Canadian Friends Historical Association (CFHA) is pleased to announce the latest collaboration with Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania. Arrangements are now in place for staff at Friends Historical Library to provide CFHA with digital images of three late eighteenth-century minute books for transcription. All of these minute books relate to the Nine Partners Monthly Meeting and its affiliated Oswego Preparative Meeting. The Nine Partners MM, the Nine Partners school and associated Preparative meetings figure prominently in the northward expansion of Quaker communities up the Hudson River Valley. Such expansions frequently involved the relocation of members of the established meetings to the more remote areas of new settlement. The minute books of Nine Partners and associated meetings provide valuable records of the members who requested certificates of removal and when such requests were submitted and approved.
Of particular interest to CFHA members and Canadian researchers are records which relate to the Adolphustown Preparative Meeting in Upper Canada. This meeting was established under the care of Nine Partners MM in 1798 under the leadership of Philip Dorland. Although birthright members of Nine Partners MM, both Philip and his brother Thomas had served in provincial militia on behalf of the British during the revolutionary war. As such, they were entitled to claim extensive land grants in Upper Canada when they and their families joined many other UE Loyalists who settled the Adolphustown area in 1784.
The new images to be provided will include the first minute book of the Men’s Monthly Meeting. This minute book covers the period between the establishment of the monthly meeting in 1769 to 1779. It is hoped that transcription of this minute book will add detail to a significant event in the early Quaker experience of Philip Dorland. A number of years ago, CFHA requested and received images of the Nine Partners Men’s Monthly Meeting from 1779 onwards. The specific request was granted on the premise that earlier records would not contain information related to migrants into what would become Canada. It came as a great surprise, then, to discover that the minutes for 1773 recorded the disownment of a late adolescent Philip Dorland.
Nine Partners Meeting House, built in 1780. Photo taken in 2010 by Daniel Case.
Once settled in Upper Canada in 1784, Philip Dorland played an important role in the early political life of the young community, and in the establishment of what would become a flourishing Quaker presence at Adolphustown and in Prince Edward County. For a larger account of this history, please see “New Light on Philip Dorland: Prodigal Son to Patriarch” by Gordon Thompson with Randy Saylor in Canadian Quaker History Journal volume 79, for membership year 2014. We look forward with anticipation to learn what this new set of images will reveal about Philip Dorland’s disownment.
In addition to the Nine Partners MM Men and Joint, 1769-1779 images, we look forward to receiving images of Oswego Prep Mens, 1794-1798 and those of a Bulls Head, Oswego MM Women’s minutes 1799-1817.
We wish to express our appreciation to Jordan Landes, curator of Friends Historical Library, and her staff in providing these images. Due to Covid 19 lockdowns and closures, we are unable to access additional images at either the Archives of Ontario or the Canadian Yearly Meeting Archives. The new images will provide hundreds of pages of transcription resource material.
New volunteer CFHA transcribers are always welcome. The work is not hard and is performed at your own pace and convenience. Guidance and advice is provided when needed. Please contact the writer at [email protected] for additional details if interested.
November 11 in Canada and other nations of the British Commonwealth is Remembrance Day. This is a day set aside to remember and honour military service people who have lost their lives in war, especially the First and Second World Wars. Many wear a red poppy as a sign of remembrance. An effort initially spearheaded by the Peace Pledge Union in Britain, and now seen in Canada, is the tradition of wearing a white poppy, or a peace poppy, to honour all lives lost to war. This includes civilians as well as soldiers. Those who favour white poppies are not trying to detract from the sacrifice of soldiers. Rather, those who wear white poppies recognize the horror of war but remain committed to non-violence and peace in the effort to create a more just world. White poppies can be worn alone, or alongside a red poppy.
