrated to the

locale near present Centerville (on U. S. Route 40), the Hopewell Monthly Meeting

in 1782 approved the organization of Westland Preparative Meeting as the first es-

tablished meeting of Friends west of the Alleghenies. Three years later, Westland

Monthly Meeting and Redstone Preparative Meeting (near Brownsville) were estab-

lished, and in 1797 the communities were authorized to hold Redstone Quarterly

Meetings alternately at the two sites. Thus, the Quakers had become rather firmly

situated west of the Alleghenies by 1800. Even more rapid settlement in the Ohio

Country was soon to follow, due to the awakening of the Quaker consciousness con-

cerning slavery in the southern part of the North American colonies.

Settlement in Ohio

While some Quakers had begun to move westward during the eighteenth century,

others had emigrated to the South, primarily because they were farmers and in the

South there was plenty of land which could be purchased and converted into large

plantations. However, Friends who migrated south and those who were native to

the South soon found themselves in a quandary because they could not reconcile

their beliefs with those of many southerners who refused to acknowledge the human

rights of the Negro slaves. The Friends were recognized as one of the earliest

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groups in America to denounce the evils of the institution of slavery. A majority of southern Quakers fought slavery in a quiet way, freeing their own slaves and en- couraging others to emancipate theirs as well. As southern Friends realized that the South with its growing hostile atmosphere was not the most advantageous place in which to live, they began to look for new lands on which to settle where they would not be persecuted for their beliefs and practices. To the north, beyond the mountains and beyond the Ohio River, was a new territory with an abundance of natural resources and, above all, it was free ter- ritory. The Ohio Country had been organized for survey and sale after Congress enacted the 1785 Land Ordinance. When the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 guar- anteed that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, was ever to be permitted in any of the territory north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River, the Quakers began to think seriously of making a mass migration northward. After the Treaty of Greenville in 1795 opened the Ohio Country to settlement secure from Indian attacks, Friends in the South began to join the great migration to "the new West" which offered economic opportunity and, of special importance, personal and political freedom. Friends from New Jer- sey, eastern Pennsylvania, and northern Virginia also began to migrate to the Northwest Territory, not necessarily to escape from the evils of a slave society, but rather to seek a change and to start what many thought would be a better life. The first Quakers credited with settlement in the Ohio Country were George Har- lan and his family who came to Deerfield on the Little Miami River, four miles from the present town of Morrow, in 1795. In February 1797, the Jesse Baldwin and Phineas Hunt families, Friends from Westfield, North Carolina, moved from near Point Pleasant on the Virginia side of the Ohio River and settled near each other in present Lawrence County opposite Green Bottom, Virginia. Other families fol- lowed quickly into the Northwest Territory from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. In May 1797, a group of Friends moved from the Westland Monthly Meeting in

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Ohio Quakers                                                         225

 

western Pennsylvania to settle at High Bank on the east side of the Scioto River,

four miles below present Chillicothe. Later that year, Jesse Baldwin moved from

his first location in Lawrence County some eighteen miles down the Ohio River to

settle at Quaker Bottom. The latter site in Lawrence County was opposite the

mouth of the Guyandot River in Virginia (near the present city of Huntington, West

Virginia). So far as is known, this was the site where Friends in the Northwest Ter-

ritory first sat down to hold a meeting for divine worship.

John Warner, son of Isaac and Mary Warner, who was born at High Bank, Ross

County, on July 12, 1798, was, so far as can be determined, the first Quaker child

born northwest of the Ohio River. In 1798 a group of Friends from Hopewell, Vir-

ginia, settled at High Bank, and in the same year a group of Quakers, all from North

Carolina, migrated to Salt Creek, near Richmondale, Ross County. In 1799 Taylor

Webster and family from Redstone, Pennsylvania, settled at Grassy Prairies, five

miles northeast of Chillicothe (Ross County). From the eastern seaboard came

many English Quakers, with their distinctive garb and their reliance upon the "In-

ner Light." Especially in the eastern "backbone region" and in the southern

portions of Ohio, their meetings were long an important part of the religious life.

One other group of Friends which settled in the southern part of the state came to

Lees Creek, near the present town of Leesburg in Highland County, in the spring of

1802. No white person had ever lived before in this area. Since other Friends also

soon moved to Fairfield (Leesburg), there began a Friends meeting at Fairfield,

regularly authorized in May 1804.

A very important Quaker in early Ohio history was Thomas Beals, who is credited

with being the first Friends minister to carry the message of Christ into the vast re-

gion north and west of the Ohio. Born in Pennsylvania in 1719, Beals entered into

the Friends' ministry in 1753 in North Carolina. In 1775 he and several associates

crossed into what is now the state of Ohio to visit Indian tribes, who were still very

much in control of the land. After holding many satisfactory meetings with the In-

dians, the group returned safely to North Carolina. Discussing the trip later Beals

reported that "he saw with his spiritual eye the seed of Friends scattered all over

that good land and that one day there would be a greater gathering of Friends there

than any other place in the world, and that his faith was strong in the belief that he

would live to see Friends settle north of the Ohio River."

He himself helped to bring this prediction true when in 1799 he and his family

moved to Quaker Bottom. Here Beals conducted regular meetings in Jesse Bald-

win's house, for the nearest meeting to them was at Westland, Pennsylvania. In

1801 Thomas Beals died and was buried near Richmondale. A meeting house was

later built on the land and a meeting was held there for some time. In the planting

of Quakerism in the Old Northwest, the story of Thomas Beals is but one of the

many that might be cited.

Another area of settlement in the future state of Ohio was in the southwestern

part where in late 1799 several families of Friends from Bush River Monthly Meet-

ing, South Carolina, settled near the present site of Waynesville. Some months

later a group of Friends arrived from Hopewell Monthly Meeting, Virginia, and,

during the same year, a few came from North Carolina. In April 1801, twelve fami-

lies met for worship at Waynesville, and in October 1803, the Miami Monthly

Meeting was recognized. Wilmington, in Clinton County, became a Quaker center

as early as 1804, but the first regular meetings were not held there until 1807. The

first Quakers in Wilmington came from North Carolina where they had resided af-

ter they were expelled from Wilmington, Massachusetts. (The western part of

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Ohio Quakers                                                       227

 

present-day Wilmington is still known as Quaker Hill. Today, the Quaker in-

fluence in the city is witnessed primarily through Wilmington College which was

organized by the Society of Friends in 1871 and constructed in 1875.)

From these nuclei developed the meetings serving Ohio west of the Hocking

River, including what later became the West Branch Quarterly Meeting (Miami

County) to the north and Whitewater Quarterly Meeting in eastern Indiana. Rapid

settlement of Friends in the Miami valleys is shown by the fact that, in the three

years from the middle of 1804 to the middle of 1807, the Miami Monthly Meeting

received 367 removal certificates, bringing to that meeting the memberships of 1,697

persons.

The truly great Quaker migration westward began in 1800 with the removal of

one entire meeting and part of another from North Carolina to the Short Creek re-

gion a few miles west of the Ohio River above Wheeling, Virginia. According to

the minutes of the Westland, Pennsylvania, Monthly Meeting of 1799, two mem-

bers, Benjamin and Joseph Townsend, visited meetings in North Carolina just prior

to the mass movement of the southern Friends to the Ohio Country. Apparently

the Friends from Westland exerted a great influence on the North Carolina Friends

to move to an area which was more favorable to their way of life. The Coresound

Monthly Meeting in Carteret County, North Carolina, instructed two delegates,

Joseph Dew and Horton Howard, to survey the Ohio Country. Dew and Howard

were joined by Aaron Brown, the delegate of the Trent Monthly Meeting of Jones

County, North Carolina. These men made the difficult journey over the mountains

to the Westland Monthly Meeting where, in June 1799, they sought advice on what

land would be the best to secure. After the three agents crossed the Ohio River into

the Northwest Territory, they decided that the Short Creek region in what is now

Jefferson and Belmont counties, Ohio, would be their new home. The men were so

impressed with the new area that they inspired the entire Trent Meeting and several

families from the Coresound Meeting to move north. Certificates of removal, ad-

dressed to Westland, were granted to all members of Trent, after which there was no

longer a Trent Monthly Meeting.

Although the prospect of moving over the mountains in winter to the Ohio Coun-

try may have made the Friends somewhat apprehensive, they quickly made

preparations. In January 1800, they left their homes in North Carolina and jour-

neyed by wagon and horseback (all children over twelve walked unless they had a

horse), carrying with them their household furnishings and driving their livestock

before them.

The party camped at night and lived on the food which they had brought with them

and on wild game. In spite of an arduous journey under severe hardships, they al-

ways rested on First-Days, when, "at the appointed time" of their usual meeting,

they gathered around a campfire for religious service.

The exact route taken by the group and the number in the party are not known,

though it appears that between fifty and one hundred Friends were in the group.

There were several routes by which Quakers came from the South to the Ohio

Country, the area which in those days was generally referred to as the West. Ac-

cording to Stephen B. Weeks' 1896 study of southern Quakers and slavery, North

Carolina Friends probably used one of four routes. The Kanawha road passed

through mountainous areas of present Virginia and West Virginia to the falls of the

Kanawha River and down that stream to the Ohio, crossing at the present site of

Gallipolis. The Kentucky road proceeded by way of the western tip of Virginia,

through the Cumberland Gap, and up through Kentucky to Cincinnati. The Ma-

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Ohio Quakers                                                        229

 

gadee route over the Virginia turnpike, which ran from Richmond to the Ohio River

at the mouth of the Kanawha River, was a favored way from 1810 until the age of

railroads.

