Categotry Archives: Religion

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The Year Without A Summer

Categories: Abington, Abolitionists, Archives, Black History, Death, Documents, Quakerism, Warminster

Charles Kirk

Charles Kirk (1800-1890)

In 1816, the Northern Hemisphere experienced a summer so cold that lakes and waterways were frozen in parts of Pennsylvania in July and August and frost was reported as far south as Virginia. Crops were destroyed by frost at the peak of the growing season, leading to widespread food shortages. In Ireland, the famine was compounded by an outbreak of epidemic typhus, a lice-borne illness that is more prevalent in colder weather because lice can hide more easily within multiple layers of clothing. Scientists now believe the world was experiencing a volcanic winter caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, the largest eruption in 1,300 years. This disastrous year was called the Year Without A Summer.

The experience of one Bucks County resident serves as a microcosm of this global disaster. In 1879, Charles Kirk (1800-1890) of Warminster composed a series of autobiographical reflections, beginning with his childhood in Abington. One of the first stories he recounts is that of his family’s struggle during the Year Without A Summer. Frost struck throughout the summer months, and like so many other farmers they were left without a harvest. In October his family suffered an outbreak of typhus, which claimed the life of his mother Rebecca and his sister Ruth and afflicted all of the other children besides Charles. His father was already physically disabled due to prior injuries, so at the age of fifteen Charles was forced to assume a heavy burden for his family. He recalls:

The year 1816 was a very eventful year to our family for it was the coldest summer ever in the County, frost in every month. I remember well of seeing in the Sixth Month, of the leaves on the hickory trees dead and crisp by the effects of it. Crops very light indeed. Scarcely any corn came to maturity, enough for to be fit for seed. For several years before and after this time owing to the poverty of the farm we were nearly always out of hay before the grass was cut to turn out a pasture, and out of grain before the next crop came to maturity. These things used to nick me to the very quick, for I was so ashamed to be seen hauling hay in the spring of the year to feed our stock that I disliked to meet anyone for it seemed to manifest to my mind a want of industry and management, but I have lived to see that even this kind of schooling, hard as it was to bear, has had its good effects on my mind.

I now come to the most sorrowful period of my life. In the latter part of the summer of this year my dear Mother was taken sick with what was then called typhus fever, and after about nine days suffering her trials, hardships and her anxieties came to a close in this world and I fully believe she entered into a state of happiness in the next. But here I must pause, for I have no words to convey the feelings of my mind on that occasion, for although more than sixty-two years has passed since that event, still the remembrance of it is clear and strong, so much so that I scarcely refrain from shedding tears whilst writing these lines. There was ten children of us at the time, the youngest about five years of age.

The time of my Mother’s sickness was an anxious one to all the family for she was indeed the head of it in every sense of the word. The fever at that time was thought to be contagious so us children were not allowed to go in the room where she was, but there was a crack in the board partition in the garret stairway that I used to go and peer through to see her. These are the last sights I ever had of her in this life. One day during her illness when out in the field reflecting on the prospect of things the impression on my mind was that if she should die there would be no pleasure left for me in this world, but I had not then learned to look to a higher Power for peace and happiness, the great fountain and source of all good, the sure foundation to build upon in this life.

It was indeed a house of affliction. Sister Ruth took the fever and was dangerously ill for a long time so much so that we were called in more than once to see her die, but after a long and tedious time she recovered. Sister Elizabeth, a girl about twelve years old, sickened and died with it in the 18th of 10th Month, 1816. The rest of the children all took the fever, eight of them sick in bed at one time. I was the only one that escaped and I well remember feeling so thankful for the favor. The neighbors became alarmed, some were afraid to come amongst it but still there were some who rendered every assistance in their power. As I was the only one able to go, there was much that fell to my lot to do at that time. The doctors depended almost entirely on stimulants, wine and brandy was used in large quantities, and I had also to go round and to solicit persons to come and set up with the sick, and even this was a lesson of instruction to me and I have endeavored to profit by it. Never when any of the neighbors were sick not to be sent for but to go and see if I could be of any use.

Source: Charles Kirk’s Journal (handwritten copy), Bound Manuscript Collection, BM-B-243, Mercer Museum Library, Doylestown, PA.

Although the Kirk family continued to face financial difficulty in the years that followed, Charles eventually became a successful farmer. In about 1841 he purchased a 118-acre farm in Warminster Township, and the 1870 US Census values his combined real estate and personal estate at $18,500. He became a respected elder in the Society of Friends, and he participated in the Underground Railroad, sheltering a fugitive from Virginia named Sarah Lewis for more than a decade after slave hunters captured the rest of her family in Philadelphia. Although little trace of his farm remains, having been purchased by the US Navy as part of the Johnsville Naval Air Development Center in 1994, Kirk Road still bears his name. A house that was once part of Kirk’s farm is still standing, currently the home of Gilda’s Club Delaware Valley, a cancer support group. According to the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission, the structure dates to 1817, so it very well may have been the house where Charles Kirk composed his memoires.

Note: The portion of Charles Kirk’s diary excerpted above has been edited for readability. Punctuation has been added for clarity, capitalization has been normalized, and minor spelling errors and slips of the pen have been corrected.