Historically, Quakers have been advocates of peace and pacifism in some way since the earliest years of Quakerism. As appealing as it may be today to support the idea that Quakers have always been committed pacifists, it is incorrect. Scholarship has shown us that Quakers have willingly enlisted for armed service in many wars. Scholarship has shown us that Quakers have resisted armed service in many wars. Scholarship has shown us that Quakers have been at the centre of alternative service opportunities in many wars. What scholarship has shown us is that Quaker pacifism has been complex. Next week in our “Founders and Builders” series, we will be highlighting Canadian Quaker, Peter Brock. Throughout his productive career, Brock played a significant role in our current understanding of Quakers’ engagement with pacifism, as is evident in this extended extract from a recent historiographical essay.
It is not an exaggeration to say that no single historian has contributed as much to the study of pacifism, including pacifism in the Religious Society of Friends, as Peter Brock. In fact, in a 1996 festschrift to honour Brock’s contributions, The Pacifist Impulse in Historical Perspective (1996), political scientist Martin Ceadel asserts that “no ideology owes more to one academic than pacifism owes to Peter Brock” (17). As an historian of two fields—Eastern Europe and pacifism—he produced sixteen books, at least fifty major articles, and several edited collections. At least half of his books are on pacifism. While he had been raised in the Church of England, Brock was a conscientious objector during World War Two. He was jailed for a short time and then performed alternative service for the balance of the war. He became a Quaker, but his studies of pacifism almost consistently integrated Quakers into the larger fabric of pacifist ideas and practice over long, sweeping periods of time in various contexts. His first major work, Pacifism in the United States: From the Colonial Era to the First World War, was published in 1968. It was the first installment of Brock’s extensive trilogy survey of pacifism. At over one thousand pages, it is a substantial book! It was published at a time when there was great interest in pacifism and antiwar topics, especially on college campuses. Princeton University Press recognized an opportunity and extracted more manageable sections from Pacifism in the United States, releasing them as Radical Pacifists in Antebellum America (1968) and Pioneers of the Peaceable Kingdom (1970). The second two installments of the trilogy on pacifism were published at two-year intervals, Twentieth-Century Pacifism in 1970, and Pacifism in Europe to 1914 in 1972. Each of these works integrates Quakers with other pacifist religious traditions. In his retirement in the 1990s Brock returned to publications on pacifism, releasing a second trilogy in the early 1990s. The second book in that trilogy focusses specifically on the Quaker peace testimony from 1660 to 1914 (1990). Quakers are touched on in Brock’s general survey Varieties of Pacifism (1998), and feature in three of his collections. Challenge to Mars, edited with Thomas Socknat (1999) is a sizeable compendium focussed on pacifism; a number of the essays are written by Brock, with individual essays contributed by other peace historians. In Liberty and Conscience (2002), Brock offers an edited collection of documents on conscientious objection in the United States. Finally, Against the Draft (2006), published the year of Brock’s death, offers a collection of twenty-five of Brock’s essays analyzing conscientious objection as an expression of pacifism. While Brock’s considerable scholarship on pacifism was not all directly about Quakers, one of its strengths is the way he integrated Quaker history into larger historical narratives.[1]
As we consider the impact of war today, and the possibility of non-violent efforts to create change, we are offering a book giveaway for Be Not Afraid: The Polish (R)evolution, “Solidarity” (Ottawa: Borealis Press, 2011). This book, by Canadian author Heather Kirk examines Solidarnosc and gives readers insights into the non-violent resistance movement that contributed significantly to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
To be entered into the draw for this book, please comment and share your thoughts on the work of non-violence.
[1] Healey, “Diversity and Complexity in Quaker History,” in C. Wess Daniels, Robynne Rogers Healey, and Jon Kershner, Quaker Studies: An Overview, The Current State of the Field (Leiden: Brill, 2018): 32–33.
You may be aware that a few years ago the Records committee made an agreement with Ancestry.com to make available the microfilm of Canadian meeting books, registers, and other records that were microfilmed in 1974. A full list of these holdings was published in Newsletter #13 in 1975 and is available as a pdf on the CFHA website.
