A Vivifying Spirit: Quaker Practice and Reform in Antebellum America 9780271094182

Citation preview

A V i v i fy in g S pi ri t

A Vivifying Spirit Quaker Practice and Reform in Antebellum America

Janet Moore Lindman

T he Penns y lva nia Stat e U niversit y Pre ss U niver s it y Park , Penns ylvania

Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Lindman, Janet Moore, author. Title: A vivifying spirit : Quaker practice and reform in antebellum America / Janet Moore Lindman. Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “Explores changes in American Quakerism in the antebellum period, with particular attention to the beliefs and practices of Quakers in Pennsylvania’s Delaware Valley”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021062432 | ISBN 9780271092652 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Society of Friends—United States—History—19th century. | Quakers— United States—History—19th century. | Spirituality—Society of Friends—History— 19th century. | Church renewal—Society of Friends—History—19th century. Classification: LCC BX7637 .L56 2022 | DDC 289.6—dc23/eng/20220128 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov /2021062432

Copyright © 2022 Janet Moore Lindman All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802–1003 The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-­free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.

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contents

List of Illustrations | ix Acknowledgments | x List of Abbreviations | xii Author’s Note: Dating System of the Religious Society of Friends | xiv Introduction: Practical Friends  |  1 Part 1  Seed Time 1

“Inward and Outward Consolation”: Quaker Piety  |  17

2 “To Cultivate Tender Minds”: Educating Children  |  40 3

“The Solemn Close”: Rituals of Death  |  62

Part 2  Fruitless Exercise and Distress 4 “A Dividing and Separating Spirit”: The Hicksite Schism  |  85 5

“Contentions, Divisions, and Subdivisions”: Gurneyites v. Wilburites | 107

6 “Practical Righteousness”: Reforming Friends  |  128 Part 3  A Work of Redemption 7 “In the Advancement of Piety”: Quaker Manuscript and Print Culture  |  155

8 “Tokens of Remembrance”: Friends, Memory, and History | 177 Conclusion: American Quakerisms  |  197 Notes | 205 Bibliography | 231 Index | 249

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Contents

Illustrations

1.

George Dillwyn, A Map of the Various Paths of Life, 1794 | 2

2. Lucretia Mott, Anna Davis Hallowell, Maria Mott Davis, and Maria Hallowell, ca. 1878  |  29 3. Cherry Street meetinghouse, ca. 1829  |  35 4. “An Orthodox Quarterly Meeting,” 1828  |  93 5. Journal of Joseph Brinton, 1850  |  125 6. Progressive Friends meetinghouse, Longwood, PA, 1853  |  146

Acknowledgments

My scholarly interest in Quakers began when I read Anne Emlen’s “Notes on Religion” at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania almost twenty years ago. I found Emlen’s immersive narrative striking in its exhaustive focus on spiritual contemplation. Her worldview was saturated with religious precepts and actions as she strove to live a godly life drawn from Quaker, biblical, and literary sources. Emlen’s spiritual practice was evident throughout her notebooks, which served as a form of meditation: her need to observe “the waiting silence of the day,” being led by God’s spirit, and the dangers of a prescribed piety. While she used typical Quaker phraseology, she also invoked religious tropes employed by evangelical Protestants: “greatly am I exercised in mind, on beholding the dangerous path of my walking. Grant me patience dearest Lord in every conflict and probation.”1 This commingling of traditions raises questions about how Friends navigated the early nineteenth century as religious freedom, democratic politics, and market economics transformed the early republic. My foray into Quaker history could not have occurred without the assistance of many librarians and archivists. The Philadelphia region has a wide range of archives, libraries, and historical societies that contain a wealth of documents on Quaker history. I want to thank the employees of all these institutions for their assistance in locating source materials: the American Philosophical Society, the Delaware Historical Society, Special Collections at the University of Delaware Library, the Chester County History Center, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Research Library at the Mercer Museum, and the University Archives at

Rowan University. I especially wish to thank the incredible staff at Quaker institutions, including the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College (Susanna Morikawa, Celia Caust-­Ellenbogen, and Pat O’Donnell), the Quaker Collection at Haverford College (Sarah Horowitz, Mary Crauderueff, and Ann Upton), and The Esther Duke Archives at Westtown School (Mary Brooks). Their knowledge, advice, and kindness made my journey into the Quaker past gratifying and enjoyable. I wish to thank my department colleagues for their insightful commentary on various parts of this manuscript. I am also grateful to fellow scholars, both old and new, who have nurtured and sustained my work (Dee Andrews, Rachel Batch, Jon Butler, Nikki Eustace, Susan Klepp, Ann Little, Joshua Piker, Dan Richter, Marion Roydhouse, and Michele Tarter) and shared my interest in religious history (Ann Braude, Catherine Brekus, John Fea, Katharine Gerbner, Thomas Hamm, Anna Lawrence, Erik Seeman, Edward Tebbenhoff, and Adrian Weimer). I especially want to thank Dee Andrews for reading the first draft, providing cogent comments, and suggesting the book title. I am indebted to the anonymous reviewers for their extensive knowledge of Quaker history. I thank my family and friends for tolerating my obsession with religion, even when they don’t quite understand it. Lastly, this book is dedicated to my hiking, biking and yoga buddy, domestic sidekick, and intellectual partner— Ed, “the superior husband.” Your constant love, encouragement, and goofiness are my refuge; in this time of darkness, you are my light. December 2020

Acknowledgments

xi

Abbreviations

Archives, Libraries, and Societies APS CCHC DHS EDA FHL HSP MML QC RUA SCUDL

American Philosophical Society Chester County History Center Delaware Historical Society Esther Duke Archives, Westtown School Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College Historical Society of Pennsylvania Research Library at the Mercer Museum and Fonthill Castle Quaker Collection, Haverford College Rowan University Archives Special Collections, University of Delaware Library

Other Abbreviations AEP AFP BFD BFHA BFHS BFP CBFC CEFP CH CWP EAS ECP

Anne Emlen Papers, HSP Allison Family Papers, QC Bringhurst Family Diaries, HSP Bulletin of Friends Historical Association Bulletin of Friends’ Historical Society Bettle Family Papers, QC Collection of Bringhurst Family Correspondence, FHL Cope-­Evans Family Papers, QC Church History Comly-­White Papers, FHL Early American Studies Ezekiel Cleaver Papers, FHL

EHMC EWSC FFP GMHC ITHP JAH JBFP JBL JER JFHS JIC JJH KFP LBFP NEYM OYM PMHB PYM QH QS RSCP SBHFP SC SCTHFP SECFP SFP SKFP SLFD TFP WMQ WSP

Elias Hicks Manuscript Collection, FHL Edward Wanton Smith Collection, QC Ferris Family Papers, FHL Gulielma M. Howland Collection, QC Isaac T. Hopper Papers, FHL Journal of American History Joseph Brinton Family Papers, FHL James Bringhurst Letterbooks, CBFC, FHL Journal of the Early Republic Journal of the Friends Historical Society Journal of Isaac Comly, CWP, FHL Journal of John Hunt, FHL Kite Family Papers, QC Lloyd Bailey Family Papers, QC New England Yearly Meeting Ohio Yearly Meeting Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Quaker History Quaker Studies Rebecca Singer Collins Papers, QC Shipley-­Bringhurst-­Hargraves Family Papers, SCUDL Small Collections, QC Sarah Cooper Tatum Hilles Family Papers, QC Stokes-­Evans-­Cope Family Papers, QC Sharpless Family Papers, QC Sharpless-­Kite Family Papers, QC Sarah Logan Fisher Diary, HSP Tallcott Family Papers, QC William and Mary Quarterly Westtown School Papers, CCHC

Abbreviations

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Author’s Note: Dating System of the Religious Society of Friends

The Quakers’ dedication to plainness extended to how they kept a calendar. Their dating system used numerals rather than names for days and months because they objected to their pagan origins. For this book, I have standardized all dates in the primary documents using the following format: 12 2mo., 1836, which translates to February 12, 1836.

Introduction Practical Friends

All true religion is directed to practical ends. —Joseph John Gurney

In 1794, George Dillwyn created A Map of the Various Paths of Life to outline the religious experience of Friends.1 This allegorical image envisioned a landscape of the spiritual dangers and comforts Quakers would encounter as they trod the road to righteousness. Accompanying the map was a letter, written by an anonymous parent to his or her children, requesting that they “attend to the sketch” lest they fail “by neglecting to take heed to their steps.” The letter outlined the inherent dangers that await young Friends. Starting out well at “the Love Learning Garden” did not preclude being distracted by “Novel Flower Bed,” which led to “Levity Walk” and “gay company” at “Vanity Fair.”2 Once past these temptations, children could easily reach “Knowledge Pastureland” and “Promotion Mount” but still make a stop at “Flatterer Haunt,” which would take them to the town of “Braggington.” Youth faced possible snares, such as “Perplexing Parish,” that could lead to “Decoy Theater” and “Spendthrift Ordinary,” which, in turn, segued into “Gamblers Hotel,” then on to “Losing Vale” and “Misery Square.” “To the great grief ” of parents and companions, these Friends might find themselves at “Conviction Court” and “Dungeon Bottom.” Even those who avoided these pitfalls still struggled to navigate this geography; Friends who were seen “at Merry Hall in the evening” could end up at “Sorrow Chamber in the morning.” To attain the “Temple of Honour” and arrive at “Happy Old Age Hall” required attendance at “noble-­deeds Plains” and frequent stops for “refreshment” at “Devotion Grove” (see fig. 1).3

Fig. 1 | George Dillwyn, A Map of the Various Paths of Life (London: W. Darnton & J. Harvey, 1794). Quaker Collection, Haverford College.

Dillwyn’s map provides entrée into the spiritual world of Friends during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. With these descriptive names, Dillwyn evoked the trials his fellow believers faced to attain the “Inward Light and Truth.”4 While Quakers could easily go the wrong way, there was always the prospect they would return to the right passage. This image substantiated 2

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the Quaker conception of religious faith as an unremitting, lifelong enterprise with ever-­present perils; they had to be vigilant in their attention and steadfast in their observance. Believers confronted a series of meandering pathways that they could follow to advance and retreat repeatedly before reaching their journey’s end. The map illustrated the means to attain a godly life, with specific reference to spiritual progress from birth to death. Furthermore, the letter foregrounds the parents’ importance in instructing their offspring in proper spiritual conduct. The map was used for the moral education of children. For example, Mary Drinker Cope asked her son, Francis, while he was at Westtown School, whether he studied his copy of the “[map of ] the paths of life and where they lead.”5 As a “cultural text” that can be “read,” A Map of the Various Paths of Life divulges the metanarrative embedded within it.6 The story it tells is one of danger and safety, risk and reward, worldly disorder and spiritual repose, as Friends traveled a terrain that could provide solace as well as engender sin. They could go down several avenues that led to trouble and discontent as well as consolation and peace. If Friends remained on the righteous way, they attained liberty, harmony, and succor; those who strayed encountered despair, disorder, and poverty. The hazardous ramble outlined in this image demonstrated the need for the pious to be ever watchful and to keep their convictions through the ordeals of an earthly life. The map outlines Quaker spiritual practice as a vigorous undertaking.7 Several Friends employed the metaphor of the path to depict their spiritual progress. English Quaker Sarah Tuke Grubb emulated Dillwyn’s vision to alert others to the difficulty of pursuing a righteous course: “But how apt are we to turn our feet from the path which is narrow; being unwilling to make straight steps, a thing most repugnant to our unregenerate wills! We therefore cull out every discouragement, and stumble at the smallest stone; each prospect appearing in its gloomiest colours, or rather, our eyes being dimmed by the glitter of worldly objects, and inexperienced in the joys accruing from faithfulness, we see them not.”8 Esther Tuke portrayed her spiritual trek as both “intricate & dangerous”; following the right path required “care & caution” to find safe passage. John Hunt worried that the “inward travel” necessary for true growth was difficult to achieve, while Susannah Judge equated her religious practice to a strenuous ordeal: “I am traversing a long and dreary wilderness, through repeated disobedience.”9 When Samuel Mifflin gave a benediction for the first time, he mentioned the ambulatory nature of Quaker spirituality: “O Lord, we pray thee, enable all those whom thou hast favoured to see the beauty of Introduction

3

thy paths, therein to walk with fear turning neither to the right hand nor to the left.” Thomas Evans educed the image of “the tribulated path” that Friends followed on the way to the “crown of eternal, holy life.”10 For Ann Jackson, “the narrow path is the path in which we must all tread.” John Comly employed similar language to describe the “dreary wilderness” the “Christian traveler” must pass through and “remember that his every sigh is numbered, and all his tears are treasured, and that however trials and afflictions may be permitted, as they are patiently endured they will end toward a furtherance in the great object of life.” This was a demanding task, for “strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leads to life eternal.”11 This map is important to the study of popular religion because it provides graphic evidence of Friends’ spirituality that—as inward, silent, and atomized—is not always readily discernible. The “various paths of life” reflect the spiritual geography that defined the Quaker community. They called one another “fellow travelers” on similar yet singular treks. Borders and boundaries were essential to their concept of religious connection. The word “hedge” separated Friends from the outside world. George Fox found this concept useful, particularly after the Restoration, when English Quakers faced increased persecution. Isaac Penington referred to the “holy hedge of his power and wall of salvation” that encompassed those with whom God had made a covenant; by remaining within the “holy limit” they would be set apart. As Pink Dandelion points out, “the hedge” had multiple meanings that changed over time. It connoted both a demarcation between Friends and the outside world and the division between the “pure” and “impure” in their own Society. This image of the hedge would prove meaningful in the first two centuries of Quaker existence, and the internal process of navigating a spiritual topography exemplified one of many religious customs utilized by American Friends.12 A Vivifying Spirit: Quaker Practice and Reform in Antebellum America examines the spirituality of American Friends during a period of dramatic development owing to internal and external forces: schism, industrialization, western migration, print culture, and reform activism. Quakers labored to preserve their religion amid rapid change.13 This book also investigates reform, both in terms of social activism and in the reformulation of Quakerism. American Friends modernized their religious society as they adapted to inward fracture and outward transformation. With a particular focus on the mid-­ Atlantic region, this monograph will explore how nineteenth-­century Quakers put spirituality into action—not only in the evolution of religious doctrine 4

A Vivifying Spirit

and practice but also in response to a mutable social and political context. Quaker piety comprised a range of activities that underwent change as well as continuity due to factionalism. Fed by growing materialism, doctrinal dispute, and class difference, an 1827 schism imposed creedalism upon a religious society that traditionally emphasized behavior over belief. Additional controversies broke out to further complicate matters. From the “Great Separation” of Hicksite and Orthodox Friends in the 1820s through divisions during the 1840s and 1850s, new forms of Quakerism developed—Gurneyite, Wilburite, and Progressive—to broaden their spiritual expression as well as renovate their religion. To trace the course American Friends followed during the antebellum era entails analysis of (1) how Quaker religious practice changed in the wake of schism; (2) how evangelicalism altered Quakerism by the mid-­nineteenth century; (3) how continued division reorganized Quakerism into multiple variants; and (4) how reform activism engendered further spiritual refinement. Exploring the increasing complexity of Quakerism during the mid-­nineteenth century will show that American Friends pursued a vital religiosity driven by deeply held convictions. For example, the decision to join progressive reform, or not, was predicated upon a faith that moved some to engage and others to retreat. Through the widespread influence of evangelical Protestantism, Friends reimagined their religious tradition and sectarian history at the same time they justified involvement in social reform; these changes revised and revived American Quakerism. This practical approach embodied spiritual ideals that modernized their denomination and aided their adaptation to and participation in a burgeoning American republic.14 The antebellum era was a transitional period for American Quakerism between the tribalism of the eighteenth century and the worldliness of the later nineteenth century. The historical experience of Friends epitomized the major political, cultural, and religious changes occurring within American society from 1780 to 1860. With the advent of voluntary associations, utopian societies, and new sects, along with an explosion in print culture, a growing transportation sector, and expansion in the market economy, American society was progressing and diversifying. This rapidly changing environment reflected the convulsive nature of the Quaker community—from schism and division to nonresistance and “come-­outerism”—and the larger culture. Though Friends remained distinct, the same social, cultural, and economic developments that affected other Protestants also impacted American Quakers in profound ways.15 Introduction

5

Practical Religion Practical religion was a common trope of early modern religious writing, and the phrase “practical Christianity” was utilized in many religious tomes. This topic was popular with Protestants of all types. As Charles Hambrick-­Stowe has shown, treatises like Lewis Bayly’s The Practice of Piety went through more than fifty editions by the end of the seventeenth century. Other titles, such as A Call to the Unconverted, An Important Case of Practical Religion, The Whole Duty of Man, and Important Truths Related to Spiritual and Practical Christianity, would follow in the eighteenth century. Many of these publications would be reprinted in the nineteenth century. These books offered practical advice on how to enact a dynamic spirituality, such as specific prayers and meditations. This set a pattern of rigorous piety that characterized Quakerism. Ongoing interest in this topic is evident in a comment by Mary Jackson in 1829: “Oh how I love to peruse the ever-­interesting theme of practical religion with which thy kind letters abound.”16 Quakerism was based on what Paul Connerton terms “incorporating practice” and “inscribing practice.” The concept of “incorporating practice” includes bodily conduct and interaction that transmits information about the group, while “inscribing practice” alludes to “written communication that transfers words to page to intentionally contain their meaning.”17 Friends participated in the former when they attended meeting, enacted “holy walking and conversation,” wore simple dress, used plain speech, and pursued social interactions with family, friends, and relations. They articulated “inscribing practice” through writing in a variety of forms—for example, letters, diaries, testimonies, memorials, and the like. I employ the term “practical Quakerism” to describe this process. American Quakerism was practical in two ways. First, Friends were “practical” in the historical meaning of the word. To be practical was to practice—being a practicing Christian as opposed to a nominal one.18 To be practical was to engage in specific acts. Second, the term “practical” indicates the decisions American Friends made to construct a workable concept of Quakerism responsive to the transformations occurring during the early nineteenth century, including class formation, progressive reform, gender separation, racial tension, territorial expansion, and sectional conflict. Their practicality constructed viable forms of spirituality. Though I use the terms “practice” and “practical” to explain Quakerism, this does not mean it was routinized. Ideal spirituality was spontaneous, heartfelt, and pious—even when contested. The antebellum period presented many challenges to Friends both 6

A Vivifying Spirit

internally and externally. Quaker piety was complicated by inward division as well as by outward cooperation and competition. As scholars have argued, religion is not something “contained” within an individual; rather, it is a “set of shared and varied social practices, distributed throughout social interactions.” This creates “a dynamic, ever-­shifting religious field” that involves both sacred and secular exercises. Belief is not solely a “state of mind” but rather enacted and embodied; both the mind and the body were essential to a religious regimen. In addition, devotion does not take place only in sacred spaces; it occurs within households, neighborhoods, and communities as religion is lived out day-­to-­day within familial, communal, and regional affiliations. As one author contends, it is a “daily struggle” for the faithful to negotiate “their belief in the context of webs of social relationships.”19 Belief and behavior are relational entities, not distinct categories, just as Quaker spirituality was not an either/or proposition. It was both individual and communal; public and private; separate and united. To compartmentalize Quakerism is to misunderstand the Religious Society of Friends. Quakers embraced a faith that was a daily and even hourly event; walking the righteous path was emotionally draining and spiritually demanding, but it yielded heavenly results.

Quaker Spirituality Friends utilized personal and communal means in a constant endeavor of spiritual practice. Quaker spirituality was based on convincement—that is, the belief in God as both the passive reception of grace and an active awareness of human sin, as one became convinced of “the inward truth and light” provided by God. Spiritual conviction transpired through everyday mindfulness. Convincement was comparable to the evangelical term “conversion”; however, unlike the latter, it was not a one-­time event but a “lifelong process.” Both “inward and outward consolation” were required in the performance of piety. Quakers privileged the inner self as a source of spiritual perception and access to God. By opening one’s mind and practicing silence, a Friend could obtain the divine within. This internal process was complemented by outward behavior. They endorsed plain language and dress to mark themselves and literally embody their faith. Their corporeal presentation of restraint and calm mirrored their interior condition. Quaker religious exercises ranged from conversation, prayer, meditation, and dress to reading and writing. They kept journals and Introduction

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commonplace books not only to document their religious struggles but as a form of contemplation to center their minds on spiritual matters. Friends enacted individual devotion and sought out others for spiritual solace. They attended meetings, conversed about religious topics, and met in household gatherings. As Larry Ingle states, the Quaker religion was more “a way of life than a series of statements about dogma.”20 As internal and silent, Quaker spirituality was deceptive. Their reserve did not mean their faith was dour and lifeless. Rather, it necessitated immense patience and dedication; often arduous and taxing, it entailed unending attention to one’s spiritual state. Only by quietly waiting on the Lord in stillness could the Inward Light come through. As one Friend remarked, “How good it is to retire into stillness! As food to the body, so is quietude to the mind.” Quietness spoke volumes; one Friend extolled, “Silence is the loudest preaching we have.” No outward displays were needed to establish the importance of religious concepts. Church ordinances were unnecessary; the individual believer would be as a “living epistle.”21 One’s life was a sacrament as well as a testament of faith, and after a life well lived, a Friend could die without complaint or remorse. The Quakers rejected all Christian rituals and their material accoutrements, unlike other seventeenth-­century English Protestants. Taking simplicity to its logical conclusion, they stripped the meetinghouse of the dominating cross, elevated pulpit, and robed cleric. Their services were plain and often silent. As a “priesthood” of believers, all Friends were potential ministers. This rational approach was evident when George Fox acknowledged the leadership role of women in the sect during the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, female ministers traveled extensively in the Atlantic world as women members held separate business meetings. Dedication to spiritual equality expanded their treatment of other races, and Quakers became leading advocates for Indian rights and the abolition of Black enslavement. Quaker religious practice changed significantly from the time of the first generation of Friends of seventeenth-­century England to those of mid-­ nineteenth-­century America. While the founding generation displayed somatic exercises—that is, “quaking”—these had dissipated by the early eighteenth century. Public demonstrations, such as going naked as a sign, died out as quietism and rationalism took over.22 As Hugh Barbour and J. William Frost contend, the “rational Quakerism” of the eighteenth century was a “compromise” between “reason and revelation” and was most prominent among British

8

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Friends. While quietism was more popular among their American counterparts during the eighteenth century, Friends on both sides of the Atlantic followed similar activities. Quaker devotion was deeply mystical; access to the Holy Spirit occurred through immediate and progressive revelation as well as through rational application. The mind was an essential tool for spirituality, as amending one’s emotional relationship to God required mindfulness. Interiorization merged with the Quaker plain style to craft a spirituality that was reflexive and humble. The prominence of practical Quakerism continued into the nineteenth century, but with an evangelical twist. Ruptures in the Religious Society of Friends, beginning in the late 1820s, would lead to diverse forms of practical piety.23

Spiritual Language Friends used specific language to describe spirituality. Many of these phrases were inherited from the founding generation, such as “deep baptisms,” “baptizing seasons,” and “deep dippings.” Baptism was an internal and experiential trial when the believer toiled to access the Holy Spirit. Though painful and distressing, such spiritual suffering was purifying. The seventeenth-­century English Friend Robert Barclay defined baptism as “a pure and spiritual thing,” not an empty church ritual performed on children. Experiencing a “baptizing season” signaled the experience of “dipping” deep to find reassurance in the spirit. The term “divine openings” reflected the inner occurrence of direct revelation but also the insight gathered from contemplation. These “impressions” served as conduits for entry into the spiritual realm. Conversely, the phrase “drooping soul” conveyed the harshness of spiritual effort, and “drooping mind” denoted a low level of faith.24 Additionally, the metaphor of the seed designated when God’s grace was evident; the believer had to be ready to receive it. As J. William Frost asserts, “By preaching the seasonal availability of grace Friends brought an immediacy to the quest for holiness while warning of the dangers of procrastinating repentance.” This led to periods of barrenness as members underwent cyclical change that signified a work of grace in the individual’s heart. Before harvesting, the seed needed to be nurtured in the proper soil; likewise, the heart needed to be prepared and the will made obedient for a work of grace to occur.25 Another essential term was “the creature,” which referred to the earthly self. When Quakers spoke of “creaturely

Introduction

9

habits,” it meant they were too much in the world. As one Friend declared, “Too few are divested of self, in various shapes and workings. There is warmth and animation that proceeds from creaturely activity; and that seems to pass with many for gospel power. But there is a vast difference between this creaturely warmth and the animation and power of the true gospel of Christ.”26 Friends utilized metaphorical language to articulate belief as an internalized landscape. Susanna Judge envisioned her spiritual state as “dwelling” in a “barren land,” where there seemed to be “neither dew, nor rain, nor fields of offering.” John Comly depicted his faith as a room where his mind went to pray; by “getting into the closet of devotion, and shutting the door against all intruding cares and passions; and when all obstructing things are shut out, the mind centered in holy calm and quietude, the door of prayer is opened.”27 One minister invited listeners to enter “the fields of their own hearts” to recognize that spiritual riches far exceed outward wealth. When they achieved communion with the Holy Spirit and with each other, no words were needed. Believers heard with their “spiritual ear” as God spoke through and within them. With their minds “disengaged from the world, the powerful overshadowings of the Holy Ghost was more frequently and evidently felt amongst them to the tendering their hearts and coveting their spirits even to tears and trembling.”28 Such sweet communion cemented Quakers together in bonds of love. The characteristic language of Friends persisted after the onset of division in the early nineteenth century. After 1830, Orthodox Friends retained traditional Quaker phrases, such as “drooping,” “baptisms,” and “the light,” but combined them with evangelical ones, such as “born again,” “dear Redeemer,” and “the blood of the Lamb.” Evangelical Quakers bridged the gap between traditional doctrine and contemporary usage. For example, evangelicals like Joseph John Gurney specifically joined practical religion to Christ’s sacrifice: “What is practical religion? Is it not the work of God’s Spirit upon the soul of man, bringing it to a spiritual knowledge of the Saviour, and redeeming it from all sin?”29 While Orthodox ministers referenced evangelical principles in their sermons, such as “the purifying power of the blood of a crucified savior” in the 1830s, by the 1850s, Gurneyites would demand an explicit conversion experience as evidence of the new birth. By emphasizing the redemption achieved by the “atonement made by Jesus Christ,” as well as salvation and sanctification, evangelical Friends sanctioned mainstream religious concepts of American Protestantism propagated through the Second Great Awakening.30 10

A Vivifying Spirit

Quaker Historiography The history of the Religious Society of Friends traditionally has told a tale of strain and strife to adaptation and success—from seventeenth-­century founders who, as prophetic agitators, became pragmatic accommodationists and then evolved into economically successful but apolitical actors by the eighteenth century.31 This narrative has been contested by scholars who have investigated the tension between the separation Quakers sought versus their integration into their wider societal context. Sandra Holton argues that the “quietism” of the eighteenth century was an anomalous diversion from the Quaker activism of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Geoffrey Plank contends that the insularity that eighteenth-­century Friends became known for was unintentional. The “Quaker Reformation” was a model of moral purification aimed to attract new converts. Friends’ outreach to Indians was a form of “evangelization.” Quakers occupied the world, held meetings with non-­Quakers, and took a prominent stance on traditional moral issues (drunkenness, theater­ going, cardplaying) as well as political disputes (Indian rights, the slave trade, abolition). The decision of most to stay out of the American Revolution was costly and painful yet was still a political decision based in religious belief. This was not new; as Plank asserts, Friends have always been “political players.”32 Sarah Crabtree’s Holy Nation declares that American Quakers preserved their sense of community despite radical change during the revolutionary and early national periods. Basing their beliefs in “religious transnationalism,” Friends conceived of themselves as “a holy nation,” steeped in the Hebraic tradition, which displaced the new republic “as the primary means of social and political organization.” They actively resisted the forces of nationalism by remaining faithful to their theology. This theme of preserving a separate status in the new nation is also discussed by A. Glenn Crothers in Quakers Living in the Lion’s Mouth. Friends in northern Virginia had a “bifurcated identity” as they balanced the “strictures of their faith” against the “social, political and cultural commitments of the broader society in which they lived.” Though they became “southern,” their status became less and less tenable as the sectional crisis evolved. While many Southern Quakers chose outmigration to escape this dual status, some Friends stayed to uphold their religious principles alongside their increasingly suspicious neighbors.33 By the antebellum era, keeping separate from the world proved less meaningful in a nation built on religious freedom and political independence, Introduction

11

especially for Quakers in the mid-­Atlantic region. Northern Friends urged their fellow citizens to be responsive to issues of spiritual equality and civil justice, but they were also drawn by their historical context to adopt popular means of religious expression, as with the growing influence of evangelicalism. The assiduous nature of Quaker spirituality required believers to walk a narrow path between their peculiar brand of faith and the inculcation of beliefs and behaviors popular among other Protestants. This tension was evident during the Hicksite schism of 1827. This harrowing event destroyed spiritual communion and forced Friends, for the first time, to clearly define what they believed. This division caused great grief, but it also provided the freedom to devise new forms of devotion. While scholarly Quakers have traditionally viewed the early nineteenth century as a low point in their history, Friends’ perseverance in varied forms was reflective of American society, incorporating them into the larger religious culture. This schism opened new possibilities in American society; from quietism and withdrawal to activism and engagement in political change, it aided Quakers’ adaptation to the major transformations of nineteenth-­century America. Quaker practice and identity expanded after 1830, as separation from within allowed for integration without. Several forms of Quakerism evolved. While Hicksites retained the traditional quietism, their Orthodox counterparts adopted some aspects of evangelical religion, Gurneyites became ultraevangelists, and Wilburites advocated an austere piety. Progressive Friends enacted their piety through political reform, such as involvement in the temperance and antislavery movements. Some who left or were pushed out of the Society for their activism turned to other religious expressions, such as Spiritualism, to support their moral efforts, as social reform became a means of spiritual duty. Over the course of the early nineteenth century, American Quakers moved away from some traditions, such as plain dress and language. This external disposition had lost its meaning and, for some, had become an empty gesture devoid of vibrant spirituality. The increasing diversity in doctrine and practice proffered several avenues for American Friends to follow by the mid-­ nineteenth century.

Framework This book is organized into three sections: “Seed Time,” “Fruitless Exercise and Distress,” and “A Work of Redemption.” These phrases have been taken 12

A Vivifying Spirit

from unpublished work by George Dillwyn to exemplify the individual and communal paths traveled by Friends during the antebellum era. The first section addresses Quaker practice from early childhood to old age as believers traveled the “path of righteousness.” Dillwyn described “seed time” as “the passage from light to life—from the conception to the production of every heavenly birth in the soul.”34 This notion engendered nurturance throughout one’s life to sustain faith that came from within and without. Quaker piety demanded regular engagement to access “the Inward Truth and Light” through multiple venues, such as prayer, meditation, conversation, and meeting. Parental oversight and a “guarded” education put young Friends on a straight course. As a crucial phase in an individual’s religious development, “seed time” denoted the beginning of one’s spiritual journey as well as its ending, as Friends prepared to make their final trek to the world beyond. The second section explores the several divisions that occurred among American Friends in the antebellum era. A theological whirlwind blew through Quaker meetinghouses in the early nineteenth century. Contradictions came to light over what it meant to be a Friend in both belief and behavior. But, as Dillwyn observed, Quakers needed to be careful in calling out others for infractions, for “minds fearful of erring through unfaithfulness, sometimes occasion no small degree of fruitless exercise & distress.” How Friends dealt with discrepancies led to schism, which devastated their Society. Families divided, friendships ended, and community relations dissolved. Men and women who had shared religious communion during worship, in household gatherings, and at business meetings became opponents who snubbed, ignored, and ostracized one another. The Quaker connection, built over generations, crumbled as conflicting views emerged to separate their Society irrevocably. The internal dissension of the 1820s recurred in the 1840s and 1850s to shatter Quaker unity in antebellum America. Yet these disagreements yielded spiritual benefits to chart new ways to practice piety. The last section surveys Quaker spirituality through two primary means: (1) manuscript and print culture and (2) history and remembrance. Though “religions are various, & discordant,” according to Dillwyn, true religion was “a work of redemption.” The use of the word “work” is suggestive in two ways—that is, work as in the spiritual effort necessary to sustain faith, and work as in a manuscript or publication. Quakers performed this labor through writing, reading, and memorialization. Like other Protestants, Quakers read books for religious understanding. Their journals and commonplace books recorded their thoughts and tracked their activities. They wrote letters to report Introduction

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family news as well as to affirm relationships. As a mode of devotion, writing focused the mind, regulated emotion, and strengthened the spiritual self. In addition, in the pursuit of their own history—both personal and communal— Friends studied their past to make sense of their present. They employed memory to commemorate dead relations, to emulate founding members, and to defend their version of Quakerism amid the debate and division of the antebellum era. Before his death in 1820, George Dillwyn feared that tensions within the Quaker community could lead to disunion. As he wrote, “Great care is therefore necessary that we do not . . . become as a house divided against itself.” He warned his fellow travelers of the perils posed by “the tide of prosperity” evident in the early nineteenth century. He hoped that most Quakers would “hold their course” but expected they would “experience an alteration for the better.”35 Dillwyn’s prescience, however, could not have foreseen how excruciating this experience would be or how irretrievably his religion would change by 1860. The multifarious forms of Quakerism that emerged would produce a rich but complicated history of the Religious Society of Friends in America.

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A Vivifying Spirit

Chapter 1

“Inward and Out wa rd Consol ation” Quaker Piety

A virtuous habit of the mind is absolutely necessary to influence the whole life and beautify every particular action. —David Sands

When Hannah Bringhurst became angry on a first day (Sunday) morning in April 1781, she quickly rued the “bitterness” that gripped her heart and mind and separated her from “him who is perfect love.” She was acutely aware how necessary it was to “watch & pray continually lest ye enter into temptation.” Hannah’s cognizance of her own fragility, however, was assuaged by God’s mercy and the help of others to stay on the narrow path. A few days later, Hannah found it “hard work” to gain spiritual insight, and she was afraid her own will would displace “patiently waiting the master’s time.” By fifth day meeting, she labored to draw her mind “into that stillness, without which worship cannot be performed.” Hannah continued to pray for relief. By the next week, she was “favor’d” to feel God’s power that “alone can preserve from evil” the “endeavors of his depending children.” Though her path might be strewn with “tribulation,” God’s promise sustained her and led her “safely on, tho’ it may seem to be in thick darkness.” Hannah Bringhurst’s spiritual exercise—and her detailed account of watching, praying, straining, and being still—is characteristic of Quaker spirituality. It documents the interiority of Friends’ faith as well as its ongoing, relentless nature during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.1 Tracking one’s spiritual state was one of several activities Friends engaged in to pursue piety. Their religious practice included a range of behaviors, from

conversation, prayer, and meditation to dress, speech, and attendance at meeting and household gatherings, as well as reading and writing (the last two topics will be discussed in section 3). These habits aided the Quaker journey from “times of gloominess and discouragement, resembling a dreary wilderness,” to find ease along “this tribulated path.” If these trials could be endured, they would “yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” Piety—defined as an internal journey of the soul, heart, and mind—ordered the Quaker regimen. Friends shared similarities with other Protestants who devised specific habits to stimulate spirituality. “Practical Christianity” outlined an active approach to faith not only in profession but in inward and outward demeanor. Quaker spirituality was based in revelation as well as reason. The mind provided the primary conduit, along with the soul and heart, to access and gain revelation via the Holy Spirit. Adjusting one’s emotional relationship to God involved heightened awareness and mindful engagement. Quakerism was based in a “strict profession of practical virtue” and “religious impressions upon the mind” that came from the Supreme Being.2 The Religious Society of Friends combined internal contemplation with external deportment. Their use of simple clothing and plain language engendered mindfulness by setting Friends apart from the wider world. As Thomas Clarkson argued, Quaker dress and address not only made Friends “distinct” but kept “a check” on their behavior. One’s walk—literally and figuratively— displayed one’s spirituality. A circumspect exterior connoted the outward manifestation of an inward state. Friends embodied spiritual values in their self-­presentation. According to Mary Dent, “The clothing of humility and meekness . . . are the two most beautiful garments a Christian can wear.” Simplicity and plainness were the essence of Quaker religiosity, and Friends embodied these spiritual values in their self-­presentation. In the 1790s, James Bringhurst invoked this minimalism when he reduced Quaker piety down to a few essential concepts: “Do justly, love mercy & walk humbly with thy God.” His method was “very comprehensive & yet contains that which is enjoyed upon us to fill & requir’d of us as duties to perform, if we fall short herein we cannot expect to become possessors of that real substantial peace.”3 Quaker religious practice was a never-­ending activity of “continual work” whose goal was to blend “all the concerns of life.” Friends defined spirituality as a series of “exercises” in belief and behavior. One Friend (echoing William Penn) likened her “labour” to that of “an industrious bee”: “Oh! That . . . I may be diligent in a faithful application to wholesome labour (both spiritual and temporal) by which I may obtain daily supplies of celestial necter [sic].” 18

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To be truly pious, one had “to labour for an inward stillness” and be willing to “go down again and again into deep exercise and travail for the cause and testimony of truth.”4 Quaker practice, especially within a silent meeting, appeared devoid of effort; however, the internal workings of the believer’s mind, heart, and soul followed a stringent course to seek and access divine revelation. This began by the mind being “illuminated by a prospect of religious duty.” During this “seed-­time,” the “bias & selfish inclination of nature” must be beaten down to allow the light to take root and put the individual on the right path. True devotion was strenuous. Hugh Judge defined religious duties as “arduous labor” that obliged quotidian vigilance to attain faithfulness; it was the daily exercise of “watching unto prayer.”5 Watchfulness was paramount to spirituality. Mary Stokes ruminated on how to pursue a “watchful state” to meet life’s trials. In her fifties, Mary struggled to be devout: “I am advancing in age and I often fear not deepening in the best of things. More watchfulness is required of me, . . . I wish to do right but am too impulsive and not sufficiently thoughtful in many ways.” Though Mary heard “good gospel ministry,” the future looked bleak because she led a “careless, indifferent life.” She planned to make it her “daily and first concern to be found watching.” True piety was based in constant attention, lest believers “deviate from the sweet & peaceful path of virtue & upright conduct.” Spiritual concerns had to remain ever present in one’s mind and direct all actions, both sacred and secular. To support conduct consistent with their conviction, Friends deferred to what they called the “still, small voice” within to inculcate proper demeanor. This voice was cultivated at an early age to instill self-­discipline. Friends also employed the phrase “inward monitor,” which told them what they ought to do and how to tell right from wrong. This censor (also called “the divine monitor”) controlled all activity, even that related to the temporal world.6 These phrases exemplified the interior nature of Quaker spirituality and were guiding principles as Friends labored to maintain their faith.

The Feast of Reason Quaker spirituality encompassed mind, heart, and spirit in a holistic model. These entities were discrete as well as connected; each separately was critical to the practice of religiosity, but they could also be experienced simultaneously. As Matthew 22:37 avows, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” The focus on “heart Quaker Piety

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religion” became part of Quakerism when it emerged in the seventeenth century at the same time that a “rational and tolerant piety” became popular. Friends displayed aspects of metaphysical religion, with the mind as much a focus of Quaker spirituality as the heart.7 One Friend attested to the importance of both mind and spirit when she declared that true fellowship was based on “the feast of reason and the flow of soul.”8 For another Friend, the mind was not separate from the spirit. When she felt low, she found consolation after she passed through “something of a baptism,” which cleansed her “spirit.” Quakers regarded piety as a conscious endeavor. A third Friend observed, “The dedicated mind learns to know and distinguish between the Divine voice of revelation and every resemblance of it that may arise in the imagination.” Only through stable, firm, and calm deliberation could the believer make progress “in the soul.” Regular habits were necessary to maintain this proper mindset. Indeed, spiritual devotion and “right reason” were not contradictory; “the common reason of man stands in need of light and help from heaven.”9 The mind was a primary conduit for Quakers to experience spirituality. For John Comly, possessing quietness was the means to overcome the “stormy winds (earthly passions)” as well as a “dry and barren state of mind.” Mary Lloyd attained “great tranquility of mind” as “the result of obedience to the Divine will.” After a meeting in 1814, Mary Kite noted that religious duty would “avail nothing” unless her “mind” was “deeply centered on the author of all good.” Mary felt inadequate; “the great infirmities that I am still enslaved to often discourages and casts a gloom in my mind.” Being open and receptive to the “Great Master” required a calm mind unfettered by worldly cares.10 In 1790, Hugh Judge “felt inwardly strengthened, and strong cries ascended from my deeply humble soul, for holy help from the Divine fountain,” after settling his mind into “stillness.” According to George Churchman, diligence and a “tender, watchful mind” kept Friends from “each erroneous path.” Being too much in the world was dangerous to spirituality. As John Hunt wrote in his diary, “The heresy of heresies is a worldly mind.”11 Mildred Ratcliff castigated some Friends at the Sadsbury meeting in 1820 for letting “the watch of the mind” dissipate by putting secular affairs ahead of personal piety.12 Friends envisioned the mind as a substantive entity with corporeal attributes. One Friend imagined “the feet” of her mind preserved on the rock of salvation that would save her from being swept away “into an ocean of confusion, perplexity & difficulty.” A second believed that Friends should have their “minds keep single eyeing the divine monitor,” and still another one craved that “the clothing of my mind be that of humility, love, faith, gratitude 20

Seed Time

which are the fruits of thy spirit.”13 This objectification of the mind was endorsed by seventeenth-­century Platonists, such as Ralph Cudworth, who argued that “there are some ideas of the mind” that arise not from without but from within—from the “innate vigor and activity of the mind it self.” John Woolman delineated the mind’s characteristics: God “hath placed a principle in the human mind, which incites to exercise goodness toward every living creature.”14 Samuel Fothergill agreed: “Thy mind watch with holy diligence unto prayers being fervent in spirit.” John Comly saw the “mind” as a discrete element: “My mind was brought into a state of more inwardness and humility.” William Matthews’s book Miscellaneous Companions (popular with Friends) affirmed that “the worship of the mind, which is performed ‘in spirit and in truth’ . . . is the only dignity of a rational and immortal spirit.”15 The word “mind” had several meanings in the early modern period, from a psychic or mental faculty to rational capacity. It encompassed not only thought and volition but also feeling and memory. It included the notion to “keep one’s attention fixed upon” a specific topic. The mind was a subject of great interest to European writers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including England’s experimental philosophers. Robert Dodsley’s best-­selling publication, The Economy of Human Life, conjoined reason with religion; God had given humans rational thought to worship him. He had “exalted thy mind with the powers of mediation to contemplate and adore his imitable perfections.” John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding addressed the mind’s regulation. Locke and the Quakers shared an interest in how to construct a system that would train the mind. For Locke, “the good ordering of the mind” was necessary for knowledge acquisition; for Friends it was mandatory for spiritual acumen.16 The God-­given ability to reason enabled human beings to exercise their minds to the extent of their abilities. Friends embraced reason as a useful “gift from God” with truth derived from the Inward Light, making revelation and reasoning compatible. Quaker Lindley Murray’s tome, The Power of Religion on the Mind, embodied this ideal. After reading his chronicle of coreligionists, Quakers would come to “just and seasonable reflections on the state of our own minds, and a sincere and reverent application to the greatest and best of Beings, for the aid of his Holy Spirit, to enlighten and animate us, and to conduct us safely through the paths of life!”17 For John Locke, spirituality was based in the mind. The philosopher’s initial interest in writing his essay on human understanding was to investigate the nature of practical religion. He deigned to use human reason to understand religious faith, to bring rationality to bear on spirituality and create moral Quaker Piety

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consensus among believers. Locke was familiar with and influenced by Richard Allestree’s The Whole Duty of Man, one of the most popular devotional manuals in the early modern Atlantic world. Allestree recommended that Christians train their minds; by retaining biblical directives in their thoughts, they could avoid temptation. To overcome sin, one had to “possess” one’s mind “fully.” He went on to profess the value of “imprinting deep in our minds the loveliness and benefits of meekness without the ugliness and mischiefs of anger.” To circumvent sinful behaviors, one had to “mortify all peevishness and forwardness of mind.” Allestree recommended exercising one’s mind spiritually while performing mundane chores, such as getting dressed in the morning, a practice adopted by Quakers.18 By accentuating the role of the mind in cultivating piety, process and product became equally important. How one pursued spirituality, as well as its result, called for habits of thought and action. The need for habituation was emphasized by both Quakers and English philosophers, especially its role in preparing the mind for proper functioning. As part of the new philosophy of the seventeenth century, routines and rules were valued to train the mind for its proper vocation. Locke asserted that understanding came not from “natural faculties” but from “acquired habits.” For him, humans had a moral duty to train and regulate their minds through customary pursuits. These conventions of intellectual exercise mirrored the popular view that Christians had to pursue habitual activity to express their faith.19 Friends engaged in intensive reading, writing, and conversing on religious subjects to focus their minds. However, regular practice did not connote hollow habits; it required heartfelt and mindful engagement for an active piety.

A State of Quietude To attain a centered mind required early training as children learned both religious and social tasks. Pious methods were a central aspect of Quaker childrearing. Isaac Comly’s parents instructed him “in the duty of speaking the truth, in obedience to them,” and to keep away from “evil examples.” Mary Drinker Cope directed her son William to watch over himself and to be “fearful of being puffed up or beguiled by flattery.” While she found a “principle of divine goodness” in his “youthful mind,” she encouraged “self-­examination” to avoid being ensnared by “pride or vanity.”20 Other mothers avowed their duty to “form” their children’s “mind[s] to virtue” and to lead them toward an awareness of the world to come. One Quaker father counseled a friend’s 22

Seed Time

children that careful behavior would yield “peace & comfort in your own minds for well doing.”21 Quaker children absorbed these lessons. When she was about six years old, Elizabeth Newport remembered being overcome with God’s love, hoping to meet his high expectations: “[I] earnestly desired that he would take me out of the world rather than I should love to offend Him.” Children’s interactions with God provided comprehension on how to act properly. At age ten, Isaac Martin recalled that the Lord visited him “frequently” when he attended meetings: “Sometimes immediately by his own holy spirit, and at other times, through instruments (i.e., ministers), and my heart was broken and contrite.” A particularly poignant attribute of Quakerism was silent worship, and Friends learned how to remain quiet when young. John Comly recalled being taken to meeting as a small child and taught how “to sit still” by his mother. Though he admitted he was impressed by the example of ministers, he found the most enlightenment in “silent meetings”: “I well remember the sensations and desires of my heart. . . . the love of goodness, and the desire to become a good man, were seriously impressed upon my childish understanding.”22 Comly’s sentiments were engaged to inspire him to become an upstanding member of Quaker society. Parents and children alike wished to be mindful practitioners; they sought out elders, siblings, companions, and relations for spiritual guidance. When James Allinson was finishing school and departing for an apprenticeship, he wrote to his grandfather David Cooper for his “council and advice which I hope will be pleasing and useful to me.” Noting that he would soon be leaving home, he admitted that he “some times wish I may be preserved in a state of imnocency and kept from the evils that are in the world.” James’s mother, Martha, worried about his spirituality during his indenture, particularly when he was unable to attend meeting. Even after James was grown, she told him he had been “a tender good child” and that “the Lord has & will reward thee for it.” She admitted that “this is my joy & crown of rejoicing that he can & will do more for thee than I possibly can if my dear thou keeps humble & simple enough with an eye singly kept to him for council & direction.” Martha’s primary desire was that her son would consistently seek out God.23 Edward Foulk emulated William Penn’s example of offering advice to his children. Foulk directed his offspring to love one another, heed the Lord, and treat their neighbors well. He told them to “let pious thoughts possess your souls the moment before you sleep & if you do that, it will be easier to find yourself in the morning in a meek humble posture before God . . . which will Quaker Piety

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create peace & calmness of mind with a blessing on your outward affairs.” Caleb Swayne advised his children to “study to improve both in good principles and in good practice.”24 Hugh Judge counseled his progeny to hold a daily conversation with God and to pursue “the path of truth.” Margaret Bishpam told her daughters to teach their own children to attend to the inward spirit. Too much focus on outward attributes, such as clothing, would leave their souls “uncultivated and ignorant.” Internal knowledge was more effective than all “formal rules and restraints.” Mary Lippincott concurred. “Self-­ government” was the best approach; “few rules are needed where each one controls himself.”25 Quaker parents regularly assessed their children’s spiritual progress. For example, though Mary Sharpless thought her daughter Rachel possessed “a good deal of drollery,” she had a “tender mind” that was “sweetly impressed with a desire to become acquainted with the inward principle of truth.” Mary wanted all her children to be “more and more enamoured with inner light not just for their sake but also for the good of society.” This was a reciprocal relationship; pious children were “a great support” to their parents for their “steady deportment.” Martha Allinson encouraged her son William in his religious journey but reminded him not to “make thy path more arduous by giving way to unnecessary doubts and anxieties.” She admitted she had experienced similar difficulties: “Having suffered much myself on this hand when perhaps travelling the path thou art now in I can feel for thee. Oh how was my mind at times tossed as with a tempest perplexed with doubts & fears.” She directed him to attend to that “still small voice” within. When her son Wistar turned ten years old, Mary Brown wrote him a letter for “his future welfare and happiness.” Though he had “received, much tender, and serious counsel” from his parents, she expected he would begin to “cultivate and encourage, in thy mind, those dispositions of obedience, amiability, and gentleness, which will secure to thee thy love of thy relations, the esteem of thy friends—and the approbation of thy Heavenly Father.” She wrote the following year to praise him for the improvement he had shown, including “an increase of attention” to his studies, “amiability” toward his siblings, a “more correct deportment” at meeting, and “a very strong endeavor” to “overcome any display of dissatisfaction at the commands of thy parents.”26 By noting her son’s progress, Mary encouraged him to continue on the same path. Friends offered guidance and assistance to extended family members. In 1818, Elizabeth Rodman reminded her granddaughter Sarah Logan Fisher that “strict observance” to “the inward monitor” would shield her from wrongdoing. 24

Seed Time

Doing wrong caused uneasiness and doing right brought “sweet peace.” She recalled a technique she had used to check Sarah’s behavior: “Dost thou remember my dear how I used to lay my hand on thy bosom when I saw a little evil arising & desire thee to suppress & keep it down, which generally produced a smile & had the desired effect.” By recalling her grandmother’s touch, Sarah could forestall a change in her conduct before it became serious. Through emotional and behavioral control, children learned to enact Quaker ways. Elizabeth reminded Sarah that “there is no such thing as happiness without being good; without remembering our Creator & above all things endeavoring to please Him, which I crave for thee in the days of thy youth.” Elizabeth impressed upon Sarah the need for self-­motivation to fulfill God’s plan. She urged her to use time wisely, to be faithful to the “great Creator” and to focus her life on what was truly meaningful: to attain happiness on earth that would translate into contentment in heaven.27 Practical behavior was evident in the advice Mary Kite gave her niece Anna Walton, while she attended Nine Partners, a Quaker school in New York: “Upon first awaking this beautiful morning I trust the first impressions were a secret breathing to the great shepherd who had watched over and preserved thee thro the past night and permitted then to awaken in health that he would be round about and keep thee thro this day from all evil and that it might be spent in a profitable manner.” She went on describe Anna’s appropriate “frame of mind” and the proper use of the time before meeting by reading the Bible. Mary reiterated the need to banish all thought of worldly concerns in favor of silent waiting. She admitted that often Friends had to sit through “many a wearisome meeting” trying to gain insight, when only “silly and foolish things come flitting in and out of the mind.” Mary assured Anna that if she persevered—did not grow “faint” or “weary”—she would be filled with God’s love.28 Another way Quakers molded their children’s religious training was through visitations by elders. Quaker ministers admonished those who were unresponsive in meeting as well as to “stir up the careless and negligent.” Deborah Darby directed Friends to enact “private meditations and secret waitings” in the morning and evening to benefit their practice. Male and female elders called upon Quaker families in their neighborhoods to both enquire about their religious training and provide individual guidance. One elder told a mother that she needed to be strict in her son’s upbringing because of his “fondness for dress & gaiety.” In 1789, Mary Potts’s family was visited by four ministers, who, with “some severity and much love,” told her and her siblings that when they “repent” their follies, the rewards would be great. After Quaker Piety

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this meeting, Mary prayed to be dutiful and humble.29 When Joseph John Gurney went to see Rebecca Singer Collins’s family in 1838, he called her children to stand before him while he asked God to bless them to be attentive to their “heavenly Shepherd” and obey their parents.30 Ministers held specific meetings for youth. Samuel Fothergill warned young Friends at the Warrington Preparative Meeting not to deviate from the Quaker way. Once they entered “the path of folly,” it was difficult to backtrack. He urged them not to wait: “Now is your seed time; your hour of profitable diligence, and not in the decline of life.” While elders typically cautioned young people about worldly dangers, young Friends also took their peers to task. At age nineteen, Joseph Scattergood found he had to “reprove” a young man for his “imprudent, thoughtless conduct,” all the while being mindful of his own lack of “rectitude.” One minister instructed mothers to restrict their children’s social interactions with those outside the society: “too much liberty in visiting & and keeping company” could lead to “mixed marriages” and “great distress.” Even when offspring were grown, parents still took time to remind them of their duty. When his adult children attended meeting with him in Woodbury, New Jersey, David Cooper exhorted them “to love one another,” for it gave him “comfort to see us love to oblige each other.”31

To Put on Plain Garb The Quaker custom of wearing plain clothing demonstrated an intense dedication to simplicity in all aspects of life. Modest clothing focused a Friend’s mind on inward development rather than outward display. As Mary Anne Caton writes, “Plain dress was an individualized strategy of self-­expression that marked a separate identity from more worldly Friends and from the world at large.”32 It was a material reminder of an unpretentious spirituality. James Bringhurst’s parents insisted that he wear plain clothes when he was young to keep him in the faith. Had they not, he admitted he could have ended up like his worldlier schoolmates, who dressed fashionably and “took to bad company and strong drink.” Yet plain clothing alone could not preserve mindfulness without appropriate internal change, as John Hamton witnessed on a visit to Wilmington in 1786. He saw many in “plain coats” but rued “how little will plainness of apparel avail us unless we experience an advancement in the arduous path of regeneration.”33

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There was considerable leeway in what constituted Quaker plainness, and it evolved over time. Friends’ apparel was defined by what it lacked: detailed patterns, bright colors, and elaborate accessories. Isaac Comly inculcated plainness early in life; as a young child he refused to have his “tow apron” changed for a checked one in anticipation of a social visit. Similarly, Isaac’s brother, John, chose a simple coat for his “first day dress.” The cut of his clothes resembled the “plainness of conduct” he aspired to. Families differed in their enforcement of plain clothing. When Hannah Warrington received material to have a bonnet made, her sister reminded her to ensure it was “plain.”34 Conversely, Hannah Yarnall’s family allowed her to wear fashionable clothes when she was young; however, this liberty led her to struggle adopting plain dress later in life. The continual reminders published in Yearly Meeting epistles about the need for modest clothing is evidence that not all Friends followed this prescribed tenet. At the 1795 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Deborah Darby counseled mothers to forbid their children from wearing superfluous garments, for it would make it more challenging to turn away from worldly styles. Ministers warned against the use of looking glasses to survey one’s dress: “such scrupulous nicety in decking the body” only added “to the soul’s unfitness” in the presence of God.35 Plain clothing remained popular among Friends into the nineteenth century; however, their reasons for engaging in it differed. Sarah Hunt “laid aside the superfluous part of my apparel,—though there was but little, it caused disquiet; and with regard to dress I saw that I must not wear anything that was not useful, and that must be simple.” Mary Lloyd lauded the use of “plain garb” on first day. Hannah Webster decided to adopt simple dress in 1809 because “she felt an inclination to more plainness, not from an apprehension of religious duty; but because it was more consistent with sense and carried an appearance more advantageous to her person—as several had pronounced that in her latter garb, she looked better than in her former.” Isaac Comly accepted Hannah’s choice because she came to it on her own rather than being pressured “by those clamorous connoisseurs who condemn every custom as censurable.”36 For Rachel Hicks, Quaker plainness allowed Friends to take up the cross; it was emblematic of one’s dedication to the Lord. Thomas Pym Cope agreed: “The sober mind is naturally led into simplicity of dress.” It signaled to others that the wearer would not “betray the mind into forgetfulness of sacred things,” which, in turn, would forestall any enticements for “unbecoming levity & sinful practices.”37

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Some Friends only wore some aspects of plain dress—for example, many women just donned the traditional cap and neckerchief. Some male Friends adopted modern fashions, such as when Samuel Bettle, a clothier, began wearing long trousers instead of knee breeches in the late eighteenth century. Quaker men who wore plain dress and engaged with the wider society found themselves ridiculed for their sartorial choices. When John Kite served on a jury in 1828, the other men noticed his clothing: “I felt . . . a good deal like a speckled bird, being the only Friend there.” Embarrassed by his old coat and unfashionable shirt, he “keenly felt the difficulty” of endorsing the Quaker testimony on dress. Conversely, Ezra Michener found plain apparel offered protection when he entered medical school. Still, he marveled at others’ response to his attire: “I was indeed surprised to find how much attraction and repulsion there was in a plain dress; perhaps in the assurance it afforded of quiet, orderly living, and close attention to study.” Quaker sources continued to recommend simple clothing during the antebellum era. An 1846 article in a Quaker publication observed the inconsistency of Friends who attended meeting in plain dress and the next day were seen in a “straw bonnet with colored ribbon.” This behavior was condemned because it showed “a degree of duplicity and doublefaceness.”38 Though Friends continued to advocate plain dress into the nineteenth century, fewer Friends followed this custom. In the 1830s, Rebecca Hornor Coates found herself accused of narrow-­mindedness because she continued to dress plainly and furnish her home modestly. Though Lucretia Mott wore plain dress during her long life, she would increasingly become a minority. A photograph taken of Mott with her daughter, granddaughter, and great-­ granddaughter shows this development; while Mott had on complete Quaker attire, her daughter wore only the shawl and cap, her granddaughter donned a dress with lace collar and cuffs, and her great-­granddaughter’s light-­colored garment had ruffles (see fig. 2). This transition in one family was illustrative of the decline of plain dress in favor of contemporary fashion by the mid-­ nineteenth century. Clothing took on new significance when some Friends exhibited an interest in social reform during the antebellum era, such as boycotting cotton produced by enslaved Blacks.39 What one purchased became as crucial as what one wore, but buying appropriately plain clothing was not easy. In 1830, Jemima Hicks had to forego visiting some Philadelphia friends because she had to go bonnet shopping; it was a “great undertaking,” as she had not purchased a hat in ten years. Even when free produce stores opened in the 28

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Fig. 2 | (right to left) Lucretia Mott, her granddaughter Anna Davis Hallowell, her daughter Maria Mott Davis, and her great-granddaughter Maria Hallowell, circa 1878. Courtesy Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, FHL 000049.

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Philadelphia region, the textiles available for sale were more expensive than clothing bought elsewhere. Whether through abstention or purchase of freely produced cotton clothing, “the politics of dress” encouraged many Quakers to continue the tradition of plain apparel—to evoke not only their spiritual intent but also their political dedication to the antislavery cause. But plain dress was more than just material. In the 1840s, Sarah Cooper Tatum penned a poem that posited “simplicity of mind, / and neatness may be seen in all she wears / of cultured intellect of thought refined / Garb, conduct, speech declares.” The metaphor “dress of righteousness” was an internalization of this outward form without its physical manifestation.40 Modernization as well as religious schism changed Friends’ attitude toward simple clothing. By 1860, plain dress had fallen out of fashion in the Delaware Valley.

Beyond Words Silence occurred through active engagement by the believer. After silent waiting and mental renewal came instruction and affirmation. In this “communion of spirit,” Friends forged union beyond language; as John Fothergill declared in the eighteenth century, this divine experience “was too copious for language to express!” Richard Bauman maintains that Friends shared “a unity of spirit” through silent worship. Though this process became formalized by the eighteenth century, it was an essential component of Quaker spirituality. Silent waiting was necessary to “the soul’s advancement in the great and most important business of life,” but prayer and meditation were also expected, as they helped individuals see what “progress” they had made on their spiritual path. Through “daily exercise,” Friends prepared themselves for “those seasons of solemn waiting” that renewed their spiritual strength, at the same time pursuing “that inward recollection & care” that saved them from sin and error.41 Silence was a principal practice of Quaker spirituality. Friends valued the meaning and effect of silence both in meeting and when alone. Individually, Friends were to be silent after waking and before falling asleep. Sarah Logan Fisher wrote, “Oh how I feel my mind drawn this morning into silence, into that sweet quietude that no words can express, how desirable are such feelings.” Mothers gathered their children together and sat quietly to gain the “substantial benefits of true, inward, Christian silence.” John Comly routinely “sat in silence” as a preparatory exercise; he craved that “quiet, watchful, teachable state,” whereby “gentle distillings may be known.” 30

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Stephen Grellet sat silent and alone for two hours before meeting, “waiting upon the Lord.” Isaac Martin perceived his silent worship as daily visitations from God. These “overshadowings of his love . . . melting my heart and contriting my spirit” made him aware of “what to do and what to leave undone.” This practice allowed Martin to attend meeting with a centered mind, and he found silent meetings especially edifying.42 Patience Brayton had the same response at a silent meeting in Mount Holly, New Jersey: “[I] had reason to bless my Master, (for the enjoyment of silence was sweet to me,) in that he gave me the strength to know how to be abased and how to abound.” Silence and stillness were the means to receive the “seasoning virtue, which sweetens the mind and prepares it for waiting on the Great Master.” Inward meditation was necessary to access God; one needed “to dig deep in order to feel the foundation on which we stand.” In addition, silence imbued spiritual connection among Friends: “There is something to be felt beyond words quieting the mind & bringing it into a state to offer silent worship, adoration & praise.”43 According to Thomas Hamm, silence was not a medium of Quaker worship—it was Quaker worship. Meetings provided the means to find communion among fellow believers through silence—and only through silence— could one gain access to the Holy Spirit. As the Englishman Robert Barclay averred, “In worship we think men should be silent in the first place.” One nineteenth-­century Friend wrote a poem to “silent worship,” noting the connection made among the congregants: “Let deepest silence all around / its peaceful shelter spread . . . how sweet to wait upon the Lord / in silence and in prayer.” To access the Inner Light demanded that Friends remain still and be silent, both alone and together; this was a central manifestation of Quaker piety.44 Stephen Grellet articulated this sense of unity when he attended a “blessed” meeting where “the love of the Lord flowed, it seemed from one heart to another.” Ann Cooper Tatum agreed; after hearing visiting ministers preach at a Quarterly Meeting in 1830, the “souls” of those in attendance were “solemnized together.” Silence allowed Friends to let go of the carnal world and contact the sacred, where they opened themselves up to the spirit of God through community. Friends would “dwell so deep that the solidity and weight of their spirits, might have a gathering effect on the spirits of others.” As Hugh Judge proclaimed, silence afforded the mind great clarity “to see and contemplate things of a higher nature.” Silence “suppressed the self will” and allowed the Friend to “enter a state of grace,” where God spoke to and through them.45 The mystical linkage among Friends was particularly evident to ministers. Susanna Lightfoot recalled being at a London meeting and feeling a “spirit of Quaker Piety

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prayer” weave through the gallery before anyone spoke: “To sit in lively meetings and to witness the holy oil to run as from vessel to vessel.” Quakers took Protestantism to an extreme by contending that “God spoke his Word anew within the soul of every person, doing away with virtually all mediating agencies in the ultimate exaltation of inner experience”—including the need for words.46 Friends congregated in the same physical space to facilitate their meeting in a union of spirit. They were to come “under an exercise of mind to perform the solemn duty of spiritual worship.” Without this, there was no reason to be present. James Bringhurst lauded the worth of silent meetings: “What is the cause that we are thus called together & nothing verbally spoken to us, & that inquiry I believe has with some been so far continued until a conviction has been brot.[sic] over their minds of the necessity of looking beyond words.” One Quaker found such “sweetness” came over his “mind” after a meeting that he “endeavored to keep as still and quiet from conversation as I well could” before it lessened the satisfaction attained. Some Friends avoided speaking of “worldly matters” after meeting because they might “lose the relish or good savour” it had left on their minds.47 While an apprentice in his late teens, Jesse Kersey relied on attendance at meetings to focus his mind on spiritual topics while living amidst profane and worldly coworkers. After an unsettling day, John Comly went to meeting and realized the “necessity of improving the time of silent worship by diligent introversion of mind.” The “precious covering of the spirit” he experienced continued into the next day.48 Friends made use of silence in the household among family and friends. It was not unusual for conversation to cease during a household gathering while one Friend fell to reflect in “passive obedience” what was on his or her mind. The grave demeanor of this individual quietened those in attendance. It was “habitual” that both young and old would give “the apparently meditating person an opportunity of pursuing uninterruptedly the train of his own thoughts.” The conversation would resume, sometimes with the individual exhorting others about what he or she had learned. This silent meditation was considered “a devotional act” by Quakers. “The workings of the mind of the meditating person” were the result of “solemn reflection” as “the immediate offspring of the agency of the spirit.” This “habitual silence” occurred as if the individual were in the meetinghouse, as it expressed the all-­encompassing devotion of Quakers. As William Penn stated, “True silence is the rest of the

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mind, and is to the spirit, what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.”49

Mortifying Labor Meetings provided a venue to direct one’s mind toward the Inward Light and Truth, but it was not easily attained. Attending a fifth day meeting, Hannah Bringhurst desired to “find the way of good”; instead, “weakness was the companion of my mind.” She waited in silence, “wrestling for the blessing.” Similarly, Sarah Scattergood attended meeting twice on a first day in December of 1795 but “did not enjoy, what my poor wading mind, at times panting after, being refreshed as with the Streams of Shiloh.” She yearned for a “pure heart” that would be purged “from the dross and sin.” Meetings were emotional, mystical, and physical experiences for Friends. John Woolman described meeting as a “sort of mortifying labor.”50 Friends sighed and groaned as they strained to find spiritual relief. They had to balance the tension between labor and salvation; passive obedience to divine leading would avoid following one’s own will. At one meeting, John Comly’s “fluctuating thoughts like wave upon wave, seemed to overwhelm my poor tossed soul.” Hearing John Simpson preach becalmed his mind. Preaching was useful to Elizabeth Rodman, but she stressed that it would do “no good further than we are instructed by it to attend to the inward monitor.”51 Elders and ministers often wrote about the quality of meetings they attended. After a first day meeting in August of 1790, John Hunt found it “a low poor dull time,” with many “trying, vexing and perplexing” aspects that tended to “disquiet, discompose and disturb the mind.” Persuading members to concentrate on the spiritual during meeting proved a trial at times. Hunt labeled gatherings that lagged laborious: it was “very, close tight scraping work” and a “threshing time.” He found “deadness, dryness, [and] dullness” in his New Jersey meeting but also “solidity” and “a good degree of the savor of life.” He used the words “sweet and savory, gathering and uniting” to describe a satisfying meeting. Hunt claimed that the best sort of meeting was one in which those present have “communion with God” that was “beyond all declarations of words.” For Patience Brayton, good meetings occurred when she felt “favoured with divine openings”; bad were those in which she “felt great poverty.”52

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Dull speakers and indifferent prayers were as much a problem as inattentive and snoozing members. John Hunt attended Evesham meeting in 1791, where “several gospel truths” were spoken but to little effect: “It seemed as if the people had been taking sleepy drops, anodyne or laudanum and . . . there was no waking them.” Sleeping during services was a common complaint. Jane Brinton chided her brother Joseph for falling asleep in meeting; he tried to stay awake by counting the number of times his head nodded. In the summer of 1800, a Quarterly Meeting in Philadelphia debated the issue of slumbering members. After some discussion, the meeting agreed to fight somnolence by instituting “the cementing effects of true gospel fellowship.” While attendance at meeting compelled stillness and passivity of Friends, it also demanded proper decorum, such as staying awake. It was considered bad manners to interrupt others or to leave meeting early; on occasion some members would display their displeasure by shifting their feet.53 Daydreaming and fidgeting were deemed wayward behavior as was gathering outside afterward to exchange news, discuss business, and socialize. Mary Ridgeway advised some young men, who were talking and laughing outside a meetinghouse, to “keep to themselves” and retire somewhere alone so they could conserve all the “good impressions” garnered at a “favored meeting.” Rebecca Jones spoke of the spiritual loss sustained by young people who congregate after meeting. Instead of engaging in “light unmeaning[ful] conversation,” she recommended that they retire to their homes after “a solid meeting” and there “treasure up” what they had heard.54 (Figure 3 shows Quakers leaving a Hicksite meeting in the 1820s.) The Quaker meetinghouse was the site of other means of Quaker practice, including prayer and discipline. “As a quiet habitation,” prayer provided safety and repose from the “great stirrings and commotions of the world.” Friends engaged in regular supplication, both silent and vocal, alone and together, to perpetuate their faith. Silent prayer could include audible sounds as Friends sought to center their minds. Hugh Judge declared “prayer is one of the most enriching exercises to the soul”; while in prayer, the soul is “in a strong castle, secure from the rage and power of its enemies.” One mother instructed her children to pray while at worldly employment—to “lift” their “souls to the mighty rock of ages.” Meditation was useful to keep one in a mindful state at home, work, or in meeting. This could not be attained in “noise and confusion”; believers must first bring “the mind to thoughtfulness and meditation on heavenly things.”55

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Fig. 3 | Cherry Street meetinghouse, circa 1829. The Library Company of Philadelphia.