The version of Kirk’s narrative found in the Mercer Museum Library’s manuscript is apparently a transcription of the original text. The book was first used as a record book for public vendues held in Newportville, Bristol Township, in 1841. It was repurposed by a later owner to record genealogical information about the Kirk family and to transcribe the journal of Charles Kirk. This later section is composed in two unique hands, indicating that one person began transcribing Kirk’s journal and a second person completed it. The section excerpted above includes the work of both authors.

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The Forgotten “Negro Burying Ground” at Middletown Friends Meeting

Categories: Black History, Graves, Langhorne, Maps, Middletown, Quakerism, Racism, Slavery

Negro Burying Ground - Street View

Just southwest of the Middletown Friends meetinghouse lies a small burial ground purchased for the interment of African Americans 225 years ago, at a time when almost a third of the county’s black population remained enslaved. There are no headstones or any other visual indicators to distinguish this plot from the rest of the meeting’s shaded lawn, and like other Quaker meetings in the area, Middletown did not begin keeping burial records until after the Civil War. It is therefore unsurprising that this burial ground has been forgotten in the intervening centuries. The current overseer of the cemetery was unaware of its existence, and while a “Negro burying ground” is referred to in the meeting’s property records, I was not able to identify it’s specific location until I discovered the original deed for the land in the archive of the Friends Historical Library.

Throughout the colonial era, burial grounds were places of great social importance to enslaved Africans. For example, in Philadelphia the section of the Strangers’ Burial Ground (now Washington Square Park) that was set aside for blacks drew large crowds on Sundays, holidays, and fair days. During these gatherings the burial ground became an autonomous African cultural space where participants came together to perform African dances and to speak and sing in their native languages. This was not the case in rural Bucks County, where the small scale of slaveholding meant that the enslaved had few opportunities to interact with other Africans. Slaves were permitted to attend the fairs that were held twice each year Bristol, but only on the last day.

Records indicate that early Quaker settlers initially permitted the burial of Africans in their burial ground, but this was quickly curtailed. Middletown Monthly Meeting, located on the western border of Langhorne Borough, set aside a portion of their burial ground for blacks in the early 18th century, but the meeting vacillated with regard to their treatment of the African dead. Middletown Meeting segregated their burial ground in 1703, noting in their minutes, “There having been formerly some Negros Buryed in friends Burying Yard which they are not well satisfied with therefore Robert Heaton & Thomas Stackhouse are ordered to fence off that corner with as much more as they may see convenient, that friends burying place may be of itself from all others.” After the construction of a wall around the burial ground in 1734 the Friends reaffirmed their opposition to sharing their burial ground with African Americans, ultimately declaring in 1739, “this meeting having had the Matter under Consideration it is unanimously agreed that hereafter no Deceased Negros be Buried Within the walls of the graveyard Belonging to this meeting, & Adam Parker, Jonathan Woolston & Joseph Richardson are appointed to keep the keys of the Said Graveyard & take Care that none be Buried therein but such as they in the Meetings Behalf shall allow of.” The black residents of Bucks County would not have a dedicated burial ground again until the Society of Friends changed its stance on slavery in the late 18th century.

The acknowledgement by the Society of Friends that participation in the slave system violated their religious teachings also sparked a broader concern about the economic and spiritual well-being of African Americans. After Philadelphia Yearly Meeting banned slave ownership in 1776, they also added the treatment of free blacks to the list of religious queries that their constituent meetings were expected to address. Bucks County Quakers responded by appointing committees to meet with black families, holding meetings for worship for blacks, and eventually purchasing a small plot of land adjacent to Middletown Meeting as a “Negro burying ground” in 1791. This parcel measured sixteen and a half feet wide by 136 feet long, large enough for perhaps a few dozen burials. While the section allocated for blacks in 1703 was almost certainly meant to be used for the burial of slaves owned by members of the meeting, this small lot was purchased for the use of the free black community.

The meeting did not record the burials in this lot and few details about its use remain. The only documented burial that has been identified at present is that of Cato Adams, a free black man who resided in Middletown for a number of years before moving to Bristol. The will that Adams drafted in 1810 demonstrates the burial ground’s importance to the local black community. Although Adams had a number of children and grandchildren to consider when writing his will, he set aside five pounds “for the purpose of keeping in repair the Burying ground appropriated for the interment of black people near to the meeting.” He also left his “first day clothes” to his son. The use of the Quaker term “first day” rather than “Sunday” indicates that he may have attended meeting for worship at Middletown Meeting, although like most African Americans who worshipped with Quakers in this period he was not a member of the Society and does not appear in the meeting’s records. When Adams died in 1812, Orphans’ Court records related to the settlement of his estate show that his executors paid Isaac Gray, a founding member of the independent black Methodist group the Society of Colored Methodists, to dig his grave. The small lot purchased in 1791 was apparently approaching full capacity by 1816, when Middletown Meeting bought an additional lot for the burial of African Americans at the northeast corner of their property along what is now Green Street. This parcel constitutes the northern half of Mt. Olive Cemetery, which was used by Langhorne’s black community into the 20th century. Before the establishment of Bethlehem African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1817 these burial grounds were the only public spaces in Bucks County to which African Americans could claim a collective right.

