Hannah Doan (alternatively spelled Doane) was born 13 April 1812 near York, Ontario, and died 6 February 1901. Her parents, Ebenezer Doan and Elizabeth Paxson, emigrated from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to Upper Canada in 1808 where they joined the Yonge Street Monthly Meeting.[1]
Hannah married Jacob Lundy, a farmer, in 1833. Both Hannah and Jacob were raised in the Children of Peace sect, a group that broke away from the Yonge Street Monthly Meeting over doctrinal disagreements in 1812.
Photo of Jacob Lundy (left) and Hannah Doan Lundy (right) in 1864. Photos courtesy of Gordon K. Doan at https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/4/4f/Doan-1093.pdf
Born in East Gwillimbury, Jacob (1809-1878) was the son of Israel Lundy and Rachel Hughes. According to Robynne Rogers Healey, Rachel Hughes Lundy was instrumental in encouraging David Willson, leader of the Children of Peace, in his prophetic visions. Rachel and her mother Eleanor Hughes became Willson’s ardent supporters and joined the Children of Peace after the 1812 schism.[2]
The families of Hannah and Jacob were already intertwined at the time of their marriage. Hannah’s aunt, Mary Doan, married Samuel Hughes, Jacob’s uncle, in 1819. After the death of Mary Doan in 1827, Samuel Hughes married Anna Armitage in 1829. Anna was the daughter of Amos Armitage and Martha Doan, making her Hannah’s cousin and the niece of Samuel’s late wife, Mary.
Photo of Hannah’s father, Ebenezer Doan. Photo from the Sharon Temple Museum Archives.
The Doan family also generally sided with the Children of Peace. Healey notes that Ebenezer Doan, the father of Hannah, was a key member of the Children of Peace and an active reformer. As an architect, he served as the master builder for the ornate Sharon Temple that the group used for meetings. However, he returned to the Society of Friends after disagreements over members engaging in military service during the 1837 Rebellion, including his son-in-law.[3]
Jacob Lundy took part in the Rebellion of 1837. He was taken prisoner at the Gallows Hill ambush and later pardoned by the lieutenant governor.[4] At the time of Jacob’s imprisonment, Hannah and Jacob had two young children, Oliver and Elizabeth. They had five children altogether, Oliver (1834), Elizabeth Paxson (1837), Rachel (1842), Charles Ezra (1846), and Sarah Doane (1850).
A photo of homespun fabric made by Hannah Doan Lundy, 1833. The fabric is held by the Forge and Anvil Museum, photo from the Elgin County Archives and Museum.
Hannah was apparently quite skilled at making homespun fabric. Held at the Forge and Anvil Museum in Sparta, this photo shows three textiles made by Hannah around 1833. Hannah hand-spun, dyed, and wove the fabric.
Along with most members of the Children of Peace, both Hannah and Jacob were buried at the Sharon Burying Ground in East Gwillimbury. Inscribed on their gravestone is Psalm 40: 1, “I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard me cry.”
[1]History of Toronto and County of York, Ontario, vol II (Toronto: B. Blackett Robinson, Publisher, 1885), 492.
[2]Robynne Rogers Healey, From Quaker to Upper Canadian: Faith and Community Among Yonge Street Friends, 1801-1850 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), 71.
[4] Albert Schrauwers, Awaiting the Millennium : The Children of Peace and the Village of Hope, 1812- 1889 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 224.
A few weeks ago at the Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists, I connected with Kyle Jolliffe, a scholar who has written extensively for the CFHA. Part of the paper I gave at the conference discussed the Norwich Monthly Meeting and its progenitor, Peter Lossing (1761-1833). Kyle reached out to me to share his family history: he’s a direct descendant of Lossing through Lossing’s daughter Paulina Lossing Howard Southwick. His line continues through Paulina’s daughter Augusta Malvina Southwick Marshall, her daughter Janet Marshall Estabrook, to Kyle’s maternal grandmother Alice Lossing Estabrook Simpson, and then to Alice’s daughter and Kyle’s mother Pauline Jolliffe. Kyle has generously sent me a number of documents about the Norwich Friends he has inherited over the years from his mother. This series on Norwich Friends will highlight some of these documents and the stories of the Friends who created them.