Quaker discipline was another means to accomplish this goal through a series of policies to ensure good order. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting codified its first rules for Discipline in 1704. They covered all manner of topics, from the proper format for meetings to the role of elders and overseers to disownment procedures. Friends developed a series of queries that were read out at meetings to remind Friends of their spiritual, familial, and communal obligations. These questions covered social activities (excessive drinking, dancing, gambling, gossiping, and meddling), economics (prudence in business affairs, living within one’s means, and paying taxes), family life (engaging in family worship, raising children with plainness and morality, and sheltering young adults from marrying out of the community), and benevolence (providing for the poor and not importing or buying slaves). These queries changed over time as new issues arose, such as prison reform. Though

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formulaic, the queries reminded Friends of their responsibilities on a regular basis. After the questions were read, ministers would preach to reinforce their importance. For example, in 1795, Deborah Darby spoke forcefully about the need for mothers to be fully aware of their grave responsibility in raising children.56

Bonds of Fellowship Friends pursued practical religion individually and collectively. Individually, they had to look to their own experience and follow their own way. When Hannah Bringhurst attended a fifth day meeting, the minister told Friends to “all mind our own business,” and she saw herself “alone” on an “untrodden path.” Mary Stokes agreed: “What a favor to be kept just in the right path, one cannot dictate for another.” Mary Kite recognized that she depended “too much” on others’ labors “without seeking after that true inward travail that leads to Jerusalem the quiet habitation.” While family and friends could provide support, individuals had to scrutinize their own behavior via their “inward monitor.”57 This pattern of self-­reliance was evident when Joseph Scattergood assessed a social event in his diary (he went sledding with some young women and stopped at a tavern for refreshment). Though the activity was “innocent and sober,” he worried how it would look to others. Noting that this was the first time he had led such a “party of pleasure,” he expected it would be his last; he felt “shame and fear” and concluded that “condemnation and sorrow” were his “just portion.” Friends walked a fine line between remaining spiritually minded and demonstrating appropriate sociability. Robert Pittsfield believed that young people engaged in conversation that did not “promote spiritual health” but had “a tendency to indispose the mind.” He wished to take advantage of every opportunity to “restrain and regulate the passions and propensities with which I am possessed,” so he could “receive any impressions of divine good.”58 Friends strove to be mindful in social situations. When Joseph Scattergood went to a gathering with other young people, he worried that he gave way to “too much lightness” and that “watchfulness . . . is much wanting in me.” Isaac Comly lamented his behavior after attending a relative’s wedding: “It appeared to me that I dwelt too much outward,—indulged in a talkative disposition and superficial conversation, especially on books.” At another

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event, Comly found himself “loquacious—I observe an impropriety in light talk, and a habit of laughing in conversation, very unbecoming & perhaps disgusting.”59 Mary Lippincott did not trust herself in company for fear she would “say too much” or cause grief by her statements, while Hugh Judge avoided social conversation because he thought it impoverished the mind. Sociability came at a spiritual cost; Ann Tatum Cooper found after being “light & airy” in company, “seasons of sadness” returned with “redoubled depth of feeling.”60 Mary Kite knew her fondness for company often led to trouble; when she became “entangled in the labyrinth of foolishness and levity,” it took many days to “rebuild her spiritual state.” Robert Pittsfield described the lures of secular society as a poison “more subtle than of asps; more dangerous & less dreaded.” After socializing with an irreligious young man of “uncommon talents” and “affable manner,” Robert found himself in a state of “mental distress,” which was only relieved by augmenting his pious efforts.61 Quakers enacted their faith by seeking out others for spiritual relief and commiseration. Joseph Scattergood spent an evening with a close friend who was more advanced than he in “real experimental religious experience”; his suggestions increased “our bonds in the fellowship of the gospel.” Scattergood found silence instructive in experiencing “feeling” fellowship. Mariabella Eliot Howard encouraged her cousin Susanna Emlen by reminding her of the words of the New England Friend Job Scott: “There is an Everlasting Arm underneath which will bear up and support as it is needful we should be supported.” Quakers congregated at one another’s homes for social interaction and religious experience, to encourage each other “by good example, and by tender counsel in the pursuit thereof.” Isaac Comly found his friend Enoch Evans’s conversation strengthening. He benefited from Enoch’s “soundness & sweetness which is consonant with true Christianity.” They conversed about affairs related to their meeting but also relished when they “fell into silence.” It was common for family and friends to gather after dinner to sit in silence before anyone was moved to speak. These silent gatherings engendered fellowship and friendship.62 Fellowship also occurred through family worship. Quaker epistles repeatedly reminded Friends of this necessary activity to encourage piety. During household worship all members assembled to hear readings from Scriptures and Quaker literature. Families were to engage in silence before and after “so that the secret petition might ascend from the hearts” among those present.

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Young children were to be still and quiet during a household meeting; if they were ever “fretful or murmuring,” it could destroy “the peace of a family.” Such gatherings garnered great benefits. Joseph Scattergood read the Bible with his eldest children once a week on first day. He found this activity profitable because it induced appreciation as “their minds were in good degree solemnized under the covering of love and sweetness that prevailed. What greater joy can we have than to see them walking in the truth.” One minister recommended that before meeting parents have their children sit quietly or read the Scriptures so “that their minds as well as their bodys [sic] might be brought into a state of quietude, and be more fit to perform the solemn act of worship, and receive benefit from going to meeting.”63 Friends, family, and community provided sustenance through regular contact. Though separated by distance, Martha Allinson envisioned being joined to her son and daughter-­in-­law “to feel near and dear union & communion.” Friends offered consolation to others. Sybil Allinson felt great affinity with her bereaved sister Margaret Hilles and advised her to find solace in God, whose love would recompense the loss she had endured. Rebecca Jones encouraged Sally Dillwyn to renew her spiritual efforts in “double diligence” because “our allotted portion is indeed but a span.”64 Family members counseled each other to stay faithful to Quaker ideals. Edith Jefferis encouraged her brother Joshua to become “one of the Lambs of Christ’s fold” by taking “heed of that still small voice which is called the conscience.” Mary Kite wrote to her male relations offering counsel. She urged her nephew Joseph to follow the “divine monitor” who, earlier in his life, had helped him overcome “the evil propensities of [a] fallen nature.” After quoting Scripture, Mary told him to be “prepared for usefulness in thy Master’s hands.” She offered to be his “companion in this heavenly journey” and was glad to walk in “this narrow way.” In turn, she asked for her brothers’ encouragement. In a letter to her sibling James, she recognized the “kindness and sympathy” of Friends who helped her overcome “all deficiencies.”65 Communal bonds among Friends, facilitated by family relations and kin networks, buoyed believers to stay on the straight and narrow. This course was tiring and unremitting; each day brought challenges upon life’s highway. This pious practice demanded constant self-­awareness of one’s behavior as well as one’s inner mind and spirit with strict attention to this continuous labor. Piety was maintained through a variety of activities, including meeting, praying, and conversing, to perpetuate mindfulness and induce inward meditation. Friends spiritualized everyday living to enact their faith, but it was not an easy charge; 38

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they were expected to display diligence, fortitude, and watchfulness. This religious regimen started when a Friend was young and ideally continued throughout life. It was shared by Friends on both sides of the Atlantic during the late eighteenth century, notwithstanding the changes induced by evangelical religion. Although a schism in the 1820s would divide Friends, they would continue to marry, raise children, and enact their faith based on their version of the Quaker religion. The “guarded” education of their offspring became even more paramount as doctrinal differences arose among American Friends again in the 1840s and 1850s.

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Chapter 2

“To Cultivate Tende r M ind s” Educating Children

To bring children to a true and profitable sense of their own states, and direct them to the spiritual warfare in themselves, is the main end of all religious labour. —Sarah Tuke Grubb

In the fall of 1836, Philadelphia Quakers Moses and Mary Brown, along with their three children—Wistar, age ten; Moses Jr., age seven; and Mary Jr., age five—formed what they called the “Domestic or Home Peace Society.” It was established to preserve “harmony and peace” in their family by promoting “individual tranquility and forbearance.” Upon joining the society, all members agreed to “subdue and overcome among ourselves those propensities and evil dispositions, which when unrestrained” led to conflict. The elder Browns wrote a preamble and set of articles for the society and nominated Moses Sr., the father, as president, and Mary Sr., the mother, as secretary. Eldest son Wistar became the treasurer, and Moses Jr. and Mary Jr. were “the assembly.” According to the society’s rules, officers were elected every month, and the group met every Saturday night. Members were to attend all meetings or pay one penny. Any member who caused discord would be fined “for each and every” infraction. The most detailed article of the society, number five, specified that “every angry look—blow—menace—pinch—or ill-­natured expression—having for its manifest object and tendency the disturbance of another’s peace—shall be regarded as an offence.” The violator had to remit the stipulated fine. All monies collected were deposited in the “charity box” and donated to a benevolent cause unanimously approved of by the members.

The Domestic Society quickly amassed a fund of fifteen cents after the first few weeks of meeting. Wistar, who served as treasurer for the first month, conveyed his wish that “so many offences will not again occur in one week.” By the following week, the treasurer had collected nine more cents and the assembled members insisted that the society had proved beneficial. At the end of 1836, the group had garnered thirty-­three cents and agreed to use the money to buy food for an indigent woman. Wistar and Moses Jr. were put in charge of purchasing and delivering rice, sugar, and tea. The society continued to meet and accumulate funds due to the members’ mischief. By February of 1837, the treasurer, who at this point was Moses Jr., reported that he had received “21 forfeitures from four individuals,” and he expressed regret that the group’s rules were so frequently broken. By the end of the month, the treasury contained ninety cents, and the society agreed to donate the money to the Shelter for Colored Orphans. Wistar, Moses Jr., and their cousin, Susan Sansom Brown, a new member, served on the committee appointed to visit the shelter and donate the money. The society disbanded in April of 1837, as improved weather allowed more time for outdoor activities. In the closing notes, the secretary recorded that the society had “raised within us feelings of gratitude to the Father of all our mercies.” The members agreed that during their meetings “our little bond has been prevented from attending stated periods of disposition or afflicting one another.” This family used monetary incentive to engender good deeds and proper beliefs. By making their children members and officers of the society, the Browns held them accountable for collecting money from miscreants. In this way, these young Friends took responsibility for their own and others’ conduct, with the hope of nurturing self-­discipline.1 This social experiment demonstrates how the family affected the moral training and pragmatic education of Quaker children. Proper childrearing was essential to initiate and preserve the interior nature of Quaker faith. Friends placed equal emphasis on spiritual development as well as the acquisition of knowledge in the home and at school. Learning how to be pious and proper was as important as learning how to read and write. Friends instilled religious principles through parental advice in the family as well as specified educational policies at school. Friends set out to safeguard their children from worldly temptations while at the same time ensuring they adopted Quaker moral values, pious exercises, and modest behaviors. Through careful cultivation and oversight, parents, elders, and leaders promoted their children’s future not only as productive members of society but especially as “weighty” Friends, Educating Children

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who would provide leadership and vision to the Quaker community. The health of their Society rested on their success in raising dutiful and pious children who were peculiarly Quaker.

Holy Childrearing The Browns’ approach to parenting and family life, as well as their desire to inculcate deep spirituality, is evident in these accounts. Quaker leaders and educators had endorsed these ideals since the eighteenth century. James Mott Sr. charged parents to use “reason and justice” in their childrearing. Through “patient superintendence,” they could raise offspring who would be humble and obedient. These traits were not obtained through “scolds, threats or a harsh tone of voice” but rather by “even, steady, firm, moderate treatment” as well as “gentle firmness” and “proper discipline.” Parents would raise tractable sons and daughters who required few reprimands. This process began early: “The sooner the child is brought into subjection, the better for the infant, and the easier for the parent.” When children misbehaved, it was better to show how “deeply afflicted” the parents felt about their child’s actions rather than become angry. This engaged the child’s reason; they were more likely to see their error by persuasion rather than by chastisement. As Mott argued, “It is instruction, not arbitrary punishment, that must aid children in governing their own inclinations and emotions.” Furthermore, parents should respond to wrongdoing “in love, without wrath or violence”; by appealing to their “rectitude,” children would be less likely to explain their behavior with “false excuses.” This doctrine of self-­management, recommended by Mott and enacted by the Browns, valued what other urban, middle-­class White Americans aspired to in the antebellum era. As C. Dallett Hemphill states, parents in this period used “care and affection, in combination with the encouragement of self-­control” to instill discipline in their offspring.2 The Friends’ model of raising their young coincided with notions of childhood that became popular during the eighteenth century. The Enlightenment altered conceptions of childrearing to stress the importance of identity formation, internalized restraint, and moral growth. The Quaker pattern of childrearing resembled those recommended by Jean-­Jacques Rousseau. Like the French philosopher, Quaker parents wanted a child’s development to “unfold organically within a controlled environment.” In addition, Locke’s conception of the child as a “tabula rasa” had wide impact. Quaker schoolmaster 42

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John Ely invoked this common belief: “As the mind of a child is like soft wax, which will take the least stamp you put upon it, so let it be your care, who teach, to make the stamp good, that the wax be not hurt. Teach him to love God, and to obey his parents.” In 1806, English Friend Frederick Smith affirmed this tenet that the “minds of children are tender and susceptible”; they were responsive to parental advice when communicated through love and affection. As flexible and pliable, youth had to be nurtured to become decorous adults and pious believers through consistent parental attention. According to Jacqueline Reinier, the Enlightenment ideal of the “malleable child”—the concept “that human personality could be molded by environmental influences”—remained significant into the nineteenth century.3 John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education, which became a standard text for childrearing, had a profound impact on American parents in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Locke recommended that children be trained early to form good habits, which should be reinforced by “kind words and gentle admonitions,” rather than “harsh rebukes and chiding.” Repeatedly practicing such behaviors would result in their successful adoption. Quaker parents followed these guidelines and engaged in “constant surveillance” to guarantee their youngsters learned “subjection, moderation and religion.” John Ely approved of this tactic while cautioning that “if we neglect our children when they are young, we have nothing to expect but the like treatment when they are old. As, therefore, we prize our own happiness, as we regard the welfare of society, as we love our children, let us attend to their instruction.” Early education was a popular subject in the eighteenth century as a range of authors wrote about the need to form the minds and characters of the young to rear “self-­regulated” children.4 Scholars have recognized the contribution of Quakers to the development of modern notions of childcare and family life, especially the use of modeling. Barry Levy asserts that American Friends associated their own “holy conversation” as adults with the spiritual development of their children. If parents were humble, submissive, and pious in their attitude and comportment, their progeny would possess the same traits. Quaker parents “need only work with emotional purity and economic productivity” to keep their young in the faith. J. William Frost concurs with Levy to insist that “pious parents had pious children.” The role of parents was to tend to their children’s development by encouraging profitable activities. They were “to cultivate, both by precept and example, these tender minds and impress them with a sense of the duty they owe to their great Creator, and the necessity and advantage of taking heed to Educating Children

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the inward appearance of grace and truth, in early life.” Thomas Pym Cope agreed; parents were to “govern rather than tyrannize, to mend but not to lacerate, to prune but not to hack.” The Quaker practice of “holy childrearing” was not just essential to uphold orderly households; it was crucial to the family’s spirituality and the continuation of the Society.5 Education and socialization were primary responsibilities of Quaker parents. Even with the onset of schooling, the Quaker family “retained its preeminence as teacher,” especially regarding religion. Parents and guardians played a central role in children’s spiritual progress by setting a good example of self-­discipline. John Comly, who became a teacher, stressed that a child’s will had to be subjugated so that they would find the “inward principle of virtue in themselves, by which to regulate all their conduct, words and actions.” Sarah Tuke Grubb, an English educator, counseled others to raise their children with “a true and profitable sense of their own states” by making them aware of their internal “spiritual warfare.” Through persistence and patience, parents could bring their children to a clear understanding of “the justice, mercy and nobility of that Christian discipline which has been exercised towards them,” which would result in their attainment of “sweet communion” by recognizing the “foundation of good in themselves.” Only by practicing mindful restraint would they become truly pious Friends.6

To Govern, Counsel, and Correct Quaker childrearing practices are evident in the Moses family of Philadelphia. Besides the creation of their “Peace Society,” Mary and Moses Brown’s careful account of their offspring’s development resulted in a “children’s diary,” started in the fall of 1833. Its purpose was to ensure that their sons, Thomas Wistar, age seven, and Moses Jr., age four, would “become good children—obedient to their parents—affectionate to each other—careful in their words and behaviors—attentive to their lessons and orderly and correct in their manners.”7 The Browns, “being very desirous for the improvement of our dear little boys,” kept the account for their sons’ benefit. The initial record in October specified each child’s actions for the day. Thomas Wistar, known as Wistar, was the subject of the first entry: “[Wistar] was very good in the morning meeting. Did not sit quite so still in the afternoon. Bible lesson was recited pretty well, . . . read several stories and little verses, but not sufficiently attentive to his manners while reading. And I am sorry to be obliged to mention that once 44

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to day he lost his temper while his brother worried him, when he should have had more patience.” The first account for Moses noted that he cried when his parents decided not to take him to meeting because of the weather: “He appeared to forget that his Father & Mother knew much better what was best for him.” Though he later “bothered” his brother, he did learn a short Bible line and went to bed “like a good boy.”8 Each child’s personal deportment and religious devotion were recorded. Quaker parents took both the moral training and the public demeanor of their children seriously; attaining “the Inward Light and Truth” and expressing its outward benefits were of paramount importance. The Browns were intent on childrearing that aimed to “govern, counsel and correct.” They not only tracked their sons’ comportment in the diary but also read it back to them so they would improve in the future. They were quick to praise good actions and just as quick to condemn bad. They lamented when they had to report on the latter. For example, on sixth day during the first week of November 1833, they wrote, “Oh could we blot out the deeds of our little naughty boys this day from our remembrance!” They proceeded to detail their mishaps because they, as parents, had agreed to “give a true account of their [children’s] conduct.” The Browns used the diary to motivate their sons to do better; they asked them to make a set of resolutions at the beginning of each week and to recall them to aid their development. These parents utilized misconduct for edifying purposes. For example, on a fifth day in November 1833, Wistar hit his sickly little sister, two-­year-­old Mary, in the face. To impart the ideal relationship among siblings, they wrote, “We hope he will never do so again. Both brothers must remember how weak she is and that they might hurt her very much. They should love their little sister dearly and take good care of her.” Likewise, when Wistar and Moses were “very unkind” to one another, the boys were told that they “should be very condescending one to the other.”9 Outsiders’ perceptions inspired correct deportment. When Wistar and Moses behaved poorly in front of some visitors from England, their parents were “mortified that our friends should see such improper conduct in our children.” Similarly, they commented on their sons’ misbehavior in public. At a first day meeting, Wistar was unsettled, playing with his feet and hands, and shifting in his seat. Although cautioned to remain quiet and still, he “was so naughty and willful that he did not mind father.” His disobedience was evident as was the fact that “many other little boys were at meeting and sat very orderly.” Because of this, Wistar was not allowed to sit at table when a cousin Educating Children

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came to dinner. The Browns used their disapprobation to improve their sons’ conduct. After Wistar was disrespectful to his grandfather, they stated how sorry they were for his rudeness. When some cousins came to visit, Moses Jr. cried when he had to go to bed instead of continuing to play. When the brothers acted poorly, they were reprimanded: “We very much wish our little boys to remember that they cannot expect others to love them or to like their company unless they take some pains to make themselves agreeable.” The Browns required their children to present a pleasant countenance, to display good manners, and to engage in respectful interaction with peers and elders alike.10 A central aspect of Quaker parenting included supervision of their offspring’s spirituality; they fostered religious ideas and habits to produce obedience and devotion. While the Religious Society of Friends did not follow the same rituals as other Christians to introduce their children into the community—such as infant baptism—they worked hard to encourage apposite religious attitudes and behaviors. The Browns modeled deportment at the same time they monitored behavior closely to make sure they winnowed out the bad and cultivated the good. These parents made a conscientious effort to ensure their children adopted their ways not only in personal decorum but also in spiritual practice.11 The Browns shaped their progeny’s spiritual identity through a variety of activities. They invoked religious concepts to encourage self-­ correction. For example, one entry stated that lying was a “great sin”; they cautioned them to be careful to speak the truth, “for it is an awful thing to tell an untruth. Our Heavenly father will not love children that do such wicked things.” They used attendance at first day meeting to remind their sons and daughter that “to attend a place of worship is a serious religious thing and we should remember that the Almighty being sees us at all times, and knows our thoughts.” To foster devotion, the Browns read religious books together and had their sons recite Bible verses. When the boys attended meeting with their parents, they noticed when one fell asleep and the other fidgeted. Attentiveness at meeting, which included being wide awake—still in body but observant in mind—was the Quaker ideal, one that these boys had yet to master. These parents encouraged their sons to pursue secret prayer, asked them to discuss scriptural questions on Sundays, and required their participation in family worship. The Browns queried their children to repeat what the ministers had said at meeting as well as relate the ideas of George Fox. They also learned about Friends’ charitable work. For example, in October of 1833, Wistar began reading an account of the orphan asylum to the rest of the family. All these activities were constitutive elements in the formation of Quaker spirituality.12 46

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A Guarded Education The education of youth consumed the Religious Society of Friends from the very beginning. To perpetuate their faith as well as to rear pious children, early Quakers endorsed a specific type of education. The young should be “trained up in Truth’s way, and with a commendable education” commensurate with their abilities. They wanted to safeguard their children against immorality and indoctrinate them into the Society. William Penn advised that his children’s education be “liberal” and “useful.” He wished their learning to be “consistent with truth and godliness, not cherishing a vain conversation or idle mind, but ingenuity mixed with industry.” Penn was adamant that they obtain a sensible education to become “husbandmen and housewives.” He enumerated specific skills: “Teach your children fair writing, and the most useful parts of mathematicks, and some business when young, whatever else they are taught.” He told his first wife, Gulielma, to hire some “ingenious person” to teach their children rather than sending them to school, “too many evil impressions being commonly received there.” The London Yearly Meeting reinforced Penn’s views in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries when it offered specific educational recommendations. First, Quaker education was to be “useful and practical,” emphasizing “Christian and moral instruction.” Second, it would utilize teachers who were Friends and “capable of good moral influence.” Third, both instructors and parents were counseled to “realize the force of example” and to censor “all reading materials of youth.” The term “guarded education” designated the Quaker brand of teaching in both sacred and secular pursuits and to protect their offspring from worldliness.13 To guarantee access to a “guarded education,” Quaker leaders established boarding schools during the eighteenth century. By 1780, English Friends had founded fifteen educational institutions for boys and four for girls. American Quakers copied their English counterparts. The William Penn Charter School, established in Philadelphia in 1689, became one of the first Friends’ establishments in the American colonies. The school’s overseers hired several teachers, both male and female, throughout the eighteenth century. Those who worked for the William Penn Charter School taught full-­and part-­time students reading, writing, and arithmetic.14 These instructors were not only to teach basic skills but also to implant proper behavior in compliance with the school’s regulations. Their teaching was to improve student conduct. In 1783, William Brown remarked that there was a “good degree of decorum” in his students, but he worried that the “general depravity of the youth in this city, the connexion Educating Children

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and intimacy which Friends’ children have with others” had led to a decline in plain language, which was hurting “the promotion of piety & virtue.” While the William Penn Charter School accepted non-­Quakers, others desired a more “select” process that would protect “the cause of truth” by only enrolling Friends. This attentiveness to learning, behavior, and spirituality was evident in a broadside issued by the Overseers of Friends’ Schools in 1796. In “Advice to Scholars,” students not only needed to “live in fear” and to “regulate every thought and every action,” but they were also to be “punctual in attending religious meetings” and display “a quiet, humble deportment while there.” Scholars were to respect their parents, guardians, and teachers and to live harmoniously with siblings and schoolmates. Quaker minister and educator Rebecca Jones wrote her own set of rules for her girls’ school in Philadelphia. She demanded silence while in class; when at meeting, students were to “sit attentively and erect in a decent composure of body and mind, secretly desiring to be favored . . . with a proper disposition of mind to offer . . . spiritual and acceptable worship.”15 Pennsylvania Quakers achieved their goal of opening a select institution when they founded Westtown School in 1799. Patterned after Ackworth, a Friends school in Yorkshire, England, Westtown was situated on six hundred acres in Chester County, thirty-­four miles west of Philadelphia. The Friends Boarding School at Westtown was open to boys and girls aged nine to sixteen. Children attended the school in rural isolation within a domestic framework. The inhabitants were conceived of as a “family,” and the main building was their “house.” The superintendents of the school, usually a married couple, sometimes a brother and sister, served as surrogate parents to the students. Female and male scholars were taught by teachers of the same sex and separated from each other in housing and schooling; they were only together during meeting. Gender seclusion appeared in the curriculum as well; girls attended sewing school and learned writing, reading, and ciphering.16 Boys shared the same academic subjects and studied Latin, Greek, and astronomy. Leisure activities were separated by sex: girls accompanied their female teachers on hikes; boys did the same. By the 1810s, boys and girls had distinct gardens on the school grounds. The school’s galleries and stairwells were also sex segregated.17 The school day was organized to include “decent preparation for the respective avocations of the day.” Students were provided “improving lessons” from books chosen with “religious caution.” Learning was balanced with “seasons of relaxation, either in innocent amusement or such instructive

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exercise in useful labour” that was neither “oppressive to the body nor unfriendly to the mental powers.”18 Westtown School set specific rules for student comportment, from physical hygiene (washing faces, combing hair) and bodily regulation (no laughing, talking, running) to social interaction (no gossiping, name calling, provoking comments) and religious performance (corporeal immobility and inward contemplation). Students were taught that stillness was particularly fitting not only in meeting but also for beginning their day as well as when dressing, walking downstairs, and going to class. Martha Biddle wrote to her parents describing her morning schedule: “Before sunrise the bell rings & up we bounce, quick enough, but not a word is to be heard . . . we then dress & march down into the gallery, where we are allowed about 15 minutes to wash, &c the bell is then rung & we collect for crackers . . . we are allowed to eat as much as we choose. After crackers we go to school . . . after about an hour and a half, when the bell is rung & we collect for breakfast.” During classes, students were to be deferential and learn “their lessons in silence,” and when repeating them to their teachers, they were “to speak audibly, deliberately, and distinctly.” When retiring, students were to proceed to their “bed chambers and undress in as much stillness as possible, avoiding conversation; folding up your clothes neatly and putting them in their proper place.” With such skillful quietness, students would concentrate their minds “inward and wait upon your great Creator, the author of all our blessings; thus, beginning the day in his fear.” At night, students were “tenderly and affectionately advised . . . [to] close the day with remembering your gracious Creator, that being the best preparation for quiet repose.”19 Through such bodily comportment, Quaker children would begin to listen to their inner voice and gain religious knowledge as well as secular learning and social skills. Oversight by the Westtown leadership included a range of restrictions on the students. The superintendents and teachers had the right to examine all letters. This was not to “suppress the free expression of the children’s sentiments” but to “prevent any improper communications.” The scholars were not allowed to visit relatives in the neighborhood or go home until they had been at the school for six months. All students were required to wear plain clothing; boys were to have suits in “grave colors,” while girls’ dresses had to be “plain worsted”; the use of luxury fabrics, such as silk, was prohibited. The school reminded parents that clothing represented the simplicity of the Quaker religion as well as confirmed their “views of decency and usefulness” and

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avoided imitating “the changeable fashions of the world.” Students were to only use plain language. Even students’ interactions with their siblings were regulated; brothers and sisters could only talk to each other “at suitable seasons.” Teachers were not the only ones to monitor the activities of students; older scholars were put in charge of younger ones to do the same.20 Students who flouted the rules found their acts recorded in the “Westonian Rabbie’s Reports alias Black List” (Westtown scholars used the Old Testament term “rabbi” [teacher] to address their instructors in the early nineteenth century). A surviving document discloses the punishment of male students at the school during the 1801–2 school year. Each week, one of the schoolmasters had to record any violations of school rules. The most common complaint was for being “disorderly”—talking too loudly, laughing, and cursing. For example, in the tenth month of 1801, Samuel Hildeburn was remonstrated for “too much lightness at table.” After the teacher John Baldwin talked to him, Samuel agreed to “be a better boy” in the future. Ideally, teachers planned to first “admonish” the student for their wrongdoing and then “reason” with them about their actions, mirroring the pattern followed by Quaker parents. Male students who were unruly during meeting and in the gallery (where they could congregate during free time) had their conduct written down in the Rabbie’s report. Likewise, students were cited for misbehaving before retiring, during class, or going up the stairs as well as being loud, acting out, and eating in their chambers. Other boys faced reprimand when they lied, used “profane” or “saucy” language, and traded personal items without permission. Students were reproved for going outside without authorization, for leaving the school grounds, and for not returning on time.21 A common penalty for misbehavior at Westtown was “doing lines”—that is, writing out entries from a published work, such as the dictionary. John Reeve had to write an essay “on silence and order” after being “lively” at table. In the third month of 1802, James Miller was required to “read 18 pages of Murray’s grammar” and report on it in the morning as a reprimand for rowdiness. Other punishments included “confinement” in one of the classrooms with the miscreant’s face turned toward the wall. Boys who ran away (“eloped”) from school were rebuked when brought back. Often this resulted in isolation; students ate their meals at “the disgrace table” and sat alone in one of the classrooms during free time. The most severe behavior was disciplined through corporeal punishment. Typically, students who engaged in repeated offenses faced this penalty. For example, James Miller, who was mentioned many times

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in the black list for wrongdoing, ran away in the spring of 1802. Interrogated after his return, he told “some falsehoods for which & other misconduct he was whipped.” School authorities defined discipline as “mild and paternal.” Chastisement was to be meted out based on the age of the child as well as the nature of the offence. The penalties ranged from “affectionate admonition” and “detention from play” to “deprivation of indulgence and confinement.” Corporeal punishment was to be used only in extreme cases and only after other means had been “tried and failed.”22 In addition to teachers’ oversight, students traced their transgressions in school diaries. In the 1830s, Susan Forsythe recorded on a weekly basis the school rules she violated. After each entry, one of her school mistresses made comments. During one week in October 1832, Susan “went upstairs without liberty,” “laughed in study,” and “spoke after the bell rung.” In response, her teacher wrote, “Be good for the sake of goodness—. . . . Be active and lively— be willing to try and do what is best of thee, do not be so selfish.” Most of Susan’s infractions concerned talking when she should not or running up and down stairs. She also lent and borrowed items without permission and misplaced books. After a week in which she spoke inappropriately four times, she claimed that “some of this was needful speaking.” Susan’s teacher questioned her presumed inability to change: “Do not say ‘I can’t’ any more and seem indifferent about things which thou art capable of improving—thou art a useful girl—and I want thee to feel it is right thou should be—it is part of our business in this life to help one another.” After five months of monitoring Susan’s behavior, her schoolmistress agreed she had improved and encouraged her to “hold fast what thou hast gained, of that which far transcends human knowledge.”23 Such internalization was evident in the school diary of Mary Dent, who wrote down specific resolutions in 1835: “Always consult duty before inclination. Be very watchful over all my actions &c and endeavors according to my little ability, and what may, be given me, to be exemplary.” She wished to reflect before acting and not rush to conclusions. She resolved to exhibit “patience, mildness, and preserving firmness,” and not let “an acrimonious disposition to have any place in my feelings, but endeavor to cultivate a cheerful, even interesting and animated deportment, particularly when in school.” Lastly, she longed to be “an example of industry” by devoting her free time to study. Similarly, Rebecca Budd desired to be “preserved from doing anything contrary to the good rules of the house,” and at the same time she wanted to set a good example as an older scholar.24

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Students were not always successful in enacting self-­discipline or obeying school regulations. Sarah Conard told her cousin that she had “never broken any rules but for laughing and as I am much given to laughter, I cannot help it sometimes though I try to avoid it all I can.” Elizabeth Vezey admitted to a friend that she had “been a little naughty of late—do not think I have been going contrary to order. I have broken no law, but the law of kindness, which ought to regulate every action of my life, who have myself been treated so kindly.” She admitted that no one “suffers by it so much as myself.” She asked for her friend’s assessment and good advice. After committing misdeeds, some students looked to parents for help. In the spring of 1849, Mary Sheppard wrote to her mother to confess that she had been “tempted by Satan” to open another girl’s trunk and steal an apple. “Knowing no peace of mind,” she wrote for counsel. Feeling guilty for causing her mother trouble, she hoped her parent would proffer succor rather than punishment. Even when they were not present, guardians found ways to correct their charges. For example, when Casper Lukens ran away from Westtown in December of 1840, his grandmother refused to send him any Christmas gifts that year.25 Appropriate behavior and belief were reinforced when Quaker preachers spoke at first day meetings. Thomas Scattergood told the scholars to pay “strict attention to their conduct that they might be good examples to each other.” He reiterated the school rules and instructed the students to examine themselves every night, and if they found they had done or said anything that caused “an uneasiness in their mind,” they should beg God’s forgiveness. This was to be repeated in the morning to avoid any missteps during the day. Hannah Evans urged the students to be like the “foundation Christ told Peter he wanted to build his church upon.” Charles Osborne “spoke very encouragingly to the little ones whose faces were turn’d zionward,” but then warned them of the danger of being unprepared for death. In 1813, Elias Hicks preached about “the impropriety of wars & fightings with great clearness & the necessity of cultivating the virtue of loving one another.” Teachers reinforced these messages by reading a chapter from the Bible each morning in their classes before beginning lessons. Moral instruction and academic learning were equally valued. John Cresson told his daughter Rebecca in 1818, “Thou art . . . so situated as to have the opportunity of acquiring a good share of school learning at the same time that a due attention is paid to thy morals, a blessing indeed.”26

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Preserved in Innocency Parents offered guidance through letters and periodic visits when their children were away at school. Martha Jefferis asked that her son Joshua and her daughter Ann “might lead one another by the hand and give good instructions to one another.” Rest Cope counseled her son Caleb and daughter Philena to avoid any boys and girls “who are naughty and disrespectful” and to imitate Samuel in the Old Testament, who at a young age was “preserved in innocency.” Hannah Rhoads recommended that her daughter Mary be friendly only with girls well-­liked by both teachers and students.27 Hannah Evans told her two sons to not forget their parents’ “anxious concern and solicitude for your good.” She commanded them to behave well, to obey their teachers, and to be affectionate to one another. They should only associate with classmates who were “seriously inclined” and not do anything that they would not be comfortable telling their instructors about or anything that would “wound” their minds. Hannah reminded her son William of the many lessons he had undergone to improve in “sobriety” and “thoughtfulness.” William wrote to his parents a few months later and assured them that he and his brother were “very well satisfied” with school. Thomas Pym Cope told his sons Henry and Francis while at Westtown not to “act like many other silly boys whose principal study is present gratification.” Their education would result in “self-­approving consciences & peace of mind.” While they may not enjoy the school’s plain fare, they were not “placed in this world to be gormandizers & epicures.” Their mother Mary echoed her husband’s guidance when she wrote that their sons should care less about good food and more about “feasts of the minds.” In 1804, she wrote a poem, whose last stanza urged them to embody suitable traits: “Then may condescension and tenderness join / and truth and sincerity with them combine / to ensure you a title to love and esteem / and shew that happiness is not a dream.” Halliday Jackson did the same for his daughter Mary, telling her to “improve thy time / whilst in thy prime.”28 Parents corresponded with their children to advise as well as to admonish. When a Westtown schoolmaster related an incident to Thomas Kite involving his daughter Susanna, he enquired about it. Susanna told her father he was “mistaken” in his understanding but that she was “very, very sorry” for what happened. She went on to thank her father for his counsel: “If I had not such good kind parents what would become of me[?]” Though she admitted she was “unsteady, light and trifling,” she promised to be more careful in the future.

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Jonathan Evans reprimanded his sons for wrongdoing and warned them to always be aware of the “small, gentle intimations and reproofs of the holy spirit of Truth in your own minds.” If they felt tempted to misbehave again, he counseled them to go somewhere alone and “get your minds drawn from every outward thing, to a reverential waiting upon our holy Creator for a renewal of his Light and grace upon you.” They should conduct themselves so as not to “offend or grieve his holy spirit in our hearts, which is a continual witness against every evil thought, word or action.” Absent parents chided children to engage in self-­control by attending to their own inner voices. The behaviors learned at Westtown, of “good works and orderly walking,” would be “disseminated through this neighborhood” to influence other Quaker children.29 Martha Jefferis taught at Westtown, sent her children there, and served as matron of the school. Her social and familial connections to the institution kept her informed of her offspring’s academic and religious progress. Like other Quaker parents, Martha told her children to obey the school rules, mind their teachers, and develop friendships with pious students. She focused on specific accomplishments and skills. 1834, she learned from her sister that her son Joshua had read well before the visiting committee: “It was very pleasant to have a good account of thee—I hope thee will be very careful in thy reading—try to get off clipping thy words, as I have had sometimes to tell thee of—there is nothing wanting but care.” Martha spilled the most ink recounting the importance of pious self-­regulation and awareness of God’s presence: “The eye of thy Heavenly Father at all times, and in all places, beholds us just as we are—there is no hiding anything from His all-­penetrating eye.” Her greatest desire was that her children would all walk “the paths of piety and virtue.” To attain this goal, she counseled her son to read a chapter from the Bible every day and attend to scriptural lessons. In another missive, Martha informed Joshua that his sister Edith had spoken with great solemnity at meeting. She mentioned this so he would follow his sibling’s example; having made Edith a “candidate for His glorious cause,” God could also “qualify, fit and prepare” Joshua for the same. Another parent coupled religious study to practical activities, such as sewing. To encourage his daughter Deborah to acquire useful skills while at school, Benjamin Ferris specified the importance of gaining expertise with a needle. Claiming that “a train of grace wait[s] on her who knows, full well how to wield this little instrument!” he directed her to read a verse from Proverbs to reinforce the link between spiritual practice and manual labor.30 54

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Westtown relied on faculty as well as parents to enforce propriety among the student body. All faculty were Friends, some former pupils of the school, such as Rebecca Budd, who struggled with modeling good behavior. At times, she questioned her ability to fulfill this duty: “What a great & important charge to have a hundred girls to watch over, and I am very fearful of not watching sufficiently over myself, Oh! . . . that I may be enabled to walk with circumspection before the children & in the holy fear of the Lord.” Teachers viewed their work at Westtown as a religious calling as much as it was paid employment. Martha Sharpless, who taught at the school in the late 1830s, asked her uncle Thomas Kite to find her replacement. She admitted she had passed through a difficult time that made her unable to continue teaching: “Sleepless hath been my nights and bitter my days not feeling at liberty to say I am my own mistress and yet on the other hand sensible of my unfitness to fill such a responsible station.”31 Like students, teachers had to abide by a set of regulations. They were to teach “useful branches of learning,” dine with the students, supervise their recreation, and govern them during class. They served as honorary parents in the oversight of students, but they were also to be role models so that students would come to respect and confide in them. Elizabeth Griffith recalled an outstanding teacher named James Emlen, who served as a “living epistle, seen and read by the young people by whom he was surrounded and implanting in many a young heart a desire to serve the same Master.” John Comly admired a fellow teacher who, as a paragon, had “a meek and quiet spirit” and was “humble, affectionate and circumspectly guarded in his conduct and conversation.” Like students, teachers struggled to live by godly rule. Rebecca Budd aspired to “piety and virtue” in serving those under her care. William Bailey, a twenty-­two-­year-­old instructor at Westtown in 1850, struggled in this role: “I have not been sufficiently on my guard of late, and have too much given way to levity, and foolish conversation, thereby not only weakening myself, but also setting a bad example to others.”32 Teaching at a Quaker institution was a spiritual vocation of heavy responsibility.

Instruction and Improvement Westtown teachers fostered the Quaker tradition through repetition to teach basic skills and to instill religious values; this cohered with their emphasis on habits of mind to train children spiritually and intellectually. Students copied Educating Children

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down poetry and prose to hone their writing skills while they imbibed religious ideals. They preferred works by Friends, both in print and in manuscript. For example, in 1807, Hannah Colman reproduced an unpublished poem written in 1790 by Anne Mifflin, a Philadelphia minister and member of the Westtown School Committee. Adages were popular items for students to copy into their workbooks to improve their writing and grammar. George Dillwyn authored Occasional Reflections for use in schools. The first chapter, entitled “The Youth’s Instructor,” included a list of aphorisms. These short and concise sayings were easy for young children to copy and invoked moral values and spiritual customs. They included “a clear conscience is health to the soul,” “be steady in virtuous pursuits,” “confine thy studies to what is useful,” and “good examples are convincing teachers.” Traits such as humility, kindness, peace, and silence were to be embraced, while ignorance, mirth, belligerence, and vanity were to be avoided. Some students took down common sayings, while others penned their own maxims. Mary Gibbons, a Westtown student in the 1810s, wrote a poem lauding the importance of discretion in pursuing academic work: “Knowledge alone puffs up the mind: / fleet coursers need the reins: / discretion shews the end design, / and guides what knowledge gains.” Elizabeth Hall repeated phrases in her copybook, including “tis he that is fit to live who is fit to die” and “employ thy time well, if thou wish to gain leisure.” These approaches were used at other institutions. At Kimberton Boarding School, Elizabeth Haines rewrote axioms several times to perfect her lettering. Her copybook for 1842 included sayings such as “religion conduces both to our present & future happiness,” “do nothing today that will occasion repentance tomorrow,” and “industry & improvement of time are important duties of youth.”33 Quaker schools emphasized content as well as format. Learning to write well was a strenuous enterprise that took considerable time to master. By the mid-­eighteenth century, literacy in reading and writing was allied with upward mobility and middle-­class gentility. Reproducing script through repetition was a form of self-­discipline.34 In 1822, Susanna Kite reported to her parents that “Mistress Abigail” had confidence that Susanna’s writing would resemble copper plate. A year later, her writing was demonstrably better. William Evans described his educational growth to his parents: “Master Forsythe says that I have improved very little in writing or arithmetic, but have made more progress in grammar.” Elizabeth Haines’s letters show her inexperience. Her first epistle to her parents contained spelling errors, for which she apologized: “The[e] must answer my letter pretty soon or else I shall think that you are all dead. . . . excuse my wrighting spelling and composing for it 56

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is the first letter I ever wrote before.” Rachel Sheppard believed her spelling and composition had improved but asked that she be told of any defects. Students also monitored their own learning. Henry Allinson told his mother that when he and some other boys went outside to play, they took the “blunder book” with them; whenever anyone said something ungrammatical, it was written down. In the evening, they would all collect in one room and each boy would correct his mistake.35 Parents worried about their children’s progress at school and often reminded them to apply themselves in all subjects. Rest Cope informed her son Caleb of his many spelling errors in one of his letters and sent him a list of their correct form. In 1829, she asked for more information from Caleb on his progress: “Remember my dear boy that anxious solitude we feel for thee; that thou may make a right use of the many advantages which may accrue from thy present situation.” She reminded him that exercise was essential to good health but not to spend too much time in play, for “youth is the time for improvement.” She told him to be respectful and attentive to his teachers and to set an example for the other boys by spending some of his free time in studying. Finally, she recommended he read John Woolman’s diary for inspiration. Such detailed instructions were intended to institute self-­discipline until the child had mastered the aptitudes and skills required for true piety. Mary Drinker Cope told her son William to read a part of the Scriptures each day and to apply it to his own life. Spiritual knowledge was expected among young Friends, and students sought out religious literature for direction. Mary Dent resolved to devote a part of each day reading edifying works.36 In 1801, a student seeking solace asked teacher Rebecca Budd to read aloud from Sarah Tuke Grubb’s diary; they then moved on to Job Scott’s journal. Budd may have accessed Grubb’s and Scott’s accounts of their early years and youthful struggles to help her student persist on the path of righteousness. These two choices show the range of offerings at Westtown before the 1827 schism. Sarah Tuke Grubb was the daughter and sister of William and Henry Tuke, leaders in the evangelical faction of English Friends. Conversely, the New Englander Job Scott was a quietist Quaker.37

Scenes of Contention The Hicksite schism in 1827–28 splintered the Quaker community, which, in turn, affected Friends’ attitudes toward parenting and education. In the wake Educating Children

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of this rupture, moral training became a primary concern. This is evident in the childrearing of the Browns, who parented during the schism. They had been married for two years and were first-­time parents with a one-­year-­old son when this religious controversy broke out. The Peace Society formed by the Browns came less than a decade after division. The formation of the Browns’ society may have been an attempt to forestall contentious feelings at home after such public outbursts at meeting, particularly because Hicks had appealed to the young to eschew their elders’ authority. The Browns became part of the Orthodox camp and were members of the Arch Street meeting in Philadelphia guided by Thomas Kite, a leader of the anti-­Hicksite faction. Mary Wistar Brown’s father was Thomas Wistar, who served on the Committee of Sufferings; under the leadership of Jonathan Evans, this body expelled Hicksites from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The religious rift had lingering effects. As Thomas Hamm asserts, the separation caused by the Hicksite schism “traumatized” a generation of Friends. It divided families and friends who found themselves on opposite sides; meetings and neighborhoods were rent apart. Distress continued as the split led to contentious fights over legal ownership of meetinghouses and possession of school funds.38 Apprehension over the schism’s impact on children pervades Quaker documents. In 1827, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting mentioned the schism in their annual epistle and specifically addressed the youth of their Society: “We are fully aware that many of you have witnessed scenes of contention, painfully affecting to the inexperienced mind, and calculated to produce the inquiry ‘Who shall show us any good?’ But remember, dear children, that truth is truth though all men forsake it.” Fearful their progeny had not yet attained the maturity to handle the fallout from the schism, they emphasized seeking after truth even when others could not see it. To keep them in the fold, Quakers on both sides of the split renewed their efforts to bolster youthful piety. The growing animus between Orthodox and Hicksite Friends led leaders to redouble their educational and religious endeavors among their young. Feeling the threat of “a spirit of delusion,” Hicksites recommended that household heads revitalize family worship and silent prayer as well as make sure their children avoid conforming to “vain customs and corrupt manners” by endorsing plain dress and language. Labeling parents “delegated shepherds,” the Hicksite Yearly Meeting of 1830 underscored the responsibility to rear children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”39 Orthodox Friends addressed similar anxieties at their Yearly Meeting a year later. First recognizing the “torrent of infidelity” that had recently occurred, 58

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the Orthodox leadership counseled families to continue their “diligent, impartial and tender labours” to put a stop to the “current of degeneracy” engulfing the society. The Education Committee echoed this sad situation when it reported on the lack of educational opportunities in many localities. Noting that education was “a religious concern of primary obligation,” which affected “the spiritual welfare of their beloved offspring,” the committee asked members to make monetary offerings to establish select schools. In rural areas, they suggested building schools near the meetinghouses and lodging students with local Quaker families. All these efforts would contribute to their happiness as well as preserve them from worldly temptation.40 Hicksite and Orthodox Friends used similar strategies to train youth. They relied on family members for guidance, sought advice from peers, and engaged in religious exercises to confirm their belief and advance their practice. The faculty and students at Westtown felt the impact of the Hicksite schism. Teachers who sided with Hicks quit their jobs, and Hicksite parents pulled their children out of the school because it was controlled by the Orthodox leaders of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Enrollments dropped from 139 scholars (57 boys, 82 girls) to 103 (45 boys and 58 girls) by 1830. Though the superintendents of the time (Phillip and Rachel Price) were tolerant toward both sides, a “party spirit” prevailed. Mary Hallowell, who was a teacher at Westtown along with her brother, Benjamin, left the school because she felt uneasy at “remaining in a place where her opinions were not those of the majority.” Hannah Morrison informed her parents that the girls she knew at school discussed the split despite the best efforts of teachers to prohibit conversation on this topic. Elizabeth Sykes felt “discouragements from within and without” and mourned their “poor desolated society.”41 Male students engaged in their own form of rebellion. In 1827, some boys, aged twelve to fourteen years, mounted an “insurrection” when they refused to read the New Testament as required by the school. Calling it the “Pope’s Book” (echoing Elias Hicks), the students proceeded to cut up their Bibles and burn the New Testament. Many expulsions followed this incident. Attention to spiritual development was evident during the schism when a sixteen-­year-­old student named Mary Hoopes reproduced a copy of George Dillwyn’s A Map of the Various Paths of Life to remind her fellow scholars to follow the right course. In 1833, the newly Orthodox school instituted religious studies as part of the curriculum. Students devoted one session in their morning or evening classes every week to Quaker principles and testimonies. Scriptural lessons were given twice weekly, and, by the 1840s, students attended meeting three times a week.42 Educating Children

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Childrearing had been a paramount issue of American Quakers from the beginning of settlement in the seventeenth century. Instilling the proper skills, knowledge, and spirituality in children was essential to individual prospects as well as that of the denomination. The establishment of the William Penn Charter School in early Pennsylvania is evidence of this overarching concern. The training and education of youth was of interest to not only parents but also ministers, overseers, and elders within the Quaker community. Parents took responsibility to provide guidance at the same time they looked to each other and their friends and relations to supply assistance in times of trial. Children learned how to be silent and still through parental modeling as well as educational directive. They nurtured habits of mind and habits of body to acquire deep faith and proper decorum. The emotional and physical training of the young marked their development to become well-­mannered, self-­ disciplined, and industrious individuals. The nurturance of religiosity occurred simultaneously with their academic achievement. Through reading and writing, young members learned basic skills at the same time Quaker dogma was inscribed in their lessons. Friends infused everyday learning with spiritual import. The extensive kin network that existed among American Friends in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries ensured that parents and children could pursue piety within their community, whether at meeting, school, or in the household. A proper education mandated both religious maturation and intellectual advancement. Maintaining the guarded nature of that education during religious controversy increased the urgency of Quaker leaders and parents to guarantee the right kind of moral instruction. The separation between Hicksite and Orthodox Friends engendered rancor and loss, yet parents on both sides of this divide were adamant about the need to provide a spiritual and practical education to their progeny. The creation of separate schools by the two factions demonstrates a shared agenda to safeguard their children’s spirituality while supplying them with appropriate educational opportunities; it also shows growing anxiety on both sides about increasing worldliness. Admonitions about wearing fancy clothes, buying elaborate furnishings, and providing music lessons to young people appeared in official epistles.43 Hicksite and Orthodox Friends would follow similar but divergent paths into the 1830s to ensure their offspring became pious adults and active members of the fragmented Quaker community. Pious practices would continue—in the wake of the 1827 separation—as Friends married, formed households, educated offspring, and reached old age. As they neared the end of life, they 60

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faced their last test of faith—the deathbed. During the final stage on their journey to heaven, dying Quakers followed a familiar yet distinct approach to death, hoping to die as they had lived: humble, prayerful, and meditative. Relations were essential to Quaker spirituality among both factions at the end of life. Determined to meet their end “cloathed with affection” for family and friends, dying Friends were intent on being resigned to separation from loved ones and sanguine about the heavenly rest they would find at life’s close.44

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Chapter 3

“Th e Solemn Clo s e” Rituals of Death

To learn to die is the great business of life. —George Dillwyn

When Susanna Lightfoot fell ill for the last time in 1781, her husband, Thomas, recorded her journey toward death from their home in Chester County. Probably suffering from consumption, Susanna spent eight months preparing to die. She quoted Bible verses and advised friends and family on their religious duties. She repeatedly asked for God’s help to endure increasing debility with patience and humility at the same time she praised God’s glories. A “weighty” minister, Susanna was popular with young members. Young men and women in the neighborhood visited her, including a newly married couple, whom she counseled. She preached from her sickbed. She urged her son Robert, who had caused heartache by enlisting in the army during the Revolutionary War, to return to the fold. She told him to remember the parable from Mark 7:28 about the dogs eating the crumbs that fall from the master’s table, in hopes that he would reform his behavior. She was especially perturbed by the influence of “persons of corrupt morals and evil communications” who had poisoned the “tender minds” of Quaker youth. Susanna took an inventory of her life and spoke of her early years in Ireland, when she had to work as a dairymaid to support her family. She toiled again when she became a young widow with small children in the 1750s. Though she had prospered by moving to Pennsylvania and marrying Thomas Lightfoot, she assured her family and friends that she did not “forget herself ” but concentrated her mind on spiritual matters rather than physical comforts. When a friend came to visit her in February to

enquire after her health, Susanna replied that she was “passing away.” While she wanted nothing more than to regain her health, her illness was a chance to warn others who had become too worldly. She foresaw a “winnowing day” when Friends would be torn away from their “gods of silver and of gold.” Susanna gave away some of her clothing, planned a plain shift for her final attire and arranged for a simple coffin. She even specified what kind of wood she wanted for her casket and how to lay out her body. She condemned the current fashion of elaborate funerals in Philadelphia and urged her young friend Anne Emlen to speak out on this issue. She recalled the death of her aunt Elizabeth Jacob, an eminent minister, whom she planned to join in heaven. Still, dying was hard work; as she remarked, “a death bed is a searching thing.” As her condition worsened, Susanna endured her weakening condition with forbearance; at the same time, she wished to be released from her “frail body.” As coughs wracked her frame, she prayed she would go quietly, rather than in a “violent fit.” By the fourth month, Susanna was ready to depart; she heard the “midnight cry” and exclaimed, “behold the bridegroom cometh.” In the last month of her life, Susanna, though greatly weakened and barely able to speak, continued to praise God, quotes Scripture, and warn “high flying Quakers” of the dangers they faced in neglecting spiritual practice. She predicted “hypocritical, ungodly” Friends would meet a terrible fate. The night before her death, Susanna took a turn for the worse and her family came to take their leave. She encouraged her son Robert to stay the course and not let the weight of his “transgressions” discourage him. She said goodbye to her husband and went to sleep. At four in the morning, “she passed away quietly . . . like one falling into an easy slumber.” While an “awful solemnity” consumed her family, they were relieved and assured of her heavenly status based on her deathbed experience. Susanna’s funeral was held a few days later at the Uwchlan Meetinghouse in Chester County. The house was crowded, and four prominent ministers from Philadelphia spoke. Samuel Emlen quoted Paul, “If I not be an apostle onto others, yet doubtless I am unto you,” to remind those present of Susanna’s example as well as her role in bringing fellow Friends to the Inward Light. On seeing her remains, Emlen declared, “She is fallen asleep in the arms of everlasting mercy: oh, what a comfort!” Several referenced her worthy example. Hannah Griffitts penned a tribute to Susanna. Noting “the glorious triumph of religious power,” the poem outlined the dread of death displayed by most people, save the Christian whose “hope alone remains secure / to aid the conflict of the final hour.” Amid the “deep gloom,” calm would persist as the believer “feels a life beyond the reach of death.”1 Rituals of Death

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This account of Susanna Lightfoot’s illness contains typical aspects of the Quaker model of death. Family members took careful notice of her emotional and physical state as her condition worsened; friends came to sit by her side, to offer advice as well as gauge her degree of humility and acceptance of the oncoming event. Susanna made pronouncements to warn others, both known and unknown, to guard against worldly influences. She counseled the young while reflecting on her own struggles throughout life. She planned her own funeral. Her performance was observed, particularly her preaching and acknowledgment of her demise. These incidents were closely watched and recorded to ensure a good death, but they also provide the prototype of a Friend who lived and died in the faith. Lightfoot’s deathbed scene fit the Friends’ model of suitable demeanor and conduct toward “the solemn close.”2 Death was simultaneously an individual experience and a communal event; the person entered this stage alone on their journey to the other side, but their passage had to be witnessed by others to establish its authenticity and bolster the beliefs of those who stayed behind. Building on the literature on the history of dying and death by American and European scholars, this chapter will examine the Quaker choreography of death during the early republic to argue that Friends placed great weight on how an individual handled death. Influenced by changing cultural ideals around sickness, pain, and death, their method of dying reflected the importance of mourning and memorializing death as well as using another’s demise to deepen one’s piety. Expiring Quakers were not concerned (at least until the Hicksite schism) with repentance and salvation that was regularly found in evangelical narratives. A deathbed conversion was not the goal of dying; rather, one’s death was a continuation of an ongoing, lifelong endeavor to be ever watchful of God’s presence. How one died reflected how one had lived; mindfulness dictated recurrent engagement with death to learn how to do it well. Quakers created a literature of death to document the final days of their relations and friends. As J. William Frost states, “Quaker religious life was preparation for the next world,” and the devout lived every day as if it were their last.3

The Final Change A Quaker death dictated specified attitudes and behaviors during an individual’s final earthly act. Though death was formalized and performative, it was not a hollow undertaking. The contemplation of one’s own decease as a form 64

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of ritualized practice enabled Friends to be mindfully aware of their transition from life to death. Performance at the deathbed was scripted but not coerced; form and function were equally important. The Quaker process of a good death followed a similar format. The ideal death was one in which the dying evinced laudable traits, including meekness, acceptance, and equanimity. They moved toward death rejoicing in God’s love. They served as standards for others to reform their behavior and reaffirm their faith. They engaged in prayer, described their dreams, conversed with family, wrote their wills, and discussed what they were reading.4 Friends used others’ demise to remind themselves that death could come at any time. Death was tortuous and tragic but also edifying and inspiring. Its purpose was to encourage the living that they could meet the final change with gravity, calm, and grace. Ideally, death was the culmination of a life lived well: piously, ethically, compassionately. Quakers embodied their beliefs to be a living sacrament: to die—as one had lived—with reverence and humility. This ritual of death not only verified an individual’s faith but also served to commemorate members and maintain religious society. What was distinctive about Quakers was their adherence to the plain style in funereal dress, coffin choice, burials, and graves. In addition, the Quaker tradition of female ministers allowed them to preach from their deathbeds. Quaker “deathways” contained components comparable to other Christian practitioners. As the considerable scholarship on the history of death has shown, early modern Catholics and Protestants shared a culture of death that persisted over centuries.5 Protestant religious communities continued this culture as a legacy of the Reformation. No matter what their denomination, they followed the same playbook about how to die well: deathbed speech as illuminating and sacred, prominence of women in nursing the dying and caring for the dead, belief in heavenly reunion and memorialization of the dead through funeral sermons, consolation literature, and burial rites. As products of the twin movements of Enlightenment and evangelicalism, Protestant processes of death were increasingly privatized by the eighteenth century. In addition, grief and mourning gained social value in the early modern era. Equally significant to Protestants was the widespread belief that the dying “fell asleep” to awake again on judgment day to be reunited with loved ones.6 In the American context, this culture differed by region. “The Puritan way of death” has documented the obsessive terror of Puritans toward death, the role of lay men and women, and the extravagant funerary practices popular by the nineteenth century.7 “The southern way of death” concerned White evangelicals, who “surrounded the death bed with a complex and highly ritualized culture.” Rituals of Death

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Death was “domesticated,” as White women labored to ensure their loved ones attained a “good death,” with the promise of family reunion in heaven.8 Friends followed the traditional approach to death, exhibiting acceptance, engaging in prayer, advising family and friends, quoting Scripture—but no deathbed conversions. Not until the Hicksite schism did Quakers vocalize their fear of hell or proclaim the presence of the devil on their passage to the next world. Quakers continued to emphasize plainness, especially in the mode and style of burials—for example, they did not approve of the use of tombstones. While ministers spoke at Quaker funerals, their comments did not end up being published in the same way as Puritan elegies. Noteworthy members, such as Susanna Lightfoot, were memorialized in print, usually by their Monthly Meeting, and many Quakers wrote their own accounts of relations’ deaths in manuscript form to be shared with others.9 The extant records document ideal deaths: those who died in less optimal circumstances may never have had their death memorialized or remembered by survivors. Friends repeated the same phrases when describing death, such as experiencing pain without “murmur or complaint,” or expiring “without a groan or sigh.” While these repetitions may point to the formulaic nature of these accounts, they also show the intertextuality of Quaker manuscript and print culture to circulate and popularize the Quaker way of death. Duplication occurred through the routine exchange of letters and commonplace books. As Richard Bell avers, the deathbed scenes published in Wesley’s Arminian Magazine in the late eighteenth century provided “repeated, tangible proof ” to Methodist readers that they would go to heaven. Through reiteration “each new narrative” created “an intense and compelling collective portrait of holy dying.”10 Likewise, Quaker accounts of the dead affirmed their performance of death with a heavenly end. Early Americans were intimately familiar with the ever-­present threat of death. Routine sickness, chronic debility, accidents, and epidemics posed recurrent hazards. While religious doctrine ordered devotees to be always ready for death, this disease environment made it even more pressing. As one English clergyman wrote, “It appears a miracle” that the body is ever free of some “disorder, by the stroke of elements without, by the effects of intemperance within, . . . by nameless casualties which no sagacity can foresee or circumspection prevent.” The ubiquity of pain and the universality of mortality was ever present as Friends visited others who were dying, to witness the process. Vigilance at a person’s bedside provided succor as well as corroborated the individual’s salvation. For example, when Sidney Allen’s sister Margaret died 66

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in February of 1839, he knew her death had been “a righteousness one & that every convincing proof was manifested by her on her dying bed!” By reading accounts of others’ passing, one learned the ideal attributes of a good death, and survivors wrote memorials for dead relations. By attending funerals for instruction and gaining familiarity with death, Quakers lessened its horror.11 The Quaker way of death provided structure and meaning to a dreadful and traumatic event.

Pilgrimage of Pain How to die has a long history reaching back to antiquity. In the medieval era, the phrase “ars moriendi” described dying a good death, which was memorialized in literary tradition and produced a genre of advice literature. A Calvinist version of ars moriendi was published in England entitled Sicke Mannes Salve by Thomas Becon in the mid-­sixteenth century. Becon’s popular devotional work contained the traditional aspects of ars moriendi—that is, how to prepare for death and patiently endure pain. But it also included aspects of militant Puritanism—that is, the rigors of a Christian life.12 Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Dying extended the ars moriendi tradition among Protestants and was popular with Friends. Taylor’s treatise included rules on how to die a holy death as well as prayers for the ordeal. His recommendations especially aligned with Quaker practice by stating the need to engage in daily meditation to remain aware of one’s failings and correct them before the onset of death. Taylor opined against excessive mourning at funerals; copious weeping was nonsensical in response to this joyous event. He criticized “people of an ambitious and pompous sorrow,” who put on “ceremonies for the ostentation of their grief.” As “ill-­ placed and undecent,” such anguish made no sense when their relation no longer suffered physically but had fallen asleep to awaken in heaven.13 These devotional tomes had an enduring influence on Protestants, providing a cultural script for the dying to follow; it made suffering meaningful as well as managed emotional distress within a spiritual framework.14 Part of this journey to death included the experience of pain. For Quakers, as for other Christians, pain existed for the enlightenment of the believer. Physical suffering was a mark of God’s punishment for human sin at the same time it brought God’s attention to the individual’s plight.15 Feelings corresponded with pain performed in the body, in an individual and communal context of disease, dying, and death. The basis of emotional relations among Rituals of Death

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individuals in the eighteenth century was sympathy, and emotional interactions as “sentimental impressions” were “transferred directly from person to person.” Such demonstrations, as well their observation by others, constituted this spiritual regime. In addition, correspondence between sufferers’ physical pain and their emotional state proffered sustenance. Such was the case when Mary Bonsall lay dying in 1814. Sick for several days, her performance of death was witnessed by her close friend Rebecca Scattergood Pike and some other women. After a distressing day, Mary enquired the hour, and, being told it was four in the afternoon, she remarked, “How slowly pass the hours, when measured by our pain.” In her declining state, she was attentive to others. Similarly, Jane Bettle, who had been sick with a “disorder” for eight years before she wasted away in 1840, claimed her sufferings were “light afflictions” that lasted “for a moment.” She attained “quietude of mind,” despite “pain of body.”16 When asked if she was in great pain, Elizabeth Redman responded in the affirmative. Though her body suffered, she was at peace because soon she would be in her “everlasting home.” Ruth Walmsley concurred: “It matters little what this poor body suffers if it be a means to bring me nearer to the kingdom of heaven.” Thomas Evans understood pain to be a means that God instituted to “discipline and purify” his heart and wean him from “the fascinating pleasure and comforts of this life.” He prayed for guidance through this “pilgrimage of pain.”17 Death did not mitigate the grief that followed in its wake. In little over four years, Deborah Morris Smith lost eight relatives during the yellow fever epidemics that ravaged Philadelphia in the 1790s. She would “never forget such scenes as I have often witness’d in the sick rooms of some of my near connexions.” The death of her spouse was the hardest to bear. When he died in 1793, she found it difficult to communicate her anguish: “Oh how shall I write what follow’d? & yet I must”; several lines were crossed out, and then she wrote, “Never can I forget. The day that thou was snatched from me.” A year later Deborah’s heartache was revived by remembering her loss; she feared she had made “little progress in the work of resignation” and coveted reconciliation and submission. Two years later, she still wrestled with accepting God’s will: “Oh what a hard lesson is resignation.” Though she had a “hard heart,” she believed she should have made “some progress.” By 1797, she still felt bereft: “I have been striving for near four years, sorrowful ones they have been—to learn the great lesson of resignation when I thought I had nearly arrived at, I have it all to go over again like a wound that has been healed & then broke out afresh with fresh violence.”18 68

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Preparation for death was as valuable as the event itself. At the age of seventy, James Bringhurst wrote about the “daily” and “even hourly” need to make ready for “that awefull & most important season; when the last summons shall be sent calling us to appear before the majesty of heaven & earth.” Bring­ hurst avoided the “slavish fear” of death by engaging in “a lively active industry” of faith. He viewed death as “a door of hope” whereby Quakers would enter the “celestial company of saints & angels.” He looked forward to “a most glorious prospect” in which those on earth will “mercifully find their names enrolled in the register of heaven” when “the morning stars sing together all the sons of God forever shout for joy.” William Canby talked about his ensuing death as calmly as if he were embarking on a “earthly journey.” He welcomed “the great enemy with extended arms.” Jonathan Dilworth met the “messenger of death” with “composure and peace.” As George Dillwyn counseled, “Prepare to meet death as a friend.”19 Quakers anticipated and even welcomed death to escape worldly temptation. When a member of her meeting died in 1786, Martha Allinson vowed to “double my diligence to make my calling & election sure before I go hence that the midnight cry is heard.” Martha found the burdens of an earthly life trying; “on this side of death our dangers never cease.” Lydia Fussell had several weeks to prepare for death; having the desire neither to live nor to die, she waited patiently as God permitted her “to have such a glorious foretaste of heaven within.” Even in the face of death, one’s priority was on one’s relationship to God rather than physical or emotional anguish. For example, when eighteen-­ year-­old Mary Jones was in the throes of childbirth in 1787, she asked God to spare her life, and if he did not, she asked him to receive her spirit. She proclaimed, “O most merciful blessed savior! Be pleased to let me see thy face; for if thou wouldst let me see thee, I believe I could move thee to have compassion on me, and wouldst help me, and take me to thy own home.” She prayed throughout her confinement and, when her child was born dead, she spoke “lovingly and cheerfully” to her attending family and friends. Soon after, she “died easily away without a sigh,” fulfilling the Quaker ideal of death.20

Watching by the Bedside Friends regularly attended the bedside of sick family and friends to provide care, to witness death, and to reflect on its meaning. They conversed to assess both their physical condition and their spiritual status. They offered to sit with Rituals of Death

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the invalid so other family members could attend meeting. During her last illness, Mary Bonsall asked her close friend Rebecca Scattergood Pike to stay overnight. She provided “endearing expressions” for Rebecca’s benefit. After a peaceful night, Rebecca enquired if Mary had improved: “She sweetly said ‘Ah! My dear, all I can do is to meet with resignation the coming hours.’ ” Mary engaged in “mental supplications” and Rebecca felt a “solemn sweet silence” spread over everyone in the room. This silence confirmed “the centered state of her mind” and the “savour” of that moment lingered. After Mary’s death, Rebecca meditated on her friend’s example: “It seem’d to me while watching by the bedside of my beloved friend, or tho her work was done, tho’ she express’d so little respecting her own feelings, yet the evidence that often attended on being with her was confirming thereof.” Friends acknowledged their own and their ailing relations’ spirituality. When a loved one was failing, it was common for family members to visit and take their leave, especially as the end drew near. More than twenty family members were present when Margaret Morton’s father died in 1832.21 Quaker ministers visited those who were sick and ailing both to provide consolation and to acknowledge their experience. When Mary Kite called on Ann Lowry, she found her “composed and comfortable, as if resignation was her clothing.” Though Ann was “waiting hourly for death,” this was still “an awful feeling even to the prepared mind.” Mary benefited from these visits; when she went to see her friend Jane Bettle, she gained greatly from her “instructive conversation.” Mary sat up with Jane, which she deemed a “great favor . . . to wait on one who has been a disciple of a meek and crucified Saviour; and has proven a mother, truly, to me in many seasons of deep trouble.” Mary enjoyed visiting Hannah Forsythe as well: “It is quite a comfort to sit by her, and to see her placid countenance, and hear her resigned language.” When Abigail Graves lay dying, Mary spent a week with her and witnessed “abundant evidence” that she was ready to die with joy. Mary considered it a “privilege” to witness her “patience under extreme suffering.” Minsters like Kite visited the ill regularly, as did female Friends. Sarah Logan Fisher called on neighbors and friends who like herself faced the specter of death each time they were pregnant.22 Male Friends who served as elders called on the dying, such as John Hunt, who counseled and consoled his neighbor John Morton. Quaker men visited family and friends. When Thomas Scattergood faced a bout of typhus fever, he had a “calm sweet state of mind” and held “cheerful and pleasant in conversation” with a friend who sat vigil at his bedside. The earthly departure of others prompted contemplation of death. Joseph 70

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Scattergood engaged in self-­reflection after his brother William’s death during the second yellow fever epidemic in the 1790s. Joseph saw the “great necessity, of living a life of religious circumspection” to ensure his sibling’s entry into heaven. Soon after this, Joseph read the account of Sarah Rodman’s death during the first epidemic in 1793. He found it “an affecting description of the death of a true Christian,” which connoted “her patient, resigned state of mind, to the will of an all wise disposer of events” —reminding Joseph of the transitory nature of life.23 Friends witnessed the death of others to educate themselves on the proper way to die. When Philadelphian James Bringhurst sickened in Rhode Island while on a visit, Elizabeth Almy nursed him during his final illness. She found his death enlightening: “It often appeared to me when sitting by his bedside, that he had been faithful to his Master & now had nothing to do but was ready when the solemn summons was sent to lay down his head in peace.” Facing her own end, Almy recalled James’s death as well as her grandmother’s. These incidents roused her to dwell “on the watch tower, that I may at last be favoured with the answer of peace.” Philip Lewis asked his children, friends, and relations to be present in his sickroom so they could “see in what peace a Christian can die.” After his death, they stayed seated around his bed “in solemn silence, and were permitted to partake of that holy quiet, and to witness the calm resignation of his mind.” His wife Rachel imagined her soul bore “him company through the shades of death, to the happy mansions of eternal bliss.” When Margaret Hilles nursed her brother Morris, she deemed it “too excellent a privilege to lose—too good a school to be willing to leave.” As an individual passed from the world of the living to that the dead, some alleged a sacred aura enveloped those present. Mary Smith, who was also an attendant at Morris’s death, found the ambience “so sweet, so holy, that it seemed like being at the very gates of heaven.”24 Friends struggled to accept the death of a loved one; assurances that they were in a better world, beyond the trials and tribulations of this one, provided solace. When Ann Jackson lost her young son in 1835, she gained some relief knowing that it was God’s will to “restore a solitary soul to his fold.” Though friends mourned the loss of Sarah Scattergood in 1836, one commented, “Can we grieve when one so fit for the good land . . . we dare not wish her back to scene of temptation and trial.” Intense grief was evident in the wake of an unforeseen end; the death of young people was particularly unsettling. Edmund Canby was frightened when his good friend William Hothart died in 1831 at the age of 27: “[I] shudder as I write it & ask myself can it be possible—I saw Rituals of Death

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him a few weeks since full of life, health & spirits—can it be that he is now an inanimate corpse?” This sudden death caused Canby to engage in “serious & solemn reflections.” Elders and ministers cited occurrences of accidental death as cautionary tales. When seven young Friends drowned in the summer of 1789, John Hunt and other leaders used this incident to preach the necessity of pious preparation to Quaker youth.25 Prolonged sickness and sudden death were equally shocking. When Edith Sharpless died unexpectedly, fellow minister and friend Hugh Judge bemoaned the impact of her death on the Quaker community: “Oh my dear friend, when I think of the loss sustained by thy removal from us, I weep, and my heart seems melted with sorrow.” Hugh felt correspondence with Edith, and his “spirit was as sensibly united with thine as ever it was as when thou wast [sic] in the body.” Martha Jefferis pronounced “what a beautiful corpse” Edith presented: she was “lovely in life—and lovely in death.” Martha remained by the body to “feast the eye, on her beautiful placid countenance while I contemplated on the departed spirits happy arrival among the blessed who are surrounding the throne of God.” One had to be prepared for what was to come; sudden death should make no difference “to a real Christian,” who is “always ready.” A lingering death could be challenging; enduring physical pain and yet pursuing spiritual devotion for weeks or even months was strenuous. The mind fluctuated; “whilst in the body,” the dying Friend expressed “human feelings” and might be subject to distress and doubt. Though sick for more than a year, Samuel Allinson died suddenly while talking with his wife Martha. After telling her he was well, “a few minutes later expired without sign, groan or struggle.” Martha trusted that death held no fear for him, and that the “awful solemn silence” that followed would not upset him “on his passage from time to eternity.” Now a widow with small children, Martha prepared to be ready “when the awful messenger comes.”26 The death of children was especially heart-­rending for parents, who often wrote about their offspring’s demise as instruction as well as remembrance. Lydia Mott authored a short pamphlet about her daughter Jennett’s departure at age eight. Wise beyond her years, Jennett showed more interest in conversing with adults than playing with other children. She delighted in preaching and told her mother she was not afraid of death. When she died quickly, Lydia took it as a sign that God knew her worries about her daughter’s final hours. As attitudes toward death became romanticized in the eighteenth century, Friends adopted the new stress on emotional loss and mourning of innocent children. When Edmund Canby’s newborn died of the whooping cough in 72

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1829, relations and friends consoled his family. Their “sympathy and affection” was a “strong support through this terrible trial.” Though his daughter suffered much, Edmund was glad that she “looked lovely and heavenly after death and died with a smile on her lips, certainly emblematic of the happy transition.” Her peaceful corpse gave him assurance that she was heavenward bound, but his torment was profound: “The loss of our little babe makes a greater blank in my heart than I could have believed it possible.” Heartache was assuaged somewhat by the promise of a heavenly reunion. Sidney Allen wept after his daughter Lydia’s death in 1839 yet trusted that he would “gain a full assurance that I may be prepared to meet her in the blessed abode where pain & trouble forever cease.”27 When eight-­year-­old Mary Brown became sick with what would be a fatal bout of scarlet fever in 1839, her mother, Mary Brown Sr., started an account of her daughter’s final days. This was begun both in remembrance of her and to follow her child’s spiritual development. As a mother, Mary Sr. both sought to comfort her daughter physically while seeking signs of her convincement. She recounted incidents that indicated her daughter’s awareness of her religious mindset and impeding death. Mary Jr. questioned her mother about whether she would live to see another birthday. She stopped amid playing with one of her brothers to ask if she died, would she see Franklin, one of her younger cousins, who had gone to the grave two years previously. She queried Moses Jr., her brother, whether he would “like to be a little angel in heaven?” Mary Jr. sought out other relatives. She wrote a letter to her grandmother hoping that they both would find a place in paradise: My dear grandmother: I hope when thee dies, thee will go to that good place, called Heaven. I thought in meeting . . . to day, that if I could pray to my dear Almighty Father, He would forgive my sins—Oh! I wish He would—if he don’t, what shall I do[?] Thy affectionate granddaughter, M. W. B. Mary’s mother chronicled several occurrences of “the heavenward bias” of her daughter’s “opening mind” and “gradual preparation of heart” for admission into heaven. Mary Sr. noticed a marked change in Mary Jr., through an “increased love, gentleness and docility.” Mary saw signs of her daughter’s piety in reading the Bible, preaching to their servants, and asking that the household give food to some homeless Black girls. Mary Jr. requested that a specific Bible Rituals of Death

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verse be recited at family worship, “Let not your heart be troubled.” She read accounts of pious children and began a memorandum book in which she entered biblical verses. Mary wrote a note to her mother, found after her death, with a quotation from Solomon: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Mary Sr. and Moses Sr. took this as “a little watchword” in their bereavement. Right before her demise, Mary Jr. asked her mother to recite her favorite hymn, and she drew her last breaths “with every eternal mark of perfect peace.” This mother’s account of her daughter’s death assuaged her grief at the same time it affirmed her belief that her child had attained “bliss” in heaven.28 The expected death of elderly members was no less distressing. In 1829, sixty-­three-­year-­old Deborah Evans was in agony, but she did not complain: “The suffering is only in the body, the mind is quiet and calm,” and she was “mercifully centered in a state of peaceful resignation.” When Edmund Canby’s grandfather died in 1831, he did not grumble because, as he remarked, “He was a Christian.” Rebecca Jones occupied her last days in prayer and exhortation when ill with typhus fever. In 1817, Elizabeth Foulke visited Rebecca while she was in the throes of death; worried about her friend and fellow minister, Elizabeth sat in silence before stating that she was in “deep sympathy” with Rebecca and became convinced that she was “nearing the port of eternal rest.” Unable to speak due to a paralytic stroke, Rebecca raised her arms in confirmation. After drawing a few breaths, Rebecca closed her eyes and smiled; her “countenance became beautiful in death.” The departure of prominent Friends like Jones was greatly bemoaned because of her piety and service to the community. When Esther Lewis died in 1848, her loss as an elder was great; one of her friends labeled her “one of the watchers of our walls, quick in detecting an enemy and prompt in expressing the danger.”29 Not all the surviving accounts of Quaker death follow the scripted ideal, and some struggled on their deathbed to meet expectations. When Joseph Scattergood visited his sick brother William, he found him in “an exercised state of mind.” William told Joseph that he had no wish to discuss their joint business. Instead, he wanted to devote what time he had left “to the service of my Creator.” He recalled hearing William Savery speak more than twelve years before warning about the pursuit of “worldly riches.” William rued that he had not listened and that he had been too fond of “light and trifling conversation.” Especially troubling was when an impious loved one was on the brink of death. When one of Mary Kite’s brothers fell ill in 1824, she was upset because he was often delirious and was unable to reconcile himself to death. 74

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If he regained enough strength and clarity, he could communicate his case to God; if not, she hoped he would recover so he could “renounce his former ways” and live a godly life. When Orthodox Friend Rebecca White visited the dying Eliza Walton (whom she deemed to be a Universalist), she prayed fervently that Eliza might be converted before death and “brought to the knowledge of the blessed truth as it is in Jesus.”30 Pious Friends used their final act to reject worldliness. When Rebekah Sharpless was laid up for the last time in the 1830s, she felt uneasy about owning furnishings that did not conform with “primitive simplicity,” and she gave directions for their disposal. With her health failing, Deborah Morris’s mind took a serious turn not only in words but also in actions. An expert needlepointer, she had many fine pieces hanging in her room. She asked a friend to burn them because she considered them “idols”; she did not want anyone else to treasure them as she had. Embellishment also came under attack. Stacy Atkinson expressed remorse about the ruffles that adorned his shirts during his final illness. Before his death, the son of Joshua Evans asked for a pair of metal buckles he owned. Using pinchers, he split them apart and threw them into the fireplace, saying such “things did not belong to Friends.”31 Through such deeds, the dying renounced worldly displays in the hope of a simple and pure death.