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Although evidence is scarce, at least two other African-American burial grounds were created by Quaker meetings in the region. The first was Byberry Preparative Meeting, which established a small African-American burial ground in 1780. This burial ground is now part of Benjamin Rush State Park near the border between Northeast Philadelphia and Bensalem Township, only about four and a half miles away from Middletown Meeting. Joseph C. Martindale provides a brief account of this burial ground in his book A History of the Townships of Byberry and Moreland in Philadelphia (1876):

Previous to this time the colored people who died in the townships were generally buried in the orchards belonging to their masters or in the woods; but forty or fifty had been interred in a kind of cemetery for them, on the lands lately owned by Charles Walmsley. It was located in the field fronting the mansion house, not far from Watson Comly’s line. All traces of it have long since been destroyed, and hundreds have since passed over the spot not knowing that they were treading upon the graves of the long since dead. Another of these graveyards was on the farm lately owned by Mary Hillborn, where several slaves were buried. The exact spot is not now known. Many persons by this time had had their attention drawn to the matter, and efforts were made to secure a proper place for the burial of such people. Accordingly, in this year [1780], we find that Byberry Meeting purchased a lot of Thomas Townsend for a burying place for the blacks, and the practice of burying on private grounds was discontinued. The record says that the first person buried there was “Jim,” a negro belonging to Daniel Walton.

Later, after discussing the local potter’s field where white indigents were interred, he writes:

The graveyard for colored persons… is still kept for that purpose. Some years since a portion of this yard was plowed up, and most of the “little mounds” were leveled with the earth around, so that the exact spot where many of this race were buried can no longer be seen. What a pity that man should ever be willing to disturb the resting-places of the dead in order to add to his coffers! Of late years more care has been taken of this place, and it is now kept in good order by Byberry Meeting.

The only historical map that I’ve been able to locate that shows the Byberry African Burial Ground is the “Atlas of Greater Northeast Philadelphia” in Franklin’s Proposed Real Estate Atlases of Philadelphia, Vol. 7 (1953). The small lot is not identified as a burial ground, but the property boundaries are visible:

African American Burial Grounds at Middletown Friends Meeting

More detailed maps, photographs, and other documentation are provided in Byberry Librarian Helen File’s paper on the burial ground and an archaeological study of the site performed by the US General Services Administration in 1993.

The second Quaker meeting in the area to establish an African-American burial ground was Buckingham Friends Meeting, which laid out a small section of their existing graveyard for that purpose in 1807. They report in their minutes:

We have laid out a small portion of Ground within the large Grave Yard at Buckingham to Bury Black People in, Beginning at a stone standing at the North Corner of the Old enclosure, thence N 50 [degrees] E two Perches to a Stone, thence N 40 [degrees] W to a Stone standing at the back Wall of the Yard And to be comprehended by these two lines, the Back Wall, and the Foundation of the Old Wall. The Meeting Uniting therewith, directs Burying in rows beginning at the North End…

Unfortunately the exact location of this plot is unclear, but it is probably located in the northwest section of the current burial ground. Further examination of the meeting’s property records may yield a more exact location. While the author of the Buckingham Meeting’s National Register of Historic Places nomination claims that “The African American burials here were made unnecessary within a few years” after Mount Gilead African Methodist Episcopal Church was constructed nearby in 1837, a recent archaeological survey of the site conducted by Meagan Ratini suggests that the burials may not have taken place there until the 1860s. If that is the case, the African-American burial ground at Buckingham Meeting may have been in use for half a century.

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The Little Witch of the Woods

Categories: Archives, Buckingham, Lahaska, Quakerism, Solebury, Tags: ,

Betts Homestead

The Betts Homestead in Solebury

While cataloging bound manuscripts for the Bucks County Historical Society I came across this story in a scrapbook from the Lahaska area dating to the 1890s. It contained the following newspaper clipping, in which Martha Kenderdine “Mattie” Reeder recounts stories from her grandmother’s childhood:

Reminiscences of “When Grandma Was Young.”

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A Paper Read Before the Farmers’ Institute at Lansdale by Miss Mattie Reeder, of New Hope, on Wednesday, March 10th, 1897.

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It was a dreary day in early November. The scudding clouds had fought a triumphant battle with the wintry sunshine. Now the first snow was falling. The old, stone farm house, safe sheltered from the north winds by the surrounding hills and forest, was never known to close its door upon the tired traveler. To-night there seemed an extra bustle within its walls. A little stranger had that day arrived. “The baby is a girl,” the radiant nurse announces. “Another little girl, and I have so many little girls,” sighed the pale mother. And this was grandma’s welcome to the world. It was not a very warm one and at first grandma debated long the question, should she stay? Perhaps it was the beauty of the dancing flames in the great fireplace, or the tender mother love which cherished her, or maybe the awkward caresses of her blue-eyed brother that at length determined her. So the sickly baby grew into a rosy, toddling girl, whose life was as joyous and free as the song birds about her. And it is fragments from this girl[‘s] life of long ago that I will try to tell.

It was a large family that dwelt in the spacious farm house. The first-born, a son, was looked upon with awe by all the youngsters. He was treated with almost the respect they showed to father. Then came a list of daughters who went by the name of “the girls.” And lastly grandma and her darling scapegrace* brother, who were known until both married as “the children.” This brother and sister, “the children,” the love that bound them so closely together, makes it impossible to tell the story of one life without also telling that of the other.

