New York Quakers in the American Revolution

NEW YORK QUAKERS IN THE REVOLUTION47 Henry Lee Swint, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. The Northern Teacher in the South, 1862-1870. (The work, experiences and motives of the teachers sent into the South during the period. Some study of the organizations responsible for the work among the freedmen, including several Quaker organizations.) Vanderbilt University, History, Ph.D. 1939. Theodore Thayer, 4427 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Israel Pemberton, 1715-1779. University of Pennsylvania, History, Ph.D. Frederick B. Tolles, 65 Langdon Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Philadelphia Quakers, 1681-1776. (A social and cultural history.) Harvard, History, Ph.D. Elizabeth Janet Gray Vining, 6347 Wayne Avenue, Germantown, Philadelphia , Pennsylvania. The Virginia Exiles. (The men who went, the issues involved, the journey, life in Winchester, and the return.) Paul A. W. Wallace, 504 Maple Street, Annville, Pennsylvania. Conrad Weiser. (A biography, with special attention to Weiser's career in Pennsylvania , 1729-1760.) Research partially completed. Mildred Sylvia Wilkox, 26 College Avenue, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. Friends' Central School System. (Includes all past and present schools under Hicksite committees in Philadelphia.) Temple University, Education , M.S. 1935. DOCUMENTS NEW YORK QUAKERS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION FEW PERSONS today, with the exception of a scholar, would recognize the name of John Gough. But in his own time he was well known, at least to the Friends, for his fourvolume History of the People Called Quakers (Dublin 1789-90). During the years when the American colonies were attempting to sever their connections with the mother country, Gough, an Irish Quaker, was gathering material for his History. Immediately after the war he wrote to Friends in Pennsylvania, asking for information on the rise and development of Quakerism in America. The Meeting for Sufferings in Philadelphia communicated Gough's request to the New York Meeting for Sufferings in order to obtain their cooperation. The latter body appointed a committee to "enquire after and collect such Transcripts and 48 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION accounts [as are] proper to this design. . . ." x About two years later the committee submitted its report, which included the following account of the experiences of the Friends in New York during the Revolution/2 ... in the year 1775 there was One Quarterly, three Monthly and Eleven particular Meetings on the Main.3 About which time 1 New York Meeting for Sufferings, Minutes, i (1758-1796), 132 (Third mo. 8, 1785). All of the minute books of the two New York Yearly Meetings, with a few exceptions, are in the records vault at the Friends' Seminary, Fifteenth Street and Rutherford Place, New York City, John Cox, Jr., custodian. Those minute books of the Revolutionary period which are elsewhere are: Westbury Monthly Meeting, Minutes, in the care of William Seaman, Glen Cove, Long Island, New York; East Hoosack Monthly Meeting, Minutes, in the care of the Town Register, Adams, Massachusetts; Saratoga Monthly Meeting (Easton), Minutes, in the care of Oren B. Wilbur, Greenwich, N. Y. 2 Ibid., i, 181-186 (First mo. 9, 1787). 3 The quarterly meeting referred to was Purchase, established in 1745, to be held alternately at Oblong in Dutchess County and Purchase in Westchester County. The monthly and preparative meetings of which it was composed are given below. Many of the meeting records are incomplete , and the authorities do not always agree as to the dates of establishment . There is an incomplete list of meetings in Rufus M. Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies, London 1911, pp. 251-252, n. An official list, on which this article is based, is found in the New York Meeting for Sufferings, Minutes, i, 187 (First mo. 9, 1787). The monthly meetings were: Westchester, now Purchase, in existence by 1725; Oblong, set off from Westchester in 1745, to be held alternately at Nine Partners and Oblong, both in Dutchess County; and Nine Partners, set off from Oblong Monthly Meeting in 1769. The preparative meetings comprised in Westchester or Purchase Monthly Meeting were: Westchester, established as a meeting for worship c. 1684-85, constituted a preparative meeting in 1716; Mamaroneck, established as a meeting for worship c. 1685 and constituted a preparative meeting in 1728; Purchase, a meeting for worship by 1725, and constituted a preparative meeting in...