For those interested in the Quaker history of Welland, the St. Catharines Standardposted an article by Mark Allenov a few years ago about the home of Solomon Moore and its history as first a farm, later the Welland’s Country Children Center, and eventual purchase by the Welland Historical Society.
Solomon Moore home on South Pelham Road. Photo courtesy of the Welland Historical Society. Photo c. 1870s.
The Moores were a Quaker family originally from Lancaster Country in Pennsylvania. Jeremiah and Mary Moore were original founding members of Pelham Monthly Meeting in 1799. In 1795, Solomon Moore received Crown grants for three lots in Pelham Township, claiming to have improved upon the lots since arriving in the province in 1788. More about the Moore family can be found in CFHA’s first monograph series, Essays on Nineteenth Century Quakerism in Canada, edited by Albert Schrauwers. Richard MacMaster’s “Friends in the Niagara Peninsula 1786-1802” details how the Moore family settled in the area and their various dealings in gaining Crown grants.
For everyone hoping to attend the AGM on September 14th (either in person or for the online portion), please remember to renew your membership with CFHA. We hope you’ll join us for the guided tour of the Sharon Temple, catered lunch, and for our AGM guest speakers hosted at the Yonge Street Meeting House.
Your support through membership provides the financial resources to keep CFHA an active and healthy association. CFHA is incorporated under the auspices of the Ontario Historical Society (OHS).
You can now complete your membership registration or renewal online!
Held jointly by the CQHA/CRQS/QSRA, the Fox at 400 conference held this past June included the 2024 George Richardson Lecture. Historian Nigel Smith presented “Back to the Light: A Fresh Approach,” examining Quaker activity from its origins to the early 18th century. Past lectures are on Woodbrooke’s website, and those interested in Smith’s talk can view it below.
Join the Friends Historical Association in celebrating the 400th anniversary of George Fox’s birth with a focus on his contemporary, arguably the second most important leader in the early Quaker movement: William Penn. Events include an in-person tour of Pennsbury Manor on May 19 and a virtual lecture by J. William Frost on May 29. These events are all free but registration is required. Details are on FHA’s website.
Wednesday, May 29, 2024 – “William Penn: Enigmatic Quaker, Founding Father” by J. William Frost (virtual event) 12:00 PM ET (find my local time)
18th Century Engraving Print of William Penn
For the 400th Anniversary of George Fox’s birth, J. William Frost will present a virtual talk on William Penn that excavates his life as a deeply religious man who experienced personal triumph and success as well as tragedy and failure, as well as his connections to George Fox. While many recognize William Penn as the founder of Pennsylvania and a defender of religious liberty, much less is known about Penn as a man of faith. Frost’s forthcoming book,William Penn: A Radical, Conservative Quaker(Penn State University Press, November 2024) examines Penn as a deeply religious man whose contradictions reflect, at least in part, his turbulent times. This intriguing history fills significant gaps in writings about Penn–particularly concerning Penn’s faith and its intersection with his work as a statesman and politician.
By 1656, George Fox was sending some of his followers as missionaries to early colonies in North America. Puritans had sought asylum from religious persecution for themselves in New England but, unfortunately, they persecuted, imprisoned, whipped, expelled, and hanged those who differed from them in religious belief. John Endicott (ca1588-1665), first Governor of New England, was a strong opponent of Quaker heretics and along with Puritan ministers championed their persecution. In 1656 when Quakers Mary Fisher and Anne Austin arrived at Boston, they were detained in gaol for five weeks, then deported to Barbados.
An early convert to the Society of Friends was a young man named Christopher Holder (1631-1688) who readily embraced taking Friends’ beliefs to North America. In May 1656, Holder and other converters set sail on the “Speedwell” to spread the Quaker message. When these first Quaker missionaries arrived in Boston (July-August 1656), Holder and friends were imprisoned, brutally treated, expelled and sent back to England. As a result of their visits, the Massachusetts General Court imposed penalties on Quakers entering the colony. They passed a law inflicting a fine of £100 on any ship’s captain who knowingly conveyed a Quaker to the Massachusetts Colony. When Holder returned in 1657, the law was strengthened: if a male Quaker returned again to New England after he had been banished, he was to suffer the loss of one ear and to be imprisoned, and a female Quaker was to be whipped. In 1658 Holder was one of three men who had their ears cut off. In 1658, Puritans forbade Quaker meetings and imposed the death penalty for Quakers who returned in defiance of expulsion. Holder was banished again in October 1659. A few days after his release, two returning Quakers, William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, were hanged on 27th October 1659. Mary Dyer was reprieved, but the next year 1660 she was put to death for refusing to renounce her beliefs and adhering to the cause of Quakerism.