Of course, Ancestry requires one to have a paid-up membership account and that prevents many people from accessing these microfilms. In Toronto, the Public Library has for many years given access to Ancestry’s Library Edition to library card holders but only on computers at the library. However, during this Covid period access is available for free at home to library card holders. Simply log into your account, click on “ebooks & online content” and within “A-Z list of databases” select “Ancestry Library Edition.” It may be that other libraries are offering this service during Covid.
A screenshot of the West Lake Monthly Meeting Register, 1820 – 1882, taken from Ancestry.ca
Card holders will be taken to Ancestry and under “Search” select “Card Catalogue.” There are two search boxes titled “Title” and “Keywords”. Entering the word “Quaker” in the Title box only yields 14 titles so use the Keyword box where 36 titles will be shown. Entering Society of Friends yields 7 hits.
The Canadian films are titled “Canada, Quaker Meeting Records, 1786-1988.” Selecting this will present a search screen for the films under that title.
At this point the researcher can make use of the nominal index that Ancestry made for all the Quaker films. This index is limited to forenames and surnames and not locations. For example, I entered Robert Saylor, a known ancestral Quaker to me, and it resulted in 133 hits in various films within the Canada holding. In one click the researcher is taken directly to the actual image of the page.
Within the Canada search page one can also choose a province, a meeting and then an actual book or register to browse the images. Once you are within the actual microfilm the index is not available for searching. The index is only available on the screen associated with the major title for that group of books. Do not overlook the group “Various” when selecting a Province as this has a number of Yearly Meeting books.
Two other titles of the 36 available are of major interest. “U.S. and Canada, Quaker Yearly Meeting Annual Reports, 1808-1930” and “U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935.”
The US holding is quite massive with a number of Yearly Meeting holdings available including Philadelphia. Notably absent are New York Yearly Meeting books which will soon be available on Find My Past, a competitor to Ancestry.
The transcriptions available on CFHA include most of the early Canadian minute books and registers up to about 1860. They are much easier to read that the microfilm images and the full text can be easily searched. Also available on CFHA are transcriptions of some early NYYM books for Nine Partners and Ferrisburg MM’s. Currently we are working on Muncy MM which is under Philadelphia YM.
Hopefully this is helpful to those interested and it would be useful to know if other Libraries are offering this access at home during the Covid period.
In this month’s Founders and Builders Series, we introduce you to an influential Friend and early contributor to the CFHA. Our fourth essay features Fred Haslam and is written by Dorothy Trimble. Dorothy passed in 2014 at the age of 91 but remembers the life of Fred Haslam here in her 2012 essay written for the 40th anniversary of the CFHA.
Remembering Fred Haslam 1897-1979
By Dorothy Trimble
Fred was a vital part of the Toronto Meeting where my family found its spiritual home. We first started attending Meetings for Worship at the end of 1957. Fred had retired the year before from the Canadian Friends Service Committee, and he and his wife Maud were living at Inglewood in the Caledon Hills, about equidistant to the Meetings of Toronto, Newmarket, Hamilton, and Kitchener. They had hoped that it would be of help to Quarterly Meetings, but sadly, Maud died of cancer in 1958. Unable to maintain the home alone, Fred moved to an apartment in Toronto.
I remember Fred as reserved and quiet-spoken, but I soon came to appreciate the depth of thought and wealth of experience behind his well-chosen words. It took me longer to realize how many ways his life spoke of Christian faith.
Fred Haslam’s early years were spent at the Providence School in Middleton, Lancashire, run by the Providence Congregational Chapel where the family attended two services and two Sunday School classes each week. Fred left school right after his thirteenth birthday and took a job at a cotton mill to support his family. He continued his education at night school and read extensively.
Fred first came in contact with the Society of Friends in 1917 during the First World War. After spending three months in detention for refusing to take any part in combat, he was assigned to the Work Centre at Wakefield. One of the men at the centre invited him to go to the Adult School held at the Friends Meeting House. He also started to attend morning and evening meetings there, and to study Quaker literature.
