We have updated our transcriptions page with a new upload: Norwich Monthly Meeting, 1852 – 1866.
Thank you to Carman Foster for transcribing the minutes, and to Randy Saylor for overseeing the transcription process. The CFHA is grateful for their generous donation and time.
This minute book follows the minutes from the Norwich Monthly Meeting, 1834 – 1852. Both books were held by Orthodox Friends. Like many meeting minutes, the transcript reports on the general state of the meeting, as well as meeting business.
The township of Norwich was originally settled by Quakers when Peter Lossing and his brother-in-law Peter DeLong purchased 15,000 acres of land in 1810. A year later, a group of Quaker families from Duchess County, New York, moved with Lossing to the area.
According to Arthur Dorland, the earliest families in the area included the Lossings, DeLongs, Moores, Curtises, Stovers, and Lancasters.[1] They were closely followed by the McLees, Sackridges, Cornwells, McAuleys, Palmers, Siples, and the Hillikers.[2] A meeting was set up in the home of Joseph Lancaster in 1812, and by 1819, Norwich became its own monthly meeting, no longer under the authority of Pelham Monthly.
For a detailed account of the Norwich Meeting’s early years, you can read Mary Beth Start’s 2010 keynote address at the CFHA annual general meeting, “Peaceable Kingdom – Unsound Friends: Norwich Monthly Meeting Divided.”
[1] Arthur Dorland, The Quakers in Canada: A History (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1968), 84.
[2] Mary Beth Start, “Peaceable Kingdom – Unsound Friends: Norwich Monthly Meeting Divided,” Canadian Quaker History Journal 75 (2010): 3.
