The Quakers of Iowa

Author's Preface

In the present work the author has endeavored to present the essential features of the history of the people called the Quakers, from the time of their first appearance in Iowa down to the present time. To accomplish this within the limits of a single volume the writer has been compelled to omit many matters of local interest. Space permitted only the briefest mention of those who have been the leaders in many of the fields of church activity; while as regards the Friends' communities, many Iowa Quaker meetings, particularly in the western part of the State, are not even so much as mentioned. To explain this omission the writer desires to state that it has been his purpose to trace in detail the rise of only those settlements which formed the basis of Iowa Quakerism before the founding of the Iowa Yearly Meeting of Friends in 1863. After that time the subject has been dealt with as a whole. Much of local and personal interest has thus been sacrificed in these pages.

Much of the initial work on this volume was done during the three years when the writer was con-

AUTHOR'S PREFACE nected with Perm College at Oskaloosa, Iowa, where he had access to the rich collection of manuscript records stored in the college vault. During the last fifteen months of his researches the writer lived at Iowa City and was connected with The State Historical Society of Iowa, thus having the advantage of its valuable library. Most of the materials used, however, were secured from outside sources which are indicated in the notes and references. The writer's acquaintance with almost the entire Iowa field, together with his personal correspondence with the principal members of the various sects, made possible a familiarity with the present conditions in the various branches of the Society in Iowa which proved to be of great value.

The writer desires to take this opportunity to express his gratitude to the large number of persons, both in Iowa and elsewhere, who have cooperated in bringing together the materials used in this work. To Dr. David M. Edwards and Dr. Stephen M. Hadley, both of Oskaloosa, Iowa, the writer is greatly indebted for valued assistance. Thanks are also due to Miss Florence Franzen and to Mr. Jacob Van der Zee of Iowa City, Iowa, for their help in verifying the manuscript. Much credit for whatever merit the work may possess is due to Dr. Dan E, Clark, Assistant Editor of The State Historical Society of

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Iowa, for his many suggestions, corrections on the manuscript, and for the index. And finally, only through the continued interest, assistance, and advice of Dr. Benjamin F. Shambaugh, Superintendent of The State Historical Society of Iowa, has the publication of the volume in its present form been made possible.

Louis T. Jones

The State Historical Society of Iowa Iowa City

A Retrospect of Fifty Years

Part II Iowa Quaker Orthodoxy

I.

The Rise of Evangelism in Iowa .

II.