Grandma’s one great trial of her childhood’s days was that she could not be a prim and quiet little maid like her sisters. She would run and romp, climb the tallest trees and whistle. Her little feet from spring to fall were innocent of shoes and stockings, except on First-days when it was her turn to go to meeting. Then, in a household of so many daughters there could not be a different dress and bonnet for each one. One costume did for many. So poor little grandma would find herself in a gown, either too long or too short and with shoes that clumped or else cruelly pinched her feet. But not withstanding this her day to go to meeting was always longed for and when over remembered fondly.

It was ever wonderment to her grandchildren that grandma showed an unconquerable aversion to a yellow cat. One day the secret transpired. At the farm house, it appears, pet cats and kittens were tabooed. But one yellow kitten proved so engaging that the little fluffy thing crept right into the hearts of the children. When their secret was discovered the mandate was issued, the kitten must die and they must kill it. It did seem cruel but to disobey father or mother was never thought of. Grandmother and her brother held a sorrowful consultation. At last he had a brilliant inspiration. The kitten should be Arnold, the traitor, and be hung. Arnold deserved the fate and they, he argued, (not withstanding their friendly up bringing) would be doing a worthy act. Grandma gave a dubious sigh of assent and followed her leader. Arnold was taken to the woods with a tow string fixed firmly around his neck. The limb was chosen, the deed all but done, when “you wicked children!” screamed a shrill voice behind them. Turning they saw flying toward them an old woman, whose gray hair flew out behind her. She had thrown her bundle of sticks aside and shook her crutch in a menacing manner as she swooped upon them. “The Witch of the Woods,” they gasped in terror and fled. This old woman had long been known to them by fame. She lived alone in her wretched hut and how she existed none knew. But because she was old and poor and lonely she was called a witch and the name clung to her and helped make her shunned. She knew she was feared and her temper was sound, but she saved that kitten.

Sometime after this grandma chanced to be alone in the forest when she again encountered the witch, gathering her daily bundle of faggots. With scant ceremony the old woman bade the little girl help her carry wood. Afraid to obey, afraid to disobey, grandma stood. A second command, sharper than the first, made her hasten to assist. Arrived at the witch’s hut she found her reward in a seed cake. There were no black cats to be seen, not black bag to hide little girls in and no superfluous broom-sticks. It was only the home of a poor, lame, old woman, and when a little kindness was shown her she proved not ungrateful. Perhaps it was pity or maybe it was the seed cake that made grandma from that time a visitor to the old Witch of the Woods.

It was considered a misfortune by the children (and it was a misfortune) that they had no grandma. Other little people had and boasted to them and put on superior airs. Their pride was touched. Grandma pondered long on this perplexing problem; then it was solved. We would adopt a grandma, and no less a person was selected than the Witch of the Woods. This solution was rejected by her brother. He even teased her, calling her “The Little Witch of the Woods,” but she was not to be deterred.

One of the older sisters had been sent to boarding school. With the knowledge there acquired she was expected to teach the children and she did so with credit. A summer school was held in a room over the wagon house and to her little people come from far and near. In the winter the big boys come and then it was an unwritten law that no girl should attend. Grandma was quick at her studies and was loath to leave. She timidly petitioned to be allowed to attend the winter session. But her father’s stern “What does thee want among a parcel of big boys” effectually silenced her. Nevertheless, her brother went and grandma secretly pored over his books and kept pace with him.

One time when the father and mother attended yearly meeting her brother was taken with them. It was their first separation, and grandma felt it keenly. But the joy of the return! She learned then she had not been forgotten. With his scanty, hard-earned pennies her brother had bought her a china mug. And enclosed by a wreath of flowers were the words “For My Favorite.” As long as she lived this mug had a place among grandma’s greatest treasures. But all this time grandma was growing. She was no longer “The Little Witch of the Woods.” She was learning the art of spinning, of churning golden butter, and the mystery of cooking was no mystery to her. In all household affairs the careful mother trained her daughter. And she was such an old, old fashioned mother that she taught her to look forward to the time when she should be married, and helped form her so that she would perform the duties of a wife nobly and well. There was already a goodly store of linen, spun by grandma’s girlish fingers and laid carefully away for her “outset.” And as she sat by her wheel, spinning, spinning, many must have been the gorgeous day dreams of the coming of the prince. All the older girls were married, and her father jokingly had told her she must not ask for her outset for those three years. Then grandma was only dreaming, but at the end of those three years her father was seriously reminded of his joke.

Grandma’s brother had grown into a tall young man. He was something of a dandy and went to see the girls. Often his gay companions came to the old farm house. Neither their coming or their going troubled grandma.

She had not yet asked herself the question, “Am I a child or woman?” One day seeing her brother’s team drive in the door-yard, she left her work and ran to meet him. Too late, a strange young man, she saw, was with him. [And she] stood spell-bound for she looked upon her prince. Then she realized in one brief instant that her home-spun dress was old and faded. That her curly hair was dreadfully tumbled and oh, what should she do! She had on neither shoes nor stockings. At this crisis, without a word and with cheeks of crimson grandma turned and fled. But the prince had only seen her face.

This I think proves quite plainly nature had been very kind to grandma, since it took so little to make her charming. Still, great was the disgust of her brother. “What had made her behave so simple?” Alas! she did not know. “What would his friend think of the sister he had been so highly praising?” Grandma was silent, but she only wished she knew.