To Fall Asleep in Jesus In the wake of the Hicksite schism, Orthodox Friends began to inculcate evangelical notions into the dying process. Rebecca Allinson lay ill a year after the schism had rocked the Philadelphia Quaker community. She displayed the usual attributes of a good death; she was resigned, content, and loving toward her family. Rebecca gave advice to her brother James, sent messages to relatives, and made plans for the disposal of her clothing. She relied on her mother for encouragement. One morning she called for her parent because she had experienced “such sweet enjoyment,” she wanted to share it. They communed in silence before conversing when Rebecca reviewed her life. She talked of family and friends, particularly one who she hoped had not adopted “the principles of the separatists.” While Allinson’s experience of death was similar to what occurred before the schism, the influence of evangelical religion was evident. When observers saw she was in pain, she testified that the cause of her discomfort was not physical agony but the presence of Satan: “He is Rituals of Death

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trying his allurements & devices to tempt me, with discouragements & a want of resignation.” In addition, Rebecca made specific mention of Christ on her deathbed: “I have been thinking how very differently I am circumstanced from my blessed Saviour. He was rejected & forsaken by his followers, buffeted & nailed to the cross, but I am tenderly cared for & borne up by my kind connections & friends, who do all they can for my comfort. I am afraid I am not thankful enough.” Leaders of the Orthodox community, including Ann Jones, Stephen Grellet, and Thomas Kite, visited Rebecca. A friend brought her a collection of hymns by Eliza Gurney, portions of which she repeated during her last day. Rebecca’s final words were “sweet Jesus,” and a few minutes later “without a struggle her angel spirit fled to the ‘bosom of her father & her God.’ ”32 Orthodox Friends retained the Quaker way of dying but imbued it with evangelical fervor. At Sarah Scattergood’s funeral in the 1830s, a minister reminded those present that it was dangerous to “delay a preparation for the messenger death.” He called on the attendees to copy Sarah’s example: “to follow her as she followed Christ.” When eighteen-­year-­old Eleanor Bailey’s health failed in 1839, her neglect of religious duty had endangered her soul. Her “sins” were so bad she would not be forgiven; the sole Bible verse she quoted was “though their sins be scarlet, they shall be white as snow.” She desired “salvation” so she could welcome death. At the funeral of Hannah Evans, Orthodox minister Ann Jones declared that the deceased had “been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.” After her friend Eliza Payne died in 1834, Mary Kite attempted to “cleave closer to my Saviour that I may have his arm to lean upon in passing the dark valley and shadow of death.” As Frances Phipps lay dying, she sang with her niece to “praise the Lord.” While doing so, “her countenance during the solemn strain of prayer and praise was very animated and seemed lighted up with heavenly fervor and her voice was so clear and melodious as to be heard in remote parts of the house.”33 Orthodox Friends spoke of redemption, repentance, and conversion upon death, like other evangelical Protestants. They infused evangelical concepts into their dying sayings and spoke of Satan as well as Jesus. They adopted rituals of other Protestants, such as kneeling in prayer and singing hymns. Morris Smith exhibited this evangelical influence as he was dying of consumption in 1832. When Morris admitted that he had doubts about the “joys of heaven,” his wife told him he was being taunted by Satan. Thereafter, he gained relief by prayer, but he still desired evidence of “divine regard.” Morris held fast to the “blessed promises” of faith despite interference by “the devil and his 76

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angels.” After listening to some readings, he said, “Redemption, redemption, that is my business now.” Even while enduring a debilitating cough and the effects of morphia, he engaged in “prayer and praise,” and he asked for God to “rebuke the devourer who was thus seeking to destroy my confidence.” The “holy quiet & calm” that he experienced was due to “blessed Jesus.” In severe pain, Morris found refuge in prayer and conversation. He told them his sins had been forgiven and he was “waiting on the banks of deliverance.” On the day of his death, he listened to his wife read from the New Testament and bade farewell to his family. Barely able to speak, Morris was heard to murmur, “On Jesus I rest with holy confidence.” He died without “anxiety or distress” and fell into a “sweet and gentle” slumber from which he never awoke. Morris breathed his last to “fall asleep in Jesus.”34 When Henry Collins took to his deathbed in 1840, his family and friends gathered to offer encouragement and solace. He held extensive conversations with his relations; his father enquired whether he possessed the “reason & time for repentance & conversion.” Henry asked his parents’ forgiveness and vowed to wear plain dress if he survived. Henry’s family looked for signs of salvation in his conversation; he said he was “a poor, sinful, guilty creature,” and held his hands in prayer. His grandmother prayed that God would grant him entrance into the “pearly gates” where he would join others to be “washed” in the “blood of the Lamb.” He repeated the Lord’s prayer with “perfect accuracy and great fervency,” and before he lost consciousness, his father enquired whether he “ ‘loved his Heavenly Father above all things,’ to which he answered, yes, my dear Father, above all things above all things.” He raised his arms to cry “Glory to God in the highest! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God, be with you all forever and ever amen!” The evangelical English Friend Joseph John Gurney visited the young man and told him to look to the “blessed Redeemer, the Lamb of God who had taken away the sin of the world.” Gurney testified that there was a “a living sense” of the “presence of the Savior” at Henry’s bedside. After he died, angels hovered around him and “wafted [him toward] his happy home.” Many families and friends visited the Collins household to recognize his newfound faith. His stepmother was certain that when he died “without a sigh, his purified spirit quietly departed to the bosom of his God.” The influence of evangelicalism continued at his funeral when Stephen Grellet preached on the “mercy of God in Christ Jesus” and referred to the parable of the leper who touched Jesus to heal his disease. Grellet used this story to reassure Henry Collins’s family as well as to bring others to Christ.35 Rituals of Death

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a mournful pleasure Quaker letters, diaries, journals, and commonplace books frequently report on the deaths of family and friends. They not only referenced their occurrence but also the way in which the Friend died. Many survivors wrote accounts of their dying relations as a remembrance, so that the dying person’s descendants would not only recall them but also duplicate their piety. These tomes included detailed information about the dying person’s corporeal and emotional condition as well as the deceased’s statements, often with direct quotations. They recorded their physical symptoms, medical treatment, and how the corpse appeared upon death. They included the person’s spiritual demeanor as they went through the dying process. Mary Lippincott related her spouse Isaac’s last hours to remark that that though he experienced “great bodily suffering,” he retained his “mental faculties.” He spoke with family and friends and reassured them he was happy. He spent much of his time engaged in prayer, both for himself and for those present. He was especially solicitous of Quaker youth, who he expected to follow the truth and not care so much about fashionable dress. His decline happened gradually, and he drew his last breaths peacefully; after death he was serene as if in a “sweet sleep.”36 John Hunt recorded the last days of his son “Samme” to memorialize his commendable life. Samuel spoke to his younger siblings with “edifying exhortations and tender cautions.” He told his sisters that God did not love little children as much who put great stock in material goods. He told his younger brothers he was sorry that he had not set a better example. When Samuel’s friend William Allinson visited, he spoke to him “tenderly,” stating that he felt very close to him and that “they had been engaged to walk together in one path . . . and desired he might persevere.” Hunt recorded the conversations he had with his son before his death. When Samuel asked his father if he thought he was fit for entry into heaven, Hunt responded in the affirmative. Hunt told his son that his infirmity could do him good and Samuel agreed. Though afflicted with a raging fever and boils, “Samme” bore his physical torment with great patience, nor did he “murmur or complain.” After his death, Hunt made an entry into his diary enumerating his son’s many attributes (dutiful, steady, affectionate), including his spiritual insights: “We often had religious conversation together when alone.” Hunt found his son’s religious judgment beyond his young years. Lastly, there was “little or no room to doubt but our loss is his gain.”37

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To blunt this emotional burden of the death of loved ones, Friends believed that they would be reunited in heaven—a familiar trope found in many accounts.38 At the end of his life, David Cooper told his daughter Martha that they would one day meet again in the “mansions of rest never more to separate.” Thomas Pym Cope planned to meet a close friend again in heaven, where “our spirits will be reunited in a more glorious & happy state of existence.” When Hannah Warrington learned of a friend’s illness, she offered her condolences with anticipation that she would “bear her affliction with resignation and Christian fortitude.” Not sure if she would ever see her again in this life, Hannah expected they would meet “in that which is to come where sorrow and sighing cease.” Hannah Griffitts shared this sentiment with her cousin Margaret Morris after the death of their mutual friend Milcah Martha Moore: “Let us look forward—in hope, to that life that shall unite us again, beyond the power of time or death to destroy.” When Mary Kite’s mother died in the 1840s, she did not “murmur nor repine” because her loss was her parent’s gain. Mary’s mother had merely gone ahead to where one day she expected to follow.39 Friends sought to console one another when death visited their loved ones. After Elizabeth Rodman’s great-­grandson died in 1832, she offered comfort to her granddaughter Sarah while recognizing the heartache she experienced: “You are favored to feel in some degree reconciled to the afflictive dispensation, from the extreme anxiety you must have experienced in witnessing his suffering. And the consoling reflection that the little innocent is released from a world beset with bruises and thorns, to inhabit a blissful abode free from sorrow & trouble.” Elizabeth went on to posit that “bereavement must be long felt, however capable time is, to blunt the keen edge of affliction, & happy for us that the wound does not always retain its poignancy.” She suggested that by placing this death in the context of others (the death of Elizabeth’s own son in a foreign land), she would be able to bear “the stroke inflicted.” When her sister Edith died in 1827, Hannah Hunard found her “selfish sorrow” silenced and replaced by “a sense of adorable love and mercy.” Quakers used others’ deaths to energize their own piety. When William Bailey heard of the death of Joseph John Gurney in 1847, he wrote, “This circumstance has called forth from me a desire that I may be prepared to go cheerfully when the Lord may please to call me and that while here on earth my life may be marked with increased dedication.”40

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A Quiet Grave The Quaker way of death continued with a night watch alongside the body (an early American custom) and final internment. In the first month of 1800, Joseph Scattergood sat up with the corpse of Samuel Emlen until morning, when several Friends gathered. He helped carry the casket to the Market Street Meetinghouse, where a large crowd waited. Several testimonies were given about Emlen (who had been a prominent minister), after which he was taken to the burying ground. Fanny Canby, along with Sally Newlin and Debby Logan, kept vigil by the coffin of Mary Dickinson in July of 1803. Fanny enjoyed “the quiet solemnity” because it was “well calculated to draw me from my own cares and convince me of the impropriety of allowing myself to be so selfishly absorbed in them.” Like the deathbed, a funeral was valuable to the living. While attending Sukey Smith’s burial, Sarah Logan Fisher gained “a useful instructive lesson . . . of the uncertainty of life, & the necessity there is of not putting off the great preparation to a death bed.” An individual’s life was celebrated at the graveside, and ministers used this event to urge others to follow the righteous path. Those present engaged in solemn behavior to gain discernment amid death. When Sarah Logan Fisher’s sister Hetty died in 1795, family and friends gathered to mark her passing and remind survivors of the need for piety. Two ministers spoke. First, Rebecca Jones “earnestly” pleaded with those present to respect their covenant with God. Second, Deborah Darby offered a prayer for the deceased who had “joined the Angelic Host” in heaven. Both women directed children and especially young men to “embrace” their “day of salvation” and not delay because death could come unexpectedly.41 The Quaker doctrine of simplicity extended to burials. According to Thomas Clarkson, Friends’ funerals were for “serious reflection” and “to produce lessons of morality,” not a chance for extravagant display. By “depriving the body of all adornments and outward honours,” dying Friends were reduced to the same status with no worldly accoutrements to distinguish them. The casket was to be plain and unadorned. Christopher Healy specified a coffin made of pine boards, “without stain, color, brass-­hinges or lining & have it flat on top & let it be laid in the earth without any outside coffin.”42 The procession to the graveyard was to be solemn and silent. Friends gathered quietly at the burial site until someone was moved to speak about the individual being interred. They did not wear special clothing to denote grief; as William Penn avowed, sorrow should “be worn in the mind,” not on the body. Mourning garb was evidence of outward fashion rather than inward 80

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condition. Quakers did not mark their graves in the usual way. The “beautification of death” movement that began in the late eighteenth century, which made use of elaborate processions and clothing, as well as professional mourners, may have influenced some wealthy members (which Hannah Lightfoot had warned about in 1781). Friends prohibited the use of vaults, monuments, or gravestones. They found the last practice to be particularly pernicious because they induced “superstitious veneration.” Most American Quakers seemed to have maintained their restraint toward internment. Delaware Valley Friends followed the local trend of purchasing ridged coffins (even when they went out of fashion) but did not buy the external cases. One archaeological study of a Friends’ burial ground in Virginia found minimal or moderate adornment on caskets into the nineteenth century.43 Fallout from the Hicksite schism caused turmoil at funerals. The separation not only led to debates over who controlled meetinghouses, but it also affected the burial of deceased Friends. In September of 1827, a group of Hicksites broke into the western burial ground in Philadelphia to entomb a family member, after John Chapman, an Orthodox overseer, refused them access. As “nonmembers,” Hicksite Friends had forfeited the right to be interred in Quaker burial plots, according to the Orthodox party. Hicksites lamented this loss; by locking the graveyard, “weeping relatives” had “to stand round their dead until by force a passage was obtained to a quiet grave!” When David Parrish died in 1840, his friends were barred from the cemetery by a group of “stout men.” This was another example of “the intolerant spirit of orthodoxy,” according to the Hicksites, which resulted in the deceased obtaining a “less respectable” end. While Hicksites claimed the same right to use this ground, the Orthodox Friends argued that their opponents employed these incidents to broadcast disorderliness.44 After burials, friends and relations often gathered to remember the lost one as well as engage in reading or prayer to engender acceptance and pacify sorrow. When John Hunt’s son “Samme” was buried in October of 1791, “a very large concourse of people” showed up, including family, friends, and neighbors. James Thornton spoke at the funeral about Samuel’s “steady example and innocent circumspect pious life.” Afterward, Thomas Scattergood accompanied the Hunt family home. They had dinner and then held a meeting in which Samuel’s example was lauded to the young people present, and they remarked upon the “troubles and afflictions” he had experienced during his illness. Scattergood cited a passage from John 7:14: “These are they which came out of great tribulation.” He assured the attendees that Samuel had “gone out Rituals of Death

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of reach of trouble and centered in a state of endless bliss and happiness.” When Hannah Griffitts died in 1817, she was surrounded by friends and neighbors, who sat “in solemn silence . . . contemplating the joyful landing of her soul upon the celestial shore.” After Eliza Parker’s husband expired suddenly of apoplexy, she sat in silence with friends and then recited some poetry, whose purpose was “the necessity of resignation and every dispensation.”45 This process of remembrance evoked the deceased person’s life, documented their exemplary piety, allayed grief, affirmed familial relations, and sustained community. The ritualization of death shaped the experience and meaning of dying for practical Friends. The Quaker way of death was to be studied, witnessed, and performed when one’s time came to meet “the awful messenger.” Learning to die properly dictated patience, composure, and gratitude. Practical Quakers yearned to die a good death—with devotion, humility, and introspection. Death marked a radical transformation as the believer left the trials and tribulations of an earthly life for the promise of salvation and heavenly reunion. Survivors experienced “solemn silence” as they helped the deceased through the “shades of death” to the “gates of heaven.” Though the 1827 schism divided Friends, the religious culture they shared continued, especially in the enactment of death, with some divergence in meaning and function. While the form remained the same, the content changed as Orthodox Quakers infused evangelical language into their deathbed scenes. The remembrance of death was imbued with Christ-­centered notions of a Friend’s final hours. Though separated on earth, Quakers trusted they would be reunited in heaven.46 They shared the practice of remembering dead relatives and friends through unpublished and published works to document their last days as well as provide exemplars for future generations. Quaker rituals of death continued despite the vagaries of theology and practice that emerged in the 1820s. The Hicksite schism of 1827, with the divisions to follow in the 1840s and 1850s, would cause acrimony, pain, and suffering—as Friends endeavored to live and die as ideal Quakers.

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Chapter 4

“A Dividing a nd Separating Spirit” The Hicksite Schism

Many declensions . . . have taken place in our society, from the primitive simplicity, soundness and oneness in spirit. —John Mott

In July of 1827, Fanny Ferris began a letter from her Wilmington home about the Hicksite controversy engulfing the Quaker community. Addressing her “beloved friend” Anne, she set out to explain her stance as a Hicksite against that of her correspondent’s Orthodox position. She asked Anne to hear her “patiently” and, with an “unbiased mind,” consider her argument; as she wrote, the time “has come when we must examine ourselves.” Fanny objected to the Orthodox use of the Discipline to disown Hicksite members from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting: “Dost thou believe the discipline was ever designed for such subjects, or that the present is a Christian administration of it? Sometimes I think thou canst not thus believe.” She went on provide three quotes by Orthodox ministers, including the assertion that the Scriptures were the “only medium through which a knowledge of the Creator is to be obtained.” This statement was opposite to the “efficacy and universality of divine Light,” which was the “fundamental principle and distinguishing characteristic” of the Religious Society of Friends. Quakers were unique compared to other Protestants because their faith was based not on “creeds and confessions of faith” but a “unity of spirit.” Though she and Anne held different opinions, this did not break “the bond of peace or religious fellowship, so long as this union was sufficiently spiritual.” Though membership had been based on “upright walking” and “dwelling near the principle of Truth,” that had changed

with the current disorder in which Orthodox Friends had “become more tenacious of outward conformity” rather than attending to their Inward Light. A “great declension” threatened the “primitive simplicity and spirituality” of their faith as devised by the founders. A “retrograde course” had been charted that led “outward, instead of inward,” and was “calculated to defeat the design and benefit of our separation from other societies.” Fanny considered herself to be on the righteous side of the divide; Hicksites were facing the same accusations their ancestors had suffered when they were labeled “infidels, unbelievers, deluded and deluders.” Though a “prejudiced and opposing world” may have denied them the label of Christian, she avowed that they were indeed “followers of the ‘Prince of Peace.’ ”1 Fanny Ferris’s lengthy missive included discussion of a central issue of the Hicksite schism, namely, religious doctrine. However, it also pointed out the importance of spiritual practice. The “Great Separation” that befell American Friends in the late 1820s raised fundamental questions about what it meant to be a Quaker in the early republic. The ensuing division produced great variance in doctrinal belief as well as in the performance of piety. Was spirituality based only on inward or outward manifestations, or both? Were the traits that made Quakerism “peculiar,” from the utility of plain language and dress to the use of silence, prayer, and the efficacy of the “inner light,” still necessary? Deciding these critical questions caused a bitter fight that induced fear, anger, and sadness. Ferris’s trepidation in sending this letter to her Orthodox friend is a microcosm of the trauma that resulted from the Hicksite schism. It tore apart meetings, separated families, divided neighborhoods, and ended friendships. When Orthodox Friends quit the New York Yearly Meeting in the spring of 1828, leaving behind “near relatives” and “intimate friends,” they walked through the streets crying. By the 1820s, the American Quaker community, which had been intimately linked by heritage, intermarriage, and kinship since the seventeenth century, was reeling from contention and disarray. The religious fracture that followed led to enduring rancor and resentment as well as legal disputes to settle ownership of Quaker property. “Divided in doctrine and practice” alike, the separation was complete by the early 1830s.2 As disruptive as the schism was, it forced Friends to acknowledge differences, which allowed for more variety in piety as they continued to share a spiritual ethos that made use of common words, concepts, and customs. What began in confusion and disorder—as discipline broke down and they split into two parties—would lead to a plethora of spiritual choices for American Friends by 1860.3 Quaker religious practice changed radically during the antebellum 86

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era as it weathered the storm of schism in the 1820s, only to be met by waves of transformation from the 1830s to the 1850s, when ultraevangelicalism appeared to incite further disunion. Tracing this development uncovers the varied permutations that Quakerism would take in the first half of the nineteenth century.4 Scholars cite doctrinal disputes, abuses of religious authority, class division, and excessive worldliness as common reasons for the Hicksite schism. The controversy centered around dogma; Orthodox Friends, who had accepted some aspects of evangelicalism by the nineteenth century, insisted on Christ’s divinity, conversion, and salvation as well as the primacy of the Bible as the basis of Quaker belief. Conversely, Hicksites sustained the quietist ideals of the Inward Light and Truth (the “Christ within”), direct revelation, and separation from the world. A mitigating factor in the schism was the breakdown of communication and community; Friends had once tolerated differences and ended conflict through intercession. The patience, good will, and consensus exercised formerly, however, had dissipated by the 1820s. As Hugh Barbour and J. William Frost state, the “countervailing tendencies” that had kept Quakers united disappeared once division forced the Hicksite and Orthodox Friends to define their beliefs. When the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting abandoned “the spirit of condescension” in the spring of 1827, it ceased to exist, according to one Friend. Doctrine divided the two sides, but over time the performance of faith—that is, what constituted Quaker practice—was also interrogated. The separation that took place was both heartbreaking and beneficial; it would test their faith and awaken them from spiritual lethargy. However, the denial of the Inward Light and direct revelation, which Hicksites like Fanny Ferris professed were distinctive elements of Quakerism, would be lost if outward forms, such as creeds, were adopted. The soul-­searching sparked by the Hicksite schism would continue for the next three decades.5 As the Separation unfolded, many bewailed the state of their Society and hoped for reconciliation. By the 1840s, further adaptation appeared when some Friends began to question their religious traditions, such as the value of silent meetings, the use of plain dress, and the Inward Light and Truth. While many became depressed and disenchanted by their “degenerate” state, the variations that were to come (from Gurneyite evangelicalism to Wilburite quietism) demonstrate the vitality and vibrancy of the American Religious Society of Friends. As Pink Dandelion avers, “Schism was a luxury born of stability and self-­assurance.”6 The turbulent change that occurred among American Friends in the first half of the nineteenth century reflected the larger society.7 As Nathan Hatch The Hicksite Schism

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avows, American religion underwent significant transformations in the antebellum era. The rise of popular theology taken from various strains, whether rationalism, mysticism, or evangelicalism, broke down distinctions among Protestants, which, in turn, hastened the “splintering of Christianity.” Increased emphasis on individual choice of religious belief led to an “inversion of the traditional modes of religious authority.” Other denominations experienced similar controversies, debates, and divisions over what constituted piety, leadership, and governance in the early republic. This led to the appearance of new groups, such as the Rogerenes, Free Will Baptists, Disciples of Christ, and Wesleyan Methodists. In addition, social issues would cause discord among Protestants, particularly the debate over Black enslavement and the growing sectionalism in the nation. Just as Friends would splinter over involvement in the abolitionist movement, so, too, Methodists and Baptists would divide over slavery in the 1840s. Like these other groups, Quakers responded to the rapid growth and influence of evangelicalism in various ways: the rise of benevolent organizations that ballooned in the 1810s as well as the influence of mainline denomination like the Presbyterians, who, they feared, would collude with the state to institute a national religion.8 Though they thought of themselves as unique compared to other Protestants, Quakers, too, would be influenced by the larger changes transpiring in American religious culture in the early nineteenth century. According to the Orthodox faction, “Hickism” was “a symptom of the rising tide of infidelity overtaking Quakerism.” The influence of rationalism, deism, and liberalism had tainted their knowledge of Quakerism beyond all recognition. From the Hicksites’ perspective, dissonance ensued because of interference by English counterparts, Orthodox worldliness, creedal demands, and a “growing lust for power among leading Friends.”9

A Great Revolution American Friends faced division before the Hicksite schism. In the 1750s and 1760s a reformation led to the disownment of those who refused to free their slaves. This sorting streamlined a faith that embraced traditional discipline and reinforced Quaker ideals of simplicity, charity, and abstention. Disunion would occur again during the American Revolution. Although the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting issued peace testimonies, not all Friends were equally dedicated to their pacifist tradition, and more than 1,200 members were disowned for their support of the Patriot cause. They formed the Free Quakers, 88

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who diverged in belief and practice. They had no statement of belief, no disownment process, and eliminated marrying out as an actionable offense. Furthermore, this new group encouraged members to engage in civic affairs.10 Controversy emerged once more in 1798 when the American Friend Hannah Barnard went on a preaching tour of Ireland and England. After she questioned biblical infallibility, the London Yearly Meeting refused to recognize her preaching credentials. However, these various disputes did not lead to a major schism in the United States. During the eighteenth century, American Friends tolerated diverse opinions and strove to bring those who disagreed into harmony. However, the ability to nurture convergence amid difference became untenable over time.11 In the postwar period, American Friends felt the need to reflect on their place in the new republic. Some weighty members called for a reformation to alert nominal Quakers to their spiritual duties. Hugh Judge hoped for such a change: “Surely, a time is coming that will bring us back to our fundamental principle—that will awaken the stupid, the careless, and the negligent.” The revolutionary era had been a “time of humiliation,” when they had been content with the basics of life. The postwar era saw American Quakers revert to their worldly ways in dress, speech, and furnishings. Religion had been reduced to “moral rectitude” and “outside appearances.” Judge was especially distressed by the fancy clothes adopted by Quaker youth in the 1780s. He foresaw a day of “winnowing” when the Lord would “cleanse the camp.” Warner Mifflin endorsed reformation; he deemed it “obligatory” for every member to ensure their convincement and to walk “in the footsteps of the flock of Christ’s companions.” He anticipated that Quakers would search themselves for “iniquity” and ask for God’s forgiveness to save them from “secret sins”; only then would change come about “in the disposition of Friends.”12 Formality and dullness elicited further critique from inside the community. In 1788, John Hunt felt beleaguered by a rule-­bound religion: “It is much easier to mankind or creaturely will to walk by form and rule than to keep the dictates of the spirit of Truth within.” An active faith was paramount to true piety: “Perfection does not consist in teaching the truth but in doing it. Because he is neither the greatest saint nor the wisest man that knows the truth most, but he that practices it.” William Evans contended that the Society had become overtaken with “weakness and blindness” by being overly concerned with “worldly attainments and outward greatness” rather than “religious depth.” A sense of unease continued into the nineteenth century. Friends were no longer content with plain clothes or simple accommodations. Martha Smith The Hicksite Schism

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believed that decline began with “a disregard of small things, more than to any very flagrant deviations, till they have become so numerous and so great that I have been ready to conclude there must be almost as great a reformation before we become what we profess to be.” Among “the foremost ranks in Society” outward luxury was rampant. She was disconcerted not just about frivolous clothing and expensive furniture but the excess and expense in preparing elaborate meals. This time would be better spent in “more profitable purpose.”13 In the 1820s, Deborah Bringhurst acknowledged that the Religious Society of Friends had been in decline for two decades because “the testimonies of truth” had not been “maintained in purity.” She hoped they would find “a path thro’ the sea of confusion” and their traditional “peace, order and love” would return. Deborah invoked the memory of Mary Peisley, an English minister, who prophesized declension when she visited Philadelphia in 1755. Priscilla Hunt, a minister and contemporary of Bringhurst’s, also predicted hard times ahead. She heard the “hissing of the serpent, the whispering of the backbiter and the lashing of the lying tongue” and believed trouble would come from within, as Friends had “undermined their own habitations.”14 Her prophecy seemed to be becoming true by the mid-­1820s; with the increasing challenges posed by a market economy and urban culture, Friends were keenly aware that their society had moved away from the traditional Discipline. Many called for a reformation to revitalize the faith, but what that reformation would be was uncertain. The Long Island minister Elias Hicks declared that Quakers were on the verge of transformation with the onset of a new century. A return to the old ways was required for all members. Worldliness unsettled Hicks as well as the increasing influence of evangelical religion and the overweening authority of elders. Rather than depend upon the Inward Light and a living relationship with God, evangelicalism allowed Friends to obviate the dictates of their traditional regimen to make ostentation palatable. A critic of the market economy, Hicks believed that modern conveniences took members away from a life of the spirit. He disagreed with the decision to ally with other Protestants to found Bible societies and to organize a Quaker tract association in 1816. All worldly engagements gave Hicks pause. The “first principles” of their ancestors—“uprightness, simplicity and faithfulness”—were being ignored because of the “weakness and darkness” that pervaded the minds of worldly Friends. They had deviated from complete reliance on “the power and the spirit” to become enamored with ecumenical relationships and secular concerns.15 90

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Elias Hicks articulated the need for inward contemplation. Individuals should look to God to inform their spirituality as experiential. Quaker piety dictated behavior based in equal parts revelation and reason. When a fellow Friend wrote to him asking whether he read the Scriptures, he answered by saying he encouraged youth to read it. However, he was against empty gestures, such as the trend among some English and American parents to engage in a “lifeless form” of holding regular Bible readings on Sunday afternoons. Such “superstitious conduct” was improper; only when parents were “secretly drawn into a solemn state” and felt called to offer “words of counsel and encouragement” should they act. This was much more beneficial than reading all of Paul’s letters to one’s offspring because it came from inward direction rather than outward repetition. The “declension” evident to Hicks in the 1820s was due to departure “from the only sure foundation of true and real Christianity: the light within, or spirt of truth, the immediate revelation of the spirit of God.” Religions that were overly concerned with “external evidence” and “outward materials” wrought “confusion and anarchy,” which, in turn, would bring “darkness and death” to believers. He ended by quoting Paul: “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life,” indicating that Friends should not follow predetermined patterns but stay attuned to the Christ within.16 As a popular and well-­respected minister, Elias Hicks garnered attention whenever he traveled to Quaker meetings. However, by the early nineteenth century, his views began to cause uneasiness. Stephen Grellet, a Quaker convert, who traveled with Hicks, raised the alarm about his views in 1808. Though what Hicks preached was in line with what others had previously espoused, his bold claims and public statements came at a time of “theological transformation.” Benjamin Ferris, a Hicks supporter, claimed that the Long Island minister met resistance in 1812 when he journeyed south to preach in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Thomas Kite, who would become Orthodox, marked 1819 as the year when Hicks began the “dissemination of unsound sentiments.”17 Hicks did not shrink from controversy. In 1821, his views appeared in a newspaper called The Reformer, which was published by a critic of clerical authority. Hicks’s position led some to proclaim that he preached “doctrines diametrically opposed to those held by Friends, as well as adverse to the whole Christian religion.” When Hicks planned a trip to preach in Philadelphia in the summer of 1822, a group of male elders met to discuss his irregular doctrine allegedly heard at previous meetings. They outlined their concerns, which Hicks refuted both as untrue and as a violation of gospel order. When one Friend had doubts about another’s beliefs, they were to immediately state their The Hicksite Schism

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disquiet and seek consensus. Attempts by this committee to meet with Hicks failed. Their actions became suspect when the Southern Quarterly Meeting in the city unanimously validated Hicks’s “sentiments and doctrines” as identical to those held by George Fox and other founders. A “trying time was coming” because of the growing opposition to Hicks’s preaching, especially in Philadelphia.18 At the same time Hicks’s preaching worried evangelical Friends, others were increasingly shocked by the imperious rule of Jonathan Evans, an elder who had been head of the Meeting for Sufferings in Philadelphia for decades. In 1821, Isaac T. Hopper complained to Benjamin Ferris about Evans’s behavior: “He has been so long in the practice of exercising a kind of domination that he has no patience with any one who has the hardihood to question him about it. I told him in his own house, and reported it before friends, that if conduct such as I complained of were tolerated, we might as well be under the domination of a pope.” Evans’s papal demonstrations—and his denial of them—did not sit well with the devotees of Elias Hicks. The authority usurped by the “Orthodox” had put the Society on the road toward dissolution. One anonymous critic labeled the Meeting of Sufferings “a perpetual standing committee” led by Evans, who had imposed his arbitrary will (as “doorkeeper, dog whipper and pincher of mischievous boys”) both spiritually and temporally on the Society for more than forty years. Martha Smith echoed these sentiments when she castigated her relations for taking the Orthodox side; they had become “dupes of prejudice, misapprehension, or report” because of their excessive reliance on the male elders in Philadelphia—men she sarcastically labeled the “Right Honorables,” a sobriquet inimical to the Quaker tradition of rejecting all titles.19

Scenes of Discord The Hicksite schism began as a state of unease within Pennsylvania meetings in the mid-­1820s. Gossip and innuendo heightened the crisis as rumors spread of clandestine meetings. Spiritual communion had been shattered for many, and “the sense of the meeting” could no longer be obtained when informal gatherings took place outside of traditional channels. One Hicksite drew a set of watercolors illustrating such breaches in protocol (see fig. 4), including one labeled “An Orthodox Quarterly Meeting.” This image depicts three men and one woman standing outside to hold a meeting; this unusual setting illustrated 92

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Fig. 4 | “An Orthodox Quarterly Meeting,” 1828. Quaker Collection, Haverford College.

how much relations had deteriorated. This violation alarmed many and, by 1826, the distress was “very painful and unprofitable,” according to Susan Foulke. When she attended her Quarterly Meeting at Horsham in May of the same year, turmoil reigned. At the next meeting, the Discipline that routinely structured meetings evaporated. Some members gathered at the Abingdon Meetinghouse the next day, but it was locked. Foulke went with several others to a local mill where they held a “favored meeting.” By the fall of 1826, a “very dark and gloomy cast” had fallen upon Friends in the Delaware Valley; meetings were bereft of the Holy Spirit as “confusion” had crept into the church. In early 1827, Samuel Bettle, who sided with the Orthodox party, spoke at a Monthly Meeting about the “alarming state of the society” and the “unsound principles that had been propagated” in recent years. These ideas had laid “waste to order and discipline,” which precipitated the crisis. The Hicksite Benjamin Ferris was equally agitated: “The Battle in Philadelphia as some foresaw has waxed hot!” Noting that Abraham Lower had been accused of “unsoundness,” Ferris wondered what would result: “They have already gone further in the crooked path than I thought possible two years ago—when I look at the wealth and influence and talent and industry of our opponents, I sometimes feel dismayed—and like David conclude we shall surely fall by the hand of Saul –.” Comparing the Orthodox party to an Old Testament ruler who tried to kill David on several occasions, Ferris feared the worst.20 The Hicksite Schism

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Many Friends found the tension in their meetings disconcerting and indefensible; the consensus they once cherished was gone. Joseph Bancroft told his uncle and aunt in England how discouraged many felt and how abnormal the yearly meeting was in April of 1827. Instead of finding consolation, they experienced “distressing and heart-­rending baptisms” because the “enemy” was in their “own house.” When Hicks’s supporters left Mary Kite’s Monthly Meeting in the summer of 1827, she prayed to have pity for those who had been “carried away by new doctrines,” and she believed they would find their way back to the “true fold.”21 Though appalled by the “contention and animosity” displayed at the Quarterly Meeting in Darby in the fall of 1827, Ann Jackson thought the “truth” had “gained the victory,” for “truth is truth, though all men forsake it.” Acrimony escalated to a fever pitch by late 1827. Friends continued to go to meeting, with each side stating they constituted the legitimate Society. Sharp language and rude behavior emerged as both sides jockeyed for control of local meetings and enforcement of traditional Discipline. Opposing sides would attend the same meeting and attempt to dominate it. For example, in December 1827, Thomas Shillitoe, an English minister, Orthodox members of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and Hicksites from Salem, New Jersey, all visited the same New Jersey Monthly Meeting to take charge. Business was often delayed, and meetings abruptly ended. “Disorder & confusion” reigned at another Monthly Meeting when two or three people stood and tried to speak simultaneously. When the Hicksites refused to withdraw, the meeting ended. “An awful state of warfare and confusion” ensued, which evoked “anger, malice, revenge, hatred, variance, emulation, strife and tumult” to erase “every Christian feeling.”22 This martial language demonstrates the severe rupture that Quakers had suffered. With the approach of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in the fall of 1827, Hicksites from eight different Quarterly Meetings met in Carpenter’s Hall to outline recommendations to improve the Society. They encouraged others to follow the example of their ancestors, who “held up with practical clearness a peaceable testimony against ‘wars and fightings,’ and by a scrupulous adherence to the principles of justice, became proverbial for their integrity.” The epistle stressed the need to avoid entanglements with the Orthodox party, as practice trumped dogma: “Retire then . . . from all airy speculations on religious subjects—from all light and chaffy conversation. Enter into your closets—shut the door—commune with your hearts and be still. Thus, you will learn in the school of Christ.”23 Both Orthodox and Hicksite Friends made use of the past to reproach their antagonists, such as the common refrain that their opponents were 94

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Ranters. This was a scathing rebuke; Ranters had been viewed as heterodox libertines in seventeenth-­century England. Looking to more recent history, some Orthodox members aligned the Hicksites with the Keithians of early eighteenth-­century Pennsylvania; others viewed the separatists as analogous to French revolutionaries of the 1790s for their radical claims. Still others labeled the Hicksites “socinians and deists” of the contemporary era.24 Both sides professed to be representing true Quakerism; their stance was in line with their ancestors’ doctrine. They quoted George Fox, William Penn, and Robert Barclay selectively to bolster their respective positions. To Orthodox minister Thomas Kite, Hicksites besmirched their historical legacy because they were “not only opposed to the ancient faith of friends but calculated to undermine all confidence in the Christian religion, by calling in question the divinity, merits and atoning sacrifice of the Redeemer of mankind.” Daniel Stroud insisted that Orthodox Friends “walked by the same rule & mind the same thing” as had the faith “once delivered to ye saints.” Writing to her daughter in 1829, Orthodox Hannah Warrington expressed her sympathy with those who “stand in the forefront of the battle bearing the burden and heat of the day,” declaring they would be strengthened by the knowledge that they were promoting the “unchangeable truth for which our worthy predecessors so deeply suffered.”25 Conversely, the Hicksites accused the Orthodox party of creating an oligarchy with a minority controlling the status of the majority. The love of power on the part of wealthy men who served as elders indefinitely had soured spiritual relations in the Society. Hicksites insisted that their Quakerism was a form of republicanism, which valued individual rights, religious liberty, and rational thought. Orthodox leaders had “arrogated an authority over their fellow-­members incompatible with their civil and religious rights.” This “arbitrary rule of the few over the many” was abusive; Orthodox Friends seemed more concerned with their own power than what was right. William Wharton wrote that “every free agent ought to receive his religious knowledge upon conviction only: and not assume to believe any abstract proposition of faith, merely because others who were highly esteemed had accepted it.” Individuals could judge for themselves; they did not need elders or written doctrines to affirm their faith.26 The Hicksites accused Orthodox elders of launching a “Spanish Inquisition”; their desire for “secular power” was so great they were willing to “sacrifice” the rights of their fellow members “at the shrine of their bigotry and superstition.” Full of “pride and selfishness” in their “conspicuous” partisanship, the Orthodox party thought they possessed more wisdom than The Hicksite Schism

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their forefathers. They were blinded by “the mist of tradition” that “hangs like a veil over the[ir] eyes.” Hicksites defended their stance out of the love of “truths and justice and righteousness,” while their opponents were attacking “the rights of toleration.” After rallying against the “tyranny” and “oppression” meted out by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Hicksites used the Green Street Meetinghouse as a refuge for those seeking peace and quiet from disorder and uncertainty.27 Orthodox Friends responded by proclaiming that Hicksites had been corrupted by anti-­Christian doctrines, mostly Socinianism.28 One Friend alleged the schism began because of “the specious appearance of a refined spirituality,” while another compared Hicks’s heresy to an intoxicating medicine: “compounded with some other speculative notions, made up into pills to suit ye subjects . . . and gilt with specious professions of great spirituality.” Still another Friend likened Hickism to a physical malady; only when the “fever” passed would they be capable of “serious reflection” and return to the meeting. Hicksites used political campaign strategies to “beguile” and “seduce” followers into “awfully dreadful notions.” The Orthodox accused Hicksites of subterfuge; they never “answer queries—all sound, when there is rottenness at the very core, indicated by putrid spots on the surface.” Most damning was the Hicksite influence on the young.29 Hickism was a contagion; if not stopped, it would spread their infection among youth. Many stayed away from meeting during 1827 because they dreaded “having their feelings hurt and the minds of their children poisoned.” The growing controversy had emboldened many to a “spirit of unsound principle; it neither regards age nor sex, nor is it subject to parental restraint or affection.” Mary Kite attributed the “confusion that has crept into the church for want of keeping in our proper ranks.” She blamed “insubordinate young people” for a rise in disruptive behavior at city meetinghouses.30

The Precipice of Hell One instigating factor in the onset to the Hicksite schism was the presence of several English Friends who visited American meetings in the 1820s: Ann and George Jones, Anna and Isaac Braithwaite, Elizabeth Robson, Thomas Shillitoe, and Isaac Stephenson. When Thomas Shillitoe spoke at Elias Hicks’s meeting in Jericho, New York, Hicks complimented the English Friend for “setting forth the efficacy and sufficiency of the divine light” as the same 96

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doctrine that had been spoken in that meeting for many years. Hicks ended his observations by quoting John Locke: “Outward testimonies may deceive but internal evidence cannot err,” thereby linking the Englishman’s sentiments to internal reformation rather than external beliefs. Shillitoe was “disgusted” by Hicks’s comments and assumed the American was trying to draw him into “unchristian like service.” The appearance of English ministers in the United States increased tensions at local meetings, especially when they accused their American coreligionists of irreligion and heterodoxy.31 According to Ann Jones, American Friends were “one step off the precipice of hell.” As with the Barnard controversy, these traveling ministers caused turmoil when they presented their preaching certificates to local meetings; while one side wanted to accept and sign the documents, an opposing group questioned the recipients’ doctrine. This chaos continued as English ministers castigated American believers. When George and Ann Jones spoke at the Darby meeting, their sermons were full of “declamation—accusation—crimination—and everything but toleration and edification.”32 Many Hicksites were appalled by the English treatment of their American counterparts. After Thomas Wetherald heard Anna Braithwaite preach in the spring of 1826, he alleged that she “advocated the Episcopalian scheme of doctrine” and implicated several ministers; she “plainly appeared as an accuser of the brethren.” As George Jones was leaving the Green Street Meetinghouse after a combative discussion in April of 1827, someone declared that “all this was the effect of foreign interference & they wished none of the English friends had come over here.” After a sermon at a quarterly meeting in New Britain by Shillitoe, a member stood up and accused the Englishman of attending their meeting only to “breed discord among them”; he added that those present did not want “any foreigners to dictate to them how they were to conduct themselves.” The emphatic preaching of these English coreligionists was disquieting rather than calming. Instead of trying to find consensus or labor lovingly with those who disagreed with them, these preachers labeled members with “foul names,” according to one observer. He asked, “Why then should we be calling one another heretics, deists, atheists and infidels &c because we cannot all see alike?”33 The continued stay of English Quakers in the United States during the 1820s increased the conflict among American Friends, and resentment toward these visitors did not dissipate. They were blamed for causing dissent and aiding the Orthodox party in taking control of local meetings. Their interference destroyed communal unity, and their attacks on Elias Hicks increased. The Hicksite Schism

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Several members came to his defense. Sarah Jewett wrote to Anna Braithwaite disputing her accusation that American ministers preached “infidel principles.” Jewett, who had known Hicks for almost fifty years, lauded him as an “eminently dignified advocate for the testimony of Jesus.” These attempts to preserve peace, however, failed. Those who opposed the influence of evangelicalism no longer recognized their religion. As Hicksite Deborah Bringhurst wrote, the “Society in England which bears our name, as a body, do not understand Quakerism.” While she pitied the English for straying from the “original ground on which George Fox &c stood,” Joseph, her husband, dreaded their growing influence.34 The Hicksites singled out the English minister Anna Braithwaite for her role in the schism. She initiated discussions with Hicks at his home on Long Island when visiting New York in 1824. Typically, ministers met with others who had strayed and offered counsel and advice to restore harmony. Initially, Hicks welcomed the Englishwoman’s visits and saw no reason for uneasiness. They discussed Scripture, and, according to her account of their meetings, Hicks preferred that Friends be less reliant on the Bible because it placed more weight on outer speech than on the inner truth. The Englishwoman alleged that Hicks doubted the veracity of the English translation of the Bible and argued “the Mahometans, Chinese and Indians bore greater evidence of the influence of divine light, than professing Christians.” He commented on the “absurdity of believing in any outward sacrifice for sin—that it was the same spirit in us that was in Christ, which was the only means of redemption & salvation.” Hicks highlighted the lonely track each believer trod: “The Almighty would be revealed to us individually so that we could comprehend everything ourselves.”35 Braithwaite broadcast Hicks’s views through correspondence sent to the Quaker community in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. As her criticism spread, Friends began to form two camps. One observer differentiated Hicks’s and Braithwaite’s piety: the former relied too much on “the faculty of reason”; the latter looked to the gospel for “a standard of faith.” Hicks announced that the Spirit was “his teacher, and not the Bible,” and only adhered to parts of the sacred text as valuable if approved by “human reason.” Braithwaite, on the other hand, preached against those who dealt in “abstract reasonings” and placed “human intellect against the truths of revelation.” Initially Elias Hicks found Braithwaite’s preaching acceptable but credited this disparity to her lack of experience. Her tendency to engage in lengthy preaching left little time for others and, even worse, she began speaking before 98

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members had quieted their minds and readied themselves for ministerial guidance.36 Hicks issued a response to Braithwaite’s accusations. First, he pointed out that she had violated gospel order by not addressing contentious issues in the proper setting. By visiting his home and drinking tea, her appearance came under the guise of friendship. However, she proved a “Judas”; instead of being a friend, she had watched for “evil” with a desire to incriminate him. In addition, she rebuffed his attempts to improve her spiritual understanding, and this “self-­importance” harmed her ministry. Her refusal to take the advice of an elderly male minister did not sit well with several men, who came to Hicks’s defense. She was deemed intrusive, especially when she accused Hicks of several doctrinal errors, such as denying the divinity of Christ. Americans who were sympathetic to Hicks resented the influence of English Friends, especially the female ministers. Robert Moore felt only pity for Anna Braithwaite and “her blind zeal and superstitious bigotry.” He thought she would have been more useful if she had stayed at home. Her “outward views and ostentatious deportment” would convince others of the need to dig deeper into “the truth of the gospel” to “dispel the dark clouds of superstition and ignorance.”37 Both sides in the controversy utilized gender to fight their competitors. When Hicksite minister Martha Smith spoke out against Orthodox accusations in the early 1820s, she was silenced; she was yanked down into her seat while speaking in one meetinghouse and was barred from another. Though “there were no blows, nor outward violence,” the church had become “a house of correction” for her. This did not deter Smith. In 1826, she called the Quarterly Meeting at Buckingham a “den of vipers.” While her supporters pleaded with her to continue speaking, the Orthodox elders put her “forcibly out of the meeting.” Eventually Martha and her husband were ejected from their Monthly Meeting. By 1827, leading female Hicksite ministers, such as Smith, Maria Imlay, and Phebe Johnson, had been silenced. Yet the vicious comments continued, this time against American Orthodox women. In August of 1828, Sarah Emlen found the Birmingham Meetinghouse defaced; someone had scrawled “celebration of the Hicksites day . . . Orthodox women are d-­mn bitches” above the minister’s gallery.38 English female ministers came under heavy condemnation from Hicksite men. Anna Braithwaite and Ann Jones were singled out as foolish, ignorant, and superstitious women who sowed seeds of discord and suffered from an “unfortunate alienation of mind.” Aaron Leggett deemed Braithwaite to be “a deluded woman” and “a wicked base lyer [sic].” By “her fithly [filthy] The Hicksite Schism

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nakedness” and “her harlot nature,” she had showed her “brazen face and bald impudence” with a heart “debased & corrupt.” Leggett claimed that Ann Jones had “taken a strange turn.” Though she was a certified minister, she did nothing but cause division. “The spirit, zeal and indefatigable perseverance of those women and their boldness and assurance” led him to question the English mission. William Poole went further: the “influence of women,” who were “held captive by their affections,” had swayed the weak and ineffectual. Women, as “laden with sin,” had been egged on by English evangelicals and their interference had caused relations to deteriorate. 39 Whether accused of mental delusion, misguided ambition, or excessive power, female leaders were delegitimized during this crisis.

The Vital Vivifying Spirit of God There were subtle differences between Hicksite and Orthodox Friends in their spiritual practice. Both continued to use common Quaker words like “seasons,” “baptisms,” and “drooping spirits” to describe their religious state. Both focused on their spiritual belief to follow the “narrow” path. They invoked their “testimonies” to sustain spiritual union. Both groups followed similar patterns of fellowship to strengthen each other’s faith in household meetings. Both maintained the use of silence to access spirituality and serve as good stewards. Lastly, they followed the same choreography when a Friend was ill and dying, and they used the deaths of young people to remind their children of the perils of impiety. Yet contrasts emerged in both belief and behavior. When Hicksite elders and ministers gathered at their Green Street Monthly Meeting in January of 1829, they laid down three basic principles to forward to their Quarterly Meeting. The first two concerned attendance at worship and ministerial doctrine, while the third addressed spiritual practice: “We endeavor to live clean and blameless lives among men, . . . we are in unity with the meeting we belong to, harmoniously laboring for the prosperity of truth. We endeavor to be good examples of uprightness, temperance and moderation . . . [and] to train up our families in plainness and simplicity becoming our religious profession.”40 Hicksites trusted that their faith cohered with what the originators of the Society had endorsed. John Comly, a Hicksite leader, alleged that the founders had relinquished a “creed-­making system, as inconsistent with freedom of thought, and the progressive development of

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light and knowledge, in the soul, they placed their reliance on love, as the only secure bond of religious union.” He explained that religion “was an inward, practical, experimental work, and . . . something to be felt, handled, tasted and easily understood.” John Mott stated that “creeds, systems, synods nor assemblies” could “limit the thinking powers of the soul.” The believer was only “accountable to Himself ” in matters of faith. Samuel Preston found “the zealous enthusiastic Orthodox” were flawed because they never went further “than the outward experience” of the Christian religion.41 The Orthodox reliance on the Bible made them overly dependent on the good book; they might study it endlessly and be able to quote from “Genesis to Revelations, yet without the vital vivifying spirit of God we can be no nearer the kingdom of heaven.” Hicksites stressed the Inward Light and truth over obvious displays of devotion. After reading about the Shotwell case (a New Jersey court case to decide who was the rightful owner of Quaker property), Ann Fenimore wrote, “Shame on those who profess to be Quakers, tis an easy thing to wear the dress, but tis only by giving ourselves with the whole armor of God, that the principle can be maintained.”42 Orthodox Friends sanctioned the doctrine of salvation and conversion as two separate experiences. They needed to “openly confess the Lord Jesus Christ before men,” and that change had to be reflected in their conduct. They advocated the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, atonement, and original sin. Their move toward creedalism led to pronouncements on the importance of outward, rather than inward, exercises to cultivate spiritual devotion. Orthodox Friends continued to emphasize internal change; mere belief was insufficient as “the indwelling spirit of Christ” was necessary to fellowship. Only by endorsing the “crucifying power under our Lord Jesus Christ” could believers “experience living faith in Him.” Orthodox Friends retained common Quaker language, such as being “willing to walk in this narrow path of self-­denial” and lean on “refining baptisms of the holy Ghost,” while adding in the need “to wash away the pollutions of sin” and to find salvation through Jesus Christ. They regularly read the Bible and routinized family prayer. For the Orthodox leader William Evans, daily and hourly watchfulness was necessary to avoid the devil and gain salvation.43 The endorsement of evangelical precepts among the Orthodox drew them closer to other Protestant denominations that had grown exponentially since the eighteenth century, such as the Methodists and Baptists. Ironically, through foreign influence, Orthodox Quakers came more in line with mainstream American religious culture in the 1830s.

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The Way of Holiness A major influence on American Friends in the latter half of the eighteenth century was evangelical religion. The presence of Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists in eighteenth-­century Pennsylvania influenced some Quakers. They read evangelical texts popular with other Protestants, such as Isaac Watts, John Bunyan, and William Law. Many were familiar with the writings of John Wesley, and the Methodist approach matched the Quaker conception of faith. When Isaac Comly visited a Methodist meeting, he complimented the members for their care in attending to each other’s spiritual welfare. Compared to Friends, the Methodists were “going before us in diffusing the benefits of religious communion, not only among members by adoption, but to others, who can declare that they ‘are sincerely desired to love and serve God.’ ” Ann Jackson found attendance at a Methodist meeting in 1840 “very comfortable indeed.” Though some “laughed at Methodists for their singularities & reprobate night meetings & noise,” many found much to admire in Methodism. Ann Cooper Tatum imagined uniting with the Methodists as “a quiet retreat,” while Isaac Comly supposed he would have joined them if he were not a Quaker.44 The impact of evangelical religion on Friends was evident long before the Great Separation broke out. Quaker diaries and journals from the eighteenth century show evidence of evangelicalism. John Woolman, whose journal was popular and influential within the Quaker transatlantic community, contained evangelical concepts. His spiritual journey toward faith was comparable to that of New Lights who engaged in worldly pursuits only to reject them upon conversion. He described his youthful struggles with wantonness and gaiety as well as the lonely pursuit to “confess his sins” when he felt the “power of Christ [to] prevail over selfish desires.” Like new converts to evangelical religion, he avoided his former friends in favor of spiritual contemplation and prayer. With a “heart” that was “tender and contrite,” Woolman isolated himself to “live under the cross.” Still faced with “strong temptations,” he often retired to “private places” crying to God for help.45 In the 1780s and 1790s, many deemed spiritual rebirth necessary to advance in faith and to be repentant as well as to gain the “cementing love of Christ” that would set believers free. Evangelical language is evident in the writing of Friends who would become Orthodox after the schism. In the 1810s, Mary Kite wrote about the “language” of her heart, which tried to be receptive to God’s “tender impressions” despite its rebelliousness. She repeatedly 102

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asked for strength from temptation; to have her “soul” relieved from worldly cares and to be resigned to God’s will. Mary asked God to preserve her from “the slippery paths of youth” to “subdue” her “stubborn heart” and fix her feet “on the immoveable rock of Christ Jesus.” She imagined herself as a “poor worm” (a common evangelical trope). Like other evangelicals, Mary dwelt on her wickedness, claimed her “heart was in bondage to sin,” and contemplated the concept of hell while sitting in Monthly Meeting trying to attain “the heavenly balm.” Mary continued to use traditional Quaker concepts, such as quieting her mind for religious reflection as well as ruing that worldly concerns occupied too much of her time. She used Quaker words such as “seasons,” “drooping spirits,” “the good Physician,” and “heavenly Visitant.” She sought the “oneness” of mind that Friends traditionally strove for in meeting but married it with the plea that those present would be “lambs of Christ’s pasture and guided by Him and their feet established on the immoveable rock of ages, against which the gates of hell shall never prevail.”46 References to Jesus Christ and the need for salvation began to appear more often in Orthodox writings, and the evangelical phrase “a new birth” became increasingly common in their parlance after 1830. Thomas Evans looked forward to the time when he would enter the “everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” He saw the need for “ ‘the new birth’ to obtain salvation, . . . yet nothing short of a thorough and entire change of heart” would gain God’s grace. He referred to “our Lord Jesus Christ” as our “holy propitiation, our mediator and our advocate with the Father.” Evans continued to emphasize traditional Quaker religious ideals, such as the need to walk “a narrow path” as well as rely on the Holy Spirit for “refining baptisms.” He invoked William Penn’s phrase “no cross, no crown” to remind a relation of the need to bear spiritual affliction for eternal salvation: “Nothing but a new birth by the operation of the Holy Ghost . . . is availing to salvation.” The devil also appeared more often in Quaker writings; Satan pursued Rebecca Hornor Coates, for instance, when she neglected spiritual exercises.47 The writings of Orthodox Friends gained a Christocentric focus. Rebecca Singer Collins’s diaries and letters are infused with evangelicalism. Born to German Lutheran parents, Rebecca Singer became a Quaker in 1826 when she turned twenty-­two years old. In 1833, she married Isaac Collins Jr., a birthright Friend. Rebecca’s writings utilized evangelical concepts while still retaining Quaker idioms. Collins used traditional phrases such as “baptizing season” but she also felt her spirit “knit . . . in the everlasting Gospel.” In 1833, she enjoyed “the presence of Jesus” while at meeting as a “foretaste of the joys of The Hicksite Schism

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the Redeemer, oh how precious.” Her soul was so “filled with joy” that she could not “express one half ” of what she felt. She wished to see “Jesus face to face” and asked her “dearest Father” to grant her resignation. After attending yearly meeting in 1839, she stated that “the Lord reigned.” Collins bemoaned her “polluted” and “vile” status and asked God to “thoroughly purge the floor of my heart.” Collins spoke directly to Jesus in her private meditations. She told all her “griefs” to him, who knew her “infirmities,” and she expected he would aid her advancement on the “right path.” Collins’s combination of Quaker concepts with evangelical notions is evident in an 1840 entry: “I have not made progress in the way of holiness that my soul in days that are past have panted after—now this morning O God in thy strength & thine alone I desire tho’ a feeble worm of the dust to dedicate myself wholly unto thee—to renew my covenant made in the morning of my life . . . I thank thee Heavenly Father of this fresh visitation to my never dying soul—enable for Christ’s sake to act in every particular—in every visitation in life as a dedicated follower of Christ Jesus.”48 Collins longed to be humble and dependent as a faithful and reborn Christian. As a “feeble worm,” she sought salvation. What is telling in her account is the dominance of Jesus Christ and the absence of the Holy Spirit, which before the schism was ever present in Quaker religiosity. In addition, Orthodox Friends justified their belief in crucicentrism—that is, Christ’s sacrifice for the world’s sin. After William Haines contemplated “our saviour’s crucifixion,” he asked his wife Mary to read Luke’s account. When she finished, he advised her “to trust in the Lord, and not only to trust him, but rely upon him, depend upon him.”49

The Desolation of Zion As Hicksite and Orthodox Friends went their separate ways, some foresaw trouble ahead. One Friend referred to her coreligionists as a “crooked and perverse generation.” In 1834, Jonathan Evans voiced his fears over the state of Quakerism: “We must acknowledge that great weakness and backsliding have come over us, and unless a more fervent concern and true zeal should take place in the minds of Friends, this spirit of degeneracy will travel through our borders.” He declared that “Hickism” was just one of “many engines the enemy is making use of to lay waste the righteous and blessed testimonies” of Quakers. The dizzying array of possibilities was disconcerting. Many Friends feared that they would lose their distinctiveness as a religious society; “spiritual 104

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conversing” with other Protestants would make them defenseless against the “merciful fangs” of the “adversary.” Mildred Ratcliff rightly dreaded that this “day of declension” would draw them by “every wind of doctrine” into other denominations. Her predictions proved true. Young Friends, fed up with infighting, sought out membership at Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches in the 1830s.50 Others continued to pray for reunion. Orthodox women called on some Hicksites in their Philadelphia neighborhood to convince them to “return to the bosom of the church.” Sarah Logan Fisher and her family were visited by an Orthodox minister: “we of course being heretics, came in for a share of her time and wise attention.” Some persisted in conversing with their adversaries yet not be tainted by their apostacy. When Mary Kite stayed with some Hicks­ ite relatives in 1840, she viewed it as a spiritual trial: “Such horror of great darkness afterwards overspread my spirit as words cannot.” Though she found this prospect “truly alarming and humiliating,” she was resigned to find “sufficient clearness” to achieve this difficult task. Conversely, when Hicksite overseers visited Orthodox Friend Samuel Mickle to ask about his religious state, he replied, “I worship in spirit, you were not sent from heaven—I have nothing to say to you.”51 From the 1830s onward, life was anything but tranquil for Orthodox and Hicksite Quakers. Some wanted to take the separation further by becoming active in social reform. Worldly activity was frowned upon by many Quakers who held that their Society should stay outside the political issues of the wider culture. When some Wilmington Hicksites became interested in the radical policies of Robert Dale Owen and Fanny Wright in the 1830s, their coreligionists were horrified. Contemporary concerns continued to invade the Quaker community; the market economy, party politics, and reform activism brought Friends further into the world. The Great Separation raised issues over the extent of authority within a meeting versus individual liberty and freedom of thought. The schism had generated a “spirit of freethinking” that would not be squashed.52 Friends mourned “the weak and crippled condition” of their religion into the 1840s as division continued and new controversies arose. The competition between Hicksites and Orthodox Friends engendered a “holier-­than-­thou” attitude that did little to heal this rupture. Hicksite William Gibbons believed that most Friends coveted unity; it was only entrenchment among the Orthodox sect that forestalled reunion. Others hoped that true piety would reign above petty differences. Richard Mott argued that “genuine Quakerism is a most The Hicksite Schism

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dignified state, it is unsophisticated Christianity.”53 Theses hopes, however, were short-­lived; some were “deluded” in their beliefs regardless of advice from their Yearly Meetings. By the 1840s, a new controversy loomed to separate them once again through the influence of the evangelical Friend Joseph John Gurney and his American opponent John Wilbur. American Quakerism weathered a series of partitions in the antebellum period that devastated a generation. The Hicksite schism of 1827 unleashed a torrent that raised questions over practice, doctrine, and leadership. While the Orthodox endorsed evangelical notions of salvation and conversion, Christ’s divinity, and biblical authority, Hicksites clung to the Inward Light and Truth and advocated individual practice over doctrinal statements.54 Creedal systems had no place in vital religion because they constrained the soul’s relationship to God. The Hicksite schism had a long-­term impact on American Quakerism. When Orthodox Friends in Pennsylvania agreed to work with other Protestants in missionary and Bible societies as well as Sunday School initiatives in the 1820s, evangelicalism had made serious inroads into Quaker communities of the United States. Overall, the schism opened the floodgates to muddy the path to religious enlightenment. What constituted Quaker piety came under minute scrutiny. Once ideals of religious liberty were invoked and defended, Friends would continue to push the limits of authority and power, both religious and political. This would lead to further fractures. New divisions and subdivisions would ensue in the 1840s and 1850s as Orthodox Friends once again faced the prospect of a scattered community.