The Pastoral System Among the Iowa

Friends 103

CONTENTS

III. The Iowa Orthodox Quaker Ministry . 109

IV. The General Superintendent . . 118 V. The Christian Workers' Assembly . 124

VI. Modern Quakerism in Iowa . . . 127

Part III The Minority Bodies Of Friends In Iowa

I. The Anti-Slavery Friends in Iowa . 133

II. The Hicksite Friends in Iowa . . 146

III. The Wilbur Friends in Iowa . . 154

IV. The Conservative Friends in Iowa: The

Separation of 1877 .... 163

V. The Conservative Friends in Iowa: The

Separation at Salem and Springdale . 171

VI. The Norwegian Friends in Iowa . . 175

VII. Quaker Conservatism and its Future in

Iowa 181

Part IV Benevolent And Educational Enterprises

I. The Iowa Quakers and the Negroes . 187

II. The Iowa Quakers and the American

III. White's Iowa Manual Labor Institute . 215

IV. Missionary Activities of the Iowa Friends 232 V. Educational Work Among the Iowa Friends 240

CONTENTS

Part V Religious And Social Life Of The Quakers

I. Religious Beliefs of the Quakers . . 253

II. The Quaker Meeting .... 258

III. Quaker Marriages ..... 262

IV. Quaker Manners and Customs . . 269 V. Quaker Home Life . . . . 278

Appendices . . . . . . 283

Index 339

Part I Historical Narrative The Rise And Spread Of Quakerism

It was during the reign of the Stuarts in England that Quakerism first appeared. The absolutism of Charles I was at that time in sharp conflict with the chartered rights of Englishmen; and the great and influential Church of England was doing all in its power to crush the new-born Puritan advance. Royal tyranny had come face to face with the rising spirit of popular liberty, and religious intolerance was being met on every hand by an insistent demand for freedom of worship. There were Roundheads and Cavaliers, High-churchmen and Non-conformists, Puritans and Separatists, Presbyterians and Independents; and in addition to this turmoil of conflicting and contending factions in religion, England was plunged into all the horrors of a civil war. In this period of political, social, and religious upheaval Quakerism was born.

The real message of Quakerism contained little that was new : from a religious point of view it was little more than a revival of primitive Christianity.1 With all the vitality of a new movement it grappled with the great religious, social, and political problems of the day ; and, partly because of the resistless power of its simple message, many of the forces which have oppressed humanity have since disappeared. Against Roman Catholic and Puritan intolerance alike, against the wrongs of human slavery, and against the ravages and the barbarity of war, the Quakers have consistently raised their protest. Time after time they have suffered persecution for the sake of their testimonies ; but what has cost them dear has been the world's gain.2 Small as has always been the Religious Society of Friends, in the work of reform and in the uplift of humanity it has borne a share out of all proportion to its numbers.3 And now at a time when internal decay and the larger religious movements of the day threaten the existence of this peculiar sect, the world is just beginning to awaken to an adequate appreciation of the work which the Quakers have done.4

For the origin of the message, the testimonies, and the fundamental principles of the Society of Friends, one instinctively turns to the life and the work of its founder, George Fox. From him came the cardinal teachings of Quakerism and its form of organization — at once so simple and so efficient that, notwithstanding the altered circumstances of the Society and the changing times, both remain to-day, in all parts of the world where Quakers are found, essentially as they were within forty years after the rise of the order.

George Fox was born "in the month called July, in the year 1624, at Drayton in the Clay, in Leicestershire.' ' His father, Christopher Fox, was a weaver by profession, and because of his upright character

RISE AND SPREAD OF QUAKERISM 19 was often spoken of as "Righteous Christer"^ His mother possessed a deeply religions temperamer^ and was tenderly devoted to her family. In his youth, George was of a retiring disposition, being ' ' religious, inward, still, solid, and observing, beyond his years".6 As he grew into a larger consciousness of life he became troubled in spirit over what he believed to be the inherent sin within him. Amidst the intensity of his inward struggles, at the age of nineteen years, on "the ninth of the seventh month, 1643", he left home, "broke off all familiarity or fellowship with young or old", and began to wander from place to place in search for rest of soul. He sought the counsel and comfort of many priests and religious people of England, but he "found no comfort from them. ' ' A certain priest at Mansetter in Warwickshire at one time bade him ' 1 take tobacco and sing psalms"7 to quiet the agony of his troubled heart. Often he walked in lonely places, and out under the stars at night. So heavily weighed the sense of the world's lost condition upon him that he said his blood seemed "dried up with sorrows, grief, and troubles", and he almost wished that he had never been born.

As Fox longed for spiritual rest, so he continued to search. For over a year he wandered through Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire, during which time he relates: "I fasted much, walked abroad in solitary places many days, and often took my bible, and sate in hollow trees and lonesome places till night came on ; and frequently in the night walked mournfully about by myself : for I was a man of sorrows in the time of the first workings of the Lord in me."8 When he had come to the point where his confidence in the priests and his faith in men generally were gone, so that he had nothing outwardly to help him, "then, 0 then," he says, ' i I heard a voice which said, ' There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.' When I heard it, my heart did leap for joy."9

From this time on Fox had a realization of God such as few men in any times have experienced. Indeed, from the intense inward struggles of this one man have emanated influences which have profoundly affected the world's thought. Consciousness of inherent sin, futility of all earthly agencies to redeem, personal and direct divine revelation, and a universal and inherent ability to perceive God — these constitute the message which George Fox brought to the world. He preached these ideas with all of their power and freshness to a people already torn with many dissensions, and they were like oil thrown upon flames. The very term "Quaker"10 tells the story. With astounding rapidity the teachings of George Fox spread in England, and for a time it seemed as though the faith of the whole nation would be shaken.