In 1846, Hannah A. Lossing gave a pamphlet to her sister-in-law, Paulina Southwick. The pamphlet, titled On the Christian Doctrine of the Teaching of the Holy Spirit, as Held by the Society of Friends, was first printed in Baltimore in 1839 by Orthodox Friends. Both Hannah and Paulina were active in
First page of the Pamphlet Hannah A. Lossing gave to Paulina Lossing Southwick in 1846.
the Norwich Monthly Meeting (Orthodox), the only meeting in Upper Canada at the time that had a minority of Orthodox members after the 1828 Hicksite-Orthodox schism.
Hannah A. Lossing (1801-1854), née Cornell, married Benson Lossing (1799-1881) in 1819.[1] Their marriage was recorded in the Norwich Monthly Meeting Record Book, 1819-1842. Benson Lossing, the seventh child of Peter Lossing and Hannah Brill, was active on meeting committees and was often sent as a meeting representative. Similarly, Hannah was active in the women’s Norwich Monthly Meeting, and served over the years as clerk, was often on committees to visit families, and served as an overseer for many years beginning in 1839. In 1842, Hannah was appointed elder.[2]
Hannah Lossing was connected to Paulina Lossing Howard Southwick (1787-1864) through both family and the Norwich Meeting. Paulina Southwick, née Lossing, was the sister of Hannah’s husband Benson Lossing. According to family records, Paulina was widowed in 1810 soon after her first marriage in 1808 to Henry Howard. They had one daughter, Hannah Howard. It’s worth noting that their daughter Hannah Howard married Solomon Jennings in 1830 and was the mother of Emily H. Stowe, the first woman physician to practice in Canada.
After the death of her first husband, Paulina married George Southwick in 1815. Together, they had four children: Mary Ann, Henry, Caroline, and Augusta (1828-1904). Paulina also served as an overseer in the Norwich Monthly Meeting, and often was part of meeting committees and attended the Canada Half Years Meeting as a representative. Paulina and Hannah often served on committees together.
Where Hannah Lossing first received the pamphlet she gave to Paulina is unknown. Given her status within the Norwich Meeting, it’s likely she brought it back from a quarterly or yearly meeting.
The pamphlet contained a discussion about the inspiration of God through scripture, the doctrine of the Trinity, and a note about early Friends maintaining “that some measure of the light of the Spirit of God has been immediately granted to man ever since his fall” (5). The pamphlet went to great lengths to clarify doctrine on the Holy Spirit in particular and the doctrine of Atonement, an unsurprising feature given doctrinal differences that came to a head in the 1828 Hicksite-Orthodox schism.
Elias Hicks, an early leader in what would come to be called the Hicksite faction, was suspicious of the trend towards evangelicalism among North American Friends. In Thomas D. Hamm’s overview of Quakerism in the nineteenth century, he argues that Hicks “saw problems in biblicism that made the Bible the ultimate authority, rather than the Holy Spirit,” and to the Light Within.[3] This grappling with evangelical doctrine can be found in the pamphlet.
In Edwina Newman’s article, “John Brewin’s Tracts: The Written Word, Evangelicalism, and the Quaker way in mid Nineteenth Century England,” she briefly discusses this pamphlet and the stance on scripture expressed within, noting that it “argued that a belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible did not preclude ‘immediate revelation,’ but this only meant that the truths of the Bible could be transmitted directly to the soul, not that there was any message other than that of Scripture.”[4] This is clarified in the pamphlet where the author argues that early Friends believed in the “inward knowledge of Christ in all his gracious offices; not in opposition to the outward knowledge, but certainly in opposition to the resting in the outward knowledge” (9). Their ability to do good work came, the pamphlet claimed, through redemption in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit as “revealed in the Old and New Testament.”
[1] Not to be confused with American historian Benson Lossing (1813-1891), son of John Lossing. The two Bensons were cousins through their fathers.
[2] Norwich Monthly Women Meeting, 1828-1843, 9 February 1842.
