Recently, the paper NewmarketToday shared an article about the historic Ebenezer Doan House by Newmarket resident and local historian Richard MacLeod. The article discusses the house’s Quaker origins as well as its more recent history as the Doane House Hospice. The article can be read on the NewmarketToday website.
For those interested in more Doan Quaker connections, the blog has featured in the past articles on Hannah Doan Lundy (1812–1901), an important figure in the Children of Peace schism, and James Doan (1846–1916), who created the popular nineteenth-century brand Doan’s Kidney Pills.
Ebenezer Doan, who the Ebenezer Doane House is named after. Photo from the Sharon Temple Museum Archives.
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.
We are excited to share this guest post from Cathy Miles Grant about her father, Frank Miles. An American citizen at the time he served with the Friends Ambulance Unit in China, Frank Miles was naturalized Canadian after he and his wife Pat Miles moved to Canada in 1974. He served as General Secretary for Canadian Yearly Meeting from 1983 to 1989.
Service, Spiritual Gifts, and the 1993 Sunderland P. Gardner Lecture: Tapping reflections from a former volunteer with the Friends Ambulance Unit in China
By Cathy Grant Miles
I recently came upon a full audio recording[1] of the 1993 Sunderland P. Gardner Lecture, which featured a panel, four Canadians who volunteered with the Friends Ambulance Unit in China during the 1940s, reflecting on what their experiences had meant for them. “They spoke of the clearness of their discernment to take on this service, the life-long influence of this experience and of its effects on their spiritual life,” reported Elaine Bishop, Clerk of Canadian Yearly Meeting 1993.
1946 December – Frank Miles w. FAU Truck #23 Changte, now Anyang – Photo by Mark Shaw.
Three of the panelists, Gordon Keith, Ed Abbott, and Francis Starr, had served in China during World War II, the time of China’s “War of Resistance” against Japan. Chinese and Western Unit members teamed up to offer mobile medical aid and to transport, over rough mountain roads, some 80–90% of medical supplies entering Free China. This was “probably one of the most valuable single contributions of the Unit.”[2] Gordon Keith spoke of the significance of sharing and working and living together with the Chinese, solving problems together, “the feeling of understanding that sweeps through both people.”[3]
The last panelist, Frank Miles, chuckled that he was “the late arrival…the junior, the kid of this outfit” who’d only arrived in China in 1946.[4] He had begun his World War II years training to do relief and reconstruction work with German war refugees, until the US Congress withdrew authorization for conscientious objectors to go overseas. He was then assigned to Civilian Public Service camps,[5] where he performed work as a medical guinea pig, a psychiatric hospital aide, and a labourer in a national park, all of which seemed “very ordinary, undramatic, in a world that was full of destruction and great need.”[6] By the time the young medical mechanic landed in Shanghai in September 1946, he was chomping at the bit to do his part for lasting peace. Instead, he walked into a rising civil war.
1947 July – MT-19 & Li Jinpei and Li Chia Ke J’ai, interpreters – Photo by Douglas Clifford.
The Unit made every effort to offer its medical and rehabilitation services to people on both sides of the political conflict, through the work of its small teams of Chinese and Western associates. They persevered despite acute limitations in supplies and personnel, long periods of isolation and, at times, threats to their own life and limb. They were ever conscious that they could only meet a fraction of the need.
1947 July – Frank Miles fitting wooden leg to Nationalist boy soldier Li Jia Geichai – Photo by Douglas Clifford.
But the searing divides of the Civil War, itself embedded in and inflamed by world conflict, imprinted itself heavily on the work of the Unit. Frank was serving as Unit Chair, based in Shanghai, when Mao’s Communists claimed victory. With Washington refusing to recognize the new communist regime, the Unit’s attempts at neutrality were increasingly interpreted as indifference or, worse, passive resistance. At the time he left China, in April 1950, he scrawled out a note: “The past four months have been just about as difficult as any I’ve passed through and I do need some time to get transitioned around.”[7]The Unit closed its doors in China, the Korean War broke out, and for nearly three decades Cold War hostilities prevented contact across the Bamboo Curtain.
At the 1993 lecture for Canadian Friends, Frank Miles told his audience that, for him, the Unit’s work had ended “with a distinct sense of failure and disappointment.” But he had also come away humbled by the Chinese people with their long history and their rich heritage, their courage and perseverance in facing extremely difficult circumstances, the ways they responded to a simple and direct message and took destiny in their hands. “God’s purpose is made known in many ways outside the Christian tradition of which we are part,” he reflected.
Frank Miles’s time in China was not the heroic service he had pictured when he entered the Unit. Still, he said, “I learned a lesson in patience, to wait for the Way to open, and to feel the bonds of common experience with those around me who were also blocked from proceeding as expected.”