After Cromwell’s death in 1658, with the Declaration of Breda in 1660 Charles the heir promised religious toleration if restored to the throne. Following the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, with King Charles II (1630-1685), Fox and others called Quakers, issued the Declaration of Friends; this later became known as their Peace Testimony: “We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever, and this is our testimony to the whole world.” When Fox and f/Friends were imprisoned in 1660, Margaret (Askew) Fell (1614-1702), widow of Judge Fell who died in 1658, wrote a letter to the King regarding persecutions of Quakers, requesting that Fox be released. Hers and other messages brought a brief suspension of Quaker persecutions with many being freed from gaols. But persecutions of Quakers continued.
“A Declaration From the Harmles & Innocent People of God Called Quakers” (1660), courtesy of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection
After her husband’s death in 1657, Elizabeth Hooton, no longer restrained by wifely duties, was able to express her opinions and continue her ministry. In 1660 while walking on a road, she was assaulted by a priest. After hearing about the wicked acts committed by the Puritans in New England, Elizabeth Hooton decided to sail for America in 1661 with companion Joan Brocksopp. Because of costly fines, masters of ships were not willing to carry Quakers to New England. The women found passage to Virginia, then travelled north by small boat and overland to Boston. When the women went to the gaol to visit their friends, the gaoler took them to Governor Endicott who called them witches. Elizabeth stated that she had come “To warn thee of shedding any more innocent blood.” The Governor’s angry reaction was to send them to prison with their friends, afterwards to carry them for two days’ journey into the wilderness where they were left to starve to death. Undaunted, they managed to make their way to Rhode Island where some Friends were living. While there, they attended the first general meeting of Friends in America. They then journeyed to Barbados where they took a ship for New England and returned to Boston. Included in many examples of the cruelty with which Quakers were treated in New England was the hanging of William Ledda in March 1661.
Upon her return to England in summer 1662, she found that in her absence, much of Hooton’s property had been confiscated, sold to pay fines to the government. On her own initiative, Elizabeth Hooton searched out the king in London to discuss problems with him. To arrange to have conversations with the King, Hooton even pursued him to the tennis court. She took the liberty of contact with the King but she was not in awe of him; she did not kneel to the king, to the amazement of courtiers. In order to satisfy this woman who was stalking him so persistently, the king sought a solution. Realizing that Elizabeth Hooton was a determined woman, the king decided that the solution might be to grant her wish that she might be able to provide a safe haven for Quakers in America.
In the early struggle for religious freedom in America, John Bowne (1627-1695) featured prominently. With his father, John Bowne emigrated from England to America in 1649, going first to New England, and soon to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam where he purchased property at Flushing on Long Island. In 1656, New Amsterdam published an ordinance against illegal meetings outside of the Dutch Reformed Church. In response, in December 1657 the citizens of Flushing, affronted by the persecutions of Quakers and religious policies of Governor Stuyvesant, signed a demand for religious freedom and sent it to the Dutch governor. Known as the Flushing Remonstrance, it is considered to be the precursor of the Bill of Rights guaranteeing freedom of religion in the constitution of the United States. The home of John and Hannah (Feake) Bowne, built in 1661, became a place of worship for Quakers. After a complaint was made to Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant in New Amsterdam in 1662 that Quakers were holding meetings at the house of John Bowne, he was arrested, thrown into gaol, and after his refusal to change his ways, was banished to the Netherlands. On his way to court in Holland, John Bowne was in England in 1663 where he met George Fox and Elizabeth Hooton. After learning that Elizabeth Hooton was preparing to sail to Boston, he sent a letter to his wife with her. In 1664, the Netherlands ceded New Amsterdam to Britain and it was renamed New York.