England was well prepared to receive the message of the Quakers. The English Reformation had done its work. About the middle of the seventeenth century great gatherings for the discussion of religious questions were common in the fields, at the

RISE AND SPREAD OF QUAKERISM 21 fairs, in the market-places, and at the churches. In his Journal, Fox makes frequent reference to his attendance at such meetings even before he began to preach. There was also a widespread knowledge and interest in the scriptures among the masses of the people. The half-century before the time of George Fox has been described as a period when ' ' England became the people of a book, and that book was the Bible. It was as yet the one English book which was familiar to every Englishman; it was read at churches and read at home, and everywhere its words, as they fell on ears which custom had not deadened to their force and beauty, kindled a startling enthusiasm. ' 9 Moreover, the " whole moral effect which is produced now-a-days by the religious newspaper, the tract, the essay, the lecture, the missionary report, the sermon, was then produced by the Bible alone."11

Fox early took advantage of these two agencies. The general religious gatherings offered an excellent opportunity to propagate religious ideas; and his extensive knowledge of the scriptures made it possible for him to appeal strongly to the masses of the people. At first he seems merely to have attended these meetings, occasionally taking part in the open discussions, but by 1647 he was actively engaged in preaching. Throwing his influence boldly against ecclesiasticism, he soon became one of the most powerful preachers of the day.

William Penn, who knew Fox personally, said of him :

He was a man that God endowed with a clear and wonderful depth, a discerner of others' spirits, and very much a master of his own. . . . And his ministry and writings show they are from one that was not taught of man, nor had learned what he said by study. . . . He had an extraordinary gift in opening the scriptures. He would go to the marrow of things, and shew the mind, harmony, and fulfilling of them with much plainness, and to great comfort and edification. . . . But above all he excelled in prayer. The inwardness and weight of his spirit, the reverence and solemnity of his address and behaviour, and the fewness and fullness of his words, have often struck even strangers with admiration, as they used to reach others with consolation. The most awful, living, reverent frame I ever felt or beheld, I must say, was his in prayer.12

Such was the man and snch was his message. He began his work in the northern counties of England, and with marvelous rapidity his doctrines spread in all directions. In an epistle written to a friend in 1676 he says :

The truth sprang up first to us, so as to be a people to the Lord, in Leicestershire [his home county] in 1644, in Warwickshire [the county adjoining on the south] in 1645, in Nottinghamshire in 1646, in Derbyshire in 1647 [both counties adjoining on the north], and in the adjacent counties in 1648, 1649, and 1650 ; in Yorkshire in 1651, in Lancashire and Westmoreland in 1652, in Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland in 1653, in London and most of the other parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, in 1654.

In 1655 many went beyond sea, where truth also sprang up, and in 1656 it broke forth in America and many other places.13

RISE AND SPREAD OF QUAKERISM 23

Thus, within a period of about ten years the new movement had taken root in Great Britain and Ireland, and then spread to the colonies. Naturally enough, persecution pursued the Quakers ; but persecution served only to fan the flames and spread the sparks. Fox imbued his followers with his own spirit and enthusiasm. In the year 1654 he records that there were about sixty ministers whom "the Lord raised up, and did now send abroad out of the north country.' '

One distinguishing feature marks this period of Quaker history, namely, its all-absorbing missionary spirit. To the Quakers there was no sacrifice too great to be made, and no suffering too keen to be endured for the sake of the spread of "truth". A second order of Jesuits seemed to have appeared. They were persecuted, it is true, but they wore out persecution by their passive resistance. To the confiscation of their estates they patiently submitted. They were thrown into loathsome prisons, but even there they preached the message. Nothing could crush them. Driven by the spirit within them and by the severe laws, they migrated to other lands. France, Germany, Holland, Norway, Italy, Turkey, and Palestine were visited. The Czar of Russia was supplied with literature which explained the new message, and an attempt was made to convert the Pope at Rome.14 Then the movement swept westward, and Barbadoes, Bermuda, and Jamaica were overrun by the Quakers.15

On the eleventh day of July, 1656, a day full of import to the red men of America, to the white men who were to supplant them, and to the negroes here to be enslaved, the first Quakers landed on the shores of New England — a landing long to be remembered in the annals of that Puritan realm.