A route more likely taken by the Trent and Coresound Quakers was that over the

trail of the future Cumberland or National Road (construction of the road began in

1811). It passed through Redstone (the modern Brownsville, Pennsylvania), lo-

cated on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh. After five months of extreme

hardship on the road these North Carolina migrants reached Westland, where their

arrival was recorded in the minutes of the Westland Monthly Meeting, in sixth

month 1800. The Westland Friends welcomed the North Carolinians and gave

them the advice and assistance which were necessary to purchase land in the North-

west Territory. After resting in the vicinity of Westland and Redstone for several

months, the Trent and Coresound Friends finally reached the Ohio Country in Sep-

tember 1800.

Near present Colerain, six miles up a small stream that empties into the Ohio

River (at today's Bridgeport in Belmont County), they spent their First-Day by

holding a meeting in the open. These newcomers were not the first in the area,

however. The embryonic community of Mount Pleasant had had its beginnings in

1796, when, according to tradition, an advance party of twenty men-none

Quakers-had scouted the area for settlement. Cutting the first road through the

great deciduous forest covering the eastern part of Ohio, they camped above Short

Creek. A rivalry developed over who should have the chance to buy the land from

the United States government and gain the honor of being the town's founder. The

decision was made by drawing lots and Robert Carothers was the winner. The

Steubenville Land Office records show that Carothers purchased land in July 1800.

Later he sold seventy acres for $3.50 an acre, in what would become the west end

of the town, to Jesse Thomas, a Friend, who brought his family to Ohio from North

Carolina in 1802. Then, in 1803, just a few months after Ohio became a state, the

two men laid out the village of Mount Pleasant, which was known for some time by

its nickname "Jesse-Bob Town." For several years the village remained rather dor-

mant with only a few log houses indicating its existence. Some of the early settlers in

the Mount Pleasant area were the families of Joseph Bishop, Borden Stanton, Abi-

gail Stanton, Benjamin Stanton, William Patten, William Hogan, Joseph Dew,

Nathan Updegraff, David Graves, Henry Mills, James Parnell, John Hatton, Jacob

Griffith, Israel James, and James Raley.

This was frontier living in every sense of the word. ". .. none of us had a house at

our command to meet in to worship the Almighty Being," Borden Stanton recorded.

"So we met in the woods, until houses were built, which was but a short time."

Meetings were often held in a tent or in the newly built cabin of Jonathan Taylor at

Concord. By 1802 log meeting houses were built at Concord and Short Creek.

At this time the area of the Northwest Territory was a beautifully primitive, un-

spoiled wonder of nature, and the region around Mount Pleasant truly deserved

that name. According to a later observer, the village was located in a picturesque

setting on the summit of a broadly convex hill. From its elevated position, it was

conspicuous several miles off. There was no level ground-but rounded hills and

winding, narrow valleys. Clear streams, foliage of great variety, and outcroppings

of shale and limestone added to the beauty of the region.

However, to a new resident who had the task of clearing a section of land from

the dense forest, the beauties of nature may have appeared less appealing. Regard-

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230                                                         OHIO HISTORY

 

less of difficulties, in less than one year so many Friends came to the region that two

preparative meetings were established-Concord, five miles from the future site of

Mount Pleasant, and Short Creek, a half mile west of the Mount Pleasant location.

In the last month of 1801 the first monthly meeting, Concord, was opened, to meet

alternately at Short Creek, and in 1804 it divided into Concord and Short Creek

monthly meetings.

There were several religious denominations among the people of the Mount

Pleasant area. The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians from neighboring Pennsylvania were

among the first settlers in Mount Pleasant Township, as early as 1798. The Rever-

end Joseph Anderson conducted the first Presbyterian services in a log building on

Little Short Creek; eventually two brick churches were built. The Methodist Epis-

copal Church was also very active in the area until 1830, when the majority of mem-

bers joined the Methodist Protestant Church. After a short time the Methodist

Episcopal group diminished, but the Methodist Protestant Church continued as a

strong organization in the community. The Reverend David McMasters was a pio-

neer minister among the Methodists in Mount Pleasant. Another sizable, promi-

nent group was the Seceders (Associate Reformed). Other religions in Jefferson

and Belmont counties in early years were Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal, Dis-

ciples, Lutheran, and Catholic.

One other Quaker community of note in the eastern part of Ohio was Salem (Co-

lumbiana County) which was settled in 1801-1802. The name for the town came

from the word Jerusalem which was originally known as Salem. There were

enough Quakers in Salem by 1805 for a monthly meeting to be organized there.

(Salem later became a leading center of Quaker influence during the slavery con-

troversy. The Anti-Slavery Bugle was published there in the 1840's.)

 

By the close of the year 1800, it is estimated that there were eight hundred fami-

lies of Friends in the Ohio Country, who came not as land speculators but as settlers

truly desirous of establishing homes. "Something like what happened here in Trent

River, Jones County, N. C.," wrote Rufus M. Jones, the Quaker historian, "hap-

pened up and down the entire Atlantic coast from Georgia to Long Island, and in a

less degree also in New York and New England. Whole meetings in many in-

stances moved westward in a body, while in other meetings many families left their

old homes and associations, and pushed out to find new homes and a new career in

the wilderness of the north-west."

Settlement by Quakers in the Old Northwest was a life of toil, privation, struggle,

and suffering; a few of them were captured by Indians and experienced death. Yet,

Ohio Quakers sent back to their friends glowing reports about the land and the free-

dom of the Ohio Country. These reports were responsible for many more families

deciding to move west, and within a relatively few years Ohio became a great center

of the Society of Friends. By 1826, more than eight thousand Quakers were peace-

fully living among the limestone hills of Belmont, Jefferson, Harrison, and Colum-

biana counties in the eastern part of the state. For nearly seventy-five years, one-

third of the Friends in America lived within the boundaries of the Old Northwest

Territory.

Another slight wave of migration occurred about 1835 to 1840 when Quakers

with large families sought to secure land for their children. When the National

Road was built in eastern Ohio in the late 1820's, it passed through Quaker country

at St. Clairsville. Farmland increased in value and the sale of an acre there would

buy ten acres of similar land in southern Morgan and western Washington counties.

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So, many families sold their farms and moved by wagon across the county to new homes. Within twenty years their new settlements--with Pennsville, Chesterhill, and Plymouth as centers--were as prosperous as the hills of Belmont County. Here until after the Civil War their organization, their meetings, and their schools were maintained. At present, only the Chesterhill Meeting remains; but twice a week, on First-Day and Fifth-Day, members come together for business and wor- ship as Quakers have been doing since the time of George Fox. Ohio Quaker Meetings and the Mount Pleasant Meeting House The Ohio Historical Society completed the restoration of the beautiful old Friends Meeting House in Mount Pleasant in 1966 to remind the people of Ohio of one of the state's small, but very important, early groups of settlers. Standing on a hill overlooking a considerable part of Mount Pleasant, the meeting house is not only a fitting memorial to those Quakers who settled at Mount Pleasant, but also is a testimonial to that which was the vital center of their lives. The occasion for the building of the Mount Pleasant Meeting House in 1814-1815 was to accommodate the Ohio Yearly Meeting. The movement for an Ohio Yearly Meeting began in 1806 when Ohio Friends petitioned the Baltimore Yearly Meeting to organize a quarterly meeting in Ohio. As a result, the monthly meetings at Con- cord, Short Creek, and Miami were authorized to form a quarterly meeting which was called the Short Creek Quarterly Meeting. The Friends at Short Creek built a quarterly meeting house in 1806-1807, a crude one-story brick structure, 45 by 70 feet in size-the largest church building in the state. Though the first mention of a request to establish a yearly meeting west of the Al- legheny Mountains appeared in the minutes of the 1810 Baltimore Yearly Meeting, no action was taken on the request. By 1811 there were four quarterly meetings west of the Alleghenies Redstone (Pennsylvania), Short Creek, Miami, and Salem (all in Ohio)--which requested that they be permitted to form a yearly meeting. Apparently the delegates at the Baltimore Yearly Meeting believed that the ques-

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232                                                        OHIO HISTORY

 

tion of establishing a new yearly meeting was so important that they delayed mak-

ing a decision and asked for a committee from Philadelphia and Virginia yearly

meetings to consider the question and advise them as to an appropriate decision.

Then in 1812, the Baltimore Yearly Meeting authorized the quarterly meetings west

of the Allegheny Mountains (now also including West Branch) to convene at Short

Creek as a yearly meeting on the third First-Day of the eighth month, 1813.

It was estimated by some that there were over two thousand people in attendance

at this first Ohio Yearly Meeting in 1813; others said that there were closer to three

thousand Quakers present. Whatever the number, the Friends got down to the

business of organization. Horton Howard of Short Creek was named clerk, William

Wilson was chosen to assist him, and Enoch Harris was selected treasurer. It was

decided to adopt the Baltimore Yearly Meeting's Book of Discipline as the guide for

the Ohio Yearly Meeting until the latter group could devise a Book of Discipline of

its own (which was published in 1819). The yearly meeting also established a meet-

ing for sufferings, as well as other committees; and each quarterly meeting was as-

sessed, according to its population, an amount sufficient to defray the operating ex-

penses of the yearly meeting.

According to the minutes of that first yearly meeting, the men held their business

sessions in a shed adjoining the Short Creek Quarterly Meeting House while the

women gathered in the meeting house. Due to these primitive conditions one of the

early orders of business was to consider the building of a permanent yearly meeting

house. Their discussions led to the appointment of a committee on the meeting

house which later purchased nearly six acres of land adjoining the village of Mount

Pleasant. In 1814 construction began on the new building and in 1815 the first

Ohio Yearly Meeting to be held in Mount Pleasant convened there. Construction

costs--$12,345, excluding donated labor--were apportioned among the five quar-

terly meetings.

Jacob Ong, a carpenter and cabinetmaker by trade, was the principal architect

and builder of the Mount Pleasant Yearly Meeting House. Ong, who had moved to

Ohio about 1802, was both a Quaker by birth and a veteran of the American Revo-

lutionary War. Even though most Quakers have abhorred the idea of violence and

war, some have participated in wartime service. Jacob Ong returned to the Society

of Friends in 1786 after having been caught up in the patriotic frenzy which accom-

panied America's struggle for independence.