After the war, Fred worked for Friends’ Emergency and War Victims Relief Committee, which was concerned with the repatriation of German citizens who had been interned during the war. Fred also volunteered for service overseas and joined the Friends Relief Mission in Vienna where he was in charge of the twenty-one food depots. While there he was also instrumental in persuading the government to improve conditions for prisoners, many of whom had been incarcerated for stealing food for their families.
In June 1921, Fred heard from his family, who had emigrated earlier, that his father had had an accident that ended his work as a carpenter. Fred came to Canada the next month. By the next year, he was not only helping his family but also serving Toronto Meeting as its treasurer.
One of the letters of introduction that Fred carried to Canada was to Albert S. Rogers. This was the beginning of a deep friendship and collaboration that lasted until Albert’s death in 1932. One of the projects they worked on was the Boys and Girls Clubs, held at Toronto Meeting on Maitland Street, where a bowling alley was installed in the basement for the purpose. Fred directed the Boys Club for many years. In 1930 Albert offered to purchase a property to provide a summer vacation for the children in the clubs and Fred helped find a suitable ten-acre property on Sturgeon Bay. In 1940 Fred purchased the adjacent property to the camp to increase its size. His vision of Camp NeeKauNis as a place for communal education and recreation helped to bring together the three separate yearly meetings in Canada in 1955.
When Albert’s son, Ted, developed “Rogers Batteryless” and started a radio tube company in 1924, Fred was appointed the secretary-treasurer. He resigned in 1940, when, a year after Ted’s death, the products were in demand for war purposes.
Fred served as the treasurer and general secretary of the Canadian Friends Service Committee from its beginnings in 1931 through 1956. During World War II, drawing on his own experiences as a conscientious objector (CO), he was able to counsel and assist COs in Canada. His 1940 letter to the Prime Minister resulted in expanded opportunities for meaningful alternative service, including conservation, road maintenance, social service work, and participation in post-war rehabilitation. He was later instrumental in Canada’s recognition of work in the British Friends Ambulance Unit as a form of alternative service, and he helped organize the first group of twenty Canadians to serve in China. His work included assisting Japanese-Canadian evacuees from the west coast who had moved to Toronto, and providing post World War II relief.
Ellen Johnson, whose parents Margaret and Reg Smith served as Resident Friends, remembers Fred Haslam as “like a grandfather to me. I was born in 1952 and have a sense that he was always around. In fact, a major snowstorm blew across Toronto on the day I was born. Dad was at school and couldn’t get home fast enough, so Fred drove mom to the Women’s College Hospital. It was Fred who taught me my colours sitting at the window of the library and watching the world go by. One day he came to my mom’s rescue when she discovered that I was sitting on the window ledge of what is now the daycare with my legs dangling outside. Fred went outside ready to catch me if I startled when mom approached me from behind.”
When I was serving as Superintendent of the First Day School, Fred would sometimes speak to the older class. One day after Meeting, I was mulling over something related to the First Day School and realized that I needed to speak to Fred. He had already left Friends House, so I dashed out the front door and down Bedford Road, managing to reach him before he stepped on the streetcar. But I was huffing and puffing so much I couldn’t speak. Fred reached out and gave me a big steadying hug, enabling me to catch my breath and relate what was on my mind.
Fred’s compassionate hug is a symbol for me of the many ways that Fred reached out to help those in need. His many efforts included frequent visits to the Toronto Jail, work with the John Howard and Elizabeth Fry Societies, work with the Canadian Council of Churches to abolish capital punishment, and support of relief work and projects of the Right Sharing of Resources, UNESCO, and the Friends Service Council of British Friends. Fred maintained that properly caring for the people of the world is essential for peace.
Fred also reached out to coordinate efforts of a wider circle, serving as full-time treasurer and general secretary for Canadian Yearly Meeting from 1960-1972, representing Friends on the Canadian Council of Churches, and representing Canadian Friends on the board of Friends United Meeting and on the World Committee for Consultation. Through example, he answered the question he posed: “Why try to do the job with a teaspoon when by cooperation you can use a bulldozer?”