1948 March – Villagers carrying hospital’s ONAN 2kw generator from Xia Beitai – Photo by Douglas Clifford.
1948 March – International Peace Hospital Nurses and xiao gui crossing stream near San Jiao – Photo by Douglas Clifford
1948 March – Doctors Li Bing & Doug Clifford, Hsia Pai T’ai – Photo by Douglas Clifford.
1948 September – Unit principal interpreter Yu Jinlong & Frank Miles in front of “free religion” & “protect foreigners” slogan – Photo by Douglas Clifford.
1978 – Reunion Dr. Doug Clifford, Li Bing (Vice-Director, Cancer Institute and Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing), Frank Miles – Photo by Frank Miles.
Way did open, over time. In 1978 the Chinese Ministry of Health invited Frank and the other members of the Unit’s Medical Team 19 to visit China and to reestablish contact with the Chinese personnel from the First International Peace Hospital with whom they had formed a mobile medical unit that moved through the “Liberated Areas” of Shaanxi and Shanxi after they evacuated from Mao’s base in Yan’an in March 1947.
The renewal of friendships and contacts allowed Frank and Pat Miles and a small group of other Canadians to facilitate education in Canada for three young adult offspring of Chinese colleagues who had lost six years of training to the Cultural Revolution. This paved the way for Frank and Pat to teach English conversation in Zhengzhou, in Henan Province where Frank had begun his work in China, for three months in 1992. That reciprocity continues to this day as I and other Chinese and Western sons and daughters of former Unit members collaborate to piece together and share this story.
8. 1978 – MT-19 reunion in China 1978. Panel from exhibit at Xi’an’s Eighth Route Army Museum.
“God’s final purpose is not carried out in one or many lifetimes,” Frank told his audience at the 1993 Sunderland P. Gardner lecture. “One’s life is very small, but we each play a vital role in being part of that purpose, as we stay in tune, by searching in a spirit of worship day by day, we do what is demanded of us and we are led to a sense of fulfillment in our lives.”[8]
2016 April – Cathy Miles Grant and Li Gang (son Li Jingpei, MT-19 interpreter), at Xi’an’s Eighth Route Army Museum exhibition about the Friends Ambulance Unit.
Eighth Route Army Museum, Xi’an – Excerpt from press packet.
Catherine Miles Grant is writing a book, Leap of Faith: A Pacifist in China During the Years of Revolution — 1946-1950, based on her father Frank Miles’ experiences with the Friends Ambulance/Service Unit in China. In 2016 the Canadian Quaker History Journal published Grant’s “To Build Up a Record of Good Will,” based on early stages of her research for this book. If any readers would like to contact Cathy to discuss her post or her research, she can be reached at [email protected].
[1] The video recording previously in the Canadian Friends Service Committee’s collection only includes the first half of the panelists’ presentations.
[2] Summary Report of the F.S.U. (China), 15 September 1950.
[3] Gordon Keith, Sunderland P. Gardner lecture, 1993.
[4] Frank Miles, Sunderland P. Gardner lecture, 1993.
[5] According to General Hershey, “The conscientious objector… is best handled if no one hears of him.” General Hershey’s testimony to Congress’ Committee on Military Affairs. Conscientious Objectors’ Benefits: Hearings before a Subcommittee on military Affairs on s. 2708, 77th Cong, 2nd sess., August 19, 1942, 14.
[6] Frank Miles, Sunderland P. Gardner lecture, 1993.
[7] Frank Miles to Ross and Laura Miles, 17 April 1950.
[8] Frank Miles, Sunderland P. Gardner lecture, 1993.
2016 March – Audience response to presentation about the Friends Ambulance Unit to the Zhengzhou Salon – Photo by Cathy Miles Grant.
Two weeks ago, we featured a post by Albert Schrauwers in which he reflected on transcribing and editing the Journal of Timothy Rogers.[1] Timothy Rogers is celebrated for his role in Quaker settlement on Yonge Street and at Pickering. His wife, Sarah, is not as renowned. Her story gives us insights into the strength and tenacity of the Quaker women who were co-founders of frontier Quaker settlements throughout North America. We have no extant records in Sarah’s hand; much of what we can extrapolate about her life comes from her husband’s Journal, meeting records, or careful reading of parallel sources.
Richard Edsall (1683–1762), “Great Nine Partners Patent” | Public domain (wikimedia)
Sarah Wilde was born 3 January 1759 in Clinton Township, Dutchess County, New York to Obadiah and Sarah Wilde. On 7 January 1776, seventeen-year old Sarah married nineteen-year old Timothy Rogers in the Nine Partners area of the colony of New York. The Wildes were Baptists, although they had a Quaker background and owned a number of Quaker books (Journal, 3). Nine Partners was also home to a sizeable group of Friends. While the newlyweds were living with Sarah’s parents, Timothy read the works of John Woolman and George Fox, began using plain language, and attended a local Quaker meeting. Timothy became a member of the Society in 1778. It was not until after the birth of her fourth child that Sarah became a member in 1782; she had begun using plain language herself in 1777 (Journal, 6, 7).