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Chapter 5

“Contentions, Di v is io ns , and Subdivisio ns” Gurneyites v. Wilburites

Is our Society to become extinct? —Mary Kite

In March of 1838, heterodoxy came to the Philadelphia Quaker community in the person of Elisha Bates. A minister and longtime clerk of the Ohio Yearly Meeting, Bates had become increasingly irregular by spouting “Episcopalian” ideas. Disowned by his Monthly Meeting in the previous year, Bates had arrived that spring to lecture on “ordinances” at public venues in the city. Speaking about Christian rituals—an incongruous subject for a Friend— demonstrates how far Bates had traveled in his conception of Quaker spirituality. A stalwart of the Orthodox Friends who led the fight against Hicksites in the 1820s, by the mid-­1830s, he had adopted ultraevangelical beliefs and practices. His spiritual trajectory was representative of a growing conflict among the Orthodox and discloses how much Quakerism changed in the antebellum era. Quakers like Bates had been radically altered by the rise of evangelicalism within the Religious Society of Friends on both sides of the Atlantic.1 Bates’s transformation began when he visited England in the mid-­1830s, where he had three key experiences. First, he became involved in the Beaconite controversy. The Beaconites were an ultraevangelical group led by Isaac Crewdson of Manchester, who wrote a small book called Beacon to the Society of Friends (hence their name) in 1835. Ostensibly published to dismiss the errors of Elias Hicks’s doctrine, Crewdson went further to deny sacred precepts of the Quaker faith—for example, immediate revelation. He rejected the Inward

Light as delusional and scoffed at the use of Quaker language, such as “centering,” “digging deep,” or “turning inward.” The need to be silent and still in meeting to prepare oneself for worship was nonsensical. The outrage over these pronouncements led to a schism in England when Crewdson and his followers left to form the Evangelical Friends in 1836. This new church abandoned Quaker silent worship, female minsters, and birthright membership. They adopted the Christian rituals of baptism and communion. The Beaconites retained plain meetinghouses but worshiped like other Protestants, by hymn singing, prayer, and Bible readings.2 The second event in Bates’s life was when he underwent water baptism at the hand of a Congregational minister. He came to this decision after long biblical study and fervent prayer. Bates realized that Quakers had erred when they dismissed New Testament ordinances. Convinced that this ritual was necessary to be “in conformity with the command of Christ, and the example of the Apostles and Primitive Believers,” he had no intention of leaving the Society. He reasoned that because early Christians enacted the baptismal rite, as Scripture testified, it was not a violation of Quaker Discipline. Two months after his baptism, the London Morning Meeting informed Bates they would be contacting his Monthly Meeting in Ohio for this infraction. Upon his return to the United States, he was disowned at the same time he became the primary advocate for the Evangelical Friends in America.3 The third occurrence during Bates’s stay in England was becoming friendly with Joseph John Gurney, a powerful evangelical minister, author, and member of the London Yearly Meeting. Gurney’s influence led to the evangelical extremism displayed by Crewdson and Bates. For example, Bates, like Gurney, placed primacy on the doctrines of Christ and his followers. He was not “bound to respect the writings of our early standard authors, any further than they accord with my understanding of the doctrines of Christ and his apostles.” Privileging the Scriptures above the traditional works of early Friends was not heretical to evangelical Quakers. As there was no “official approval” of founders’ writings by the Society, any preference for their publications was “arbitrary and of individual adoption.” Better to trust to the Bible as the Christian’s authoritative text. Bates acknowledged that their ancestors had suffered persecution, but this did not make them infallible. In addition, Bates questioned the value of silent meetings. He did not go as far as Crewdson to state they were unscriptural, but he argued that silence could be a hollow act without proper evangelical rigor. He warned that “without an engagement of the heart— silence may be but the means of indulging vain imaginations—or feelings of 108

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dullness.”4 Recognizing that their antecedents differed in doctrine, Bates relied on Scripture to construct his spirituality, which he defined as “Primitive Christianity Revived.” Borrowing a phrase from William Penn, Bates sought to legitimate his evangelicalism as solidly Quaker. Bates’s role in spreading ultraevangelicalism in America expanded when some of Gurney’s ideas were circulated through private correspondence (his published works were not available in the United States until the 1840s). This knowledge grew when Gurney visited America in the late 1830s. Like Bates, Gurney criticized the founders and discarded some aspects of traditional Quakerism. As Pink Dandelion contends, Gurney wanted to “mould Quakerism around a more mainstream Protestant evangelical theology at the expense of losing the primacy of direct revelation and corporate mysticism.” Furthermore, Gurney questioned the theological interpretation of the founders and placed his own knowledge above first-­generation Friends.5 Rhode Islander John Wilbur questioned Gurney’s growing prominence, and he headed the anti-­ Gurneyite opposition in the United States. As this debate heated up, Orthodox Friends tried to maintain calm amongst the chatter and confusion—hoping that history would not repeat itself. They saw the need for “great circumspection and holy help” to weather this storm, so they would “know when to speak and when to be silent” amid growing controversy. Once again, Friends faced disunion and despair throughout their “borders.”6 The debate between the Gurneyites and Wilburites changed American Quakerism during the antebellum era. This conflict widened expressions of spirituality into two Orthodox camps. Gurneyites refuted the defining features of the Quaker religion—for example, the Inward Light and Truth—and questioned the basic attributes of spiritual practice. Simultaneously, the quietist tradition of Wilburites encouraged a militant perusal of all aspects of one’s life to follow an active faith. The conflict between Joseph John Gurney and John Wilbur resulted in a “second wave of schism.” The Gurneyites wanted to create a “true universal church of Christ” by associating with other Protestants. The Wilburites were adamant about keeping the unique customs that set them apart from other Christians. Gurneyism and Wilburism represented two poles of a religious continuum that further bifurcated Orthodox Friends by advocating divergent doctrines. Already “scattered and divided” by the 1827 separation, Quakers faced new segmentation in the 1840s and 1850s. Dread and discontent emerged as both sides castigated the other for their extreme positions. The dissipation of the Religious Society of Friends induced anger and anxiety as well as predictions of dissolution. Edward Hicks, cousin to Gurneyites v. Wilburites

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Elias, characterized the Gurneyites as “extreme Orthodox,” who would meld with Episcopalians, while the Hicksites would unite with the Deists; this latter move would “destroy the religion of Jesus” and “introduce the reign of reason instead of revelation.” He labeled true believers, those who were in “union with Fox, Penn and Barclay,” as “Foxites”; they would separate from all groups and begin a new society of true Friends.7

Specious Garb Joseph John Gurney’s evangelicalism sprang from his close association with Anglicans. Born into a banking dynasty in Norwich in 1788, he obtained an Oxford education and took over his family’s business in the early nineteenth century. Though tutored and influenced by leading evangelical ministers, Gurney remained a Quaker. He began preaching in the 1810s and emerged as a popular and forceful leader among English Friends. He disseminated a radical version of evangelicalism in the London Yearly Meeting as well as through his published works. He maintained Quaker traditions, such as the importance of silence and the Holy Spirit, while he championed the Wesleyan concept of salvation and sanctification as two discrete stages. Furthermore, he emphasized the importance of Scripture over direct revelation. The Englishman’s biblicism questioned the theological interpretations of the religion’s founders. Gurneyite evangelicalism downplayed the importance of inward spirituality. He doubted the efficacy of the Inner Light, believing it had been taken to “dangerous and unscriptural extremes.”8 When Gurney arrived in the United States, he impressed American audiences with his personal charm and erudite preaching. Gurney visited Philadelphia in 1838 and preached several times at the Arch Street meetinghouse. His sermons combined traditional Quaker language with Christocentric concepts. He used the terms “plain truth,” “inward monitor,” and “the Light.” However, his message favored evangelical religion. He narrated the crucifixion story, called Jesus “our blessed Saviour,” quoted the Bible at length and alleged that Quakers had always lauded the divinity of Christ. Their ancestors had never “denied or doubted the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and him crucified”; they had always ascribed to belief in his propitiatory death. To prove his point, Gurney referred to a conversation George Fox had with an Anglican priest, who asked him why God let Jesus suffer in the garden. Fox’s answer—that Jesus took the burden upon himself to bear the sins of the world—confirmed 110

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Gurney’s view that this was the “very plain, simple noble testimony” of Friends. He invoked the Quaker phrase “to mind the Light” as the means to realize the need for a Saviour who died for their sins. The Holy Spirit had a place in his preaching but only as it related to salvation; to gain a “practical understanding of these blessed words: ‘I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’ ” Gurney stated that there was never a time in Quaker history when the Society did not assert belief in the “divine origin and authority” of the Bible. Because early Friends studied the Scriptures assiduously, this was proof of biblical primacy: “It was their doctrine, and it is our doctrine.” Lastly, he charged that there was nothing mystical about Quakerism; it was “simple food for simple minds. It is plain and perspicuous in its practical bearing.”9 American Friends who heard Gurney preach were uncertain about his views. Susan Foulke and others at her Horsham meeting discussed Gurney’s theology; while some stated that he was perfectly sound, others said his doctrine was “inconsistent” with Orthodox Quakerism. A young Friend who welcomed Gurney found his preaching excellent, particularly “when he spoke with so much humility of himself.” However, not everyone greeted his visit with enthusiasm. Mildred Ratcliff “saw the approach of the enemy under the specious garb of Gurneyism and [wished] to sound the alarm of the danger awaiting us.” Another detractor alleged Gurney had conspired with Bates and Crewdson; he had “throw[n] off his mask” to disclose his ultraevangelical beliefs. Reviving the xenophobic sentiment of the 1820s, one American Friend found Gurney insolent and arrogant; he possessed “the assumption and narrow-­mindedness of a foreigner.”10 Orthodox Friend Mary Kite saw trouble coming from both Gurneyites and Wilburites. This new conflict was another sign of degeneration: “We have been such a backsliding rebellious generation that it is marvelous the language has not gone forth ‘let Ephraim alone, he has joined himself to idols.’ ” Joshua Mekeel shared Kite’s sense of decline. The Wilburites were fostering an “insubordinate & rending spirit”; as “cunning artful members,” who fanned the flames of dissent, they were “bent on separation.” Quaker society would once again be rent asunder. Sarah Emlen grieved the “painful” state of the Society and begged her coreligionists to value piety over doctrine: “We all profess to be the same faith—but how grossly inconsistent in our practice! We all profess to hear the voice of One True Shepherd . . . behold the dilemma we are in!”11 Others refused to imagine another schism was imminent; one observer posited that Philadelphia Friends were “fighting a shadow of their own making.” Gurneyites v. Wilburites

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Uncertainty, alarm, and resentment fomented speculation. As Thomas Pym Cope noted, “We are spies & informers of each other’s private actions & familiar conversations.” He tried not to be drawn into this “unhappy controversy” but found it stymied interaction; “men, once sociable, pass each other with a scowl or as not knowing one another.”12 Responses from farther afield matched the thoughts expressed in Pennsylvania. Seeing little contrast between British and American evangelicals, New Yorker Isaac T. Hopper was surprised that Orthodox Quakers in Philadelphia found Gurney controversial when he preached the same doctrines that Anna Braithwaite had in the 1820s. When Rhode Islander Thomas B. Gould confronted Gurney in 1838 and asked him to specify his views, the Englishman refused to answer. With blunt language, Gould pressed him to “deny or condemn” those aspects that had caused so “much uneasiness.” Gurney responded by reiterating “professions of love” for Gould but never explained how his writings aligned with those of ancient Friends. Gurney’s behavior inflamed, rather than assuaged, anxiety about his doctrines. That he seemed unwilling to explain himself did little to placate doubting Friends. Gould concluded that Gurney “was no Quaker,” and his writings did not constitute Quakerism.13 Gurney’s presumptuous attitude toward American Quakers was disconcerting. When Gurney visited Baltimore in the fall of 1838, he asked local Hicksites for permission to use their meetinghouse—to hold his own meeting. He had no intention of attending their meeting because he did not consider them Friends: “I could not conscientiously involve myself in that religious fellowship with your body, which would have been obviously indicated by my taking my seat among you, in one of your own assemblies for worship.” Gurney’s plan to “save” Hicksites from their “Unitarian” errors did not go down well with some Marylanders. Gurney’s trip “to enlighten the benighted Americans” exposed his own ignorance of Quaker history. It was evident that the Englishman had not read William Penn’s Sandy Foundation Shaken because it was, according to one Friend, “one of the best Unitarian tracts we know.” Even worse, Gurney downplayed the Divine Light and ignored theological differences: “Their peculiarities were practical, rather than speculative. The Quaker differed from the rest of the world in the use of the singular pronouns, in wearing his hat everywhere, in abstinence from oaths and bearing arms, in nonresistance, in silent worship, in peculiarities of dress, rather than in any dogmas concerning the nature of God, or of Christ, or of man.”14 Gurney’s high-­handed design to rescue Americans from their erroneous beliefs was evidence of his self-­importance and elitism; his Oxonian polish and great wealth also raised 112

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eyebrows. His vaunted reputation led Edward Hicks to label him “the idol of Norwich.” Friends on both sides of the Atlantic disapproved of Gurney’s worldliness in other ways—for example, his involvement in social reform with non-­Quaker evangelicals. Gurney had worked on abolition and temperance in Britain, activism that took him away from the righteous path. For these reasons, Gurney’s stay in America instigated opposition. Ruptures broke out in some meetings; as one Friend wrote, “All are not Israel that are Israel.”15

Unsound and Dangerous Doctrine The American critique of Gurney’s evangelicalism came principally from John Wilbur. Born into a quietist family in Hopkinton, Rhode Island, in 1774, he was a farmer, taught at a local Friends’ school, and served on Quaker committees. Wilbur became an elder in 1802, a minister in 1812, and a participant in the fight against Hicksites. During the 1820s and 1830s, he traveled extensively in the United States and Europe. While visiting England, Wilbur became increasingly alarmed by Gurney’s influence. His objections to the Gurneyites were reminiscent of the complaints the Orthodox had of the Hicksites. Just as the Hicksites had deceived many in the 1820s, the Gurneyites were doing the same in the 1830s and 1840s by perverting the Quaker faith. Through “his vague and fallacious reasoning,” Gurney had “duped” and “deluded” members into an “apostate condition.” As Hicksites had been accused of obfuscation, Wilbur reproved Gurneyites of “covering themselves over with the meek garb of the founders of our profession attempting to screen themselves from detection, thereby, and by pressing upon all the sacred injunction of our discipline love and unity to avoid detraction.”16 Wilbur made use of the Hicks controversy to support his position. Though Wilbur had been an adversary of Hicks in the 1820s, by the 1840s, he utilized some of the minister’s same arguments to fight the ultraevangelical threat, such as the need to eschew contact with the world and other Protestants. Just as Hicks’s preaching was found to be erroneous, Wilbur wanted to follow the same procedure against the English evangelical. When he faced disapproval for criticizing Gurney, he responded with the following questions: “Let it be asked, whether or not they were chargeable with a breach of Friend’s Discipline, as hurting the service or character of Elias Hicks? To this question, I apprehend, it will be readily answered, that they were not. Why? Because the doctrine of Elias Hicks was believed to be unsound Gurneyites v. Wilburites

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and dangerous doctrine, and that it was therefore the duty of those friends, . . . to testify faithfully, both against him and his doctrine.” For Wilbur, Hicks and Gurney professed Quaker doctrine with differing emphases: “The former . . . appears to be wanting in his fidelity as to Christ’s personal coming and attributes; and the latter in his fidelity as to his spiritual coming and dwelling in the heart of man.” Their tenets were equally partial by adhering to only one-­half of the Christian covenant endorsed by Friends. Wilbur spoke out against Gurney by following the pattern of those who had called out Hicks. He felt “fully warranted in claiming the authority and example of those who have heretofore, in the very same manner, spoken and testified against doctrines which were also unsound and perversive of Quakerism, as well as against the authors and holders of those doctrines.”17 Wilbur quoted extensively from the writings of the founding generation to counter Gurney’s contentions as well as make his case to New England Friends. When Gurney stated that belief alone was needed for faith, Wilbur countered with citations from William Penn. Gurney’s “outward revelation” stood in contrast to Penn’s avowal that belief in Christ alone was insufficient without the experience of “his inward and spiritual appearance.” Wilbur revered the English legacy and codified what he understood to be customary doctrine and discipline. He followed the founder’s lead by speaking out against the dangers posed by Gurneyism. If Fox had not rebuked English Protestants, the Religious Society of Friends would not have formed: “Had it not been for such honest resolution and decision of character, firmly adhered to by the first few protestant reformers, what would have become of the reformation from popery? It would never have been. And but for such derision in George Fox, and a few other congenial spirits against protestant Babylon, Quakerism had probably never existed.”18 By invoking the hallowed image of Penn, Wilbur hoped to persuade the New England leadership to interrogate Gurneyism. Gurney defended his choice to ignore the principles of early Friends in favor of his own evangelicalism. He took biblical passages fundamental to early Friends and reinterpreted them to fit his views. For example, John 1:9: “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” typically referred to an individual’s experience of Christ within. Gurney alleged that the “true meaning of this passage” was of Christ as the light “because it is from him that men derive the light of an eternal influence.” He took on one of the central components of Quaker belief regarding “the seed which reigns” discussed in 1 Peter 1:2, 3. While Friends traditionally viewed the seed as a mystical expression of “the inward testimony” whereby a believer 114

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could access the Inward Light, Gurney professed that it was “undesirable” to call Christ “the Seed” without reference to his incarnation and sacrifice for the world. Gurney’s denial of the traditional Quaker concept of the seed was a rejection of the precept of Christ within.19 Additionally, Gurney’s biblical exegesis enabled him to question the writings of the founders. As he wrote, “Were I required to define Quakerism, I would not describe it as the system so elaborately wrought out by a Barclay, or as the doctrine and maxims of a Penn, or as the deep and refined views of a Penington; for all these authors have their defects as well as their excellencies; I should call it the religion of the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, without diminution, without addition, and without compromise.” Gurney later claimed these words were misunderstood; he had no intention of disparaging the writings of these founding Friends. He honored their memory and valued their orthodoxy, “especially in their view of the redemption of mankind through our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.” His objective was to show the preeminence of the Scriptures because, as he reiterated, Quakerism was “nothing more or less than the religion of the New Testament.”20 Elisha Bates agreed with Gurney in privileging the Bible over Quaker publications. He differentiated the writings of Friends, which were vital to Quakerism, versus the Bible, which was essential for Christianity. Bates believed that an attempt was being made to “discourage, if not suppress the study of the Holy Scriptures.” If so, it would have dire consequences for “pure and vital” religion. True believers would not “slight, despise or reject the witness of the spirit in the Scriptures.” Denying the primacy of the Bible could result in further division, similar to past controversies: But when we remember that there have been certain spurious principles, which have been common to Naylor, to Perrot, to Wilkinson and Story, to H. Barnard, the separatists of N. E. and to E. H. and their followers respectively—when those principles are still extensively held around us, does it not become us, as a part of our duty to God, to ourselves, and to one another, to investigate those principles, and ascertain the origin of the error, and the source of the mischief of which we have been the witnesses, and—if we despise all admonition, and indignantly reject all warning—may yet be the victims?21 This litany of Quaker heretics seemingly proved Bates’s contention that snubbing the Scriptures would lead to dissension and severance. Bates continued Gurneyites v. Wilburites

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to defend Scriptural supremacy. When he spoke before the Meeting of Sufferings in Ohio and Indiana, some objected to his excessive use of biblical citations. After being told to replace his scriptural references with quotations from the work of early Friends, he withdrew his address.22 Overweening emphasis on the Bible troubled Wilburites; to insist that Scripture applied to every circumstance, that it “comprehends all conditions, regulates all motives, directs and controls all overt acts,” was extreme and unsustainable. Furthermore, to proclaim that the Bible alone “fully reveals the nature and character of sin,” and was the only source to regulate piety, flew in the face of Quaker custom. Favoring the Bible above all else was a denunciation of the published works of their ancestors and direct revelation from the Holy Spirit. One observer posited that Gurney engendered strife to such an extent that Friends would have to choose between either condemning his doctrines or incorporating them into traditional practice. He predicted correctly that Gurney would ultimately “remodel the tenets of our religious society.”23 Wilburites ignored the Quakerly aspects of Gurney’s theology. For example, in Observations on the Distinguishing Views and Practices of Friends, published in the United States in 1840, Gurney recommended silent worship, private prayer, and daily self-­examination. “Comfort and edification” derived from silent meetings, which, in turn, related to one’s “life and conservation” as well as “the spiritual condition of our minds.” Other Christians could learn from the Religious Society of Friends for their views on war, slavery, capital punishment, and swearing. Gurney defended plain dress as conducive to spirituality, as it “demands very little thought, and occupies very little time.” Lastly, he urged others not to “break down ‘the hedge’ around about us.”24 Gurney aspired to reform Quakerism by extending some traditions, jettisoning others, and solidifying evangelical beliefs. He planned to take a “middle” course between Hicksite heresy and Orthodox reticence to modernize the faith, make it relevant to contemporary society, and spread its message to other Christians. As he wrote in his diary: “[I’m] still in the centre of the boat of the Society.”25

Absurd and Arbitrary Proceedings As the conflict over Gurneyism continued to rage in the United States, Wilbur’s confrontational stance led to his disownment. When his Monthly Meeting renounced his membership in 1842, he appealed to the Rhode Island Yearly Meeting and questioned this capricious ruling: “Such irrational and rash 116

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proceedings bespeak disloyalty, or a want of deference to the supreme body, (the Yearly Meeting), on the one hand, and on the other, a disregard of the rights of individuals, if not a betrayal of some personal grudge, rather than a desire to do by him as they would that others should do by them in such cases.” For New England Gurneyites, Quaker Discipline enabled them to expel a troublemaker; for Wilbur, it was a violation of his rights. He questioned why the Rhode Island Yearly Meeting assumed it did not possess the power to interrogate the beliefs of ministers like Gurney when they presented their travel certificates. Again, he invoked the example of Elias Hicks; notwithstanding his ministerial reputation, he was questioned when he traveled to preach: “Was E. H.’s certificate a protection or foreclosure against all inquiries or information in relation to the state of his views, which were the same after as they were before his liberation? And were not . . . his printed sermons a sufficient warrantee for an exposure of his views when abroad, though written and printed previous to his liberation?” It was the Monthly Meeting’s role to watch over others to make sure they remained true to doctrine. If the Meeting agreed that Gurney was “a sound friend,” Wilbur did not understand why they would object to ensuring his principles matched Quaker beliefs.26 Wilbur’s outspokenness about Gurney led to a series of meetings between him and the Meeting for Sufferings in New England in 1844. After an initial gathering, one elder suggested that they burn all the papers and forget about the matter. The Committee’s next suggestion was to tell Wilbur “to stay at home and be quiet”; advice he ignored. As the two sides continued to meet, the committee vacillated between trying to gain concessions from Wilbur to accusing him of possessing a “dark, hard state of mind!” They eventually decided that Wilbur had “indulged in a spirit of detraction, in speaking and writing, by which the religious character of divers Friends in our own and other Yearly Meetings has been much misrepresented.” Wilbur responded that the Meeting for Sufferings had contravened the Discipline, particularly when it punished his Monthly Meeting (Kingston) for refusing to chastise him. The committee had browbeaten the Kingston meeting, interfered with their election of representatives, stole their records, and then proceeded to dissolve the meeting.27 Once the Greenwich Monthly Meeting had subsumed Kingston, it disowned Wilbur. Even after his disownment, Wilbur continued his quest to broadcast the dangers of Gurneyism. He warned Orthodox Friends to watch diligently for any “departure from sound doctrine and correct practices.” He particularly wanted them to remember their “worthy predecessors” and “to follow Gurneyites v. Wilburites

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their footsteps . . . in the unchangeable truth.” They would never waver from “the daily exercises in seeking Him and staying thy mind upon him.” Wilbur used the works of some of the founders to prove his point. Isaac Penington wrote: “Faith is not a believing in the Scriptures or a believing that Christ died for sinners in general, . . . all this may be done by an unbelieving nature, but a uniting with the nature of God in Christ.” According to Joseph Phipps, the gospel must be felt and savored in a mystical interaction with the Holy Spirit. Robert Barclay agreed that faith was both inward and outward. The Scriptures were vital, but not as the “foundation” of “all truth and knowledge, nor yet the adequate primary rule of faith and manners.” For Friends, “the inward testimony of the Spirit” was primary: “The Spirit is that guide by which the saints are led into all truth; therefore, according to the Scriptures, the Spirit is the first and principal leader.”28 Wilbur railed against Gurney for refuting Quaker tradition. Wilburites thought Gurney’s work, Brief Remarks on Impartiality in the Interpretation of Scripture, to be comparable to Isaac Crewdson’s Beacon. Both were refutations of customary Discipline. Gurney ignored the model of church government laid out by Barclay in the seventeenth century, particularly, how meetings dealt with those who proposed contrary doctrines; they had the power to unfetter their spiritual fellowship from those with whom they could not obtain unity. The New England Yearly Meeting’s support for the “adverse, inconsistent and unsound writings” of Gurney was ironic given that he charged the Religious Society of Friends—in print—with “defection” by falling into “conventional errors.” The Englishman had placed his own opinion above that of the founders, alleging that the Gospel did not need the “fictitious and spurious support” evident in their works. Further, Gurney charged that the mistakes made by the first generation had become “the stepping-­stones” for the emergence of “the Hicksite heresy.”29 The extent of Gurney’s personal affluence and ministerial reputation annoyed opponents; it was unclear why he was exempted from scrutiny by local meetings. One Wilburite claimed that Gurney’s printed works as “public property” should be available for critique. The idea that Gurney’s “published sentiments” were “secure from animadversion” because of his high standing in the London Yearly Meeting (LYM) smacked of “Romish ignorance and blindness.” This was incompatible with nineteenth-­century “common sense” and out of touch with Quaker simplicity. Furthermore, Gurney would endanger youth by leading them away “from those paths in which their forefathers walked and found safety.” Even more disturbing, after perusing his publications, one 118

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opponent declared that he had omitted any reference to warfare, oaths, plainness, and the prohibition against church rites. Most damning of all, when Gurney’s works were published in the United States, they were commissioned not by a Quaker but an Episcopalian.30

Unprofitable Harvest During the Gurneyite/Wilburite conflict the resurrected Hicksite journal, Friends Weekly Intelligencer, published its first issue in March of 1844. In an article entitled “On the Influence of Opinion,” the author differentiated between sectarianism and fundamental truth. Sectarianism produced superstition, bigotry, and selfishness. Its diffusion in the United States would end only when “men learn to measure their own opinions by the stands of reason before they censure those of others,” and when they “learn to suppress error by arguments rather than promote it by persecution.” Speaking to the Orthodox predicament, the periodical discussed the “unprofitable harvest” of engaging in religious controversy. The paper urged readers to distinguish carefully “between opinion and practice”; there was “a wide difference between a firm and conscientious adherence to our own religious convictions, and the childish prejudice which would lead us to indulge in an indiscriminate censure of others.” To possess “a truly Christian frame of mind” a Friend should not let sectarian distinctions disrupt the “current of brotherly feeling.” While divergent opinions reigned, the Christian’s role should be to serve as a model of religious values, rather than as a foil to trap others in doctrinal errors.31 These admonitions, however, did not quell the controversy. The emergence of Gurneyites and Wilburites brought a new sense of disorder to Orthodox Friends by the mid-­1840s. In “a weak and crippled condition,” there was too much “high profession” and not enough “spiritual life and energy.” Orthodox Quakers seemed more worried about factionalism than godliness. This development renewed a sense of declension. Meetings were distressing when there was a “want of harmony & good fellowship.” One Friend remarked upon the “painful suffering silence” that dominated her meetings in the 1840s. Those who sided with Wilbur felt that the “divisions & dissensions of our poor tossed & torn society” would lead to degeneration. One Wilburite declaimed that the “spirit manifested by the Gurneyites rather exceeds anything we witnessed during the Hicksite controversy.” The tension between Gurneyites and Wilburites in the United States both resembled and Gurneyites v. Wilburites

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differed from the Hicksite schism. As in the previous crisis, rumormongering, secretiveness, and irrelevant accusations emerged. Unlike in the previous clash, Orthodox Friends wanted to isolate Wilburism to New England, while others abjured any hint of dissension.32 To avoid separation some Friends proposed a middle course. The Orthodox Philadelphians Thomas and William Evans became leaders of the “middle party.” When the Wilbur/Gurney controversy reached Ohio in the mid-­1840s, Thomas Evans traveled to their Yearly Meeting to forge a compromise. He, along with other “middle men,” both Wilburite and Gurneyite, planned to circumvent another schism. Evans thought it was important to “maintain with uncompromising fidelity the ancient doctrines of Quakers, without addition, diminution or modifications.” He stated the “New England seceders” would bring reproach upon Quakers, and their image would suffer; what was the “truth” if they were always “dividing, subdividing and contending among themselves. . . . what one of them is right?” The “New England separation” would create “a barrier in the way to the reception of those pure spiritual doctrines, which the Lord raised up our honorable George Fox to promulgate.” No good could come when the “church is assailed by errors in principles and practice.” Evans especially feared that discord would confuse and dishearten the young. He suggested that Yearly Meetings recognize the “Wilbur Society” rather than “open the door of separation.” The use of “calm and dignified testimony” would nullify its influence.33 Like Thomas Evans, William Birdsall, a New York Friend, wanted to prevent further division. He worried that if “New Englandisms” were imposed upon the Society, they would “paralyze” Orthodox Quakers, who would be “forced away from our peculiar doctrines and our peculiar testimonies—rendering useless any peculiar efforts for the guarded and peculiar education of our youth.” They should avoid taking sides in New England’s “difficulties.” If they focused on the love that bound them together, they could heal “the breaches that have already been made, but preventing others.” A member of the New York Committee of Sufferings, Birdsall felt called to attend the Rhode Island Yearly Meeting in 1845 to make a final appeal. He was incensed about this crisis, and he offered a solution: “For friends to give up those long doctrines & they would receive back thou friends they had separated from them!!!” Birdsall entreated male members specifically to compromise.34 In Philadelphia, Thomas Willis counseled patience, believing if the Orthodox community tolerated the Wilburites, they would eventually return to the fold. Thomas Pym Cope hoped division would not occur; if it did, it would 120

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lead to another fissure until nothing but a “skeleton of our former greatness” remained. Mary Kite wondered if the Society would vanish—or would “a remnant be found faithfully contending for the faith?”35 William Evans trusted that they would not “seek to skulk between decks in time of a storm” but face up to the Gurneyite challengers for the soul of the Society; they would make “a stand openly and uncompromisingly against such flagrant violation of the discipline & individual right.” Ezra Comfort called on all true Friends to speak “the plain truth to his neighbor” to uncover “the workings of this dark deceptive spirit.” He was still “inwardly & spiritually united to those whom I love in the precious fellowship of the everlasting Gospel.” Richard Mott blamed the crisis on the spiritual weakness and selfishness of others, whose “overweening disposition” had hurt rather than helped. True religion in its purest form was not confined by labels or associations. He foresaw a day when “party distinctions” would be erased and all would become “the true church of Christ.”36

A Spirit of Detraction The Gurneyite/Wilburite controversy brought novel alliances. While English ministers Ann Jones and Anna Braithwaite had sided with the Orthodox faction in the United States during the 1820s, they were antagonists by the 1840s. Jones blamed Braithwaite, an associate of Crewdson’s, for making trouble for Wilbur by threatening to write to his Meeting of Sufferings about his unsoundness. When Gurneyites accused John Wilbur of violating the Discipline while in England, Jones countered, erroneously, that Gurney traveled without “the unity” of his meeting. The LYM reluctantly granted Gurney a certificate to tour the United States; some doubted his fitness because of his involvement in the Beaconite crisis. Some of Gurney’s staunchest detractors were Orthodox Friends who had battled Hicksites in the 1820s. Jones found herself defending the inward experience against the “outward learning” of Gurney’s followers: “They talk much of a belief in the atoning sacrifice, but are setting at naught and despising Christ in his inward and spiritual appearance.”37 In the late 1830s, the Orthodox minister Thomas Shillitoe had reproved Gurney on his deathbed for his “Episcopalian notions,” stating, “What was anti-­Christ in George Fox’s day is anti-­Christ now.”38 Lydia Ann Barclay was shocked to find that English Friends approved of Gurney’s writings, especially when he condemned what Penn had written; Gurneyites were not worthy of Gurneyites v. Wilburites

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the “honorable name of Quakers!” By choosing only “modern or modified Quakers” to serve on the London Meeting for Sufferings in the 1850s, the leadership had perverted the Discipline. There was “no seeking for wisdom or judgement of truth; though there may be at times a slight mock show of it.”39 The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Orthodox) tried to remain above the fray. When Orthodox Friends received epistles from both the small body of Wilburites in New England and the New England Yearly Meeting in 1848, it generated extensive debate at the men’s business meeting. The city’s Gurneyites tried to defer any decision for another year. Several members were for reading both epistles, while others argued for one or the other. Thomas Wistar declaimed that “the enemy” was trying to divide them and recommended doing nothing. Isaac Lloyd cautioned his coreligionists to pause before deciding; they were “on the brink of a precipice, take care lest we fall.” A lengthy discussion ensued on whether to refer the matter to a special committee or the Meeting for Sufferings. While one Friend pointed out the latter body had caused this split in New England, another suggested forming a nominating committee to select men for an evenly balanced special body. Some male Friends believed they could engineer a reconciliation between the Gurneyites and Wilburites in New England. One member pointed out that no Yearly Meeting could have power over another and that such informal discussion was against the traditional order. Those on both sides continued to debate. Samuel Cope blamed the Meeting for Sufferings for the current crisis; they were the same men who complained in “Hicksite times.” He went on to laud Wilbur for bearing testimony against the erroneous theology of Gurney. While Gurneyites took offense to this accusation, no severance occurred in Philadelphia. The men finally agreed to refer the matter to the Meeting for Sufferings.40 The Orthodox Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia did not divide over Gurneyism, as would those in New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Maryland. Gurneyites dominated those meetings, while most of the PYM adhered to Wilburism. A united meeting, however, did not engender religious harmony. Families and friendships suffered. Thomas Pym Cope, who sided with the Gurneyites, found staying home preferable to hearing Wilburites preach. Cope’s son, Samuel, a Wilburite, felt called to unburden his mind about Wilbur’s treatment at the hands of the NEYM. He likened the “conspiracy” against Wilbur as analogous to Mordecai’s role in foiling a plot to assassinate King Ahasuerus. As a modern-­ day Mordecai, Wilbur had not given in to the pressure exerted by “those who have banded together for the purpose of changing the doctrines and principles of our religious society.” By the 1850s, Philadelphia was “rife” with the 122

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“desolating spirit of Wilburism.” Susan Smith found no good will at the 1852 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting when Joshua Snowden, a Wilburite, became the new clerk with the backing of John Wilbur, who was present. Unimpressed by Snowden, Smith found his comments “without life or power & the query arose in my heart ‘what is the chaff to the wheat?’ ” She found the proceedings “marked by much altercation” in a spirit that was “quite adverse” to the gospel, and “to cry ‘peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” was disingenuous. Unity endured in Philadelphia due in part to a decision by the PYM in 1857 to no longer correspond with any other Yearly Meetings. This momentous decision revealed the dire state of Orthodox Quakerism, as yearly meetings traditionally relied on the exchange of epistles to maintain communication with Friends throughout North America and England. This unprecedented move loosened another link in the chain of communion binding together the Orthodox Society.41

The Plain Life Gurney altered Quaker spirituality by emphasizing the external over the internal. But “to lose the outward was to hazard the inward,” according to Wilbur. Wilbur found the Englishman’s Quakerism to be “a body without a soul, an image without the breath of life, a religion without the spirit, a form without the power.” Gurney argued the “expediency of a form of words for prayer” and that Christ was “not the light that lighteth the heart of inner man, but outwardly the enlightener.” His theology only exacerbated impiety: “to abstain from all outward means, such as family worship and prayer—to abandon all forms—to disregard all authority and order, and to break down the hedge and trample upon good and wholesome discipline.”42 Wilbur was shocked by the regimented Bible study required of Quaker children in England. This system was instituted at Nine Partners, when Gurney visited the New York school in 1839. For Wilburites, such obvious routinization hindered one’s access to the Inward Light. Evangelicals’ use of prepared devotions would deaden true reverence. Wilbur alleged that Gurney circulated “defective books” upon his arrival in the United States, including one that recommended “a form of prayer.” This development prompted grave doubts. One Orthodox Friend wrote to another to ask if it was true that he had endorsed “the use of formal vocal prayers at set times in Friends’ families.” Hopefully, these reports were “groundless” and the “legitimate fruits of this unhappy disaffection.”43 Gurneyites v. Wilburites

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Wilbur quoted at length from early Friends to show Gurney’s errors as well as to concretize Quaker practice, such as their singular form of prayer. While Gurney prescribed set times for prayer, Wilbur contrasts that with an excerpt from Robert Barclay: “We find that Jesus Christ, the author of the Christian religion, prescribes no set form of worship to his children. If any object here, that the Lord’s prayer is a prescribed form of prayer, and therefore of worship given by Christ to his children, I answer, first, this cannot be objected by any sort of Christians that I know, because there are none who use no other prayers, or that limit their worship to this.” The Scottish Friend castigated other Protestants who used “set particular prayers” to worship God. As outward performances, these were products of an individual’s arbitrary will. For Barclay, “outward prayer” came in the form of “audible sighs, groans or words,” that were the result of “the exercise of inward retirement, and feeling the breathing of the spirit of God to arise powerfully in the soul.” Conversely, “inward prayer,” which was necessary at all times, occurred with “the help of the Spirit.” According to Wilbur, Gurney had overturned Quaker tradition “into more outward and literal views—into a greater conformity and nearer approximation to the formal professors of the day; most of whom, it is sorrowful to observe, appear to be retreating instead of advancing in vital Christianity—in the life and power of religion.”44 The Gurneyite vision of Quakerism was poised to deflate the religion as well as strip it of its intensely communal, emotional, and mystical aspects. Their singular spirituality would be squandered and dispersed. Wilburites rejected Gurneyism as dangerous because it exhibited a superficiality that belied the struggles evident in true faith. Instead, they advocated asceticism that advanced traditional Quakerism to a new level of radical piety. Thomas Hamm avers that Wilburites hearkened back to an eighteenth-­ century form of spirituality, one that avoided any distractions from “the great struggle of the soul toward holiness.” By their spiritual practice, Wilburites “carried the plain life to extremes of austerity.” The “orthodopraxis” of Wilburites, as one scholar contends, was to become “self-­conscious traditionalists.” The individualized rigor of Wilburism was evident in the spiritual regimen of Joseph Brinton. Unmarried and living with his parents and sister in Lancaster County during the 1840s and 1850s, Brinton became a Wilburite. He worked hard to live a sinless life and follow a strict routine. He tracked his emotional and spiritual state throughout the day: “This AM I felt my extreme weakness of spirit without help. I have fallen into much error to day, I four times allowed my temper to rise, and I have felt much hardness of heart. I have striven some for remission.” Brinton’s method encompassed not 124

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only meditation, reading, and attendance at meeting but actions to regulate both his mind and his body. Beginning when he was seventeen years old, Brinton instigated a series of resolutions to curtail his participation in everyday activities. He kept a diary documenting his spiritual journey, noting when he felt despondent or buoyed by his religious strivings. Brinton devised a numerical system (one to four, with four being the greatest degree of self-­control) to denote his level of restraint in personal behavior. During one week, Brinton attained a degree of self-control totaling 6 and 5/8s (see fig. 5). His mindfulness extended to not just spirituality but the discipline he exercised at meals, how much he slept, and his degree of anger and forgetfulness. He used this code throughout his diary to register his spiritual state, and he reviewed his activity at the end of each week to see how he fared. After assessing one week in September of 1850, he lamented his neglect: “I find my religious duties are sliding into mere form . . . I strove to center my mind but the world sprang up from every corner.”45 Brinton’s individualized approach typifies the variety and freedom of spiritual practice American Quakers enjoyed after this second schism. The influence of Elisha Bates’s and Joseph John Gurney’s vigorous brand of evangelical faith took American Friends far afield from their origins. Some

Fig. 5 | Journal of Joseph Brinton, 1850. Courtesy Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. Gurneyites v. Wilburites

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who had fully incorporated evangelical religion by midcentury questioned the qualities that had marked Quakers as eccentric in dress, language, and behavior. Biblical primacy proved detrimental to early Friends’ writings, which engendered inquiries about traditional Quaker theology and practice. Established customs, such as the use of silence in meetings, came under scrutiny; one Friend deemed this appropriate for old people but not for the young, and he assumed it would eventually fall out of use. Wilburites would suffer their own divisions. After their break with the Gurneyites, a group of extreme Wilburites in Philadelphia took a new name, the “Primitive Friends,” and they began meeting separately from other Wilburites at Fallsington, Bucks County, in 1860. Other levels of exclusion occurred among some Ohio Wilburites. Joshua Maule, a Wilburite leader, found even they were too lenient, so he organized a separate group of Primitive Friends, who became known as “Maulites.” He eventually left them, and he and his wife, Sarah, kept their own family meetings in the 1860s. Even more atomization was evident in the behavior of Mary Knoll, a widow, who returned to the Salem Wilburite Meeting in Ohio after holding home meetings by herself for ten years. The Wilburite split also occurred in Maryland, where some became Primitive Friends in the 1850s and 1860s.46 The advent of the Gurneyites and Wilburites instituted another level of differentiation, introducing beliefs and practices that would transform the Orthodox Society. It provoked even deeper divisions. While Gurney supposed he could gather all Quakers under one big tent, others saw large holes in the overhanging material. Gurney’s public reputation continued to generate contempt among some Orthodox Friends. One opponent composed a song to poke fun at Gurneyites, who no longer seemed to be Quakers. Each stanza featured a different English Orthodox Friend, beginning with Gurney: Joseph John, Joseph John, Thou sine qua non Of a certain religious society; What bolts thou hast hurled On a skeptical world And won what thou lovest, notoriety, Joseph John, And won what thou lovest—notoriety! 47

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Gurney’s love of fame led him to eschew the practices and beliefs of traditional Quakers, according to this critic. His popularity had brought public attention in a way that was antithetical to Quaker plainness and humility. The Gurneyite/Wilburite divide generated further attempts to formulate the ideal religious society. When one observer disparaged Wilburites for disregarding “all authority and order,” thereby decimating the “good and wholesome discipline,” he raised the possibility that there were other ways of being a Friend. Old traditions persisted in new forms. Communal responsibility— that is, caring for the poor—expanded during the early nineteenth century. Worldly engagement with reform activities and other religious institutions changed the meaning of Quaker spirituality. Involvement in social reform, such as temperance and abolition, sparked a group of activist members to coalesce into a new American denomination: Progressive and Congregational Friends, who emerged in the late 1840s and early 1850s. Their disregard for outward forms, such as family worship and prayer, resonated with the debate between Gurneyites and Wilburites. Disgusted with schismatic infighting, Progressive Friends abandoned structures of authority to contest what they called “slavish conformity in matters of abstract faith and sectarian discipline.”48 They wanted to pursue practical piety while escaping the oppression of ecclesiastical hierarchy. The development of this new strain of Quakerism demonstrates the adaptability of the faith as well as the increasing importance of individual choice in defining spiritual practice.

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Chapter 6

“Prac tic al Righteo us ne ss” Reforming Friends

Work and worship are one with me. —Susan B. Anthony

In 1846, Lucretia Mott wrote to Elizabeth Cady Stanton to complain that “the simple & benign religion of Jesus should be so encumbered with the creeds & dogmas of sects.” Rather than dwell on theological debates and “speculative opinions,” she preferred to follow another path: “obedience to manifest duty— leading to practical righteousness, as the Christian’s standard—the test of discipleship—the fruit of faith.” A Hicksite, Mott’s dedication to a life of public service grew out of her spirituality. During a sermon in 1852, she clarified her stance by invoking the tradition of “waiting on the Lord.” Not a passive activity, “waiting on the Lord” was tantamount to serving God by the “active discharge of duty.” Additionally, “testimonies”—repeatedly discussed at meeting—had prepared Friends for the reform activism of the antebellum era. Often impatient with the rules of Quaker Discipline that limited individual liberty, Mott put primary weight on “practical righteousness” and her involvement in a variety of reform movements served as testaments to her faith. She devoted her time and talent not just to abolition and women’s rights but also to temperance, poor relief, and capital punishment. Mott also sponsored nonresistance—that is, the use of civil disobedience to protest slavery and other social evils. She combined spiritual practice with moral action, which fueled her relentless commitment to racial justice, gender equality, and religious freedom. Her deep piety, complimented by sharp wit and formidable knowledge, exemplified a model for Quakers to enact “holy walking

and conversation” through principled dedication to social reform. Though hardly alone among activist Americans, Mott’s life represented one of the spiritual openings available to Friends in the American republic.1 Lucretia Mott’s call to duty did not sit well with some Friends. The debate over reform activism, both in and out of the meetinghouse, would cause conflict and eventually separation during the antebellum era. The crisis that broke out in the Quaker community in the 1820s, with its divergent views on theology and authority, would evolve into a debate over social reform by the 1840s. The Hicksite schism created a structure to address division from within. Just as the Great Separation engendered sadness and resentment, differences over reform activism produce similar outbursts two decades later. Just as Hicks­ ites had charged Orthodox members with authoritarianism in the 1820s, reform-­minded Friends reproached their elders for “petty hierarchy” in the 1840s. As Orthodox Friends divided between Gurneyites and Wilburites, Hicksites split over reform. Quakers spoke of separation as though it was an everyday event; gossiping and eavesdropping were common. They “attained considerable perfection in splitting hairs & in distorting & perverting the meaning of words.” Observers voiced predictions of “trying times” ahead. Opponents made accusations of ranterism and socinianism as, once more, Friends differed in belief and behavior. In the 1840s, liberals and conservatives in Ohio split over who should serve as clerk of the men’s meeting as well as whether to read or table epistles from other Yearly Meetings. The pattern of persecution by one group against another persisted. Just as Orthodox Friends had pulled Martha Smith into her seat in the 1820s, antireform members used the same tactics. When Abby Kelley attempted to speak about the antislavery cause, someone tugged on her skirt before she was dragged out of an Orthodox meetinghouse in the 1840s, while a few of the faithful gave her companion, Milo Townsend, some “very pious, evangelical kicks.” Physical intimidation muzzled opponents.2 Both Orthodox and Hicksite Friends became involved in the reform movements of the antebellum period. Activists exhibited their spirituality through social engagement, and their work for moral reform became an expression of religiosity. As Susan B. Anthony stated later in life: “I pray every single second of my life; not on my knees but with my work. My prayer is to lift women to equality with men. Work and worship are one with me.” Anthony’s spiritual flexibility allowed her to enact a “living faith.” Friends became active in reform as an extension of religious belief and practice—to address social ills in the wider world. With a piety based in mindful humility and restraint, Reforming Friends

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Quakers participated in causes germane to their testimonies regarding pacifism, freedom, and equality. Social reform grew out of a deep abhorrence of warfare, which had ripple effects. They protested the institution of slavery because of its brutal origins. African slavery began with, and was maintained by, violence. Consuming sugar or buying cotton implicated one in a monstrous system that contradicted the Quaker peace testimony. This, in turn, had consequences for one’s political participation and private life. One could not only protest Black enslavement but also resist the market economy at the same time. Friends supported the free product movement to contribute to slavery’s decline. As Julie Holcomb writes, “Quaker abstention linked the processes of sectarian reform and consumerism.”3 Reform-­minded members engaged in a variety of efforts that consisted of a series of concentric circles, overlapping several areas devoted to personal betterment and social transformation. The reform movements of midcentury America attracted activists and utopians of all kinds. For Friends, it provided new ways to pursue their faith while it simultaneously threatened their religious societies. At the same time separation befell Orthodox Friends, dissension among Hicksites brought about the emergence of a new group known as the Progressive or Congregational Friends. This would lead to further definition as some members pursued ultraist causes, regarding racial, gender, and class relations. Ultraism was the belief that radical social and political change was required to rid American society of all national sins, but this moral revival would come not because of but in spite of conventional politics.4 Though Friends agitated for social change on many subjects, including poverty, warfare, education, civil rights, and political freedom, this chapter will focus primarily on their participation in temperance and abolition to show their spiritual and moral dedication to the reformation of antebellum America.5

To Be Rich in Good Works Stewardship was a mainstay of the Religious Society of Friends. Quakers were to bear witness to moral wrongs and work to alleviate them, which was beneficial to both the giver and the receiver. As the apostle Paul wrote, “let them do good, that they may be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share.” Early members supported one another when persecuted in seventeenth-­century England as well as provided for the less fortunate among them. Margaret Fell financed a cadre of fellow believers as they ministered to the unbelieving world. 130

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By the mid-­eighteenth century, Quaker benevolence changed from an inward to an outward focus; Friends not only engaged in mutual aid, but they also began advocating for prison reform, schools for the poor, and the end of the slave trade. Friends’ interest in philanthropy developed over time; for example, testimonies about abolition did not concern the earliest members.6 Stewardship was reflected in their queries that progressed from discussions of owners treating their slaves well to disownment of those who continued to hold others in bondage by the mid-­eighteenth century. The Quaker stance on warfare, temperance, slavery, and charity continued to evolve into the nineteenth century. While some new issues were adopted, others were amplified: immediate abolition, capital punishment, women’s rights, and the labor movement. This work was reminiscent of the earliest days of the sect when Friends had opposed traditional society in early modern England. Evangelical religion influenced Quaker interest in social reform as much as their traditional altruism. By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Friends supported an assortment of reform issues as part of a greater whole; as Ellen Ross avers, Quaker activism was rooted in “a spiritual vision of creating a new and universal society with the ‘do unto others’ ethic at its center.”7 Friends revolutionized social reform regarding the slave trade and Black slavery. Quaker abolitionism built slowly but steadily throughout the colonial era. The development of a discourse around slavery began in the late seventeenth century using the Golden Rule and Mosaic Law to protest human bondage. According to Brycchan Carey, by 1700, Delaware Valley Friends “had established, shared and repeated a coherent and consistent set of rhetorical maneuvers that could be used to argue against slavery and the slave trade.” In the eighteenth century, legislative attempts were made to restrict the entry of enslaved Blacks into the Pennsylvania colony. Though discussions around this topic continued, there was uneven commitment to eradicating the institution of slavery. Local meetings came to abolitionism at dissimilar rates and for different reasons; their dependence on slave labor and their interpretation of Quakerism impacted how slowly or quickly they adopted an antislavery stance. However, Friends discussed their culpability in the slave trade and Black enslavement long before other White Americans turned their attention to these issues.8 By the nineteenth century, the reform activity of middle-­class Americans broadened public awareness about the “sin of slavery” at the same time voluntary associations and utopian societies devised strategies to reconstruct society. Some Friends readily joined these movements, but others found involvement Reforming Friends

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in any worldly reform a departure from tradition. Participation in popular causes took the believer’s focus away from the “inward teacher,” while it jeopardized their fragile community. In addition, some were apprehensive about the power evangelical ministers could wield in these organizational efforts. Friends’ loathing of “priestcraft” led them to see socially minded pastors as “hireling” mercenaries who would endanger the religious liberty of others. Though aware of their ancestors’ role in abolitionism, many Quakers in the antebellum era believed their status as “peculiar people” required withdrawal from political debates. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) warned members in 1830 against mixing with “other professors in what is called religious concerns.” Some worried that participation in causes such as antislavery arose not from a sense of duty but a desire to inflate one’s own importance. In addition, few approved of the radical tenor of antebellum abolitionism, as the Garrisonian doctrine of immediatism had changed the social and political dynamic of the antislavery movement.9 Segments of both the Hicksite and Orthodox Societies were drawn to social reform out of a sense of religious obligation. To become involved in temperance or abolitionism was a form of devoutness. Some Quakers felt compelled to address the evils of slavery as their ancestors had done in the eighteenth century. Activists welded their faith to reform activism, and through a network of friends, both Quaker and non-­Quaker, they shared a form of “spiritual comradeship” in the furtherance of these causes. Martha Smith personified this position. Smith viewed her activities in the antislavery cause not as a casual curiosity but rather as “acts of religious duty.” To stand against slavery was not only bearing testimony to what their predecessors had done in previous centuries, but it was the means to expand Quaker moral influence. Bound by Christian responsibility, abolitionist Friends felt called to give “public testimony against this national sin.” But it was not enough to eradicate the institution of slavery because it was violent, immoral, and undemocratic; it required abolition because enslavement of other human beings endangered religion and imperiled individual godliness. Slavery had a “baneful influence” on the mind, and “its practical effects” paralyzed “the religious sensibility of those over whom it exercises an influence.”10 Contemplating involvement in reform began with religious considerations; many felt an individual responsibility to address social problems. By listening to their internal monitor and enacting their testimonies, reform activity mirrored spiritual practice. The involvement of one person could motivate relatives to become involved as well. Thomas Longshore was “the first” 132

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in his family “to embrace anti-­slavery, total abstinence, non-­resistance, women’s rights, hygiene in diet & to work for the enlightenment of others.” Reform advocates encouraged family relations to advance these causes. As Lydia Fussell lay dying in 1840, she entreated her husband to continue the “great work”— that is, to “plead for the poor slave, plead for the Indian, [and] plead for the oppressed of all nations.”11 For Isaac and Amy Post, social activism had become “a form of worship” by the 1850s. They showed their religious devotion by boycotting slave-­made products, assisting fugitive slaves, and participating in fundraising and organization building for Blacks. Amy Post’s journey started with her Quaker upbringing; she became a Hicksite and eventually a Congregational Friend, while simultaneously pursuing Spiritualism and Unitarianism. These assorted interests were not inimical to her continued belief in the Inward Light but embodied a faith that occurred through meaningful action. Reforming Friends viewed the “blessedness of anti-­slavery” as a “holy and unselfish cause.” While some privileged one issue, many followed a versatile agenda. As Nancy Hewitt has shown, Amy Post was committed to universal reform from abolition, women’s rights, and Indian rights, to capital punishment, economic democracy, and religious freedom. This pattern was typical of many activists. For these individuals, religion was progressive; as one developed one’s piety, one’s conviction led to advanced ideals. For example, religious liberty would be ensured by the spread of knowledge, as in Bible societies. The proliferation of Christian voluntary associations, newspapers, and journals fueled the expansion of Protestant ideals of revival and salvation but also addressed social amelioration. For reform-­minded Friends, progressive values in a democratic society grew in a logical evolution from spiritual egalitarianism to civil freedom and social equality.12

Physick by Prevention Preserving moral purity regarding sins such as slavery had a counterpart in a healthy lifestyle. Health reform attracted Quakers because of its emphasis on plain fare, clean living, and austere habits. The advent of new treatments, such as the water cure, had sacred implications; daily bathing was a “religious duty” with moral functions. According to former Friend and hydropathist Mary Gove Nichols, “To bath our bodies in pure water is a correspondence of truth received in the soul.” Health reforms were linked to social progress. Advocates of the water cure endorsed dress reform for women, which, in turn, was part Reforming Friends

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of the women’s rights movement headed by female Friends.13 In the 1830s, Americans became increasingly interested in learning about human physiology. American society overflowed with medical texts and popular books on hygiene, and journals were established to educate medical doctors and address public health issues. Organizations offered lectures on topics ranging from phrenology, vegetarianism, and water cures to how to avoid the use of tobacco, alcohol, and coffee. Public interest in anatomy spawned new treatment options and medical facilities for the White middle class, such as spas and sanatoria. Growing awareness of public health issues empowered individuals to take charge of their own well-­being. William Alcott believed all Americans should understand the “laws of health”; what to eat, how to dress, when to sleep, etc. These laws were not restricted to bodily functions. They included the need for altruistic activities; “the contracting, collapsing power of selfishness” hurt both the soul and the body. To be truly healthy, one had to serve others, to work on self-­improvement as well as societal advancement.14 Nineteenth-­century health reform fit with the Quaker custom of abstinence in food and drink. William Penn told his children to “be temperate in all things; in your diet, for that is phyſick by prevention.” Eighteenth-­century Friends Benjamin Lay, Anthony Benezet, and Joshua Evans were among the first Americans to become vegetarians. Lay recommended that his fellow travelers “regulate their diets by eating fruits and vegetables,” which had a “sympathetic” impact on the mind. As one scholar argues, the American Vegetarian Society, founded in 1850, affirmed that a vegetarian diet provided “spiritual, mental and moral cleanliness”; through their food choices, individuals would enact moral reform. This need for temperance included not just what one ate but how much. Josiah Hopper attributed his good health to only eating a partial portion at each meal. After presented with heaping plates of food at a social gathering, John Comly remembered the advice of the apostle Paul, “Let your moderation appear unto all men” (Phil. 4:5), and William Penn, “Always rise from the table with an appetite, and thou wilt seldom sit down to a meal without one.” Comly faced gastronomic temptation after his elder brother’s funeral in the fall of 1800: “Much exercised on account of the large provisions usually made on such occasions. Set an example of temperance and moderation, as also of silence at the table, in which my mind enjoyed a conscious peace.”15 In 1844, the Friends Weekly Intelligencer published an article arguing that physical education was a part of parental duties. Echoing Alcott’s laws of health, “physical education” denoted moderation in food, clothing, and exercise. The 134

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author admonished parents to restrict their children’s diet; eating rich foods was dangerous because it created an appetite that would begin with spices and graduate to alcohol and then to opium. A balanced diet was necessary for corporeal and spiritual health. Temperance was not only physically beneficial but also spiritually rewarding. Awareness of bodily needs transformed psychic and physical well-­being. By midcentury, the worry over the use of spirituous liquors and tobacco had expanded to include excess of any kind; temperance was necessary in all behaviors, not just in corporeal appetites. According to Joseph John Gurney, one should be temperate in business, religion, leisure, and philanthropy. “Righteous moderation” was preferred over obsessive activity; a man could become “a slave to the desk” or a “spendthrift in charity.”16 Quakers such as Joseph Brinton enacted this model of restraint. A Wilburite, Brinton followed a regimen that limited his intake of food and drink. His logbook monitored these activities. He took a pledge not to indulge in tobacco, gave up meat for one year and only drank milk or water at meals; he imbibed no alcohol, tea, or coffee. Brinton found this strict diet difficult to keep, yet he remained committed to this method: “I endeavored to plod on and not seek relief in indulgence of drink or appetite.” Brinton related his culinary choices to his practice of mindfulness or lack thereof. After overindulging at dinner, he had a difficult conversation with his father. After he “sinned in anger,” he ate too many peaches. Brinton attempted to control his physical appetite as well as religious conduct. When his mother complained he did not eat enough, he increased his caloric intake but found it adversely affected his spiritual advancement. His inability to maintain a placid demeanor and restricted diet were interrelated; when his anger flared, his appetite increased. When he engaged in “light,” frivolous conversation, he gorged on pie. He struggled between overeating versus regulating his hunger without making this activity a futile endeavor. He mixed bodily regulation with spiritual exercise.17

A Hard Vice to Overcome Friends utilized a broad concept of temperance to connote suitable religious values; alongside meekness and humility, it also referred to moderation in consumption. For example, George Fox warned of the dangers of “idle tippling” and tobacco use in 1668. The first alcohol policies enacted by American Friends concerned the sale of liquor to Indians in the 1680s. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting issued regular warnings about “sipping and tippling drams” Reforming Friends

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in public. Eventually, meetings’ queries included references to the use of alcohol and tobacco. By the early eighteenth century, the Chester Monthly Meeting castigated those who smoked (or chewed) in public spaces. In 1735, the PYM counseled families against imbibing alcohol, especially by children, who might gain a taste for it early in life. By the 1740s, Monthly and Quarterly Meetings were instructed to warn members against overindulgence in alcohol and posed the following query: “Do Friends stay clear of excess in ‘drinking drams’?” Ads were posted about the abuse of liquor at public events, such as weddings and funerals. Members were reproached for participating in the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits and warned about the dangers of tavern haunting. By the late eighteenth century, the PYM cautioned believers to exercise restraint when using alcohol for medicinal purposes. Violators of these testimonies found themselves under “a halfway disownment” and meetings began to track the number of distillers and distributors of spiritous beverages in their congregations.18 Pennsylvanians Joshua Evans, Benjamin Lay, and John Woolman warned about the dangers of alcohol in the eighteenth century. In the 1770s, Evans received a “gentle intimation” from his inward monitor: “Use no more rum; it is a great evil in the country: and thou shalt have peace in declining it.” Though he knew he might have to jeopardize his harvest by not giving his neighbors liquor as a condition of their labor, he was willing to do the work alone rather than acquiesce to this custom. Evans preached against tobacco production and liquor distillation as well as the consumption of these products. Lay destroyed a tea set in a Philadelphia marketplace in 1742 to highlight the toilsome labor and hardship behind the production of tea and sugar. Woolman found excessive drinking spiritually problematic as it befuddled the mind, making it unfit for “divine mediation.”19 By attention to all aspects of consumption, Woolman exhibited an intensive piety in all parts of his life. These three men protested the use of alcohol and tobacco that set a pattern of abstention copied by later Friends.20 The growing importance of temperance gained wide discussion with the publication of a pamphlet, The Mighty Destroyer Displayed, written by Anthony Benezet in 1774. Benezet enumerated the physical ravages as well as the moral dangers of drink. The “addictive and dreadful effects” of liquor “heightens the passions of men and depraves their morals.” Even worse, alcohol “benumbs” the mind and makes it unreceptive to “the healing influence of religion.” Moderation and abstinence were advisable to sustain somatic and moral health.21 Friends integrated their support for temperance to personal behavior; 136

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Isaac Comly found he worked just as well without alcohol as with it. Thomas Pym Cope convinced the men who captained his ships to dispense with giving the crew liquor and instead raised their wages. Other industries employed this strategy; New York raftmen garnered higher earnings for abstaining from ardent spirits, which had a “very salutary effect upon the morals of this class of citizens.” While most employers were primarily concerned with ensuring their workers were sober and industrious, the moral and physical impact of alcohol consumption remained significant. Temperance was not just about controlling the working class; it was rooted in the desire for healthy bodies. When the Burlington County Temperance Society of New Jersey formed a “Beneficial Society,” composed primarily of mechanics, “a holy alliance” formed among its members, who, as “guardians and promoters of morality and virtue,” would ensure that “the beautiful spirit of health and balmy peace of God” would spread throughout the community. Men who joined this society took a pledge of complete abstinence from all alcoholic beverages as well as their manufacture and sale. The Society had sixty members, who paid a monthly contribution and gained a weekly allowance when sick—assuming the illness was not the result of the “immoral practice” of drinking.22 The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s statement on excessive drinking was passed down to the Quarterly and then to the Monthly Meetings in the early nineteenth century. In turn, meetings took note of which Friends drank spirituous liquors, and some members were disowned for overuse. Yet the use and abuse of liquor continued. In 1844, the Orthodox PYM reported that several members were still consuming liquor or giving it to their workers. The temperance activist Joseph Tallcott decreed that the misuse of alcohol was injurious not just to individuals but showed disregard for God’s bounty: “Have we not cause to fear that an almighty superintending Providence will withhold the increase of our fields, and visit us with famine, if we continue to abuse and pervert the blessings and bounty of his hand?” Impoverishment and moral laxity would follow. Alcoholic consumption meant farmers squandered “precious grain” that could provide sustenance but instead produced “poisonous liquor” that destroyed “both body and soul.” The Quaker interest in temperance coincided with other advocates who were afraid the impact of alcohol on American society would lead to disease, poverty, crime, and imprisonment, but it also had ethical implications. Ardent spirits not only damaged the physical but also the spiritual: “They consign the body to a tomb and the soul to hell.” Inimical to the gospel, the usage of alcohol caused “spiritual death.”23 Reforming Friends

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Temperance work was expressed through religious rhetoric and action. Antidrinking activists in New Jersey referenced their Protestant heritage when they defined their work as the “Temperance Reformation.” To end alcoholic consumption required divine intervention. On a trip through Pennsylvania in 1855, Rachel Hicks boarded a stage with two drunken men, who she “pitied” as “poor slaves . . . [who] had no power to resist the desire for taking that which they knew would, . . . deprive them of the exercise of reason, and sink them below the brute creation.” The well-­meaning efforts of temperance societies would not eliminate drunkenness; only repentance would end this “crying evil.” Attaining sobriety required “internal government, which (under grace) it is our duty to exercise over our own propensities.” Without “sober mindedness,” believers could be derailed from the ideal path. By controlling one’s urge for alcohol, the individual avoided temptation and conserved virtue. According to Romans 14:17–21, the kingdom of God would not be found in the consumption of food or drink. Abstention was essential. One young Friend decided to limit his eating and drinking because “a watchful care to restrain and govern my appetite, doubtless contributed to health of body and serenity of mind.”24 Individuals bore witness when confronting others about their excessive use of spirits. Concerned about his son’s drinking, James Bringhurst recommended he try water instead of alcohol. Though liquor was a “hard vice to overcome,” he would attain “joy & consolation” with this behavioral change. Outreach to others expanded as elders visited liquor retailers to stop their “dark and vicious customs” and circulated temperance tracts in local taverns. Strong drink was comparable to “sensual pleasures and worldly gratifications”; pursuit of these activities not only hurt one’s corporal and emotional health but also sacrificed their spiritual future for the “pleasures, honors and profits of this transitory world.” Drinking liquor was a wasteful activity because it induced others to mimic the same behavior. This required a reduction in their own and others’ alcoholic consumption. Ezra Michener persuaded two Friends not only to endorse temperance but to refrain from indulging in ardent spirits themselves. He interrogated others who presented him with alcoholic beverages. While eating dinner at the Pennock household, Michener declined to drink wine and went on to lecture his hosts about the dangers of liquor, not only to themselves but those to whom they offered hospitality. Admitting that he could easily become a drunkard due to their influence, he asked them for “aid and sympathy” to avoid such a fate.25

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A Moral Earthquake Some members of the Religious Society of Friends began to discuss the institution of slavery in the seventeenth century. However, it was to encourage masters to treat their enslaved men and women with kindness and to organize religious meetings for their benefit. American Friends came to their antislavery stance through incremental steps. The guerrilla tactics Benjamin Lay used to arouse antislavery sentiment among Pennsylvania Quakers met with defiance, and most Quakers did not favor the abolition of slavery during the early eighteenth century. The efforts of Anthony Benezet, John Woolman, and Warner Mifflin began to thaw attitudes at the same time the Quaker Reformation increased the determination to pursue ethical policies by the mid-­to late eighteenth century.26 When Friends confronted the institution of slavery, they did so both collectively and individually. The PYM set this agenda through a series of epistles and queries that gradually stiffened their resolve against both the slave trade and Black bondage. This group effort was accompanied by individual acts, which ranged from distaste and avoidance to counsel and advice. When David Sands visited his in-­laws for the first time in New York in the 1770s, he became distraught when he found out they owned slaves. He refused to eat anything and cut his journey short lest he partake of the fruits of enslaved labor. Friends enacted their testimony against slavery by appealing to slave traders and owners to cease dealing in this moral sin. James Bringhurst urged a neighbor who traded for slaves off the Guinean coast to set aside this work. Bringhurst blamed “the gross iniquity” of this man’s business on his lapsed religious status. The man continued to pursue his trade, which resulted in a “miserable” death. The taint of his immoral occupation transferred onto the next generation, producing a drunken son and dissolute daughter.27 By the antebellum era, neither individual intervention nor simple condemnation of slavery was enough. One member found mere dedication to the antislavery cause insufficient; she told others to examine how their actions upheld this criminal system. Elijah Pennypacker echoed these sentiments in a sermon when he asked, “Are we not now putting our organic law above the light of truth” by not agitating for abolition? Enoch Lewis based his faith in a “practical efficacy” to do “the great work of social melioration” by writing a treatise on the slave trade and becoming editor of the African Observer. Avoiding the consumption of goods produced by enslaved Blacks was another means of engagement. Mary Jackson declared that boycotting slave produce was the

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way to embrace the Quaker testimony against slavery; if Friends did not favor this tactic, she asked, were they not an “accessory to an enormous national evil?” Lucretia Mott denounced the use of slave-­made products as a form of “unrighteousness,” and she encouraged others to support the free produce movement for both political and spiritual reasons.28 Friends’ participation in the abolition movement reverberated with the rhetoric of Quaker spirituality. When Joseph Longshore attended a meeting of the Anti-­Slavery Society in eastern Pennsylvania in 1840, he described the gathering using religious language: “We had a goodly season. . . . We had some choice spirit with us.” Those in attendance at the meeting disagreed over a resolution about the role of ministers in the battle for abolition. While moderates present wanted to pass a statement that said it was the “duty” of all minsters to “bear a testimony against slavery,” the more radical in attendance approved the following: “As abolitionists we cannot accept a minister of Christ, any man who is a slaveholder, who apologizes for slavery or who does not bear a constant testimony against it.” The use of the words “season” “spirit,” and “testimony” showed Quaker influence.29 Quakers who stayed detached from social reform movements criticized their coreligionists for joining worldly pursuits. An appeal written by a member in an 1839 issue of the Friends Weekly Intelligencer warned about becoming part of the frenzy that was the abolitionist movement. The author counseled “calm reflection.” Recognizing that people could easily fall under the influence of others, Friends should rely on “the divine principle to direct us in the practical intercourse of life.” This would provide control over “feelings and passions” that, in turn, would help regulate “human affairs.” While abolition was a worthy cause, it engendered unseemly behavior that would not only hurt the Society but would also put their “practice and profession” in contradiction to one another. Only “pure disinterestedness” should motivate support for the antislavery cause. Unfortunately, worldly matters could only lead to a “factious spirit,” a “mercenary priesthood,” and “sinister views.” Isaac T. Hopper confided to one of his daughters that this controversy would never have broken out if Friends had abided by their own testimonies: “I believe that if our religious society had faithfully maintained this important testimony against oppression, in enslaving our fellow men, there would have been no necessity for us to have extended our labors beyond it.” Quakers had spread their message more effectively through their work on peace and abolition than ten years of preaching had achieved.30 Those who opposed involvement in social reform questioned the activists’ motives. The political activism of abolitionists arose 140

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out of “ill-­directed zeal” that controverted their traditional prudence and moderation; their self-­righteousness had turned into self-­aggrandizement. Such public activity could have ruinous effects. Hicksite minister George Fox White warned antislavery advocates that “their day was at an end, and their divisions, would relieve society of the danger of being split to pieces by them.” He alleged that abolitionism would devolve into Unitarianism, then Scepticism, and lastly end in the “sewers of Fourierism.”31 These activist forays, particularly in conjunction with other Protestant groups, continued to disturb Quaker authorities. Though Elias Hicks spoke out against the insidious nature of Black enslavement, he abhorred the idea of working with other Protestants in ecumenical organizations. Those who backed this view in the 1830s began to marginalize their coreligionists who advocated reform. Antislavery Friends who had long been committee members found they were no longer welcome to serve in these capacities. When they attended meetings to speak out about abolition, elders responded by silencing them, or in some cases, ejecting them from the meetinghouse. William Evans dreaded the impact of those who forged coalitions with other Protestants to agitate for temperance and abolition. Such alliances could violate Quaker principles. He was especially worried that the “spiritual strength” of young people would be diminished by such worldly relations. Jesse Kersey found popular reform efforts distracting because it kept one too much in the world: when the “animal nature takes the lead, the mind becomes separated from the spiritual life, and darkness is felt to spread over our meetings.” Some Hicksites objected to abolitionists talking in their meetinghouses because it violated the Discipline, which specified that only ministers should speak. That these orators would “premeditate” a lecture on slavery was improper because it was planned by humans rather than inspired by the Holy Spirit and, therefore, conclusive evidence of the speaker’s unsound principles.32 During the 1840s, the intense public discourse over abolition had an adverse impact on Orthodox and Hicksite Friends as disagreements arose in both camps. In the late 1840s, the unity of several Yearly Meetings was strained under the internal rancor caused by antislavery activism. The moral duty to speak out left some frustrated when their meetings refused to take a stand on slavery. It was not enough to just be a Friend; one had to act on one’s principles. Some resigned their membership, as Elizabeth Sellers did in 1845. To justify her decision, she outlined the history of Quakers who had refused to unite “in support of war, intemperance or slavery.” However, few had taken any action “in accordance with [Christ’s] holy precepts of kindness and love, the Reforming Friends

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beauty and practicableness of which he touchingly exemplified in his daily life.” Instead, they mouthed platitudes to support a government “based on human blood.” Their Quaker predecessors—who had fought against Black bondage—would not recognize their descendants, whose apathy to the “demoralizing and soul crushing influence” of slavery upon both oppressed and oppressor—and the whole nation—was indefensible. Sellers pointed out the biblical directive to care for the poor and downtrodden and “to loose[n] the bonds of wickedness.” She condemned her fellow travelers for turning antislavery preachers away from the meetinghouse and asked what was so special about this building; if it was sacred, what better place to “lift our voices for the poor and needy?” She blamed the “Anaconda evils of sectarianism” for this blindness. Such “criminal indifference” forced Elizabeth to renounce her membership, stating her “disbelief in the efficacy of any outward formal observations in effecting a change in heart or character.” Her participation in the abolition cause had changed her practice of piety; she now followed “a practical life of righteous[ness].” Others wanted the freedom to follow their own way. When Elizabeth Chace withdrew from her Rhode Island meeting, she recognized that “their path of duty” differed from hers and hoped they would “walk carefully by the light of truth shed abroad in the heart, and fearlessly to follow its dictates.”33 Isaac T. Hopper’s activism led to his disownment from his New York Meeting in 1841, which he viewed as an unjust action and a consequence of the “Lamb’s war.” He foresaw difficult times ahead, using the militant language from Isaiah 9:5: “For every battle of the warrior is met with confused noise and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.” Even if his religious society banished him, he would “inherit everlasting life.” Persecuted for “conscience sake,” he averred that his “patience” was as strong as the “malice” of his adversaries. Hopper did not think that he was out of order with the meeting and blamed “a few workers of iniquity” for his fate. He was grief-­stricken that the Religious Society of Friends had departed so far from “the humility and tenderness of spirit that once was so prevalent among us.” Hopper examined his heart and concluded that his involvement in abolitionism did not condemn him, even when others censured his behavior. His denunciation did not keep him from attending meeting and sitting in his usual seat in the gallery.34 Growing animosity over abolition provoked complaints from Philadelphia Quakers. Thomas Pye Cope bemoaned the inability to “learn that more is

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gained by moderation, charity & persuasion than acrimony, intemperate zeal & splenetic personal abuse.” By the late 1840s and early 1850s, not only were meetings at variance with each other, but individuals were fighting amongst themselves. Friends who wished to eschew worldliness passed resolutions to stop abolitionists from speaking in Quaker meetinghouses. In 1843, conflict broke out at the Cherry Street (Hicksite) Meetinghouse in Philadelphia when Stephen Foster attempted to bear testimony against slavery. Stopped by one of the elders, opponents accosted Foster to evict him; calls for order were accompanied by others yelling, “carry him out.” More jostling ensued before an alderman escorted Foster to the mayor’s office, where he was locked in a cellar. Though Foster was freed the next day, resentment lingered. The National Anti-­Slavery Standard, which reported on the event, blamed the “rude, cruel and unchristian” treatment of Foster as “inconsistent with the principles and practices” of Quakers.35 Tensions between activists and nonactivists spread into the countryside when disturbances over abolition occurred at two Hicksite meetinghouses in Chester County. At the Fallowfield meetinghouse a “mobocrat” tried to stop an antislavery lecture from taking place in January of 1845. “Shrieks” and whistles rang out, property was damaged, and people exited the house through the windows. A group of men were charged after the event; one was put on trial and found guilty of causing a riot. A second incident arose at the Marlborough Meetinghouse in 1852 when Oliver Johnson attempted to speak about slavery on a first day morning. Though interrupted, he was able to finish his remarks.36 By the early 1850s, conflict had reached the Western Quarterly Meeting in Chester County. After some members were renounced for mixing with non-­Friends at antislavery events, the impetus for a new organization emerged, one that would be unapologetically committed to the antislavery cause (as well as other reforms) and embodied practical Quakerism.