Ong had little difficulty in designing the Mount Pleasant Meeting House because

all of the Friends' meeting houses were fairly similar in style. Well proportioned

and uncluttered in line, the meeting houses were plain structures which usually in-

cluded a folding partition to separate women's and men's sides. The Mount Pleas-

ant building is a model of pioneering construction, revealing early Ohio masonry,

bricklaying, carpentry, joining, woodworking, and furniture-making at its best. The

meeting house is not particularly impressive from the outside except for one feature

--its massiveness. A brick structure, it has walls twenty-four inches thick

(twenty-eight inches at foundation), is two stories high, and measures 92 feet long

and 60 feet wide. Practically all of the material to build it came from the surround-

ing countryside, and the local artisans of Mount Pleasant provided the labor force.

The interior arrangement of the building reveals some of the ideas of the Quakers

concerning their worship services and their business meetings. The meeting house

has a seating capacity of two thousand; but when yearly meeting was being held,

the building nearly burst at its seams. On the main floor, on the north side of the

building, is a ministers' gallery comprising three tiers of seats which face the audito-

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Ohio Quakers                                                            233

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234                                                         OHIO HISTORY

 

rium where the members sat on stiff-backed benches. Benches in the ministers' gal-

lery were reserved for the "pillars" of the meeting--the ministers, the elders, the

overseers, and some of the older or concerned Friends. (In 1883, the ministers' gal-

lery was replaced by a single-level platform separated by an aisle from the main

room. This arrangement, quite out of character with other early Quaker meeting

houses, was removed in the restoration.) Located above the main floor, at each end

and along the south side of the building, are spacious galleries which were occupied

by the young people (usually twelve years of age or older).

A special feature of the meeting house is its partition which reaches from the floor

to the ceiling and stretches the full sixty feet across the building. Made of paneled

poplar arranged in horizontal sections, it equally divides the space between the

men's side to the east and the women's side to the west. The partition was uniquely

designed so that a portion of it could be raised or lowered by an intricate piece of

handmade machinery. The sections in this portion were hinged so that they would

fold around an axle (in the attic) which was revolved by a winch that operated an

enormous cogwheel. Four husky men were required to turn the winch to pull the

huge partition up into the attic.

 

The Ohio Yearly Meeting grew and prospered. By 1814 it was reported that

there were 1,693 families within its limits, and in 1826 the yearly meeting counted

8,873 members organized into fifty-three local congregations. Each August held a

special significance for the Friends because that meant it was time for the yearly

meeting at Mount Pleasant and a respite, at least for a brief moment, from the back-

breaking job of eking out a living in the virgin Ohio wilderness. Even though the

Quakers have been known for their calmness of manner, the yearly meeting took on

the appearance of a festival of sorts. Naturally it afforded Friends the opportunity

to renew acquaintances with those who had moved to other parts of the state.

Many romances began at yearly meeting time. Young people were sometimes

chastised for their conduct during yearly meeting for "the rolling in of the carriages

at midnight, so little becoming the occasion, or the children of Friends."

With the great influx of Friends the small village could not accommodate all of

the visitors. Many persons slept five or six to a room when they were lucky to find a

place in Mount Pleasant. Some were entertained by Quakers who lived on farms as

far as five or more miles from Mount Pleasant. Often the children of a family were

moved to haymows to sleep in order to accommodate more guests in the home. In

later years, after the Mount Pleasant Boarding School was constructed, Friends at-

tending the yearly meeting were permitted to sleep and eat at the school, at a charge

which covered only the expenses incurred.

The festive atmosphere associated with the yearly meetings apparently continued

through the years. According to an account by Jesse Spencer written to his sister

from Mount Pleasant in 1846, there were then two yearly meetings-one for the

Hicksites and one for the Orthodox Friends, each lasting a week and running con-

secutively. The roads into Mount Pleasant, he wrote, were jammed with carriages

for as far out as four miles. He went on to describe:

Last Sunday was a great day in town. The shops and everything was open and the Street full

of Mellon and Gingerbread Wagons, Beer Whiskey and everything else. If you know what

a fair is like in Ireland, you know very near what it was like here last Sunday.... It would be

worth while for you to be here from now till next Sunday. You would see what you never

seen the like of before. Tell Bill about it. I wish you was here.

• 15
 

By this account, it would seem that this little Jefferson County village hummed with activity at least once or twice a year-from both the influx of Friends and the height- ened community activities. To describe the use of the meeting house in detail would be complicated because of the schisms which split the Society of Friends. As a result of the Separation of 1828 (see section on "Quaker Origins"), the Hicksites used the yearly meeting house and the Orthodox Friends were forced to meet at the quarterly meeting house at Short Creek that year. Since they jointly owned the Mount Pleasant Meeting House, both groups used it for their yearly meetings in subsequent years. Within the Orthodox branch of the Society a second schism developed in the 1840's. This split was the result of a visit to the United States by Joseph J. Gurney, an engaging, talented Quaker evangelical from England. He became a center of controversy be- cause some Quakers considered him too close to Episcopal or Methodist doctrine and too far from the original emphasis on the "Inner Light." One who felt strongly about this matter was John Wilbur of Rhode Island who became convinced that Gurney was a threat to the concept of the "Inner Light" and the traditional beliefs of Quakers. Those who supported Gurney were called Gurneyites or Orthodox. Those who supported Wilbur became the Wilburites or Conservatives. This controversy led to further splits, one of which occurred in Ohio in 1854 that resulted in three groups (Hicksites, Gurneyites, and Wilburites) holding title jointly to the yearly meeting house property. The Hicksites continued to hold their annual meetings in the yearly meeting house. The Gurneyites (Orthodox) met there too until 1866 when they began to alternate their annual meetings between Damascus in even years and Mount Pleasant in odd years. Late in the nineteenth century the Hicksites began alternating their meetings between Mount Pleasant in even years and Salem in the odd years. The last yearly meeting held at Mount Pleasant was by the Hicksites in 1918.

• 16
 

The three groups held title jointly to the property until 1883 when the Wilburites transferred their interests to the Hicksites. In 1921, the Hicksites deeded their inter- est to the Gurney Friends, who deeded the property in 1950 to the state. The state of Ohio, through The Ohio Historical Society, restored the meeting house as a beau- tiful monument to a group of people unique in Ohio history. Members of the Evangelical Friends Church, Eastern Region, an outgrowth of the Gurneyites (Or- thodox), are the only Friends in Mount Pleasant at present. The Wilburites (Religious Society of Friends) or Conservatives have their headquarters at nearby Barnesville. There are at present six yearly meetings which serve Ohio. Quaker Life-Styles In any discussion of the Quaker pattern of living, one may assume that the Friends in Ohio generally and Mount Pleasant in particular lived in the manner of most Quakers of the period. For after the arrival of Friends in America, there de- veloped a broad uniformity of life-style which persisted for at least two centuries. When it came to transacting business or responding to political issues, they did so in much the same peculiar manner from Maine to the Carolinas and westward to the Pacific Ocean. Friends married Friends, for to do otherwise could result in dis- ownment. Friends spoke and dressed alike. Henry Thoreau, attending a meeting in 1843, observed that the women looked "all like sisters or so many chickadees." In America this uniformity of the Quakers became especially pronounced after the War of Independence. Largely because of their experience during that war they drew apart from society in order to maintain themselves and their children as "a peculiar people." They wore the distinctive plain dress which has traditionally been thought of as "Quaker." The men were attired in black, broad-brimmed, and undented beaver hats and collarless coats; the women dressed in long full skirts, shawls, often of Quaker gray, and bonnets which framed their faces; children looked like miniature adults.

• 17
 

Ohio Quakers                                                        237

 

Their plain speech was particularly distinguished by the use of "thou" and "thee."

Simplicity marked the style of their living, from home to meeting house. Quaker

meeting houses were unadorned and the worship was uniform in its dependence on

silence. Many Friends were actually hostile to art, music, fiction, and drama. They

did not observe the festival of Christmas, believing that every day of the year should

be the same to Christians. They attended meetings twice a week--on First-Day

and again on Fifth-Day. The leisure which they had from shop or farm was gener-

ally devoted to the affairs of the meeting. Frequently to the outside world they

appeared pious, stiff, and set apart.

While it is probably true that to the outside world Quaker society seemed rather

drab and glum, there were both outsiders and insiders who noted the presence of

warmth and gaiety. One such observer was the famous eighteenth-century writer,

Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, who, in his Lettersfrom an American Farmer, told of

his experience in a Quaker community on Nantucket Island. He noted the simple

pleasures of walking and conversing with each other, of physical exercises (such as

throwing the bar, heaving stones, and "an exhilarating bowl"), and other "rural

amusements." As a consequence, "they all appeared gay without levity. I had

never before in my life seen so much unaffected mirth, mixed with so much mod-

esty. The pleasures of the day were enjoyed with the greatest liveliness and the

most innocent freedom...."

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) in reminiscing about his boyhood days in

Philadelphia remembered spending his youth among the plainness and simple ways

of the stricter Friends but he also remarked on the richly carved and upholstered

furniture in his grandfather's home and on the excitement of attending a circus.

The latter event was expected to help Quaker children better understand the won-

ders of creation by viewing the exotic animals. However, they were required to

cover their eyes during tightrope acts so that the sight of female acrobats in scanty

costume did not blemish their innocent minds.

