An introduction to the history of Friends(Quakers) in southwest Ohio.

1. THE QUAKERS IN SOUTHWEST OHIO A Pioneering Journey of Faith & Moral P rinciple Against Slavery by Karen S. Campbell, Genealogy Librarian

2. “ For we cannot tarry here, We must march, my darlings. We must bear the brunt of danger, We, the youthful, sinewy races. All the rest of us depend. Pioneers, O Pioneers! We, primeval forests felling, We, the rivers stemming. Vexing we and pressing Deep the mine within. We, the surface broad surveying, We, the virgin soil up heaving. Pioneers, O Pioneers! ~~Walt Whitman

3. Around 1750 , members of the Society of Friends began to migrate from the costal areas of America in large groups, first to the south (Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee). Friends generally avoided the Northwest Territory because they believed the real owners of the land were the Native Americans and because of the almost continual warfare between the French and British and then the newly founded United States and Britain. Where ever Friends traveled and settled they took their peculiar ways with them. A Quaker woman minister stands and preaches in meeting for worship.

4. Eventually, when the Indian Wars in Ohio and Indiana ended and with the establishment of the Northwest Territory Ordinance in 1787, Friends began to migrate to the Northwest Territory . They migrated out of their opposition to the institution of slavery in the south and, also, out of their fear of a slave insurrection. The migration of Friends into the Ohio territory is a remarkable story about the strength of moral convictions. This is an example of a mass migration undertaken not because of persecution but because of the conviction that slavery was wrong.

5. Quaker scholar Howard Brinton in Friends for Three Hundred Years said, “ Almost all the Quakers left Georgia and South Carolina. Great numbers left North Carolina and Virginia was so depleted that the Virginia Yearly Meeting was laid down after it had existed for almost a century and a half ”.

6. In the 1740s ~ Friend John Woolman (1720-1772), a recorded minister by the Burlington, N.J. Monthly Meeting, began his ministry and his many journeys to encourage Friends to reject human slavery 120 years before the Emancipation Proclamation . His ministry was the catalysis that eventually initiated the Quaker migration in protest of slavery from the south into the Northwest Territory. The Journal of John Woolman is considered a great Spiritual classic.

8. Another Friend, who was a traveling minister and felt compelled to preach against the crime of slavery, was Zechariah Dix [Dicks] (1735-1812). He warned Friends in the south of a terrible internecine war which would descend upon America because of the immoral scourge of slavery. He predicted that the war would be in the lifetime of their children. And so, it was ~ The Civil War . Zechariah traveled as far south as Wrightsboro, Georgia with his message. Between 1800 and 1808, thousands of Quakers migrated from Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia into the Northwest Territory. By 1809 almost all had moved to the Northwest Territory. From 1784 to 1804 Zechariah Dix visited Europe. He eventually moved to Indiana and died there.

10. Structure of The Society of Friends ~ Circles within Circles Yearly Meeting ~ Yearly Meetings are times (once a year, usually a week long) for Friends from a wide geographical area to gather to worship, to discuss concerns, and to seek God's guidance on issues. Yearly Meetings also oversee the constituent meetings, and publish the guiding principles, organizational processes and collected expressions of faith of Friends in that geographical area. These publications are often called “ Disciplines.” Quarterly Meeting ~Several local monthly meetings compose a quarterly meeting (which meets four times a year), to which they forward general reports of their condition, and at which appeals are heard from their decisions. Monthly Meeting ~ A series of monthly meetings, or congregations, that make up a circuit of meetings for worship, which then belong to and send representatives to Quarterly Meeting and then the Quarterly Meetings attend the Yearly Meeting by sending representatives. The basic block of Quaker polity is the Monthly Meeting.