Practical Righteousness The official separation over abolition came in 1843 when the Green Plain Quarterly Meeting in Ohio left the Indiana Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) over slavery.37 What began in Ohio would spread to Michigan, Iowa, New York, and Pennsylvania in the late 1840s and early 1850s. This group became known as the Progressive or Congregational Friends (mostly Hicksites), who had become frustrated with the recalcitrance of their fellow members. The

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entrenched stance of elders frustrated many; obedience to authority had squashed individual spirit. The refusal of meeting leaders to allow others to become active in the abolitionist movement had violated their liberty of conscience. In addition, the “violence of sectarian bigotry,” along with “individual selfishness,” had destroyed social harmony; to restore order they felt compelled to support a “thorough reorganization of Society.” It was incumbent upon the stalwart few to “disseminate the principles of practical Christianity, and to devise ways and means for the removal of the great moral evils of our time.” As one scholar declares, this division was not just about slavery; it was about “two competing strains of Quaker piety”—one focused inward on peace and separation, the other looking to the external conflict over enslavement as a test of faith.38 This move toward further separation had been building for decades. According to Pennsylvania Progressive Friends, a “theatre of agitation” had been evident since the first schism of 1827. While one side sanctioned “ecclesiastical domination,” the other fixated on an apolitical religiosity; both were out of step with the “spirit of primitive Quakerism.” Claiming that the first Friends would not have oppressed “free thought” or excluded anyone “whose lives are without blemish . . . and who are seeking to know and do the will of God,” Progressive Quakerism would allow the “utmost freedom in speech” and there would be “no pulling of wires by cunning leaders, no gallery or pulpit despotism.” This new society would “simply be a means to an end . . . the personal liberty and religious improvement of every human being.” Their objective would be “practical righteousness, the discovery of truth and its application.”39 Progressive Friends put piety into action. Those at Green Plain had shown their “fearless testimony against the gigantic sins of intemperance, slavery and war” and for “the superior beauty and holiness of a practical religion” that put service to others above “sectarian dogmas and theological beliefs.” New York Progressive Friends confirmed that “Christian philanthropy” was a means of “performing worship,” which did not occur at any set time, place, or yearly event. When a member performed a good act, “worship in spirit and in truth” followed. Pennsylvania Progressive Friends welcomed “the duty of defining and illustrating their faith in God, not by assent to a creed, but by lives of purity, and works of beneficence and charity to mankind.” Their intent was not “to build a sect or party” but to “promote truth and goodness” for all humanity. They rejected the empty conventions of their forefathers to activate the “all-­important matters of the law of our moral and religious

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being—justice, mercy and love.” Their work was practical and universal; they addressed not only slavery, war, and intemperance but also capital punishment and women’s rights.40 The structure of the Progressive Friends was congregational; no hierarchy would impede their activities. There would be no select meetings, ordained ministers, or separate meetings for men and women. All were welcome, no matter their sex, sect, color, or condition. They planned to go beyond organizational structures. Religious meetings were not “needful for purity of life”; one’s individual action would serve the society’s needs. Authority figures and dogmas were no longer necessary; “elementary laws” would govern their association. Because interference by others in an individual’s moral sense and religious faith had brought on schism, Progressive Friends only required “enlightened reason and common sense” from their membership. Their articles of association proclaimed belief in “the cultivation of our moral and religious powers” with an organization that was “simple, practical and catholic.” They met weekly to strengthen one another through “mutual edification and improvement,” as inner obedience to God would trump “outward demonstrations.” Faith came not through confessions or ceremonies but through practical and active engagement in the world.41 Established in 1853, the Philadelphia Progressive Friends gathered those who had left or been disowned by their meetings or denominations. They balked at gatherings that imposed “fetters upon freedom of speech and of conscience, by requiring a slavish conformity in matters of abstract faith and sectarian discipline.” They emphasized the “progress of practical piety and philanthropy.” These Quakers sought “tangible results” from their religious institutions—not intolerance or lethargy. By blending spiritual worship with political action, they redefined Quakerism. Their purpose was “to restore the union between religion and life, and to place works of goodness and mercy far above theological speculations and scholastic subtleties of doctrine. Our religion is a sympathy between the human and divine mind. Our worship is in the correctness of our daily walks. Our confidence is centred in the fulfillment of individual duty.”42 This language—“the correctness of our daily walks”—hearkened back to the mindful practice of their seventeenth-­century ancestors, as their descendants defined social activism as spiritual practice. In 1854, the Progressive Friends in the Philadelphia region built a meetinghouse at Longwood, which served as a center of progressive reform into the twentieth century (see fig. 6).

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Fig. 6 | Progressive Friends meetinghouse, Longwood, Pennsylvania, 1853. Quaker Collection, Haverford College.

Eschewing all creeds and affiliations, Progressive Friends would be “the Church of Humanity” that went beyond denominationalism. The title they chose was symbolic of their goal: “The name Progressive indicates the disposition to improve our change as circumstances may arise.” For them, “progression” was part of God’s law, “the tendency of all nature to higher degree of refinement and development.” This evoked the traditional Quaker belief in “progressive revelation” as J. William Frost defines it: “God could still speak to his chosen servants with the same authority as in biblical times and that new knowledge could be gained into the nature of God and his wishes for humanity.” This tenet justified changes in polity and practice; eventually some Progressive Friends went further and formed a separate group called the Friends of Human Progress in 1854 to avoid the taint of sectarianism. Those who joined these efforts found their time better spent agitating for social reform, such as temperance, women’s rights, and abolition, then “reading over stereotyped 146

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queries.” Disdainful of traditional meetings, they devoted themselves to discussing and acting upon “the great reformatory questions of the age.”43 Nonactivist Quakers took a dim view of their coreligionists who became involved in reform. Orthodox minister Joseph Kite reported on the founding of the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends in 1853. This new group had “no creed, no religious belief ” while engaging in reform work. Rather than bearing witness to God’s plan for human salvation, they testified against “slavery, rum, tobacco & sundry other abominations.” This misguided agenda both ignored their “common Father” and placed their own acts above those of godly origin. Even worse, the corrupted Discipline of Progressive Friends induced mental instability. To prove his assertion, Kite provided the example of a young woman who refused to wear any clothing made from slave labor; next she refused to eat; “then came the delusion that speech was polluted, and she would not speak.” Eventually her family committed her to an asylum, where she died of dysentery.44

On Account of My Complexion Though many White Quakers supported abolitionism, it did not mean they sanctioned the inclusion of Black Americans into their community.45 Thomas Pym Cope loathed the institution of slavery but held biased views. While noting some Blacks were “industrious,” others were “idle, filthy, intemperate & dishonest.” Delaware Valley Quakers offered help and advice to newly freed African Americans during the revolutionary era and held special meetings (usually monthly or quarterly) for Blacks to worship during the eighteenth century, such as in Salem and Burlington County, New Jersey. American Blacks who attended Quaker meetings were observers rather than participants; few became Friends. Like other Protestants, Quakers segregated Blacks into distinct meetings as well as separate seating, with the “negro pew” usually in the back of the meetinghouse. Quaker authoritarianism toward freed men and women, such as binding out their children and controlling their work contracts, may have played a role in souring interest. As Jean Soderlund argues, Friends took “the gradualist, segregationist and paternalistic approach” to the antislavery movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.46 Friends diverged in their dedication to justice and inclusion when it came to Indians versus African Americans. William Bassett pointed out the Reforming Friends

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discrepancy. When the Salem Quarterly Meeting in New Jersey proposed that the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) petition Congress to end slavery in the District of Columbia in 1837, there was no discussion, and the matter was quickly tabled. When the issue of Indian relief was raised at the same meeting, it “elicited animated debate” and a committee was promptly formed. Bassett spotted the contradictory responses: “I could not help remarking the striking contrast between an Indian philanthropy and a Negro philanthropy, and asking myself, why this difference? Is it possible that it is because one is a popular benevolence, and the other is denounced by the great and worldly-­wise, as a dream of visionary enthusiasm? Whenever the cause of the suffering red man has been brought before us, we have never heard it put by, because ‘no way opened’ to administer to his relief!”47 This dissimilar policy indicated a divergence in Friends’ racial attitudes toward Native Americans versus African Americans. Friends generally showed little interest in converting people of color. Quaker progressivism was radical and prospicient in its approach. They formed the Indian Committee in the mid-­eighteenth century to counsel Native Americans facing dispossession and annihilation, when other Whites advocated the opposite. They supported the end of slave ownership among their own members and then initiated public discourse on the topic in the late eighteenth century, when few Whites believed slavery was problematic. However, this enlightened outlook on Indians and Blacks excluded overtures to membership. Unlike other Protestants who set up missions in Indian settlements, Friends did not proselytize among Native Americans. They differed from Baptists and Methodists, who made concerted efforts to convert enslaved Blacks. Though unfaltering advocates for abolition whose homes were often a refuge for runaways, White Quakers showed little interest in gaining Black coreligionists. Few African Americans became Friends, and those who tried were usually rejected. Quakers copied the congregational pattern of racial separation and segregation instituted by other Protestants. Philadelphia Quakers had set aside a specific meetinghouse for the city’s Blacks to use in the mid-­eighteenth century. After it was torn down, a separate meeting for African Americans was held at various sites until 1805, when services ceased because the White leadership decided they were superfluous, as Blacks “have now several places of worship of their own.”48 By the nineteenth century, many White Quakers advocated the antislavery cause, transported runaways through the Underground Railroad, raised money for freed people, and contributed to charities for Blacks in the Delaware Valley. 148

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However, they were less welcoming when African Americans sought membership. Blacks who had once been owned by Friends and continued to work for them did not share their religion. Ezekiel Coston, freed by Warner Mifflin, was a founder of Wilmington’s African Union Methodist Protestant Church. Though Thomas Mann had been freed by Quakers and was friendly with them, he became a leader of the Methodist church in Gloucester County, New Jersey, in the early nineteenth century. Cato Collins married Elesina Phillips in a Quaker ceremony but joined the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Those who eventually gained membership in a Quaker meeting faced delays. Abigail Franks finally became a member of the Birmingham meeting in Delaware after two years of discussion by the Monthly and Yearly Meetings. In 1796, a mulatto woman named Cynthia Miers applied for membership in a New Jersey meeting; it was denied initially because it was deemed “unsafe to receive her on account of her colour!” (The exclamation point was added by an incredulous Scottish Friend who witnessed the debate.) After referring the matter to the Yearly Meeting, Cynthia was eventually accepted as a member.49 Some Blacks eventually obtained membership after several attempts. After gaining his freedom, marrying, and adopting Quaker garb, William Boen applied to become a Friend in 1765, but the Burlington Monthly Meeting turned him down. This setback did not forestall his observance of Quaker practice. He wore plain clothing, ate simple food, and supported the free produce and antislavery movements. Finally, in 1814, he was accepted as a member and continued to be a “steady attender” to meeting for the rest of his life. Friends could point to African Americans who became Quakers, such as Paul Cuffee, James Alford, Richard Cooper, and David and Grace Mapps. Nonetheless, David Bustill, a Philadelphia Friend, claimed that the Mapps were only accepted into membership when they were middle-­aged and no longer liable to produce offspring (White Friends seemed unaware that they had several children).50 When southern Blacks escaped north and found refuge and employment in Quaker-­dominated communities, such as Chester County, Pennsylvania, they were separated from their White neighbors by racial difference and religious affiliation. This disconnect affected the interracial relationships of Black and White Quakers. One unnamed woman of color, who worshipped with Quakers, was “advised in tenderness” not to apply for membership because it would be disallowed. Though she abided by this decision, it sorely tried her faith: “The hardest lesson my Heavenly Father ever set me to learn, was to love Reforming Friends

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Friends; and in anguish of spirit I have often queried, why the Lord should require me to go among a people who despise me on account of my complexion; but I have seen that it is designed to humble me, and to teach me the lesson, ‘Love your enemies, and pray for them who despitefully use you.’ ” Sarah Mapps Douglass found it hard to form connections with her fellow believers. Active in the Philadelphia Female Antislavery Society, which had both Black and White members, Douglass faced racial prejudice from White abolitionists and fellow Friends. Douglass was close to Sarah and Angelina Grimké, who commiserated with her over segregated seating in Quaker meetinghouses. Just as Sarah’s mother, Grace Douglass, had attended meeting amid hostility and mistreatment, Sarah went to Orthodox gatherings, though segregated seating continued until the late 1850s. Like other Friends, Douglass looked to Quaker history to find spiritual solace. She was inspired by the life of Barbara Blaugdon, a seventeenth-­century Quaker, who battled physical distress with joyous singing. “If a double portion” of Blaugdon’s “humility and fortitude” could be obtained by her contemporaries, Douglass remained hopeful about race relations in the United States.51 This past persecution took on potent meaning for a Black Friend who found resonance not with contemporary Americans but with an ancient Friend’s torment. The advent of antebellum activism offered new possibilities to be useful in the world and to live out their testimonies regarding peace, benevolence, and equality. Activist Friends found their meetings intolerable. As Elizabeth Buffum Chace stated in 1843, the Society was “becoming blindly attached to mere formal observances” and, by its “apathy and indifference,” was inured to the immorality of Black enslavement.52 The commitment of some Quakers to a diversity of reform efforts made them full participants in issues that would reshape American society from temperance and abolition to the rights of women, workers, prisoners, and the poor. Their spiritually driven activism fueled fierce dedication to social change while their concept of a lived faith evolved. The challenges of reform work in this era reflected the rigors of spiritual practice. Both were slow and unending pursuits, which required perseverance, patience, and fidelity. For activist Friends, it was the perfect amalgam of deep faith, pious testimony, and societal outreach to benefit the least among them. American Friends had traveled a long road by the 1850s, from separation and reorganization to debates over theology, practice, and reform. Again the “arbitrary, domineering, lordly spirit” had raised its “impious, imprudent head.”53 Yet practical piety had expanded to encompass a range of activities 150

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from silent waiting and evangelical preaching to reform activism. The separations of the antebellum era introduced innovative practices while old traditions persisted. Quakers of all kinds continued to seek out edifying reading and writing to strengthen faith and enhance perception. They exchanged letters to support relationships and build alliances, and they published books and periodicals to spread their specific definition of Quakerism. Print became a haven for religious seekers in the antebellum period. Readers formed relationships with their books to nurture spirituality as well as participate in a literary community. Learning the proper way to read was another means to ensure the “guarded” education of children and their development into pious adults. Publications broadcast the need for religious order, moral improvement, and social reform. The manuscript and print culture of Friends functioned as a conduit of personal piety, familial relations, and communal connection in a time of increasing religious diversity.

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Chapter 7

“In th e Adva nc ement o f Piet y” Quaker Manuscript and Print Culture

I also beg of thee to avoid reading books written against religion, of whatever kind, whether of argument or satire—at least till experience shall have fully confirmed thy own principles. —Catherine Gurney

In 1813, John Hunt reread a favorite book, A History of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers in Ireland (a five-­hundred-­page tome first published in 1751), looking for solace. He was humbled by the example of seventeenth-­ century Irish Friends, who in the face of great oppression exhibited singular piety. In comparison, his generation was combating “pernicious effects of ease and affluence” with little attention to the “primitive simplicity and purity” of their traditions. Hunt found the dedication of his Irish coreligionists laudable, as described by William Edmundson in 1656: God’s “truth and testimony lived in our hearts, . . . we did not mind high things, but were glad of one another’s welfare in the Lord and his love dwelt in us.” The communitarianism of early Friends proved their superiority, unlike Hunt’s religious community, whose “greatest and most fatal trial upon virtue” was worldliness. “Intoxicated with prosperity,” Friends in the early republic had lost their way. As a minister and elder, Hunt labored hard to make religion of primary importance in the face of rising wealth, status, and indifference. Hunt was troubled by those who did not practice what they preached. Overt materialism among Friends continued to occupy his thoughts. A year later, he wrote about the perils of affluence and quoted Deuteronomy: “When thou hast eaten and art full then beware lest thou forget the Lord,” and “beware least your hearts deceive you and ye be

drawn aside after other gods.”1 Acquisitiveness had led to religious apathy in Delaware Valley Quakers by the early nineteenth century. A voracious reader, Hunt was inspired by seventeenth-­and eighteenth-­ century Friends as well as his contemporaries. He studied a variety of sources from Quaker authors (William Penn, Robert Barclay, and John Naylor) as well as Anglican ones (Bishop Tillotson, Phillip Doddridge, and William Cave). He perused the work of early Christians (Jerome, Thomas à Kempis, and Erasmus) and some ancient figures (Seneca, Pliny, and Vespasian), and he also read the Bible. Hunt looked to books for support, instruction, and knowledge. He quoted from written works to improve his piety and foster constancy in his Society. Through reading, he obtained historical and religious precedent for the challenges facing Quakers, and he looked to his ancestors to understand the growing complacency of American Friends. He read Isaac Penington, a seventeenth-­century English Quaker, who wrote about the power of love to overcome antipathy and resistance. This theme continued when he picked up the Posthumous Works of Richard Claridge (an Anglican priest who converted to Quakerism). Like Claridge, Hunt bore “zealous and fervent testimony” to contest “the avaricious and acquisitive propensities of Friends versus the spiritual serenity of a self-­denying Christian.” He quoted this author about the difference between acknowledging faith and practicing it: “To profess the Christian religion and not walk answerable to it is the greatest enmity to religion and as another observed that truth has ever suffered most from its professed advocates for want of sincerity.”2 Hunt connected his spiritual experiences to reading and writing, and he looked to his journal for comfort: “I take it up when I am weary and cannot work any longer, which often happens nowadays.” Hunt’s interaction with books was a form of conversation related to his own spirituality as well as the state of his denomination. He copied portions of religious texts into his diary and wove intertextuality into his discussions. For example, an excerpt from a letter by Isaac Penington (“to meet with one little touch of [God’s] power upon a man’s spirit”) educed a saying by Mary Peisley with a reference to 1 Samuel 3 (“the Lord was pleased in mercy to break in upon my mind by his living presence and power and it became the language of my soul, speak Lord and thy servant will hear”). This led to Job Scott’s journal, wherein the author discussed being “humbled” by God’s goodness as well as “reconciled to the Divine will” over all inner and outer hardships.3 This convergence of texts shows the “spiritual literacy” of Friends like Hunt, who linked biblical,

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canonical, and contemporary publications together. John Hunt’s literary experience was not unique; reading was an essential component of Christian piety. Friends looked to reading not only for relief or awareness but because it provided access to convincement and salvation.4 Hunt was part of a rich book culture developed throughout the transatlantic Quaker community, both in print and in manuscript form, that began in the mid-­seventeenth century. Early Friends promoted writing and reading as means to spread as well as protect the faith. They enlarged their minds by reading to gain “a pleasing view of the beauty and excellence of religion.” Through reflection and conversation, readers enhanced their “moral and intellectual improvement.” Quakers disseminated materials by their fellow travelers, such as letters, sermons, diaries, travel accounts, dying sayings, and testimonials.5 For example, Elizabeth Ashbridge’s journal, which was well known among Friends through private distribution, was not published until long after her death. This manuscript culture conjoined Friends in a discursive world, and the exchange of letters and diaries created a shared experience of literary intimacy. This interaction came about through what was called “communal reading,” which was popular among Friends. Devotional manuals in the early modern period recommended reading as part of household worship. Relations, friends, and neighbors exchanged books and read to one another; for example, in the spring of 1838, the Potts family was reading William Savery’s journal together. Families shared correspondence among its members by reading them aloud. Martha Wright’s relations circulated her letters from Pennsylvania and New Jersey to New York and Massachusetts.6 Reading and writing afforded Friends the opportunity to contemplate their own spiritual status as well as provide connections among family, friends, and the wider Quaker community. “As a dynamic act,” reading was “shaped directly by the religious community surrounding the reader.” Friends formed relationships with their books that aided the pursuit of a godly life and entrée to the Holy Spirit. Through reading manuscripts and published works, writing letters, keeping diaries and commonplace books, Quakers acquired structure in the pursuit of piety.7 They employed biblical literacy to inculcate the appropriate religious values in children as well as steer them away from malevolent books. Friends used their own publications to educate the public about social issues, such as slavery. Lastly, publishing became a tool for Hicksite and Orthodox Friends (and later for Gurneyites and Wilburites) to promulgate their views, as a war of words continued long after schism had ended.

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Spiritual Literacy Quaker historians have chronicled the publishing activity of early Friends. In the mid-­seventeenth century, Friends printed more than three hundred tracts and books in a fifteen-­year period. These were produced to attract converts as well as defend the sect. London Quakers set up a library to house their own books and pamphlets but also to trace the growing mound of Anti-­Quakeriana. Strict regulation of publications, through the Second Day Morning Meeting in London, expanded to America when Philadelphia Friends founded The Overseers of the Press in 1691. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting appointed a committee of male Friends to inspect all manuscripts presented for publication. However, few Quaker books were printed in the colonial era. Though the PYM authorized pamphlets, broadsides, and treatises on various topics, there was a paucity of books available in early America. Only those with access to a private library—the wealthy—could read works by leading Friends. After the American Revolution, Quakers in the United States began to reprint British publications to fill the growing demand.8 With the explosion of print culture in the early nineteenth century, Friends utilized book publishing to further their spiritual goals. Protestant denominations were among the first to use print media to propagate the faith.9 Technological innovations in the 1820s and 1830s revolutionized the printing business in the United States with the attendant growth in printers, booksellers, and publishing firms. The emergence of denominational tract societies, including the Tract Association of Friends (TAF), founded in Philadelphia in 1816, flooded the reading public with short, inexpensive, and plainly written pamphlets. Early titles included excerpts from John Woolman’s Journal and William Penn’s A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the Quakers. The TAF issued tracts on children’s education, parental responsibilities, and sacred duties. By the 1830s, treatises such as What Shall We Do to Be Saved? Of the Practical Importance of Faith in the Divinity of Christ broadcast the evangelicalism of Orthodox Friends. In its first year, the TAF printed 47,000 tracts; by 1841, it had distributed more than 120,000. By the mid-­nineteenth century, religious literature became a popular means to “reinforce Quaker devotional practice” while taking advantage of cheap printing costs.10 The Quaker relationship with manuscripts, books, and publishing constituted what Michele Tarter calls “spiritual literacy,” whereby early Friends created their own “literary theory for the writing, printing and reading of

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texts.” Reading was a sacred act that held transformative potential. The “power of reading” was evident in Elizabeth Ashbridge’s astounding response to reading a Quaker book. Books, as potent sources of learning and development, fostered active piety and mystical experience. Friends ideally considered Quaker writings with proper intent and solemnity. They recognized “the critical connections between reading, writing and spiritual formation” by sharing books. Friends were instructed to “search the Scriptures with a humble, teachable disposition, praying for the light of the Holy Spirit to open the sacred contents of the written book, and seeking the knowledge of the Divine will.”11 The Hicksite schism had generated new titles and reprints of old favorites by the mid-­nineteenth century. Books by the founding generation of Friends (for example, George Fox, William Penn, and Robert Barclay) were published and republished in several editions on both sides of the Atlantic in the nineteenth century. With the growing influence of evangelicalism in the antebellum era, Orthodox Friends placed more stress on Bible reading and scriptural authority. Yet the quietist tradition continued, for example, in the work of John Barclay. Barclay recognized the need to know the Scriptures in doctrine, history, prophecy, and language. However, that knowledge could be a liability if it kept the faithful from the “Christ within.”12 Reading not only exposed Friends to doctrine but also provided the means for guidance, prayer, and meditation. Friends endeavored to dedicate a portion of each day to “religious instructive reading.” Like John Hunt, Friends routinely turned to their ancestors for help: at the same time, they read spiritual diaries of others as well as copied down the manuscript and print offerings of ancient and modern Quakers. These works were both inspirational and motivating. Upon reading a new edition of Lindley Murray’s The Power of Religion on the Mind in 1802, James Bringhurst saw the need for Friends to keep their “minds fully clear & open to yield an implicit obedience to the awakening calls of their great Lord & Master in all His holy requirings.” When Samuel Mickle read Job Scott’s journal in 1820, the author’s struggles resonated with his own: “What wonderful conflicts of mind! The ups & downs, height & depths he experienced!” Sarah Logan Fisher found Thomas Hartley’s sermons “very comforting” to her “drooping mind.” She studied Stephen Crisp’s advice to engage in “silent waiting” to grow in strength and “overcome temptations,” and she was enlightened by William Penn’s admonition that the more “we bear the cross, the more worthily we are crowned, for it.”13

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Proper Reading Quakers believed in the positive impression of religious books, particularly among the young. Parental duties included selecting appropriate reading material for children to “regulate and form their minds and habits.” Early literacy, especially in reading the Bible, would create a preference for religious works, “which may prove an antidote against the light and miserable trash with which the world abounds, and by which many minds are poisoned.” Daily Bible reading as a beneficial employment put the reader in the proper mindset to maintain watchfulness. Quaker leaders and parents exposed youth to the Bible early. In 1818, Joseph Tallcott distributed a book for Quaker parents to teach biblical passages to their children. With scriptural citations, this book encouraged young readers to seek out the Bible for further elucidation. Furthermore, parents followed their offspring’s Bible reading. One parent recommended her son read the good book daily because it “produces a calm that tends to settle the mind in quiet stillness & confidence.” Mary Rhoads informed her mother that she had read the third, fourth, and fifth chapters of Luke on first days. George Dillwyn suggested to the Westtown School Committee that Bibles be left in the students’ rooms so they could obtain a “proper respect for the book” as well as counter erroneous information.14 The Bible Association of Friends, founded in 1829, advocated regular meditation upon the Scriptures. As an “outward help,” Bible reading aided the “daily work” of faith. However, just reading the Bible did not make one pious; it had to be read with “the spirit of Christ.” By studying the holy book, “the blessed Spirit” would come into the “hearts of men, more signally and powerfully, and more extensively, than through any other outward medium.” Children were to learn proper reverence for the Bible as a “rich treasure” that provides “the most sublime and solemn truths.” A child would “learn to read it with delight, and to anticipate with pleasure” when they had time to study it.15 As the “best of books,” the Bible provided knowledge that was fundamental to faith. According to Joseph John Gurney, children should study the Bible on their own and then be queried about it to “habituate” them to “read attentively.” John Barclay specified what ideals students should garner from the Scriptures related to Quakerism: 1. The duty of silent worship and inward waiting upon God. 2. The unlawfulness of swearing. 3. The unlawfulness of war. 160

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4. The true baptism of Christ. 5. The freedom of the gospel ministry. 6. The necessity of refusing, even in apparently little things, to conform to the practices of a corrupt world.16 Barclay privileged silent and inward practice, while Gurney accentuated studying the Bible to achieve “an intimacy of soul” by becoming acquainted with the “prophets, evangelists and apostles,” and especially with Jesus Christ. Biblical knowledge expanded in the early nineteenth century through the founding of Bible societies as well as the ministry of Englishwomen Hannah Chapman Backhouse and Eliza Kirkbride, who held Bible classes for American Friends. Backhouse’s book, Scripture Questions for the Use of Schools, published in 1834, instituted this process. Bible reading was meaningful to both Hicksite and Orthodox Friends. Hicksite Lucretia Mott agreed with Barclay’s interpretation; she saw value in reading the Bible if readers differentiated between divine inspiration and human origin.17 Reading spiritual texts began early. Among Isaac Comly’s first books as a child was Isaac Watts’s Divine Songs, which produced “a fervent concern for my everlasting well-­being.” He read the Bible, Benezet’s primer, and Dilworth’s speller. However, by the time he was thirteen, Isaac had acquired a fondness for reading “romantic tales” like Robinson Crusoe. He found such books tended “to promote rambling desires and vain imaginations, [and] also obscured the light of superior truths.” After listening to his inner voice and “divine openings,” he found “a more profitable kind of reading”—religious. The first book he read was John Woolman’s journal. Isaac and his brother, John, both reaped benefits from Woolman. As a young boy, John enjoyed tramping in the woods to kill birds, but after reading Woolman’s conviction to “exercise goodness towards every living creature,” he realized he could no longer engage in this “depraved” habit. Isaac and John enjoyed access to a small family library. It consisted of a well-­worn Bible, treatises by Robert Barclay, George Fox, and Joseph Pike, Isaac Watt’s Hymns, Sewell’s History of Quakers, three journals, and some pamphlets and almanacs, plus a borrowed copy of the Young Man’s Companion. John bought his first book, Dodsley’s The Economy of Human Life, when he was eleven years old. He continued to add to his collection over the next few years by purchasing a volume of verse by Martha Moore, a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress, and the journals of John Woolman and Sarah Tuke Grubb.18 Jane Bettle likened the choosing of books for one’s children to selecting appropriate friends; both should provide suitable and profitable encounters. Quaker Manuscript and Print Culture

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She outlined the benefits of constructively reading proper books: “Time is too precious to be wasted in reading the pernicious publications which abound in our day. That which is so spent, may not only be accounted lost, but the mind is left so barren and destitute of all that is good, that little or no relish remains for perusing the Holy Scriptures, or the writings of our primitive Friends: the loss thus sustained, is indeed incalculable.”19 Abigail Mott recommended teaching children to read at a young age. The act of becoming literate expanded their knowledge but also informed their routine: “By proper reading, the mind is more likely to be preserved from imbibing those pernicious ideas which are diffused through the medium of false and frightful stories, against which, the infant mind cannot be too carefully guarded.” This preparation would ensure the child’s piety through an “early acquaintance” with the Bible. By learning Scripture, the child would gain solace in times of trial.20 Parents should guide their children’s reading of the Bible and other “good books” so to “meditate” on the Lord and achieve satisfaction that eclipsed all other forms of leisure. Relatives gave books to young children to set them on the correct path. Isaac T. Hopper sent the first volume of Elwood’s Sacred History to his granddaughter Fanny, believing it was “much more profitable than of the works of Walter Scott, Lord Byron, &c. which are often found on the tables of friends’ family.” Impressed with Richard Claridge’s “precious instruction,” John Hunt vowed to give each of his grandchildren a copy of the author’s Works. He particularly liked the specific suggestions on how to live: “Be no teller of tales, nor busy-­body in other folks’ matters. Cause no strife or discord, nor render evil for evil or railing for railing. Disclose not a secret, nor lay open the faults of others. Keep thyself as much as possible to thyself. Be affable, not open; be courteous, not fond or foolish; be as wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove.”21 This model of behavior would nurture one’s piety and moral integrity and yet make one less vulnerable to bad influences: to be “wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove” confirmed the mindfulness valued by Quakers. Friends printed specific books for use by young people, which combined lessons in grammar and writing with religious instruction. John Woolman published A First Book for Children in 1769. Quaker educator Anthony Benezet followed in 1778 with a primer of the same name. Both men infused spiritual concepts into their textbooks; Woolman emphasized the Golden Rule, while Benezet stressed the need for repentance. Benezet also published The Pennsylvania Spelling Book, or Youth’s Friendly Instructor and Monitor, which included passages from George Fox’s and William Penn’s writings to suggest a “sense of 162

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the necessity of piety and the excellency of virtue” among scholars and to immerse their “tender minds” in the “principles of compassion.” Lindley Murray, an American who lived in England, wrote English Grammar, Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners, which went through several reprintings. Commissioned by Esther Tuke for use at a girls’ school in York, it also became popular in the United States. Murray assured readers that his book avoided sentences of “a trivial or injurious nature” but instead blended “moral and useful observations with grammatical studies.” By learning grammar, young minds would be exposed to the “animating views of piety and virtue.” For example, in the section on parsing, he presented phrases such as “let us improve ourselves,” “virtues will be rewarded,” and “ridiculed, despised, persecuted, he maintained his principles.”22 Thus, language skills were fortified with spiritual guidance. The Hicksite journal, the Friends Weekly Intelligencer, counseled young people to be careful in their choice of reading material: “Books are like personal associates; they strengthen virtuous dispositions, or they weaken them.” Books as “associates” mirrored the 1839 Discipline published in England that defined them as “companions” with whom readers held conversations: “They become associated with our most retired thoughts, and insensibly infuse somewhat of their spirit and character into those that converse with them.” They could have an efficacious, or nefarious, impact on young lives. Books served as confidantes to sustain and challenge readers; they accompanied Friends upon their spiritual journey. As material objects, books provided knowledge and reassurance and took on “tender associations” the longer they remained in a household. Reading a book was not only a spiritual practice; the book itself became sacred to the reader. As “textual artifacts,” books served ritual purposes.23 Religious reading was demanding labor; a cursory glance at a religious book was not only superficial, it was sinful. The profusion of publications in the antebellum era was supplemented by guidelines on how to engage in active reading. “Proper Reading Methods” appeared in the American Messenger (the official organ of the American Tract Society) in 1845. They guided readers to read with diligence, attention, reflection, and prayer. Besides pondering what they had read, readers should begin by first praying: “how can we expect to arrive at truth unless we seek wisdom from the All-­wise in humble and devout prayer?” Starting with prayer put readers in the appropriate mindset and opened them up to being moved by the spirit through words. Quakers agreed that young Friends needed guidance in how and what to read. Reading as a vigorous activity required endurance, thoughtfulness, and discretion. One Quaker Manuscript and Print Culture

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should read only the best books and only for “improvement” rather than “amusement.”24 Reading instructive literature had manifold impact on Friends. First, it fostered transatlantic relationships. Mary Kite found the Englishman John Barclay’s Memoirs to be especially satisfying; if Friends lived up “to his standard what a different company we should now be.” So impressed by Barclay, she read his book to her dying uncle and recommended it to female relations. By emulating his “bright example,” the Society of Friends “would arise and shine in her ancient beauty, and be enabled to erect the banner of Truth again in the sight of nations.” Second, reading reacquainted colleagues. When Isaac T. Hopper found Sarah Harrison’s memoirs printed in the Friends Miscellany in 1845, it took him back to former times when he “walked in sweet unity and Christian fellowship” with long dead friends William Savery, Samuel Emlen, Elizabeth Foulke, and Sarah Talbot. Third, reading provided succor, even from non-­Quaker sources. After her son Ziba died in 1836, Deborah Bringhurst found meaning in a line from Isaac Watts’s poetry: “Faith be thy life and patience thy support.” Similarly, Sarah Logan Fisher read Hervey’s Meditations for guidance during a prolonged illness in 1792, when she learned that submission was an onerous task. Hervey helped readers “look forward to their approaching exit, without any anxious apprehensions.” Fourth, religious reading was dialogic. Readers engaged in conversation with influential authors. Ann Willson described herself as “a nocturnal rambler with Hervey, and listened with interest to his nightly contemplations. I think he has a peculiar faculty for drawing an importantly pious inference from even trifling subjects.”25

How Loudly Do Their Lives Preach Quakers began memorializing Friends by recording their “dying sayings” in the late seventeenth century. This popular trend developed into a publication called Piety Promoted: A Collection of Dying Sayings of the People called Quakers, with some Memorials of their Virtuous Lives and Patient Sufferings, whose intent was “the advancement of piety.” John Tompkins published the first edition in England in 1701; it was so popular a second part was published the next year. By 1740, seven compilations had been issued; the eighth and ninth were published in 1774 and 1792, while the tenth and eleventh additions were released in 1810 and 1829, respectively. Piety Promoted was popular among Friends; it went through thirty-­nine editions during the nineteenth century. Encyclopedic 164

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in format, each entry provided a brief biography of an individual and described their death. The first copy contained memorials to English Friends; only a few transatlantic Quakers, such as Thomas Story or Sophia Hume, made it into the early editions. The first American version was published after the Revolutionary War. “A staple of devotional reading,” Piety Promoted was the result of collaboration between the deceased’s family, the Friend’s Monthly Meeting, and finally the Yearly Meeting, which authorized the publication of Friends’ life and death accounts.26 Elisha Bates found reading “the sacred volume,” Piety Promoted, produced a “salutary impression on the mind” by learning about the “dying hours” of another Friend. Perusing these memorials, particularly in a domestic setting, “humbled and contrited our spirits; raised sincere and fervent desires after holiness, and strengthened our feeble resolutions to endeavour, through divine assistance, to walk in the path of self-­denial and obedience.” The study of other Friends’ lives provided “many an instructive lesson.” By reading of another’s religious journey, and following all their “difficulties, discouragements, and dangers” from youth to old age, the reader gained insight for their own lives and the meaning of “true rest and peace,” according to John Barclay. In addition, Barclay (invoking Penn) argued that though their bodies were dead, Friends still provided testimony: “How loudly do the lives and deaths of these worthies preach to us” to “keep hold of those things in which alone they could derive any comfort?” Reading about Dorothy Owen, a seventeenth-­century English Quaker, inspired John Hunt. Though impoverished, Owen traveled far distances and in bad weather to attend meeting. She was content with the “least expensive manner of living and dress, in order to have the more to distribute to the necessities of others.” Hunt found that her ministry “preaches daily to me.”27 The life of this prototypical Friend held resonance long after her demise. Friends published specific accounts on the death of children. William Rawes’s Examples for Youth, In Remarkable Instances of Early Piety, published in 1797, was recommended for both familial and educational use, to “make favorable impressions on the minds of children” as well as for their “instruction and improvement of practical religion.” The tome included seventy-­three children between the ages of eight and twenty-­five who died an early death. Most recount the exemplary conduct and deep piety of these children and young adults. They include details of their last days, demonstrating patience, humility, and calm in dying a good death. These stories were popular with Friends and used in the classroom. The experience of young Quakers was a Quaker Manuscript and Print Culture

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favorite choice for replication. Catharine Ridgeway inscribed “an Elegy on the death of Samuel Blecky aged 13 years who died of the smallpox at Ackworth school 1781” into her book at Westtown in the fall of 1799. The 1788 death of Lydia Hollingsworth by drowning was reproduced by Hannah Warrington in her 1826 copybook. In 1802, Joshua Bailey copied a description of the life of William Worrell, a Chester County Friend who had died a year earlier at age thirteen. William, who led an “orderly life and conversation,” was “obedient to his parents, affectionate to his brothers and sisters, and well beloved by all his school-­fellows.” He died an affecting death (likened to a “slow sleep”), which was confirmed with “comfortable evidence that he is entered into everlasting rest and peace.”28 These exemplars of Quaker ideals served as motivation to young Friends striving to live a godly life.

Love Clothes My Mind Quaker manuscripts provide rich detail of individual and collective devotion. Journals, diaries, and commonplace books document a Friend’s trajectory of spiritual attainment—from confusion and indifference to humility and despair to joy and acceptance. William Penn advised his children to write an account of each day for the many advantages that arose from such activity. This necessitated constancy and candor as well as plain language. Confessional writing was common among Protestants. As Charles Hambrick-­Stowe shows, New England Puritans engaged in devotional exercises on a daily and weekly basis by journaling; through writing they traversed the spiritual realm. It was a means to access faith; John Woolman asserted that “love clothes my mind when I write, and I find my heart open to encourage a holy emulation, to advance forward in Christian firmness.” Friends kept diaries for their own benefit, to read and reread for heightened awareness. They made extensive entries but also knew when to quit so as not to stray from their subject. Writing provided the means to assess their spiritual state as well as advance their thinking. Rebecca Hornor Coates began a diary in 1830 with plans for such improvement: “I have taken up the pen with the idea that by putting some of my thoughts upon paper it may possibly be the means of strengthening some good resolutions.” As with books, Friends had relationships with their manuscripts. Thomas Pym Cope wrote in a journal to provide himself “with some profitable opportunities of conversing with myself, which I have frequent

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need.” His book was a “well tried confidential friend” who allowed his innermost thoughts to be voiced without “fear or distrust.”29 Some Friends were more faithful than others in writing in their journals. John Hunt was a dedicated diarist for forty years and made extensive entries almost daily. While Hunt was convinced of the need to keep his book, based on Penn’s advice, at times he questioned its efficacy. He thought of quitting his journal but then concluded it was like “putting wood upon the altar to keep the fire burning.” Conversely, Mary Stokes struggled to make regular entries in her book, and when she did, it was to record her desire to be more reliable. She missed several weeks, months, and sometimes years. She wished to be both consistent and truthful in her entries. As she wrote on her forty-­ fifth birthday: “I shall endeavor after spiritual good I hope. . . . I desire to be careful not to note a word more than I feel.” Susanna Judge avowed the same level of veracity in her journal: “I dare not write of that which I have not feelingly experienced to be the Truth.” Hugh Judge, Susanna’s mate, echoed these sentiments; he made a point of laying down his pen before his thoughts were distracted by worldly concerns. John Baldwin followed the same practice: the “work of true religion must be felt going on in my own mind or cannot make it truly appear so in my book.”30 A personal journal provided the means to track one’s spiritual progress. Sarah Logan Fisher kept a diary from the age of twenty-­five until her death twenty years later in 1796. As a young mistress of a well-­to-­do household, Sarah found worldly affairs often impinged upon her piety. She wanted to be a good wife and mother yet found that daily chores did “interrupt that quietude of mind that I wish at all times to feel.” Sarah meditated “to know a true silence of the mind.” However, “this happy quiet state” was easily lost when wandering thoughts interfered. Sarah turned to the Scriptures to find solace. She monitored her progress and made resolutions. After attending a meeting in the winter of 1782, Sarah resolved to “improve” herself “in all those qualifications, that only can make me acceptable to the truly good.” To achieve this state, she vowed to “avoid carefully detracting from any person whatever, speak always what I can on behalf of the absent; behave to my friends with affection, affability & respect.”31 Friends commonly marked the start of a new year by contemplating the state of their spirituality. Sarah Logan Fisher employed this strategy in 1786 when she promised to engage in “a strict examination” of herself to see if she had made any “advancement” in her “religious progress.” She set out to analyze

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every part that was deficient: “What great care is necessary & constant watch over ourselves to perform our several duties as wife, mother, & mistress. May I be favored & enabled to improve in my conduct.” Conversely, Joseph Scattergood marked the end of the year 1797 to reflect on how little he had advanced “on the path of righteousness and peace” and saw himself as “comparable to a fruitless fig tree.” A year later, Joseph wrote about his spiritual growth over the past twelve months and found little to celebrate. His “unfaithfulness” was great, and he wondered what God required of him. Deborah Bringhurst stayed up late on the eve of a new year “in reading, writing, reflection and meditation” to mark the passage of time. Rebecca Singer Collins mindfully recorded her stumbles along “the narrow way” at the end of 1833. Hopefully, 1834 would be dedicated to “following in the footsteps of my dear Saviour.” Saloma Battey began a diary in 1858 with a vow to renew her “covenant” with God and to “turn with a new purpose of heart to his service.”32 Another practice recommended by Penn, and followed by many, was to record passages from the Bible or religious literature that “most touched and affected” them into commonplace books. By the eighteenth century, tending to such a book was considered valuable and insightful, a process that ordered one’s mind.33 Elijah Brown Sr. followed this pattern by copying down sermons by Quaker ministers. He conveyed a variety of material (ghost stories, essays on “disordered apparel” and Sandwich Island “savages,” and a rebuke of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason) to his commonplace book, but the majority was spiritual in nature. He reproduced poetry published in newspapers, testimonies, and death accounts of seventeenth-­and eighteenth-­century English Friends, letters between American Friends, and an excerpt from Thomas Clarkson’s Portraiture of Quakerism. The most poignant entry may be a copy of a missive written by Joseph Dilworth to his father in 1796. After living a dissipated life, Dilworth informed his parent that he had found faith, declaring “his spirit testifies that the Scriptures are true.” Brown added a postscript to this letter, noting that Dilworth had disregarded religious matters in his early life but went on to become a minister. This letter may have given Brown confidence that the generation coming of age in the last decade of the eighteenth century would carry on the Quaker mission. It may have also resonated for him because his own children married out of the Society. Sisters Susan and Sarah Lloyd, who kept commonplace books from the 1810s through the 1840s, showed their religious interests by including excerpts from Hannah More, Isaac Watts, and William Law, as well as memorials to Mary Dyer, William Wilberforce, and Abby Bolton. The Lloyds’ Orthodox standing and evangelical 168

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bent was evident in their tributes to Joseph John Gurney. Keeping a commonplace book was more than merely copying poems or quotations; the act of writing itself, like reading, put members in conversation with their community.34 Letter writing was a third method of communicating faith, confirming friendship, and enhancing spiritual connection. James Bringhurst used his letter writing to sustain relationships: “[I] often feel myself religiously exercised to do everything in my power toward promoting the good of others in such manner either verbally or with my pen as at the time it is in a lively manner presented to me to be right.” James wrote to reinforce the close bonds he felt toward others, such as North Carolinian Nathan Hunt. Though separated physically, the two men were still united in “religious fellowship” and “sweet communion of spirit,” which helped each of them to “hold on in that way which we are convinced & fully assured is right.” George Churchman felt great affinity with his fellow believers who “endeavor to become disentangled and stand lose from every improper clog to the spiritual journey.” Friends looked to others for guidance in an interactive relationship that was personal as well as emotional. Henry Drinker asserted that his letters to Nicholas Waln were “at times as epistles written in on each other’s hearts.”35 Warner Mifflin wrote to have “a more free open communication of sentiment” with a fellow Friend, as they labored “for a disposition of mind to build another up in that most holy faith which indeed worketh by love.” Letter writing cemented close relationships when friends were separated. Though friends and ministers English Sarah Tuke Grubb and American Rebecca Jones never spent much time together (beyond two preaching tours in the 1780s), correspondence served to affirm their closeness. Grubb wrote “that the liberty of writing to each other, when separated by the mighty deep, will on neither side be refused, nor the satisfaction of such an intercourse be wholly taken away.”36 Evangelical concepts became evident in Orthodox writing with the onset of schism. In the 1820s, Eliza Ann Bettle wrote to her parents assuring them that she had “a full and unbroken belief in the salvation which comes by Jesus Christ [so that] I may know my sins [are] washed white in the blood of the Lamb.” Orthodox Friends defined themselves as “followers of our dear Saviour who suffered, died & rose again for our sake, for the redemption of our souls.” They made frequent use of evangelical words and phrases, such as “Saviour,” “the blood of the Lamb,” “the crucified Lord,” “Jesus Christ,” and “Satan” in their writings. Mary Kite opened a letter to one of her nieces in 1841 hoping that she was “truly desirous to grow in grace and in the saving knowledge of Quaker Manuscript and Print Culture

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our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” This attainment would increase the love between them because it was established “in the Truth.” Instead of embracing the Inward Light, Orthodox Friends used expressions like the “unchangeable truth as it is in Christ Jesus my Saviour.” Birthright Friend Elizabeth Collins declared herself “a firm believer in the divinity and offices in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” To her, “he was the true Messiah, born of the Virgin Mary, and that he came a light unto the world to enlighten mankind universally; that he was the one great propitiatory sacrifice and atonement for all.” Christ’s death paid the ransom “for our salvation and redemption,” and he then ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of “the Divine Majesty.” Quaker convert Rebecca Singer Collins infused her journal with evangelical language. In 1833, she wrote that her “soul aspires after complete redemption from sin, even tho’ my suffering should necessarily be great upon account of inward corruption—but blessed be God in that my Saviour, my Redeemer, took the weight of my sin upon himself.” She asked to be “wholly sanctified” as a “pure vessel” in her Father’s service.37

Pernicious Books The power of books could be destructive, and Friends saw the need for careful selection, especially for the young. Reading the wrong books was comparable to imbibing liquor; they “intoxicated” the reader’s mind and created a need that would never be satiated. Friends condemned novel reading not because of its worldly nature but because it exposed the reader to frivolous details and caused “undue excitement” that would lead to bewilderment; it could even result in mental and physical maladies. Thomas Pym Cope traced bad behavior in children to the “pernicious practice of inordinate novel reading.” Even though some of these books may have been “wholly unobjectionable,” they were dangerous in part because they inflated a child’s sense of self, which emboldened them to thwart parental authority. Additionally, Cope argued that reading novels destroyed the ability to think and act correctly. James Bringhurst wrote to the Arnold children in 1800 advising them to read Quaker classics and to eschew “bad books” as they would a “deadly poison as being beyond all doubt extremely hurtful & dangerous.” It was difficult to salvage one’s “first stance of innocence & peace” after reading such tomes. In 1818, Mary McClenachan’s will laid out instructions for her daughter’s training, which not only included an “enlightened education” but also a prohibition 170

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against “reading pernicious books on the corrupt conversation of the world.” Even literature lauded by other Protestants could be perilous.38 When Enoch Lewis first read the English poet John Milton as a young man, he was impressed by the author’s facility with words. However, the emotional power of his poetry, which provoked fear and excitement, threatened Lewis’s “religious sensibilities.” Milton’s work was “tainted with indelicate allusions” that bordered on “impiety.”39 The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sought oversight of reading by young members in the early eighteenth century. John Woolman served on committees that prohibited the use of “pernicious books” as well as attending horse races, frequenting taverns, and participating in lotteries. Young readers were encouraged to read Woolman’s book, Considerations on the True Harmony of Mankind (subsidized and distributed by the PYM), which accentuated plain dress, self-­effacing demeanor, and community service as forms of “outward employments” that served God. This was preferable to the “vain books” that youth found amusing. Reading for diversion, rather than profit, would lead them away from faith. Popular books as well as “worldly” periodicals and newspapers were hazardous; they entangled believers in secular issues that hindered spiritual progress. Reading the wrong book or periodical could lead one away from religion and toward heresy. James Bringhurst blamed Hannah Barnard’s troubles in Ireland on her preference for unsuitable authors, such as Thomas Paine. She “placed too much dependence on her own human wisdom & knowledge and became puffed up therewith.” John Hunt was “afraid” of newspapers because they brought notice of disease, death, and disaster. Joseph Brinton also found reading weeklies problematic: “I read in the dollar newspaper a while, I kept nearly altogether to the news, but it even spread a tone in my mind that was far from right—I threw the paper from me as a thing of sin. How different the effect of reading the ‘Friend.’ ” Conversely, Lucretia Mott read several newspapers each day.40 Modern literature was to be given a wide berth. An article published in an 1839 issue of The Friends Intelligencer warned youth about its corrupting effect: “The idle and ridiculous narratives furnished through this medium, and which are clothed in the tinseled garb of romance, are sufficient to awaken a feeling of indignation in every sensible and well-­disposed mind.” This genre provided “overwrought” tales that filled young heads with “vain imagery,” which made them uninterested in spiritual reflection. The reader gained “a false sensibility” of “visionary and romantic views,” which would “prove to be wholly inconsistent with the nature and circumstances of the human Quaker Manuscript and Print Culture

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condition.” Moreover, such books prompted “a distaste for profitable reflection and for self-­examination,” which would be detrimental. Life was too precious and too short to spend it in “the study of imaginary objects.” One’s attention should be on real scenes of woe, such as dying relations or poverty-­stricken neighbors. This reality would encourage true sensibility as well as cultivate godliness and virtue. Modern literature was “venal” because it offered excitement, which awakened “admiration in weak and inexperienced minds.” Such books encouraged “senseless, sickly sentimentality” and undermined “every social feeling.” The journal recommended “vigilance” to protect children from the malevolence of worldly publications.41 Conversely, reading religious materials could bring about convincement, which necessitated their circulation. Beginning in the seventeenth century, traveling ministers typically took books with them to distribute to fellow Friends and potential members. This pattern continued in the eighteenth century during the heyday of ministerial travel. During a preaching tour of France in 1807, Stephen Grellet left copies of Penn’s No Cross, No Crown, The Rise and Progress of Friends, and Maxims with some prospective converts. Even those who were not itinerant ministers took it upon themselves to allocate books. Joseph Tallcott regularly filled his pockets with small books to hand out to children. Susan Smith gave copies of the Child’s Companion to her Philadelphia neighbors. She deemed this book to be beneficial because it “stirs up the pure mind.” A spelling book designed for children, it taught reading with biblical excerpts.42 Reading religious books and journals, however, proved risky in the wake of internal division. After the Hicksite schism, leaders spoke about the damage oppositional literature could wreak. For example, in the 1820s, Charles Osborne upbraided Ezekiel Cleaver for reading Elias Hicks’s sermons. If he doubted human redemption through Jesus Christ, he referred him to the Scriptures as well as Barclay’s Apology, which had been “approved and contain proper doctrine.” The impact of harmful publications continued with the Gurneyite/Wilburite controversy. In 1840, Thomas Kite warned Friends about the “indiscriminate reading of books professedly religious.”43 He asked them to carefully examine the publications they allowed into their homes. Benjamin Ladd found Gurney’s writings so unsound that he locked them in his desk. Such materials could engender an extreme response. After reading some of Edward Hicks’s Memoirs (infused with Orthodox dogma), Isaac T. Hopper declared it a “fool book” and promptly threw it in the fire.44 Quaker publishing resonated inside and outside of the community as they widened their scope of distribution with the availability and low cost of print 172

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in the nineteenth century. While they shared the concern of other Christians who worried about involvement in the worldly activity of printing and publishing, they realized its usefulness to advancing Quaker interests. They dispatched copies of their publications to public officials to garner their attention. Joseph Bringhurst sent the governor of New Jersey and the president of the United States Bank copies of Lindley Murray’s The Power of Religion in 1802. Thomas Pye Cope remitted the minutes of the 1809 meeting of the Anti-­ Slavery Convention to prominent political leaders to raise their awareness about abolition.45 Print provided the means to educate their own flock as well as bring moral issues to a wider audience.

A Faithful Record Both Hicksite and Orthodox Friends began issuing publications in the 1820s and 1830s to justify their relative positions. Their distribution caused further debate and disunion as the schism intensified. Both groups took on the responsibility for exposing the other’s misconduct. The Orthodox party quickly reported on Hicksite disorderliness. For example, the first issue of Orthodox publication The Friend: A Religious and Literary Journal, in the fall of 1827, took on the “unpleasant duty” of “providing an authentic and faithful narrative” of the Hicksites’ recent “violent actions,” such as displacing the long-­term clerk at the Buckingham Preparative Meeting, demanding the key to the meetinghouse, and occupying the building for two nights.46 This immediate response to schismatic events would continue as both sides engaged in narrative skirmishes to reinforce their definition of Quakerism. The proliferation of publications relating to the schism deepened disunion. In the process, they created new periodicals that widened the scope of Quaker reading materials. Both sides kept abreast of what the other was publishing and maintained their hostility in a literary format. In 1836, the Orthodox leaders William and Thomas Evans became the editors of The Friends’ Library. Their publication was a compilation of written works by Friends, both recent and long dead, who represented Orthodox Quakerism. Conceding that some of these works were “prolix and redundant,” the editors, by “judicious selection,” offered abridgments of “their excellent contents” in a “more attractive form” with “their intrinsic value enhanced.” The Evanses intended to “do careful research into the literature of the Society” and to proffer customary treatises, denominational histories, individual Quaker Manuscript and Print Culture

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journals, and biographical notes, all approved by their Meeting of Sufferings. Their introduction included a historical overview of early Friends to validate their evangelical attributes, such as George Fox carrying a Bible on preaching tours; this proved that their ancestors recognized “the paramount authority of the Holy Scriptures.” In addition, they proclaimed that early Friends promoted the doctrine of justification and “Jesus Christ, our propitiation.”47 Through this framing, the Orthodox editors married their version of Quakerism to the advent of the sect. Hicksites challenged the careless reproductions of Quaker books and documents put out by Orthodox Friends. The Hicksite journal, The Friends Intelligencer, was begun in New York by Isaac T. Hopper in 1838 and adopted the subtitle “The Friends Complete Library.” It claimed this moniker because it planned an “exact republication” of original Quaker works as opposed to the Orthodox Society’s intention to publish “a judicious selection and abridgement” of Friends’ writings in the Friends’ Library. Hopper promised complete versions of old classics because it was their “duty to posterity”—to present “a faithful record of the peculiar testimonies” of their “forefathers” and the “heartless persecution” they experienced. While Orthodox Friends admitted that leaving out a word or phrase could change the meaning of old texts, Hicksites responded by stating they could not “hold our peace, when we see ‘grave and reverend authorities placing on the enduring tables of history a part, or parts only.’ ”48 The Hicksites used Orthodox publications to prove their superiority. When the Friends Intelligencer reviewed Thomas Shillitoe’s journal in 1839, the editor not only questioned the influence of his book in England but argued that it would “be a stumbling-­block to the honest inquirer, and obstruct the progress of truth.” Even worse, Shillitoe showed an “absence of brotherly charity and forbearance” that did not discriminate between “facts” and “heated fancy.” Publishing segments of his journal exhibited “the feebleness” of his attempts to “destroy the reputations” of Hicksites. Rather than follow protocol, Shillitoe had refused to meet with Elias Hicks when he visited Long Island. Had he talked with Hicks, the editor claimed, Shillitoe would have “formed a more just estimate of his character.” Duped “by farther sighted and shrewder men,” Shillitoe had caused excessive damage to his American counterparts. Even worse, he presented Hicksites as “a horde of riotous outlaws.” Lastly, the editor questioned why a transient stranger with limited knowledge and “extreme simplicity of mind” should write “a history of the separation?” When Margaret Bancroft received a copy of Shillitoe’s journal from an English aunt

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in 1840, she found his version of the Hicksite schism was “so partial as to be false.” That “followers of Christ” would vilify others was unconscionable.49 In 1845, nearly twenty years after the schism, Hicksites were still bewailing the initiation of a formal confession of faith, which their periodical labeled “a sad departure from original principles.” The Orthodox society had abandoned “the ancient bond of union” that once united them in an unbroken compact for nearly two centuries. The Friends Weekly Intelligencer blamed the Orthodox departure from ancient ideals because of popular religion. While they had retained some aspects of Quakerism (plain dress and manners), their opponents had adopted “abstruse and unintelligible dogmas” that flourished among Protestant evangelicals. This defection had long-­term effects, as the Orthodox Friends were “now contending with each other about those very doctrines which were duly jointly set up as the test of Christian fellowship.” The Hicksite weekly aimed to preserve Quaker values, including “simplicity, economy, temperance, charity, forbearance, patience and so forth,” with the goal to restore their “enfeebled energies to a condition of healthy activity.” It printed poetry, death notices, and articles on a variety of topics from education, temperance, and slavery to their Yearly Meeting minutes. It also reproduced historical pieces, such as on the persecution of Long Island Friends in the seventeenth century and the Keithian schism, to show evidence of previous injustice toward Quakers.50 The publishing activity of Hicksite and Orthodox Friends aimed to broadcast their respective interpretations of Quakerism. One way was to reissue popular books, such as the journals of prototypical members infused with evangelical precepts. The journals and memoirs of long-­dead Friends were reprinted to emphasize their evangelical bent. Publications like Piety Promoted documented the growing presence of evangelical notions. A survey of five editions of Piety Promoted printed between 1721 and 1854 show the increased frequency of terms such as “Jesus Christ,” “Redeemer,” and “the blood of the Lamb” or the “blood of Christ.” The phrase “Jesus Christ” was used 10 times in the 1721 issue of Piety Promoted; by 1854, it appeared 95 times in the publication. While the word “redeemer” appeared only once in the 1721 issue, by 1854, it was referenced 14 times. The concept of “light” appeared 10 times in 1721 and 85 in 1854. The term “truth” was mentioned 12 times in 1721; by 1854, it was cited 116 times—possibly showing the division caused by the New England controversy and the formation of Progressive Friends.51 By appropriating Quaker terms, evangelicals could assert they were true to their origins.

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When John Hunt reread The Rise and Progress of Friends in Ireland, he followed the Quaker practice of pondering the efforts of their predecessors to make sense of his own situation. Hunt reviewed the preaching of John Webster from 1645, who valued “reading and hearing” but ultimately stated piety began with the individual believer: “The chief thing every soul is to mind, in reading and hearing, is to examine whether the same thing be wrought in them? whatever we find in the letter, if it be not made good in us, what are the words to us? . . . The chief thing, I say, is to look into our own breasts.”52 The individual’s faith began within, was expressed without, and was sustained by meditation and prayer as well as reading and writing. Manuscript and book culture provided aid, insight, and instruction. The act of reading and writing opened the way to access a mystical experience with the Holy Spirit and to experience convincement, and, after the schism, to avow evangelical beliefs. Through the exchange of letters, journals, and commonplace books, Friends crafted “relational texts,” which built a “scribal canon” of Quaker productions. These tomes took on spiritual value as Friends read and reread, both published and unpublished works, to reinforce piety. However, reading could be enlightening or enervating. Books contained formidable power that could lead to peace, salvation, and devotion, or cause doubt, dread, and unbelief. “Pernicious books” were dangerous not just for introducing worldly or trivial concerns but because they could damage the individual’s soul.53 Adherence to proper reading required attentiveness to inculcate morality and broaden comprehension. As intentional acts of piety, reading and writing provided crucial support to the Friend’s spiritual journey. Competing visions appeared in print first as Hicksite and Orthodox, and later Gurneyite and Wilburite, Friends defended their faith. They revised history and invoked collective memory to present their version of the Quaker religion. This memorialization took several forms as sundry strains of Quakerism called upon history to justify specific interpretations of doctrine, practice, and service.