At a time when it was generally felt that women were to be in the home, seen but

not heard, a unique characteristic of the Friends was the prominent place given to

women in the early Quaker organization. Quakers, with their belief in the "Inner

Light," saw that women as well as men could be moved by the Spirit and thus they

recognized women as being equal with men. Consequently, in each decade there

were outstanding Quaker women who, on occasion, "suffered with equal bravery"

as the men. In 1656 when Ann Austin, Mary Fisher, and Mary Dyer attempted to

take the Quaker message to Boston and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, all three

were jailed. Mary Dyer was one of the four Friends hanged on Boston Common

between 1659 and 1661.

Sarah Harrison, a traveling Quaker minister from Pennsylvania, was effective in

persuading Quaker slaveholders to free their slaves. Lucretia Mott was active in

the abolition movement and as organizer of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery

Society. She, together with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, conceived the idea of holding

a woman's rights convention, which met in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. Abi-

gail Flanner, a teacher in the Friends Boarding School at Mount Pleasant, earned a

moment of notoriety because of her memorable letter friendship with a famous New

York poet, Fitz-Greene Halleck, in the late 1830's.

Typical of the Quakers was their technique of decision-making, the "method of

consensus." No majority view on an issue dominated; no minority view was over-

ridden. The final decision was expected to be the result of truth as found by the

group. In the meeting, a recording clerk listened and noted any unifying thread

• 18
 

238                                                          OHIO HISTORY

 

which might emerge from the comments offered. This was the process of searching

for the "sense of the meeting." A vote or a veto was never involved. Eventually

the clerk read out a "minute"--the degree of unity which he had sensed--which

could undergo further modification before being accepted. As John Sykes points

out: "It may not finally go as far as some present may have wished, but it involves

no illusionary sense of progress; all will act on it this far, and orderly growth from

here is possible .... The appeal is not just to reason, or to the set authority of lead-

ers, but to the quest for right feeling among a group of equals." It may be that this

technique for decision-making was an important factor in the dynamism of this

group of people, for when they believed in what they were doing they could become

master salesmen, to whom the world was often peculiarly susceptible.

From the very outset Quakers have been uniformly concerned about truth and

honesty. This concern led them to see oath-taking first as futile for no oath could

turn a liar into a man of truth--and later they viewed it as actually vicious, for

swearing implied that the man was a liar when not under oath. So in 1682 by the

"Great Law" the Friends in Pennsylvania provided that men should give testimony

by "solemnly promising to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the

truth." Also, out of this concern for truth and honesty came the Quaker policy of

adopting a set price for merchandise. They rejected the usual practice of bargain-

ing over the price of goods on the ground that one should say at the beginning what

the item was honestly worth. To them, this approach was a matter of telling the

truth; bargaining caught one up in a lie.

Another feature of their pattern of living is that Quakers have during their history

been "concerned" about many matters. For them to have a "concern" has always

meant doing something about it that is, "concern" goes hand in hand with action.

Their "concerns" have been for such matters as abolition of slavery, peace, just

treatment for the Indians, and help to the destitute, ill, imprisoned, and oppressed.

Rufus Jones used to tell about a five-year-old boy who had been bombed out of his

home during World War II and evacuated to the country. "Now," the little boy

plaintively cried, "I'm nobody's nothing." This little story probably epitomizes the

concern which the Quakers have traditionally had during their long history. As one

commentator has aptly put it, they have demonstrated to the "nobody's nothings"

that they were "somebody's somethings," and that an unknown somebody cared

enough to come a long way to offer the necessities of life.

Today, Quakers still cherish the simple directness of manner and word as their

forebears and for the same reason, but they do not manifest it through a special

form of dress or language. (By the end of World War II the old style Quaker dress

had died out almost everywhere except in southeastern Ohio where a few conserva-

tive Friends still wore it.) Nevertheless, the idea is universally present among

Quakers that they should be "a peculiar people." Rufus Jones, believing that a new

and more demanding peculiarity was needed in comtemporary times, said:

We live in the world.... We are bound to live in the world and to look and speak like the

general run of people. But we must not, we cannot, give up the idea of being a peculiar

people. Only henceforth the peculiarity must not be in outward form, it must be in inward

life andpower. .. the absolute confrontation of our lives with the reality of God.

Of course, so far as frontier living in early Ohio was concerned, the life of the

Friends did not differ greatly from that of others who were wresting survival from a

wilderness. The whole region was heavily forested which meant clearing every acre

before it could be cultivated. Everyone was expected to be fairly self-sufficient,

• 19
 

Ohio Quakers                                                         239

 

which meant being one's own shoemaker, blacksmith, weaver, miller, and doctor.

However, even the arduous tasks were turned into social activities by the commu-

nity--house and barn raisings, corn huskings, quilting parties, and apple cuttings

often provided the recreational and social outlets. Other opportunities for fun were

offered by sledding, taffy pulls, games, and debating and literary societies. There

was no dancing or card playing. Wedding dinners and infares were special events,

with guests present from as far as Philadelphia.

And yet, even while sharing such common conditions in early settlements, the

Friends were "a peculiar people" in at least one respect. They desired the advan-

tages of a primary education for their children. Quakers were pioneers in coeduca-

tion and their boarding schools were forerunners of the public education systems.

This activity might appear contradictory in view of the fact that a religious society

based on the doctrine of the "Inner Light" could easily have discounted the impor-

tance of education. But, from the very beginning, George Fox realized its necessity.

In his encouragement for the teaching of "whatsoever things are civil and useful in

creation," he helped to lay the foundations for the Friends' traditional emphasis on

a pragmatic education, especially in the areas of science and math. Not only were

they concerned with educating their own children but, in keeping with their concern

for oppressed people, the Friends established schools for freed Negroes and the In-

dians to provide them with a technical education stressing agricultural skills and

trades. Consequently, Friends' subscription schools early sprang into being. Some

meetings were able to hire a teacher and conduct the school along modern lines;

others got no farther than to provide a house. The term "subscription school" often

meant that it was up to a teacher to go around in a neighborhood to solicit patron-

age. Generally, these schools limited their offerings to the traditional "three R's--

reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic." Occasionally, one could find an exception to this

pattern, as in the example of John Butler. This young man from Damascus, Ohio,

wished to add geography and grammar to the curriculum at his Friends school. His

innovation brought a prompt visit and remonstrance from the school committee,

but they agreed to compromise and allow the subjects to be taught on an experi-

mental basis for one year. It is interesting to note that the new studies proved to be

a success and their propriety was never again questioned.

Since often the Quaker institutions were the only schools in early rural America,

they welcomed non-Quaker children as well. However, around the time of the

American Revolution, Quakers began to emphasize what was called a "religiously

guarded education." As Friends turned inward and disassociated themselves from

the world, their schools began to refuse to accept children of the "world's people."

Quaker education, then, contributed greatly to the growing belief that Quakers were

a people set apart, "a peculiar people."

Mount Pleasant Boarding School

The Friends of Mount Pleasant went through variations in their educational ob-

jectives similar to those of Quakers of other areas. A number of college men among

the early settlers of Mount Pleasant realized the necessity of developing a sound

educational system as early as possible. The first record of any concern among the

Ohio Quakers for the advanced education of their children came in the 1814 Ohio

Yearly Meeting. The next year the yearly meeting appointed a committee to study

the subject, which advised that each quarterly meeting make provision for contribu-

tions from its members for a yearly meeting school fund. The committee also rec-

ommended a boarding school be built since many Friends lived too far from any

• 20
 

240                                                         OHIO HISTORY

 

school to send their children on a daily basis. In 1816, the yearly meeting school

fund committee membership included Abel Knight, Jonathan Taylor, Nathan Up-

degraff, Isaac Packer, William Heald, David Brown, Emmor Bailey, James Paty,

Richard Barrett, and George Shugart.

The school fund grew slowly until 1824 when Thomas Rotch bequeathed $5,000

to it. For the next several years nothing was accomplished regarding a school be-

cause the Friends were too immersed in the Great Separation problem beginning in

1828. Also, many Quaker families wanted their children at home in the winter to

do the "chores." So it was not until 1831 that the Friends again seriously consid-

ered the subject of a school. By that time the fund totaled around $7,000. It was

reported at the Ohio Yearly Meeting that other yearly meetings had taken an inter-

est in the school project and had volunteered to supply funds. As a result, the

school committee of forty-five persons began to seek an appropriate site for the pro-

posed boarding school.

In 1832 the committee purchased sixty-four acres of land, near the yearly meeting

house lot, from Dr. William Hamilton of Mount Pleasant. Also, lumber was pur-

chased for the building. The committee recommended that the school be open to

both male and female students but that there should be distinctly separate facilities

for the sexes. There was to be a wing on either side of the main building for sepa-

rate classrooms and lodging and dining halls for the students and teachers. In addi-

tion, there were to be a garden and walks on each side connected with the wings but

entirely separate from each other. Finally, the committee emphasized that it was

their hope that the children should receive a religious, not a literary, education.

In 1835 the boarding school committee decided on the building dimensions: a 40

by 46 foot center building, three stories high, plus a basement; a wing at each end of

the building two stories high above the basement. The principal building was to

cost $10,000 with the completion date set for September 1836. The building was

actually completed in 1837, at a cost of $10,450. Friends in New England and in

England pledged $2,000 each for the construction of the boarding school. It was

designed to accommodate about 120 children and youth.

The Mount Pleasant Friends Boarding School, or, as it was popularly called, the

"Quaker Seminary," was opened to students on January 23, 1837. Daniel Williams

and his wife Elizabeth were the first superintendent and matron. Robert S. Hollo-

way and his wife Abby, George K. Jenkins, and Abigail Flanner were the first

teachers. The men were paid a maximum of $400 and the women $250. A gover-

nor for the boys department, who was to provide for the good order of the school,

was added in 1838. During the first six months of operation the school averaged

about eighty-five pupils who paid a tuition rate of $65 for the six-month term.