Meanwhile the father and the mother saw their daughter bud into a woman and they gave her the outfit suitable for a young woman of her day. To transform this merry girl into a stately lady they bought her one silk gown, a cotton print, a pair of long silk mit[t]s, a shawl and bonnet. And grandma over this modest wardrobe had just as many raptures as girls of to-day.

When she stood arrayed in her gown of silvery gray her thoughts wandered to the prince and she could not help sighing, “Oh! If he could only see me now.” But the prince did not forget her. He began to come quite often to see her brother. At least the brother thought so, and took upon himself all the entertainment, while the poor prince suffered torments. Demure grandma saw it all, but would not help him. But at last grandpa (Oh! the prince) by means of schemes the darkest and efforts mighty succeeded in escaping from this now tiresome brother. But when this poor deluded brother saw his friend walking with his sister he was blind no longer.

Then came grandma’s courting days. But of the long rides, the walks, the talks grandma and grandpa had together grandma would never tell me. She was growing old, she said, and it was all so long ago she could not remember. And that was the first and only time that I could not quite believe her.

*Scapegrace: a mischievous or wayward person; a rascal.

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The grandmother in question is Letitia Blackfan Betts. Her father Stephen Betts settled in Solebury in the late 1700s, and the Betts homestead remained in their family for more than a century. Letitia was born on November 11th, 1801, and grew up on her family’s farm on Stoney Hill Road. Her younger brother John, with whom she was so close, was born in 1804. Letitia married her suitor Joseph Eastburn Reeder at Buckingham Friends Meeting on April 11th, 1824. The farmhouse, which still stands today, was located between Stoney Hill and Aquetong Road.

Letitia's brother William Betts owned the farm in 1850

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Yiddish in a 1780s Solebury Account Book

Categories: Books, Judaism, Philadelphia, Solebury

Yiddish Writing I found this written on the last page of the ledger book of Solebury Doctor Jonathan Ingham, now in the collection of the Bucks County Historical Society. The account book dates to the 1780s, and the rest of the book is a straightforward record of Ingham’s accounts.

While I was surprised to find 18th century Hebrew script in the archive, it was not a total shock. Ingham was multilingual, with some knowledge of Greek, Latin, German, France, and Spanish, and he was supposedly able to speak to the Lenape in their own language. He was also said to be a student of Hebrew, which he studied under Samuel De Lucena, a member of the Mikveh Israel congregation in Philadelphia, the oldest continuously operated synagogue in the United States. Ingham’s relationship with De Lucena was so close that Ingham named his son Samuel Delucenna Ingham in his honor (Samuel would later become a US Senator and serve as secretary of the treasury under Andrew Jackson before resigning during the Petticoat Affair.)

I asked my friend who speaks modern Hebrew to take a look at it, but she determined that the text is actually Yiddish and could only give me a partial translation. Luckily, another friend of mine is a student of Yiddish, and he was able to translate it for me. The transliteration is as follows:

bikh far shraybn

sefer zikaron

which translates to:

Book for Writing

Memorial Book

I asked him if the two words translating as “book” carried a different sense, and he explained that “bikh,” used in the first line, is a variation of “bukh,” related to the German “buch.” On the second line, Ingham uses the work “sefer”, which is derived from Hebrew. My friend explains, “‘sefer’ (Hebraic) is in a higher register than the more quotidian “bukh” and I’d be inclined to think that ‘sefer zikaron’ would almost always mean a memorial book.”

I Googled the term “sefer zikaron,” and I found that it was in fact used in the context of a written memorial for someone who has died. I also found the term used in the titles of memorial books dedicated to Jewish towns that had been destroyed in the Holocaust. It’s unclear why Ingham wrote this Yiddish phrase in the back of his ledger, but it doesn’t appear to relate to the book’s content. Perhaps he was practicing the script in preparation for another text.

The fact that this text is in Yiddish is interesting. This makes sense because Hebrew was only used for religious texts and rituals in this period and had not yet been revived as a spoken language. However, it is somewhat curious that De Lucena taught Ingham Yiddish because Mikveh Israel was founded in the 1740s by Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugual who would not have spoken the German-influenced Yiddish. De Lucena appears on a list of congregants from 1780s, and while De Lucena and others have surnames of Iberian origin, others have clearly Germanic names. It’s possible that as Ashkenazi congregants joined the community the language they used to speak to one another shifted as well.

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Edward Hicks & The Founding of Newtown Friends Meeting

Categories: Documents, Graves, Newtown, Painting, Quakerism

Newtown Friends Meeting

The Founding of Newtown Friends Meeting

Among the documents that I recently deposited at the Friends Historical Library was this petition to Middletown and Wrightstown Monthly Meetings for permission to meet for worship as an indulged meeting, which is simply a group that meets to worship but doesn’t conduct any business on its own. This meeting would eventually become Newtown Friends Meeting. In 1815 they began meeting in the county courthouse, which had been abandoned after the county seat moved to Doylestown in 1812. In 1817, they built their own meetinghouse. Interestingly, some of their funding for the construction came from the sale of liquor. Joseph Jenks contributed $100 that he made by distilling apple whiskey, and others reportedly did as well. 

Edward Hicks

This document appears to have been written by Edward Hicks. Today Hicks is remembered as a famous painter, best known for his work The Peaceable Kingdom. During his lifetime, however, he was better known as a preacher. In fact, he faced criticism from fellow Quakers for creating decorative art. He even gave up artwork and tried to subsist by farming and only utilitarian painting, but couldn’t make a living doing so and eventually returned to his art.