12. In 1775 , t wenty years before Mad Anthony Wayne’s Treaty with the Indians at Greenville, Friend Thomas Beals , accompanied by his nephew Bowater Sumner , William Hiatt and David Ballard , decided to visit the Delaware Indians and some other tribes in the Ohio territory. While traveling through Virginia, they were arrested and charged with collaborating with hostile Indians. Thomas Beals thought it was the right time to hold a meeting for worship with the soldiers. After the meeting, the Friends were treated with kindness and told that they were at liberty to continue. They crossed the Ohio River into what is now the State of Ohio; held many meetings with the Indians and returned home safely. He told his friends that he saw with his spiritual eye that one day there would be a greater gathering of Friends there than any other place in the world. Twenty-four years after his first visit, Thomas Beals and his family and a company of Friends moved to Quaker Bottoms, from Blue Stone, Virginia. and in the spring of 1801 he and his family and friends settled on Salt Creek, near the present site of the village of Adelphi, Ohio. He died on August 28th of the same year at the age of 82 years. His widow, Sarah , died July 7, 1813, at the age of 89, at Fairfield, Highland Co., Ohio.

13. Mad Anthony Wayne, a Revolutionary War hero, defeated the Shawnee at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 along the Maumee River near present day Maumee, Ohio. Southern Ohio is opened up for white settlement

14. Thomas Beals was right. Between the time of the founding of Waynesville, Ohio in 1797 and 1800, the settlement of Friends became concentrated in three areas in Ohio Area of Chillicothe and Quaker Bottom. Area of what would become Montgomery, Miami, Warren and Clinton Counties, Ohio In what would become Jefferson and Belmont Counties in Ohio

15. Ohio and Indiana were mostly vast forests at the turn of the 19 th century. 1797 ~ Waynesville , named in honor of General Mad Anthony Wayne who defeated the Shawnee, is founded by Englishman Samuel Heighway from Shropshire, England. 1798 ~ A bijah O’Neall and his brother-in-law , Samuel Kelly set out from Bush River, South Carolina, to scout for land in the Ohio territory northeast of Cincinnati along the Little Miami River . They returned with a glowing report of the richness of the land. O’Neall eventually bought 3,100 ¾ acres on the east side of the Little Miami River , north of Caesars Creek, east of the tiny hamlet of Waynesville which, at that time, had only had seven residents. The Mary L. Cook Public Library

16. Surnames association with Bush River Meeting are: Jacob CHANDLER , Samuel CHAPAMAN , Eli COOK , Isaac COOK , William COOPER , Enos ELLEMAN , Moses EMBREE , Robert EVANS , Armil FINCHER , Nathan HAWKINS , James HAWORTH , Richard HENDERSON , Elias HOLLINGSWORTH , William HOLLINGSWORTH , Isaac HOLLINGSWORTH , John JONES , Robert MERRICK , Henry MILLHOUSE , David MOTE , David MOTE , Jr., William NEAL , John NELSON , Samuel NELSON , Enoch PEARSON , Samuel PEARSON , William PEMBERTON , Peter RUBLE , David SMITH , Henry STEDHAM , Jonathon TAYLOR , William WRIGHT . Bush River Meeting was located in Newberry County, in the west-central part of South Carolina. The Meetinghouse no longer stands but the cemetery is still there. It is located south of the town of Newberry on Dennis Dairy Road near the fork of Bush River and Scott Creek.

17. It was at the Bush River Monthly Meeting that Zechariah Dix delivered a memorable sermon: O Bush River! Purge thyself. Young men, young women, to you I appeal. The great northwest territory lies over the mountains beyond the Ohio River. It is a wild forest. It is a wilderness. From the wigwams of the savage the smoke still ascends through he boughs of the trees, but it is a fertile land. It is a land forever dedicated to human freedom. There you can make productive fields. There you can make friends with the Red Man. To you I appeal, flee to that land. Shake the dust of human bondage from your feet for your own sake and for the sake of your children’s children. This system of human slavery will fall. The cup of its iniquity is well-nigh filled. Go to the Northwest Territory! Look not behind you into this Sodom of human slavery, for the fires of Heaven shall descend upon it and the wrath of the Almighty shall consume it. O Bush River, thy beauty has faded away! Thy light has gone out, and in a few years this Meeting house shall be naught but the home of the bats and the owls . . .

18. On 11 th mo. 20 th , 1799 the families of Robert Kelly , Abijah O’Neall , Jesse and David Pugh , Isaac Perkins , and James Mills from Bush River MM settled near the site of Waynesville. The discernment process of realizing the evils of slavery for both the black slave and the white owner was a long one. Agreement, even among Quakers, was not immediate or universal. Many Quakers in the South were slave owners although noted to be kind ones. The story of Abijah O’Neall illustrates this complicated reality.