In their first year of marriage, Sarah and Timothy became parents.Obadiah Wilde Rogers was the first of Sarah’s fourteen children. On average, she gave birth every twenty-four months between December 1776 and November 1802.
Early in 1777 the Rogers family moved to Danby, Vermont, beginning a pattern of consistent relocation as Timothy sought opportunities to improve their economic prospects. In 1778, they moved to Saratoga, New York before returning to Danby in 1780. How did Sarah feel about constant displacement? It is impossible to know with certainty. Timothy notes that after Sarah gave birth to her fourth child, Mary, on 22 May 1782, she “had a very poor turn and never had a well day for two years.” Despite his wife’s poor health, Timothy continued to travel, embarking to the township of Ferrisburg, Vermont where he purchased land “about 40 miles beyond where there was any inhabitants” (Journal, 7).
From there, Timothy went on to New York to buy more land. While he was in New York, he comments that “My wife knowing I did intend to move to Ferrisburg, thought we should be disappointed so she got sleighs and moved before I came home” (7). Despite not experiencing “a well day for two years,” Sarah alone arranged for and moved her household including four children under the age of five to the wilderness of Vermont.
While many of the Rogers family moves were uncomplicated (inasmuch as moving house on the frontier can be uncomplicated), there were occasional disasters. On 2 October 1785, the family was moving from Button Bay in Ferrisburg to Little Otter Creek. Along with their five young children and possessions, Timothy was transporting land records and bonds (his journal records forty deeds for 6,000 acres and about $2000 in bonds).[2] It was a “dark rainy time” when the family’s boat finally came ashore about midnight necessitating the kindling of a fire to light their path. Timothy tells us that he had to lead Sarah by the hand because she was ill (8). The couple woke at sunrise to learn that the tree by which they had lit their fire had burned, destroying the deeds, bonds, and all the family’s clothing (8). Timothy recorded that “this brought me to a great stand to know what to do” (8). Sarah’s response to these events remain a mystery.
The couple did not give up. Timothy continued to travel for personal and meeting business (he was in Quebec in 1786 when their sixth child was born). They continued to relocate around the Ferrisburg region. Sarah continued to give birth roughly every second year.
By 1800, Sarah and Timothy had experienced some prosperity but there had also been some stresses. Timothy does not reveal what these tensions were, only that in late 1798 and 1799 “I had many very great trials, some things so singular in my family that I think not best to mention” (Journal, 102). Both Timothy and Sarah were required to make an acknowledgement in their meeting. Timothy acknowledged “falling into a passion and using unbecoming language and conduct in his family” (Journal, 102–03). Once again, Timothy felt God calling him away, now to the British colony of Upper Canada. Did the stresses motivate the desire to move, or was the desire to move the source of the family stress? We cannot know.
This time Sarah was “unwilling to move” (Journal, 103). She was forty-one years old, pregnant with their thirteenth child; four of her older children were married and had set up their own households in the area. She likely had a strong local community. Perhaps the distant frontier no longer held any appeal for her. According to Timothy’s journal, Sarah’s resistance to his “calling” was a significant impediment to his plans. Until she consented, their meeting would not endorse his travel to Upper Canada where he intended to explore the region to determine the most favourable location for settlement. Something happened to change Sarah’s mind. Timothy does not tell us what it was, only that “about three weeks after an occurrence took place whereby my wife became willing, and on the 24 day of 4th mo. 1800, I started” (Journal, 103).
Timothy spent the summer of 1800 in Upper Canada and decided to locate his settlement in the densely forested land on Yonge Street at what is now Newmarket, Ontario about fifty-five kilometres north of Lake Ontario. The following year, he planned to lead Quaker families from Vermont (many of them his relatives) to this new settlement where Quaker families from Pennsylvania, led by Samuel Lundy, would join them.
Sarah and Timothy Rogers left Vermont in February 1801. It must have been a difficult journey. Many of the women were travelling with young children and infants. Sarah Rogers and her nineteen-year-old daughter, Mary Rogers, both had infants one month apart in age.
These Quaker families initiated a series of chain migrations as settlers encouraged family and friends back in the United States to “mak[e] ready to come to a land as it were flowing with milk and honey.”[3] Immigration helped this community—the Yonge Street Monthly Meeting—to flourish and become the largest Quaker meeting in Upper Canada (now Ontario).