II

THE QUAKERS IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES

The first Quakers known to have set foot on American soil were two women, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, who appeared in Boston harbor on July 11, 1656, having come from the island of Barbadoes for the express purpose of bearing testimony against the religious deadness and formality of the Puritans.

Long had the Puritans of New England heard of the turmoil raised in the home-land by the troublesome Quakers ; and now they had them at their very doors. Why should they come hither to disturb the peace and quiet of the wilderness? These were Puritan shores. The Puritans, as "Pilgrims" in a strange land, had come to New England in order that they might live according to their own ideals and worship God in their own way. They had their own institutions and their own customs, which to them were dear and sacred. At infinite cost they had built up a commonwealth in the wilderness, based on the laws, statutes, and ordinances of God. They had convictions as strong as were the convictions of the Quakers. Why should they give way to these newcomers? The very purpose of this transient visit of members of the despised sect was to scatter their books and pamphlets — firebrands of disruption and discord — and overturn the very foundations on which the Puritan community rested. The Puritans were determined that they would not allow themselves thus to be disturbed; while the Quakers were just as determined to bear their testimonies.

The scenes which followed the first arrival of Quakers in America were indeed dramatic. An irresistible force seemed to have met an immovable object. The two women were at once taken into custody by the authorities of Boston, their books and tracts were publicly burned in the market-place as heretical, and being "stripped stark naked" and searched for marks of witchcraft, they were confined in prison without light, writing materials, or the privilege of speaking to anyone on the outside. They were then ruthlessly thrust out of the colony ; while Simon Kempthorne, master of the ship which brought them thither, was strictly charged with speedily taking them back whence he got them, at his own expense and under heavy penalty if he refused.16

Two days after the departure of Mary Fisher and Ann Austin from the port of Boston, another vessel came into the harbor bearing eight Quakers — four men and four women. These, likewise, were seized and thrown into prison, where they remained for about eleven weeks. They, too, were finally driven out of the colony and transported back to England, whence they had come. The first law, bearing date

QUAKERS IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES 27 of October 14, 1656, was then passed against the intruders.17

Entrance from the sea being barred, the commonwealth was soon invaded from another quarter. By 1658 Rhode Island, the earliest home of religious toleration in America, had been visited by the Quakers, and there the new ideas had spread rapidly. Through this "back door" the Quakers again began to appear in Massachusetts in defiance of the stringent laws which that colony had passed.18 Time after time they were flogged, tied to the cart's tail, threatened, and banished from the jurisdiction, but all to no avail. Finally, on October 19, 1658, this beset, defied, and outraged Puritan colony passed the fatal act, carrying with it a death penalty.

Laws thus framed and intent upon blood were not long in finding their victims. Mary Dyer, a Quaker from Rhode Island, had been banished from Massachusetts as an Antinomian; Marmaduke Stephenson had also been banished for making a disturbance in Boston; William Robinson had been whipped and banished for abusing the court; and William Leddra had been several times whipped, imprisoned, and banished. Their devotion to the cause of truth was, however, greater than their regard for man, so they fearlessly returned. On October 22, 1659, Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson paid the penalty on the scaffold, and thus sealed their testimony in Boston with their blood. In the spring of the following year, Mary Dyer swung from the same scaffold in obedience to what she believed to be the will of God, and on March 14, 1661, William Leddra offered np his life in the same way. All four of these persons, we are told, were of unsullied character. Constant, heroic, fearless, they faced death for the sake of religious toleration. Upon hearing of these atrocious crimes, Charles II at once ordered his Puritan subjects to forbear, and the flow of innocent blood ceased. Thus Quaker fortitude had met Puritan intolerance in Massachusetts, and, with the tongue as its only weapon of defense, the former had prevailed,19 there to build up the first Yearly Meeting of Friends in America.20