Peaceable Kingdom

Hicks was the last to sign the petition, and the certain characteristics of his handwriting seem to match the text of the petition. The “H” in “All Heads of fammilys” following the signatures is identical, a number of the i’s are not dotted in the letter, as in his signature, and the nearly vertical c’s match as well.

Edward Hicks

Hicks’ authorship also fits with what we know about the early history of the Meeting. Hicks was a prominent member of the meeting, and he was the first preacher to speak at courthouse in 1815 as well as the new meetinghouse in 1817.

According to the meeting’s website:

Edward Hicks’ grave, with the low headstone preferred by Friends, may be found near the sycamore tree across from the front porch of the meeting house that he loved so much.

The Petition

While the document is undated it clearly predates 1815, the year in which Friends began meeting in the former county courthouse. It is addressed to both Middletown and Wrightstown Monthly Meetings because Newtown drew members from both.

Hicks writes:

Dear friends

We have believed it Right to revive the subject respecting a Meeting in Newtown, by calling the attention of friends in a Monthly Meeting capacity once more to that important subject, desiring that a [state?] may be sought after of judging wether [sic] the time has not arived [sic] when an Indulged Meeting might be granted might be granted with advantage and safety.

Interestingly, both men and women were listed as heads of families. However, it appears that the names of each couple were written by the same hand, so perhaps the husband signed both names.

They seem to have gotten a positive response from Wrightstown Meeting, which appointed a committee of six men and six women to look into the matter.

Full text below:

Newtown Meeting Petition_back1

Newtown Meeting Petition_frontNewtown Meeting Petition_back2

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Solebury Friends Meeting Cemetery Tour 2013

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Categories: Death, Graves, Quakerism, Solebury

Solebury Cemetery Tour

Next weekend I’ll be leading a tour at Solebury Friends burial ground. It was a big hit last year, with about 80 people in attendance. The press release is below. Hope to see you there!

Quaker Cemetery Tour

WHEN: Sunday, October 27, 12 noon to 1:30 p.m., rain or shine
WHERE: Solebury Friends Meeting Cemetery
2680 North Sugan Road
New Hope, PA 18938

Local historian Jesse Crooks will lead us through the fascinating stories of those buried at Solebury Meeting Cemetery, which opened in 1809. Along with seeing the burial plots of many locally famous Quaker families like Reeder, Eastburn, Paxton, Ely, Comfort, and Kitchen, we will visit the plot sites and learn the histories of freed slaves and the unknowns in Stranger’s Row. Insightful points of Jesse’s talk cover daily elements of people’s lives and how they dealt with the great issues of the Civil War, slavery, pacifism, and the poor.

Please join us for this very popular, free event. Donations, however, are welcome!

Light refreshments will be served.

QUESTIONS? Call 215 297 5091 or email info@soleburyhistory.org.

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Oliver Paxson on the Ethics of Settling Indian Land

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Categories: Land Use, Maps, Native American History, New Hope, Quakerism, Solebury

Oliver Paxson's house is marked as #29 in this map from WWH Davis' History of Bucks County

Oliver Paxson’s house is marked as #29 in this map from WWH Davis’ History of Bucks County

Oliver Paxson was a prominent member of the Religious Society of Friends, and was one of the first residents of New Hope. His home, known as Maple Grove, still stands in New Hope immediately to the east of the New Hope-Solebury school complex. He also operated a stable and a salt store, now Hearth restaurant around the corner from Farley’s Bookshop.

In this letter, published in the first volume of Friends Miscellany (1831), Paxson considers the issue of settling land that has been expropriated from the Indians by force. Paxson presents a surprisingly nuanced and empathetic perspective on the conflict between Indians an European settlers. He believes that Indians own the land they lived on, and that Europeans who want to rightfully occupy that land must purchase it from the Indians on mutually agreeable terms. This stands in sharp contrast to the view of many of his contemporaries, who believed that Indians didn’t actually own the lived on because they didn’t use it properly (“wasting” it as hunting grounds, etc.) and that Europeans farmers were therefore justified in appropriating it. Paxson also believes that capturing land in war or compelling Indians to sell their land through force of arms does not bestow a legitimate right of ownership. When the government has taken Indian land by force Quakers still have an ethical obligation fairly compensate the rightful owners. Otherwise, they’re complicit in the theft of native property.

To support his argument, Paxson cites instances in which Europeans appropriated native land by force resulted in violent reprisals and outright war, and compares that violent outcome to the peaceable outcome that occurred when Quakers made agreements with the Indians to purchase their land on fair terms. William Penn knew that his royal grant did not absolve him of purchasing the land from its true owners, and when a group of Quakers settled in Virginia on land that hadn’t been fairly purchased, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting raised money to compensate the Indians, “which had a good effect among the tribes.”

He then cites the biblical precedent in the story of Naboth. In that story, the Jews had a different theory of land ownership than the Baalist king. Naboth owned his farm by right of inheritance, and was required by Jewish law to pass it on to his own heirs in turn. Ahab demanded to purchase it as one would purchase an alienable commodity. Because Naboth couldn’t sell his land, Ahab murdered him and stole it, and the prophet Elijah brought God’s wrath upon his family. Quakers, Paxson implied, should not go the way of Ahab.