Sarah gave birth to her last child in November 1802, two months before her forty-fourth birthday. Settled on Yonge Street, she lived in proximity to her children. In addition to the eight offspring still living at home, five of her older children had settled in the Yonge Street community. Her son, Timothy Rogers Jr., was at Friends’ School at West-town in Pennsylvania, but he arrived at Yonge Street in 1806 to open a school (at the age of sixteen!). Sarah was active in meeting business and the early minutes record her appointment to varied duties. Was she surprised when, in 1807, Timothy decided to move them again? It cannot have been easy. The couple once again pulled up stakes and moved to Duffin’s Creek in Pickering Township, east of York (Toronto) on Lake Ontario, approximately 65 kilometres away from the Yonge Street settlement. There Timothy constructed a saw and a gristmill. Here, his son, Wing, tells us, he found prosperity: “My father moved here into the wilderness, but settlement went on rapidly, & he became wealthy, for the God his fathers had blessed him in basket & in store.”[4]
Sarah was living at Duffin’s Creek in 1809 when an epidemic ravaged the Yonge Street community, devastating her family. Five daughters, two sons, one son-in-law, and three grandchildren died in the epidemic. Timothy recorded that “My wife entirely gave up business, my family half gone” (Journal, 112). Sarah’s son’s memories align with his father’s: “My parents buried seven children out of the fourteen & most of them were married & had families, which was a great trial to them both, but particularly so, with mother. I was young but I can remember of seeing [mother] meet the neighbour women & talking of her troubles & great loss, with the tears running down her aged face, & comparing it to Job’s troubles.”[5]
Some families never recovered from the death toll of the epidemic. According to Timothy, Sarah “kept along in a strange way.” She was so debilitated by her experience that Timothy was unable to attend to his meeting duties. No doubt sick and tired of the frontier that had claimed so many of her children, Sarah told Timothy that if he would build “her a good house or to that effect [he] might go” (Journal, 113). Timothy summarizes what followed: “in 1810 and 11, I got a house so I thought to amoved in in a short time; had a barn, and a considerable of clearing. About the third day of the 1 month 1812, my wife Sarah and I started to go to York with me to get some things she wanted to begin said house. And as we rode this 24 miles, she talked pleasant and told her wishes, and the next day attended to sell and buy” (Journal, 113). January 3, 1812 was Sarah’s fifty-third birthday. Despite her losses, it seems that Sarah had a pleasant day.
A few days later, as they made their way home from York, they stopped to visit one of Sarah’s distant relatives. There Sarah fell ill and, after a six-day illness, died on 13 January 1812. She is buried in what is now the Pickering Friends Burial Ground; at the time it was Rogers family land. Hers was the first death in a second epidemic that claimed many more lives in the Quaker community in 1812–13. As with the first outbreak, no one can say what it was. Timothy recorded “that first it was called the Typhus fever, but latterly we have had the Measles, by which some have departed this life; but mostly it has been such an uncommon Disorder that it seems to baffle the skill of the wisest and best physicians” (Journal, 117–18).
Sarah’s life comes to us in glimpses from the words of her husband and son, and from brief mentions in meeting minutes. Without her own words, much of her lived experience remains unknown. Even so, this short outline of her life demonstrates that Sarah Wilde Rogers was a woman of strength and tenacity. These traits served her well as one of the founding members of the Yonge Street Quaker community.
[1] Christopher Densmore and Albert Schrauwers, eds., “The Best Man for Settling New Country …”: The Journal of Timothy Rogers (Toronto: CFHA, 2000). The map of Lake Champlain, Vermont and the genealogical table in this post are from the introduction of The Journal of Timothy Rogers.
[2] Rogers was the clerk for the Proprietors of Ferrisburg, a position that involved “buying and selling of thousands of acres of land, overseeing the settlement of the town of Ferrisburg and the city of Vergennes.” He was also the clerk of the Proprietors of the town of Hungerford. Overall, he was “a highly successful entrepreneur and one of the leading citizens of Ferrisburg.” Christopher Densmore, “Timothy Rogers: The Story he Wanted to Tell,” Canadian Quaker History Journal 65(2000): 3.
[3] Qtd, in Robynne Rogers Healey From Quaker to Upper Canadian: Faith and Community among Yonge Street Friends, 1801-–1850 (MQUP, 2006), 40–41.
[4] “The Journal of Wing Rogers,” in Densmore and Schruawers, eds., The Journal of Timothy Rogers, 139.
[5] “The Journal of Wing Rogers,” 138. Original spelling corrected.
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.
Timothy became parents.Obadiah Wilde Rogers was the first of Sarah’s fourteen children. On average, she gave birth every twenty-four months between December 1776 and November 1802.
May 1782, she “had a very poor turn and never had a well day for two years.” Despite his wife’s poor health, Timothy continued to travel, embarking to the township of Ferrisburg, Vermont where he purchased land “about 40 miles beyond where there was any inhabitants” (Journal, 7).