The proposed school calendar was two sessions of twenty-four weeks with two

two-week vacations. During the winter term, which normally opened the week fol-

lowing the Ohio Yearly Meeting, morning classes began at 8:30 and ended at 11:30

o'clock, and afternoon classes lasted from 2 until 5. There was an evening class

from 6 to 7:30. During the summer term, the evening class was transferred to the

morning, beginning at 6 and ending at 7:30. The times of the other classes re-

mained the same. Religious meetings were held the first and fifth days of the week.

The education received was guarded and liberal, one of literary and scientific in-

struction as well as the imparting of the doctrines of the Gospel and the Quaker tes-

timonies. The primary pupils had instruction in spelling and definitions, reading,

geography, arithmetic, English grammar, and writing. Advanced pupils studied

natural philosophy, chemistry, rhetoric, logic, mineralogy, botany, bookkeeping, as-

• 21
 

tronomy, political economy, moral philosophy, political grammar, mensuration, trigonometry, algebra, geometry, use of globes, theory of astronomy and calcu- lations, French, Latin, and Greek. Also, students had Scripture recitations and exercises during the afternoon of the first day of the week and passages of Scripture were read every evening just before bedtime. Operation of the Mount Pleasant Boarding School was not without problems. Living conditions at the school were only adequate at best. Since there were no cookstoves, all preparation of meals was made over open fires. There were no washing facilities and no indoor plumbing  common conditions in those days-- and communicable diseases occurred frequently. The school's financial records during the first several years revealed a deficit of $500 to $800 a year. This resulted in the need to increase tuition. The boarding school never seemed to have enough capital with which to operate. However, in the late 1850's a new superintendent, Yardley Warner, began to economize by joining several of the previously separate boys and girls classes and by having all persons at the boarding school eat in the same dining room. Despite the many obstacles, in comparison with other schools of the day, the Mount Pleasant Boarding School furnished its young students with a narrow but solid range of studies. Certainly the students grew immeasurably in the education of life, living and learning together in a religious atmosphere. But the boarding school was not destined to last indefinitely. A conflict over pos- session of the school developed from the separation created by the controversy be- tween Joseph J. Gurney and John Wilbur. In 1854 the Hoyle group (Wilburites) maintained control of the school, although allowing the children of the Binns group (Gurneyites) to attend. In 1868 the Binns group sued for possession of the property and finally, in 1874, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in its favor. Subsequently, the school closed that year. The new owners of the Mount Pleasant Boarding School were in the process of renovating the structure when it was destroyed by fire in 1875, and was never rebuilt. However, plans had been made in 1874 for a new school, which opened in 1876 near Barnesville. It is still in existence, under direction of the Conservative Friends.

• 22
 

242                                                        OHIO HISTORY

The Friends and Mount Pleasant's Economy

The Friends played a prominent role in the economic growth of Mount Pleasant

right from its very beginning around 1800. The village rapidly became a thriving

business and industrial center in eastern Ohio, serving an area of more than one

hundred square miles. After the War of 1812 the community developed quickly as

small businesses and manufacturing establishments appeared.

The Quakers were especially diligent and thrifty and something of the envy of

other settlers in the area, for they always seemed to be able to amass a certain

amount of wealth. W. H. Hunter commented that "while their neighbors continued

poor, the Quakers grew in wealth, and thus in their quiet, unostentatious way

exerted a potent influence in the development of the county." For example, the

members of the Updegraff and Stanton families became prominent not only in the

Society of Friends but also in the affairs of the state of Ohio and the nation. Edwin

M. Stanton, a descendant of Quakers, served as President Abraham Lincoln's very

able Secretary of War during the Civil War.

In 1816, when the Ohio General Assembly authorized six new banks, each with a

capitalization of $100,000, one of these was located in Mount Pleasant. With the

establishment of flour and paper mills, tanneries, saddleries, salt, woolen, and nail

manufacturies, hopes grew for the development of a thriving metropolis. However,

these dreams were shattered by the business panic of 1819 which hit the entire na-

tion and which was especially severe in the "New West." For a time the paramount

task was simply surviving the panic and the depression which followed.

Gradually, however, conditions improved so that by 1830 the Mount Pleasant

area served as an extensive wheat market and as the center for a thriving stock-

growing industry. Hogs, cattle, and sheep were raised. One of the first and largest

pork-packing establishments in the state, owned by John Hogg, a Presbyterian, was

located in Mount Pleasant. With a readily accessible market for their livestock, the

Friends became known for a product of superior quality. An expression often used

in the region when speaking about something above average was, "as good as

Quaker cattle." Wool buyers from Philadelphia and New York did business in

Mount Pleasant.

In its busy days Mount Pleasant hummed with the activity of blacksmiths, cabi-

netmakers, printers, tanners, shoemakers, hatters, weavers, spinners, and tailors.

One unusual business which flourished in the village in the early 1840's was a silk

weaving factory, which was noted for producing the first silk velvet and figured silk

cloth in the United States. With William Watkins of Steubenville developing silk-

worms in the region, John W. Gill and Thomas White planted twenty-five acres of

mulberry trees which, upon attaining one year's growth, were used for the cultiva-

tion of the silkworms. The Gill Silk Factory produced a variety of goods-dress

silks, hat plush, ribbons, satins, cravats, hosiery, and gloves. It was a going concern

for five years, employing fifty men year round. A vest was made for Henry Clay,

who arranged for the United States government to order a large silk national flag

which was taken to China by Caleb Cushing. Since Cushing's was the first United

States diplomatic mission to China, this flag was the first American flag to be raised

in China as part of an official mission.

However, Ohio's climate was not conducive to the development of a silk industry

and Gill's business was short-lived. Moreover, Mount Pleasant failed to become a

flourishing metropolis when it could not compete with neighboring cities, like Steu-

benville and Wheeling, which were more advantageously located for transportation

services.

• 23
 

Ohio Quakers                                                        243

 

Quakers and the Indians

One of the amazing aspects of the life of the Quakers in colonial America was

their good relations with the Indians. While other groups of colonists were sporad-

ically engaged in wars with the Indians, the Quakers managed to live peacefully

with these original Americans. Quakers attributed this unusual rapport with the

Indians to their acceptance of the Indians as their equals. While not the only ones

to accord this treatment to the Indians, the Quakers appear to have been more con-

sistent than others in insisting that the Indian be treated as anybody else--that his

land be purchased rather than confiscated, that he have trials by juries composed of

his peers, that he not be captured and used as a slave. A notable practitioner of this

philosophy was William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, who felt so strongly about

just treatment for the Indians that shortly after receiving his land grant, he sent a

letter to the Indians of his colony expressing his "great love and regard" for them

and his eagerness to earn their friendship by "a kind, just, and peaceable life."

As Quakers moved into the Ohio Country late in the eighteenth century, they

demonstrated this concern for the welfare of the Indians in various ways--through

visits to them with the message of Christ and through the establishment of service

centers at Sandusky, Upper Sandusky, and Wapakoneta. (Indians had withdrawn

their settlements from the Mount Pleasant area prior to the arrival of white settlers.)

Of particular interest and importance was the activity at Wapakoneta. The Indians

there were a remnant of the Shawnee tribe which had largely moved west of the

Mississippi River.

The recently formed Ohio Yearly Meeting at Mount Pleasant appointed a com-

mittee in 1818 to oversee the building of a saw and grist mill on Indian land and

then assisted the Indians with the management and instruction in the use of the

mill.

In 1821 Indiana and Baltimore yearly meetings decided to cooperate in an Ohio

Yearly Meeting plan to provide a school for the Shawnee children, a proposal that

seems to have stemmed partly from the Shawnees' request for establishment of a

mission at Wapakoneta. A Committee of Men and Women Friends on Indian

Concerns purchased land about five miles south of Wapakoneta, adjacent to the res-

ervation. Two cabins were built--for a school and for a residence occupied by Mr.

and Mrs. Jesse Baldwin, superintendents. Operating funds were supplied by Ohio

Yearly Meeting.

In succeeding years usually between nine and eighteen children were enrolled at

any given time. The boys assisted on the farm and the girls in the house during

their off hours. In 1828 the monetary support was interrupted because of the Hick-

site Separation that year, which caused the school to close temporarily. However,

except for other brief interruptions, the school operated satisfactorily until 1832,

when the Shawnees decided to exchange their Ohio reservation for lands west of the

Mississippi River. It was closed after the last Indians departed in 1833, and the

Friends committee disposed of the property at Wapakoneta, bringing to an end this

Quaker activity in Indian affairs in Ohio.

Quakers and Slavery

The abolition of slavery was another major social concern of the Society of

Friends, which was one of the first organized groups to denounce the institution.

Possibly Quakers were so sensitive to the plight of the slave because they could em-

pathize with him--Quakers were frequently poor, often imprisoned during the

early years, and persecuted.

• 24
 

Some American Quakers, especially those residing in the southern colonies, did own slaves, but in the late seventeenth century a movement began to eliminate slaveholding among Quakers. In the next century, Anthony Benezet and John Woolman were the most active in arousing fellow Quakers to the evils of slavery. In 1754 they stimulated considerable antislavery sentiment with the publication of the findings of their private investigations on the abuses of the slave trade. Benezet, a teacher in Pennsylvania who had been active in various types of social reform work, devoted himself primarily to the abolition of slavery after 1776. Even more prominent was John Woolman from Mount Holly, New Jersey. Rufus Jones, the Quaker historian, states that "more than any other man, Woolman aided the Eng- lish-speaking nations to throw off the disgrace of slavery." Suggestive of the influence of these men is the fact that beginning in 1758, one af- ter another of the quarterly and yearly meetings denounced the institution of slavery and brought pressure to bear on individual Friends to discontinue their slaveholding. Committees were organized in each quarterly meeting to visit the homes of remaining slaveowners to persuade them to relinquish their practice of holding human beings in bondage. By 1780, according to Rufus Jones, "no slaves were held by members except in peculiar cases where legal difficulties prevented manumission, as where husband or wife was not a member and would not consent." Meanwhile, to the south, ranging as far as South Carolina, Sarah Harrison, Norris Jones, and Lydia Hoskins implored Quaker slaveholders to free their black slaves. Naturally the actions of these and other Friends offended many southerners who were beginning to believe that the entire southern life-style rested on the foundation of slavery. Since slaves in the South represented a considerable amount of wealth, owners were reluctant to lose this investment, especially without receiving any compensation. Several states took direct legislative action to prevent or, at least, to discourage the Quakers' manumission operations. The North Carolina Assembly in 1796 enacted laws which were aimed directly at the aggressive antislavery Quakers. For example, "no slave shall be set free in any case or under any pretense whatever, ex-

• 25
 

Ohio Quakers                                                         245

 

cept for meritorious service, to be adjudged of and allowed by the County Court

and license first had and obtained therefor." In the eyes of their neighbors, Friends

who freed their slaves were looked upon with hostility; they soon found themselves

living in a society which had become uncomfortable, if not dangerous, for them. It

was at this time that many southern Friends began to migrate to the Northwest Ter-

ritory where slavery had been prohibited in 1787.