Photo of (from left) Fred Haslam, Ralph Eames, and Murray Thompson at the Toronto Meeting, 1963. Photo by Barry Philp, 1963, Baldwin Collection, Toronto Star Archives, courtesy of the Toronto Reference Library.
I am especially grateful for Fred’s selfless service to Toronto Meeting. I have been told that he could be uncompromising at times, but I think we all knew that we were near and dear to him, and he took a real interest in our activities. During the three years that Bill and I spent in Lesotho, Africa, he sent three letters, expressing appreciation for Bill’s Letters from Lesotho book, and for his work in education. He took a special interest in my work with Canadian Save the Children Fund because of his long connection with the organization (which earned him the Canada Medal in 1977).
A letter written in January 1976 included a note on his health:
For me 1975 was a hard year with the discovery of cancer and operations on both eyes. However, the doctors involved agree that progress is being made, and the cancer doctor at Princess Margaret Hospital has now suggested that I take a trip to San Carlos near San Francisco. I had no idea that I would be able to take such a trip at this stage, but the medical people, including personal friends in the meeting, are all encouraging the idea. It has now taken hold of me and I hope to go for a month on February 5th. My sister and all my other immediate relatives are in San Carlos, I am all excited and hope it will be useful in keeping me to a more normal life.
Back in Canada, not long before Fred died in 1979, I visited him at the Salvation Army’s Grace Hospital in Toronto. He was very weak but enjoyed singing some of the hymns of his favourite poet, John Greenleaf Whittier.
Resources:
Dorland, Arthur. The Quakers in Canada, A History. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1968.
Haslam, Fred. A Record of Experience with Canadian Friends (Quakers) and the Canadian Ecumenical Movement 1921 – 1967. Woodbrooke College, Birmingham, England, 1970.
Muma, Dorothy. “Fred Haslam (1897-1979): “Mr. Canadian Friend” – A Personal View.” Canadian Quaker History Journal 66 (2001): 23 – 34.
Toronto Monthly Meeting of the Religions Society of Friends. “A Testimony to the Grace of God in the Life of Fred Haslam.” March 1980.
Zavitz-Bond, Jane. “CFSC Records.” The Canadian Friend 107, no. 2 (2011): 40.
Please join the Canadian Friends Historical Association in a “Friendly Friday” discussion of George Fox’s journal. This Zoom session will run on Fri. Oct. 16, from 1:30-3 pm. In the course of a little more than an hour, our group covered the first 8 pages of the Journal. We will pick up where we left off this coming Friday, and new participants are welcome to join us. Sessions will continue every other Friday through to December.
It is really easy to register–just submit your name and email address in the following link and submit. You’ll then be prompted “review your registration” which will then take you to a confirmation page. No need to be a member of CFHA to join.
Here’s more: “I attended the session on Oct. 2. The reading was sent out in advance, and it caught my interest in learning more about George Fox and his experience. During the session, we read a section from Fox’s journal, and then stopped for discussion along the way. I’m so glad to have attended this session because it helped me deepen my knowledge of a foundational text to understand what led up to the development of the Religious Society of Friends and to compare and contrast this with our modern Quaker experience. Donna Moore”
As students enter a fall semester full of new challenges, we want to highlight the CFHA Student Essay Award and Scholarship Program. The program was created to support students interested in Canadian Quaker history and promote awareness of local meetings among students. The CFHA encourages all students undertaking research related to Canadian Quaker history to apply.
One CFHA student essay scholarship is available to junior high school students (Grades 9-10) in the amount of $200, and one award is available to senior high school students (Grades 11-12) in the amount of $300. In addition, one scholarship in the amount of $1500 per year for each of two years is available to a university student who is undertaking a program in relevant Canadian Quaker research.
For those of you who were unable to join us at the program portion of our AGM, we have a recording of Ben Pink Dandelion and Stephen W. Angell’s discussion. Ben and Stephen have been instrumental in the field of Quaker studies and we were so pleased to have them.