[3] Thomas D. Hamm, “Hicksite, Orthodox, and Evangelical Quakerism, 1805-1887,” in The Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies, edited by Stephen W. Angell and Ben Pink Dandelion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
[4] Edwina Newman, “John Brewin’s Tracts: The Written Word, Evangelicalism, and the Quaker way in mid Nineteenth Century England,” Quaker Studies 9 (2005): 243.
Picture of James Doan in the Weston-super-Mare Gazette, Somerset, England, “James Doan and Aunty Rogers,” 18 January 1902.
Doan’s Kidney Pills, a widely used brand of pills that gained popularity throughout the United States and Britain in the early twentieth century, claimed Canadian Quaker origins in their advertising. The pills were said to help a number of ‘female complaints,’ including kidney disease, back pain, nervousness, headaches, and restlessness. A 1902 advertisement for the pills in the Weston-super-Mare Gazette (Somerset, EN) stated, “You can be well, if you will treat the cause, as the Quakers did, and cure the kidneys.”[1]
The pills were created by James Doan (1846–1916), a druggist from Kingsville, Ontario. James Doan was the eighth child of Amos and Margaret Ann Doan, who were members of the Yonge Street Meeting. According to the Doane Family Book, James’ father Amos came to Upper Canada in 1808 with his parents, Joseph and Mary Doan, from Bucks County, Pennsylvania.[2]
James Doan claimed to be given the formula for the pills from ‘Aunty Mary Rogers.’ While little information is given about Mary Rogers, it’s likely James is referring to Mary Finch Rogers. Mary Finch and her husband Augustus Rogers were Orthodox Friends, part of the Yonge Street Preparative Meeting.[3] Their fifth child, Nelson S. Rogers, married Elizabeth Doan, the sister of James Doan. This made ‘Aunty Rogers’ not James’ actual aunt, but his sister’s mother-in-law.
Photo of a 1930s jar of ‘Doan’s Backache Kidney Pills.’ Item from the Wyndham and District Historical Museum, photo courtesy of nzmuseums.co.nz.
In a 1900 advertisement, the story of how Aunty Rogers’s formula came to James Doan is given:
Many years ago there lived in a quiet country town in Canada, an old Quaker lady who was affectively known as Aunty Rogers. She had acquired great skill in compounding medicines from certain roots and herbs, the curative properties of which she knew full well, and many are the stories they tell to-day in Ontario of her wonderful cures. Chief among them was a recipe for curing Kidney Disease, an ailment that was then playing sad havoc with the farmers round about, who were compelled to work exposed to all sorts of weather, and many an hour of suffering was saved, and many a life snatched from the very grace, by what came to be known as Aunty Rogers’ Kidney Care.
Now it happened when folks were flocking from far and near to beg of Aunty Rogers some of her kidney cure, that the fame of her preparation reached the ears of Mr. James Doan, the eminent specialist of Kingsville. He obtained some of Aunty Rogers’ preparation, and his superior knowledge of medicine told him at once that she and made a most valuable discovery.[4]
The image of ‘Aunty Rogers, the Quakeress,’ was often used in advertisements for the pills. Illustrations of her at her home in Stayner, Ontario were included, highlighting her faith background. Though Doan sold rights to the medication in 1894, Doan’s Kidney Pills continued to use a maple leaf logo for decades and traced its origins to Aunty Rogers. A version of Doan’s Kidney Pills can still be purchased today.
Illustration of ‘Aunty Rogers’ in The Jersey Weekly Press and Independent, 14 April 1900, pg 14.
[1] “James Doan and Aunty Rogers,” Weston-super-Mare Gazette, Somerset, 18 January 1902, pg 10.
[2] Alfred Alder Doane, The Doane Family: 1. Deacon John of Doane, of Plymouth; II. Doctor John Done, of Maryland; And Their Descendants. With Notes Upon English Families of the Name (Salem, MA: Salem Press Co., 1902), 223.
[3] Augustus and Mary Rogers are listed as the parents of Augustus Rogers in the Newmarket Monthly Meeting Membership Roll, Box 41-1. Available here: https://cfha.info/NewmarketBotsford041-1.pdf. Mary’s husband, Augustus, was very active in the Yonge St Preparative Meeting from 1823 until his death in 1858.