Thus, early in the nineteenth century, Ohio began to feel the influence of the

Friends in many areas of social concern, but most significantly in the abolitionist

movement. Historians have pointed out that perhaps no other sect was so unani-

mous in its support of abolitionism as the Quakers, but because they were torn be-

tween their hostility to slavery and their traditional preference for peaceful rather

than violent reform, they did not provide the principal leaders of the movement.

Though this statement was probably true nationally, Ohio did produce individuals

of Quaker background who became very active in developing the antislavery move-

ment in the state. Moreover, Mount Pleasant became known as a center of anti-

slavery activity in Ohio. Many of the Quakers living there in the early part of the

century were the same individuals who had left the South because of their abhor-

rence of the institution of slavery; some had brought freed slaves with them. Also,

the proximity of slave territory, just across the Ohio River in Virginia, made the Jef-

ferson-Belmont county area a natural refuge for escapees from the Wheeling slave

market.

By 1816 apparently, Jefferson County and Mount Pleasant had earned reputa-

tions well-known to runaway slaves as places where they would be welcomed and

receive aid in their quest for freedom, because by that year the Underground Rail-

road was operating in the area.

No single issue concerning slavery divided the Society of Friends more than the

question of members' involvement in the Underground Railroad, which was a series

of routes for runaway slaves to follow on their journey to Canada and eventual free-

dom. Few organizations kindled the fire of resentment among southern slave-

holders as did the Underground Railroad. Southerners said the system was rob-

bing them of their rightful property as well as millions of dollars which had been

invested in Negro slaves. Though Quakers never officially sponsored the Under-

ground Railroad, many individual Friends played very important roles in the sys-

tem. Active participation distressed many Quakers, not only because it was a viola-

tion of the Fugitive Slave Law (after 1850), but because it necessitated lying when

questioned by the authorities--and Quakers traditionally prided themselves on

maintaining a reputation for strict honesty. Quakers often would deny there were

slaves on their property because they did not recognize that any person could be a

slave.

Ohio was one of the leading states in the Underground Railroad since it bordered

slave states and was close to Canada. Levi Coffin, a Cincinnati Quaker, was called

the "president of the Underground Railroad." He had been raised among Quakers

in New Garden, North Carolina, where even as a youth he helped slaves escape

along the Underground Railroad. According to his own estimates, Coffin helped

more than three thousand slaves escape to freedom during his twenty years of activ-

ity in the system.

In the Mount Pleasant area, the Hanes Mill on the Colerain Pike, built by Borden

Stanton in 1801, was one of many "stations." According to tradition, there was a

tunnel under the mill through which many slaves passed to freedom. Among resi-

dences in Mount Pleasant which were known to have hiding places for runaway

• 26
 

slaves was Quaker Hill. Members of other religious groups also participated ac- tively in the Mount Pleasant Underground Railroad strategy--the Reverend Ben- jamin Mitchell, Presbyterian minister, operated a noted station, and the Seceders, led by the Reverend John Walker, were prominent in aiding slaves to gain liberty and in working for abolition. Mount Pleasant was the center for other antislavery activities also, a strategic lo- cation from which to influence Quaker opinion. One Mount Pleasant Friend, Charles Osborn, in 1817 began publishing The Philanthropist, the first American newspaper to advocate the abolition of slavery. Osborn, a native of North Caro- lina, opposed all colonization schemes because he claimed they were designed for the perpetuation of slavery in the South and for ridding the northern states of freed- men. In 1818 he sold the weekly paper to Elisha Bates, who published it until 1822. One of the Ohio "agents" for, and contributors to, the paper was Benjamin Lundy, a New Jersey Quaker who migrated to Ohio in 1807. He formed the first Ohio antislavery organization, the Union Humane Society, at St. Clairsville in 1816. In 1821 Lundy moved to Mount Pleasant to begin publishing his own Genius of Universal Emancipation, a monthly wholly devoted to the cause of abolition. Be- cause his publication secured widespread circulation quickly, Lundy became the first really effective force in the antislavery movement in the United States. Unable to find a printer near Mount Pleasant willing to publish the paper, he walked with the manuscript twenty miles to Steubenville, where it was published on the press of James Wilson, grandfather of Woodrow Wilson. While Lundy waited for the paper to be printed, he worked a few days for a saddle maker (he was a saddle and harness maker by trade) to earn money. In Steubenville he stayed with Benjamin Stanton, a Quaker and uncle of Edwin M. Stanton. Then Lundy carried the papers back to Mount Pleasant, where he sent them out with the postal mark of that town. Eight monthly issues were published in Ohio before Lundy moved his publishing venture to Tennessee in 1822.

• 27
 

Ohio Quakers                                                         247

 

Unlike Osborn, Benjamin Lundy supported the aims of the American Coloniza-

tion Society which was organized in 1816 due to the inspiration of a Massachusetts

Friend, Paul Cuffe, a black. This society hoped to send many free Negroes to Af-

rica as a means of resolving the racial and slavery problems. Some Quakers op-

posed the society for fear that it would diminish the desire of slaves to seek freedom,

while other Quakers supported the society because it might induce slaveholders,

who were to be compensated for freeing their slaves, to give up their property. One

of Lundy's most important contributions to the movement was the recruitment of

the man who became known as the leading abolitionist in pre-Civil War days, Wil-

liam Lloyd Garrison, who later published the noted Liberator in Boston.

One of the more unusual antislavery activities in Mount Pleasant was the estab-

lishment of a free labor store where nothing raised or made by slave labor was

bought or sold. Similar stores were organized in several other states, beginning in

1826. When prominent Mount Pleasant residents decided that one way to strike a

blow against slavery was to boycott all goods produced by slave labor, they organ-

ized the Mount Pleasant Free Produce Company of Ohio in 1848. At a meeting in

George K. Jenkins' schoolhouse, it was decided to sell 250 shares of stock at $10 a

share to raise capital to purchase goods to be sold, rent space for the store, pay a

manager, and provide for the store's initial operation. The stockholders--who in-

cluded a few non-Friends--elected a five-man board of managers to conduct the

everyday business of the company--George K. Jenkins, John W. Watkins, Ezra

Cattell, William C. Williams, and Jonathan Binns. The managers in turn elected

Jenkins their president and Binns, secretary.

The sixty-seven original stockholders approved articles of association in which

they stated that the Free Produce Company was established "for the sale of goods,

wares and merchandise in general which shall be exclusively the product of free la-

bor." In the event that the company was not a success, or if the stockholders wished

to dissolve it, provision was made that after three years of existence the company

could be dissolved by a majority vote of the stockholders. Stocks could be trans-

ferred to others with the approval of the board of managers.

The board negotiated with Joseph Williams to take charge of the store and sev-

eral rooms in Williams' establishment were rented for the free labor store. The

board of managers bought its goods in Philadelphia from a Quaker merchant. A

committee fixed the retail price on the goods, audited the books, took inventory, and

attempted to sell new shares of stock. By the end of 1848 the Free Produce Com-

pany showed assets totaling nearly $3,000; by 1850, the net worth was $3,281.

No additional stock was sold after 1850. In 1853 the stockholders voted themselves

a four percent dividend, though the company was not really a profit-making organi-

zation. The Free Produce Company apparently did a fairly good business for the

first few years of its existence, selling a variety of merchandise ranging from grocer-

ies to dry goods--but not tobacco. Because of the Quaker aversion to use of to-

bacco, no smoking or chewing tobacco, snuff, or cigars were sold.

In the next few years the position of storekeeper changed hands several times and

various attempts were made through advertising to gain greater sales.