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Chapter 8

“Tokens of Remem bra nce” Friends, Memory, and History

Oh, how thin the partition between time and eternity! —John Comly

When Joseph Brinton took a trip to New England in the summer of 1850, he stopped in Boston to visit the city’s historic sites, including Faneuil Hall, Bunker Hill, and Boston Common. Walking though the Common drew a singular response from Brinton; rather than enjoying the park with the other patrons, he recalled what had happened there over 150 years earlier when “Friends were hung for their precious principles.” The Common—where once cows roamed, pigs scavenged, and public executions took place—was “finely decorated with trees” and a fountain. This bucolic scene, however, could never “wash out the stain of that diabolical murder perpetuated on our unoffending women and men.” Quakers had prevailed in New England over the machinations of “bigoted blood thirsty Puritans.” This miscarriage of justice, however, did not dissipate. Brinton professed that “Bostonians feel the shame of that crime yet,” and he trusted that the memory of his ancestors’ sacrifice would endure even in the salubrious setting. Furthermore, Brinton linked this remembrance of Quaker persecution in the past to the contemporaneous dispute enveloping his religious society between Gurneyism and Wilburism. Though this development had sown seeds of discord, he believed that “a remnant” in their “purity” still supported “the doctrines of our society.”1 Brinton’s invocation of memory—in this case, seventeenth-­century Quaker martyrdom—to reinforce his defense of the Wilburites was emblematic of American Friends in the nineteenth century. They used history to claim

the rightness of their beliefs; they combated doctrinal diversity by evoking the sacrifice and suffering of their ancestors. This custom, which began during the Hicksite schism in the 1820s, would be revived again with the controversy between Gurneyites and Wilburites and the advent of Progressive Friends. Quakers used selective passages from the works of the founding generation to produce potent propaganda; they reprinted versions of old classics to lend authenticity to their position. Historical revision led to a flurry of publishing as American Quakerism became an increasingly diverse religious movement by the mid-­nineteenth century. While Friends had always used their ancestors as archetypes, this practice took on new meaning because of denominational divides. They utilized the past to make the present meaningful in relevant if disparate ways. Their use of history and memory in the antebellum period will be investigated not only to catalog their theological debates but to show how it spurred spiritual development. (History is defined here as an agreed-­ upon set of events shared by a community, while memory refers to what is deemed meaningful about that past as well as how it is retained, revived, and codified.) By remembering their history, Friends appreciated those who came before as they labored to obtain deep piety individually and collectively. In addition, remembrance provided the means to construct contemporary Quaker identities in a denomination riven by division amid a society awash in religious diversity.2

Tangible Ties Memories are made through multiple vehicles, whether in written form, both published and unpublished, oral performance, or material objects. Remembering as a socially constructed, dynamic process is not linear, static, or essential. It is solitary and collective. Maurice Halbwachs’s groundbreaking work avers that memory is created by “individuals as group members who remember.” The communal context of memory making is a means of cultural inheritance: through a “process of construction and reconstruction,” societies create their collective memory. Unlike history, memory sustains “a continuous thought” that “retains from the past only what still lives or is capable of living in the consciousness of the group keeping the memory alive.” The sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel expands on Halbwach’s scholarship by arguing that human memory is constituted not by individuals alone but by “entire communities” through a process he calls “sociomental topography,” which is defined not as 178

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what happened but how it is remembered.3 As part of this topography, group members travel the same road as their ancestors and experience events that occurred in their society before they joined it—just as Brinton identified with long-­dead Quakers rather than his fellow citizens strolling through Boston Common. Remembering is overseen by “norms of remembrance” that inform what an individual will recall and will forget. This “mnemonic socialization” occurs in public and private settings to engender “appropriate normative forms of recounting the past.” Jan Assmann and John Czaplicka affirm that “cultural memory” helps a group preserve its “store of knowledge” from which it “derives its unity and peculiarity.” Using history to form a communal identity and group narrative becomes especially important when faced with internal dissension, and individuals employ mnemonic strategies to “bridge” gaps in their history. Drawing on one’s predecessors confers legitimacy; it helps people preserve continuity—in times of controversy—by using memory to strengthen their rightful claim to being the “true” members of their group, such as experienced during the Hicksite schism.4 Quakers utilized these concepts of memory in social and spiritual settings to inculcate individual and group identity as well as maintain community amid social, economic, and religious transformations.5 In addition, family genealogies sustained transatlantic ties as well as defined a place for themselves in the American republic. For Quakers, the piety of one’s ancestors served as a model to imitate and promulgate among the living. As a shared experience, memory formation is not just the “product of individual minds, but a diverse and shifting collection of material artifacts and social practices.”6 Friends utilized memory to affirm their distinctive history as well as differentiate themselves from their opponents during the persistent rifts of the antebellum era. Memory making occurred in a variety of formats. One way American Friends induced memories was through objects. They demonstrated their plain style through material culture to set themselves apart, denote their religious standing, and memorialize their predecessors. In this way, they proclaimed their personal and communal identity. Anne Verplanck has shown how Friends used silhouettes to commemorate their familial and religious heritage in the eighteenth century. Simple and inexpensive, silhouettes fit the Quaker ideal of plainness; they could honor the memory of their coreligionists without elaborate style, color, or construction. Friends collected images of family and friends as well as prominent ministers into albums, which served to create “family and sect memory.” As “tangible ties” to their past, silhouette Friends, Memory, and History

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albums brought Quakers in touch with their forebears to venerate their contributions, to reinforce their society’s distinctiveness, and to honor their relations. As Susan Stabile shows, Quaker women in Philadelphia used material culture as an “archive” to place “personal and collective memories in the domestic sphere.” Memory as a “lived practice” was not “just public, national or male, but steeped in mnemonic associations and material experiences.”7

Inscribed Remembrance As early as the 1690s, English Friends began publishing accounts of deceased ministers “to keep alive their testimonies and memory” within the Society. This pattern was continued by American Friends, who utilized their sectarian past to remember ancestors, prominent leaders, and family relations, and to follow their example in the pursuit of piety. They recorded visions, dreams, predictions, meditations, testimonies, sermons, and death accounts of predecessors as well as sections of published treatises and pamphlets by and about Friends. Such remembrances were evident in their commonplace books. While some of these recollections were of family and friends, others were from well-­ known elders and ministers from previous generations. In the late eighteenth century, Hannah Griffitts mentioned seventeenth-­century predecessors (Christopher Love and Mary Penington), as well as more recent leaders (Catherine Peisley, Thomas Chalkey, and John Churchman). She wrote poems to dead loved ones, including “On Transcribing Some Memorials of the Pious Dead” in 1785. Milcah Martha Moore copied remembrances to several Friends, living and dead, in her book. She bolstered family networks by transcribing the poetry of relations and companions that became acts of remembrance. She recorded a “trance” by Thomas Say from 1748, a prayer by Nicholas Waln in 1772, and the last illness and death of Hannah Smith in 1761. In 1839, Susan Lloyd revered prominent Quakers of the past and present (Mary Dyer, Elizabeth Fry, and Joseph John Gurney) as well as notable religious leaders (Martin Luther, Isaac Watts, John Wesley, and William Wilberforce). Remembrances penned in honor of deceased family and friends, in turn, were used to recall those who came before as well as ponder their spiritual example and religious leadership. It encouraged spirituality. As a child, Isaac Martin read the dying sayings of Friends. Through “good remembrance,” he felt motivated to “animate” himself to a “watchful, circumspect walking.”8 In this way, Friends codified Quaker belief and practice through memory. 180

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Keeping a commonplace book was a way to recollect ancestors, ministers, and family members. John Locke’s new manner of commonplacing in the late seventeenth century changed this form from being merely a book containing vast amounts of knowledge to one of individualized memories based on a format of one’s own devising. Locke’s organizational system became a means of “genteel self-­fashioning” as well as an outlet for religious devotion. By the eighteenth century, a commonplace book was a popular means to order one’s thoughts. It served as a “storehouse of the mind,” with commonplacing “the very stuff of memory making.”9 Quakers used their books to write memorials to close friends and family as well as denominational leaders. After his Uncle Shipley died in 1789, Samuel Canby provided “testimony” to his memory: “He endeavoured to preserve the just main path . . . and was desirous to promote sincerity & truth & was upright in his dealings & did not like an appearance of greatness & ostentation in others.”10 Death evoked memories for Friends to remember past leaders and influence future generations. When Mary Kite attended her Uncle William’s funeral in May of 1824, she wondered about the other worthies buried in the same yard who had been “pillars in their day.” She expected their heirs to “take their places” as “valiants” for the cause. Edmund Canby memorialized his grand­ father in 1831, noting that his life would serve as a standard for his descendants. With “patience under protracted sufferings he evinced the sincerity of his profession—no murmuring, no repining—he was a Christian.”11 These accounts not only remembered Friends but placed the writer and their subject in relationship to laud the dead person and emulate their example. American Friends reproduced writings of early English Quakers to recall these paragons of piety. One of the accounts replicated several times in the commonplace books of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was that of Mary Penington, wife of Isaac Penington and mother of Gulielma Maria Springett, William Penn’s first wife. Mary’s religious autobiography, “A Brief Account of some of my Exercises,” entailed her spiritual journey from an Anglican childhood to her convincement in 1658. Mary’s story is one of spiritual exploration and worldly temptation. Born into a prominent family and orphaned at a young age, Mary was brought up by guardians whose Anglicanism she found unsatisfying. She devised her own pious practices to ease her anxious mind. Mary and her first husband, William Springett, rejected Anglican rites. After his death, she challenged tradition by refusing to have her daughter baptized, only to face “great reproach” and “hissing amongst the people.” Though Mary wavered in her religious affiliation, she pursued a strict Friends, Memory, and History

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regimen of praying, reading, fasting, honoring the sabbath, and going to lectures. After she married Isaac Penington and they became acquainted with the Quakers, she finally gained “clearness in his sight and love and acceptance” among fellow travelers. Mary’s spiritual struggle proved efficacious to later Friends experiencing similar doubts. Her account proved the awards of persevering over family pressures and societal scorn; true faith would prevail.12 The popularity of Mary’s narrative helped antebellum American Quakers comprehend the hardships experienced by the first generation of Friends, which inspired piety as well as led to an appreciation of their own spiritual freedom. John Comly felt the weight of history after reading about the persecution his Quaker ancestors had endured. He was grateful that their sacrifice ensured his freedom and at the same time, through “remembrance,” he vowed to pursue “holiness of life” and “ardency of divine love.” Elijah Brown Sr.’s commonplace book contained copies of letters between Irish, English, and American Friends, primarily from the mid-­eighteenth century. Brown situated himself in Quaker history by replicating missives between leaders, such as George Churchman, John Pemberton, Sophia Hume, Catherine Peasley, and Samuel Fothergill, who wrote to convey their close connection with coreligionists. Remembrance initiated relationships with those who came before in a spiritual community that elided time.13 Quakers employed remembrance in letter writing to preserve spiritual bonds. While this was a popular trope in personal correspondence at the time, their use of remembrance in letters solidified friendships and family relations, offered spiritual counsel and advice, and sustained piety. Lydia Arnold drew on this practice when she wrote to James Bringhurst: “We feel gratitude for thy continued remembrance, thy precious encouraging counsel and advice.” This “continued remembrance” was not merely reference to their friendship but also to the spirituality they shared. Esther Tuke wrote to James Pemberton in 1791 to remark that her life had been “refreshed by thy brotherly remembrance & communication.” Pemberton’s impact on Tuke’s spirituality was evident: “I have been much instructed & encouraged by thy reflections & comments on thy own afflictions, which though not at the present time joyous, yet I have no doubt are added in weight to that crown laid in the store for thee.” Epistles offered solace to ministers laboring in the field who doubted their worth and yet were determined to serve. Correspondents provided support and understanding. Writing to her brother and sister-­in-­law in the 1840s, Mary Kite used similar language to envision the closeness of relations and

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believers: “By the ordering of providence our lots are separated yet I trust we bear each other in frequent remembrance.” Separated Friends preserved social relations and reinforced spiritual union by remembering others. Through her pen, Mary conveyed “many tokens” of remembrance to family members.14 Families used Quaker history to inculcate knowledge and homage of their religious ancestors in their offspring. Joseph Tallcott wanted his grandchildren to learn the history of their own society as well as the “character of our worthy predecessors” to ensure they would follow in the “footsteps of the flock of Christ’s companions.” Remembering continued after relations had died. Written sources and material objects reinforced family history, which built a bridge between generations to ensure dedication to religious practice. Deborah Bring­ hurst brought out her husband’s diary to share his last entry with her adult children, that the “prayer of his humble pious mind be granted!” Hannah Logan Smith published Memoirs of Various Friends in 1839 for her children. What began as a short memoir of her spouse expanded to include others’ family histories, obituaries, testimonials, and genealogies. Smith hoped her children would read the volume “with a teachable spirit,” that it would add to their improvement and usefulness after her death. Samuel Bettle sent several Friends a copy of a “Book of Memorandum” written by his deceased wife, Jane. As an archive of Jane’s life, it had a beneficial effect. Hannah Paul believed it “right that these precious relics, are in some degree, made public, they are too valuable to be confined within the limits of her own family, fraught . . . with solid instruction and deep religious experience.” She recommended it be published as a tribute to Jane’s memory, to be useful to young and old alike. Mildred Ratcliff felt “afresh that precious cement of love and sweet unity,” while Stephen Grellet found her book “breathes so much of the Christian spirit, that the reader acquainted with thy dear Jane can but feel himself as actually in contact with her.”15 Material objects like Jane’s memorandum book embodied remembrance to perpetuate relationships that survived even death. Quakers not only shared memories of deceased family and friends as well as prominent ministers, but they also circulated artifacts, such as letters, poems, certificates, and illustrations. Material objects held religious significance. Nathan Kite shared with others the preaching certificates granted to former worthies of the eighteenth century (Thomas Scattergood, Nicholas Waln, John Pemberton, Rebecca Jones, and Samuel Emlen) as a link to the past and a symbol of their service. Commemorating past leaders sustained their

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relevance. In the 1830s, Mary Wistar gave her grandson Thomas Wistar Brown an illustration of Anthony Benezet’s house on Chestnut Street as a remembrance.16 Recorded in commonplace books or in separate accounts, families passed down these documents. Martha Allinson sent her father’s memorial to her son, telling him it might be useful. Elizabeth Kaighns wrote an acrostic in memory of Richard Jordan as well as poems in honor of Priscilla Hunt Cadwalader and Elias Hicks. Ann Roberts Stackhouse chronicled an inclusive version of Quaker history. Her commonplace book included comments by Robert Burrow at George Fox’s funeral in 1691, letters by Hicksites and Orthodox Friends, excerpts from the Antislavery Standard and Pennsylvania Freeman, as well as the Minutes of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of 1848 and an account of the last hours of the Orthodox minister Stephen Grellet.17 Memorials, both published and in manuscript form, were not only a tribute to an individual but were also to be instructive to others. As one Friend wrote, “There is a usefulness in death, that we cannot but admit.” Many copied out the spiritual diary of Hannah Bringhurst, which chronicled her death as a remembrance. Commemoration took several forms; beside the standard accounts discussed above, some wrote poetry to honor the dead. Eleven-­year-­old Lydia Williams wrote a poem after her father died that evinced the typical Quaker script of the mourner’s forbearance and the deceased’s passage to heaven: “Oh! Thou whose power is supreme as it was thy most / Heavenly will, to take my dear father from me, / Thro thy divine will I freely gave him up: / I have no doubt, but that he has gone to heaven: / he sleepeth in the dust & his soul is praising his maker.” Martha Allinson composed verse after learning her daughter Anne had died at a relative’s house: “And how Oh! Now, ye dread tidings tell / for my daughter gone without a last farewell / Dearest Anne—as it—can it be / take thy flight & not embrac’d by me.” Hannah Griffitts produced several elegies in remembrance of deceased family and friends.18 In 1799, she penned a poem about her friend and relation, Hannah Moore, who was seventy-­five years old when she died. Griffitts proclaimed her friend’s benevolence, cheerfulness, and understanding. Bedridden for several years, many rejoiced when Hannah was released from her physical suffering, “under the calm hope that the close of life, forever, center’d her into her master’s rest.” The poem outlined the end of conflict, doubt, and weakness; the “feeble pilgrim” could not but cheer when “the thick shades of darkness,—disappear / and brighten—into everlasting day.”19

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The Plain Facts Orthodox and Hicksite Friends scrutinized their ancestors’ texts and deployed denominational history to augment their respective positions. As division unfolded, each side issued publications justifying their views and castigating their opponents. They took select passages from the works of George Fox, William Penn, Robert Barclay, and others. Barclay’s 1674 work, The Anarchy of the Ranters, was republished by the Orthodox side in 1822 (perhaps to corroborate their allegation that their opponents shared the same moniker). The variance and depth of Quaker theology during the early years of the sect did not restrain either side from cherry-­picking sections to prove their points, while ignoring the historical context of seventeenth-­century England and the complexity of the authors’ arguments. By 1827, the Orthodox faction had reissued Barclay’s Apology, Fox’s testimony of 1671, and his appearance before Parliament in 1693, not only to show how wrong the Hicksites were but to expose their insidious impact on unsuspecting readers. Englishman Thomas Pumphrey alleged that all Orthodox beliefs (the trinity, crucifixion, virgin birth, salvation, and atonement) were to be found in seventeenth-­century Quaker writings. While recognizing the founding generation’s belief that “the kingdom of God is within us,” he alleged that the same men did not dismiss “the plain facts of the Bible, as mere types or metaphors; but freely accepted them in their obvious signification, and devoutly believed them as they are recorded.”20 Orthodox leaders in Philadelphia looked back in time to find examples to substantiate their theology. Beginning in 1837, Orthodox Friends published fourteen volumes of Quaker materials in the Friends Library edited by William and Thomas Evans. These Orthodox leaders concentrated on English and Irish Friends, mostly ministers. The 1838 issue included eleven narratives—all by first-­generation Quakers, some who had known Penn and been imprisoned for their faith. At least two narratives (Joseph Oxley and Joseph Pike) were reprinted from an 1837 publication edited in England (perhaps as proof the Orthodox were the true descendants of the founders). The Oxley and Pike accounts validate the influence of evangelical religion as well as need for simple faith to counter the empty performance of religious duty. Joseph Oxley was born in Lincolnshire in 1715. Though a birthright Quaker, he was not particularly religious; only after hearing the evangelical George Whitefield preach in the 1730s did he reform his behavior. Oxley “now loved to attend meetings

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for religious worship, on week-­days as well as those on the first day of the week,” from which he “gained great benefit and strength.” He avoided his friends and stopped his “idle pastimes” to lead “a life of circumspection and care.”21 The Orthodox standpoint was even more evident in the entry on Joseph Pike, an Irish Friend who died in 1729. The editors declared his example provided “plain, positive, practical advices, not showy and superficial, but sober and solid admonitions, grounded upon and growing out of scriptural truth.” Pike stood in contrast to those who had been lost “amidst fields of speculation” and “diverse doctrines” of his time and, by implication, the current age. Observing that early founders were plagued by religious zealotry that veered toward ranterism, so, too, some “modern Friends” lived by their “own self-­righteousness.” True Friends persevered to “stand against the deadly influence.” Linking this example to modern-­day Orthodox Quakers, the editors intimated that the tensions among eighteenth-­century Friends had been overcome by persistence and faith, just as antebellum American Quakers had battled similar “tendencies and outgoings of our day.”22 Orthodox Friends spread their account of history through publications. They issued their own version of Piety Promoted, with entries on both English and American coreligionists. In 1854, the Evanses’ Piety Promoted contained excerpts from more than two hundred members. In the introduction, the Evanses set out Quaker principles, including their belief in the Trinity, “the eternal divinity” of Christ, and his “proprietary sacrifice.” They stated that the power of the gospel redeemed “the soul from the pollution of sin” so the believer could “walk in the newness of life.” They cited the Bible on the necessity of being “born again” to attain the “kingdom of God.” To prove the importance of a Christocentric faith, the editors quoted William Penn at length (from various sources) to counter “the scandalous lies” that Friends denied God, Jesus Christ, and the Scriptures. They mentioned other early leaders, such as Robert Barclay and George Whitehead, to show that Quakers believed in the Holy Trinity and the divinity of Christ. This volume upheld continuity in Quaker beliefs by joining the founding generation of seventeenth-­ century England to Orthodox Friends of nineteenth-­century America, stating that “the doctrines set forth in the foregoing extracts have been steadfastly maintained by the Religious Society of Friends down to the present day.” The editors reminded readers that the lives detailed in their volumes were “firm believers in the Lord Jesus, both as he appeared in Jerusalem, and as he reveals himself in the heart by the Holy Spirit; and having through Him experienced redemption from sin” as well as recognized “the necessity of 186

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regeneration and sanctification.”23 Their strategy connected the past to the present. Orthodox Friends utilized ancient and recent Quaker history to support their position. A contributor to The Friend (an Orthodox journal) made a direct correlation between the controversy surrounding Hannah Barnard in the 1790s and that involving Elias Hicks, claiming they shared the same opinions. Another author compared John Perrot, the seventeenth-­century Friend, to Elias Hicks. Perrot’s inflated sense of self led him to believe he was more enlightened than George Fox. Like those of Hicks, Perot’s unsuspected followers were hoodwinked into labeling Quaker leadership moribund and formal. They used the “plea of liberty” to mask “a cloak for licentious[ness].” Though the two men used different means, they both worked to “subvert sound government.” The Orthodox Friends appealed to the past to prove their rectitude not only in theology but also in practice. Moses Brown argued that the Quaker Discipline had varied little over time since its institution in 1675. Brown intimated that the prejudice of Hicksites, evident in their published accounts, had laid the “ancient order” to waste as well as launched a “spirit of war” by attempting to separate American Friends from their English counterparts. Hicksites had denigrated Quaker traditions, such as refusing to read or enter the London Yearly Meeting epistles into their meeting minutes.24 This was further exacerbated by their laxity in prayer and irregular reading of religious works. Their contempt proved they were out of step with their ancestors’ principles and habits. Brown used the past to reinforce identity and to memorialize previous events in ways that confirmed Orthodox views.

Protected by Heaven Quaker history proved a useful tool amid division. Hicksites in Wilmington took the initiative in 1824 when they began the first journal published by American Friends, The Berean. The Hicksite writers in this periodical utilized Quaker luminaries to prove their doctrines of reformation were in line with their ancestors’ precepts: “Our ancient Friends and their faithful successors to the present day, have earnestly labored to turn the attention of all to this pure spirit” of light and life. To prove this historical connection, the Hicksites passed a proposal in 1828 to collect materials about the schism, a prospect one Friend found daunting: “After all this, shall we begin to write, and print, and publish to the world a statement of the intolerance and oppression that have been Friends, Memory, and History

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suffered by us? . . . Shall we now, . . . become historians, in defense of a cause, thus signally owned and protected by heaven?” Still, he believed this time would become “a very important epoch in the history of the Society of Friends,” one that could show others how to proceed when “corruption has entered and obstructed the channels of the purest system of Christian communion.” The lessons learned would ensure that the “oppressed” could “go free” and that those who “value religious liberty” would see a way to escape the “dark state of apostasy.”25 The righteousness of the Hicksite position was affirmed by recalling Quaker history correctly. Hicksites relied on their English heritage to confirm their authenticity. In 1830, clerks John Comly and Lucretia Mott emphasized this bond in their Hicksite epistle to the London Yearly Meeting. Emphasizing the centrality of the Inward Truth and Light conserved their link to their English ancestors. They quoted George Fox, who proclaimed that “the light of Christ within” was “the root of the goodly tree of doctrines.” The American Hicksites declared this legacy united them with their fellow believers in England. However, not all British Quakers agreed. Some who wrote about the Hicksite schism blamed America’s democratic institutions for bringing dissension into the Society. An Irish Friend announced that “genuine Quakerism” could not be found in the United States because some dared to question what came from the gallery— that is, ministerial preaching. Englishman Thomas Pumphrey blamed the rupture on “two great defects” in the American national character: independent governance and excessive power had shattered the restraints of Quaker discipline.26 Like their Orthodox counterparts, Hicksite Friends published Quaker accounts in their own publication, the Friends Miscellany, edited by John and Isaac Comly in twelve volumes from 1831 to 1839. It was noteworthy for printing previously unpublished works. The series’ purpose was “the promotion of piety and virtue, to preserve in remembrance the characters and views of model Friends, and to rescue from oblivion those manuscripts left by them which may be useful.” These volumes would provide instruction to those who were “hungering after substantial food for the mind.” The Miscellany printed historical documents, such as letters by George Fox and Samuel Crisp, excerpts from Anthony Benezet, Job Scott, and Ann Moore, as well as descriptions of living and dead Hicksites. These notable members were exemplars of the Hicksite faith, such as John Baldwin, a Friend who taught school in Chester County in the 1790s. John remarked upon the importance of remembering William Penn’s saying that “God is better served in resisting a temptation to 188

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evil, than in many formal prayers.” Baldwin read Penn’s No Cross, No Crown and Sewell’s History, and his diary was a means of “stirring” himself up to “more diligence and improvement.” His piety fulfilled the Hicksite ideal of spiritual practice.27 Hicksites continued to point out Orthodox errors when William Gibbons published his review of the schism in the 1840s. His Orthodox opponents had misused Quaker history through “many palpable perversions, misrepresentations, and unfounded assertions” to advocate for evangelicalism. To combat those errors, Gibbons presented evidence from Elias Hicks’s sermons and other writings and supported them with citations from the Bible and early Quaker writings. This rivaled Orthodox Friends, who used “partial extracts” from Hicks’s publications to mislead rather than enlighten Quakers. Using excerpts from private letters and an anonymous publication not authorized by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Orthodox Friends took words out of context to pervert Hicks’s meaning. These widely circulated half-­truths about the maligned minister fanned the flames of division. Even more egregious, Orthodox elders such as Thomas Evans and Elisha Bates advocated doctrine opposite of that held by founders, particularly the divinity of Christ. Hicksites continued to agitate during the 1840s. Noting the chaos caused by Wilburism, they reflected on 1827, when, in a “sad departure from original principles,” the Society adopted creeds. This break was the “virtual abandonment of the ancient bond of union which had cemented the Society into a firm and united compact.” The editors of the Friends Weekly Intelligencer observed ironically that though the Orthodox had branded them with “opprobrious epithets,” they now faced dissension within their own ranks over the very doctrines Hicksites had supported in 1828.28 Individual Hicksites amassed their own archives to remember the “Great Separation.” Several retained copies of letters written to and from Elias Hicks to document what happened. More than one person saved a copy of the letter sent to Hicks by the Philadelphia elders in 1822 outlining their concerns about his preaching. Others recorded his sermons. Some personal archives were less about the schism and more about Hicks. Margaretta Walton copied a poem written by a sixteen-­year-­old girl who heard the venerable minister preach in 1822. One stanza mentioned the difficulties he had faced: “Persecution here attend thee / Which the saints have ever known / But the eternal shall defend thee / From the shafts that hath been thrown.” Deborah Field’s memorabilia included an entry in her commonplace book written by Hicks in 1829 as well as his silhouette. Tamar Matlack dedicated one of her commonplace books, Friends, Memory, and History

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begun in the 1820s, solely to the Long Island minister. This reverence for Hicks fit with the Quaker pattern of making memories, recounting history, and celebrating leaders.29 Individuals who witnessed the disorder and conflict caused by the schism collected materials to document what happened. Minshall Painter recorded from memory the conversations he had or overheard during the schism. Statements ran the gamut from wishing for a peaceful separation to threatening to string Hicks up by the neck. At a meeting in West Chester, Jonathan Gauze avowed that the “Orthodox reasoning on doctrinal points was the greatest absurdity—he said it did not give him a moment’s notice or uneasiness by being disowned from them.” Hannah Pratt bemoaned the use of improper procedures, while Benjamin Griscom declared the Orthodox in Pennsylvania were much more accommodating than those in New Jersey. Deborah Bringhurst preserved documents to show the hypocritical conduct of the Orthodox, including spreading rumors of Hicksite men being guilty of drunkenness and insolvency; on one letter detailing the latter Deborah wrote, “The year 1829 was remarkable for the circulation of false charges against persons of pure life. This letter gives a little specimen of one of them.” Her stash also included a copy of the pamphlet Sixteen Reasons Why I Cannot Be a Hicksite. Besides the usual charges lodged at Hicksites (for example, denial of Christ’s divinity), the tract targeted them as “enemies of vital piety” who “make sport of reading the Bible, and family prayer, and revivals of religion.” This has led to “loose, careless, worldly life” among Hicksites. “Uncommonly intolerant” and “ashamed” of religious sentiments, according to the pamphleteer, they should be called “Enemies” instead of “Friends” because of their disdain for the Bible, Jesus Christ, and Christianity. Bringhurst’s marginalia read: “This is kept to show the spirt of accusation abroad among the Orthodox. They scattered this, & other calumnies, against us by thousands.”30 Hicksite John Comly wrote his own history of the schism to counter the “misstatements” and “contradict false assertions” made by Orthodox Thomas Evans in his rendition of the split. Comly rejected the Orthodox faction’s use of the word “Friend”; they had no right to endorse the same doctrines of their ancestors and “the same principles for their plain appearance in dress and language.” The practical piety of ancient Friends matched that of the Hicksites. The Founders knew “no disputes could trouble their peace, or the scene of preeminence, as who should be greatest or least among them; for they acknowledge no head or master, but Christ;—and all the members were brethren, and in the enjoyment of equal privileges.” Comly’s archive included a copy of an 190

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Orthodox pamphlet issued in 1828 to explain their actions, but his written comments disputed their claims. For example, next to a discussion of the Meeting for Sufferings’ letter warning Hicks about his unsound preaching, Comly wrote, “From my intimate personal knowledge of these facts, I have stated them in an essay historical, which defers materially from this falsely colored picture.”31

Ancient Doctrines The advent of new disagreements in the 1830s and 1840s saw a flurry of activity to recover Quaker history. Just as Hicksites and Orthodox Friends made use of their collective (and often selective) memory about early Quakers to prove their legitimacy, so did Gurneyite and Wilburite Friends. When Joseph John Gurney preached in the Arch Street meetinghouse on his arrival in Philadelphia in 1837, he was asked “to defend the character of the early Friends.” With reference to “the original formation of the society here,” he linked founding Friends with those in Pennsylvania in their agreement “for the plain declaration of the great truths of the gospel.” Gurney used this forum to confirm the evangelical view of Quaker history as well as attract followers and bring back those who had left or been disowned. Gurney’s appearance drew two thousand people—the largest gathering since the Hicksite schism ten years before. Richard Mott backed Gurney by quoting William Penn to argue that the “excited state” of the Society due to Wilburism would cease and all “party distinctions and names shall be merged into the one redeemed and glorious body, the true church of Christ.”32 The Orthodox Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (a stronghold of Wilburism) found the tenets of Joseph John Gurney detrimental to the Society. Gurney’s attacks on early leaders and their alleged biblical errors were especially egregious. In 1847, the PYM published An Appeal for the Ancient Doctrines of the Religious Society of Friends, a treatise warning Orthodox Friends to guard against “adopting forms of expressions, and modes of defining and explaining doctrines, which differed from the simple and scriptural methods used by the Society.” The “frequent repetition” of these unsound ideas could eventually lull members into unthinking acceptance. Though the publication never mentioned Gurney by name, it provided excerpts from some of his works to expound on his mistaken understanding of the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and the nature of sin. The Yearly Meeting pointed out the inconsistencies Friends, Memory, and History

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between Gurney’s work and some of the writings of early Friends. For example, while Gurney asserted that only through the Bible could one gain a sense of sin, George Fox said it was the “divine light of Christ” that would help believers comprehend their “evil thoughts, words and actions.”33 The Orthodox Philadelphia Yearly Meeting took issue with Gurney’s interpretation of original theology and practice. They rejected his “unscriptural opinions” that instituted “a ministry dependent upon human talents and learning influenced by the various jarring commentaries upon the Holy Scriptures now exiting in Christendom.” Even worse, its focus on “outward means” was detrimental to their ability to sit together in “solemn silence to worship the Father in spirit and truth.” Gurneyism threatened Quaker tradition. Philadelphia Wilburites felt it their religious duty to warn their brethren and sisters of the dangers inherent in its “pernicious lies.” As a “fundamental point of Christian doctrine,” the Wilburite-­dominated PYM required attendance to the “manifestations and teachings of the Holy Spirt in the heart.” The “light of Christ” was an essential part of Quaker piety. Unfortunately, the “superficial religion” held by Gurney interfered with the ability of Orthodox Friends to follow the true path; “confusion and error” would inevitably follow. If Quakers engaged in “watchfulness and obedience” like their ancestors, they would enact model behavior: guarded conversation, circumspect conduct, and pious humility. Thus, their “testimony of Christian plainness and simplicity would be maintained in the avoiding of a compliance with the customs and fashions of the world.”34 In 1844, the Hicksite Friends Weekly Intelligencer weighed in on the controversy surrounding Gurney when it published an article on the Keithian schism of 1701. Using the history of how Keithianism evolved (with little support in Pennsylvania or England), the editor warned that this case was an “emphatic caution” to contemporary Friends, who must retain their “primitive testimonies” and avoid “those vain and carnal speculations, the offspring of a corrupt theology and a hireling priesthood,” that brought confusion. A subsequent issue published two letters by John Wilbur, to contrast his views to Gurney’s. Though Wilbur made some good points, according to the publication, both men needed further enlightenment. No two people thought alike; “religious harmony” would only come when believers shared the “same pure and heavenly feeling.” Hicksites traced the discord between Wilburites and Gurneyites and used this incident to reaffirm their stance. Recognizing the legacy of the founding generation, the Hicksite journal saw the importance of religious progress: “It was never designed that we would remain stationary 192

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at the point in which our forefathers concluded their labors.” They quoted Mary Peisley, who said that the advance of “many glorious well begun reformations” had been stymied by those who would limit the “leanings” of the Holy Spirit. Hicksites castigated the Orthodox for promoting “outward testimony as the final standard of truth,” which, in turn, had “engendered more bigotry, more false zeal, more violence and intemperance of feeling and action than almost anything else.” Orthodox neglect of “the internal law of evidence” led to “discord and decay,” which, in turn, hindered “perfect harmony.” The challenges posed by Gurneyism had the potential to revolutionize Quakerism. According to Thomas Hamm, both sides utilized the founders’ writings to reinforce their views. While Gurneyites felt no obligation to the dictates of early Friends, Wilburites invested these works with “a sort of infallibility.”35 The use of Quaker history continued as relations between Wilburites and Gurneyites worsened in the 1840s. Wilburites relied heavily on the original writings of the first generation to reinforce their position, and they were responsible for reprinting several of their works in the nineteenth century.36 John Wilbur utilized Quaker history to point out Gurney’s errors: “But as it was in the early days of the Society so now the persecutors of the innocent, . . . would not be governed nor controlled, either by reason or justice to act contrary to their own corrupt will & inclinations.” Wilbur summoned the memory of George Fox—“from whose penetrating eye, things past, present or to come, . . . could scarcely be concealed”—to show that Wilburites needed to stand firm against the onslaught of Gurneyism. Both Wilbur and his New England opponents drew on Quaker history to make their case. The persecution suffered by William Penn paralleled what contemporary Friends were facing; the same arguments employed against Penn were now being used against Wilbur and his followers. The New England Meeting for Sufferings asserted that they acted “in full accordance with those doctrines and principles so clearly and fully testified of, in the early days of the Society by George Fox, and the primitive Friends.” Wilbur countered that his actions—to question Gurney’s doctrines—were in line with what their ancestors had done: “Was it wrong for our early friends to disobey the injunction of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities of their day, in preaching the true gospel of Christ? No, because the authorities under which they acted, were perverted and made the engine of an unhallowed purpose—were exercised for the purpose of restraining religious duty.”37 Wilbur accused the New England Yearly Meeting of erasing the historical legacy of Quakers by refusing to follow the traditional discipline. If a Quaker Friends, Memory, and History

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minister like Gurney could deny their religion’s founders and not face sanctions from their meeting, anyone could do the same. Wilbur sarcastically recorded the benefit of such a practice: “Old fashioned Quakers had never before known such economy as this, that there are some who have an exclusive right to hold and publish such sentiments as they choose, and that without remedy!” Wilbur pleaded with the meeting to take Gurney’s work seriously and to interrogate it so the unsuspecting would not “imbibe” his views. Conversely, the Yearly Meeting castigated Wilbur for misreading Quaker history and implicating early Friends in heresy. They accused Wilbur of vainglorious boasting in thinking he understood “Quakerism better than the founders of it.”38 Wilbur called out publicly those who held doctrines contrary to Christ. He summoned the memory of Protestant martyrs and leaders to defend his side: “Shall we charge all the blood of all the martyrs upon a Wickliffe and a Huss, a Luther and a Calvin, because they withstood the Romish superstitions and atrocities? . . . Or shall we charge the great dissensions and cruel persecutions which fell out in the days of our first friends . . . because the doctrines which they preached and their opposition to a hireling ministry led to those dissensions?”39 Additionally, Wilbur looked to more recent religious history to support his argument. He believed that the divide within the New England Friends—“the personal abuses, the infringement of our rights, the immoralities & abuse of the discipline”—far exceeded any other controversy except for the “Hicksite anomalies.” Wilbur declared that just as the doctrines of Hannah Barnard and Elias Hicks warranted investigation, so, too, should Gurney’s. The “cry of insubordination” heard twenty years before “against those who dissent from and testify against the unsound doctrines spread abroad among us; and these are in turn subjected to the penalty of dealing and disownment.” Wilbur’s critiques of Gurney matched what had been done in the 1820s to warn others about the dangers of Hickism: “Are not ‘all faithful Friends’ so earnestly called upon and enjoined by our discipline, . . . to bear testimony against those who entertain unsound doctrines?”40 Unfortunately, Wilbur’s attempt to follow the historical example of early Friends fell on deaf ears.

Mass of Contradictions By the 1850s, the Progressive Friends were making their own historical claims. They concluded that the Religious Society of Friends was a “mass of contradictions,” in which the early Quakers wrote abstruse treatises based on “equally 194

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ambiguous texts of Scriptures.” Competing sentiments drawn from the same sources led to division and declension among American Quakers. One Progressive Friend averred that his group’s sentiments were perfectly in line with that of George Fox, Isaac Penington, and Francis Howgill before “they were trammeled by discipline and confessions of faith.” These early leaders believed in a religion drawn not from outward relations but from “inward nature.” Thus, “early Quakers were essentially in principle Progressive Friends.” In the minutes of their fourth annual meeting in 1857, Progressive Friends in the Philadelphia region refused to impute others for moral sin and quoted James Naylor, who wrote, “There is a spirit which, as it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other.” Progressive Friends alleged that seventeenth-­century Quakerism formulated a religion based “essentially of individualism.” This origin story proved that they embodied the true principles of early Quakerism. For example, Joseph Dugdale reasoned that he was following in the footsteps of both George Fox and Elias Hicks. According to Dugdale, the Progressive Friends met just like “the ancient friends” had, by inviting all “who love the truth to cooperate with them.”41 Some Progressive Friends accessed their Quaker past through alternate means. Isaac and Amy Post of New York embraced spiritualism, and Isaac became a “writing medium” who communicated with the dead. In the 1850s, he received messages from founder George Fox, who was incensed that the United States had become “a nation of slave hunters!” and that “intemperance would so much abound!” To Fox, spirituality was progressive; when believers became rule-­bound, they would not “receive the fullness of the love of God” nor end “their earthly pilgrimage with joy.” William Penn sent Post a short missive to assure him that sectarianism was nonexistent in heaven; all were joined by “pure, unselfish love.” Post also heard from John Woolman, who congratulated him for having “broken away from the chains of sects.” A longer letter came from Elias Hicks, who exclaimed, “It is astonishing now to me to see how education, tradition and sectarian bias, can distort plain truths.” Elias’s cousin, Edward, told Post that sectarianism stood in the way of spiritual progress and moral improvement. Christians had to follow “the promptings of the good spirit within them” and “consider all the evils that stand in the way of their progress” on issues of slavery and warfare.42 By appealing to the revered reputations of these men through spiritual communication, Post combined historical memory of Quaker tradition with the moral rectitude for social reform. Quakers involved in reform called on history to justify their activism. When Orthodox elders at an Ohio meeting told Abby Kelley to stop talking Friends, Memory, and History

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about abolition, she responded that George Fox had entered religious meetings in his day “contrary to ‘good order and propriety’ and testified against the wrongs and oppressed which then prevailed.” Kelley’s evocation of history did not go over well; she was “dragged with pious hands into the meetinghouse yard.” While Kelley did not convince Orthodox Friends, her historical reference justified her actions while demonstrating the contested nature of Quaker memory and history in the nineteenth century. Americans utilized books and manuscripts to remember their ancestors, family members, and leaders. They gained a sense of self and spirituality through remembrance. Even God, “the good Remembrancer,” recollected believers when they were wayward and indifferent to the path of righteousness.43 But remembrance was more than just useful to inspire deep piety; it provided the means, through material objects, for friends to recall those who came before and to confirm their spiritual identity. Knowledge of Quaker history—and its revision—commemorated the founding generation by utilizing selective portions of that history to further contemporary policies. Collective memory was abused by both factions during the Hicksite schism. Employing memory for political reasons divided Quakers further into opposing camps. Friends’ principles and practices would be challenged with the rise of Gurneyite evangelicalism and Wilburite quietism. Even Progressive Friends exercised this historical search for legitimacy to defend their organization. In the process, they engaged in “mnemonic socialization” before and after disunion rent apart their Society. Remembrance of the living and dead affirmed their spiritual, familial, and social connections as they sought to heal the wounds their “poor, peeled society” suffered during the antebellum era. Individually and collectively, Friends utilized history to build their specific brand while simultaneously employing deviating memories to separate from others. They steeped their spiritual identity and practical piety in a collective memory and a birthright history to draw divergent conclusions and justify distinct outcomes.

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Conc lusion American Quakerisms

Come out of all noise and contention, and the strife of words; come home, come home to the Father’s house. —Priscilla Hunt Cadwalader

In November 1837, Rachel Hunt attended a Preparative Meeting in Darby that was “not easy to be described, nor soon to be forgotten.” After feeling little or nothing, eventually “a ray of light arose,” and she “saw the beauty, excellency and dignity, with the holiness also of genuine spiritual worship.” After patiently waiting, Rachel shared communion with her fellow travelers as she received “power from on high to worship in spirit and in truth.” They concluded the meeting with “the most solemn act the rational soul can ever perform, waiting in the silence of all flesh, ceasing from our own works, in our own will, wisdom or contrivance.” Surpassing the earthly self, Rachel achieved communal retirement “in spirit,” and she gave “praise and thanksgiving” to God. A decade later, Joseph Kite went to the Arch Street Meetinghouse in Philadelphia and heard an Orthodox minister quote Robert Barclay, the Friends’ preeminent theologian of the seventeenth century, who wrote, “In emptiness there is fullness, & in nothingness the possession of all things.” This induced the listeners’ appropriate demeanor, comparable to Hunt’s meeting. In addition, the minister proclaimed that the “savior would safely lead them,” for he was “the way, the truth, the light.” This Christocentric statement ended the sermon.1 Hunt’s and Kite’s accounts of Pennsylvania Quaker meetings were similar but different; they express the subtle discrepancies that emerged in the early nineteenth century. As a Hicksite, Hunt kept the

traditional emphasis on the Inward Light and silent waiting, while the Orthodox Kite heard a founder’s words melded with evangelical preaching. Commonalities persisted after the schism of 1827 as further change transpired when the Orthodox faced dissension. Gurneyites fully adopted evangelicalism, while Wilburites pursued traditional practices. Both Orthodox and Hicksite Friends would divide over reform activism. Some members were disowned or left to join the Progressive Friends in the 1840s and 1850s, and Wilburites would be challenged by fractures in the 1850s and 1860s. Schismatic transformation would continue into the late nineteenth century. In the wake of the Great Separation, Quakers emphasized the importance of childhood education for both practical skills and pious practices. The careful cultivation of children as a primary parental duty endured regardless of doctrinal variance. The number of Quaker educational institutions expanded, including the construction of select preparatory institutions. The growth in schools was a response both to the 1827 schism and to a fear that their children were becoming worldly. The establishment of new schools, such as entry into higher education, occurred in traditional Quaker strongholds such as Pennsylvania, Indiana, and North Carolina. Orthodox Friends in the Delaware Valley established Haverford as a school for boys in the 1830s (to become a college in 1856), while Hicksite Friends founded Swarthmore College in 1864. Most Quaker colleges across the nation would be set up by Gurneyites as the need for ministers and missionaries grew in the late nineteenth century.2 The establishment of institutions of higher education and the development of new curriculum in subjects previously deemed frivolous if not dangerous (art, literature, and music) brought most Friends closer to American culture. Practices that made Quakers unique and insular fell away as Friends became integrated into American society. The lifelong devotional quest persisted with daily exercises such as prayer and meditation. However, Friends became selective in their use of traditional practice. Household meetings and family gatherings continued, as did the use of correspondence, commonplace books, and diaries. They read books for spiritual insight, though with contrasting choices of texts and authors. From early childhood to old age, Quakers sustained their religious regimen, hoping to end their lives having followed a narrow path and arriving at the heavenly mansion. Among Orthodox Friends, deathbed scenes were infused with evangelical concepts as believers strove to die a good death. After death, exemplary members were memorialized. Quaker history played an efficacious role in promoting godliness, sustaining spiritual identity, and avowing communal ethos. 198

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Historical awareness was beneficial to faith practice and utilized to defend specific brands of Quakerism. The use and misuse of history through the lens of collective memory became an effective tool to combat religious rivals. Nineteenth-­century Friends would continue to interrogate their own history to understand contemporary events.3 American Quakerism had diversified by the mid-­nineteenth century. Hicksite Priscilla Hunt Cadwalader retained her trust in reason and revelation as the basis of Quaker faith. She proclaimed that God would welcome “wanderers back from the barren mountains into the green pastures of life.” She extolled inward prayer not as an empty gesture but as a meaningful practice; only by drawing near to “the fountain of light and love” could peace and wisdom be found. Orthodox Joseph John Gurney combined “simple, sincere, living Quakerism” with evangelicalism to ensure that members followed the “all-­effective government of a righteous Saviour.” Gurney encouraged his fellow believers to “meditate on the infinite loving-­kindness of that Saviour who came down from the glory of his Majesty, to live and die for sinners.” Wilburite Joseph Brinton enacted his faith with prodigious attention to all aspects of his life. He engaged in prayer and meditation, detailed his daily practice in a journal, settled his “mind” during meeting, and read Quaker memoirs to his family. This Wilburite pursued a strict routine regarding diet, exercise, and sleep. Brinton’s approach took Quaker spirituality to a new level of plainness. Amy Post, a Hicksite turned Progressive Friend, accepted all beliefs, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or pagan. She valued “deeds, not words” to enact her faith. Social activism was the logical outcome of religious duty and practical piety.4 The responsiveness and adaptation of American Quakerism to the religious culture of the antebellum era had antecedents in Friends’ sectarian history. When the Quakers first emerged in mid-­seventeenth-­century England, they emphasized a direct, mystical relationship with God through a visceral, embodied faith, like other seekers of the truth during England’s “Long Reformation.” Their religion was shorn of all ceremony, ostentation, and hierarchy; they not only “stripped the altar,” they eliminated it altogether—as a logical outcome of their radical Protestantism. This uncompromising attitude was matched by their refusal to respect social conventions, such as hat honor, oath taking, and curtsying. As “Children of the Light,” their passive resistance often resulted in suffering, imprisonment, and death. Concomitantly, they mirrored the moral philosophy of the seventeenth century and John Locke’s definition of religion that required training the mind. Through mindfulness, one could monitor Conclusion

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one’s belief and behavior as well as access the “Christ within.” However, the “unity of spirit” they celebrated was not always trouble-­free. By the early eighteenth century, colonizing Quakers found refuge in the mid-­Atlantic only to confront internal dissent when Englishman George Keith decried their practice as heretical. By the mid-­eighteenth century, a Reformation purified Delaware Valley Friends. The American Revolution posed religious and political questions regarding their peace testimonies as well as their economic obligations and civic responsibilities. The adversity endured during the revolutionary era steeled their resolve to pursue a godly life. However, peace brought prosperity as well as discontent with internal dissent and external worldliness.5 A debate over biblical interpretation caused the refutation of American Hannah Barnard’s preaching in England. Rumblings over Elias Hicks’s ministry roiled for two decades before finally bursting into schism in the late 1820s. Friends on both sides of the Atlantic began endorsing aspects of evangelical religion by the turn of the nineteenth century. Wesleyan notions of faith became popular with some Quakers advocating biblical authority, Christ’s sacrifice, and the necessity of salvation and sanctification. Orthodox Friends promoted biblicism over Quaker writings, and they espoused creeds comparable to those of American evangelicals. Gurneyites aligned more closely to other Protestants, as they formed Sunday schools, emphasized Bible study, and missionized in faraway places. The tension between Gurneyites and Wilburites added another level of complexity and divergence from Quaker tradition. While new practices were embraced, others were discarded. Gurneyites implemented hymn singing, Bible readings, and eventually a paid ministry. They intensified their evangelicalism by extolling the importance of the new birth as well as saving the souls of those who had yet converted. Most Orthodox would become Gurneyites who would rather read the Bible or works by evangelicals, such as George Whitefield and John Wesley, than books by the founding generation.6 The use of plain language and dress declined, marrying out was not an immediate cause for disownment, and the singsong preaching of old ministers disappeared. As dedication to plainness waned, some questioned the peculiarities that set them apart, which moved Orthodox Friends closer to mainstream Protestantism. Many Quakers became involved in efforts to reform American society in the antebellum era, from temperance, abolition, and women’s rights to prison reform, capital punishment, and workers’ rights. The importance of religious liberty and spiritual choice emboldened some Hicksite Friends to maintain 200

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the quietist tradition as well as engage in social activism. The Quaker ideal of progressive revelation justified such action, and some activists became Progressive Friends to make this work their worship. A few even adopted spiritualism as an alternate means to practice faith. Though the Progressive Friends eventually died out, they would unleash Hicksite support for humanitarian efforts, such as charitable aid to newly freed slaves, during and after the Civil War. Hicksites would adapt to American society as Gurneyites had, by updating their philanthropic efforts and opening first day schools. Plain dress and speech declined, as did the practice of disowning members for religious principles. Hicksite traditional tenets matched those of Liberal Christianity that would emerge in the latter half of the nineteenth century.7 The radical transformations of American Quakerism in the antebellum era are evident in the life of David Brainerd Updegraff. Born in 1830 in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, Updegraff was a birthright Friend from a long Quaker lineage. His Orthodox upbringing was thoroughly evangelical, including being named for a popular eighteenth-­century missionary. In 1860, he underwent a dramatic conversion after attending a Methodist meeting: “His Spirit witnessed with my spirit that was born again.” Updegraff became a leader of Revivalist Gurneyites and would advocate the ritual use of water baptism. The contrast between Updegraff’s experience in the 1860s and that of Elisha Bates in the 1830s reveals how much the Religious Society of Friends changed after the Hicks­ ite Schism. That Quakers—whose founders had eradicated religious ordinances and excoriated hireling priests—would endorse the use of a Christian rite and the approval of a clerical class demonstrates how far they had traveled to enact meaningful piety.8 By the mid-­nineteenth century, American Quakers had trampled a tortuous path. Their community rent asunder more than once, they had suffered confusion, strife, and disunity. Conversely, these separations also brought innovation in religious belief and behavior. Through assorted mutations during the antebellum era, American Friends radically transformed their religion to expand the spiritual expression of practical Quakerism. A series of schisms proffered the ingredients for new patterns of religiosity.9 Novel spiritualities emerged, from Hicksite plainness and Gurneyite evangelicalism to Wilburite asceticism and Progressive advocacy. Some aspired to “demolish” the hedge while others wanted to fully modernize. This was accelerated by the onset of a civil war, which presented moral challenges that altered American Friends forever, as a “more permissive and individualist Quakerism” emerged after peace came.10 Contention continued into the 1860s with a movement to reform Conclusion

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Gurneyite Quakerism. It eventually split into two wings: one emphasized renewal and modernism, the other revival and holiness. While Renewal Gurneyites welcomed participation in the larger society, Revivalists were wary of worldly activity. Gurneyites became fully incorporated into the dominant religious culture, which led to the adoption of revival techniques (altar calls, mourners’ benches, and hymn singing) and holiness doctrines (public confession and the second blessing). Gurneyites would experience another split in the 1870s and 1880s when Revivalists proposed a paid pastorate that resembled the Methodist tradition. Appalled by these developments and the abandonment of plain dress and speech, a group of Gurneyites separated to become Conservative Friends. Though numerically small, they were determined to follow the old ways of simple clothing, silent meetings, and adherence to the Discipline.11 What began as a transatlantic community of the Religious Society of Friends in the mid-­seventeenth century, and remained united until the early nineteenth, would evolve into many Quakerisms: Hicksite, Orthodox, Gurneyite, Wilburite, Progressive, Conservative, and Liberal. These adaptations highlight the persistent issues Quakers considered in the antebellum period: What constituted faith? Was religious practice inward or outward or both? How did one enact piety? Where did spiritual authority reside? Did it come from immediate revelation through the Holy Spirit or the biblicism of evangelical religion? The divide of the 1820s contrasted doctrine and practice; by the 1840s and 1850s it split between social withdrawal and political engagement, which led to other questions. How should Friends respond to social issues? What were Quakers’ obligations to their fellow citizens? What was their relationship to the larger society? In answering these questions, Friends constructed new forms of Quakerism during the antebellum era. Quaker piety was transformed in the aftermath of multiple divisions during the early nineteenth century. Mainline denominational practices, such as hymn singing, Sunday Schools, and revivalism became commonplace for Gurneyites, who would become the majority of American Quakers by the end of the nineteenth century. The adoption of structured services and paid ministers altered the faith. Internal practice became more episodic and defined than the free-­form individualism that was prevalent before the Hicksite schism. Yet Friends never gave up their pursuit of the “strait gate.” Their dominating influence in American reform activism originated from a search for substantive and practical spirituality, which resulted in a legacy of activism that addressed racial injustice, gender inequality, and economic deprivation. The plethora of social issues that 202

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they became involved in encompassed the major reform efforts of the period, as they participated in, and at times headed, the momentous social changes that occurred in antebellum society. While most Friends became part of dominant Protestantism, they wished to retain their uniqueness. Whether real or imaginary, Quakers have been compelling figures in American history and are deeply ingrained in popular culture and national identity.12 Their desire to lead a pious, practical, and consequential life reformulated their religion, which resounded throughout American society. The meandering and often perilous course charted by American Friends during the antebellum era documents a peculiar history and yet one steeped in a religious culture rich in contradiction, diversity, and innovation.

Conclusion

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Notes

Acknowledgments 1. 26 4mo., 1791, and 14 1mo., 1782, “Notes on Religion,” 1779–1793, AEP, HSP. Introduction 1.  A Map of the Various Paths of Life (London: W. Darnton & J. Harvey, 1794). George Dillwyn (1738–1820) was born in Pennsylvania but lived in England for several years. 2.  Dillwyn was most likely influenced by John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress as well as a similar tract written by Quaker Stephen Crisp in the seventeenth century. See L. Wright, “John Bunyan and Stephen Crisp.” For more on Dillwyn’s map, see Lindman, “ ‘Pleasures of traveling.’ ” 3.  Dillwyn’s map was made into a puzzle to educate children; see Edmunds, “George Dillwyn’s Map,” 255. Darnton and Harvey specialized in Quaker publications. See Shefrin, “ ‘Make It a Pleasure,’ ” 251–52, and Grenby, Child Reader, 87. On the educational use of maps, see Brückner, Social Life of Maps. 4.  Friends began using the term “Inner Light” in the nineteenth century. 5.  9 8mo., 1805, Mary Cope to Francis Cope, SECFP, QC.

6.  On maps, see Caquard, “Cartography I,” 135–47; Brückner, Geographic Revolution. 7.  The Bible includes several references to faith as a path, including Ps. 16:1, Ps. 27:11, Isa. 2:3, and Luke 3:4. 8. Grubb, Some Account, 6. 9.  26 12mo., 1791, Esther Tuke to James Pemberton, Richard T. Cadbury Papers, QC; 5 9mo., 1794, JJH, FHL; “A Brief Memoir of Susannah Judge” in Judge, Memoirs, 373. 10.  9 6mo., 1811, Samuel Mifflin Prayer, Cox-­Parrish-­Wharton Papers, Box 12, HSP; 28 6mo., 1840, Thomas Evans to Bartholomew Wistar, SECFP, Box 1, QC. 11.  26 9mo., 1819, Ann P. Jackson Papers, FHL; Comly, Journal, 126; 4 12mo., 1800, James Bringhurst to Ruth Sherman Jr., JBL, FHL. 12. Dandelion, Cultivation of Conformity; Penington, Works, 200. There are ­several Old Testament references to the word “hedge,” such as Eccles. 10:8. 13.  See Howe, What Hath God Wrought. 14.  For more on practical piety, see D. D. Hall, Lived Religion in America; McDannell, Religions of the United States; Maffly-­Kipp, Schmidt, and Valeri, Practicing Protestants.

15.  See Johnson, Shopkeeper’s Millennium; Brooke, Refiner’s Fire; Rowe, God’s Strange Work. 16.  Hambrick-­Stowe, Practice of Piety, 49; C. Brown, Word in the World; 15 2mo., 1829, Mary Jackson to Edward Stabler, Mary and Halliday Jackson Correspondence, Ash-­ Schofield Family Papers, Box 1, FHL. 17. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 52. 18.  The transitive verb “to practice,” as in to observe a religious duty, was first used in the fifteenth century. The noun “practical” (first used in English during the sixteenth century) connotes persistent action. See Oxford English Dictionary online, http://‌www‌.oed‌.com. 19.  Bender, “Practicing Religion,” 280–83; Kruczek-­Aaron, Everyday Religion, 4–5; 8. 20.  See Hinds, George Fox, 37; Ingle, Quakers in Conflict, 14. 21. Judge, Memoirs, 160; Cadwallader, Memoir, 130–31; Penn, No Cross, No Crown; and Barclay, Apology. 22.  On early Quakers, see Allen and Moore, Quakers; Moore, Light; Tarter, “Quaking,” 145–62. 23.  Barbour and Frost, Quakers, 98–99; “Memoirs of Samuel Smith,” Friends’ Miscellany 9, no. 3 (10mo., 1836): 99. 24. Hamm, Transformation, 2; Barclay, Apology, 12. 25.  Frost, “Dry Bones,” 511; Comly, Journal, 311. 26. Judge, Memoirs, 185. 27.  “A Brief Memoir of Susannah Judge” in Judge, Memoirs, 391; Comly, ­Journal, 117, 122. 28.  Minister’s quote, EWSC, Box 4, QC; Bauman, Let Your Words, 25; 3 8mo., 1822 and 9 1mo., 1823, JJH, FHL. 29. Braithwaite, Memoirs of Joseph John Gurney, 1:112. 30.  13 7mo, 1829, William D. Cope to Henry Cope, CEFP, Box 11, QC; sermons by Elizabeth Robson and Ann Jones in undated letter (probably 1827), Charlotte

206

Notes to Pages 5–19

Newbold Freeland to Hannah Beasley and Catherine Wistar, SECFP, Box 3, QC; Hamm, Transformation, 63–64. 31.  Much of Quaker history has addressed the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. See Frost, Quaker Family; Levy, Quakers and the American Family; Marietta, Reformation; Soderlund, Quakers and Slavery; Smolenski, Friends and Strangers. This pattern continues with recent work by Murphy, Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration; Gerbner, Christian Slavery; Tarter and Gill, New Critical Studies. 32.  Holton, “John Bright,” 598; Plank, “Quaker Reform,” 179; Plank, “Quakers as Political Players,” 42. On Quaker reform efforts, see Jordan, Slavery and the Meetinghouse; Carey, From Peace to Freedom; Carey and Plank, Quakers and Abolition; Holcomb, Moral Commerce. 33. Crabtree, Holy Nation, 4–7; Crothers, Quakers Living in the Lion’s Mouth, 4. On Quaker outmigration, see Hinshaw, “Southern Friends.” 34.  “Handbook Relative to our Religious Society,” George Dillwyn, EWSC, Box 4, QC. 35.  Untitled booklet, George Dillwyn, EWSC, Box 4, QC. Chapter 1 1.  1, 4, 5, 7, and 9 4mo., 1781, Hannah Bringhurst Diary, BFD, 1777–1811, HSP. 2. Comly, Journal, 126; Clarkson, Portraiture, 1:xxviii-­xxix. 3. Clarkson, Portraiture, 1:312; 20 4mo., 1835, Diary of Mary Dent, EDA; and 9 1mo., 1792, James Bringhurst to Nathaniel Briggs, JBL, FHL. 4.  “Continual work” quote in in 1 11mo., 1809, JIC, CWP, Box 2, FHL; 26 4mo., 1781, “Notes on Religion,” AEP, HSP. 5.  Dillwyn, “Relative to Our Religious Society,” n.d., EWSC, Box 4, QC. Judge, Memoirs, 157; 2 12mo., 1847, Ann Cooper Tatum to Sarah Cooper Tatum, SCTHFP, Box 5, QC.

6.  4 1mo., 1850, 31 12mo., 1857, 21 2mo., 1858, and 1 4mo., 1858, Diary of Mary Stokes, SECFP, QC; “still, small voice,” in [no day] 3mo., 1778, “The Covenant,” SLFD, vol. 12, HSP; other phrases in Comly, Journal, 143, 203, 261. 7.  On metaphysics, see Albanese, Republic, 75–77; on heart religion, see Campbell, Religion of the Heart, 61, 63. 8.  The phrase “feast of reason, and the flow of soul” was borrowed from ­Alexander Pope, 27 5mo., 1790, SLFD, vol. 19, HSP. 9.  22 4mo., 1781, Hannah Bringhurst Diary, HSP; Comly, Journal, 564; Beaven, Essay, iv. Faith and reason were not mutually exclusive. See Sorkin, Religious Enlightenment; Bulman and Ingram, God in the Enlightenment. 10. Comly, Journal, 79; 5 8mo., 1818, Mary Ann Lloyd Notebook, Lloyd Family Notebooks; 9 9mo., 19 9mo., and 7 7mo., 1814, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP, QC. 11. Judge, Memoirs, 189; 11 3mo., 1799 George Churchman to John Smith, GMHC, Box 4, QC; quote from William Law, 20 9mo., 1813, JJH, FHL. 12. Ratcliff, Memoranda, 127. Rachel Hunt wrote a poem entitled “The Mind, How Incomprehensible!” in Hunt, Autumnal Fruits, 130. 13.  9 3mo., 1786, “Notes on Religion,” AEP, HSP; 21 8mo., 1842, Edith Kite to Lydia Kite, KFP, QC; and 4 9mo., 1835, Diary of Mary Dent, EDA. 14. Cudworth, Treatise, 48. On reason, see Barbour and Frost, Quakers, 98–99; Woolman, Journal, 3. 15.  Samuel Fothergill’s sermon and Matthews’s book in Commonplace Book of Elijah Brown Sr., 1794, vol. 3, 30, 105, Brown Family Papers, HSP; Comly, Journal, 138. 16.  Entries on the mind from Oxford English Dictionary, http://‌www‌.oed‌.com; Dodsley, Economy, 92. See Corneau, Regimens, 2, 12, on “good ordering of the mind.” The Bible contains several references to the mind, such as “Stir up your

pure mind” (2 Pet. 3:1) and “fully persuaded in his own mind” (Rom. 14:5). 17. Murray, Power of Religion, ix. 18. Forster, John Locke’s Politics, 87; Allestree, Whole Duty of Man, 108, 154, 343, 402. Allestree’s “high church” Anglican book went through fifty editions. 19. Locke, Conduct of the Understanding, section 4, 29. 20.  1788, Isaac Comly, JIC, CWP, Box 2, FHL; 30 7mo., 1799, Jonathan Letchworth to Elizabeth Letchworth, EDA; 15 1mo., 1813, Mary Drinker Cope to William Cope, CEFP, QC. 21.  28 9mo., 1784, SLFD, vol. 13, HSP; 21 8mo., 1837, Rebecca Hornor Coates Diary, 1830–1850, Families of Philadelphia Papers, Box 10, QC; 4 12 mo., 1800, James Bringhurst to Levi Arnold’s children, JBL, FHL. 22. Townsend, Memoir, 4–5; Martin, Journal, 4; Comly, Journal, 3–4. 23.  29 7mo., 1792, James Allinson to David Cooper, [no day] 10mo., 1804, ­Martha Allinson to James Allinson, AFP, Box 2, QC. 24. Penn, Fruits, 15; Edward Foulk, “Christian Advice from a Father to his Children,” S. H. Shearman Collection of Quakeriana, HSP and 29 10mo., 1807, Caleb Swayne to children, Swayne Family Papers, Box 3, FHL. 25. Judge, Memoirs, 122; Bishpam, “Instructions to Her Daughters,” 337; Lippincott, Life and Letters, 119. 26.  6 12mo., 1807, Mary Sharpless to Gulielma M. Smith, GMHC, Box 10, and undated letter, Martha Allinson to William Allinson, AFP, Box 2, QC; 4 6mo., 1836, Mary Brown to T. Wistar Brown, 4 6mo., 1838, Mary Brown to T. Wistar Brown, Box 1, Moses Brown Papers, QC. 27.  This Sarah Logan Fisher (1806– 1891) was the daughter of William Logan Fisher (1781–1862) and Mary Rodman (1781–1813) and granddaughter of Thomas and Sarah Logan Fisher. 29 11mo., 1818 and 18 5mo., 1819, Elizabeth Rodman to Sarah

Notes to Pages 19–25

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Logan Fisher, Sarah Logan Fisher Wister Letterbook, 1790–1841, vol. 21, Belfield Family Papers, Box 4, HSP. 28.  23 5mo., 1835, Mary Kite to Anna Walton, SFP, QC. 29.  8mo., 1790, JJH, FHL; Darby cited in 31 5mo., 1795, SLFD, vol. 24, HSP; 24 5mo., 1789, diary fragment, Mary Potts Papers, Families of Philadelphia Papers, Box 3, QC. 30.  5 4mo., 1838, RSCP, QC. Quakers used the word “elder” in a formal and informal sense. As a church officer, an elder offered oversight and encouragement to members. An elder could also be a “weighty” Friend who was young but known for their piety and leadership. 31.  Fothergill sermon reprinted in Commonplace Book of Elijah Brown Jr., HSP. 22 10mo., 1796, Diary of Joseph ­Scattergood, QC; 26 5mo., 1795, SLFD, vol. 24, HSP; 17 1mo., 1789, Diary of ­Martha Cooper Allinson, AFP, QC. 32.  Too much attention to “outward” appearance could take away from “inward” contemplation. Kraak, “Variations on ‘Plainness,’ ” 56; Caton, “Aesthetics of Absence,” 247, n353. 33.  4 12mo., 1800, James Bringhurst to the Arnold children, JBL, FHL; “Narrative of Life and Religious Exercises of John Hamton, Late of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Together with Diaries, Soliloquies, Essays and Letters by Himself,” Friends’ Miscellany 1, no. 1 (4mo., 1831): 210. 34.  Undated, JIC, CWP, Box 2, FHL; Comly, Journal, 20; 12 10mo., 1828, unnamed sister to Hannah Warrington, Evans Family Papers, Box 2, QC. 35.  “The Life, Travels and Religious Exercises of Hannah Yarnall, widow of Peter Yarnall, late of Byberry, Philadelphia Co., Pennsylvania,” Friends Miscellany 9, no. 3 (10mo., 1836): 207; “5th of 12 month, 1795, Journal of Joshua Evans” reprinted in Friends Miscellany 10 (1837): 107. 36.  S. Hunt, Journal, 3; 2 8mo., 1818, Memorandum of Mary Ann Lloyd, Lloyd

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Notes to Pages 25–32

Family Notebooks, QC; 2 1mo., 1809, JIC, CWP, Box 2, FHL. 37.  R. Hicks, Memoir, 17; Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 284. 38.  7 12mo., 1828, John Letchworth Kite to James Kite, KFP, QC; Michener, Autobiographical Notes, 13–14. By the 1820s, Quaker dress had become distinctive from that of nonbelievers. Kraak, “Variations,” 57; “On Consistency,” FWI 3, no. 35 (2 11mo., 1846): 276–77. 39.  On Quaker dress and reform, see Holcomb, Moral Commerce, 32–33. The use of plain dress did not guarantee improved conduct. See 29 3mo., 1831, Rebecca Hornor Coates Diary, Families of Philadelphia Papers, Box 10, QC. 40.  Reference to Jemima Hicks in 15 5mo., 1831, Rebecca Turner to Joseph Turner Jr., Turner Family Papers, box 2, FHL; poem in Exercise Book of Sarah Cooper Tatum, 1844, SCTHFP, Box 9, QC. “The politics of dress” from Reiniger, “Moral Fibre,” 321. 41.  John Fothergill Sermon, Leeds, 1760 reprinted in The Friend 1, no. 31 (4mo., 1828): 223; Bauman, Let Your Words, 142; 26 4mo., 1781, “Notes on Religion,” AEP, HSP. 42.  23 8mo., 1792, SLFD, vol. 20, HSP; Comly, Journal, 79; 24 5mo., 1796, Stephen Grellet Diary, Stephen Grellet Papers, QC; Martin, Journal, 153. 43. Brayton, Short Account, 10; 6 6mo., 1781, 5 7mo., 1781, Hannah Bringhurst Diary, HSP; 4 12mo., 1800, James Bringhurst to Benjamin Gilbert, JBL, FHL. 44. Hamm, Transformation, 7; Barclay, Truth Triumphant, 560. On the power of silence among early Friends, see Bauman, Let Your Words; poem from Commonplace Book of Sarah Lloyd, 1826, LBFP, QC. 45.  20 7mo., 1796, Stephen Grellet Diary, Stephen Grellet Papers; 11 2mo., 1830, “Memoir of Ann Cooper Tatum by Joseph Tatum, 1834,” QC; Judge, Memoirs, 165. 46.  Thomas Lightfoot, “Brief Memoir of the Life of Susanna Lightfoot,” Friends’

Miscellany 9, no. 29 (9mo., 1836): 54, 59; 11mo., 1842, Mary Kite to Susanna Sharpless, SFP, QC. 47.  John Simpson in 6 3mo., 1788, Samuel Canby Diary, DHS; 16 4mo., 1789, James Bringhurst to Job Scott and 5 7mo., 1801, James Bringhurst to Lydia Arnold, JBL, FHL. 48. Kersey, Narrative, 26–27; Comly, Journal, 77. 49. Clarkson, Portraiture, 1:339–40; Penn, Fruits, 25. 50.  1 4mo., 12 4mo., 5 5mo., 1781, Hannah Bringhurst Diary, HSP; 10 12mo., 1795, Sarah Scattergood to Thomas Scattergood, Thomas Scattergood Papers, vol. 5, QC; Woolman quote, October 2, 1815, JJH, FHL. 51. Comly, Journal, 74; 29 11mo., 1818, Elizabeth Rodman to Sarah Logan Fisher, Belfield Family Papers, vol. 21, HSP. 52.  10 7mo., 1790, 16 and 19 3mo., 1791, 4 4mo., 1819, and 16 6mo., 1822, JJH, FHL; Brayton, Short Account, 10–11. 53.  19 3mo., 1791, JJH, FHL; Joseph Brinton Diary, 1850, 28, JBFP, 1828–1917, FHL; 4 8mo., 1800, Joseph Scattergood Diary, QC. 54.  Ridgeway in 25 12mo., 1791, James Bringhurst to Margaret Robinson, JBL, FHL; Jones in 1 2mo., 1795, SLFD, vol. 24, HSP. 55. Bauman, Let Your Words, 127; Judge, Memoirs, 309; Bishpam, “Instructions to Her Daughters,” 339. 56.  Barbour and Frost, Quakers, 108– 10; 26 5mo., 1795, SLFD, vol. 24, HSP. 57.  4 4mo., and 3 5mo., 1781, Hannah Bringhurst Diary, HSP; 2 1mo., 1851, Mary Stokes Diary, SECFP, and 21, 5mo., 1816, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP, QC. 58.  12 2mo., 29 1mo., and 22 10mo., 1798, Joseph Scattergood Diary, and 12 2mo., 1815, Robert Pittsfield to Margaret H. Smith, GMHC, 24, QC. 59.  22 10mo., 1798, Joseph Scattergood Diary, QC; and 26 10mo., 1800 and 26 5mo., 1803, JIC, CWP, Box 2, FHL.

60. Lippincott, Life and Letters, 43; Judge, Memoirs, 135; 1st day 10mo., 1830, “Memoir of Ann Cooper Tatum” by Joseph Tatum, 1834, SCTHFP, Box 9, QC. 61.  14 9mo., 1819, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP; 12 2mo., 1815, Robert Pittsfield to Margaret H. Smith, GMHC, QC. 62.  25 11mo., 1798 and 25 2mo., 1815, Joseph Scattergood Diary, QC; 14 6mo., 1818, Mariabella Eliot Howard to Susanna Emlen, GMHC, Box 6, QC; 24 2mo., 1801, JIC, CWP, Box 2, FHL. 63.  23 6mo., 1832, Fragment, RSCP, and 31 12mo., 1815, Joseph Scattergood Diary, QC. Elders recommended holding family worship in the parlor and the kitchen so that servants would benefit. 30 9mo., 1790, and 1 2mo., 1795, SLFD, vol. 19 and 24, HSP. 64.  21 6mo., 1806, Martha Allinson to James and Bernice Allinson, AFP, Box 2; 17 3mo., 1826, Sybil Allinson to Margaret ­Hilles, GMHC, Box 4, and 15 1mo. 1781, Rebecca Jones to Sally Dillwyn, EWSC, Box 4, QC. 65.  [no day] 2mo., 1830, Edith Jefferis to Joshua Jefferis, CCHC; 28 12mo., 1836, 20 2mo., 1843, and 3 12mo., 1848, Mary Kite to Joseph Walton; 8 11mo., 1846, Mary Kite to James Kite, KFP, QC. Chapter 2 1.  “The Domestic or Home Peace ­Society,” Thomas Wistar Papers, QC. 2.  James Mott, Observations, 10–11, 15–16. Quote by Hemphill, Bowing to Necessities, 102. 3. Ely, Child’s Instructor, v; F. Smith, Letter; 7; Reinier, From Virtue to Character, 27–28. On American childhood, see Frost, Quaker Family; Greven, Protestant Temperament; Steedman, Strange Dislocations; and Illick, American Childhoods. 4. Clavert, Children in the House, 59; Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 45; Ely, Child’s Instructor, v; O’Malley, Making of the Modern Child, 11, 86–87.

Notes to Pages 32–43

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5. Levy, Quakers, 78, 130; Frost, “ ‘As the Twig Is Bent,’ ” 76–78; Martin, Journal, 13; Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 168. 6.  Marietta, “Quaker Family,” 3; Comly, Journal, 129; Grubb, Some Remarks, 282–83. 7.  “Well mannered” Quaker children showed respect to elders but did not address adults by titles. 8.  20 10mo., 1833, Children’s Diary, vol. 1, Thomas Wistar Brown Papers, ca. 1701–1917, QC. 9.  Frost, “ ‘As the Twig Is Bent,’ ” 78; 1 11mo., 1833, 31 10mo., 1833, 20 and 28 11mo., 1833, Children’s Diary, vol. 1, Thomas Wistar Brown Papers, QC. 10.  29 11 mo., 1833, 24 11mo., 1833, 22 10mo., 1833, 26 10mo., 1833, Children’s Diary, vol. 1, Thomas Wistar Brown Papers, QC. 11.  On Quaker spiritual practice, see PYM, Confession of Faith. 12.  3 11mo., 17 11mo., and 27 10mo., 1833, Children’s Diary, vol. 1, Thomas Wistar Brown Papers, QC. 13. Penn, Letter . . . to Wife and Children, 6, 7; Penn, Fruits, II, 17; London Yearly Meeting quotes from Homan, Children and Quakerism, 47. 14.  London Yearly Meeting, An Epistle of Caution and Advice to Parents, 7; Jones, Later Periods, 2:669. On early Pennsylvania schools, see Straub, “Quaker School Life,” 447–58; Woody, “Early Quaker Education,” 58–59; 107. 15.  Account of William Brown, 1783, Survey of Scholars, 1786 List of Schools, and Advice to Scholars, 11 2mo., 1796, ­William Penn Charter School Papers, Box 14. Allinson, Memorials of Rebecca Jones, 26. 16.  On the Ackworth School, see Grubb, Some Account, 262, 278; Jones, Later Periods, vol. 2, 681–82; Dewees and Dewees, Centennial History, 177, 67. 17.  By the 1840s, Westtown girls studied mathematics, grammar, geography, Scripture, and history, natural philosophy, physiology, chemistry, and botany. Rachel

210

Notes to Pages 44–52

Hoopes’s Register of Recitations, 15 12mon., 1847, to 10 1mo., 1848, WSP, and “Map of West-­Town School Farms,” 1812, CCHC; Dewees and Dewees, Centennial History, 63. 18.  30 12mo., 1817, “A Plan of Constitutional Rules for the General Government of the Institution of West Town,” Fairhill Boarding School, Sandy Spring, Maryland, Papers, Evans Correspondence, 1799–1801, SC, Box 1, FHL. On girls’ education, see Jensen, “ ‘Not Only Ours,’ ” 3–19. 19.  10 5mo., 1825, Martha Biddle to her parents, Biddle Family Papers, Box 4, FHL; “Rules and Regulations for the Government of Friends Boarding School at Westtown, 1799,” EDA. 20.  “Rules and Regulations for the Government of Friends Boarding School at Westtown, 1799,” Information for Parents and Others Inclining to Send Children to Friends’ Boarding School in West-­town, 4–5, EDA; Dewees and Dewees, Centennial ­History, 70. 21.  11 10mo., 1801, “Westonian Rabbie’s Reports, alias Black List,” EDA. In 1831, one teacher of each sex was charged with disciplining students. Dewees and Dewees, Centennial History, 104; 61–62. 22.  17 1mo., and 9 3mo., 1802, Rabbie’s Reports, EDA; Rules for Teachers, &c, 5; 16 9mo., 1823, Thomas Megear to Mary Dickinson Bringhurst, SBHFP, Box 7, SCUDL. One alumnus remembered whipping as a common punishment for boys in the 1810s. Recollections of John Jay Smith, 59. Some boys were flogged for celebrating the Fourth of July in 1848. Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 567. On discipline, Price, Memoir of Philip and Rachel Price, 164–65. 23.  7, 4, 21, and 28, 10mo., and 3, 11mo., 1832, Susan Forsythe Diary, Box 7, EDA. 24.  7 11mo., 1835, Mary Dent Diary, and 23 8mo., 1799, Rebecca Budd Diary, EDA. 25.  21 7mo., 1847, Sarah R. Conard to Sarah Passmore, WSP, CHSS; 11 3mo., 1820, Elizabeth Vezey to Zillah Embree, Zillah Embree Collection, EDA; [no day]

3mo., 1849, Mary Sheppard to Ann Sheppard, WSP, CHSS; and 30 12mo., 1840, George W. P. Coates to his parents, CCHC. 26.  Reference to Scattergood in 24 7mo., 1799, and 12 4mo., 1801, Rebecca Budd Diary; Osborne, Evans, and Hicks in 9 5mo., 1811, 7 11mo., 1811, and 26 7mo., 1813, Josiah Albertson’s Book; 20 2mo., 1818, John Cresson to Rebecca Cresson, Cresson Family Letters, EDA. 27.  Undated (probably 1824), Joshua Jefferis to Martha Jefferis, WSP; 8 4mo., 1829, Rest Cope to Caleb and Philena Rest and 28 5mo., 1834, Mary Rhoads to Hannah Rhoads, Mary Rhoads Haines Family Papers, Box 5, CCHC. Thomas Kite sent a “letter of advice” to Thomas Jr., during his first year at Westtown. Kite, Memoirs and Letters, 168. 28.  21 5mo., and 22 6mo., 1799, Hannah Evans to William Evans, Evans Correspondence, SC, Box 1; July 31, 1805, Thomas Pym Cope and Mary Drinker Cope to Henry and Francis Cope, Cope Family Papers, and 18 7mo., 1804, poem to her sons, Mary Drinker Cope File, CEFP, Box 7, QC; 28 3mo., 1819, Halliday Jackson to Mary Jackson, Ash-­Schofield Papers, Box 1, FHL. 29.  4 1mo., 1823, Susanna Kite to Thomas Kite, EDA; 22 6mo., 1801, Hannah Evans to William Evans; 19 2mo., 1800, Jonathan Evans to William and Joseph Evans and 21 9mo., 1800, Jonathan Evans to William Evans, Evans Correspondence, SC, Box 1, QC. 30.  8 and 14 4mo., and 23 6mo., 1834, Martha Jefferis to Joshua Jefferis, CCHC; 17 9mo., 1826, Benjamin Ferris to Deborah Ferris, WSP, CCHC. 31.  28 9mo., 1801, Rebecca Budd Diary, EDA; 9 9mo., 1840, Martha Sharpless to Thomas Kite, WSP, CCHC. 32.  Rules and Regulations for the ­Government of Friends Boarding School at Westtown, 1799, EDA; Emlen in Dewees and Dewees, Centennial History, 117; 15 1mo., 1835, Martha Jefferis to Joshua

Jefferis, CCHC; 20 4mo., 1801, Comly, Journal, 96; 28 9mo., 1801, Rebecca Budd Diary, EDA; 17 5mo., 1850, Journal of William L. Bailey, EDA. 33.  Book of Hannah Colman, Weston, 15 12mo., 1807, EDA; Mary Gibbons, “A Book of Letters for the Use of Learners,” 1813, WSP, CCHC; Copybook of Elizabeth Hall, 1809, Amos Bacon Papers, SC, Box 1, FHL; Dillwyn, Occasional Reflections, 3–28; Copybook of Elizabeth Haines, 1842, and Copybook of Elizabeth Hall, 1809, Amos Bacon Papers, SC, Box 1, FHL. 34.  On writing instruction, see Monaghan, Learning to Read and Write, 274. 35.  9 7mo., 1822, and 14 1mo., 1823, Susanna Kite to Thomas Kite, EDA; 30 8mo., 1799, William Evans to Jonathan and Hannah Evans, Evans Correspondence, SC, Box 1, FHL; 28 11mo., 1841, Elizabeth French Haines to Stoke Haines, Elizabeth F. Haines Papers, SC, Box 11, FHL; 20 12mo., 1799, Henry Allinson to Martha Allinson, reprinted in Dewees and Dewees, Centennial History, 77. 36.  16 6mo., 1829, Rest Cope to Caleb Cope, CCHC; 15 1mo., 1813, Mary Cope Drinker to William Cope, CEFP, QC; 20 4mo., 1835, Mary Dent Diary, EDA. 37.  28 9mo., 1801, Rebecca Budd Diary, EDA; Ingle, Quakers in Conflict, 73, 133. Henry Tuke penned the influential tomes Faith of the People Called Quakers in 1801 and Principles of Religion in 1805. See Jones, Later Periods, 1:287. Scott’s Salvation by Christ, which had been suppressed by evangelical forces within the PYM, was finally published by the Hicksites in the 1820s. 38. Ingle, Quakers in Conflict, 17–18, 111, and Hamm, Transformation, 16–19. 39.  Epistle from the Yearly Meeting of Friends . . . 1827, 7–8 (Orthodox), QC; Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends (Hicksite), Extracts from the Minutes . . . 1830, 6. One critic claimed the schism had been caused by the lack of “suitable education.” The Cabinet, 18.