Strengthened with the letter of permission from King Charles II allowing her “to purchase land in any of his plantations beyond the seas,” Hooton determined to make a second visit to New England, this time taking her young daughter Elizabeth (1640-1693) with her. At Boston, her letter of permission from the King to purchase a house there was not accepted. She then went to Cambridge where she was thrown into a dungeon for several days. A man who took pity on her plight and gave her some milk was also cast into prison and fined £5. The Court ordered her to be whipped with a three-string whip with knots at each end, at three towns with ten lashes each town: Cambridge, Watertown, and Dedham. After being publicly whipped with great severity in the depth of winter, she was again taken into the wilderness and left to starve. Again, she found her way to Rhode Island and f/Friends. Not daunted, she made the 80 mile journey back to Cambridge for her clothes and other possessions which had been taken from her when she was whipped. She was again taken prisoner and with her travelling companions, daughter Elizabeth and Sarah Coleman, the three women were whipped at cart’s tail.
In 1663-64 England appointed Commissioners to visit the colonies of New England to determine all complaints. The Royal Charter granted to the Rhode Island colony in July 1663 created a place which guaranteed some religious freedom regardless of differences of opinion. Rhode Island became a refuge for those who had fled from the intolerance and cruelty of Puritans. But the Conventicle Act 1664 (repealed 1689) forbade religious assemblies of more than five persons outside the Church of England.
Elizabeth Hooton stayed in New England until spring when she attended the funeral of Governor Endicott in March 1665, then returned to England. While his mother was travelling on Quaker missions and being imprisoned in England and America, her son Samuel Hooton had encountered many financial difficulties with fines and losses of their property in England.
Still determined, Elizabeth Hooton wrote letters of complaint to have some justice, for her goods which were taken away in her absence to be restored. She mentioned her service to God, to king, to the commissioners in New England. In December 1666 she received a certificate stating that Elizabeth Hooton had been very serviceable to His Majesty’s Commissioners; it was re-affirmed 4mo 1667. After her return to England, Elizabeth continued her missions, going farther afield, and was again imprisoned at Lincoln in 1665 and 4mo1667 at Leicester.
In the mid 1660s, England was terror-stricken by several disasters. In 1665 the Great Plague of London killed approx 80,000 people. In September 1666, the Great Fire of London gutted the city. In October 1666, a tornado struck Lincolnshire with a path of destruction through many villages.
In 1666 Margaret Fell (1614-1702) wrote “Women’s Speaking Justified,” presenting arguments against the patriarchal interpretations of the Bible which prevented women from being included in religion. In 1669, Margaret Fell married George Fox. Elizabeth Hooton intervened in a dispute between Margaret (Fell) Fox and her son. The following year, in 1670, she sent a letter to Margaret Fox in Lancaster Castle Prison. Friends in Nottinghamshire appealed to king and parliament for relief of sufferings. Margaret Fox was released in April 1671.
In an attempt to continue his mother’s mission to bear witness against cruelty in New England, Elizabeth’s eldest son Samuel Hooton (1633-1709) decided on a religious visit to America in 3mo/May 1666. Later, in the 1680s, Samuel and his family emigrated to New Jersey. Like his older brother, Elizabeth’s son Oliver Hooton (163?-1686) was attracted to life in America. By 1670, Oliver had settled as a merchant in Barbados. Perhaps visiting her son Oliver was one of the reasons that his mother Elizabeth Hooton decided to accompany George Fox to America.
In 1671, Elizabeth Hooton was one of two women, the other Elizabeth Miers, who joined George Fox and a number of men, including James Lancaster, on a trip to the West Indies and North America in order to encourage Friends across the Atlantic. They attended London Yearly Meeting in August 1671, and set out 13 Aug 1671. After landing at Barbados on 3 October 1671, George Fox was extremely ill for some weeks, cared for by Elizabeth Hooton. After three months there, Fox decided to set sail for Jamaica on 8th.11mo/January 1671. A week after their landing in Jamaica, Elizabeth Hooton departed this life on January 8, 1672 at Jamaica, West Indies. She was well the day before she died. Fox described her as “a woman of great age who had travelled much in Truth’s service and suffered much for it.”
Sources:
Hooton, Oliver (16??-1686). A short relation concerning the life and death of that man of God and faithful minister of Jesus Christ, William Simpson, who laid down his body in the island of Barbados the 8th day of the 12th month 1670. Written by Oliver Hooton in Barbados, 16th 12th month 1670.
Manners, Emily. Elizabeth Hooton (1600-1672), First Quaker Woman Preacher. With notes etc by Norman Penney. London: Headley Brothers, 1914.