[4]“Aunty Rogers, the Quakeress: The History of a Famous Medicine,” The Jersey Weekly Press and Independent, 14 April 1900, pg 14.
A few new changes have come to CFHA’s website. Our events page has been updated with more information about Friendly Fridays. These free sessions are ongoing and new participants are always welcome! If you’re interested in attending a Friendly Fridays session and delving into the journal of George Fox, you can find more information and register on our events page.
We also have a new donate page, which now lists three different options for donation. CFHA receives the support of many members and individuals who volunteer their time and talent. However, it is only through the generous financial contributions received from donors that allows us to cover overhead costs while maintaining free public access to our transcriptions, publications, and programs.
On the subject of marriage, William Penn wrote, “Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.”[1] Marriage was an expectation for most young Quakers, yet the practice of endogamy and the parameters surrounding marriage set out by Quaker discipline governed the choices Friends made. Particularly in the early nineteenth century when discipline surrounding endogamy was strictly enforced, marriage outside of the faith ended in disownment. In Robynne Rogers Healey’s study of the Yonge Street Friends, From Quaker to Upper Canadian, she argues that while companionate marriage was common in Quaker communities before it became popular in nineteenth-century society, “membership still took precedence over emotion.”[2]
For Friends who married out, their names quickly disappeared from meeting records. Though some might have remained adherents to the faith but not actual members, their experience in Quakerism is not reflected in the minutes. Other Friends produced acknowledgements for their behaviour, only to later leave the faith for other reasons. The marriage of Isaac D. Noxon, a Quaker from a prominent family, and Janet (Jennet) Demorest, a young woman raised Presbyterian, gives us insight into a couple who married outside of their faith backgrounds and their experience of religion and Quakerism throughout their relationship. In many ways, their lives follow a number of trends common to Friends in the nineteenth century.
Isaac D. Noxon and Janet Demorest Noxon
Isaac D. Noxon was born 11 March 1809 in Adolphustown, Ontario, the eighth child of James Noxon and Elizabeth Dorland. Both James and Elizabeth were weighty Friends who were involved in the Adolphustown Monthly Meeting and later theWest Lake Meeting. James served as a minister and Elizabeth as an elder. During the 1828 Orthodox-Hicksite schism that devastated North American Quaker communities, both James and Elizabeth were vocal supporters and leaders of the Hicksite faction in the West Lake community. Isaac was a young man at the time of the schism and was likely affected by the volatile nature of the break.
Janet Demorest was born 23 April 1813 in Demorestville, Prince Edward County, to Jane Davis and Guillaume Demorest. Guillaume emigrated from Dutchess County, New York in 1790 to Adolphustown, marrying Jane Davis in 1793. The couple settled in Prince Edward County soon after their marriage and built a grist mill near Fish Lake, and the surrounding area soon grew into a small village called Demorestville. Guillaume was a Presbyterian but later became a Methodist and donated land to both the Presbyterians and Methodists in the area.[3]
Where Janet Demorest and Isaac Noxon met is unknown, but their communities were small, and any number of events could have brought them together in 1832. Janet clearly made quite an impact on Isaac, as he wrote her an acrostic love poem soon after their initial meeting. The end of the poem reads:
Remember those who think of you
Each have their fault, but pass them by
So you may find, among these true
The one that hopes it may be I
The pair were wed soon after in the spring of 1833 in Demorestville. The wedding was performed by Janet’s brother, Thomas Demorest, who was a Methodist minister. As Janet was not a Quaker and they were married outside of Isaac’s meeting, the issue of their marriage was soon raised in the Green Point Preparative Meeting.[4] The matter was brought to the West Lake Monthly Meeting (Hicksite), where Cornelius White and Stephen Bowerman were appointed to visit Isaac and look into the report. By the next meeting, Isaac had produced an acknowledgement, stating:
Dear Friends – I have so far deviated from good order as to marry a person not of our Society and to have said marriage accomplished by the assistance of a Priest which practice I condemn and wish to be continued a member.[5]
Though his wife Janet never became a member, Isaac maintained his membership for eight years after their marriage. His acknowledgement demonstrates a willingness to stay in good standing with the meeting, and he is named on a committee in 1835. However, in 1841, a complaint was brought against Isaac for not attending meetings and going out of plainness. When visited by a committee this time, Isaac made no attempts at acknowledgement and was disowned.[6]
In the 1871 Census of Canada, Isaac and Janet listed their religion as Methodist New Connexion. Arthur Dorland addressed the influence of Methodism on Canadian Quakers in his 1927 study, A History of the Society of Friends (Quakers) In Canada. Dorland argues that despite attempts by more conservative Friends to maintain separate from Methodism, Canadian Quakerism in the mid to late nineteenth century eventually adopted “many things peculiar to this type of evangelical religion, including many of its methods of evangelistic propaganda.”[7] He concludes that the most important influence on the life and thought of Canadian Quakerism was Methodism, a reality that led to a further schism in the community in 1881. The turn towards Methodism is thus unsurprising for Isaac Noxon. His wife, Janet, likely identified as Methodist herself at the time of their marriage, and both her brother and father were Methodist ministers.