The letter probably dates to 1802.

TO JOHN SIMPSON OHIO.

New Hope, 5th of 4th mo.

DEAR FRIEND,

I have had a share of thy kind remembrance, with many other friends in the place of thy nativity, which I have no doubt has been gladly received by all the friends thou hast written to; and I thought I felt under some obligation to answer thee. But alas! what shall I say? When I think of writing a letter of social friendship, there is a subject that more or less, for fifty years, hath exercised my mind, and greatly so, of latter times:–that is, the situation of the Indians, unto whom this great and populous country once belonged.

Thou hast often heard and read of the wars in New England and Virginia, in conquests over them, and taking their lands. Not so, when William Penn came to Pennsylvania:–a man who had learned his Master’s lesson, “to do unto all men as he would they should do unto him.” This made his name honourable among the Indians, and it remains so to the present time. But after some time one of his successors, not keeping strictly to this rule, overreached them in a purchase in an extraordinary (or shall I say extravagant) day’s walk, and they revenged it many years afterward, when an opportunity offered, by killing and taking into captivity, many of the white inhabitants. Thou and I can remember these things. How our very ears were made to tingle!

Well, time passed on, till the revolutionary war began. The poor Indians hardly knew what part to take, fearing they should lose all their country in the quarrel between nations of white people; especially if it should turn in favour of the United States (as it finally did) and some of the Seneca Chiefs addressed General Washington near the close of the war, made their submission, and remain peaceably on their reservations in the State of New York.

What comes next to be considered is the state of the country thou livest in. About this time, the white people near the Ohio river went over and made settlements on their lands. They complained of their land and game being taken from them, and found no redress. At length they took up the hatchet, and skirmishing on both sides of the river ensued. The President by this time, thought it his duty to endeavour to put a stop to it, and appointed commissioners to treat of peace, and purchase their land. They met, divers Friends attending, viz. John Parrish, Joseph Moore, Jacob Lindley, and some others. The Indians appeared in a hostile, angry mood, and told the commissioners, they would sell them no land;–but required them to remove the white people that were already settled over the river. The treaty broke up, without doing any thing, and hostilities continued: in consequence of which, the President ordered an armed force to defend the frontiers, and bring the Indians to terms. Sinclair their general. About this time the Meeting for Sufferings was sitting, and a heavy exercise came over the meeting on this account, and a committee was appointed to wait on the President, to intreat him to stay the sword:–which they did in a solemn manner, but all in vain. The expedition was pursued. Sinclair defeated, and many fell in battle. But it did not stop here. A greater force was raised, and a general appointed, more skilful in fighting the Indians, and effectually subdued them; and many of the rightful owners of the country, fell down slain in battle, in defending their just rights:–terms of peace were offered, which they declare, they were forced to accept, it being a price very inadequate to its value.

I do not mean by this, to arraign the government. The United States is a warlike nation;–and conquests made by the sword, are commonly applied to the account of the conquerors. So that in this view of things, it may be considered as an act of generosity in the government to pay the Indians twenty thousand dollars, for a country worth an hundred times that sum. But this wont do for thee nor me, who profess to be redeemed from the spirit of war, so as not even to buy a coat, if we know it to be a prize article. Thou may remember the concern brought on our Yearly Meeting by a few families of Friends in Virginia, who were settled on land not fairly bought of the Indians, and a sum of money was finally raised by Friends in Philadelphia, as a compensation, which had a good effect among the tribes.

I must close this singular epistle, by just observing, that when thou wast concerned some years ago, to publish the glad tidings of the Gospel of peace and salvation to the inhabitants of Ohio, my heart went with thee. And had that been thy sole concern when thou went last, I could again have said Amen. But when I took a view of thy wife and children, going with thee to settle in the country, to buy and sell, and get gain, I was not able to go thy pace. My heart is, nevertheless, filled with tender affection and sympathy for thee, thy dear wife, and her children; and I am persuaded, thou hast not seen the thing in the light I view it, or thou would hardly have taken so much pains to induce Friends to settle, in such numbers, in a land obtained in the manner I have mentioned. Naboth must die, because he refused to sell his inheritance to Ahab; though Ahab offered to give him the worth of it in money, or give him a better for it; yet he would not sell it.1 Mark the sequel. If the Province of Pennsylvania must be visited with the horrors of an Indian War,–many of its inhabitants slain, and many carried into captivity–for one man’s offence, in overreaching the Indians in the purchase of land from them;–what may we then expect in the instance before us? The Indians did refuse to sell their inheritance, till many of them were slain, and they were compelled to it. And would it be a strange thing, if an opportunity should offer for the Indians to revenge their wrongs–if the earth, that hath opened its mouth to receive the blood of the rightful owners of the soil, should again open its mouth to receive the blood of white inhabitants? Which judgment may be averted by acts of righteousness, is the sincere desire of my soul. From thy friend,

OLIVER PAXSON.