19. Ella Keys of Waynesville, Ohio during the 1903 Bicentennial Celebration of the founding of Miami Monthly Meeting gave the following address which gives us an idea of what kind of man Abijah O’Neall (January 21 st , 1762~May 11 th , 1823) was: Both the Orthodox and Hicksite Friends gather to celebrate the founding of Miami Monthly Meeting . They are standing in front of the 1811 White Brick Friends Meetinghouse which was retained by the Hicksite Quakers after the “ Hicksite Separation .”

20. Abijah O’Neall was born near Winchester, VA., Jan 21, 1762. When seventeen year old he removed to South Carolina and settled on Bush River, now Newberry district, where the family passed through the bloody scenes of the Revolution, many times suffering alike from both Whig and Tory. Only his religious faith and strong parental control kept young O’Neall a passive non-combatant, but he was not exempt from brutal outrage. In January 1781, when Col. Tarleton was moving against the Patriotic forces, which resulted in the Battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781, the British forces were encamped on the O’Neall lands, and Abijah was taken before a number of English officer, who demanded information as to the position and number of Morgan's army, but he would not give it. When the officers found they could not get by threats or persuasion the desired information, they assaulted him with their swords until this scalp hung in tatters from his head and he was left but little better than dead. In an insensible condition he was carried to the home of John Kelly, whose daughter, Anna, proved the good angel who nursed him back to life and eventually into health, and whom he rewarded by a lifetime of love and devotion, their marriage being solemnized according to the rites of Friends in Bush River Meeting, Dec. 19, 1784.

21. Ann Kelly O’Neall inherited many slaves but both she and Abijah were opposed to slavery. They wanted to free their slaves and move to the Northwest Territory. However, they encountered opposition even from Friends: In the late summer all arrangements being completed, Abijah went before Bush River Monthly Meeting of which he was member and asked for a certificate of membership. After due deliberation the membership committee declined to grant the request and gave as a reason for so doing, “The expressed desire was not that of a sane man. The desire to take his family from their home and friends into the wilderness was so unreasonable as to show of itself an unbalanced mind and the request could not be granted.” Abijah denounced them in no measured terms as being hypocritical. That the stain of human blood was on their souls, that the Almighty would visit them with swift and sure punishment for their hypocrisy, that their meeting would be scattered to the four winds, that the members would seek an asylum elsewhere and their land be left as desolate as the plains of Arabia was a prediction which was fulfilled. A good biography of Abijah O’Neall can be found on: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~joneall/famhisty/aoneall_lifetimes.html

22. The journey took 42 days. They traveled from Newberry by way of Greenville, through Saluda Gap to Ashville, North Carolina, along the French Broad River, past Bald Mountain, to Greenville, Tenn., via Cumberland Gap, Lexington, Ky., Cincinnati, and Lebanon to Waynesville.

23. On 4 th mo. 25 th 1800 David Faulkner and David Painter arrive from Hopewell MM , Frederic Co., Va. in Waynesville. In the same year came George Haworth , David Holloway and Rowland Richards . During this same year, Joseph Cloud , a Quaker minister from Cane Creek MM , North Carolina, came and held several meetings among them. He would later settle in Waynesville. On 4 th mo. 26 th 1801 twelve families of Friends, 4 parents and 47 children, met in meeting for worship held in the house of Rowland Richards . This was the first meeting that would become Miami Monthly Meeting in Waynesville, Ohio. The home of Rowland and Lydia Richards was on what became the Haines property ( Noah and Seth Silver Haines ) on Third Street in Waynesville.

24. In 1802 Rowland Richards opens a school in his home in Waynesville. Eventually the school would move to the square log cabin meetinghouse on Quaker Hill and then in 1811 to a white brick structure built by Miami Monthly Meeting . In 1803 Miami Monthly Meeting of The Society of Friends is set up in Waynesville, Ohio, October 13, 1803, meeting on First Day and on Fourth Day. It embraced all territory north of the Ohio River and west of Hockhocking. The meeting first met in the log cabin home of Ezekiel Cleaver but then they build a 40-foot square log cabin to be the first meetinghouse and schoolhouse on Quaker Hill . It was located where the Red Brick meetinghouse now stands. Clarkson Butterworth believed that there were two log cabin meetinghouses on this same spot during the years before the White Brick Meetinghouse was built. Miami Monthly Meeting was the first Monthly Meeting of Friends in the Northwest Territory . Rufus Jones in Later Periods of Quakerism said, “ The Miami Monthly Meeting became the Mecca of the Quaker migration ”.