How many times have you seen a Quaker in a television program or movie? How often have Quakers, the Amish, and Mennonites been conflated into stock characters? We are thrilled to share this guest post from Stephen D. Brooks who is researching representations of Quakers in television and film as part of a PhD in Quaker Studies at the University of Birmingham (UK). If any readers would like to discuss Stephen’s post, or if you have suggestions where he may find representations of Quakers in film or tv, please drop him a line at [email protected].
Verifying a Quaker Presence in American Television Westerns
Stephen D. Brooks
At first glance it would appear that representations of Quakers in the mediums of film and television are sparse. Collectively, James Emmett Ryan’s Imaginary Friends (2009) and David N. Butterworth’s Celluloid Friends (2015) found forty-nine cases of either motion pictures or television programs that included some portrayal of Quakers. These vary from significant Quaker characters, or some reflection on Quakerism, to secondary or walk-on characters who can be identified as Quaker. These include silent-era features and shorts, plus those that use Quakers to provide one-liners and jokes such as Woody Allen’s Sleeper (1973).
Miles Monroe (played by Allen): “I’m telling you. You got the wrong man. I’m not the heroic type. Really. I was beaten up by Quakers.”
This was my starting point. From there I cross-referenced these forty-nine instances with the web-based resource The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) along with self-compiled lists put together by Quakers online. These lists included the “Friends Media Project” and “Quakers On Film” from pendlehill.org plus the michiganquaker.org entry of “Quakers in Popular Culture.” This resulted in 171 examples, ranging from a quarter of a reel (no more than three minutes) silent comedy called Topsy-Turvy Dance of Three Quaker Maidens (1900) up to the BBC TV series Fleabag (2019).
These representations of Quakers also covered numerous genres: romance, comedy, adventure and drama to crime thrillers, science fiction, and musicals. In this post I am focussing on the western genre, especially American television westerns. According to the IMDb, between 1958 and 1970, Quaker characters appeared in nineteen different episodes of various shows. I am currently in the process of tracking these shows down and verifying the presence of a Quaker. There are three types of validation that I have found so far: explicit, implicit, and negative.
To establish that a character is actually a Quaker in any of the examples I’ve examined, I look for explicit confirmation either by the character themselves or by another character. In the case of silent movies, I look for a title-card. The reason for an explicit verification is because it has become apparent that descriptors on the IMDb will use “Quaker” when a character may exhibit one or more of the following tropes: identifying as pacifist because of religious beliefs, using plain language, or wearing plain dress. Careful viewing has demonstrated that the character in question may not be a Quaker at all; they could be Amish, Pennsylvania Dutch, or a member of another Mennonite group.
An example of an explicit confirmation can be found in Wagon Train: The Patience Miller Story, NBC, first shown 11 January 1961. In the opening scenes, a wagon train is attacked. There is a close-up of a family—a man, a woman, and a child. The man is killed. It transpires that this is the Miller family who are missionaries on their way to Arapaho territory to open a school for indigenous children. Some of the men on the train urge wagon master Flint McCullough (Robert Preston) to convince the widowed Patience Miller (Rhonda Fleming) and her young daughter (Terry Burnham) to abandon her plan to continue to the mission without her husband. He replies, “ever tried arguing with a red-headed Quaker?” Patience for her part uses plain “thee” and “thou” language, dresses plainly, and often quotes William Penn.
An illustration of what I term as implicit confirmation occurs in Bonanza: The Hopefuls, NBC, first shown 8 October 1960. Here a religious group is crossing the Ponderosa as settlers on their way to new territory. A wagon train is carrying both the community members and the money they had pooled to pay for the land. Adam Cartwright (Pernell Roberts), who is smitten by the daughter of the group’s leader, and his stepbrother Hoss (Dan Blocker) escort the train across the Cartwright’s territory. In turn, they are stalked by a gang intent on stealing the community’s money. Members of the group display the familiar traits associated with depictions of Quakers: they are a pacifist religious group and they dress plainly and use the term “Friend.” Yet, at no point is there a verbal verification or use of the word “Quaker” by them or any other character.