Notes to Pages 52–58

211

40.  “An Epistle from the Yearly Meeting held in Philadelphia and a Report on Education, from our Yearly Meeting held in Philadelphia, by adjournments, from the 18th of the 4th Month to the 23rd of the same, 1831,” 1, 3, 5–7, QC. 41.  Data from A Brief History of ­Westtown, 376; student letters reprinted in Hole, Westtown Through the Years, 148–51. 42.  Insurrection described in 20 1mo., 1827, Stephen Gould to Thomas Thompson, QC. Mary Hoopes’s version of Dillwyn’s map housed at QC; 6 11mo., 1844, Mercy Wilson to Joel Wilson, Mercy ­Wilson’s Letter Collection, EDA; 23 6mo., 1841, Joseph G. Harlan to Franklin Commons, WSP, CCHC. Students read Barclay’s Catechism, Bevan’s Brief View of the Doctrines, and Murray’s Compendium of Religious Faith. 43.  The first mention of these issues in the postrevolutionary era appeared in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Orthodox), Rules of Discipline (1797). 44.  “Cloathed with affection” taken from “Some Account of the last illness of our dear friend Mary Bonsall who departed this life 24 of 7 mo. 1814,” Pike Family Memorials, Small Manuscripts, Box 32, QC. Chapter 3 1.  Thomas Lightfoot, “A Brief Memoir of the Life of Susanna Lightfoot,” Friends’ Miscellany 9, no. 29 (9mo., 1836): 57–59; 61–62; 64–65; 67; 68; 69; 71; 74–75. David Cooper condemned the “pomp and shew” of contemporary burials. 30 4mo., 1788, “Dear Children,” David Cooper, SC, FHL. 2.  “Some Account of the last illness of our dear friend Mary Bonsall who departed this life 24 of 7 mo. 1814,” Pike Family Memorials, Small Manuscripts, Box 32, QC. 3. Frost, Quaker Family, 69. 4.  Morris Smith discussed the New Testament, Cowper’s poetry, and Pilgrim’s Progress with his wife and sisters. See

212

Notes to Pages 59–67

“Account of the Last Sickness and Death of Morris Smith,” 1832, GMHC, Box 12, QC. 5.  The phrase “deathways” is borrowed from Erik Seeman, who defines it as “deathbed scenes, corpse preparation, burial customs, funerals, mourning and commemoration.” See Seeman, Death in the New World, 1. Ariès’s classical study has spawned work by several scholars to show the evolution of death from medieval Catholicism to seventeenth-­century Protestantism. See Cressy, Birth, Death and Marriage, Houlbrooke, Death, Ritual and Bereavement, Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead, and Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual. 6.  “Falling asleep” as a euphemism for death can be traced back to the ancient world. See Ariès, Hour of Our Death, 23. 7.  On the “Puritan way of death,” see Stannard, Puritan Way of Death; James Farrell, Inventing the American Way of Death; Bullock and McIntyre, “Handsome Token of a Funeral.” 8.  Schneider, “Ritual of Happy Dying,” 351–52; Sparks, “Southern Way of Death,” 43; Stephan, Redeeming the Family, 192–94. 9.  English Quaker women played a significant part in maintaining family archives. See Holton, Quaker Women, 2. Some Quaker sermons were published, see Graves, Preaching the Inward Light. 10.  Bell, “ ‘Our People Die Well,’ ” 211; 222. 11. Fordyce, Discourse on Pain, 13; ­Dillwyn, Occasional Reflections, 9; 4 2mo., 1839, Sidney Allen Diary, Allen Family Papers, FHL. 12.  See Seeman’s Death in the New World for a discussion of the continuities between Protestant and Catholic deathways, 39–41. Beaty, Craft of Dying, 110–11; 118; on Becon, see Lepore, Mansion of Happiness, 110–11. See also Wunderli and Broce, “Final Moment.” 13. Taylor, Rule and Exercises, 47–49; 138; 313–14.

14.  Extreme grieving by Puritans could invite temptation from the devil and entry into witchcraft. See Winiarski, “Lydia Prout’s Dreadfullest Thought,” 385; 390–92. 15.  For more on the history of pain, see Scarry, Body in Pain; Bourke, Story of Pain; Glucklich, Sacred Pain. 16. Moscoso, Pain, 12–13; “Some Account of the last illness of our dear friend Mary Bonsall who departed this life 24 of 7 mo., 1814,” Pike Memorials, Small Manuscripts, Box 32; 2 12mo., 1833, Jane Temple Bettle Diary and Obituary of Jane Temple Bettle, BFP, QC. 17. Redman, Memorials, 22–23; “A ­Testimony concerning Ruth Walmsley late of Byberry in the county of Philadelphia, deceased,” Commonplace Book of Tamar Roberts Matlack, Matlack Family Papers, QC; 12 7mo., 1826 and 26 3mo., 1838, Thomas Evans to Bartholomew ­Wistar, Thomas Evans Letters, SECFP, Box 1, QC. 18.  18 10mo., 1793, 12 10mo., 1794, 1 4mo., 1795, 1 7mo., 1796, and 22 8mo., 1797, Deborah Morris Smith Collins Diary, EWSC, QC. On infant death, see McMahon, “ ‘So Truly Distressing,’ ” and Lindman, “ ‘To Have a Gradual Weaning.’ ” 19.  1 of 1mo., 1801 and 22 1mo., 1802, James Bringhurst to John Dickinson, JBL, FHL; 19 2mo., 1830, Edmund Canby Diary, DHS; Jonathan Dilworth’s funeral in 31 1mo., 1791, Cresson, Diary, 12; ­Dillwyn, Occasional Reflections, 19. 20.  17 5mo., and 9 7mo., 1786, Martha Allinson Diary, AFP, QC; Memoir of Our Deceased Friend, Lydia Fussell, 9; “Testimony and poem on the death of Jonathan Jones first wife, Mary Powell Potts Jones, 1787,” Morris-­Shin-­Maier Collection, 1720–1975, Box 7, QC. 21.  “Some Account of the last illness of our dear friend Mary Bonsall who departed this life 24 7mo., 1814,” Pike Memorials, Small Manuscripts, Box 32, QC; 4 9mo., 1844, Mary Kite to Edith Kite, SFP; 19 7mo., 1832, Margaret Morton to Hannah

Hunard, Hannah Hunard Family Papers, FHL. 22.  14 11mo., 1840, Mary Kite to Susanna Sharpless, SFP, QC; 3 11mo., 1833, Commonplace Book of Mary Kite; 9 mo., 1833 and 31 12mo., 1837, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP; and 4 9mo., 1844, Mary Kite to Edith Kite, SFP, QC; 21 10mo., 1781, SLFD, vol. 10, HSP. 23.  [no day] October 1789, JJH, FHL; 4, 5, 6, 8mo., 1796, 12 9mo., and 13 10mo., 1796, Joseph Scattergood Diary, QC. 24.  “Left as a legacy to her friends and relations by Elizabeth Almy of Portsmouth, on Rhode Island, Who departed this life 3rd mo. 1811, Aged 41 years,” 118–20, BFD, HSP; Memoir of Philip and Rachel Lewis, 146; 150; “Account of the Last Illness & Death of Morris Smith,” 1832, GMHC, Box 12, QC. Puritans alleged that the final words spoken by the dying had “quasi-­ magical powers.” Seeman, “She Died like Old Jacob,” 296. 25.  3 8mo., 1835, Ann P. Jackson Family Papers, FHL; Scattergood in 25 9mo., 1836, Mary Kite to Susanna Kite Sharpless, SFP, QC; 12 1mo., 1831, Edmund Canby Diary, DHS; 9 mo., 1789, JJH, FHL. 26. Judge, Memoirs, 100–101; 17 4mo., 1834, Martha Jefferis to Joshua Jefferis, CCHC; and 2 6mo., 1791, Correspondence of Martha Allinson, AFP, QC. 27.  L. Mott, Pensive Collection; 28; 29–30 1mo., 1829, Edmund Canby Diary, DHS; 31 3mo., 1839, Sidney Allen Diary, Allen Family Papers, FHL. 28.  “Account of Mary Brown Jr. death,” 4, 5, 11, 14–16, 19–21, and 34–35, Box 2, Moses Brown Papers P, QC. Jane Haines wrote an account of her eleven-­year-­old daughter’s death in 1824. “Jane Bowne Haine’s Report of Sarah’s life and death,” Wyck Association Collection, APS. 29.  Memorials of Deborah Evans, 12–13; 21 3mo., 1831, Edmund Canby Diary, DHS; Allinson, Memorials of Rebecca Jones, 355–56; 18 9mo., 1848, Mary Kite to James Kite, SFP, QC.

Notes to Pages 67–74

213

30.  4, 5, and 6 8mo., 1796, Joseph Scattergood Diary, QC; 6 10mo., 1825, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP, 4 6mo., 1855, Letters of Rebecca White to Rebecca ­Collins, Josiah White Papers, Box XI. 31.  “Memorial of Last Illness and Death of Rebekah Sharpless,” Friends’ Miscellany 7, no. 4 (4mo., 1839): 233; Deborah Morris Notebook, Box 2, Morris-­Shin-­Maier Collection, QC; Atkinson and Evans in 29 7mo., 1788, JJH, FHL. 32.  “Account of death of Rebecca Allinson,” AFP, Box 2, QC. 33.  Scattergood in 25 9mo., 1836, Mary Kite to Susanna Kite Sharpless and Payne in 2mo., 1834, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP; “Some Account of the Last Illness and Death of Eleanor Bailey,” Morris Family Papers, Box 1; Hannah Evans’s funeral in 2 2mo., 1828, Rebecca Singer Collins Diary, and “A Small Tribute to the Memory of Frances Phipps,” 1835, Sheppard Family Papers, Box 1, QC. 34.  “Account of the Last Illness & Death of Morris Smith,” 1832, GMHC, Box 12, QC. 35.  “A brief Sketch of the last hours of Henry H. Collins, who departed this life in the 20th of 7th mo. 1840 in the 23rd year of his age,” 8–10, 17; 19; 23–24; RSCP, QC. 36. Lippincott, Life and Letters, 231–33. 37.  26 9mo., 1791, JJH, FHL. 38.  On a literary version of this phenomenon, see Walmsley, “Whigs in Heaven.” 39.  1795, Correspondence of Martha Allinson, AFP, QC; Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 250; 30 12mo., 1828, Hannah Warrington to unknown, Copybook of Hannah Warrington, Evans Family Papers, Box 2; 4 2mo., 1799, Hannah Griffitts to Margaret Morris, GMHC, Box 3, and 21 1mo., 1841, Mary Kite to Susanna Sharpless, SKFP, QC. 40.  1 9mo., 1832, Elizabeth Rodman to Sarah Logan Fisher, Sarah Logan Fisher Wister Letterbook, vol. 21, Belfield Family

214

Notes to Pages 75–82

Papers, Box 4, HSP; Hannah Hunard to unknown, 27 12mo., 1827, FHL; 2 12mo., 1847, Journal of William L. Bailey, EDA. 41.  1 1mo., 1800, Joseph Scattergood Diary, QC; John Hunt’s experience at the burial of Esther Stokes, [no day] 7mo., 1798, JJH; 24 7mo., 1803, Fanny Canby to Ann Biddle, Deborah Bringhurst Papers, SBHFP, Box 5, SCUDL; 21 10mo., 1780 and 6 2mo., 1795, SLFD, vol. 24, HSP. 42. Clarkson, Portraiture, 2:19, 26. One Quaker believed plain burials were decreed by God: “the strict simplicity is more befitting the solemn occasion.” Account of the Final Days of Christopher Healy, 1851, FHL. 43.  O’Donnell, “This Side,” 51; Bomberg and Shephard, “Quaker Burying Ground,” 76–77. Ohio Friends fought over the use of grave markers in the 1830s. Taber, Eye of Faith, 47. A Quaker publication declared that contemporary ostentation was “the very mockery of sorrow.” The Friend 2, no. 17 (24 4mo., 1830): 152. In 1859, the PYM disclaimed the use of expensive coffins and elaborate carriages at burials. PYM (Orthodox), Christian Advices (1859), 15. 44.  8 9mo., 1827, Henry Cope to John Sheppard, Cope Family Papers, Box 2, and April 6, 1840, Alfred Cope to William Cope, CEFP, 132–911, QC; 18; 24 9mo., 1827, William Wharton to William Poole, Burr Manuscripts, FHL, and Benjamin Ferris, “Primitive Quakerism Illustrated, c. 1842,” Separation Papers, FFP Box 12, FHL. Orthodox Mary Kite attended Hicksite funerals despite the usual “cant” of their long speeches. 14 10mo., 1849, Mary Kite to Anna Walton, SFP, QC. 45.  10mo., 1791, JJH, FHL; Deborah Norris Logan Diary, Logan Family Papers, HSP; 23 10mo., 1842, Mary Kite to Susanna Sharpless, SKFP, QC. 46.  Memoir of Ann Cooper Tatum, 1834, SCTHFP, QC and 18 8mo., 1803, James Bringhurst to John Dickinson, JBL, FHL.

Chapter 4 1.  Fanny Ferris began this letter in July of 1827 but did not send it until October of 1828. [no day] 7mo., 1827, Fanny Ferris to Anne ?, FFP, Box 6, FHL. 2.  Reference to New York Friends in Shillitoe, Journal, 313. On trauma induced by the schism, see Hamm, Transformation, 18. The quote “divided in doctrine and practice” is from 12 10mo., 1827, Moses Brown to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, Box 1, QC. Friends continued to debate Hickism into the 1830s. 8 7mo., 1834, Russell Frost to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, Box 1, QC. 3.  Orthodox Friends disowned the children of Hicksites when they came of age. Hannah Bullock was disowned by the Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in 1828; in 1837, her daughter Anne was disowned by the same body, see 12 5mo., 1828, “Disownment of Hannah Bullock,” 14 8mo., 1837, “Disownment of Anne Bullock,” Foulke Family Papers, Box 1, FHL. 4.  The term “ultraevangelicalism” is borrowed from Dandelion, Introduction, 92–95. 5. Ingle, Quakers in Conflict; Doherty, Hicksite Separation. Between 1830 and 1860, most Orthodox Friends had embraced American evangelical culture. Hamm, Transformation, 20; Barbour and Frost, Quakers, 182. 6.  4 11mo., 1832, Jesse Kersey to Jonathan Evans, Jesse Kersey Papers, SC, Box 46, and “Extracts of Letter from Jesse Kersey to Joseph Churchman dated 7th mo., 14, 1828,” Documents Concerning the Hicksite Separation ca. 1827–1829, Joseph Wharton Family Papers, Box 3, FHL; Dandelion, Introduction, 81–82. 7.  Quaker scholars have written extensively about “the Great Separation.” Jones’s Later Periods describes the Hicksite schism as a Greek tragedy, one that led to “more rigid puritanic measures” against erring members by the excessive zeal of elders,

435. Doherty’s demographic study, Hicksite Separation, analyzes the social status of Friends to demonstrate the role that occupation, wealth, and residence played in this crisis. Ingle’s Quakers in Conflict, xii-­xiv, teases out the myriad tensions to assert that Hicksites embraced tradition, while Orthodox Friends broke with the past. Conversely, Crabtree, in Holy Nation, 206, contends that the schism “was fundamentally political in nature,” relating to a “changing definition of citizenship . . . and an increasing pressure to adopt to a nationalist identity.” Hamm argues that the Hicksite schism mirrored the divisions facing other Protestant denominations in the early republic. Hamm, Transformation, and Hamm, unpublished manuscript on Hicksites, chapter 2. (I want to thank Dr. Hamm for sharing his work with me.) 8. Hatch, Democratization, 35; Dorsey, “Friends Becoming Enemies,” 407, 411–12. 9. Hamm, Transformation, 17, 19. Hicksite Benjamin Ferris blamed the schism on the growing class differences among members in the early nineteenth century. “Benjamin Ferris’s Book, 1852: Historical Review of the Rise and Progress of the Separation of the Friends of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting up to the years 1827 Prepared by a Committee of the Meeting of Sufferings,” 7, FFP, FHL. Grundy found that 80 percent of Bucks County Middletown Friends who became Hicksites were well off and engaged in local improvements, such as the construction of turnpikes, canals, and railroads. Grundy, Evolution, 226. 10. Marietta, Reformation, 55–56; Mekeel, Quakers, 229, 333–34. 11.  Barnard’s heresy originated from “vain imaginations and carnal reasoning.” Hull, Memoir, 51; Ingle, Quakers in Conflict, 12–13. 12. Judge, Memoirs, 110; 132–33; 150; 178; 8 9mo., 1782, Warner Mifflin to unknown

Notes to Pages 86–89

215

friend, Cox-­Parrish-­Wharton Papers, Box 12, HSP. 13.  3 6mo., 1788, JJH FHL; W. Evans, Journal, 74–75; [no day] 3mo., 1813, Hinchman Haines to Ellis Cleaver, ECP, SC, Box 4, FHL; M. Smith, Letters, 26. 14.  27 12mo., 1827, Deborah Bringhurst to Hannah Hunard, Hannah Hunard Family Papers, FHL; May 1823 sermon by Priscilla Hunt, Jennings-­Clarke-­Eldridge Family Papers, FHL. 15.  E. Hicks, Journal, 372, 383. 16.  23 9mo., 1820, Elias Hicks to Phebe Willis, in Letters of Elias Hicks, 64–65; E. Hicks, Journal, 411–12; Dandelion, Introduction, 85; Ingle, Quakers in Conflict, 44. 17.  Thomas Pryor blamed Ezra Comfort “as the first instigator” to complain about Hicks when he spoke at the Southern Quarterly Meeting in Philadelphia. Journal of Thomas W. Pryor, vol. 2, 1817– 1828, 257; Jones, Later Periods, 1:456; Ingle, Quakers in Conflict, 114. Benjamin Ferris’s Book, 10–11, FFL, FHL; Kite, Memoirs and Letters, 137. Susan Foulke was “gratified” by an hourlong sermon Hicks delivered “with uncommon beauty and feeling on Peter’s dismissal of our Lord.” 21 11mo., 1817, Susan Foulke Diary, QC. 18.  Letters from committee of elders, Hicks’s response and the Southern Quarterly Meeting letter reprinted by unknown author in The Cabinet, 21–32; 14 12mo., 1822, Rebecca Bancroft to Margaret Wood, Bird-­Bancroft Collection, Box 3, DHS. 19.  30, 8mo., 1821, Isaac T. Hopper to Benjamin Ferris, FFP, Box 7, FHL. Hopper asked Ferris to burn this letter after reading it because of his “severe” comments. “Hole in the Wall, Or Weighty Anecdotes, with Cuts, by the Author, 1828,” 3, QC; M. Smith, Letters, 69. 20.  12 8mo., 12 8mo., 1826, Susan Foulke Diary, FHL; “confusion” quote and Bettle’s comments in [no day] 1mo., 1827, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP, QC; 4 2mo., 1827, Benjamin Ferris to Halliday Jackson, Halliday Jackson Letterbook, 1818–1828, FHL. 216

Notes to Pages 90–96

21.  19, 4mo., 1827, Joseph Bancroft to Jacob and Martha Bright, Bird-­Bancroft Collection, Box 3, DHS; [no day] 7mo., 1828, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP, QC. 22.  6 9mo., and 30 10mo., 1827, Ann P. Jackson Family Papers, FHL; quotes by John Comly, Journal, 309; 30 12mo., 1827, and 27 1mo., 1828, Samuel Mickle Diary, RUA. 23.  “An Epistle from the Yearly meeting of Friends, held in Philadelphia, by adjournments from the 15th of Tenth-­ month to the 19th of the same, inclusive, 1827, to the Quarterly, Monthly and Particular Meetings of Friends within the Compass of the said Yearly Meeting,” reprinted in Foster, Authentic Report, 2:457–58. 24.  On ranterism, see Hill, World Turned Upside Down, and McDowell, English Radical Imagination. Ranterism was used by both sides, see 3 6mo., 1826, Benjamin Ladd to Elizabeth Ladd, Ladd Family Correspondence, 1809–1841, and 26 4mo., 1827, meeting held at Green Street, File on Separation of 1827–1828, Charles Evans Papers, Box 2, QC; Keithian reference in Shillitoe, Journal, 279; “socinians and deists” in 12 10mo., 1827, Moses Brown to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, Box 1, QC. 25.  “Brief Account of Thomas Kite”; Daniel Stroub quoted in 13 7mo., 1829, William Cope to Henry Cope, CEFP, Box 11; 11 1mo., 1829, Hannah Warrington to Hannah Warrington, Evans Family Papers, Box 2, QC. 26. Foulke, Memoirs of Jacob Ritter, 81–82. Wharton quote in “Hole in the Wall,” QC; 21 10mo., 1829, Samuel Preston to John Watson, John Watson Papers, MML. 27.  25 1mo., 1828, Aaron Leggett to John Lockwood, John Lockwood Correspondence, FHL, Box 16; [no day] 5mo., 1827, John W. Pryor Journal, 2, 255, FHL; 26 4mo., 1827, Green Street Meeting, File on Separation of 1827–1828, Charles Evans Papers, QC; 21 10mo., 1829, John Watson to Samuel Preston, MML; M. Smith, Letters, 100; Epistle from the Yearly Meeting of Friends . . . 1829, 5.

28.  Socianism is the denial of the divinity of Christ as well as the endorsement of antitrinitarianism and the use of rationalism to explain human sin. 29.  Separation of 1827–1828, 28 4mo., 1828, Charles Evans Papers, Box 2, QC; 6 7mo., 1827, Mary Robinson Morton to Abigail Robinson, Robinson Family Papers, QC; 13 7mo., 1829, William Cope to Henry Cope, CEFP, Box 11, and [no day] 6mo., 1827, Henry Cope to John Sheppard, Cope Family Papers, Box, 2 QC. 30. Shillitoe, Journal, 290; 27 1mo., 1827, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP, QC. When Hicksite Ezekiel Cleaver visited an Orthodox family, the father refused to allow his children in the same room. [no day] 5mo., 1828, Ezekiel Cleaver to Ellis Cleaver, ECP, SC, Box 4, FHL. 31. Ingle, Quakers in Conflict, 161; 11 12mo., 1828, Halliday Jackson Diary, CCHC; File on Separation of 1827–1828, Charles Evans Papers, Box 2, QC; Shillitoe, Journal, 155–56; 292. 32.  Ann Jones quoted in 25 1mo., 1828, Aaron Leggett to John Lockwood, John Lockwood Correspondence, SC, Box 16, FHL. 33.  29 5mo., 1826, Thomas Wetherald to wife, children and cousin, Thomas Wetherald Papers, SC, Box 32, FHL; 4 7mo., 1828, John Lockwood to Aaron ­Leggett, John Lockwood Correspondence, SC, Box 16, FHL; deists quote in 19 4mo., 1827, Joseph Bancroft to Jacob and ­Martha Bright, Bird-­Bancroft Collection, Box 3, DHS. 34.  21 7mo., 1824, Sarah Jewett to Anna Braithwaite; Deborah Bringhurst in 18 10mo., 1826, Emmor Kimber to Elias Hicks, EHMC, FHL. Anna Braithwaite and her husband, Isaac, made three trips to America in the 1820s. 20 3mo., 1828, Pryor Journal, vol. 2, 355; 12 May 1826, William Poole to Elias Hicks, EHMC, FHL. 35.  13 11mo., 1824, Anna Braithwaite to Elias Hicks, EHMC, FHL; Ingle, Quakers in Conflict, 127–28.

36. Gibson, Diary of William P. Brobson, 84; 27 8mo., 1826, Thomas Wetherald to wife, children and cousin, Thomas Wetherald Papers, SC, Box 32; and 20 1mo., 1826, Elias Hicks to William Wharton, EHMC, FHL. 37.  Letters and Observations, 19, 21; 30 12mo., 1825, Robert Moore to David Seaman, David Seaman Correspondence, Small Manuscripts, Box 26, FHL. 38. Ingle, Quakers in Conflict, 158; “den of vipers” in 3 6mo., 1826, Benjamin Ladd to Elizabeth Ladd, Ladd Family Correspondence, QC; M. Smith, Letters, 83, 94; 23 2mo., 1825, Phebe Johnson to Elias Hicks, EHMC, FHL. Orthodox women criticized Hicksite women, e.g., Elizabeth Robson and Jane Bettle condemned Priscilla Hunt’s doctrine on a visit to Indiana in 1825. Hamm, “Quakerism,” 416; 3 and 7 8mo., 1828, Sarah Emlen to James Emlen, Emlen Family Papers, Box 1, FHL. 39.  [no day] 12mo., 1827, Aaron Leggett to New York Friends, Burr Manuscripts; 12 May 1826, William Poole to Elias Hicks, EHMC, FHL. For more on women and gender during the schism, see Lindman, “ ‘Deluded Women.’ ” 40.  15 1mo., 1829, Preparative Meeting at Green Street Monthly Meeting in Documents Concerning the Hicksite Separation, ca. 1827–1829, Joseph Wharton Family Papers, Box 3, FHL. 41.  “Manuscript Relating to Separation of 1827,” John Comly Papers, SC, FHL; John Mott, Copy of a Letter, 11; 21 10mo., 1829, Samuel Preston to John Watson, John Watson Papers, MML. 42.  15 2mo., 1829, Mary Jackson to Edward Stabler, Ash-­Schofield Papers, Box 1, FHL; 15 8mo., 1833, Ann Fenimore Diary, QC. 43. Dandelion, Introduction, 84–85; W. Evans, Journal, 477; 26 8mo., 1836 and 24 8mo., 1838, Jonathan Evans to Mildred Ratcliff in Ratcliff, Memoranda, 194, 200; 26 6 mo., 1840, Thomas Evans to Bartholomew

Notes to Pages 96–101

217

Wistar, Thomas Evans Papers, SECFP, Box 1, QC. 44. Andrews, Methodists, 91; 7 10mo., 1840, Ann P. Jackson Family Papers, FHL; Memoir of Ann Cooper Tatum, 1834, SCTHFP, QC; 2 4mo., and 26 11mo., 1809, JIC, CWP, FHL. 45. Woolman, Works, 10–12. Woolman combined evangelical notions with quietist concepts. Barbour and Frost, Quakers, 132. For another example, see 14 3mo., 1790, SLFD, vol. 19, HSP. 46.  [no day] 1mo, 1814, 22 3mo., [no day] 9mo., 4 11mo., 12 12 mo., 1816, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP, QC. 47.  12 7mo., 1837, 11 5mo., 1838, and 28 6mo., 1840, Thomas Evans to Bartholomew Wistar, Thomas Evans Letters, SECFP, Box 1; and 7 5mo., 1830, and 18 8mo., 1840, Rebecca Hornor Coates Diary, Families of Philadelphia Papers, QC. 48.  Rebecca Singer (1804–1892) was the second wife of Isaac Collins Jr. (1787–1863), and a minister. 21 6mo., 1833 and 25 4mo., 1834, Memorandum Book of Rebecca Singer Collins and 16 4mo., 1839 and 13 10mo., 1840, Private Thoughts of Rebecca Singer Collins, RSCP, QC. 49.  N.d., “Notes and Letters written during my beloved William’s illness,” Mary Rhoads Haines Family Papers, Box 7, CCHC. 50.  On joining Episcopalians and quotes, see 22 7mo., 1834 and 24 1mo., 1837, Jonathan Evans to Mildred Ratcliff; 3 4mo., 1838, Mildred Ratcliff to Sarah Morris, in Ratcliff, Memoranda, 182–83; 196–97; A Vision, FHL. 51.  3 5mo., 1826, Sarah Logan Fisher to Eliza Rodman, Sarah Logan Fisher Letterbook, vol. 23, Belfield Family Papers, Box 4, HSP; 10 11 mo., 1827 and 13 8mo., 1840, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP, QC. This Samuel Mickle is cousin to the diary’s author. 24 7mo., 1828, Samuel Mickle Diary, RUA. 52.  Dorsey, “Friends Becoming Enemies,” 425; 20 3mo., 1831, Deborah

218

Notes to Pages 102–110

Bringhurst to Hannah Hunard, Hannah Hunard Family Letters, FHL. 53. Gibbons, Review and Refutation, 10; 9 8mo., 1844, Richard Mott to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, Box 3, QC. 54.  Thomas Bond estimated the percentages of Hicksites in many American yearly meetings: the PYM was 55 percent Hicksite; New York was 54 percent; Ohio, 33 percent; Indiana, 23 percent; and Baltimore, 80 percent. Bond, Review, 7. Chapter 5 1.  Bates lectured at the Methodist meetinghouse and the Academy of Natural Sciences. 2 3mo., 1838, Mary Kite to Joseph Kite, SFP, QC. Elisha Bates (1781– 1861) was a printer by trade. He eventually joined the Methodist church. See Good, “Elisha Bates and the Beaconite Controversy,” 46. 2.  On Crewdson, see Dandelion, Introduction, 93–95; Jones, Later Periods, 1:491. One critic complained that Orthodox Friends were stuck on a narrow path between “Hicksism” and “Episcopalianism.” Bates, “Manuscript Letter,” 412. 3. Bates, Reasons for Receiving the Ordinance, 5–6. Bates asked to be released from his membership in May of 1835. Taber, Eye of Faith, 51. 4.  Bates, “E. Bates’ Vindication,” 292; 296; Bates, “Elisha Bates’ Vindication, Reviewed,” 363. 5.  Is It Calumny? 3; Dandelion, Introduction, 98; Hamm, Transformation, 29. 6.  2 8mo., 1838, Mary Kite to Thomas Kite; 4 9mo., 1841 and 25 12mo., 1847, Mary Kite to Rebecca Walton; and 20 2 mo., 1843, Mary Kite to Joseph Walton, SFP, QC; Maule, Some Extracts, 11. 7. Jones, Later Periods, 1:529–31. This dispute was a “delayed reenactment of Hicksite drama in New England and the West.” Dorsey, “Friends Becoming Enemies,” 422; 12 2mo., 1847, Jacob Roberts to

Joseph and Sarah Tallcott, TFP, Box 2, QC; Edward Hicks, Memoirs, 251–52. 8.  On Gurney’s wealth, see Swift, “John Joseph Gurney,” 96–110; Hamm, Transformation, 21; Dandelion, Introduction, 94; Hamm, “New Light,” 55. As a dissenter, Gurney was barred from enrolling in Oxford; he obtained an unofficial degree by attending lectures and meeting with tutors. 9. Gurney, Sermons and Prayers, 9, 12, 23, 28, 39, 46, 51, 54–55, 72. 10.  30 3mo., 1839, Susan Foulke Diary, QC; Phillips, Review of Gurney’s Attack, 7; 6 4mo., 1838, Diary, 1838, Pott Family Papers, Box 1, QC; Ratcliff, Memoranda, xi. 11.  10 5mo., 1845, Mary Kite to Rebecca Walton, SFP; [no day] 1mo., 1847, Joshua Mekeel to Isaac Mekeel, Mekeel Family Papers, QC; 10 12mo., 1845, Sarah Emlen to Tabitha Hadwen, Emlen Family Papers, Box 1, FHL. 12.  6 4mo., 1838, Anonymous Diary, Pott Family Papers, Box 1, QC; Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 469, 478. 13.  12 5mo., 1846, Isaac T. Hopper to Sarah H. Palmer, ITHP, FHL. Benjamin Davis agreed that Gurney’s writings were the same as Orthodox ones from the 1820s. 20 7mo., 1847, Benjamin B. Davis to William Fisher, Edward F. Stratton Papers, Box 5, FHL. Gould’s health and sleep suffered because of Gurneyism. Conversation between Thomas Gould and Joseph John Gurney, 1838, Edward F. Stratton Papers, Box 5, FHL; quote from 4 7mo., 1838, Thomas B. Gould to George F. Read, Hodgson, Selections, 98. 14. Phillips, Review of Gurney’s Attack, 11–12. 15.  For Gurney’s reform activity while in the United States, see Rawley, “Joseph John Gurney’s Mission”; Edward Hicks, Memoirs, 245; Ratcliff, Memoranda, 162. 16.  Wilbur was deeply disturbed by the “superficial, busy spirit” evident at Gurney’s Norwich meeting in 1832. Jones, Later Periods, 1:513. Wilbur, Narrative, 244; Address from the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, 13.

17. Wilbur, Narrative, 220; 244–49. Wilburites and Gurneyites resurrected the epithets of “ranters” and “seceders” to insult their opponents. 18. Wilbur, Narrative, 250; 282–84; 313; 325. 19.  Actions of the Several Meetings of Friends, 16. 20.  For Gurneyites’ disinterest in early Quaker writings, see Hamm, “New Light,” 54–55. Hamm notes that Gurney believed his duty was “to correct the errors of the first Friends.” Gurney, Brief Remarks (1836, printed for private circulation only), 8, 10. When Isaac T. Hopper printed Gurney’s Brief Remarks in 1840 it was also for “private circulation only.” In the preface, ­Hopper states that Gurney limited access to this work because it did not conform to Quaker ideals. 3. The American version of Gurney’s Observations was published in New York in 1840 by Mahlon Day. Gurney’s book Thoughts on Habit and ­Discipline was published in 1845 and his edited memoirs in 1854, both in Philadelphia. 21.  Bates, “Letter to I. Crewdson,” 329, 332. John Naylor (1618–1660), John Perrot (?-­1665), John Wilkinson (1652–1683), and John Story (1670?–1742) were first and ­second generation English Friends, who differed with Fox and Penn and became known as schismatics. Hannah Barnard (1754–1825) gained a similar reputation in the late eighteenth century. 22.  Bates, “E. Bates’ Vindication, Reviewed,” 355. 23.  Actions of the Several Meetings of Friends, 7; Considerations addressed to the Members, 11–13. 24. Gurney, Observations, 214; 289; 293. 25.  Gurney attempted to combine two forms of Quakerism that emphasized what “was both Quaker and evangelical.” Gurney quoted in Bright, “ ‘Friends have no cause,’ ” 345–49. 26. Wilbur, Narrative, 187, 198, 201.

Notes to Pages 110–117

219

27. Wilbur, Narrative, 38, 58, 69. See Wilbur’s disownment on 139–41. Some members of the Committee of Sufferings (members of other Monthly Meetings) attended the Greenwich Monthly Meeting to ensure that Wilbur was disowned. Address from the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, 8–10. 28. Wilbur, Narrative, 285, 292. 29.  Address from the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, 20, 21, 26. 30.  Is It Calumny? 5, 7. One later ­commenter balked at the assertion that Friends should make allowances for Gurney because of his background. Hodgson, Examination of the Memoirs, 13–14. 31.  “On the Influence of Opinion,” Friends Weekly Intelligencer 1, no. 1 (30 3mo., 1844): 1–2; “Religious Controversies,” Friends Weekly Intelligencer 1, no. 12 (15 6mo., 1844): 90. 32.  13 4mo., 1843, Ann Jones to William Hodgson, Henry Haines Albertson Collection, QC; Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 563; 6 2mo., 1844, Jonathan Snowden to Sarah Maule, Edward F. Stratton Papers, FHL; 19 6mo., 1845 and 21 6mo., 1845, Josiah White to Elizabeth White, Josiah White Papers, Box II, QC. 33.  3 9mo., 1845 and 29 7mo., 1846, Thomas Evans to Joseph Tallcott and 10 10mo., 1847, Thomas Willis to Joseph ­Tallcott, TFP, Box 2, QC. On “middleism,” see Taber, Eye of Faith, 72–80. 34.  14 7mo., 1845, Thomas Birdsall to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, Box 1, QC; 21 6mo., 1845, Josiah White to Elizabeth White, Josiah White Papers, 1796–1906, Box II, QC; Samuel Rhoads claimed Birdsall was sympathetic to the Wilburites. 21 7mo., 1846, Samuel Rhoads to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, Box 3, QC. 35. Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 544; 21 10mo., 1845, Mary Kite to Nathan Kite, SFP, QC. By the 1850s, the majority of Pennsylvania Friends supported Wilbur.

220

Notes to Pages 117–123

At the PYM in April of 1852, a staunch Wilburite was appointed clerk of the men’s meeting while the women’s meeting refused an invitation from two Gurneyites to preach. 24 4mo., 1852, Susan Smith to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, Box 3, QC. 36.  1 3mo., 1843, John Wilbur to Peleg Mitchel, John Wilbur Papers, QC; 17 2mo., 1843, Ezra Comfort to John Wilbur, reprinted in Wilbur, Journal, 361–64; 9 8mo., 1844, Richard Mott to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, FHL. 37.  13 4mo., 1843, Ann Jones to William Hodgson, Henry Haines Albertson Collection, QC. Jones, Later Periods, 1:509, 515–18. 38.  Shillitoe in 30 6mo., 1838 and Gurney in 11 6mo., 1845, John Wilbur to Peleg Mitchell, John Wilbur Papers, QC. Thomas Shillitoe, “Testimony against the writings of John Joseph Gurney, delivered by him three days before his decease, taken down from his lips by——,” reprinted in Wilbur, Narrative, 345. Gurney’s Episcopalian tendencies were evident when the Bishop of Norwich officiated at his funeral in the city’s cathedral in 1847. 39.  10 11mo., 1853, Lydia Ann Barclay to Phebe Foster, John Wilbur Papers, QC. Phebe Foster was Wilbur’s daughter. 40.  One Philadelphian Friend burned the correspondence sent to him from the NEYM to avoid the controversy. 6 2mo., 1844, Jonathan Snowden to Sarah Maule, Edward F. Stratton Papers, FHL. There were 569 Wilburites out of a total of 6,824 Orthodox Friends in New England. Membership Statistics, New England Yearly Meeting, Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection, Box 25; and Extract from an undated letter of George McCrady to Horatio C. Wood, Gove-­Meader Family Papers, FHL. 41. Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 544; 13 7mo., 1846, Richard Mott to Joseph Tallcott; and 24 4mo., 1852, Susan R. Smith to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, Box 3, QC; A

Testimony Delivered by Samuel Cope near the close of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1850, Edward F. Stratton Papers, Box 5, FHL. 42.  Wilbur quote in Jones, Later ­Periods, 1:515; 20 5mo., 1839, John Wilbur to unknown, John Wilbur Papers, QC; Braith­waite, Memoirs of John Joseph Gurney, 333. 43. Wilbur, Narrative, 218; 18 2mo., 1846, Gideon Cornell to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, QC. 44. Wilbur, Narrative, 294; 302–3; Address from the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, 18. 45. Hamm, Transformation, 28–29; Rushby, “Ann Branson,” 58; 26, 8mo., 1850, 15 9mo., 1850, Joseph Brinton Diary 38, 40, 48, JBFP, FHL. Wilbur and Gurney shared commonalities; both engaged in “excessive self-­examination” and emphasized “belief and action rather than doctrine.” Bright, “ ‘Friends have no cause,’ ” 342–44. 46.  Gurneyites held prayer and sanctification meetings and introduced singing during worship; eventually they authorized a paid ministry. “Account of the Wilburite Separation,” Joshua Bailey Papers, Box 2, QC; Taber, Eye of Faith, 84, 98. 47.  “Quakerities, A song by an Embryo harvestman, London, Fifth Month, 15th, 1838,” FHL. The song, which had more than 20 stanzas, was allegedly suppressed in England but made its way to Long Island. 48.  12 2mo., 1847, Jacob Roberts to Joseph and Sarah Tallcott, TFP, Box 1, QC; 21 10mo., 1828, Edmund Canby Diary, DHS; Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends Minutes, 1853, 3–5. Chapter 6 1.  23 3mo., 1841, Lucretia Mott to ­Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and 20 4mo., 1869, Lucretia Mott to Josephine Butler, reprinted in Palmer, Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott, 90 and 415, and

“Introduction” in Palmer, Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott, xxii; Mott sermon in Pennsylvania Freeman, July 24, 1852; Faulkner, Lucretia Mott’s Heresy, 82. 2.  “Petty hierarchy” from Dugdale, Extemporaneous Discourses, reprinted in Fager, Angels of Progress, 156; M. Smith, Letters, 83; prediction of Rachel Barker heard by Isaac T. Hopper, 13 10mo., 1846, Isaac T. Hopper to Sarah H. Palmer, ITHP, FHL. “Abby Kelley Dragged Out of a Quaker Meetinghouse!!”; The Liberator, September 19, 1845, reprinted in Fager, Angels of Progress, 156, 113, 177; Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 417. 3.  Anthony quote from Sherr, Failure Is Impossible, 415; Kern, “ ‘I Pray with My Work,’ ” 88; Holcomb, Moral Commerce, 36. 4.  One ultraist effort was the formation of the Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform founded in 1842 in Indiana. See Hamm, God’s Government, chapter 3. 5.  Some Friends, along with other Protestants, would endorse Comeouterism, which was to quit established churches as complicit in the support of slavery. 6.  1 Tim. 6:18; Marietta, Reformation; 97; Kunze, “ ‘Poore and in Necessity.’ ” On Quaker benevolence, see James, People Among Peoples; Bauman, For the Reputation of Truth; Haviland, “Beyond Women’s Sphere.” 7. Soderlund, Quakers and Slavery; Dorsey, “Friends Becoming Enemies,” 425. On reform movements, see Garvey, Creating the Culture of Reform; Ginzburg, Women and the Work of Benevolence; Dorsey, Reforming Men and Women; and Ross, “ ‘Liberation Is Coming,’ ” 25. 8. Carey, From Peace to Freedom, 104; Soderlund, Quakers and Slavery, chapters 5 and 6. 9.  “Inward teacher” in epistle by William McKimmey of Indiana Hicksites cited in Jordan, Slavery and the Meetinghouse, 89; Hamm, “George F. White,” 45; Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends (Hicksite),

Notes to Pages 123–132

221

Extracts from the Minutes . . . 1830, 7–8. The slavery discussion led to others over Quaker polity and practice. Densmore, “Be Ye Therefore Perfect,” 32, 36. 10. Hewitt, Radical Friend, 109; M. Smith, Letters, 202; New York Meeting Collection of Papers Concerning Slavery, SC, FHL. 11.  Longshore claimed that his family’s political dedication sprang from “moral courage.” Thomas Longshore, Longshore Family History, 1891, 27, MML; Memoir of our Deceased Friend, Lydia Fussell, 7. 12. Hewitt, Radical Friend, 9; 139; 193; Hamm, “Hicksite Friends,” 560. On Quakers and spiritualism, see chapter 3, Braude, Radical Spirits. 13. Nichols, Experience in Water Cure, 86–87. Nichols left the Friends after being criticized for her public health lectures, which included reference to the “solitary vice.” See Lake, “Mary Gove Nichols,” 222. For more on Nichols, see Faulkner, Unfaithful. 14. Rice, Minding the Machine, 97; Alcott, Laws of Health, 400. 15. Penn, Letter . . . to Wife and Children, 13. Lay’s vegetarianism may have been informed by his interest in cynic philosophy. Rediker, Fearless Benjamin Lay, 106, 109, 113. Comly, Journal, 81; 6 9mo., 1848, Josiah Hopper to Isaac T. Hopper, ITHP, FHL. American vegetarians explicitly related their movement to temperance, pacifism, and abolition. Shprintzen, Vegetarian Crusade, 62–63, 65, 66. 16.  “Parental Duties—Physical Education,” Friends Weekly Intelligencer 1, no. 36 (30 11mo., 1844): 281–82; Gurney, Thoughts on Habit and Discipline, 108. 17.  15 8mo., 1851; 31 8mo., 1850; 4 20 24 9mo., and 4 10mo., 1850, Joseph Brinton Diary, JBFP, FHL. 18.  Barbour and Frost, Quakers, 109. This discussion drawn from Baily, “Progress of the Temperance Cause,” 25, and chronology from Michener, Autobiographical Notes, 164–68. The 1689 testimony by the PYM to

222

Notes to Pages 132–138

prohibit the sale of liquor to Indians was “the first temperance pledge on record” according to Michener. See also Frost, “Years of Crisis,” 97. The PYM included the use and abuse of liquor in its Christian Advices in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 19.  Life . . . of Joshua Evans, 23–24, 158; Plank, John Woolman’s Path, 4, 30, 188. For more on Evans, see Ross, “ ‘Liberation Is Coming.’ ” Temperance informed the business practices of some Friends. John Woolman did not sell tea or rum in his New Jersey shop. See Plank, John Woolman’s Path, 81; 151. 20.  On the history of temperance, see Epstein, Politics of Domesticity. John Fothergill led temperance efforts in England against alcohol, food, and “luxuries.” See Newman, “John Brewin’s Tracts,” 241–42. 21. Benezet, Mighty Destroyer, 14–15. 22.  [no day] 12mo., 1796, JIC, CWP, Box 2, FHL; Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 591; “Temperance,” The Friend, or Advocate of Truth 3, no. 20 (15 5mo., 1830): 157; Abstract of the Proceedings. 23.  12 4mo., 1785, Martha Allinson Diary; 9 8mo., 1838, May Kite to Rebecca Kite, SFP, QC. The only queries read at an 1838 Hicksite meeting concerned the drinking of spirits and social diversions. April 1837 entry, Diaries, 1837–1838, Susan B. Anthony Papers, 1815–1961, Susan B. Anthony Digital Collection, Harvard University, section 23. Tallcott, Memoirs, 125–27; American Temperance Union and American Temperance Society, vol. 1, 1852, 11, 24, Nineteenth Century Collections Online. 24.  R. Hicks, Memoir, 71; Gurney, Thoughts on Habit and Discipline, 106; Comly, Journal, 36; “Temperance Reformation” in Abstract of the Proceedings, 6; AFP, Box 4, QC. 25. Benezet, Mighty Destroyer; 22–23; Tract Association of Friends, Box 11, QC; 5 5mo., 1802, James Bringhurst Letterbook, CBFC, FHL; 22 8mo., 1791, 4 11mo., 1822, and 20 9mo., 1813, JJH, FHL; Michener,

Autobiographical Notes, 35–36. On the dangers of tobacco, see 20 7mo., 1826, Ezekiel Cleaver to Ellis Cleaver, ECP, SC, Box 4, FHL, and 11 9mo., 1822, JJH, FHL. 26.  For more on Woolman, see Plank, John Woolman’s Path; on Mifflin, see Nash, Warner Mifflin; on Benezet, see Jackson, Let This Voice Be Heard. 27. Frost, Quaker Antislavery, and Soderlund, Quakers and Slavery; Sands, Journal, 18; 22 2mo., 1837, William Bassett to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, QC; and 2 8mo., 1803, James Bringhurst to Emmor Kimber, James Bringhurst Letterbook, CBFC, FHL. 28.  15 2 mo., 1829, Mary Jackson to Edward Stabler, Stabler Papers, FHL; Pennypacker quoted in Jordan, Slavery and the Meetinghouse, 114; and 24 12mo., 1840, Sarah Ann Fell to David and Phebe Fell, Fell Family Papers, FHL; Lewis, Memoir of Enoch Lewis, 92. Mott quoted in Holcomb, Moral Commerce, 127. Most Orthodox supporters of the free produce movement were Gurneyites. Hamm, “Hicksite Friends,” 559. 29.  May 17th, 1840, Joseph Longshore to T. E. Longshore, Longshore-­Williams Correspondence, Box 16, FHL. 30.  “An Appeal to the Society of Friends, on the Subject of Slavery by a Member,” Friends Weekly Intelligencer 1, no. 21 (1 4mo., 1839): 338–42; 20 4mo., 1840, Isaac T. Hopper to Sarah H. Palmer, ITHP, FHL. 31.  16 1mo., 1845, Richard Price to Edward Hicks, Edward Barnsley Papers, MML; “George F. White and Rose Street Meeting, and Abolition,” National Antislavery Standard 5, no. 33 (January 16, 1856): xx. 32.  W. Evans, Journal, 148; Kersey, Narrative, 176; Bassett, Society of Friends, 13; 15. 33.  11 3mo., 1845, Elizabeth Sellers Papers, FHL; To Providence Monthly Meeting of Friends, 28 11mo., 1843, by Elizabeth B. Chace reprinted in Fager, Angels of Progress, 110–11; Jordan, Slavery and the Meetinghouse, 24. 34.  17 5mo., 1841, 4 8mo., 1841, 31 8mo., 11 10mo., 1841, and 5 4mo., 1842, Isaac T. Hopper to Sarah H. Palmer, ITHP, FHL.

35. Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 402, 563; “Abolitionist S. S. Foster Arrested in Quaker Meeting,” in Liberator, December 22, 1843, reprinted in Fager, Angels of Progress, 70–75. 36.  On the riots, see Densmore, “Be Ye therefore Perfect,” 34–35; 39–40. 21 6mo., 1845, Mary Kite to Nathan Kite, KFP, QC; 11 2mo., 1844, Rebecca Walton Diary, KFP, QC; 19 6mo., 1845, Josiah White to Elizabeth, Josiah White Papers, Box XI, QC. 37.  In 1843, two thousand Orthodox Friends left to form the “Indiana Yearly Meeting of Anti-­Slavery Friends.” Thomas, “Congregational or Progressive Friends,” 24, and Wood, “Not at Any Price.” For Progressive Friends in other states, see Davison, “Profile of Hicksite Quakerism,” and Bradley, “Progressive Friends.” 38.  For more on the Progressive Friends, see Densmore, “From Hicksites”; Proceedings of the Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends . . . 1849, 6; and 30 Oct. 1849, Oliver Johnson to Green Plain Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends, Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection, Box 27, FHL. 39.  “1853 Call for a General Religious Conference with a View to the Establishment of Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia,” reprinted in Fager, Angels of Progress, 181; Oliver Johnson to Green Plain Yearly Meeting, Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection, Box 27; and May 1, 1853, William Lloyd Garrison to Joseph Dugdale, Joseph Dugdale Papers, FHL. 40.  Proceedings of the Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends . . . 1849, 4, 10, 12, 25, 31; “Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends, 1853–1862,” 9, FHL. 41. Fisher, Account, 28–32. 42. Jordan, Slavery and the Meetinghouse, 94–96; Fisher, Account, 20. 43. Hewitt, Radical Friend, 174–75; Quote from Frost, “Why Quakers?” 31;

Notes to Pages 139–147

223

Dugdale, “Extemporaneous Discourses,” reprinted in Fager, Angels of Progress, 164. By the 1860s, the agenda of Progressive Friends included dress reform, financial speculation, foreign trade, and the labor movement. “Spiritual Meeting,” Greensboro, Indiana, 13th through 15th of May 1864, Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection, Box 27, FHL. 44.  30 5mo., and 19 7mo., 1853, Joseph Kite to Mary Kite, Sheppard Family Papers, Box 1, QC. 45.  For more on Quakers and race relations, see Lapsansky, “New Eyes.” 46. Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 543, 548; Cadbury, “Negro Membership,” 9; Soderlund, Quakers and Slavery, 184–85. 47. Bassett, Society of Friends, 9. This account was “partly printed” in England. Bassett was disowned the same year. See Cadbury, “Negro Membership,” 178. 48.  Cadbury, “Negro Membership,” 153. Lydia Maria Child endorsed the common view that African Americans preferred “more exciting forms of religion.” Child, Isaac T. Hopper, 210. 49.  Coston in Nash, Warner Mifflin, 47–48; Collins in Cadbury, “Negro Membership,” 159; Mann was freed in 1782. See 19 10mo., 1820, Samuel Mickle Diary, RUA; Franks and Miers in Cadbury, “Negro Membership,” 171–73. 50.  Anecdotes and Memoirs of William Boen, 15–17; 11 6mo., 1863, David Bustill to his Children, reprinted in Cadbury, “Negro Membership,” 212; Wigham, Memoirs, 56–57. 51.  Densmore, “Aim for a Free State,” 130; Zillah (Sarah Mapps Douglass’s pen name), “To a Friend,” Liberator, 30 June 1832, 103; “woman of colour” in Bassett, Society of Friends, 23. In the eighteenth century, it was routine practice to reject people of color from Quaker membership. See 25 9mo., 1791, JJH, FHL. For more on Grace Bustill Douglass and Sarah Mapps Douglass, see Jordan, Slavery and the Meetinghouse, 76–78; and Bacon, “New Light on

224

Notes to Pages 147–158

Sarah Mapps Douglass. For more on Black and White women abolitionists, see Faulkner, Lucretia Mott’s Heresy, 80. 52.  28 11mo., 1843, Elizabeth Buffum Chace to Providence Monthly Meeting of Friends in reprinted in Chuck Fager, Angels of Progress, 109. 53.  1 11mo., 1842, Isaac T. Hopper to Sarah H. Palmer, ITHP, FHL. Chapter 7 1.  20 6mo., 27 6mo., and 8 8mo., 1813; 24 4mo., 1814; and 6 6mo., 1819, JJH, FHL. 2.  13 5mo., 1792, 8mo., 1798, and 13 1mo., 1799; 18 11mo., 1814, and 15 9mo., 1814; 12 1mo., 1816, and 23 7mo., 1815, JJH, FHL. Friends had a fondness for the writings of Anglican divines. See Tolles, Meeting House, 169. 3.  Isaac Penington (1616–1679) and Mary Peisley (1717–1757) were English Friends; Job Scott (1751–1793) was American. 4.  9 1mo., 1797 and 4 11mo., 1797, JJH, FHL. On reading and religion, see Griffiths, Religious Reading; M. Brown, Pilgrim. 5. Murray, Power of Religion, 275; Cambers and Wolfe, “Reading,” 878; Wallace, “ ‘Some Stated Employment,’ ” 361–62. 6. Nord, Faith in Reading, 147; 5 3mo., 1838, Anonymous Diary, 1838, Potts Family Papers, QC; Penney and Livingston, A Very Dangerous Woman, 43. On reading as part of household activity, see Tadmor, “ ‘In the Even My Wife Read to Me,’ ” 163–64. 7.  Ferlier, “Building Religious Communities,” 51; M. Brown, Pilgrim, 47; C. Brown, Word in the World, 16. 8.  Publication figures from Peters, Print Culture, 1. On early Quaker pamphlets, see Barbour, “Young Controversialist.” On the circulation of books, see Landes, London Quakers, and Frost, “Quaker Books.” 9.  The American Tract Society reproduced many Protestant classics, such as Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.

10.  C. Brown, Word in the World, 47–48; Gross, “Introduction,” 35; Bronner, “Distributing the Printed Word,” 347, 350. All but one of the founding members of the TAF would become Orthodox Friends after 1827. In the 1840s and 1850s, the American Tract Society distributed over 9 million volumes. Nord, Faith in Reading, 133; 136. Religious publishers and authors hoped to influence American reading ­habits by creating a “textual community” beyond denominational affiliation. C. Brown, Word in the World, 6; 12. 11.  Tarter, “Reading a Quaker’s Book,” 177–78; 180; 186; Compton, Letter to the Young Men, 25. 12.  Newman, “Some Quaker Attitudes,” 189; Barclay, Noble Testimony, 12, 16. 13.  The quote “religious instructive reading” from 20 4mo., 1835, Mary Dent Diary, EDA; 20 7mo., 1802, James Bringhurst to John Dickinson, James Bringhurst Letterbook, CBFC, FHL; 27 6mo., 1820, Samuel Mickle Diary, RUA; 18 7mo., 30 7mo., and 16 9mo., 1794, SLFD, vol. 23, HSP. 14. Tallcott, Memoirs, 275; 18 12mo., 1860, Mary Rhoads to Hannah Rhoads, Mary Rhoads Haines Family Papers, 1831– 1908, Box 3, CCHC; 17 3mo., 1819, George Dillwyn to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, Box 2, QC. 15.  Appeal to the Society of Friends, 5–7, Bible Association of Friends Records, QC. The PYM discussed books in their publication Christian Advices in 1808 and 1859. 16. Barclay, Noble Testimony, 24; “the best of books” from Cresson, Diary, 21. 17. Gurney, Thoughts on Habit and Discipline, 123; Jones, Later Periods, 2:886–87; Hallowell, James and Lucretia Mott, 175. 18.  1788 and 1793 entries, JIC, CWP, Box 2, FHL; Comly, Journal, 10–13. 19.  Extracts from the Memorandum of Jane Bettle, 93, BFP, QC. 20.  James Mott, Observations, 37–38; 40–41. 21.  29 11 mo., 1848, Isaac T. Hopper to Sarah H. Palmer, ITHP, FHL; Quotation from Besse, Life . . . of Richard Claridge,

144; January 12, 1816, and 5 9mo., 1819, JJH, FHL. 22.  Blamires, “Early Quaker Educational Books,” 22–24, 28. Murray, English Grammar, 2:7–8; 16–17. For more on Murray’s grammar, see Brinton, Quaker Education, 46–47. 23.  Friends Weekly Intelligencer 1, no. 19 (1 2mo., 1839): 297; 1839 ­Discipline in Newman, “John Brewin’s Tracts,” 235. On the ritual importance of books, see M. Brown, Pilgrim, 27; Cressy, “Books as Totems.” 24.  “Proper Reading Methods” reprinted in Nord, Faith in Reading, 162–63; 4 12mo., 1800, James Bringhurst to Levi Arnold’s children, James Bringhurst Letterbooks, CBFC, FHL; C. Brown, Word in the World, 121. 25.  12 6mo., 1842, 25 12mo., 1842, and 25 12mo., 1848, Mary Kite to Rebecca Kite, SFP, QC; 16 9mo., 1845, Isaac T. Hopper to Sarah T. Palmer, ITHP, FHL; “Account on the Death of her son Ziba Ferris Bringhurst,” 20 3mo., 1836, Deborah Bringhurst Papers, SBHFP, Box 6, SCUDL; Hervey, Meditations, vol. 1, xvii. 26 8mo., 1792, SLFD, vol. 20, HSP; Willson, Familiar Letters, 8. 26.  Barbour and Frost, Quakers, 116. 27.  Bates, “Piety Promoted,” Miscellaneous Repository 3, no. 5 (27 8mo., 1829): 72; “Religious Reading,” The Friend: A Religious and Literary Journal 16, no. 3 (October 15, 1842): 24; 13 4mo., 1800, JJH, FHL. 28. Rawes, Examples for Youth, 4–5; Piece book of Catharine Ridgeway and Joshua Bailey, “A Collection of Various Pieces in Prose and Poetry; copied by Joshua Bailey at Westtown Boarding School, commencing the 9th mo., 1802,” EDA; Copybook of Hannah Warrington, 6 6mo., 1826, Evans Family Papers, Box 2, QC. 29.  Hambrick-­Stowe, Practice of Piety, 186–87; quotation in Woolman, Journal, 50–51; 18 8mo., 1830, Rebecca Hornor Coates Diary, Families of Philadelphia Papers, Box 10, QC; Harrison, Philadelphia

Notes to Pages 158–167

225

Merchant, 107. See also Brinton, Quaker Journals. 30.  27 4mo., 1823, JJH, FHL; 31 12mo., 1848, Mary Stokes Diary, QC. “A Brief Memoir of Susannah Judge” in Judge, Memoirs, 372; “Diary of John Baldwin, 1794,” Friends’ Miscellany 5, no. 5 (4mo., 1834): 264. 31.  26 1 mo., 1793, 14 1mo., 1793, and 3 3mo., 1782, SLFD, vols. 11 and 21, HSP. For Logan Fisher’s piety in relation to her maternal role, see Lindman, “ ‘To Have a Gradual Weaning.’ ” 32.  1 1mo., 1786, SLFD, vol. 15, HSP; 31 12mo., 1797, and 31 12mo., 1798, Joseph Scattergood Diary, QC; 12mo., 1791, Deborah Bringhurst Papers, SBHFP, Box 5, SCUDL; 1 1mo., 1833, RSCP; and 1 1mo., 1858, Saloma Battey to Thomas Battey, Dunn-­Osborne-­Battey Family Papers, Box 2, QC. 33. Penn, Fruits, 17. A commonplace book served as a “map” of an individual’s reading interests. See Havens, Commonplace Books, 65; Dacome, “Noting the Mind,” 604. 34.  [No day] 5mo., 1796, Joseph Dilworth to his father, Commonplace Book of Elijah Brown Jr., vol. 14, Brown Family Papers, HSP; Commonplace Book of Susan Lloyd, 1839, LBFP, QC. 35.  23 12mo., 1801, James Bringhurst to John Hadwen; [no day] 8mo., 1804, James Bringhurst to Nathan Hunt and companion, JBL, FHL; 11 3mo., 1799, George Churchman to John Smith, GMHC, Box 1, and 17 4mo., 1784, Henry Drinker to Nicholas Waln, Nicholas Waln Collection, QC. 36.  8 9mo., 1782, Warner Mifflin to unknown, Cox-­Parrish-­Wharton Papers, Box 12, HSP; and 15 5mo., 1787, Sarah Tuke Grubb to Rebecca Jones, Richard T. Cadbury Collection, QC. 37.  23 9mo., 1826, Eliza Ann Bettle to Samuel and Jane Bettle, BFP, QC; 22 5mo., 1841, Mary Kite to Susanna Sharpless, SFP, QC; 2 11mo., 1830, “Memoirs of Elizabeth

226

Notes to Pages 167–172

Collins,” reprinted in Evans and Evans, Friends’ Library, 11:471; 3 3mo. and 1 9mo., 1833, Rebecca Singer Collins Diaries, RSCP, QC. The exchange and distribution of Quaker manuscripts persisted even as print became more common, especially among women. See Wulf, Not All Wives, 45; Jennings, Gender, Religion and Radicalism, 22. 38. Nord, Faith in Reading, 114–16; Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 174–75; 602; 4 12mo., 1800, James Bringhurst to Levi Arnold’s children, JBL, CBFC, FHL; 28 1mo., 1818, Commonplace Book of Mary McClenachan, 1819–1827, QC. 39. Lewis, Memoir of Enoch Lewis, 16. Thomas Clarkson stated that Quakers banned novel reading because it could lead to “temporary derangement” as well as unsteadiness, skepticism, and infidelity. Clarkson, Portraiture, 1:132–33. By the nineteenth century, English Quakers read novels in private. See Hood, “ ‘Novel Reading and Insanity.’ ” 40. Plank, John Woolman’s Path, 48, 50; Woolman, Works, 241–44; 7 11mo., 1800, James Bringhurst to Levi and Lydia Arnold, JBL, CBFC, FHL; 3 6mo., 1822, JJH, FHL; 30 8mo., 1850, Joseph Brinton Diary, JBFP; and 3 12mo., 1851, Isaac T. Hopper to Jonathan Palmer, ITHP, FHL; Palmer, Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott, 257. Newspapers were a common sight in Gurneyite homes by the 1850s. Hamm, Transformation, 39. 41.  “Remarks to Readers,” Friends Intelligencer 1, no. 19 (1 2mo., 1839): 297–98; “Pernicious Reading,” Friends Weekly Intelligencer 3, no. 37 (12 12mo., 1846): 293–94. 42. Seebohm, Memoirs of . . . of Stephen Grellet, 109; Tallcott, Memoirs, 144; 22 5mo., 1839, Susan R. Smith to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, Box 1, QC. 43.  21 9mo., 1827, Charles Osborne to Ezekiel Cleaver, ECP, SC, Box 4, FH; Kite, Memoirs and Letters, 261. 44.  Benjamin Ladd reference in Branson, Journal, 274; 3 12mo., 1851, Isaac T.

Hopper to Jonathan Palmer, ITHP, FHL. Edward Hicks’s Memoirs, written in 1843, claimed evangelical concepts were embraced by Friends before the Hicksite schism. 45.  4 12mo., 1802, JBL, CBFC, FHL; Harrison, Philadelphia Merchant, 236. On antislavery publications in the eighteenth century, see Sassi, “With a Little Help.” 46. “Commentary,” The Friend: A Religious and Literary Journal 1, no. 1 (27 10mo., 1827): 61–62. The Friend ran a long article documenting their indecorous behavior. “The Elders of Philadelphia and Elias Hicks,” The Friend: A Religious and Literary Journal 1, nos. 14–15 (19 and 26 1mo., 1828): 157, 175, 182–83; 1, no. 32 (24 5mo., 1828): 252–55. 47.  Foreword and “Introductory Remarks” in Evans and Evans, Friends’ Library, 1:1–2 and 16–17. 48.  Editor’s Note, Friends Intelligencer 1, no. 1 (24 4mo., 1838): 4–5, FHL. The New York version of the Friends Intelligencer folded in 1839 and was resurrected in Philadelphia in 1844, first as the Friends Weekly Intelligencer and then just the Friends Intelligencer. The Friend was an Orthodox publication begun in 1827; it would take on an increasingly Wilburite cast during the 1840s. The Friends’ Review, established in 1847, was a Gurneyite periodical. 49.  “Excerpt from the Journal of Thomas Shillitoe,” Friends Intelligencer 1, no. 23 (1 6mo., 1839): 436–38, 445–46; 3 5mo., 1840, Margaret Bancroft to Margaret Wood, Bird-­Bancroft Collection, Box 3, DHS. 50.  “Division in the Society of ‘Orthodox Friends,’ ” Friends Weekly Intelligencer 2, no. 15 (12 7mo., 1845): 117. 51.  This is based on analysis of the 1721, 1789, 1813, 1829, and 1854 issues of Piety Promoted. 52.  J. Wright, History of the Rise and Progress, 77. 53.  Tarter, “Written from the Body,” 87.

Chapter 8 1.  The Common was Boston’s first city park established in 1830. Pendery, “Probing the Boston Common,” 4; Joseph Brinton Diary, 13–14, JBFP, FHL. Caleb Cresson visited the city in 1791 and agreed with Brinton’s assessment: “it seems as if the innocent blood shed in this town about 130 years ago was not yet atoned for.” Cresson, Diary, 69. See also Cadbury, “Samuel Hopwood’s Travels.” For more on Quaker history, see Pestana, “Quaker Executions as Myth and History.” 2.  On the diversity of antebellum Protestantism, see Johnson, Shopkeeper’s Millennium, and Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith. On the interaction between history and memory, see Assmann, “Transformations,” 61–62. 3.  Paraphrasing Rousseau about religion, Maurice Halbwachs states that “the cult of the past” leads to detachment by the individual rather than attachment to society. Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 48; 51; Ollick, Politics of Regret, 6, 10; Zerubavel, Time Maps, 9–13. On collective memory as essential to identity formation, see Eyerman, “Past,” 160–61. 4. Zerubavel, Time Maps, 47; 68–69; Assmann and Czaplicka, “Collective Memory,” 130. Even within a unified community, there are multiple versions of a group’s memory. See Feindt et al., “Entangled Memory,” 25–26. See also Rossington, “Collective Memory,” 140–43. According to Aleida Assmann, collective memory includes “family memory, interactive group memory and social, political, national, and cultural memory.” Assmann, “Transformations,” 55. 5.  Early Americans documented their family histories in varied media. In the late eighteenth century, memory shaped narratives about the American Revolution and war as well as built an American national identity. See Kammen, Season of Youth;

Notes to Pages 173–179

227

Young, Shoemaker; Purcell, Sealed with Blood. 6.  Karin Wulf argues that “genealogical consciousness was a bedrock of early American culture.” Wulf, “Bible, King” 486–87; 500. On “kin-­keeping” among early American families, see Hemphill, Siblings, 50–51; Klein, “On the Emergence of Memory,” 130. 7.  Verplanck, “Silhouette,” 72–73; ­Stabile, Memory’s Daughters, 16; 80–82. 8.  Barbour and Frost, Quakers, 84; ­Stabile, Memory’s Daughters, 16; 192; Blecki and Wulf, Milcah Martha Moore’s Book; Manuscript Notebook of Milcah Martha Moore, 1770–, 16, 60, 88, GMHC, QC; Commonplace Book of Susan Lloyd, 1839, LBFP, QC; Martin, Journal, 5. 9.  Dacome, “Noting the Mind,” 612, 614, 617; M. Brown, Pilgrim, 51. On the templates of Locke’s commonplace method, see Havens, Commonplace Books, 58; see also Yates, Art of Memory, and Carruthers, Book of Memory. 10.  2 11mo., 1789, Samuel Canby Diary, DHS. 11.  17 5mo., 1824, Mary Kite Diary, SKFP, QC; 21 3mo., 1831, Edmund Canby Diary, DHS. Such memorials helped sustain family memory, see Holton, Quaker Women, 57, 78. 12.  Mary Proude Springett Penington (1623–1682) wrote her first account in 1668. Mary’s tale was copied into commonplace books and printed many times over from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. 13. Comly, Journal, 126; undated letter excerpt, Elijah Brown Sr. Commonplace Book, vol. 14, Brown Family Papers, HSP. The deep biblical knowledge of Friends ensured a historical frame that provided “a typology that transcended time.” See Cook, “Pilgrims’ Progresses,” 197. Quaker meetings began recommending that members read the accounts of earlier generations in the late eighteenth century. See D. J. Hall, “What Should Eighteenth Century Quakers Have Read?” 106.