Nevertheless, the stockholders of the Free Produce Company became disgruntled

and grew fearful that they might lose the money they had originally invested. In

the early part of 1857 at a special meeting of the stockholders, a vote of 160 to 22

called for the dissolution of the company by the spring of that year. Stockholders

were encouraged to buy goods from the store rather than to ask for cash when they

sold their shares of stock. The remainder of the merchandise was sold at public

• 28
 

auction and the proceeds were divided among the stockholders in proportion to the amount of stock held by each. The closing of the Free Produce Company after nine years was not caused by any lessening of antislavery sentiment in Mount Pleasant. In fact, the antislavery atti- tude was more pronounced in the immediate pre-Civil War years, as witnessed by the increased activity of the Underground Railroad in the region. Rather, the cause for the dissolution seemed to be a fear of economic loss on the part of individual stockholders. Possibly also contributing was the Friends' slowly growing con- viction, especially after 1845, that political action was going to be the only solution to the slavery issue. Prior to the Civil War Friends participated in antislavery organizations which in- cluded members of many religious denominations. The continuing prominence of Mount Pleasant as an antislavery center was attested when the 1837 convention of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, the first major abolition meeting in Ohio, was held at Mount Pleasant. At the close of the Civil War, work among the freedmen became the main social concern of the Society of Friends. Now Quakers could cooperate with the government, rather than confront it, to assist the Negro. Quaker groups all over the United States helped form relief agencies to aid the Negroes with food, clothing, shelter, and education. Levi Coffin, for one, helped organize the Western Freedmen's Aid Commission which sent aid to freedmen in Mississippi and Ar- kansas. This practical relief work was yet another expression of the compassion for people in need which Friends have shown through the years. Quakers and Temperance Beginning in colonial times, as Friends gave themselves increasingly to maintain- ing themselves as "a peculiar people," they became interested in another social con- cern--temperance. As one early writer pointed out, they began intensively "to la- bour for a Reformation in Respect to the Distilling and Use of Spirituous Liquors

• 29
 

amongst Friends and the Polluting Practice of keeping Taverns, Beerhouses, etc." Apparently these efforts were rewarded with some success for they began to report "a number of Friends having Used Spirituous Liquors very Sparingly in the time of our late Harvest and others have with great satisfaction used none at all." As Friends moved westward, their influence in the temperance cause was felt. It is of some significance that all of the temperance legislation in Indiana prior to the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment was championed by Friends. Further- more, Quaker women rallied to the support of the crusade. For a number of years the presidents of the Ohio Woman's Christian Temperance Union were Friends. Mount Pleasant reflected this concern for temperance. In 1837 the village had a society favoring total abstinence and in 1840 a temperance society was organized, which included many non-Friends as members. When John Hogg, one of the town's wealthiest merchants, began to stock liquor along with his other merchan- dise, it stirred considerable protest. His refusal to listen to the pleas of the temper- ance people led in 1851 to a concerted campaign by the Quakers and other religious denominations to discourage this business. Twelve men and twelve women, on horseback, visited every home in the township with petitions to be signed requesting that Hogg stop selling whiskey. All but two men signed, and Hogg quit selling the intoxicating beverage. Near the end of the nineteenth century, when a saloon- keeper attempted to set up business in Mount Pleasant, a substantial fund of money was collected to campaign against his saloon. A picket line of members of several denominations was organized in shifts from 6 A.M. to 10 P.M. to take the names of any patrons of the establishment. After three days and only one customer, the sa- loonkeeper recognized "the handwriting on the wall" and quietly capitulated and left.   Quakers as Peacemakers Finally, the Society of Friends is well known for its concern for peace. Quakers

• 30
 

250                                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

have been thought of traditionally as pacifists and nonresisters to violence and war,

although this is not an entirely accurate picture. As Rufus Jones put it, "They seek

always to organize and to level against it [any great evil] the most effective forces

there are." Nevertheless, from the very inception of the Society, Friends have at-

tempted to avoid war by doing away with the causes and the occasion for war.

Quakers have often attempted to be the peacemakers by leading exemplary lives as

well as by developing conditions which would make violence unnecessary.

George Fox's original testimony that war is intrinsically wrong, that it is not a

necessary evil with which one has to live, and that no effort required in working for

its abolition is too great, came at a time when most people thought of war as noble

or at least inevitable. This Quaker testimony was, and still is, difficult for many

people to accept. As a result, Quakers have often suffered for their convictions.

George Fox's own simple style of dress--his leather trousers, umbrella, and long

hair--was his way of protesting against the militarism of Oliver Cromwell's day.

William Penn's establishment of the "Holy Experiment" in Pennsylvania is con-

sidered to be the most important early event in developing an attitude of peace

among Americans. Pennsylvania became a model for liberalism, truth, justice,

honor, and peace in the American colonies. Because of their beliefs in honesty,

peace, and the equality of men, the Quakers of Pennsylvania--and one could sup-

pose that the same would be true of most Quakers everywhere--developed a better

relationship with the American Indians than any other English group. The Quak-

ers treated the Indians with respect, traded with them honestly, and respected their

treaties. It has been reported that there were never any known organized Indian at-

tacks on Quaker settlements in Pennsylvania.

The American Revolutionary War, proved to be an extremely difficult period for

the Quakers for, on the one hand, many of them rejoiced in the possibility of free-

dom from England but, on the other hand, they abhorred the violence which was

bringing it about. Some Quakers who joined the Revolutionary Army formed their

own society and were called Free Quakers.

The attitude of the Ohio Yearly Meeting toward war was clearly expressed in its

original Book of Discipline of 1819 which reads:

... it is the earnest concern of the Yearly Meeting, that Friends may adhere faithfully to our

ancient testimony against wars and fighting.

That furnishing waggon, or other means for conveying of military stores, is a military serv-

ice ... and that a tax levied for the purchasing of drums, colours, or for other warlike uses

cannot be paid consistently with our Christian testimony.

It is further the sense and judgement of the Yearly Meeting, that it is inconsistent with our

religious testimony and principle, for any Friend to pay a fine or tax, levied on account of

their refusal to muster or to serve in the militia, although such fine or imposition may be ap-

plied toward defraying the expenses of civil government....

The greatest, and possibly most difficult, time of violence for Friends came during

the American Civil War. Many Friends had difficulty deciding whether to stand by

their peace convictions or to approve a war in which they thought one belligerent

was definitely on the side of justice. This problem was especially acute for Friends

who lived in the South. Many southern Friends left their homes to move westward

during the Civil War. Those who remained in the South as conscientious objectors

were called abolitionists and traitors and were subjected to extreme harassment.

However, Friends in the Confederacy were not the only ones to suffer. Northern

Friends faced an equally difficult situation, even though some northern Quakers did

• 31
 

Ohio Quakers                                                             251

 

volunteer for service. In all, about two hundred to three hundred Quakers enlisted

in the Union forces. Most of these came from Indiana where Colonel John Palmer,

a Hicksite Friend, led a regiment which had many Quaker officers and men.

The spirit of patriotism swept through Mount Pleasant when President Lincoln

called for 75,000 volunteers in 1861. Approximately 160 young men from Mount

Pleasant Township, none of them Quakers, joined the Union Army. Several of

them were enrolled in the First Virginia Regiment which was commanded by a

Colonel Thoburn, who was the son-in-law of Mount Pleasant resident Dr. Benjamin

Mitchell, a Presbyterian minister. Duncan Milner, a Presbyterian from Mount

Pleasant, fought in the Civil War and nearly died as a result of wounds received in

the battle of Chickamauga. He was asked by Mrs. Sarah E. Jenkins, a noted

Quaker minister, how he, being a Christian young man, could have attempted to

take the life of fellow men. Milner responded that it was not an easy question dur-

ing war. "I suppose under the same conditions I would again become a soldier, but

I hate war."

Even though a few Quakers did fight during the Civil War, the vast majority re-

fused to violate their peace testimony and thereby suffered the consequences.

Northern Friends who refused to enroll in the army after being drafted or to pay the

muster fines for such refusal often had their property confiscated as payment for the

delinquent fines. Minutes of the meetings for sufferings revealed that property con-

fiscated from dissenting Friends was much more valuable than the amount of the

fines imposed. In 1862, a Barnesville, Ohio, meeting for sufferings addressed a let-

ter to Governor David Tod protesting a gubernatorial directive requiring all men

eligible for military service to enroll for the draft, but no change resulted.

That same year Ohio Yearly Meeting sent the following letter to President

Lincoln:

The Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends convened at Mt. Pleasant Jefferson County Ohio 9th

month 1862 respectfully represents.--That owing to the present unhappy condition of our

country and the enrollment of names in order to draft therefrom some thousands to be

placed in the Army--Many of our members who are now sharing in common with other

good citizens the trials of the times are subject to the still greater trial of having for con-

science sake to decline in this particular to obey the authorities of a government under which

we enjoy many privileges and blessings and to which we hope ever to be found loyal.

We would briefly call the attention of the President to the fact with which he is no doubt

acquainted that our Society has from its rise (a period of more than two hundred years)

borne a testimony against all wars and fightings believing them to be at variance with the

pure and peaceable dispensation of the Gospel of Christ--and have constantly under all

governments felt constrained to refuse to bear arms or pay an equivalent in lieu thereof--

Also to the legislation of various States of this Union in which our members are exempt from

military services-And therefore respectfully submit whether there cannot be something

done by the authorities of the general government for the relief of all members of our

Society not already exemted [sic] by state enactments.--In conclusion we would express our

deep sympathy with the President in the various difficulties which press upon him in this day

of sore calamity.

In December 1863 Ohio Yearly Meeting rejected a proposal by Secretary of War

Edwin Stanton, a resident of Steubenville in Jefferson County whose grandmother

had been a minister among Friends in Ohio. He suggested that Quakers purchase

exemption from military service by payment of $300 into a special fund for Negro

refugees, but the Quakers declined, "inasmuch as it would be the payment of a sum

of money in lieu of military service which we cannot conscientiously comply with."

• 32
 

252                                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

Friends established committees to give advice and render aid to individuals drafted

or persecuted for their beliefs concerning the war. Eventually, Secretary Stanton is-

sued orders for the release of many Friends who had been drafted into service.

The attitude of the Society of Friends regarding the issues of war and violence has

changed little over the years. By their example Quakers hope to become peace-

makers. As Rufus Jones said:

The world will at least be better off if there is a Christian group ... resolved to live for these

hopes [peace], for this way of life, to bear their clear testimony for peace and love at any cost

and at any price, and ready, if the last supreme sacrifice is demanded, to die for that faith

and for that vision.

And D. Elton Trueblood has written:

 

The Quaker dedication to peace, when rightly understood, is something which is cherished

not for the sake of a doctrine and not even for the sake of Quakers. It is cherished for the

sake of the world. The only purpose is to aid, as imaginatively and as bravely as possible, in

taking away the "occasion of all wars."