Recently, Quaker historians have been marking a cluster of anniversaries significant to Quakerism. The year 2024 marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of George Fox (1624-1691) who was the founding father of the Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers in 1647 in England. The year 2022 marked the 350th anniversary of the visit of George Fox to North America in 1672. 2022 was also the 350th anniversary of the death of Elizabeth Hooton (ca. 1603-1672) the first Quaker woman preacher, who accompanied George Fox on his 1672 voyage to America.
In England in the 1600s, there was a surge of dissatisfaction with the political, religious, and social order. English Protestants who sought to purify the Church of England of its Roman Catholic practices were called Puritans. Because they wanted to change Anglican worship, Puritans were persecuted for treason for challenging the king’s authority to dictate forms of worship. In the 1630-1640 decade, many Puritans departed to North America – the Great Migration. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was settled in 1630. As a result of the English Civil Wars 1642-1651, fought mainly over how the country should be governed, and also about issues of religion, Puritans became a major political force in England. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) led armies against the government of King Charles I who was executed in 1649. In favour of reforms, Cromwell restored political stability after the wars and ruled Britain as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth from 1653 to his death in 1658.
During the Civil Wars (1642-1651) and the Interregnum 1649-1660, there was an increase of groups making radical changes in religion. One of the dissident sects to emerge was the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers founded by George Fox (1624-1691) in North England. Born July 1624 in Leicestershire, England, about 90 miles northwest of London, as he grew older, Fox became dissatisfied with the form of religious worship followed by the Church of England. At that time, preaching was done by well-educated male clergymen.
In 1647, George Fox introduced his beliefs and started his ministry. His preaching a simple faith attracted many followers who were unsettled in their religious beliefs. A group of more than sixty persons who became members of the Religious Society of Friends in the mid-1600s were called the Valiant Sixty. They were ordinary farmers and tradesmen who, as itinerant preachers, spread the ideas of Friends in northern England. Several adherents were women. Quakers provoked hostility and violence, and from the 1650s suffered persecutions and imprisonment because of their speaking in public spaces such as market or town squares, admonishing local officials, interrupting church services, and finding fault with clergymen.
One of the early followers of George Fox was Elizabeth Hooton (1603-1672) who became the first Quaker woman preacher. Elizabeth, daughter of John Snowden, was baptized 2nd October 1603 at Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England. On 17th July 1632, Elizabeth Snowden became the second wife of widower Oliver Hooton in Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire. Their son Samuel Hooton (1633-1709) was born in 1633. After living at Ollerton for several years, about 1636 the family moved to Skegby near Mansfield where at least four other children were born. Before her acquaintance with young George Fox, middle-aged Elizabeth Hooton had already disassociated herself from the Church of England and had joined a Baptist group of dissenters.
Skegby Village, photo from Elizabeth Hooton by Emily Manners.
In his Journal, George Fox wrote that, when travelling through some parts of Leicestershire and into Nottinghamshire, he met, near Mansfield, with a tender people and a very tender woman whose name was Elizabeth Hooton. After hearing George Fox speak in Nottingham in 1647, Elizabeth Hooton was one of the first persons to become `convinced’ of his beliefs. This meeting changed her life. Their exchange of ideas also had a great influence on George Fox, especially with regard to women’s participation in religion. Elizabeth Hooton made her house at Skegby available to Fox for holding meetings. At first, the use of their home met with opposition from her husband but he later acquiesced. In 1649, George Fox was imprisoned at Nottingham for interrupting a church sermon. He was again arrested at Derby in 1650 where the term Quakers was first used for the followers of George Fox. By the early 1650s Fox was sending Quaker missionaries to Wales and Ireland.
Around this time, Elizabeth Hooton’s active ministry commenced. Fox wrote in his Journal ca. 1649 that Elizabeth Hooton’s “mouth was opened to preach the gospel.” She was the first female among Quakers to preach. Quakerism allowed women to express themselves and to participate in public life. However, women preachers produced extreme and harsh reactions; they were accused of witchcraft. Frequently imprisoned for her beliefs, Elizabeth became an activist for freedom of religion. In 1650, on a complaint by a priest, Elizabeth was imprisoned in Derby. She was an educated woman, able to read and write. While in prison, Elizabeth wrote a letter of complaint to the mayor. In 1652 she was committed to York Castle for sixteen months where she wrote letters to the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, complaining about imprisonments for those who had done no wrong and also about the cruel treatment of prisoners. With others, including Mary Fisher and Thomas Aldham, she signed a tract, “False Prophets and False Teachers” (1652), attacking paid ministry written at the Castle. After speaking out in a steeplehouse in 1654, on the complaint of a priest she was imprisoned in Lincoln Castle for six months, the first Quaker punished in Lincolnshire. Harsh treatment prompted her to write another letter to Oliver Cromwell protesting about conditions in gaol. Cromwell was on sufficiently friendly terms with George Fox to explore religious questions with him. Although many Quakers were kept in prison for disturbing the peace, Cromwell could not save them from the heavy punishments voted by Parliament.