Despite different faith upbringings, Isaac and Janet had a happy and long-lasting marriage. They raised their seven children in Sophiasburgh, eventually taking over the Noxon family farm.[8] Their children were Elizabeth, Isaac James, William Grant, Bartholomew Davis, Harriet Isabel, Emma Gertrude, and George Relyea. Isaac and Janet remained in Ontario until 1877 when the couple moved to New York to help one of their sons. Some of their children remained in Ontario while others emigrated to the United States.
Family anecdotes about their lives detail the importance of faith for both Isaac and Janet, and it seems that the pair passed on aspects of Quakerism to their children despite their Methodist faith. Paul Noxon, the great-grandson of Isaac and Janet, wrote about the family’s history and commented on the continuance of certain practices. He stated, “Although the family later abandoned the strict observance of the Quaker customs, during our childhood we still had silent grace at mealtime.”[9] Though Paul was born after Isaac’s death, he grew up in Avoca and spent time with his great-grandmother, Janet.
Another anecdote comes from a letter written by Ruth Winn Huntley, the wife of Isaac and Janet’s son, Isaac James. Isaac James and Ruth were married in Newmarket in 1861. Ruth’s parents, Theodore Huntley and Hulda Winn, were members of the Yonge Street Meeting (Orthodox).[10] Ruth’s letter was written to her daughter Eudora on 26 May 1889 and discusses the family’s attempt to attend church one morning in Avoca. In the letter, ‘Pa’ and ‘Grand Pa’ both refer to Isaac D. Noxon, who was eighty at the time.
“… There was no Church to the Lutheren Church, & George would
not go anywhere else & Dell would not be cause she had no
new hat & Grand Pa says I’ll go I said Come on, & we started
for the Methodist Church. It was then late but we trugded on
got way down there & there was nobody there. Pa says we aint
agoing to be beat, let’s go to the Babbist [Baptist]. So we come part
way back crosed over and got there before the first Prayer
was over. The house was more than full. Found it was Union
Memorial Servises, Pa had not heard anything about it. But
he thought & so did I that the services were very nice not
haveing heard anything of the kind before. We had dinner to
Grand Pas, boys were there too. Ma has her house all cleaned
& papered looks real nice …”[11]
Travelling from church to church to find a service was not an uncommon occurrence. Avoca, in Steuben County, was a small rural town and church services relied on the availability of ministers and attendance. As well, evangelical culture in late nineteenth-century North America tended to homogenize a number of otherwise separate religions. In his study of Orthodox Friends and their place in broader religious movements, Thomas Hamm argues that by the 1880s, American Quakers were “in the final stages of adjusting the society’s traditions to the evangelical and holiness teachings that they had embraced.”[12] The prominence of evangelicalism in America meant that moving between different denominational services was just another reality for many. For Isaac Noxon, his persistence on attending a Sunday service suggests the continual importance of religion and faith in his life.
November 1892 photo of Isaac and Janet with three of their children.