Finally, a negative confirmation is evident in The Restless Gun: Strange Family In Town, NBC, first shown 20 January 1958. Here, a family of new settlers—the Hoffmans—fall foul of the locals when their belief in non-violence is misinterpreted as cowardice. Along with their pacifism they do dress plainly. However, they do not use plain language, and, at no point as with Bonanza or The Hopefuls, is there any verbal confirmation by them or any other characters that they are Quakers. Moreover, they have a German-language Bible, speak German at home, eat ‘hasenpfeffer’, and are insulted by the local townspeople as “squareheads.” So, despite the listing on the IMDb including this as a Quaker family, it appears after viewing that these characters are more likely (although of course, there is no explicit confirmation) to be members of a Pennsylvania Dutch community.
Stephen D. Brooks
As I continue to look through the results from IMDb, it will be interesting to see just how many films and programs will contain explicit confirmation that characters are Quakers rather than members of another religious group. The other side to this of course that merits consideration, is the possibility that listings stating that a story contains an Amish, Anabaptist, or another non-conformist representation of characters is in fact a Quaker?
Bibliography.
Butterworth, David N. (2015) Celluloid Friends: Cinematic Quakers real and imagined (1922-2012) USA, Amazon Press LLC.
Ryan, James Emmett. (2009) Imaginary Friends: Representing Quakers In American culture 1650 -1950. Studies in American Thought and Culture. Series editor Paul S. Boyer. Madison, Wisconsin, The University of Wisconsin Press.
Filmography.
Bonanza: The Hopefuls. October 1960 [TV] James Nielsen dir. USA. National Broadcasting Corporation.
Restless Gun, The: Strange Family in Town. January 1958. [TV] Earl Bellamy dir. USA. Window Glen Productions.
Sleeper. 1973 [Film] Woody Allen dir. USA. Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Productions.
Topsy-Turvy Dance of Three Quaker Maidens. 1902 [Film] George Albert Smith dir. UK. George Albert Smith Films.
Wagon Train: The Patience Miller Story. January 1961 [TV] Mitch Leisen dir. USA. Revue Studios.
“The Best Man for Settling New Country…”: The Journal of Timothy Rogers Edited by Christopher Densmore and Albert Schrauwers
This guest post is contributed by Albert Schrauwers and includes his reflections on editing Timothy Rogers’ journal alongside Christopher Densmore. Rogers’ journal can be found here:http://www.cfha.info/journalrogers.pdf
Photo of Timothy Rogers’ journal
Timothy Rogers is a subject of perennial interest to genealogists and historians, and I welcome this opportunity to broaden its availability. Rogers’s Journal contains a riveting narrative of his spiritual development and (unsuccessful) attempts at the ministry; his travels across the north-eastern states to Maine, Nova Scotia and PEI in service of the ministry; and his role in opening new Quaker settlements in Vermont, Newmarket, and Pickering. It is the most extensive first-person narrative of an early nineteenth century Quaker pioneer outside the manuscripts of David Willson, leader of the Children of Peace. It is thus of interest to Quaker and local historians in both Canada and the US, and to a very large number of descendants (including those who went on to create Rogers Communications).
Timothy Rogers’s Journal was published by CFHA twenty years ago, the product of years of careful preparation. The choice of Rogers’s Journal seemed obvious at the time. As a major source of historical and genealogical information, it was the single largest subject of interest to visitors of the Dorland Room. The journal itself, however, was in a fragile state and could not withstand heavy usage. The Yearly Meeting had decided not to allow the Archives of Ontario to microfilm its collection, but lacked the resources to do so itself. Producing an easily accessible copy was a pressing need.