“False Prophets and False Teachers Described,” image from Elizabeth Hooton by Emily Manners.
By 1655, Elizabeth’s visits and preaching extended to Oxfordshire. Elizabeth’s activities and imprisonments put a strain on her marriage but Oliver finally came around to be supportive of his wife. Oliver Hooton (ca1603-1657) died and was buried at Skegby, 30th.4mo/June 1657; his death was recorded at Mansfield Meeting of Friends.
In early February, Martin Kelley (Quaker writer and senior editor at Friends Journal) wrote a blog post responding to an event titled “The New History of Quakerism.” The free Zoom event was hosted by Haverford College and featured talks from historians Ben Pink Dandelion and Robynne Rogers Healey (the talk is available to view on Vimeo). Kelley’s response focused on the price inaccessibility of academic publishing, asking, “I understand we’re all caught in these capitalist and academic systems. I just wonder what we can do.” The entirety of Martin Kelley’s post can be found on his blog, Quaker Ranter, but will also be reposted below with the author’s permission.
Comments from CFHA’s Eve Schmitz-Hertzberg: “The founders of CFHA in the early 1970’s felt that Canadian Quakers were forgetting their history. CFHA was founded in an attempt to bring Canadian Quaker history to Quakers. It is important for Quakers to know where they came from and where they are going. CFHA was a mix of Quakers, others interested in history, and academics interested in furthering Quaker history. It seems today that it is the academics who are not connected to CFHA who are taking up what study of Quaker history is taking place. It has not all been said before and history can be revisited to find further understanding.
Martin Kelly is very concerned that leaving the study of Quaker history to the academics and publishing to academic institutions is making this information inaccessible to the average person. Quaker meetings have small libraries that are loaned on a trust basis. They cannot afford to buy the expensive academic books and once on their shelves they easily disappear.”
I watched a great Zoom talk this week, hosted by Haverford College and featuring Ben Pink Dandelion and Robynne Rogers Healey. The topic was “The New History of Quakerism” and its focus was on the shifts happening in Quaker academic histories since the 1990s. Dandelion did a fantastic job putting the last 150 years of Quaker historiography in context and laying out the positives of more recent developments: more academic rigor, a wider diversity of voices, changing foci of topics, and strong interest by academic publishers.
Healey identified three major fields in which the new histories are challenging what are often comforting apologetics of previous Quaker studies: the equality of women, slavery and indigenous relations, and pacifism. All these are much more complicated than the stories we tell. She then listed three trends: decentering London and Philadelphia, reevaluating the so-called quietist period, and including academics and histories of the Global South.
Dandelion said these changes were “all for the better,” and while I agree wholeheartedly with him in regards to content, there’s one way in which the new publishing opportunities are failing us: to be blunt, price.
Take the Penn State University Press series, “The New History of Quakerism,” that both panelists have written for.The Creation of Modern Quaker Diversity, 1830 – 1937edited by Stephen W. Angell, Dandelion, and David Harrington Watt is $125.Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690 – 1830edited by Healey is $90.Quaker Women, 1800 – 1920, edited by Healey and Carole Dale Spencer is $125.
Both Healey and Dandelion acknowledged the problem of inaccessible prices in their talk. Dandelion suggested that meeting libraries might be able to purchase these books but I think that’s more hopeful than realistic. My small meeting certainly couldn’t. I went to the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Library and they wouldn’t let me check outThe Quaker World(FJreview), the 2022 collection edited by my friends C. Wess Daniels and Rhiannon Grant. It’s got a lot of great authors and I heartily recommend it, but onlyin absentiabecause at $250 I’m never going to read it.
As an amateur Quaker history lover, these are all volumes I would love to read, but I’m not writing this because of my own personal anguish (real as it is!) but because the prices are breaking what has been an essential transmission system for new histories. In the late 1980s, Thomas Hamm publishedThe Transformation of American Quakerism, 1800 – 1907with Indiana University Press. It was $25 and I splurged. It became an important source in my understanding of Quaker divisions and nineteenth-century quietism. Still, decades later, when I write blog posts, or teach Quakerism 101, or answer an online question, I’m often regurgitating perspectives I learned from Hamm.