When Isaac Noxon passed in 1896, his obituary detailed his religious upbringing in the Society of Friends as well as his father’s role as a minister. On his adherence to Quakerism, his obituary specified that, “In early manhood he felt to discard some of their forms and peculiar customs although retaining the fundamental doctrine of that denomination to the close of his life.”[13] He was further remembered as a genial, peace-loving man, and a true Christian gentleman. At Isaac’s funeral in Avoca, NY, a Quaker preacher from Ontario conducted the service.[14]
Janet lived another eighteen years after Isaac passed, dying in 1914 at the age of one hundred. In a newspaper clipping celebrating her hundredth birthday, she was described as “a woman who has loved life with all the genuineness and depth of her nature, imparting to others her joy of existence.”[15]
–
My thanks go to Don Howe, the third great-grandson of Isaac Noxon and Janet Demorest, and descendant of Isaac James Noxon and Ruth Winn Huntley, for permission to use his family’s photos and for sending Isaac Noxon’s obituary and Ruth Huntley’s letter. Don graciously shared his recollections of his family with me and filled in many of the gaps of Isaac and Janet’s life.
I’d also like to thank Erin Fraser for her permission to use Isaac Noxon’s letter. Erin is a descendant of Emma Gertrude Noxon, the daughter of Isaac and Janet.
[1] William Penn, Fruits in Solitude, in Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Humanlife, 10th ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Benjamin Johnson, 1792), 22.
[2] Robynne Rogers Healey, From Quaker to Upper Canadian: Faith and Community Among Yonge Street Friends, 1801–1850 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), 55.
[3] Women’s Institute, History of the Churches of Prince Edward County (Picton, ON: Picton Gazette Publishing Co., 1971), 97.
[4] 17 April 1833, West Lake Monthly Meeting, Book C, 1824–1837.
[5] 15 May 1833, West Lake Monthly Meeting, Book C, 1824–1837.
[6] 19 May 1841, West Lake Monthly Meeting, 1837–1849.
[7] Arthur Dorland, A History of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in Canada (Toronto: MacMillan Co., 1927), 132.
[8] James Noxon’s account book has been fully transcribed and is available on Randy Saylor’s website.
[9] This anecdote was relayed by Don Howe, found in Paul A. Noxon’s 1985 work, “A History of the Noxon Family.”
[10] Records of Theodore Huntley and Hulda Winn’s marriage can be found in the Yonge St Monthly Meeting Records, 1828-1835 (Orthodox), 16 October 1834; 13 November 1834; 18 December 1834.
[11] This letter was transcribed by Don Howe’s father and reflects the spelling and grammar of the original letter. I have added capitalisations in places for clarity. In the letter, George refers to George Noxon, Isaac and Janet’s youngest son.
[12] Thomas Hamm, The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800-1907 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988), 121.
[13] Isaac Noxon’s obituary appeared in the Avoca Advocate in 1896.
[14] The preacher in question was likely Isaac Wilson. Wilson, part of the West Lake Meeting, travelled extensively around New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, and was in New York in 1896. Many of his trips are detailed in the Friends Intelligencer, a Hicksite journal that ran from 1844 to 1955.
[15] “One Hundred Years Young Today: Many Generations Pay Homage to Mrs. Janet Demorest Noxon,” Herbert Clarence Burleigh Fonds – Family Files – Demorest (i), 50.
For many of us in Canada and around the world, this holiday season will look a little different from past years. As we prepare to celebrate apart from our loved ones and many of our traditions are put on hold, we look forward to Christmases in the future where we can again gather safely.
Many of the early Quakers in Canada also faced challenging Christmas seasons. Bad weather, illness, and long distances kept families and friends apart. A glimpse into some of these challenges can be found in the letters and diaries of Deborah Mullet (1804 – 1892). Deborah emigrated from England to Canada in 1821 with her family when she was seventeen years old. Her family settled first in Adolphustown and later Amherst Island. In her article on the Mullet family and the Quaker Atlantic, Robynne Rogers Healey discusses Deborah’s initial struggles to adjust to her new life in Upper Canada and her desire to return home.[1] After four years of living in Canada, Deborah wrote to her grandmother in Bristol about their Christmas. The Mullett family had hosted two young men from Ireland at their table and Deborah stated they enjoyed “two of the fattest geese I have ever seen and a fine large piece of roast beef.”[2] While Deborah wrote to her grandmother that she was thankful for the health of her family that winter, she spoke of how she missed the society she used to keep and their former meeting in Bristol.
