Quaker Migration from Pennsylvania and New Jersey to Hopewell Monthly Meeting, 1732-1759

102 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION QUAKER MIGRATION FROM PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY TO HOPEWELL MONTHLY MEETING, 1732-1759 By Thomas H. Fawcett THE early migration to Hopewell Monthly Meeting in the Shenandoah Valley is, perhaps, of peculiar interest because that was the first monthly meeting established west of the Blue Ridge and was for fifty years the western frontier of Quakerism. It was until 1789 a part of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and the great majority of its early members appear to have come from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The investigation of its early history has been rendered more difficult by the destruction of all but four pages of the minutes prior to 3 Mo. 26, 1759. In connection with the recent preparation of a history of Hopewell Monthly Meeting, it was decided to go through the minutes of all the monthly meetings then comprising Philadelphia Yearly Meeting for the period 1735-1759 to collect the names of those granted certificates of removal to Hopewell. Abstracts, copies, or originals from twenty-nine meetings have been consulted, seventeen of which proved fruitful. Unfortunately the Fairfax minutes are out of reach in Baltimore. In most cases women's minutes have been neglected ; but since in many meetings all certificates had to come before the men, it is thought that only a very few names of single women have been lost. This list was not completed in time to get into the Hopewell history in its entirety and is therefore presented here with certain related matter. \ GREAT southward movement in Quakerism started about·*·*¦ 1725 when Josiah and Henry Ballinger from Salem Monthly Meeting in West Jersey settled in Maryland at Monocacy near Potomac. A small tract "on the upper side of Monocacy" was surveyed for Josiah Ballinger November 5, 1725. Other Quaker families who settled there at an early date were Beals, Harrold, Matthews, Mills, and Wright. According to Samuel Smith a meeting for worship was allowed by New Garden Monthly Meeting about the year 1726, which was held at the house of Josiah Ballinger and others until 1736, when a meeting house was built. QUAKER MIGRATION TO HOPEWELL103 This is very probable, though the New Garden minutes do not mention the matter. From the Monocacy settlement to the site of Hopewell meeting was scarcely fifty miles, and several of the first settlers at Hopewell lived previously at Monocacy. October 7, 1730, Alexander Ross and Morgan Bryan of Pennsylvania , the former a member of Nottingham Monthly Meeting, petitioned the Governor and Council of Virginia for a grant of 100,000 acres on Opequon Creek in the Shenandoah Valley. This was granted to them on condition that they seat one family for each 1,000 acres within a period of two years. As it happened, proof of the settlement of seventy families was made April 23, 1735 ; and surveys of 70,000 acres were allowed. Patents were dated November 12, 1735. In the meantime Jost Hite and Robert McKay, the latter apparently a member of Nottingham Monthly Meeting, petitioned for a similar grant and bought out the right of John and Isaac Van Metre, whose petition had been favorably received by the Governor and Council June 17, 1730. The Hite and McKay settlers were formerly supposed to have reached the Shenandoah Valley at an earlier date than the Ross and Bryan group, but it does not seem that either can properly claim much priority. Some of the surveys for both were made in the autumn of 1732. The Hite and McKay patents were issued in October, 1734. John Littler, a patentee under Ross and Bryan, did not renew his tavern license in Chester County in August, 1731, because he was going to move away ; and the vendue of Alexander Ross was held before September 16, 1732. AMEETING for worship at Opeckon 1 was requested of Nottingham Monthly Meeting 3 Mo. 18, 1734, and was granted 12 Mo. 10, 1734/5, by Chester Quarterly Meeting. This was called Hopewell and was located about six miles north of the present town of Winchester. Hopewell Monthly Meeting, consisting of Monocacy and Hopewell particular meetings, was established by the Quarterly Meeting 9 Mo. 10, 1735. Friends at Richard...