25. From the initial settlement till 1811 there was phenomenal growth in the area. Miami Monthly Meeting was the mother of 220 Indulged Meetings, Meetings for Worship and Preparative Meetings. For example: 1804 ~ Indulged Meeting for Worship established by Miami Monthly Meeting for the Friends on Lee’s and Hardin’s Creek ( Fairfield ), in Highland County, near the present Leesburg. Granted on 5 mo. 10 th , 1804. 1804 ~ On 3rd Mo. 20th 1804 Short Creek Monthly Meeting opens in eastern Ohio, Jefferson County. 1805 ~ Indulged Meeting for Worship established by Miami Monthly Meeting for Friends on Toddsfork ( Springfield ) on 4 th mo 11 th , 1805 in present Clinton County, Ohio. 1805 ~ Elk Creek and West Branch Meeting first open, Indulged Meetings of Miami Monthly Meeting in Waynesville ( Elk Creek in West Elkton, Preble Co., Ohio and West Branch in West Milton, Ohio). Elk would become its own Monthly Meeting in 1809. West Branch would become its own Monthly Meeting in 1806. West Branch MM would embrace all territory west of the Great Miami River except the settlement at Elk . 1805 ~ Indulged Meeting for Worship established by Miami Monthly Meeting for Friends on Caesars Creek on 10 th mo. 10 th 1805. It was located 7 miles northeast of Waynesville. 1806 ~ Ohio Friends petitioned the Baltimore Yearly Meeting to organize a quarterly meeting in Ohio. As a result, the monthly meetings at Concord , Short Creek , and Miami were authorized to form a quarterly meeting, which was called the Short Creek Quarterly Meeting . 1806 ~ Clear Creek Indulged Meeting of Miami Monthly Meeting opened in 8 th mo. of 1806 near Samantha, Ohio (Highland Co.). Turtle Creek Indulged Meeting of Miami Monthly Meeting opened in 5 th mo.8 th 1806. It was located 5 miles southwest of Waynesville. Fall Creek Indulged Meeting of Miami Monthly Meeting opened 9 th mo 11 th , 1806 (Highland Co.), near Rainsboro. Union Indulged Meeting of Miami Monthly Meeting opened 11 th mo. 2 nd 1806 near Ludlow Falls on the west side of Stillwater (Miami County). 1807 ~ Center MM and Fairfield MM opened. 1808 ~ Darby Creek Meeting for Worship opened. 1809 ~ Miami Quarterly Meeting established at Waynesville, Ohio. On 5 th mo. 13 th 1809 representatives from Miami , West Branch , Fairfield and Center Monthly Meetings attended Miami Quarterly Meeting in Waynesville. 1810 ~ Friends living on the west side of the Great Miami River request their own Quarterly Meeting. The new Quarterly Meeting is West Branch Quarterly Meeting . It is made up of West Branch , Whitewater , and Elk Monthly Meetings. Caesar's Creek Monthly Meeting is established.

30. In 1811 a new “White Brick” meetinghouse is built in Waynesville which will be used by Miami Monthly Meeting and will be used for the gathering of Miami Quarterly Meeting for business. A white brick schoolhouse is also built near the new meetinghouse. The old log cabin meetinghouse continues to stand until 1836.

31. The “ White Brick ” Meetinghouse is deceptively large. When a person looks up at it from 4 th Street, it doesn’t look like a large building with a balcony. Its construction is traditional with two separate doors, one for men and the other for women. The glass in the windows is clear. No stain-glass here! Up into the early 20 th century there were buggy barns behind the “ White Brick ” and also outhouses. All these are now gone.

32. The interior of the “ white brick ” is plain in the tradition of Quaker simplicity. The building is divided down the center by a wooden screen that can be raised by an apparatus in the attic. The meetinghouse was divided like this for men and women’s business meetings. Two views above are of the balcony and the lowered screen. The photo to the left shows the “ facing benches ” and clerks desk.