Conclusion

The Mount Pleasant Meeting House, for many years the home of the Ohio Yearly

Meeting, was the first yearly meeting house west of the Allegheny Mountains, which

gave it its claim to being "the mother meeting house of all Quakers west of the Al-

leghenies." Often referred to as the "Gateway to the New West," Mount Pleasant

and the surrounding region served as a base from which all Quakerdom west of

Ohio spread. It can be assumed that the Friends moving westward from here made

similar contributions to the development of a peaceful and orderly society, the pro-

motion of education, and the advancement of the economic well-being of people

generally as did those Quakers who settled in Ohio. Today, the stately meeting

house stands as testimony to the dynamic spirit which emanated from this small, but

influential, community during several decades of the nineteenth century.

• 33
 

Ohio Quakers                                                                 253

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF QUAKER SOURCES

 

Bacon, Margaret, The Quiet Rebels: The Story of the Quakers in America. New York, Basic

Books, Inc. [1969].

Boorstin, Daniel J., The Americans; The Colonial Experience. New York, Random House

[1958].

Bronner, Edwin, ed., American Quakers Today. Philadelphia, Friends World Committee

[1966].

Caldwell, J. A., History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio. Wheeling, Historical Pub-

lishing Co., 1880.

Dewees, Watson W., comp., Notes on the Early History of Ohio Yearly Meeting, .. .from The

Friend, 1918-1919. Philadelphia, Watson W. Dewees [1919?].

Dillon, Merton, Benjamin Lundy and the Struggle for Negro Freedom. Urbana, University of

Illinois Press, 1966.

Fox, George, George Fox; An Autobiography, edited by Rufus Jones. Philadelphia, Ferris &

Leach, 1903.

Fox, George, Journal or Historical Account of the Life, Travels, Sufferings . . . [of] George

Fox. Philadelphia, Friends' Book-Store [n.d.].

Friends, Society of, Ohio Yearly Meeting, The Discipline of the Society of Friends, of Ohio

Yearly Meeting. Mountpleasant, Elisha Bates [1819?].

Friends, Society of, Ohio Yearly Meeting, Quaker Sesqui-centennial, 1816-1962. Damascus,

The Friends Church, 1962.

Hunter, W. H., "Pathfinders of Jefferson County," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quar-

terly, VI (1898), 95-313; VIII (1900), 132-262.

Jones, Rufus M., The Faith and Practice of the Quakers. New York, George H. Doran Com-

pany [1927].

--, The Later Periods of Quakerism. 2 vols. London, Macmillan & Co., 1921.

--, The Quakers in the American Colonies. New York, Russell & Russell, 1962.

Ketring, Ruth Anna, Charles Osborn in the Anti-Slavery Movement. Columbus, Ohio State

Archaeological and Historical Society, 1937.

Leach, Robert J., "Elisha Bates and the Mt. Pleasant Printing Press 1817-1827," Bulletin of

Friends' Historical Association, XXIX (1940), 17-29.

Lindley, Harlow, "Friends and the Shawnee Indians at Wapakoneta," Ohio State Archae-

ological and Historical Quarterly, LIV (1945), 33-39.

--, "The Quaker Contribution to the Old Northwest," from Children of Light, edited by

Howard H. Brinton, 307-330. New York, Macmillan Co., 1938.

"Quakerism in Ohio," speech delivered at the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment

of Wilmington, Ohio, Yearly Meeting, 1942, typewritten.

--, The Quakers in the Old Northwest, reprinted from Mississippi Valley Historical Associ-

ation Proceedings, V. [Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Torch Press, 1912].

--, "Thomas Beals, First Friends Minister in Ohio," Ohio State Archaeological and Histor-

ical Quarterly, LIII (1944), 55-60.

Lundy, Benjamin, The Life, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy. Philadelphia, Wil-

liam D. Parrish, 1847.

Milner, Duncan, Memorial Day address, Mount Pleasant, Ohio, 1923. Xerox copy of type-

written original.

Morlan, Charles P., comp., A Brief History of Ohio Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of

Friends (Conservative). Barnesville, Ohio, The Representative Meeting, 1959.

Mountpleasant Free Produce Company, Mountpleasant, Ohio, Minutes of the Proceedings

[May 19, 1848-Feb. 6, 1856].

Mountpleasant Free Produce Compy., Ohio, Minutes of the Board of Managers [June 3,

1848-Feb. 17, 1857].

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254                                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

Newman, Daisy, A Procession of Friends; Quakers in America. Garden City, N.Y., Double-

day & Company, Inc., 1972.

Ohio Sesquicentennial Commission, Religious Participation Committee, Churches in the

Buckeye Country; A History of Ohio's Religious Groups Published in Commemoration of

the State's Sesquicentennial, 1953 [Columbus? 1953?].

Ohio Historical Society Division of State Memorials, "Quaker Meeting House." Press clip-

pings (scrapbook).

Post, Albert, "The Anti-Gallows Movement in Ohio," Ohio State Archaeological and Histori-

cal Quarterly, LIV (1945), 104-112.

Randall, James and David Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, 2nd ed. rev. Lexing-

ton, D. C. Heath & Company [1969].

Smith, Harvey E., "The Quakers, Their Migration to the Upper Ohio, Their Customs and

Discipline," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XXXVII (1928), 35-85.

Stanton, William Henry, A Book Called Our Ancestors the Stantons. Philadelphia, William

Henry Stanton, 1922.

Sykes, John, The Quakers; A New Look at Their Society. Philadelphia, Lippincott Co.,

1959.

Tallack, William, Friendly Sketches in America. London, A. W. Bennett, 1861.

Thomas, Allen C. and Richard H. Thomas, A History of the Friends in America, 5th ed.

Philadelphia, John C. Winston Co., 1919.

[Thomas, Nathan M.], An Account of His Life, Written by Himself. Cassopolis, Mich., Stan-

ton B. Thomas, 1925.

Trueblood, D. Elton, The People Called Quakers. New York, Harper & Row [1966].

Utter, William T., The Frontier State, 1803-1825. Vol. II of The History of the State of Ohio,

edited by Carl Wittke. Columbus, Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society,

1942.

Walsh, Annetta C., "Three Anti-Slavery Newspapers Published in Ohio Prior to 1823," Ohio

Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XXXI (1922), 172-212.

Weeks, Stephen B., Southern Quakers and Slavery. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1896.

Weisenburger, Francis P., The Passing of the Frontier, 1825-1850. Vol. III of The History of

the State of Ohio, edited by Carl Wittke. Columbus, Ohio State Archaeological and His-

torical Society, 1941.

West, Jessamyn, ed., The Quaker Reader. New York, Viking Press [1962].

Williams, Walter R., The Rich Heritage of Quakerism. Grand Rapids, Mich., William B.

Eerdmans [1962].

• 35
 

Ohio Quakers                                                                255

GLOSSARY

 

(Definitions are phrased in the past tense because they are applicable primarily to the early

nineteenth century, though some are current today in various Friends meetings.)

 

MEETING FOR WORSHIP--Held on First-Day and at midweek, usually Fifth-Day. Begun in

silence, with each person entering "into the inmost sanctuary of his own heart, ... to be

alone with God ... that His voice may be clearly heard within"; those persons "moved

by the Spirit" might be prompted to offer vocal prayer, preaching, testimony, or

prophecy.

MEETINGS FOR BUSINESS-Clerk presided and laid before the meeting each item to be con-

sidered; each member could give his views; the clerk gathered the sense of the meeting

and announced the decision, which was not recorded unless there was unity or a willing-

ness of dissenters to defer to the rest of the meeting. Types of meetings for business

were the following:

Preparative or particular meeting. With the consent of the nearest monthly and

quarterly meetings, a preparative meeting could be established wherever there were sev-

eral Friends who wished to unite for worship. They sent delegates to the nearest

monthly meeting. Following one midweek meeting for worship each month, a prepara-

tive meeting was held where business matters were prepared for reference to the

monthly meeting.

Monthly meeting. The basic administrative unit and policy-making body of each

Quaker district. It made decisions with regard to business affairs as well as non-busi-

ness matters such as solemnizing wedding vows. Elders and overseers were the congre-

gational leaders. A person became a member of the Society of Friends through the

monthly meeting, and membership in quarterly and yearly meetings automatically fol-

lowed. These meetings were held once a month following a midweek service.

Quarterly meeting. An area organization of two or more monthly meetings located

close enough to make it convenient for delegates and others to attend business sessions

every three months. Quarterly meetings often alternated among the monthly meetings

within the supervision of the quarterly meeting district. Quarterly meeting was usually

held on Sixth-Day and Seventh-Day.

Yearly meeting. Regional organization of several quarterly meetings, frequently

including all quarterly meetings located within a state. Also, the actual gathering held

annually for several days. The major legislative and administrative body, yearly meet-

ing was the authoritative interpreter of the discipline and the final court of appeal. De-

cisions of the yearly meeting were binding on all meetings within its jurisdiction. Each

yearly meeting was independent of all other yearly meetings.

Meeting for sufferings. Acted for yearly meeting when it was not in session; heard

accounts of suffering and extended assistance to members under suffering for their be-

liefs and to those in need.

MINISTERS-Ministers were those who felt the call to preach and were recognized (or "re-

corded") as possessing a spiritual gift by the meeting to which they belonged. Recorded

ministers had the same rights as ordained ministers in other denominations. After the

Civil War, considerable variation developed in regard to pastoral functions but min-

isters are still "recorded," not ordained.

BOOK OF DISCIPLINE--Each yearly meeting prepared and adopted its own book of dis-

cipline for the regulation of its meetings and members. A yearly meeting could change

its discipline at any given year. Ohio Yearly Meeting adopted its first discipline in 1819.

CONCERN--A matter about which one felt so deeply that he was moved, sometimes almost

against his will, to do something about the issue.

DESIGNATIONS OF TIME--Days of the week and months were designated numerically, as

First-Day for Sunday and First Month for January.

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