228

Notes to Pages 179–185

14. Holton, Quaker Women, 26; 9 4mo., 1801, Lydia Arnold to James Bringhurst, JBL, FHL; 26 12mo., 1791, Esther Tuke to James Pemberton, Richard T. ­Cadbury Collection, QC; 8 6mo., 1848, Mary Kite to James Kite, and 25 12mo., 1842, Mary Kite to Rebecca Kite, SFP, QC. 15.  “To my grandchildren,” on reverse side of 24 7mo., 1820 letter, Robert Mott to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, QC; 18 10mo., 1840, Deborah Bringhurst Papers, SBHFP, Box 5, SCUDL; H. Smith, Memoirs of Various Friends; 18 2mo., 1843, Hannah Paul to Samuel Bettle; 25 3mo., 1844, Mildred Ratcliff to Samuel Bettle, and 18 3mo., 1843, Stephen Grellet to Samuel Bettle, BFP, Box 1, QC. 16.  17 5mo. and 31 8mo., 1842, Rebecca Walton Diary, KFP, QC;., 3 6mo., 1838, Thomas Wistar Brown Papers, QC. 17.  Elizabeth A. (Kaighns) Lowry Commonplace Book, ca. 1824–1830, Jones-­Cadbury Family Papers; and Ann Roberts Stackhouse Commonplace Book, 1837–1845, Matlack Family Papers, QC. 18.  Quote in 19 2mo., 1824, Jesse Kersey to Elisha Tyron, Jesse Kersey Papers, SC, Box 46, FHL; poem copied in the Manuscript Notebook of Sarah Conard, 1815; “On Receiving the account of my Daughter’s Anne’s illness at Samuel Allinson’s 31 12mo., 1783,” Martha Allinson Commonplace Book, QC. 19.  “Memento of Friendship” by Hannah Griffitts in GMHC, Box 3, QC. For other examples of poetry to dead Friends, see Blecki and Wulf, Milcah Martha Moore’s Book. Susan Stabile argues that by writing these elegies, Griffitts traced her “protracted experience with mourning” and through “recurrent memory” recalled her personal losses. Stabile, Memory’s Daughters, 181–83. 20.  Quaker theology changed before and after 1660 owing to internal divisions and the Stuart restoration. Hicks relied on Fox’s earliest writings before concession to the wider English society occurred. Ingle, “Search,” 74. Antebellum Friends were

aware of the differences among early Friends’ writings. See Gibbons, Review and Refutation, 7; Pumphrey, Historical Sketch, 13–16, FHL. 21.  “A Journal of Life and Gospel Labours of Joseph Oxley, of Norwich, who died in the year 1775, Together with Letters Addressed to Their Friends, with Preliminary Observations of John Barclay,” “Preliminary Observations,” Friends Library 2:304, 31; 345, 347. 22.  “Some Account of the Life of Joseph Pike, of Cork, Ireland, who died in 1729, written by himself,” Friends Library 2:419. 23.  Evans and Evans, Piety Promoted, 4, 11, 14. For Penn’s political views, see Dunn, William Penn; Dunn and Dunn, World of William Penn; and Murphy, Liberty, ­Conscience and Toleration. 24.  “For the Friend,” The Friend: A Religious and Literary Journal 1, no. 10 (27 10mo., 1827): 37; “John Perot,” The Friend 1, no. 14 (7 1mo., 1828): 110; 12 10mo., 1827, Moses Brown to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, Box 1, QC. 25. Ingle, Quakers in Conflict, 131; E ­ pistle from the Yearly Meeting of Friends . . . 1827, 9; Comly, Journal, 343–44; 355. 26.  14 April 1830, “To the London Yearly Meeting of Friends,” reprinted in Palmer, Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott, 18; 1 11mo., 1843, Jacob Harvey to Jesse Kersey, American Friends Collection, Box 9; Pumphrey, Historical Sketch, 17, FHL. 27.  John and Isaac Comly, “Prospectus,” Friends Miscellany 1, no. 1 (4mo., 1831): 4; 1 4 mo., 1833, Comly Papers, FHL; “Diary of John Baldwin, 1794,” Friends Miscellany 5, no. 5 (4mo., 1834): 253, 260, FHL. 28. Gibbons, Review and Refutation, 180–81; “Division in the Society of ‘Orthodox Friends,’ ” Friends Weekly Intelligencer 2, no. 15 (12 7mo., 1845): 117. 29.  Memorabilia, Margaretta Walton Papers, Box 2; Deborah Field Commonplace Book, 1829–1841, Anna C. Stabler Papers, and LBFP, FHL; Commonplace

Book of Tamar Matlack, Matlack Family Papers, QC. 30.  Minshall Painter, “Conversations,” 1827–1830, Painter Family Papers, FHL; Deborah Bringhurst Papers, SBHFP, Box 5, SCUDL; Sixteen Reasons, 5, 7, 9. 31.  John Comly and the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1827–1828, written 13 2nd mo., 1845, QC; “Documents concerning the separation of 1827 and Hicksite doctrine,” and “Manuscript relating to separation of 1827,” John Comly Papers, SC, FHL. 32. Braithwaite, Memoir of Joseph John Gurney, 308; 9 8mo., 1844, Richard Mott to Joseph Tallcott, TFP, QC. 33.  Appeal for the Ancient Doctrines, 62–63. 34.  Appeal for the Ancient Doctrines, 10, 11, 21, 29; 66–67. 35.  Friends Weekly Intelligencer 1, no. 19 (3 8mo., 1844) and 1, no. 23 (31 8mo., 1844); “Two Letters in Relation to the Doctrine and Conditions, as well as Order and Usages of Society of Friends” by John Wilbur, Friends Weekly Intelligencer 1, no. 23 (31 8mo., 1844): 181; Hamm, Transformation, 29. 36.  Hamm, “ ‘New Light,’ ” 54. Wilburites endowed early Quaker writings with “creedal functions,” 57–59. 37.  1 3mo., 1843, and 21 9mo., 1841, John Wilbur to Peleg Mitchel, John ­Wilbur Papers, QC; Wilbur, Narrative, 64; 77–78. 38. Wilbur, Narrative, 200, 202, 213, 225. 39. Wilbur, Narrative, 248. 40.  11 6mo., 1845, John Wilbur to Peleg Mitchel, John Wilbur Papers, QC; Wilbur, Narrative, 199; 261. 41. Fisher, Account, 11–12; 21–22; 30. Densmore, “Be Ye Therefore Perfect,” 42; Hamm, “Hicksite Friends,” 568. On history as transformation, see Andrews and Lapsansky-­Werner, “Thomas Clarkson’s Quaker Trilogy.” 42. Post, Voices, 29, 72, 80, 181, 196. 43.  “Abby Kelley Dragged Out of a Quaker Meetinghouse!!,” The Liberator,

Notes to Pages 186–196

229

September 19, 1845, reprinted in Fager, Angels of Progress, 112–13; Comly, Journal, 128. Conclusion 1.  R. Hunt, Autumnal Fruits, 79–80; 7 9mo., 1846, Joseph Kite to Mary Sheppard, Sheppard Family Papers, Box 1, QC. 2.  Gurneyites founded many Quaker institutions, including Haverford, Earlham, and Guilford. See Oliver et al., Founded by Friends. 3.  Pacifist Friends resurrected arguments made during the American Revolutionary War to justify their position during the Civil War. High, “In War Time,” 232. 4. Cadwallader, Memoir, 117, 120; Braithwaite, Memoirs of Joseph John ­Gurney, 347–49; Joseph Brinton Diary 1850, JBFP, FHL; Hewitt, Radical Friend, 174–75. The quote “deeds not words” from “A Paper Read by Lucy C ­ olman before the Woman’s Political Club, Rochester, New York,” in Colman, Reminiscences, 84.

230

Notes to Pages 197–203

5. Smolenski, Friends and Strangers, 176; Marietta, Reformation, 253–54. 6.  Hamm, “ ‘New Light,’ ” 53. 7.  Hamm, “Hicksite Quaker World,” 17; 31; Barbour and Frost, Quakers, 223. 8.  Clark and Smith, David B. Updegraff, 20. Revivalism as well as an influx of converts moved Gurneyites toward a pastoral ministry by the 1880s. See also Hamm, Transformation, 126. 9.  Ingle concludes that the Hicksite schism allowed “each Friend to interpret faith and practice in the light of each ­other’s unique experience.” Quakers in Conflict, 248. 10.  Hamm, “Hicksite Friends,” chapter 5. In the 1860s, Quakers relaxed their discipline regarding pacifism and allowed some men to fight for the Union. Ending the evil of slavery was deemed more important than maintaining their traditional stance on warfare. Crothers, Quakers Living in the Lion’s Mouth, 239. 11.  See Hamm, Transformation, 99–102; Dandelion, Introduction, 104–6. 12. Ryan, Imaginary Friends, 224.

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247

Index

Note: Page numbers in italics refer to figures. Those followed by n refer to notes, with note number. abolitionism broad movement for, by early nineteenth century, 131 radicalism of, as concern to Quakers, 132 abolitionism of Quakers, 8 active engagement in, by 19th century, 148 attempts to bar slaves from Pennsylvania, 131 boycotts of slave-­made products, 28–30, 130, 133, 139–40 and break-­off of Progressive Friends, 143–44, 223n37 development over time, 131, 139 early adoption vs. others in U.S., 131 haranguing of slave traders and owners, 139 individual acts of resistance, 139–40 members resigning or expelled over disputes about, 141–42 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and, 139 and Quaker factionalism, 88 Quaker opponents, arguments of, 140–41 reasons for support, 130, 131, 132 suppression by Quaker officials, 141 and tension in meetings of 1840s–50s, 141–43 See also free produce movement

abstinence, Quaker advocacy for, 133–35 “Advice to Scholars” (Overseers of Friends Schools, 1796), 48 African Americans choice of other religious denominations, 149 owned or employed by Quakers, 149 in Quaker communities, segregation of, 149 in Quaker meetings, segregation of, 147, 148, 150 and Quaker paternalism, 147 special Quaker meetings for, 147 African Observer, 139 Allen, Sidney, 66–67, 73 Allinson, James, 23, 75 Allinson, Martha death of, 69 death of husband, 72 desire for family support, 38 memorialization of father, 184 moral education of children, 24 verse on death of daughter, 184 worries about son’s spiritual health, 23 Allinson, William, 24, 78 American culture changes of antebellum era, influence on Quakers, 5 evolution of Quakerism toward, 198–202

American Messenger, 163 American Revolution calls for Quaker reformation following, 89–90 and Quaker factionalism, 88–89, 200 and Quaker pacifism, 88 Quakers’ neutrality in, 11 American Tract Society, 163, 224n9 American Vegetarian Society, 134 Anarchy of the Ranters, The (Barclay), 185 Anthony, Susan B., 129 Anti-­Slavery Society, use of Quaker terminology, 140 Antislavery Standard, 184 Apology (Barclay), 172, 185 Appeal for the Ancient Doctrines of the ­Religious Society of Friends, An (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting), 191–92 Arminian Magazine, 66 Ashbridge, Elizabeth, 157, 159 Bailey, William, 55, 79 Baldwin, John, 50, 167, 188–89 Bancroft, Margaret, 174–75 baptism, terminology of, 9 Barbour, Hugh, 8, 87 Barclay, John Anarchy of the Ranters, The, 185 Apology, 172, 185 on children’s study of Bible, 160–61 emphasis on inward practice, 161 Memoirs, 164 readings by, 165 use of works by, in Hicksite controversy, 159 works read by children, 161 Barclay, Lydia Ann, 121–22 Barclay, Robert on baptism, 9 influence on Joseph Kite, 197–98 on nature of faith, 118 on prayer, 124 Quaker publication of works by, 159 use of excerpts from, in Hicksite-­ Orthodox controversy, 185, 186 Barnard, Hannah controversy over, 89, 187 reading habits, 171 Gurneyite schism and, 194

250

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Preaching by, 200 Bassett, William, 147–48 Bates, Elisha, 107–9 acceptance of biblical authority over Quaker tradition, 108–9 as advocate for Evangelical Friends, 108 on authority of Bible over Quaker founders’ works, 115–16 and Beaconite controversy, 107 disowning of, by Monthly Meeting, 107, 108 in England, 107–8 Gurney and, 108, 111 on Gurneyism, 115 Hicksite criticisms of, 189 and movement of Quakers from roots, 125–26 and Quaker evolution, 201 reading by, 165 on Scripture as foundation for determining true doctrine from false, 115–16 silent meetings, rejection of, 108–9 on spurious beliefs, importance of uprooting, 115–16 ultraevangelical beliefs of, 107, 109 water baptism of, as contrary to Quaker doctrine, 108 Beaconite controversy, 107–8 Beacon to the Society of Friends (Crewdson), 107 behavior vs. belief in Quakerism, 5, 7, 18 as outward reflection of inner state, 7 vs. Protestants, as issue, 12 See also religious practices, Quaker; self-­monitoring Benezet, Anthony antislavery activism, 139 First Book for Children, A, 161, 162 image of his house as Quaker keepsake, 184 Mighty Destroyer Displayed, The, 136 Pennsylvania Spelling Book, The, 162–63 use of excerpts from, in Hicksite-­ Orthodox controversy, 188 as vegetarian, 134 Berean, The (journal), 187 Bettle, Jane, 68, 70, 161–62, 183 Bettle, Samuel, 28, 93, 183

Bible children’s reading of, 160–61, 162 deathbed discussion of, 63, 66 as foundation for determining true doctrine from false, Bates on, 115–16 Gurney on authority of vs. Quaker founders, 108, 109, 114–15, 118 Gurney on authority of vs. revelation, 110, 111 Gurney’s support for regimented study of, 123 Hicksite views on authority of, 101 Hicksite schism and, 59, 172 Hicks on, 91, 98 Hicks on lifeless, routinized reading of, 91 in household worship, 37–38 Orthodox stress on, vs. Inner Light, 85–86, 87, 91, 159, 173–74, 186, 191–92 Progressive Friends’ views on, 194–95 proper method of reading, 159, 160 as source of comfort and inspiration, 167, 168 in training of children, 46, 54, 57, 160– 61, 162 at Westtown School, 52, 59, 160 Wilburites on authority of vs. Quaker founders, 116 Wilbur on faith and, 118 Bible Association of Friends, 160 Bible societies, 161 boarding schools, Quaker in England, 47 instilling self-­discipline as goal of, 54, 56 parents’ admonishments to students, 53–54, 57 pedagogical methods, 55–57 and student self-­monitoring, 57 in U.S., 47–48 See also Westtown School Bonsall, Mary, 68, 70 book culture of transatlantic Quaker community, 157 books as gifts to children, 162 colonial era book shortage, 158 and communal reading, 157 creation of scribal canon, 176 dissemination of Quaker writings, 157 history of, 157 See also reading by Quakers; writing by Quakers

“Book of Memorandum” (Bettle), 183 Braithwaite, Anna Crewdson and, 121 and Gurney, 112 and Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 121 and Hicksite Schism, 96, 97, 98–100 Brayton, Patience, 31, 33 “A Brief Account of some of my Exercises” (Penington), 181–82 Brief Remarks on Impartiality in the Interpretation of Scripture (Gurney), 118, 219n20 Bringhurst, Deborah death of son, 164 on decline in Quaker piety, 90 diary kept by, 168 and Hicksite Schism, 98, 190 sharing of deceased husband’s diary with children, 183 Bringhurst, Hannah, 17, 33, 36, 184 Bringhurst, James concern about son’s use of alcohol, 138 correspondence, 169, 182 death of, 71 on pernicious books, bad effects from reading, 170, 171 on plain dress, value of, 26 on preparation for death, 69 on Quaker piety, 18 on silent worship, 32 on value of reading, 159 Bringhurst, Joseph, 98, 173 Brinton, Joseph abstinence in food and drink, 135 journal recording self-­discipline regime, 125, 125 on memory as binding force for ­Quakers, 177–78, 179 on newspapers, danger of reading, 171 religious practices of, 199 sleeping during meeting, 34 visit to Boston, 177, 227n1 and Wilburite asceticism, 124–25 Brown, Elijah, Sr., 168, 182 Brown, (Moses and Mary) family diary of children’s activities to provide behavioral feedback, 44–46 Domestic or Home Peace Society to enforce children’s good behavior, 40–41, 42, 58

Index

251

Brown, (Moses and Mary) family (continued) Hicksite Schism of 1827–1828 and, 58 as members of Arch Street meeting, 58 religious training of children, 46 Brown, Mary death of Mary Jr., writing about, 73–74 letters to son providing moral guidance, 24 See also Brown, (Moses and Mary) family Brown, Mary, Jr. death of, 73–74 family life of, 45 moral education of, 40–41 Brown, Moses, 187 See also Brown, (Moses and Mary) family Brown, Moses, Jr., moral education of, 40–41, 45, 46 Brown, William, 47–48 Brown, Wistar [Thomas Wistar] grandmother’s gift to, 184 moral education of, 40–41, 44–46 mother’s letters providing moral guidance, 24 Budd, Rebecca, 51, 55, 57 Bunyan, John, 102 burials, Quaker gatherings following, to celebrate deceased, 81–82 as occasion for spiritual reflection, 80 prohibition on vaults, monuments, or gravestones, 81 simplicity of casket and ceremony, 80–81, 214n42 Burlington County Temperance Society of New Jersey, 137 Cadwallader, Priscilla Hunt, 184, 197, 199 Canby, Edmund, 71–74, 181 Cherry Street meeting (Philadelphia), 35, 143 Chester Monthly Meeting, warnings about tobacco use, 136 children’s education, reading in, 157, 160–62 accounts of pious deaths of children, 165–66 Bible and, 46, 52, 54, 59, 160–61, 162 books used, 161–62 care in choice of, 163

252

Index

and pernicious books, avoidance of, 170–72 Quaker publications in, 162–63 See also education, formal children’s moral education in attainment of calm mind, 22, 23–24, 25 on avoidance of interactions with non-­ Quakers, 26 Brown family Society to enforce good behavior, 40–41, 42, 58 and children’s admonishment of other children, 26 as community-­wide effort, 60 constant surveillance and feedback on behavior, 24, 43, 44–46 and early education, 43 equal importance with academic education, 40 as essential to preserving Quakerism, 40–41, 44, 60 friends and relatives’ help in, 24–25 God’s direct involvement in, 23 increased importance of, with increased factionalism, 39 influence on modern childrearing, 43 on listening to inner voice, 19, 24, 49, 54 ministers’ youth meetings for, 26 parental modeling in, 43–44, 46 parents’ embarrassment at poor public behavior as tool in, 45–46 as parents’ primary responsibility, 44 plain dress and, 26 preference for reason over punishment, 42–43 principles inculcated, 22–25 as reflection of larger culture’s views, 42–43 self-­discipline as goal of, 19, 41, 42–43, 44, 52, 54, 56, 57, 60 and silence in family meetings, 38 and spiritual practice, guidance in, 46 strategies used in, 42–44 subjugating will to inward principle of virtue as goal of, 44 and view of child as tabula rasa, 42–43 visitations by elders, 25–26 children’s pious deaths, published accounts of, 165–66 Child’s Companion, 172 Churchman, George, 20, 169, 182

Civil War, and evolution of Quakerism, 201–2, 230n10 Clarkson, Thomas, 18, 168, 226n39 Coates, Rebecca Horner, 28, 103, 166 colleges, Quaker, establishment of, 198 Collins, Rebecca Singer, 26, 103–4, 168, 170 Comfort, Ezra, 121, 216n17 Comly, Isaac abstinence from alcohol, 137 and balance between spirituality and sociability, 36–37 childhood books of, 161 and Friends Miscellany, 188 on Methodism, 102 moral instruction as child, 22 on plain dress, 27 and spirituality, friends’ support of, 37 Comly, John on calm mind, struggle to achieve, 33 on children’s training in silent worship, 23 and Friends’ Miscellany, 188 as Hicksite, 100–101 Hicksite epistle to London Yearly Meeting, 188 and Hicksite Schism, 190–91 house metaphor for spirituality used by, 10 as instructor at Westtown School, 55 on mind, 21 on moderation in food and drink, 134 on partition between time and eternity, 177 on plain dress, 27 on quietness of mind, importance of, 20 silent reflection by, 30 on silent worship, 32 on teaching self-­discipline to children, 44 use of “paths of life” metaphor, 4 commonplace books codification of Quaker beliefs in, 180 continued use despite modernization, 198 copies of letters from early Quakers in, 182 on Hicksites, 189–90 Quakers’ collections of quotations in, 168–69 reproduction of passages from early Quakers in, 181–82, 184 as spur to greater piety, 180–81, 182

types of events and passages recorded in, 180, 184 communal reading, 157 Congregational Friends. See Progressive (Congregational) Friends Considerations on the True Harmony of Mankind (Woolman), 171 convincement in Quaker spirituality calls for reform and, 89 as goal of reading, 157, 172, 176 as life-­long process, 7 parents’ look for signs in children, 73 similarity to evangelical “conversion,” 7 Cooper, David, 23, 26, 79 Cope, Caleb, 53, 57 Cope, Francis, 3, 53 Cope, Mary Drinker letters to son at boarding school, 3, 53, 57 moral instruction of child, 22 Cope, Rest, 53, 57 Cope, Thomas Pym on abolitionists, immoderation of, 142–43 biased views on African Americans, 147 on childrearing, 43 on death, 79 distribution of Quaker publications, 173 and Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 112, 120–21, 122 journal kept by, 166–67 letter to sons at boarding school, 53 on novels, bad effects from reading, 170 on plain dress, 27 creature, the, definition of, 9–10 Crewdson, Isaac Anna Braithwaite and, 121 founding of Evangelical Friends, 108 Gurney and, 111 rejection of many core Quaker beliefs, 107–8 Dandelion, Pink, 4, 87, 109 Darby, Deborah, 25, 27, 80 death accidental, as lesson for young about need to prepare for death, 72 and art of dying (ars moriendi), Christian tradition on, 67 beautification of death movement, 81 in childbirth, 69

Index

253

death (continued) of children: and grief of family, 72–73; and parents’ writing about child’s spiritual preparation, 72, 73–74, 78; published accounts of pious deaths, 165–66; and support of friends, 72–73 as common occurrence in early America, 66 and grief of loved ones, 68 Quaker life as preparation for, 64, 69, 76 as spur to pious reflection, 181 of young people, as particularly shocking, 71–72 death, Quaker approach to acceptance, importance of, 63, 64, 65, 70, 71, 75 and bedside watching by family and friends, 69–72, 82; aura of peace experienced in, 70, 71, 72; to learn proper way to die, 71; purposes of, 69–70 Catholics and Protestants, 65–66 as communal event, 64, 66–67 consolation of bereaved, 79 as continuation of struggle for communion with God, 64 and deathbed preaching by women ministers, 62–63, 65 and deathbed repentance, 74 dying a good death, importance of, 82 evangelical notions of, after Hicksite Schism, 75–77, 82, 198; and Christ and Satan, increased references to, 75–77, 82; and deathbed redemption, 76–77; and prayer and hymn singing, 76 as formalized and performative, 64–65, 66 importance of, 62 inability of some to meet standards of, 74–75 and long illness, as spiritual challenge, 72 mindfulness in, 65 ministers’ visits, 70 as model for others, 65, 66, 70, 71, 76, 79 mourning clothing, 80–81 night watch over body, 80 and pain: communal sympathy generated by, 67–68; purification of sufferer by, 68; transcendence of, as mark of good death, 68

254

Index

passage into Heaven as consolation, 63, 65–66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, 78–79, 81–82 peaceful death, as sign of blessed soul, 63, 65, 66, 72–73, 74, 77 post-­burial gatherings, 81–82 prayerful and patient humility, importance of, 61, 62–63, 65, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 78, 82 presence of family and friends, importance of, 61 and Quaker life as preparation for death, 64, 69, 76 and rejection of beloved worldly goods, 75 repentance and salvation as not generally addressed in, 64, 66 and ritualization, shaping of experience through, 82 standard elements of, 65, 66, 75 structure and meaning provided by, 67 Susanna Lightfoot’s death as exemplar of, 62–63, 64 welcoming of, as escape from worldly trials and temptations, 69 writing about, 198; accounts of pious deaths of children, 165–66; detailed accounts of physical and spiritual condition, 78; memorialization of exemplary deaths in print, 66; parents’ record of child’s spiritual preparation, 72, 73–74, 78 Dent, Mary, 18, 51, 57 diaries and journals continued use despite modernization, 198 as devotional exercise, 7–8, 51–53, 166–68 Dillwyn, George on Bible reading for children, 160 on learning to die well, 62 Map of the Various Paths of Life, A, 1–4, 2, 59 Occasional Reflections for use in schools, 56 Discipline, Quaker and abolitionism in meetings, 141 and Hicksite Schism, 85, 90, 93 Orthodox views on Hicksite violation of, 187 questions on, read out in meeting, 35–36

and right to expel troublemakers, 116–17 types of rules in, 35 Discipline of Progressive Friends, 147 divine openings, definition of, 9 Dodsley, Robert, 21, 161 dress, plain, 26–30 decline of, 89, 201 difficulty of, with boycott of southern cotton, 28–30 evolution over time, 27 Gurney on, 116 as issue in Hicksite Schism, 86 as mark of separation from world, 26, 27 by men, unwanted attention attracted by, 28 and mirrors, discouragement of, 27 and moral education of children, 26 move from, in early 19th century, 12, 27, 28, 29 as officially recommended throughout antebellum period, 28 as outdated by 1860, 30 as outward manifestations of Quaker faith, 7, 18, 26 partial adoption by some, 28 as requirement at Westtown School, 49–50 variation in adherence to, 27 variation in reasons for, 27 See also speech, plain drooping mind, definition of, 9 drooping soul, definition of, 9 Economy of Human Life, The (Dodsley), 21, 161 education, formal, 47–52 emphasis on example of teachers and parents, 47 as “guarded education” separate from worldliness, 47 inculcation of fear of the Lord as goal of, 48, 49 indoctrination into Society as goal of, 47 as mix of practical and moral education, 47, 60 moral instruction, goals of, 48 Overseers of Friends Schools “Advice to Scholars” on (1796), 48 Penn’s call for practical and liberal education, 47

Quakers’ prioritization of, 47 self-­regulation as goal of, 48 use of only Quaker teachers, 47 See also boarding schools, Quaker; children’s education, reading in; children’s moral education educational institutions, Quaker, proliferation of, 198 elders Quaker use of term, 208n30 visitations by, in moral education of children, 25–26 Emlen, Samuel, 63, 80, 164 Emlen, Sarah, 99, 111 English Grammar (Murray), 163 Enlightenment views on childrearing, influence on Quakers, 42–43 Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke), 21–22 evangelical Protestantism Gurneyites’ embrace of, 198 influence on Quaker reform activism, 131 influence on Quaker views, 5, 200, 202 See also Orthodox Quakers, evangelical influence on Evangelical Quakers Bates as advocate for, 108 evangelical theology adopted by, 10 founding of, 108 mixing of traditional and evangelical terminology after 1830, 10 practices and beliefs of, 108 Evans, Hannah, 52, 53, 76 Evans, Jonathan, 54, 58, 92, 104 Evans, Joshua, 75, 134, 136 Evans, Thomas as editor of The Friends’ Library, 173–74, 185–86 efforts to reconcile Gurneyites and Wilburites, 120 evangelical concepts adopted by, 103 Hicksite criticisms of, 189, 190 on pain, spiritual value of, 68 on “tribulated path” of Quakers, 4 Evans, William correspondence with mother from boarding school, 53 dislike of Quaker political activism, 141 as editor of The Friends’ Library, 173–74, 185–86

Index

255

Evans, William (continued) and Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 120, 121 on instruction at boarding school, 56 on need for Quaker reformation, 89 Orthodox views of, 101 evolution of Quakerism in antebellum era and development of many forms, 12, 201–2 influence of evangelical Protestantism and, 5, 200, 202 move toward mainstream culture, 198–202 as reflection of larger cultural changes, 5 See also evangelical Protestantism; factionalism Examples for Youth, In Remarkable Instances of Early Piety (Rawes), 165–66 experimental philosophers, English, interest in human mind, 21–22 factionalism in 1750s–60s, over slavery, 88 in 1798, over biblical infallibility, 89 of 1830s–50s, ultraevangelicalism and, 87 American Revolution and, 88–89 of antebellum period, emotional trauma of, 106 and changes in Quaker practice, 5, 86–87 and changes in Quaker terminology, 10 as driven by conviction, 5 and evolution of many forms of Quakerism, 12, 199, 201–2 and expansion of Quaker options, 5, 127 history of, 197–98, 200, 201 and innovations in belief and behavior, 201 popular theology of antebellum era and, 87–88 Progressive separation from Hicksites, 130, 143–44, 223n37 Quakers’ use of communal identity to combat, 177–78, 179 and rejection of books by opposition, 172, 176 social issues and, 88 See also Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict; Hicksite Schism of 1827–28 Fallowfield meetinghouse, conflict over abolitionism, 143

256

Index

families, use of history to create Quaker identity, 183, 227–28n5 family genealogies albums of images and, 179–80 and commemorations of deceased members, 183 and family identity, 179 and pious ancestors as models, 179 family worship inclusion of servants in, 209n63 silence during, 37 fellow travelers, as metaphor used by Friends, 4 Ferris, Benjamin on Hicks, 91 and Hicksite Schism, 92, 93, 215n9 letter to daughter at boarding school, 54 First Book for Children, A (Benezet), 161, 162 First Book for Children, A (Woolman), 162 Fisher, Sarah Logan (1806–1891) family of, 207–8n27 grandmother’s moral advice, 24–25 and Hicksite Schism, 105 Fisher, Sarah Logan (1751–1796) death of sister, 80 diary kept by, 167–68 lessons learned at deathbed of friend, 80 reading by, 159, 164 visits to sick and dying, 70 Fothergill, Samuel, 21, 26, 182 Foulke, Elizabeth, 74, 164 Foulke, Susan, 93, 111 Fox, George conversations with children about ideas of, 46 on dangers of alcohol and tobacco, 135 funeral of, 184 and “hedge” metaphor, 4 Progressive spiritualist’s communication with, 195 Quaker publication of works by, 159 use of excerpts from: in children’s books, 162–63; in Gurneyite-­Wilburite controversy, 191, 193; in Hicksite-­Orthodox controversy, 185, 188, 228–29n20; to justify Progressive Quakerism, 195; to justify reform activism, 195–96 on women’s leadership, 8 works of, owned by Quakers, 161

Foxites, 110 Franks, Abigail, 149 free produce movement, 28–29, 130, 140, 149 Free Quakers, 88–89 Friend, The: A Religious and Literary Journal, 173, 187 friends, mutual support in spiritual discipline, 37, 38–39 Friends Intelligencer, The, 171, 174, 227n48 Friends Library, The (Evans and Evans, eds.), 173–74, 185–86 Friends Miscellany (1845), 164 Friends Miscellany (Comly and Comly, eds., 1831–1839), 188 Friends of Human Progress, 146–47 Friends Weekly Intelligencer criticism of Orthodox Quakers, 175 on Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 192–93 as Hicksite journal, 119 on importance of separation from worldly conflict, 163 on Orthodox factionalism, 189 on physical education, 134–35 as resurrected version of Friends Intelligencer, 227n48 on sectarianism, 119 types of content in, 175 Frost, J. William, 8, 9, 43, 64, 87, 146 funerals, Quaker admonitions to living at, 80 Hicksite Schism and, 81 plain style of, 64, 65 spiritual benefits to mourners, 80 and sustaining of community, 82 testimonies about deceased at, 80 Fussell, Lydia, 69, 133 gender and Hicksite Schism, 99–100 Gould, Thomas B., 112, 219n13 Great Separation of Hicksite and Orthodox Friends. See Hicksite Schism of 1827–28 Green Plain Quarterly Meeting (Ohio), separation from main body, 143, 144 Green Street meetinghouse, 96, 97, 100 Grellet, Stephen accounts of death of, 184 on “Book of Memorandum” (Bettle), 183

funeral sermon (1840), 77 on Hicks, 91 preaching tour of France, 172 on silent worship, 31 visits to Quaker deathbeds, 76 Griffitts, Hannah commonplace book of, 180 on death, 79 death of, 82 elegies to dead family members, 184, 228n19 funeral tribute to friend, 63 Grubb, Sarah Tuke on childrearing, 44 as daughter of William Tuke, 57 diary of, as model for other students, 57 on importance of religious training in children, 40 journal of, 161 letter writing by, 169 and “paths of life” metaphor, 3 as sister of Henry Tuke, 57 Gurney, Joseph John, 110–13 on authority of Scripture vs. Quaker founders, 108, 109, 114–15, 118 on authority of Scripture vs. revelation, 110, 111 background of, 110, 219n8 and Bates, influence on, 108 on belief as sufficient, 114 Brief Remarks on Impartiality in the Interpretation of Scripture, 118, 219n20 charm and erudite preaching of, 110 on children’s study of Bible, 160 condescension toward U.S. Quakers, 112–13 controversy stirred by, among U.S. Quakers, 110–13, 116, 121–23 credentials from London Yearly Meeting, 121, 220n37 critics of, 126–27 on daily self-­examination, 116 death of, 79 downplaying of Inner Light and “Christ within” doctrine, 110, 112, 114–15, 118, 121, 123 early life in Britain, 110 as English evangelical Friend, 77 hope to maintain middle course between Hicksite and Orthodox views, 116

Index

257

Gurney, Joseph John (continued) involvement in evangelical social reform, as off putting to Quakers, 113 mix of Quaker and evangelical beliefs in, 110 on moderation, 135 and movement of Quakers from roots, 125–26 on plain dress, 116 on practical religion, 10 on propitiatory death of Jesus, 110–11 protection from criticism as concern to Wilburites, 117, 118–19 on Quaker founders as source of error, 118 on Quaker founders’ belief in propitiatory death of Jesus, 110–11 on Quakerism and evangelicalism, proper mix of, 199 on Quakerism as pure form of Christianity, 115 on Quakerism as “simple food for simple minds,” 111 on Quaker practice, as only superficially different from other Protestants, 112 on Quaker separation from world, 116 quotes from, in Quaker commonplace books, 169 radical evangelicalism of, 110 and redemption through Jesus, emphasis on, 115 rejection of authority of Quaker founders, 114, 121–22 rejection of Hicksites, 112 reuniting of Quakers as goal of, 126 and schism of 1840s, 106 sermon at Arch Street meetinghouse (1837), 191 on silent worship, 116 and spread of ultraevangelicalism among U.S. Quakers, 109 support for prepared devotions, 123 support for regimented Bible study, 123 traditional aspects of Quakerism endorsed by, 116 and training of children, 26 on true religion, 1 visit to deathbed of Henry Collins, 77 and Wilbur, doctrine in common with, 221n45

258

Index

Wilburite rejection of works by, 172 See also Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict Gurneyism Bates’ support for, 115–16 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting critique of, 191–92 turn of most Orthodox Quakers to, 200 Wilbur’s critique of, 109, 113–14, 116–18, 123–24, 219n16; continuing of, after expulsion, 117–18; expulsion from Monthly Meeting as result of, 116, 117; use of founders’ words to support position, 118 Gurneyite Quakers and changes in Quaker practice, 5, 200 colleges established by, 198 conversion experience, importance of, 10 critics of, 126–27 desire for union with other Protestants, 109–10 and evangelicalism, embrace of, 198 move toward mainstream culture, 202 publications in conflict with Wilburites, 191, 193 rejection of Inner Light and other core Quaker practices, 109 Renewal-­Revival schism in, 201–2 as ultraevangelists, 12 use of professional ministers and singing in worship, 221n46 willingness to criticize early Friends, 193 See also Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict and expansion of Quaker options, 127 and fears of Quaker dissolution, 109–10, 111, 119–21 further factionalism caused by, 126–27 Hicksite call for reconciliation in, 119 “middle party” efforts toward reconciliation, 120–21 and move from Quaker tradition, 200 points of contention in, 109 rancor stirred by, 110–13, 116, 121–23 and rejection of books by opposition, 172 and second wave of Quaker schism, 109 See also Gurney, Joseph John; Gurneyite Quakers; Wilbur, John; Wilburite Quakers

habits, regular, as essential for spiritual progress, 20 Haines, Elizabeth, 56–57 Halbwachs, Maurice, 178, 227n2 Hambrick-­Stowe, Charles, 6, 166 Hamm, Thomas, 31, 58, 124, 193 Hatch, Nathan, 87–88 Haverford College, establishment of, 198 health reform and abstinence, Quaker advocacy for, 133–35 and health effects of selfishness, 134 and human physiology, public’s interest in, 134 other related causes, 133–34 and physical education, 134 Healy, Christopher, 80 heart, in religious practice, work in tandem with mind and spirit, 19–20 hedge, as metaphor used by Friends, 4 Hicks, Edward on Gurney, 113 on Gurneyites, 109–10 on Hicksites, 110 Memoirs, 172 Progressive spiritualist’s communication with, 195 Wilbur on, 113–14 Hicks, Elias attacks on, by visiting English Quakers, 96–100 on Bible, authority of, 91, 98 call for young to reject elders’ authority, 58 concerns about work with ecumenical groups, 141 controversy stirred by, 200 on decline of Quaker piety, 90–91 documents of, saved by Hicksites, 189 growth of opposition to views of, 91–92, 216n17 Jordan poem in honor of, 184 on New Testament as Pope’s Book, 59 Orthodox views on, 187 as popular minister, 91 preaching to Westtown school children, 52 Progressive spiritualist’s communication with, 195 Shillitoe and, 174

use of excerpts from: in Hicksite controversy, 189; to justify Progressive Quakerism, 195 Wilbur on, 194 works by, rejection by Orthodox Quakers, 172 Hicksite Quakers and abolitionism in meetings, objections to, 141 belief in authority of inner lights over doctrine, 100–101 commonplace books of, 189–90 denial of entry to Orthodox graveyards, 81 doctrinal position in Hicksite controversy, 85–86, 87 doctrine vs. individual revelation as ­central issue of, 86, 95–96 emphasis on education of youth, 58 female ministers, silencing of, 99 and Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 119 Gurney’s refusal to acknowledge as Quakers, 112 historical materials on Schism, collection of, 187–88, 189–90 issues at stake in, 86 leaving Cherry Street meeting (image, 1820s), 34, 35 move toward mainstream culture, 201 on Orthodox distortion of Hicks’s views, 189 and Orthodox Quakers, similarities and differences in beliefs, 100–101 on Orthodox rejection of Inner Light’s authority, 85–86, 87, 91 Orthodox view, critiques of, 189, 190 pedagogical methods, 59 publications in conflict with Orthodox Quakers, 157, 159, 173–76, 185, 187–91, 193 and reforms movements, 129, 132, 141–42, 201 religious experience typical of, 197–98 retention of traditional quietism, 12 and salvation as deathbed concern, 64, 66 separation of Progressive Friends from, 130 on Wilburism, 189 Hicksite Schism of 1827–28, 100–101 authority of doctrine vs. individual revelation as central issue of, 100–101, 106

Index

259

Hicksite Schism (continued) beneficial aspects of, 87 and broadening of religious options, 86 and centralization of power, Hicksites’ denunciation of, 92, 95–96 changes in Quaker practice leading to, 5, 89–91, 105 and children’s education, emphasis on, 57–58, 60, 198 commonalities persisting despite, 198 decline in ability to nurture convergence and, 87, 89, 94 and decline in meeting attendance, 96 doctrinal positions under dispute in, 85–88 effects of, 104–6 emotional trauma caused by, 58, 86 emphasis on education in both factions, 57–58, 60, 198 and engagement in reform activism, 105 English Friends’ attacks on Hicks and, 96–100 and forced clarification of beliefs, 12 and funerals, conflict over, 81 growth of opposition to Hicks’ views, 91–92 heated disputes by 1826, 93–95 Hicksites’ collection of historical materials on, 187–88, 189–90 hopes for reconciliation following, 105–6 impact on children as concern, 58 Orthodox expulsion of Hicksites from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 85 Orthodox meetings outside regular channels, 92–93, 93 and Quaker adaptation, 12 and Quaker approach to death, intrusion of evangelical notions into, 75–77, 82; and Christ and Satan, increased references to, 75–77, 82; and deathbed redemption, 76–77; and prayer and hymn singing, 76 Quakers’ concerns about, 104–5 rancor following, 105 as reflection of changes in larger culture, 87–88 and rejection of books by opposition, 172 scholarship on, 215n7 spirit of free thinking released by, 105

260

Index

and traditional practices, questioning of, 87 underlying causes of, 87 and use of history to claim legitimacy, 179 and Westtown School, 59 and women ministers, criticisms of, 99–100 Hilles, Margaret, 38, 71 historiography, Quaker, 11–12 history, definition of, 178 history, Quaker as contested, 196 families’ use to create identity, 183, 227–28n5 and formation of communal identity, 179, 198–99, 228n13 Hicksites’ collection of historical materials on Schism, 187–88, 189–90 vs. memory, 178 Progressive Friends’ use for justification, 194–96 Quakers’ use for justification in factional strife, 177–78, 185–91 as spur to greater piety, 182 use in Gurneyite-­Wilburite controversy, 191–94, 196 use in Hicksite-­Orthodox controversy, 179, 185–91, 196 History of the Quakers (Sewell), 161, 189 History of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers in Ireland, A (1751), 155, 176 Holy Dying (Taylor), 67 Holy Nation (Crabtree), 11 Hopper, Isaac T. and The Friends Intelligencer, 174 gift of book to granddaughter, 162 on Gurney, 112 on importance of detachment from worldly matters, 140 on Jonathan Evans, 92 reading by, 164 reform activism, expulsion from meeting due to, 142 rejection of Hicks’s Memoirs, 172 Hume, Sophia, 165, 182 Hunt, John on calm mind as primary conduit of spiritual insight, 20

death of son, 78, 81–82 on decline of Quakerism into doctrine, 89 diary kept by, 167 gifts of books to grandchildren, 162 journal of, 156 on materialism infecting Quakers, 155–56 on newspapers, bad effects of reading, 171 and “paths of life” metaphor, 3 on quality of meetings attended, 33 reading of inspirational religious stories, 155–56, 165, 176 sermons on need for spiritual preparation for death, 72 spiritual literacy of, 156–57 visits to dying, 70 Hunt, Rachel, 197–98 Hunt, Samuel, 78, 81–82 incorporating practice in Quakerism, 6 Indian Committee, 148 inner monitor. See voice within (still, small voice, inner monitor) inscribing practice in Quakerism, 6 Jackson, Ann, 4, 71, 94, 102 Jackson, Mary, 6, 53, 139–40 Jefferis, Edith, 38, 54 Jefferis, Joshua, 38, 53, 54 Jefferis, Martha, 53, 54, 72 Jones, Ann funeral sermon on salvation by, 76 and Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 121 and Hicksite Schism, 96, 97, 99–100 visits to dying, 76 Jones, George, 96, 97 Jones, Rebecca deathbed sermons by, 80 death of, 74 and idle chatter outside meeting, discouragement of, 34 letter writing by, 169 rules for girls’ school run by, 48 spiritual support for friend, 38 journals and diaries. See diaries and journals Judge, Hugh and balance between spirituality and sociability, 37

call for post-­Revolution Quaker reformation, 89 on calm mind as primary conduit for spiritual insight, 20 and death of Edith Sharpless, 72 journal kept by, 167 moral instruction to children, 24 on prayer, 34 on religious life as arduous labor, 19 on silent worship, 31 Judge, Susannah, 3, 10, 167 Kelley, Abby, 129, 195–96 Kersey, Jesse, 32, 141 Kiethianism, 192 Kimberton Boarding School, 56 kin networks among Quakers, and community-­wide education of young, 60 Kite, Joseph, 147, 197–98 Kite, Mary and balance between spirituality and sociability, 37 on calm mind, necessity of, 20 concerns about Quaker dissolution, 107 on daily life, proper conduct in, 25 and death as spur to pious reflection, 181 death of brother, 74–75 death of friend as example to, 76 evangelical concepts adopted by, 102–3 and Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 111, 121 and Hicksite Schism, 94, 96, 105 letters of, as reassertion of spiritual bonds, 182–83 letter to niece, 169–70 mother’s death, 79 reading by, 1634 on solitude of spiritual journey, 36 spiritual support for relatives, 38 visits to dying Friends, 70 Kite, Nathan, 183–84 Kite, Susanna, 53, 56 Kite, Thomas on danger of Hicksite works, 172 on Hicks, 91 on Hicksites, 58, 95 letter to daughter at boarding school, 53 niece Martha Sharpless, 55 at Rebecca Allinson’s death bed, 76

Index

261

landscape metaphor of spirituality, 10, 18 Lay, Benjamin, 134, 136, 139, 222n15 letter writing by Quakers Orthodox adoption of evangelical ­concepts and, 169–70 to preserve spiritual bonds, 182 as religious exercise, 169–70 and remembrance, 182–83 Lewis, Enoch, 139, 171 Light, Inner Crewdson’s rejection of, 107–8 Gurneyites’ downplaying of, 109, 110, 112, 114–15, 118, 121, 123 Hicksites’ belief in authority of, 85–86, 87, 91, 100–101 Orthodox Puritans’ de-­emphasis of, 85–86, 87, 91 Orthodox stress on authority of Scripture over, 85–86, 87, 159, 173–74, 186, 191–92 Lightfoot, Robert, 62, 63 Lightfoot, Susanna on bonding of Quakers in worship, 31–32 funeral and burial, 63 illness and death of, as exemplary, 62–63, 64 as popular minister, 62 Lippincott, Mary, 24, 37, 78 literature, dangerous consequences of reading, 170, 171–72, 226n39 Lloyd, Mary, 20, 27 Lloyd, Sarah, 168–69 Lloyd, Susan, 168–69, 180 Locke, John, 21–22, 42–43, 97, 181, 199 London Meeting for Sufferings, and Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 122 London Quakers, early publications by, 158 London Yearly Meeting education recommendations, 47 and Gurney, credentials given to, 121, 220n37 Gurney and, 108, 110 Hicksites and, 187, 188 on Quaker education, 47 removal of Hannah Barnard’s credentials, 89 Map of the Various Paths of Life, A (Dillwyn), 1–3, 2, 59

262

Index

use by Friends to depict spiritual life, 3–4 use in instructing children, 3 Marlborough Meetinghouse, conflict over abolitionism, 143 Martin, Isaac, 23, 31, 180 Meditations (Hervey), 164 Memoirs of Several Friends (Smith), 183 memory albums of images and, 179–80 collective: as binding force for Quakers, 177–78; and factionalism, 199; and formation of communal identity, 176, 178–79, 180, 196, 199; and Hicksite controversy, 196; and material culture, 180; multiple versions of, 227n4; objects in creation of, 179–80, 183–84; as socially constructed cultural inheritance, 178–79 commemoration of past leaders, 183–84 definition of, 178 vs. history, 178 letter writing and, 182–83 and norms of remembrance, 179 of pious Quakers of past, as spur to greater piety, 178, 183–84 published accounts of deceased ministers and, 180 Quaker, as contested, 196 recording of visions, dreams, sermons and other sectarian occurrences, 180 records of deceased family and friends, 183 vehicles for, 178, 179–80 See also commonplace books Methodism influence on Quakers, 200, 201 Quakers’ affinity with, 102 Michener, Ezra, 28, 138 Mickle, Samuel, 105, 159 Mifflin, Warner, 89, 139, 149, 169 Mighty Destroyer Displayed, The (Benezet), 136 Miller, James, 50–51 Milton, John, 171 mind early modern conception of, 21–22 Quaker conception of: objectification of, 20–21; reason as divine gift allowing access to truth, 21 training of, as Quaker goal, 21–22

mind, calm as necessary for spiritual insight, 18, 20 prayer as means to, 34 and silent worship, 30–33 simple dress and thought as means to, 18 training children to develop, 22, 23–24, 25 mind, in religious practice calm mind as conduit for spiritual insight, 20–21 as essential tool, 9 work in tandem with heart and spirit, 19–20 mindfulness. See self-­monitoring ministers, special youth meetings, 26 Miscellaneous Companions (Matthews), 21 mnemonic socialization, 179 Moore, Milcah Martha, 79, 180 Mott, John, 85, 101 Mott, Lucretia on children’s reading of Bible, 161 dedication to life of public service, 128–29 on free product movement, 140 as Hicksite, 128 Hicksite epistle to London Yearly Meeting, 188 newspaper reading by, 171 and plain dress, 28, 29 reform causes supported by, 128 Mott, Richard, 105–6, 121 Murray, Lindley, 21, 159, 163, 173 National Anti-­Slavery Standard, 143 Native Americans Quaker activism on behalf of, 8, 147–48 Quaker policy on sale of alcohol to, 135 Quakers’ reluctance to accept as meeting members, 148 New England Meeting for Sufferings and Gurneyite-­Wilburite controversy, 193–94 suppression of Wilbur, 117 New England Yearly Meeting, and Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 118, 122, 193 newspapers, Quaker concerns about reading, 171 Nichols, Mary Gove, 133, 222n13 Nine Partners Quaker school, 25, 123

No Cross, No Crown (Penn), 172, 189 Northern U.S. Quakers, support for civil justice, 12 novels, dangerous consequences of reading, 170, 171–72, 226n39 Observations on the Distinguishing Views and Practices of Friends (Gurney), 116 Occasional Reflections (Dillwyn), 56 “On the Influence of Opinion” (1844), 119 Orthodox Quakers basic tenets of, 101 on Bible as only source for knowledge of creator, 85, 87 centralization of doctrinal authority, Hicksites’ denunciation of, 92, 95–96 creedalism of, 101 critiques of Hicksite views, 190 disowning of children of Hicksites, 215n3 doctrinal position in Hicksite controversy, 85–86, 87 emphasis on Bible reading, 159 emphasis on education of youth, 58–59 focus on salvation and conversion, 101 and Hicksite Quakers, similarities and differences in beliefs, 100–101 on Hicksites’ corruption of Quaker faith, 95, 96 majority turn to Gurneyite Quakerism, 200 mixing of traditional and evangelical terminology after 1830, 10 move toward mainstream culture, 200 pedagogical methods, 59 publications in conflict with Hicksite Quakers, 157, 159, 173–76, 185–86 quitting of New York Yearly Meeting (1828), 86 and reforms movements, 129, 132, 141–42 religious experience typical of, 197–98 stress on Scripture vs. Inner Light, 85–86, 87, 91, 159, 173–74, 186, 191–92 See also Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict Orthodox Quakers, evangelical influence on, 12, 87, 101, 102–4, 200 Christ and Satan, increased references to, 75–77, 82 deathbed scenes and, 198 and evangelical notions of death, 75–77, 82, 198

Index

263

Orthodox Quakers, evangelical influence on (continued) impact of, 107 increased references to Jesus, Satan, and salvation, 102–4, 169–70 increased reliance on Scripture, 159 publication of pious Quakers’ journals to support, 175 publications in Hicksite controversy and, 185–87 and Quaker movement away from roots, 125–26 and questioning of Quaker theology and practice, 126 spiritual rebirth concept and, 102, 103 work with Protestant groups, 102, 106 See also Bates, Elisha; Gurney, Joseph John “Orthodox Quarterly Meeting, An” (1828), 92, 93 Osborn, Charles, 52, 172 outward manifestations of Quaker faith expansion after 1830, 12 as means of separation from world, 18 as means to calm mind, 18 more-­extreme early practices, ending of, 8 plain language as, 7 rejection of ritual, 8 See also dress, plain; speech, plain Overseers of Friends Schools, “Advice to Scholars” (1796), 48 Overseers of the Press, 158 Oxley, Joseph, 185–86 “paths of life” metaphor, 4 Dillwyn’s Map of, 1–3, 2 related concepts and vocabulary, 4 use by Friends to depict spiritual life, 3–4 Peisley, Mary, 90, 193 Penington, Isaac and “hedge” metaphor, 4 Hunt’s reading of, 156 on nature of faith, 118 use of excerpts from, to justify Progressive Quakerism, 195 wife of, 181 Penington, Mary, 181–82, 228n12 Penn, William advise to children on daily devotional writing, 166

264

Index

Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of Quakers, A, 158, 172 children, home schooling of, 47 on insufficiency of belief alone, 114 Maxims, 172 on moderation in food and drink, 134 on mourning clothes, 80 No Cross, No Crown, 172, 189 Progressive spiritualist’s communication with, 195 on Quaker education, 47 Quaker publication of works by, 158, 159 Quakers’ distribution of works by, 172 Sandy Foundation Shaken, 112 on silent worship, 32–33 on suffering as key to salvation, 103 use of excerpts from: in children’s books, 162–63; in Gurneyite-­Wilburite controversy, 191; in Hicksite-­Orthodox controversy, 185, 186, 188–89 Pennsylvania Freeman, 184 Pennsylvania Spelling Book, The (Benezet), 162–63 Perrot, John, 187, 219n21 Philadelphia Female Antislavery Society, 150 Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, Hicksite Schism and, 92, 191 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM) on abolitionism, 139 Discipline, establishment of, 35 and Hicksite Schism, 58, 59, 85, 87, 94–96 oversight of children’s reading, 171 pacifism of, and American Revolution, 88 on plain dress, 27 regulation of Quaker publications, 158 warnings about alcohol and tobacco use, 135–36, 137 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) proposal to petition Congress to end slavery in DC, 148 warning about reform activism, 132 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Orthodox) and Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 122–23 as Wilburite, 191–92 rejection of Gurneyism, 191–92 piety, Quaker decline of, in late 18th–early 19th centuries, 89–91

definition of, 18 factionalism and, 9, 12, 13 ordering of religious practices by, 18 practices to maintain, 38 Quaker history as spur to, 182 range of activities in, 5, 17–18 rigor of, 6 See also Light, Inner; reform activism; religious practices, Quaker; self-­ monitoring; spirituality of Quakers; voice within; worship services of Quakers Piety Promoted: A Collection of Dying Sayings of the People Called Quakers (1701–1829), 164–65, 175 Piety Promoted: A Collection of Dying Sayings of the People Called Quakers (Evans and Evans, 1854), 186 Pike, Joseph, 161, 185, 186 Pike, Rebecca Scattergood, 68, 70 Pittsfield, Robert, 36, 37 Platonists, and objectification of mind, 21 political engagement of Quakers, 11–12 Evans, William, on, 141 expansion in early 19th century, 127 Progressive Friends and, 12 and religious transnationalism, 11 See also reform activism popular theology of antebellum era, influence on Quakers, 87–88 Portraiture of Quakerism (Clarkson), 168 Post, Amy, 133, 195, 199 Post, Isaac, 133, 195 Posthumous Works of Richard Claridge ­(Claridge), 156 Power of Religion on the Mind, The (Murray), 21, 159, 173 practical Christianity guidebooks to, 6 popularity with Protestants, 6 Quakerism as, 6, 18 Practice of Piety, The (Bayly), 6 prayer and achievement of calm mind, 34 Barclay on, 124 as individual or group activity, aloud or in silence, 34 kneeling, adoption of, 76 outward vs. inward, Wilbur on, 124 in Quaker meetings, 34

Primitive Friends, break from Wilburites, 126 Progressive (Congregational) Friends and adaptability of Quakerism, 127 beliefs of, 144–45 and changes in Quaker practice, 5 as “Church of Humanity,” 146 congregational structure of, 145 emphasis on freedom of speech, 144, 145 end of, 201 founding of, 127, 198 Friends of Human Progress break off from, 146–47 Longwood Meetinghouse of (Philadelphia), 145, 146 Orthodox Quakers’ dim view of, 147 of Philadelphia, as outcasts from other meetings or denominations, 145 and progressive revelation, 146, 201 reform activism as focus of, 12, 127, 145, 150–51 reform causes supported by, 223–24n43 separation from Hicksites, 130, 143–44, 223n37 and spiritualism, 195 on true Quakerism as individualism, 195 use of history to justify beliefs, 194–96 progressive revelation in Quakerism, 146, 201 “Proper Reading Methods” (1845), 163 Protestants antebellum factionalism of, 88 death practices and beliefs, 65–66 Orthodox Quakers’ work with, 102, 106 tensions of Quaker spirituality with, 12 union with, as Gurneyite goal, 109–10 See also evangelical Protestantism publication by Quakers of accounts of children’s deaths, 165–66 of accounts of deceased ministers, 180 books for children’s education, 162–63 and communal connection, 151, 180 of dying sayings of pious Quakers, 164–65 early titles, 158 for education of public, 157, 173 embrace of, 172–73 in Gurneyite-­Wilburite controversy, 191–94 in Hicksite-­Orthodox controversy, 157, 159, 173–76, 185–91

Index

265

publication by Quakers (continued) history of, 158 print boom of early 19th century and, 158, 172–73 regulation of, 158 to spread Quakerism, 158 tracts, 158 Pumphrey, Thomas, 185, 188 PYM. See Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Quakerism early beliefs and practices, 199–200 influence on U.S. society, 203 mix of sacred and secular practices in, 7 mutual support among early members, 130–31 as practical Christianity, 6, 18 radical transformation in antebellum era, 201 See also evolution of Quakerism in antebellum era; factionalism Quaker Reformation, 11, 139, 200 Quakers Living in the Lion’s Mouth ­(Crothers), 11 quietism evolution of Quakerism and, 12, 87, 196 Hicksites and, 12 popularity in 18th century U.S., 9 vs. reform activism, as core Quaker value, 11 rise of, 8 Wilburites and, 87, 196 Ranters, as term of abuse, 94–95 Ratcliff, Mildred, 20, 105, 111, 183 rational Quakerism, popularity in Britain, 8–9 Rawes, William, 165–66 reading, as essential component of Christian piety, 157 reading by Quakers communal reading, 157 convincement as goal of, 157, 172, 176 as daily event, 159 as dialogic, 164 of dying sayings of devout Quakers, 165 functions served by, 164 guides on how and what to read, 163–64, 176

266

Index

for instruction of children, 157, 160–62; accounts of pious deaths of children, 165–66; Bible and, 46, 52, 54, 59, 160– 61, 162; books used for, 161–62; care in choice of books, 163; and pernicious books, avoidance of, 170–72; Quaker publications in, 162–63 ministers’ distribution of worthy books, 172 Orthodox emphasis on Bible reading, 159 pernicious books and periodicals: avoidance of, 170–72, 176; factionalism and, 172 as shaped by community, 157 and spiritual literacy, 156–57, 158–59 as support for faith, 151, 155–57 transformational potential of, 159 reform activism, mid-­18th century vs. quietism, as core Quaker value, 11 range of people attracted to, 130 spread by Christian voluntary associations and publications, 133 reform activism by Quakers abstinence advocacy, 133–35 concerns about self-­aggrandizement through, 132, 141 concerns of some about worldly involvement, 131–32 conflict over, in 1840s, 129 discussion of, at meetings, 128 in ecumenical groups, concern of Quaker officials about, 141 as extension of religious beliefs, 129–30, 132–33 health reform advocacy, 133–35 in mid-­18th century, 131 and ministers’ power, concerns about, 132 Mott, Lucretia, and, 128–29 Progressive Friends’ emphasis on, 12, 127, 145, 150–51 as Quaker legacy, 202–3 as return to early militancy, 131 rise in antebellum era, 200–201 and spiritual comradeship, 132 spread through families, 132–33 temperance movement, 135–38 types of causes, 131, 133, 200 See also abolitionism

reformation, Quaker, calls for, in late 18th– early 19th centuries, 89–91 Reformer, The (newspaper), 91 Reinier, Jacqueline, 43 religion mix of sacred and secular practices in, 7 as shared social practice, 7 religious practices, Quaker core practices, continuation of, 198, 202 factionalism and, 5, 86–87 Gurneyites’ effect on, 5, 200 Hicksite Schism and, 5, 87, 89–91, 105 involvement of mind, soul and heart in, 18, 19–20 lifelong vigilance required in, 2–3, 18–19, 38–39 move toward mainstream culture, 198–202 range of, 7–8, 17–18 spiritual guidance sought and given, 23 See also dress, plain; mind, calm; outward manifestations of Quaker faith; self-­discipline; self-­monitoring (watchfulness); speech, plain religious practices, rational, Locke on, 21–22 Renewal Gurneyites, 202 Revivalist Gurneyites, 201, 202 Rhoads, Mary, 53, 160 Rhode Island Yearly Meeting, and Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 116–17, 120 Rodman, Elizabeth, 24–25, 33, 79 Sacred History (Elwood), 162 salvation and sanctification, evangelical notion of Quaker adoption of, 10, 200 as two separate steps, 110 Sands, David, 17, 139 Sandy Foundation Shaken (Penn), 112 Savery, William, 74, 157, 163 Scattergood, Joseph Bible reading with his children, 38 death of brother, 70–71, 74 night watch over body of friend, 80 and peer correction by young people, 26 self-­monitoring by, 36, 168 Scattergood, Sarah, 33, 71, 76 Scattergood, Thomas, 52, 70, 81–82

Scattergood, William, 71, 74 Scott, Job journal of, as inspiration to Quakers, 37, 57, 156, 159 as quietist, 57 use of excerpts from, in Hicksite-­ Orthodox controversy, 188 Scripture Questions for the Use of Schools (Backhouse), 161 Second Day Morning Meeting of London, regulation of Quaker publications, 158 seed metaphor in Quaker spirituality, 9, 19 self-­discipline as goal of children’s moral education, 19, 41, 42–43, 44, 52, 54, 56, 57, 60 journals as tool for, 125 See also self-­monitoring self-­monitoring (watchfulness, mindfulness) by children, 57 early Quakers and, 199–200 journals and diaries in, 135, 167–68 lifelong vigilance required in, 2–3, 7, 9, 17, 18–19, 38–39, 125, 135, 167–68 and objectification of the mind, 20 recurring engagement with death and, 64 separation from world and, 18, 26, 162 “still, small voice” (divine monitor) within and, 19, 20, 24–25, 33, 36, 38, 110, 132, 136 Sellers, Elizabeth, 141–42 Shillitoe, Thomas, 94, 96–97, 121, 174–75 Sicke Mannes Salve (Becon), 67 silence among gathered friends, 37 during family worship, 37 in Quaker boarding schools, 49 Quaker spirituality and, 4, 8 in solitude, purpose of, 30–31 silence in families, 32, 37 purpose of, 30 training of children to observe, 38 silence in Quaker worship, 30–33 access to Holy Spirit through, 19, 31–33 Bates’s rejection of, 108–9 and bonding of worshipers, 30, 31–32 Crewdson’s rejection of, 108 patience required in, 25 training children in, 23

Index

267

silhouettes, commemoration of family members with, 179–80 Sixteen Reasons Why I Cannot Be a Hicksite, 190 slavery, early Quaker discussions on, 139 See also abolitionism Smith, Martha and Hicksite schism, 92, 99 antislavery activism, 132 on Quaker decline, 89–90 Smith, Morris, 76–77 Smith, Susan, 123, 172 sociability, balance between spirituality and, 36 sociomental topography, 178–79 Some Thoughts Concerning Education (Locke), 43 Southern U.S. Quakers, tensions with larger society, 11 speech, plain, move from, in early 19th century, 12 spiritualism, Progressive Friends and, 195 spirituality of Quakers, 7–9 balance between sociability and, 36 change from 17th to 19th centuries, 8 community with divine in solitude, 10 friends’ mutual support in maintaining, 37, 38–39 as heartfelt and spontaneous, 6 as inward and silent, 4, 8 mind as essential tool for, 9 as mystical, 9 and priesthood of believers, 8 privileging of inner self in, 7 Quakers’ definition of, 18 as reflexive and humble, 9 tensions with larger Protestant culture, 12 terminology of, 9–10 voice within (inner monitor) providing guidance in, 19, 20 as way of life, 8 See also convincement in Quaker spirituality; outward manifestations of Quaker faith; religious practices; voice within spiritual journey of Quakers lifelong vigilance required in, 2–3 “paths of life” metaphor for, 1–4, 2 spiritual literacy, 156–57, 158–59

268

Index

Stabile, Susan, 180, 228n19 stewardship, as core Quaker belief, 130–31 still, small voice. See voice within (still, small voice, inner monitor) Stokes, Mary, 19, 36, 167 Swarthmore College, establishment of, 198 TAF. See Tract Association of Friends Tallcott, Joseph, 137, 160, 172, 183 Tatum, Ann Cooper, 31, 102 temperance movement, Quakers support of, 135–38 broad concept of temperance and, 135–36 feared consequences of alcohol abuse, 137 incentive programs for working men, 137 monitoring and disciplining of Meeting members, 137 religious flavor of, 138 terminology of Quakerism, 9–10 mixing of traditional and evangelical terminology after 1830, 10 for Orthodox vs. Hicksite Quakers, 100 tobacco, Quaker warnings about use of, 135–36 Tract Association of Friends (TAF), 158, 225n10 Tuke, Esther, 3, 163, 182 ultraevangelism Bates’ adoption of, 107, 109 factionalism of 1830s–1850s and, 87 Gurney and, 109, 111, 113 Gurneyite Quakers and, 12 Ultraism, 130 vegetarianism, Quakers and, 134, 222n15 voice within (still, small voice, inner monitor) educating children on, 19, 24, 49, 54 and reading, 161 and self-­monitoring (watchfulness), 19, 20, 24–25, 33, 36, 38, 110, 132, 136 Waln, Nicholas, 169, 180 Warrington, Hannah, 27, 79, 95, 166 Watts, Isaac Divine Songs, 161 Hymns, 161

poems of, 164 and Protestant influence, 102 quotes from, in Quaker commonplace books, 168 Western Quarterly Meeting, conflict over abolitionism, 143 Westtown School, 48–52 admonishments from parents in letters and visits, 53–54 Bible reading at, 52, 160 career training courses at, 48 close supervision of students’ activities, 49–50 daily schedule at, 49 emphasis on reason over punishment, 50 English model for, 48 faculty role in moral instruction, 55 first day meeting sermons on behavior, 52 food, students’ complaints about, 53 and Hicksite Schism, 59 isolated campus in rural area, 48 mix of study and physical work, 48–49 moral and academic instruction, equal emphasis on, 52, 55–56 pedagogical methods, 55–57 plain dress required by, 49–50 recording of student infractions in “Rabbie’s Reports,” 50 rules for instructors, 55 separation of sexes in, 48 silence required of students, 49 strict rules for student behavior, 49 student diaries for moral reflection and self-­discipline, 51–52 students’ letters home from, 52, 53 subjects taught at, 48, 210n17 types of infractions and punishments, 50–51, 52 What Shall We Do to Be Saved? (1830s), 158 Whites Childrearing practices of, 42–44 Disinterest in converting people of color, 148–49 Reluctance to act forcefully on behalf of African-­Americans, 147–48 Reluctance to accept people of color as meeting members, 147, 148–50 Whitefield, George, 185, 200 Whole Duty of Man, The (Allestree), 22

Wilbur, John authority of Quaker founders for, 114 background of, 113 critique of Gurneyism, 109, 113–14, 118, 123–24, 219n16; continuing of, after expulsion, 117–18; expulsion from Monthly Meeting as result of, 116, 117, 220n27; use of founders’ words to support position, 118, 124 doctrine in common with Gurney, 221n45 on Fox’s break from Protestantism, 114 Gurneyite accusations against, 121 on Gurneyites’ rejection of founders, 193–94 on Gurney’s protection from criticism, 117, 193–94 on Hicks, 113–14, 117 Hicksite criticisms of, 192 at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of 1852, 123 on prayer, outward vs. inward, 124 and schism of 1840s, 106 on set forms of worship, 124 supporters of, 220n35 suppression by New England Meeting for Sufferings, 117 use of Protestant figures to support his arguments, 194 use of Quaker history for support, 193–94 See also Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict Wilburite Quakers asceticism of, 124–25 austere piety of, 12, 109 on authority of Bible vs. Quaker founders and direct revelation, 116 break of Primitive Friends from, 126 and changes in Quaker practice, 5 controversy stirred by, 111 critique of Gurneyism, 116, 118–19 defense of traditional Quaker practices, 109 exclusions by, 126 fractures in 1850s–60s, 198 further factionalism after break from Gurneyites, 126 and Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, fear of schism in, 119–20 on Gurney’s protection from criticism, 117, 118–19

Index

269

Wilburite Quakers (continued) Hicksite views on, 189 and infallibility of early Friends, 193 Maulites’ split from, 126 number in New England, 220n40 publications in Gurneyite-­Wilburite conflict, 191, 193 as quietists, 109 on superficiality of Gurneyism, 124 traditional practices of, 198 use of history for justification, 177–78 William Penn Charter School, 47–48, 60 Wistar, Thomas, 58, 122 women in leadership roles deathbed preaching by women ministers, 62–63, 65 Fox on, 8 Hicksites and, 99–100 traveling ministers of 18th century, 8 Woolman, John antislavery activism, 139 Considerations on the True Harmony of Mankind, 171 on dangers of alcohol, 136 on devotional writing, 166 diary of, as recommended reading for children, 57 evangelical concepts in journal of, 102 First Book for Children, A, 162 on hard work of Quaker meetings, 33 on humans’ God-­given impulse toward goodness, 21 journal of, 161 oversight of children’s reading, 171 Progressive spiritualist’s communication with, 195 refusal to sell tea or rum, 222n19 worship services of Quakers bad speakers or prayers and, 34 Discipline questions read out in, 35–36 as emotional, mystical, and physical experiences, 33 idle chatter outside of, as discouraged, 34 as plain and often silent, 8

270

Index

poor, as trial for participants, 33 prayer in, 34 preaching at: attaining worshipful state as goal of, 33; reminding members of responsibilities under Discipline, 35 preparation for, 38 proper demeanor following, 34, 35 quality of, as frequent subject of discussion, 33 removal of mediating agencies between God and individuals, 32 rules of decorum for, 34 silence in, 30–33; access to Holy Spirit through, 19, 31–33; and bonding of worshipers, 30, 31–32; patience required in, 25; training children in, 23 sleeping during, as common complaint, 34 and struggle to attain worshipful state, 33 writing by Quakers collections of quotations in commonplace books, 168–69 diaries and journals as devotional exercise, 7–8, 51–53, 166–68 letters, as religious exercise, 169–70 as support for Quaker faith, 151, 156 types of, 151 writing by Quakers, about death, 198 accounts of pious deaths of children, 165–66 detailed accounts of physical and spiritual condition, 78 memorialization of exemplary deaths in print, 66 parents’ record of child’s spiritual preparation, 72, 73–74, 78 Yarnall, Hannah, 27 Yearly Meeting epistles, admonishments on plain dress, 27 yellow fever epidemics (Philadelphia, 1790s), 68, 71 Zerubavel, Eviatar, 178–79