33. The Friends’ School was also built in 1811 and is still standing. It is now a private residence. Bricks for both the “ White Brick ” meetinghouse and the school were made on “ Quaker Hill ”. It was common for the local monthly meetinghouses to establish schools for their children. Everyone was welcome. Waynesville’s Friends School was well know and boarded students from all over the area.

34. The “ Red Brick ” Meetinghouse was built in 1836 on the site of the original 40 foot by 40 foot log cabin meetinghouse. The interior has been modified but the two doors for men and women can still be seen. In the foreground of this picture is the old Friends’ Graveyard.

35. FRIENDS’ GRAVEYARDS Hicksite Cemetery Orthodox Cemetery The Quaker graveyard (actually three graveyards over the years) on Quaker Hill in Waynesville began to be used in 1802 by Friends and the larger community. The first was located where the Orthodox Friends had their burials. Waynesville Friends established another public cemetery (Pottersfield) on their land in 1820 but after one of the bodies was stolen, use of it declined. In 1831, the Hicksite Quakers fenced off the present graveyard. To the left is a 1875 map of Waynesville showing Quaker hill and the three above mentioned cemeteries ( Combination Atlas Map of Warren County, Ohio by L. H. Everts, 1875).

36. The “ Red Brick ” Meetinghouse was built by “ Orthodox ” Quakers. 1827-1828 ~ The Hicksite Separation was the first serious schism experienced within The Society of Friends . Most Friends fell into two groups in the United States although the schism was not universal: The Hicksites (followers of Elias Hicks (1748-1830), who advocated a return to traditional practices and testimonies, i.e. silent meeting) and the Orthodox (advocates of a more structured worship and evangelical in their approach to scripture and theology). Five Yearly Meetings: Philadelphia, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Baltimore were divided. There were no separations in New England, North Carolina, or Virginia yearly meetings. This schism was severe and heart felt. Both sides disowned the other and argued over the ownership of meetinghouse property and proprietorship over meeting records. Many Quaker communities ended up with two separate meetinghouses, one for the Orthodox group and one for other Hicksite group. The Hicksites would not experience another schism. However, the Orthodox would in the future. On September 24, 1828, Elias Hicks visited Miami Monthly Meeting in Waynesville. Friends of Orthodox beliefs met in member’s homes for a while and then settled in the old 40 foot log cabin meetinghouse. Waynesville Hicksites retained the 1811 White Brick Meetinghouse. In 1836, the Orthodox of Waynesville would build the Red Brick Meetinghouse where the old log cabin had once stood.

37. The great tragedy of the Hicksite Separation (also known as the Hicksite Schism ) was that the unity of the meeting was broken. Friends from all over the southeast and from the mid-Atlantic states had migrated to Waynesville to settle and had forged together in the wilderness a unified meeting. It was an important achievement of these early pioneers. That spiritual unity of the Quaker Pioneers was lost in 1828 due to internal issues among Friends. The Hicksite Schism focused on the divide between the “ Liberals ” (Hicksites) and the “ Evangelicals ” (Orthodox) within Quakerism. However, the most divisive issue among Friends was “ ironically ” over the abolition of slavery. Friends could eradicate slavery among themselves but were quite divided on how to encourage the rest of the world to get rid of this horrible evil.

38. HICKS, ELIAS (1748-1830), American Quaker, was born in Hempstead township, Long Island, on the 19th of March 1748. His parents were Friends, but he took little interest in religion until he was about twenty; soon after that time he gave up the carpenters trade, to which he had been apprenticed when seventeen, and became a farmer. By 1775 he had openings leading to the ministry and was deeply engaged for the right administration of discipline and order in the church, and in 1779 he first set out on his itinerant preaching tours between Vermont and Maryland. He attacked slavery, even when preaching in Maryland; wrote Observations on the Slavery of the Africans and their Descendants (1811); and was influential in procuring the passage (in 1817) of the act declaring free after 1827 all Negroes born in New York and not freed by the Act of 1799. He died at Jericho, Long Island, on the 27th of February 1830. His preaching was practical rather than doctrinal and he was heartily opposed to any set creed; hence his successful opposition at the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of 1817 to the proposed creed which would make the Society in America approach the position of the English Friends by defining doctrinal statements. His Doctrinal Epistle stated his position, and a break ensued in 1827-1828, Hicks’ followers, who call themselves the Liberal Branch, being called Hicksites by the Orthodox party, which they for a time outnumbered. The village of Hicksville, in Nassau County, New York, 15 m. E. of Jamaica, lies in the center of the Quaker district of Long Island and was named in honor of Elias Hicks .