With the arrival of George Fox in Maryland in 1672 21 the movement in America was given a new impetus. He and his devoted followers traveled in all directions, bearing their message. Day after day Fox plunged through pathless forests and over dangerous bogs from New England to the Carolinas, planting here and there in the scattered settlements the germs of the new faith which soon sprang up into prosperous Quaker communities. Many times the missionaries lay down to rest beside their camp fires in the lonely woods, and "sometimes in the Indians' wigwams or houses", there taking the opportunity of speaking the word of life to these savage "kings".22 In New England, in the middle colonies, and in the sea-board colonies of the South the work went forward, strongly tincturing the commonwealths of the Jerseys, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina with Quaker doctrine.23

QUAKERS IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES 29

Persecuted by the established church in the mother country, suppressed by the Puritans in New England, and maltreated by the Roman Catholics of Maryland and the cavaliers of the more southern colonies, the Quakers longed for a home which they could call their own. The keen mind of George Fox early perceived the advantages which the uninhabited woods of America offered as a place of refuge from the storms of persecution which beat so fiercely upon the "Friends of Truth". In 1660 steps were taken to secure by purchase a tract of land from the Susquehanna Indians, but due to a war then raging among the tribes the attempt failed.24 It was not long, however, until a new avenue was opened; for when Lord Berkeley offered for sale one-half of New Jersey in 1674 it was at once purchased by two Quakers, John Fenwick and Edward Billinge. Thus a new opening was made in America for the growth of Quakerism.25

The importance of this incident does not lie so much in the purchase of the New Jersey land by two Quakers, as in the fact that the transaction brought into play the vital interest of William Penn — a man whose name became almost a synonym for Quakerism in America. Fortunate, indeed, was it for the Quakers that he allied himself with the new faith. Rich, scholarly, and powerful, Penn threw his whole influence and fortune into the cause.

From Admiral Penn, his father, William had inherited a large estate, together with a claim of some 16,000 pounds against the British crown.

Knowing that a demand for cash payment would be all but useless he besought the King, Charles II, to grant to him in payment of the debt extensive lands to the north of Maryland, "to be bounded on the east by the Delaware River .... to be limited on the west as Maryland was, and .... to extend northward as far as it was plantable."26 It should here be said, much to Penn's credit, that the "holy experiment' ' which he here proposed to make was not solely for the benefit of himself and his religious order ; but his colony was to be a place where all who chose might be "as free and happy as the nature of their existence could possibly bear in their civil capacity, and, in their religious state, to restore them to those lost rights and privileges with which God and nature had originally blessed the human race."27

In view of the broad and liberal terms which Penn outlined for both the settlement and the government of his colony, it is no marvel that many who were oppressed in other parts of the world should come to this haven of religious toleration. Pennsylvania rapidly rose to a commanding place among the colonies on the Atlantic seaboard; and when the forces began to shape themselves toward the formation of an independent nation, the Commonwealth which bore its founder's name was in the forefront of the struggle. Moreover, Pennsylvania — so long the bulwark of religious freedom in the new world — has always remained the stronghold of Quakerism in America.

Ill

A glance at the history of the Quakers in America reveals the fact that in this country they have been pioneers — a fact which is of immense importance in interpreting their annals. Whether this is due to the mystical nature of their religion or to the spirit of the new world — a spirit which has always been characterized by a craving for greater and greater expansion — is difficult to determine. Both influences have no doubt been at work, and as a result the one hundred thousand Quakers in America are scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada.