1In the Old Testament, Naboth owned a small vineyard next to the palace of King Ahab, who wanted to buy the land. Naboth was forbidden from selling the land by Jewish law. After his offer was rebuffed, Ahab had Naboth killed in order to seize his land. As a result, the prophet Elijah prophesies Ahab’s destruction as punishment for murdering Naboth and stealing his land. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naboth)

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Solebury Friends Meeting Burial Map

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Categories: Death, Graves, Maps, Quakerism, Solebury

SoleburyFriendsMeeting-Burial Map-1907(small)

This map of the Solebury Friends Meeting graveyard was drafted in 1907, based on an earlier map from 1866. Unfortunately the 1866 map has suffered some damage and it’s difficult to make out most of the handwriting. The handwriting matches that in the burial book in the Swarthmore archive, which also dates to 1866. That book makes reference to a previous burial chart used as a reference for the 1866 map. It cites “extracts from the old chart” about decisions the meeting made about laying out the graveyard. There are also sections in the list of graves in which the writer of the 1866 book omits names, stating that they were illegible on the old chart.

Illegible on Old Chart

In all likelihood this original map no longer exists, and the names omitted on the 1866 map are probably lost forever.

The 1866 and 1907 maps were almost lost as well. My great-grandfather used them as a reference when creating the modern burial map in the 1960s. Apparently he never returned the maps to the meeting, and I found them in a box of maps that had been stored in my family’s barn.

I deposited them in the archive of the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College along with the rest of the meeting’s original records. While there, I used their excellent overhead scanner to digitize the maps. Click on the map above to see the full image.

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A Trove of Documents Saved from Destruction

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Categories: Abolitionists, Buckingham, Graves, Langhorne, Maps, Middletown, Plumstead, Quakerism, Solebury

Petition to Congress

A few months ago my grandfather decided to a do a little spring cleaning. There was a storage unit in our barn that hadn’t been touched in years, full of mildewy furniture and worthless miscellany. He came across a metal container full of maps, mostly showing local topography and zoning. My aunt suggested that I might want them, so they escaped the trash heap.

When I got down to the barn I found a pile of mostly junk, covered in a plastic tarp because we were expecting rain. I found a few items worth keeping: the sled my great-grandmother had when she was a little girl growing up in Battle Creek, Michigan, a wooden tricycle that belonged to my grandfather, and a few plastic trucks for my son to play with. I found the box of maps and popped open the latch, and immediately knew that the contents were far more important than my grandfather had realized.

There were dozens of maps, but among the rolls of paper I recognized a draft of the map my great-grandfather made for the Solebury Friends Meeting burial ground in the 1960s. Then I noticed another roll that was clearly a much older material. With the box sitting in the gravel driveway, I rolled the map out a few inches and discovered that it was in fact two maps rolled together.

SoleburyFriendsMeeting-Burial Map-1907(small)

The first was from 1907.

The second was from 1866.

They were the original maps that by great-grandfather used as a reference for the modern map, and they’d been sitting in our barn for decades, totally forgotten.

I called the person currently in charge of the graveyard to tell him about my find and offered to bring it to the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College to deposit it with the rest of the Meeting’s original records, and I held on to them for a few months until I had time to make the trip.

A couple weeks ago I finally I finally had a day off, and decided to bring the maps to Swarthmore. My timing was fortuitous. That Monday I led a graveyard tour at Plumstead Friends Meeting. We assembled in the meetinghouse, and as I led the group outside towards the burial ground, a woman approached me with a box of documents about the meeting. At the time I was too focused on the tour to discuss it, and suggested that she talk to the clerk of the meeting. The next day, however, I was consumed by curiosity. I already had plans to go down the the Friends Historical Library that week, and thought I might be able to bring those papers as well. Luckily I ran into her in Doylestown a couple days later and proposed that I take them for her. She agreed.

When she dropped the documents off the next day, she brought a lot more than the Plumstead material. She also brought a collection of documents from Buckingham Meeting, and there was so much that it took her two trips to unload it from her car.

The Plumstead material turned out to be the notes and research prepared for a pamphlet published for the meeting’s 225th anniversary celebration on 1953, as well as notes about the ceremony itself. There were also two large photographs that were used in the pamphlet, one from c.1875, and one from 1953.

The Buckingham material was rather varied. One box contained about a dozen copies of the book published for Buckingham Meeting’s 225th anniversary in 1923, as well as a block print of the meetinghouse that was used for that book. There was a folder with newspaper clippings and other 20th Century material. Finally, there was a cardboard box that had been saved from Buckingham Meeting by the woman’s father. At some point a few decades ago, the members of Buckingham meeting had decided to indiscriminately “clean” their attic, and this box was a subject of the purge. Like the burial map from Solebury, these documents were almost destroyed.

When I opened this final box I got goosebumps. I could tell by looking at the parchment that they were old. Really old. Most of them were tied together with string into little bundles, with a few groupings of loose papers between them. I saw the date “1776” peeking out from one of the bundles. When I brought them home and examined them further I found that some documents dated back to the beginning of the 1700s, and in addition to material from Buckingham, a lot of the documents actually came from Middletown Monthly Meeting. Most of them were excerpts from annual conference of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and epistles from the yearly meetings in London and Philadelphia. Some were testimony against members of meeting, or letters from people willingly leaving the Society of Friends. There were a few more recent documents that dealt with the Civil War. Perhaps the most interesting document is a letter written from a Quaker aid mission during the British occupation of Boston. She had kept them in storage for years, hoping to eventually deposit them in the archive, and I was finally able to bring them for her.

Swarthmore Donation - Stack of Papers

For the sake of brevity, I will show the individual documents in separate posts:

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