39. The “ genealogy ” of Quaker Yearly Meetings.

41. As the pioneer Friends moved west into the Northwest Territory, their meetings were established through Redstone Quarterly Meeting in Brownsville, Fayette Co., in southwestern Pennsylvania, which was one of the Quarterly Meetings of Baltimore Yearly Meeting . Baltimore Yearly Meeting had been founded in 1672, one of the earliest Yearly Meetings in America. In 1813, because of the increasingly large settlement of Quakers in Ohio, Ohio Yearly Meeting was established by Baltimore Yearly Meeting and this new Yearly Meeting had jurisdiction over the meetings in Ohio, western Pennsylvania and Indiana. In 1814 the Ohio Yearly Meetinghouse was built in Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, Jefferson County. It was the first yearly meetinghouse built west of the Alleghenies. It has the seating capacity of 2000 people. It has a balcony and the building can be divided by a huge wooden screen into two equal sections for men and women’s business meetings. The 1814 Ohio Yearly Meetinghouse is now a historical site administered by the Ohio Historical Society .

42. In 1821 Indiana Yearly Meeting was set off from Ohio Yearly Meeting and then in 1828 Indiana Yearly Meeting also divided into Orthodox and Hicksite branches. Ohio Yearly Meeting east of Scioto River Indiana Yearly Meeting west of Scioto River and points west.

43. (left) The Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends ( Orthodox ) by Quaker artist Marcus Mote, 1844. (right) The Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends ( Hicksite ). Now the Wayne County, Indiana Historical Society Museum . Richmond, Indiana

44. TWO MORE SCHISMS AFTER THE 1828 “ HICKSITE SEPARATION ” MAKE THINGS GOOD AND COMPLICATED! The Orthodox Quaker experienced the Gurneyite ~ Wilburite Schism in 1838. Joseph John Gurney (left) The Gurneyites , named after Quaker Recorded Minister Joseph John Gurney of England, wanted meetings to have an educated pastor (un-ordained), a worship service (programmed meeting), and a Biblical orientation. Gurney was an abolitionist and campaigned against slavery during trips to North America and the West Indies from 1837-1840. While he was preaching in the United States he caused a controversy that resulted in a schism among Orthodox Quakers. Gurney felt that Friends had so thoroughly accepted the ideas of “ the inner Light and of Christ ” as the Word of God that they no longer had any regard for the actual text of the Bible and had placed the historical Christ second in importance to “ the Inner Light of Christ .” He also stressed the traditional Protestant belief that salvation is through faith in Christ. Those who sided with him were called Gurneyite Quakers.

45. The Wilburites (Orthodox Conservatives) were traditionalists who were devoted to individual spiritual inspiration ( the inner Christ ) and practiced silent meeting for worship (unprogrammed worship) without a trained ministry. They also retained the traditional Quaker speech and dress.

46. Before the “ Hicksite Separation ” in 1828, The Society of Friends had lived through a one-hundred year period known as the “ Quietist Era ” in Quaker history. They had withdrawn from Williams Penn’s great utopian experiment of Pennsylvania and did not involve themselves anymore in politics or social movements. Part of the “ Hicksite Separation ” conflict at the end of the “ Quietist ” era was over how to re-engage with the larger society and why. None-the-less, both the Orthodox Friends and the Hicksite Friends were still, during the antebellum period before the Civil War , rather sectarian in that they thought of themselves as people separate from the world. Both groups build “ a hedge ” around their communities and around their schools to protect their children and members from too much experience in the world. They did not want their members belonging to social groups or benevolent societies started by other religious or secular groups.