Deborah eventually settled into life in Canada. Her first marriage to Consider Haight gave the couple six children before his death in 1838. Twelve years later, Deborah married Vincent Bowerman at the age of forty-eight. Both Vincent and Deborah were active members of the West Lake Preparative Meeting (Orthodox). Deborah continued to write throughout her life. Though her diary entries are considerably shorter than her letters, they offer important details about her life. Christmas in 1875 brought “thunder and lightening with rain, no sleighing,” though Deborah writes her grandchildren were delighted with their presents.[3] Three years later, she recorded the weather on Christmas day as stormy, with the surrounding roads blocked due to the storm. Christmas 1888 was a quiet affair. At the age of eighty-four, Deborah wrote that her and her daughter Lydia spent the day alone, writing: “not a very pleasant day, hope it may be better next time.” However, her and Lydia did enjoy a large goose for dinner, and days later received cards from her family in England. Though it was a solitary affair, Deborah made note of both life’s misfortunes but also of life’s little joys.
In a year filled with uncertainty, may we find joy in better days ahead. In light of a busy (and mostly online) end of year, Robynne and I will be taking a short break from the blog this December, but we look forward to coming back in the new year. We wish you a safe and peaceful holiday season. May the roads be clear and the weather bright!
[1] Robynne Rogers Healey, “ ‘I am Getting a Considerable of a Canadian they Tell Me’: Connected Understandings in the Nineteenth-Century Quaker Atlantic,” Quaker Studies 15 (2011): 233.
[2] This quote comes from Deborah Mullet’s letter to her grandmother on 21 January 1825, the sixth letter in the “William Mullet Family Letters, Canada-England, 1821-1830,” transcribed by Thomas Sylvester and available in the Canadian Quaker History Journal 63 (1998): 27-40.
[3] Deborah Mullet’s diaries (#1, 1874 – 1882; #2, 1887 – 1892) are at the Prince Edward County Archives. They were transcribed by Lydia Wytenbroek in 2008 and are available on Randy Saylor’s website.
A reminder that the CFHA’s Annual General Meeting is this Saturday, September 26th. The program portion beings at 11am Eastern time and will feature Quaker historians Stephen W. Angell and Ben Pink Dandelion. The business portion of the AGM will follow.
For last minute additions, register at https://cfha.b.civicrm.ca/civicrm/event/register?reset=1&id=1 and contact [email protected] for any additional information.
This week the CFHA is happy to announce a book giveaway! To enter: follow the CFHA on Facebook or Twitter and register for the upcoming AGM program here for the chance to win a copy of Robynne Rogers Healey’s book, From Quaker to Upper Canadian: Faith and Community Among Yonge Street Friends, 1801 – 1850. The winner will be drawn and contacted on September 27th.
The program portion of CFHA’s Annual General Meeting will feature a talk given by leading Quaker historians Stephen W. Angell of the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana, and Ben Pink Dandelion of the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Bournville, England.
The Canadian Quaker Highlight series features the stories of Friends whose lives are part of the Canadian Quaker experience.
Anna (Engeltie, or ‘Angelica’) Solmes was born in Dutchess County, New York, in 1774.[1] Anna immigrated to Upper Canada in the late 1790s after her marriage to Jacob Cronk. Jacob Cronk, alongside his father Abraham, had already spent a number of years in Upper Canada before his marriage to Anna. Historian Margaret McBurney recalls, “In order to finance a trip to the United States to bring back his bride, young Jacob had to sell part of his land and spend the winter working in Adolphustown cutting cordwood for four dollars a month plus board.”[2]
Anna and Jacob quickly integrated themselves into their nearest Quaker meeting. Jacob was accepted by the Adolphustown Monthly meeting in 1798, and Anna a year later. The couple’s dedication to their faith was strong. Anna became an elder in 1804, and by 1807, Anna and Jacob began hosting an indulged meeting in their Sophiasburgh home. This meeting later became the Green Point Preparative Meeting in 1811. The couple also hosted a number of travelling Quaker ministers, including Rufus Hall in 1798, Elias Hicks in 1803, and Phoebe Roberts in 1821. During her travels, Roberts described the Cronk family as “valuable friends,” noting they were “very wealthy people and appeared to live in much harmony.”[3]
Anna’s active involvement in the Upper Canadian meetings is evident throughout meeting minutes. Anna was a regular attendee of the Canada Half-Yearly Meeting from its inception in 1810 and was often chosen to attend the New York Yearly Meeting as a representative. Her presence is peppered throughout meeting minutes as part of numerous committees formed to look into schools, troubling issues, establishing new meetings, and visiting members.