Go to Facebook, go to Reddit, and people aren’t sharing these groundbreaking histories. Just now, randomly opening Facebook, there’s a post by someone asking about James Nayler, with someone answering it by referencing Hugh Barbour’s mid-1960s history. I love Barbour but he had his own filters and we’ve learned a lot since then.
Every meeting I’ve been a part of had a small number of history nerds in residence who led the Quakerism 101 classes or hosted book groups or Bible study, and they brought their nerdiness to their meeting tasks. To use Healey’s list, many Quakers in the benches still think of Friends’ race relations in terms of abolitionism, still consider early Friends as unalloyed feminists, and rarely give a thought to Friends in the Global South. I recently read a new article about a local meeting that was founded by one of the largest slaveholding families in the area and the only mention of slavery was its much-later anti-slavery society; I really want these kinds of stories to be too embarrassing to publish. Quakers in the benches need the perspectives of these new historians to understand ourselves.
Are there ways that academics can repurpose their inaccessible work so that it can trickle down to a general audience? I’m glad this Zoom talk was open to the public and well publicized: at least some of us could watch it and know the outlines of the changing historiography. But how else can we work to bridge the gap? Blog posts, articles in general publications, podcasts, Pendle Hill pamphlets? What are we doing and what more could we do? I’m in Quaker publishing, obviously, and so part of the problem if there’s a breakdown in transmission. We review the books andQuakerSpeakoften dives into history. My friend Jon Watts’sThee Quakerpodcasthas some wonderfully nerdy episodes. But all these feel like snippets: ten minutes here, 2000 words there. When I go to learn more, I’m stuck by the limitations of the open internet, caught in JSTOR articles I can’t access, or histories only available in print for $100-plus.
I’m not blaming anyone here. I understand we’re all caught in these capitalist and academic systems. I just wonder what we can do.
Also, special shoutout to Rhiannon Grant, who is the only Quaker academic I know of who is seemingly everywhere:Blog,articles inFJ, installments in the“Quaker Quicks” series,podcast segments on the BBCandThee Quaker(she even guested on one of myFJ author chats!). Plus she’s onMastodon,Bluesky, andTikTokand has her ownwelcome-to-Quakers page. I don’t think this ubiquitous approach is at all replicable for other academics. Even I’m not a proponent of social media ubiquity, preferring to focus on a few platforms.
The Libraries and Quaker Studies at Haverford College is hosting a free Quaker history zoom panel on Wednesday, February 7th at 12:00pm EST.
The way that we understand the history of the Society of Friends today is very different from the way that we understood it one hundred–or even ten–years ago. In this session two distinguished scholars, Ben Pink Dandelion and Robynne Rogers Healey, will highlight some of the most important differences between “the new history of Quakerism” and older interpretations of Quaker history.
Report of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Canadian Friends Historical Association (CFHA) held September 23, 2023 on Zoom
CFHA board must call the members of Canadian Friends Association to meet an annual general meeting. CFHA was incorporated 2009 and is subject to the Ontario Non-Profit Incorporation Act. CFHA is also a Canadian Charity (Federal) and can be found on Canada Helps: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/canadian-friends-historical-association/
Elaine Bishop chaired the AGM as interim chair of CFHA. Reports were given:
At the beginning of the AGM Jim Thompson joined to report that in January 2024 CFHA should receive a legacy bequest of $75,000 from Gordon Thompson, former chair of CFHA who died in January 2022.
Interim chair report (Elaine Bishop). Elaine stepped down at the conclusion of the meeting.
Financial statements for the fiscal year ending May 31, 2023 (Robert Barnett)
Presentation of the budget for fiscal year June 1, 2023 – May 31. 2024. A deficit budget.
CFHA bylaw change to state our fiscal year is June 1- May 31
Transition to Business Sherpa Group (BSG) to manage our financial affairs. (Chris Landry has left)
Membership report. CFHA uses CiviCRM to manage membership. Membership year starts September 1.
CFHA space at Friends House (Haslam Room), 60 Lowther Avenue, Toronto. Much of the material had been at Gordon Thompson’s house. All of the material in Unionville has not been moved. Haslam Room material needs to be sorted out, inventoried, and some culled.