48. THE SCHISMS OVER ANTI-SLAVERY & ABOLITION 1842 ~ The Indiana Yearly Meeting of Anti-Slavery Friends is a small group of radical Orthodox Quakers that “ came out of ” Indiana Yearly Meeting Orthodox in 1842 to be more active in the abolitionist cause. Like other “ come-outers ” in other churches, they want to challenge the American religious establishment (their own religious affiliation and others) in the North to join together and actively work against slavery. Two of the leaders of this group were the famous Levi Coffin of Underground Railroad fame and a local traveling Orthodox Quaker minister in the Indiana and Ohio area that preached for immediate emancipation was “ Public Friend ” Charles Osborn. He is known to have preached throughout Indiana and Ohio. Osborn would later “ come out ” of Indiana Yearly Meeting ( orthodox ) and would help to found the more radical Anti-Slavery Friends with Levi Coffin.

49. 1848 ~ Thomas and Mary Ann McClintock along with 200 other liberal Hicksite Friends break off, or “ come out ,” of Junius Monthly Meeting of Hicksite Friends to be able to further their social justice activities. They participate in the establishment of the ultra-liberal Congregational or Progressive Friends , which happened just before the first Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls. Thomas McClintock authors their “ Basis of Association ” which encourages churches to become “ free churches ”, a “ true public ” forum where the inalienable co-equal rights of men and women are recognized as well as freedom for slaves. Mary McClintock is one of the daughters of Mary Ann and Thomas McClintock. This family, as well as many other Progressive Friends, were quite involved in the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York.

50. The great Quaker woman minister Lucretia Mott was at once a Hicksite Quaker and also a member of the Progressive Friends. The Hicksites tried many times to “ disown ” her because of her work in abolition of slavery and also in women’s rights. They did not object to the moral values she was fighting for (which were rooted in the Quaker Testimony of Equality ) but to her association with non-Quakers. She proudly proclaimed: I have no idea, because I am a non-resistant, of submitting tamely to injustice inflicted either on me or on the slave. I will oppose it with all the moral powers with which I am endowed. I am no advocate of passivity. Quakerism, as I understand it, does not mean quietism. The early Friends were agitators; disturbers of the peace; and were more obnoxious in their day to charges, which are now so freely made, than we are. ~~Lucretia Mott (Remarks delivered at the 24th annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, October 25-26, 1860)

51. EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF QUAKERS IN SOUHWEST OHIO Orthodox Quaker Anti-Slavery Activity: “ This Friend, wife of the late Dr. ( Jesse ) Harvey and daughter of Bettie Hendricks and Thomas Burgess , is now living in this city ( Indianapolis ), in the 85th year of her age. The years of her early married life were devoted to teaching the neglected races, Indians as well as Negroes. She, with other Friends, did much to modify the felling of prejudice against the colored people in the village of Harveysburg .” ~~ Jane F. ( Wales ) Nicholson ~~“ Memories of Long Ago ” by Jane F. ( Wales ) Nicholson (Originally published in the Western Star , Lebanon, Ohio in the December issues of 1885 and published again in the Miami~Gazette , Waynesville, Ohio ca. 1905), p. 20. Elizabeth Burgess Harvey

52. Orthodox Quaker Elizabeth Burgess Harvey founded what is thought to be the first black school in Ohio around 1831 according to Beer’s 1882 History of Warren County, Ohio , p. 653. She is also mentioned in the book Ohio Builds A Nation by Samuel Hardin Stille: “ The first free Negro school in Ohio devoted to the education of the unfortunate people was opened in Harveysburg, over thirty years before the Civil War. The school was open and conducted by Elizabeth Harvey. She was the first woman to devote her life to the advancement and education of the Negro race. Her name should be entered on the roll of honor of those noble people who gave their lives to a great cause. ” Orindatus S. B. Wall Caroline “ Carrie ” Wall

53. THE BLACK SCHOOL IN HARVEYSBURG TODAY A Museum preserved by the Harveysburg Historical Society

54. JOHN MERCER LANGSTON MENTIONS HARVEYSBURG, OHIO IN HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY: From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol pp. 141-142

56. GREEN PLAIN PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS, OAKLAND, OHIO & THE GARRISONIAN QUAKERS From 1827 on the Hicksite Quakers worshiped in this Green Plain meetinghouse (left) till the year 1848, when on account of agitation over slavery, a schism among Friends took place. A part of the (Hicksite) society held extreme anti-slavery views, the other part was conservative; hence the separation. The extremists (known as Progressives or Congregationalists) held the meetinghouse for several years, but then they became extinct during the Civil War , partly by their members re-joining with one of the other branches of the original society (either the Orthodox or the Hicksite), or by joining other Christian denominations. Selma, Ohio was a well known stop on the Underground Railroad due to the activities of the Progressive Friends and the radical Methodists who lived in the area. Above: Green Plain Monthly Meeting , Selma, Clark County, Ohio, the Hicksite meetinghouse, which was also used by the Progressive Friends after 1848.