Like many nineteenth-century women, Anna experienced significant heartbreak in her life. Anna and Jacob were vocal proponents of the Hicksite faction during the 1828 Orthodox-Hicksite schism that affected Quaker meetings across North America. The Orthodox West Lake Monthly Meeting minutes accused Anna of being “instrumental in setting up separate meetings in conformity with Elias Hicks,” and allegedly “pushing the half years meeting clerks, and afterwards denying it in the face of the monthly meeting.”[4] Already in her mid-fifties, Anna suffered through the devastating separation of a community she had been actively involved in for over thirty years. A decade later, Anna’s only son Samuel died in 1841. Samuel left behind his wife Eliza and his own young son.
Anna’s Quaker faith remained a central tenet in her life. In the Hicksite West Lake Monthly Meeting, Anna continued on as an overseer and elder, even travelling on a religious visit with Margaret Brewer in 1836 to Friends in Philadelphia and New York.[5] Anna was active in the West Lake meeting into her old age, and was last recorded as an elder in 1860, just three years before she died at the age of eighty-nine.
A photo of the Cronk home in Sophiasburgh (photo found in Margaret McBurney’s Homesteads, 54).
[1] Information on Anna Solmes and her family can be found in the Herbert Clarence Burleigh Fonds, folder 2324, box 12.2, file 5.
[2] Margaret McBurney, Homesteads: Early Buildings and Families from Kingston to Toronto (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), 52.
[3] Leslie R. Gray, ed. “Phoebe Roberts’ Diary of A Quaker Missionary Journey to Upper Canada.” Ontario History 42 (1950): 24.
[4] West Lake Monthly Meeting Women (Orthodox) 1828-1851 (C-4-1), 15 January 1829.
[5] West Lake Monthly Meeting Women (Hicksite) 1825-1851 (H-11-5) 18 May 1836.
The Toronto Quaker Meeting continues to be an active meeting to this day. More about the history of the meeting can be found on the first page of the transcription.
The minutes themselves provide a wealth of information for researchers and genealogists alike. Visitors were welcomed and certificates of membership accepted from meetings in England (Newcastle, London, and Norwich), Ireland (Lisburn and Dublin), and across the United States (Kansas, New York, Iowa, and Indiana).
The following insight into the minutes has been provided by CFHA co-chair, Gordon Thompson:
The latest minute book to be transcribed is that of the Toronto Monthly Meeting (orthodox) 1893-1902. To readers familiar with transcriptions of the 1860s or earlier, the tone and shift in principles away from the primacy of the personal ‘inner light’ to one based on salvation and acknowledgement of sin will be jarring. This minute book commences a little more than ten years after the Orthodox/Conservative split, and it appears the Orthodox meeting continues to reverberate and rebound away from the traditional founding Quaker precepts. Researchers will find an abundance of family names and like references. Please note that this is the earliest minute book of any of the early Toronto meetings that is known to have been preserved and available for microfilming and transcription.
Our thanks and appreciation go out to Carman Foster once again for his transcription from images of the original text, and to Randy Saylor for researching and writing the detailed introductory notes. Thanks are also due to Jane Sweet, a member of the Toronto Monthly Meeting Library Committee, for tracking down Toronto Monthly Meeting library sources.
Friends’ Meeting House at 28 Pembroke St., Toronto. The Toronto Preparative Meeting purchased this meeting house in 1881 and it was in use until 1902. Photo is courtesy of the Toronto Public Library.