Before following the westward movement of the Friends it may be well to note the fact that an important change had taken place within the Society before the opening of the nineteenth century. During the early period, when the Friends were face to face with persecution both in England and America, they displayed a most remarkable vitality. They produced powerful ministers in great numbers, who, fired with an intense missionary zeal, traveled far and wide proclaiming their message, and literally tens of thousands were thus brought into the Quaker fold. But within ten years after the death of George

Fox, which occurred on the 13th day of November, 1690, there was an apparent decline in the vitality of the Society. In America the aggressive spirit of propagandism seems largely to have expended itself on the eastern seaboard. As the fires of missionary zeal burned low, a new movement set in — a movement destined to mould and fashion more than any other force the history of the Quakers on this continent — namely, westward migration.

The first striking evidence of this migratory tendency made its appearance in the southern colonies. "As the meetings in eastern Virginia are the oldest under consideration, 1 ' says one writer, "so they are the first to decline. Quakers seem to have disappeared from Norfolk County before 1700. They had no doubt 'gone West.' "28 The same stirring was to be noticed among the North Carolina Friends as they began to shift towards the West and South. Then came a larger movement which has been called "The Replanting of Southern Quakerism". Large numbers of Quakers from Nantucket, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania now poured into the Southland, settling in Maryland and Virginia, or pressing on into North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. This migration, which threatened to change the very complexion of the southern colonies, stopped, it has been said, "almost as suddenly as it began"; and the cause assigned was the shifting of the War of the Revolution to the South.29

After this first impetuous migration of the Quakers into the South they turned their faces westward. It is generally asserted that the westward movement was along the lines of the parallels of latitude, but in the case of the Quakers the lines of migration crossed and recrossed each other, some of the emigrants from the northern colonies finding homes in the Southland, while others wended their way from the Southland into the Old Northwest.

It was early in May, 1769, that Daniel Boone threw his long gun across his shoulder and left 1 i his peaceable habitation on the Yadkin river, in quest of the country of Kentucky 30 Eeared and trained in a Quaker home, the influences of the simple faith of the Friends deeply marked this man of the wilderness.31 Typical pathfinder and Indian fighter that he was, Boone blazed the path along which a motley mass of humanity was soon to follow in the building of the great Commonwealths of Kentucky and Tennessee. As early as 1768 the general movement from North Carolina had begun; and among those who early took part in the new work of Statebuilding were those who could easily be distinguished as Quakers.

In 1787, the very year in which the famous Ordinance was drafted for the government of the Northwest Territory, a request came to the New Garden Monthly Meeting in North Carolina for the establishment of a Friends meeting west of the mountains at Lost Creek near the Holston River. Although this request came from former members of the New Garden community the petition was refused and complaint was entered by the Monthly

Meeting against the petitioners that they ' 'had settled on lands the title to which was still in dispute with the Indians."32 Time after time the home meeting tried to check the westward movement of its members, but all to no avail. Unable to get the recognition they desired, and imbued with the free spirit of the western wilds, one Quaker settlement after another organized its own meetings without reference to the parent community. By the close of the century there had grown up the monthly meetings of Lost Creek and New Hope; and of the Quaker families which there helped to lay the foundations of the State of Tennessee one reads names which now sound familiar in Iowa — names such as Marshall, Hodgins, Maxwell, Pearce, Stanfield, Phillips, Thornburgh, Macy, Bernard, Mendenhall, Beales, Hayworth, Reece, and Beard.33

The next region into which the Quakers migrated was the Northwest Territory. Hard upon the close of the American Revolution the vast stretch of country acquired by the young nation to the west of the Allegheny Mountains was turned over to the Federal government by the various States. With the rapid settlement of the region to the south of the Great Lakes intense pressure was brought to bear upon Congress for the establishment of some form of local government, and the result was that monumental document of July 13, 1787: "An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, north-west of the river Ohio."34 It was with the adoption of this Ordinance and the provision which the final article contained, that the interest of southern Quakers in the region really begins.