57. The small village of Oakland in Chester Township, Clinton Co., Ohio, and the immediate area around it was where two major lines of the Underground Railroad , one from Ripley, the other from Cincinnati, converged. Oakland was the center of dedicated Garrisonian abolitionists. Nearby Harveysburg had a few Garrisonians and radicals as well as Orthodox and Hicksite Quakers. Most of the Friends in Oakland joined the Progressive/Congregational Friends. Those who were involved and worked together through Oakland were Abram Allen , David Allen , Seth Linton , Nathan Linton , Dr. Abram Brooke , Samuel Brooke , William Brooke , James Brooke , Perry Dakin , Dr. G. F. Birdsall , John L. Thompson , Joel P. Davis , the Wickersham family, the Potts family, Wright Haynes and Edmund and Matilda ( Ballard ) Kinsey . Left: Location of Dr. Abram Brooke’s farm in Oakland, Ohio

58. 1843 was the year of the Hundred Conferences, which were held throughout the western part of the nation under the auspices of The New England Anti-Slavery Society . One of the places where an anti-slavery convention was held was Oakland on the property of Dr. Abram Brooke (see previous slide). On his property he had built a large shed or barn, named Liberty Hall , which was used by the abolitionists during these kinds of occasions. One famous speaker in 1843 was Frederick Douglas who remembered the convention at Oakland in his Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time (Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., 1881), P. 233: “ This was held under a great shed, built by the abolitionists, of whom Dr. Abram Brook and Valentine Nicholson were the most noted, for this special purpose. Thousands gathered here and were addressed by Bradburn , White , Monroe , Remond , Gay , and myself. The influence of this meeting was deep and wide-spread .”

59. VALENTINE AND JANE WALES NICHOLSON OF HARVEYSBURG Valentine Nicholson and his wife Jane were Hicksite Quakers and abolitionists, who “ came out of ” the Hicksites and became Progressive/ Congregational Friends . They were, like most Progressive Friends, members of the American Anti-Slavery Association and followers of William Lloyd Garrison . They lived in the valley below Harveysburg and were extremely active Underground Railroad conductors for over twenty years.

60. Valentine Nicholson and his Progressive Friends were determined to integrate the Harveysburg Academy, which had been founded by Dr. Jesse Harvey . After Dr. Harvey and family moved to Kansas Territory to be the superintendent and matron of the Quaker Shawnee Mission and School in 1848, a new Harveysburg Academy was built at the opposite end of town from the original. It was the intention of the founders that this second Academy be fully integrated. However, a severe controversy arose when a young mulatto lady, Margaret Campbell , tried to enter the school. She was rejected by the principal and efforts were even made to keep her from entering the Waynesville Academy which had indicated that it would accept her. According to a very indignant Valentine Nicholson , it was an Orthodox Friend of Waynesville that objected to her entry. The black community in and around Harveysburg was very angry. The earlier history of Harveysburg, when the Wall children had been accepted as equals into the community, had been one of liberality and acceptance. Now due to this controversy, that amiable atmosphere was harmed. Ultimately, the new Harveysburg Academy was eventually integrated but unfortunately, it only survived up until 1853. Elizabeth Harvey ’s black elementary school survived and functioned as a school up until the early 20th century.

61. When the Civil War came, the Anti-Slavery Friends and the Orthodox Quakers reunited as one yearly meeting. When the Civil War came, the Progressive/Congregational Friends and the Hicksite Quakers reunited as one yearly meeting. They were able to reunite so easily primarily because the more conservative Orthodox and Hicksite Friends had grown into the same positions concerning the slavery issue as their more radical counterparts. Now the issue would be one of how to witness to the Peace Testimony during war. But as with all the Quaker Testimonies , the work is never done.