Report of Friendly Fridays which continues every other Friday reading George Fox’s Journal (Donna Moore and Chad Dionne). Those who participate feel spiritual inspiration.
Canadian Quaker Library and Archives (CQLA) report (Elaine Bishop, chair of the CQLA committee). CQLA is owned by Canadian Yearly Meeting (CYM) trustees and the committee that looks after it reports to CYM. The Archives receives and cares for minutes, records and related materials of the Yearly Meeting and its committees, and the constituent Monthly Meetings. The Archives is available for Yearly Meeting, academic, genealogical, and other research use by appointment. CFHA donates annually $500 to CQLA
Report of CFHA digital archivist (Allana Mayer) Allana manages the CFHA website.
Sydney Harker is the contact for the blog. She uploads material to the blog. She offers to edit submissions to the blog.
Nominations: Sylvia Powers has joined the executive board.
Discussion about the future of CFHA. The decision was taken that CFHA will continue as a not for profit organization and the executive board will meet as necessary to further the association’s organizational needs and its mandate.
The CFHA executive met 16 November, 2023. Evelyn Schmitz-Hertzberg chaired the meeting and will continue to do so until the next AGM in September 2024. We are looking to hold an in person AGM and are looking for a topic for a lecture and historic site visit in conjunction with the AGM. Volunteer help would be greatly appreciated.
CFHA is in a quiescent period. The loss of Gordon Thompson has made a big decline in the CFHA board. Other executive members have also stepped down. The board has legal status, but in the past was also the organizational body for the CFHA events/pilgrimages to Quaker sites. The pandemic forced CFHA to hold its AGMs on Zoom. Members of the board were located at great distances across Canada and this made in person meetings difficult. CFHA as with many organizations has migrated to online meetings (AGM and lectures). This can be alienating for many who have interest in Quaker history and may be non-academics. CFHA was not started by academics though Professor Arthur Dorland gave it his blessing, and CFHA has attracted over the years many who are not trained as academics in history or archives in records and information management. At the threshing session held October 2022, Rob Leverty of the Ontario Historical Society which has been in existence since 1888, stated that “people want…to protect history. If Quakers don’t save their history, it isn’t going to happen…Quaker history is a critical voice during this crisis of democracy and civil society. Groups such as ours can be exhausted and consider folding…Groups can go into hibernation or make a big shift in what they are trying to accomplish…He recommends we keep our executive alive. We may slip down to three executive directors legally and can always revive.”
“The mission of the Canadian Friends Historical Association is the preservation and communication of the on-going history and faith of Friends (Quakers) in Canada and their contribution to the Canadian Experience.” This is not the same as the Canadian Quaker Library and Archives mandate: “The Archives receives and cares for minutes, records and related materials of the Yearly Meeting and its committees, and the constituent Monthly Meetings. The Canadian Quaker Archives also includes the Arthur Garrett Dorland Friends Historical Research Library with the Rendell Rhoades Quaker Discipline Collection as its core.” CFHA was started 1972 to encourage the study of and to communicate Canadian Quaker history. The Quaker Archives was located at the University of Western Ontario (now Western University) and was moved to Pickering College in Newmarket in 1983. It is clear that the two groups do similar work and as such must have a cooperative and collegial relationship.
CYM clerks’ opinion in May 2023 was that they were not interested in an amalgamation of CFHA and CQLA. They suggested rather that CFHA be laid down.
It has been stated that what can be said about Canadian Quaker history has already been written about. There is however much that still remains to be said. Quaker history has continued to be made in the past 50 years of CFHA. Our understanding of who we are as Quakers is evolving. Past events and people could be revisited on that basis. The next generation of Quakers is hopefully interested in our history. Marcus Garvey famously wrote: “A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. Quakers must not become an unarchived group.
CFHA was started in 1972 and is therefore 51 years old. 40 years in 2012 was wonderfully celebrated at the AGM held in Isaiah Tubbs Resort and Conference Centre in Prince Edward County (PEC). Quakers had settled Prince Edward County (PEC) in the 1790’s and CFHA toured the county as part of the celebration. Gordon Thompson wrote a lovely article about the time in PEC: Canadian Quaker History Journal 77 (2012). https://cfha.info/journal77p1.pdf
CFHA and others at Meeting for Worship Bloomfield 2012.
If anyone is interested in the details of the reports from the AGM please contact me:
Evelyn Schmitz-Hertzberg
November 30, 2023 [email protected]