Producing the journal was a complicated matter. Making a photocopy of the fragile journal from which the transcription could be made without damaging it was only the first step. Decisions also needed to be made as to how the transcription would be made. Rogers had little formal education, used erratic spelling and no punctuation. A copy of a page and its direct transcription were given in the published journal to indicate the actual tenor of his writing. It was decided, however, to make the journal as accessible as possible to a modern audience by following modern orthographic conventions. In doing so, some valuable information was lost. It was clear, for example, that Rogers spelled phonetically, hence the original journal conveyed his pronunciation and speaking style. Given the spiritual journey that Rogers recorded, it was also considered important to highlight to modern (perhaps secular) readers how grounded the journal was in biblical references. This entailed adding quotation marks to biblical passages, and providing footnoted citations. Further extensive footnotes were added drawing on Monthly Meeting minutes and secondary sources that clarified references made by Rogers; two appendices, containing journals by his descendant Wing Rogers, and fellow traveller, Joshua Evans, were included for the same reason. The preparation of the transcription was thus a long, laborious process.
As the copyright for the journal itself (as opposed to the transcription) was retained by the Yearly Meeting, it was decided that CFHA would self-publish the result, giving Friends greater control over it use. Unfortunately, we lacked the means of promoting it as it deserved. Dissemination on the web will at last make the work generally available, and further evidence the impact of early Quakers on Canadian history.
Randy Saylor has supported CFHA in many ways. He initiated the CFHA website and served many years as webmaster. He also initiated in Canada collaborative internet transcription of Quaker minute books, a project he continues to administer. A Quaker descendant himself, Randy has spent decades researching and writing about diverse aspects of Quaker experience. To assist other researchers, some years ago Randy compiled a guide to understanding the structure and availability of Quaker records. Who better than to provide a virtual presentation on the subject to the Quinte branch of Ontario Ancestry this past weekend?
Over 80 participants logged in on June 20th to the presentation. Randy first acquainted the viewers with the hierarchal structure of Quaker meetings and the interlocking nature of their records which results. This provides viewers a good sense of how records of activity related to membership, marriage or disownment. For example, records can originate in a smaller local “Preparative” meeting and then advance upward to then also appear in subsequent records of the “Monthly’” meeting and on, in some cases, to the “Quarterly”, “Half-Yearly”, and Yearly meeting sessions respectively. Likewise, the written decisions, financial requirements, epistles, and amendments to the book of Discipline moved the other way through the successive superior meetings back down to the local Preparative meeting, being duly recorded at every stage. These records were supplemented by those of communications such as certificates of removal, that were exchanged directly between meetings. The net effect has been a boon to researchers as some aspects of the historical information may be preserved somewhere in the document chain even if a particular minute book may have been lost or destroyed.
Randy made use of various charts of the historical meetings under the care of New York Yearly Meeting and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to show how extensive the Quaker presence had been in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Arthur Dorland charts of initial to early 20th century meetings in Canada were used to show the numerous meetings which existed in the greater Quinte area. These were in a band extending from Adolphustown in the east through Prince Edward County to Cold Creek meeting (present day Wooler Monthly Meeting), the only surviving meeting, in the west.
Randy was able to draw upon his own family history to illustrate some aspects of Quaker practice and principles. His Quaker ancestor Jemima Hubbs was disowned from her local meeting when she “married out” to captain Charles Saylor. Such “going out of the good order of our Society” could be remedied by providing the meeting with a written acknowledgement of error. Like many other Quaker women in like circumstances, Jemima provided the requisite letter and was restored into membership.
Randy provided a tour of the CFHA website, including the many searchable transcriptions of local Quaker minute books available on the site. Participants were also provided access to Randy’s recently updated Quaker research guide. This useful aid to researchers is available on the CFHA website.
The presentation was illustrated with some 20 slides in a PowerPoint format. The PowerPoint and text of the presentation has been posted on the Quinte branch website and can be accessed here: https://vimeo.com/431945751/f2828d0745
Borealis Press, 2011). This book, by Canadian author Heather Kirk examines Solidarnosc and gives readers insights into the non-violent resistance movement that contributed significantly to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
