Quakers Living in the Lion's Mouth: The Society of Friends in Northern Virginia, 1730-1865

391 Pages·2012·6.27 MB·English

by  A. Glenn Crothers

Quakers Living in the Lion’s Mouth
Southern Dissent
University Press of Florida
Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
Quakers Living in
the Lion’s Mouth
Te Society of Friends in Northern Virginia,
1730–1865
A. Glenn Crothers
Foreword by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller
University Press of Florida
Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton
Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers · Sarasota
Portions of this book draw on A. Glenn Crothers’s previously published work:
“Quaker Merchants and Slavery in Early National Alexandria, Virginia: Te
Ordeal of William Hartshorne,” Journal of the Early Republic 25 (Spring 2005):
47–77; “‘I Felt Much Interest in Teir Welfare’: Quaker Philanthropy and African
Americans in Antebellum Northern Virginia,” Southern Friend 29 (2007): 3–36;
and “Northern Virginia’s Quakers and the War for Independence: Negotiating a
Path of Virtue in a Revolutionary World,” in Joseph S. Tiedemann and Eugene
R. Fingerhut, eds., Te Other Loyalists: Te Common Sort, Royalism, and the
Revolution in the Middle Colonies, 1763–1787 (New York: State University of New
York Press, 2009), 105–30.
Copyright 2012 by A. Glenn Crothers
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America. Tis book is printed on Glatfelter
Natures Book, a paper certifed under the standards of the Forestry Stewardship
Council (FSC). It is a recycled stock that contains 30 percent post-consumer
waste and is acid-free.
17 16 15 14 13 12 6 5 4 3 2 1
A record of cataloging-in-publication data is available from the Library of
Congress.
ISBN 978-0-8130-3973-2
Te University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State
University System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida
Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International
University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, University of Central
Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South
Florida, and University of West Florida.
University Press of Florida
15 Northwest 15th Street
Gainesville, FL 32611-2079
http://www.upf.com
Tis book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Albert Crothers.
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Foreword xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Prologue: Quakers Living in the Lion’s Mouth 1
1. Friends Come to Northern Virginia 8
2. Finding a Path of Virtue in a Revolutionary World 38
3. Te “Worldly Cares and Business” of Friends 72
4. Embracing “the Oppressor as Well as the Oppressed”: Quaker
Antislavery before 1830 106
5. Internal Revolutions: Te Hicksite Schism and Its Consequences 136
6. Strengthening the Bonds of Fellowship: Te Domestic and Public Lives
of Quaker Women 170
7. A “Nest of Abolitionists”: Antislavery Goals and Southern Identities
204
8. “Te Union Forever”: Northern Virginia Quakers in the Civil War
237
Epilogue: Conficting Paths of Virtue in Nineteenth-Century America
272
Notes 279
Bibliography 323
Index 355
Illustrations
Map 1. Antebellum northern Virginia, Society of Friends Meetings 3
Map 2. Tomas Fisher’s map of Winchester and vicinity 50
Map 3. Map of constituent meetings, Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends
(Hicksite) 159
Figure 1.1. Hopewell Meeting House 17
Figure 1.2. Fairfax Meeting House 18
Figure 1.3. Old Goose Creek Meeting House 18
Figure 3.1. Portrait of Samuel M. Janney 88
Figure 5.1. Edward Hicks, Te Peaceable Kingdom (c. 1827–1832) 137
Figure 6.1. Portrait of Elizabeth Janney 194
Figure 7.1. Portrait of Benjamin Hallowell 217
Figure 8.1. Portrait of Rebecca M. Wright 260
Figure 8.2. Quaker-supported Freedmen’s school, Camp Todd 263