HOPEWELL MONTHLY MEETING
(Sometimes called Opeckan in early records)
Frederick County, Virginia
A number of historians have written accounts of the first settlement of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia by certain members of the Society of Friends, and of the establishment of various meetings on`its fertile limestone soil, one of these meetings being known at first as Opeckan and later called Hopewell Meeting. it being the earliest meeting established in this particular region. The exact date of its establishment has never been settled upon. In 1875, in "An Account of the Meetings of the Society of Friends within the Limits of Baltimore Yearly Meeting", Levi K. Brown, the narrator, says: "Hopewell Meeting is situated in Frederick Co., Virginia, five miles north of Winchester and Harper's Ferry Railroad. It was established about the year 1730 and was for many years attached to Concord Quarterly Meeting, Pennsylvania". It is known, however, that Opeckan (Hopewell) Meeting for Worship was not officially established until 1734; and that Hopewell Monthly Meeting was established in 1735, all of which is definitely shown by Quarterly and Yearly Meeting minutes. In about the year 1730 Alexander Ross, Morgan Bryan, and other Friends, secured a grant of land (a tract of 100,000 acres) on the Opeckan River and its vicinity to be settled by a large number of families of Friends from Pennsylvania, some of whom had already migrated to the Valley of the Monocacy, in Maryland. It stands to reason that Alexander Ross and Morgan Bryan had made extensive surveys of the region in the years previous to 1730 when they applied for the huge land grant. Although this grant had not been made final until 1732, the migration of Families of Friends into the valley seems to have been started soon after application had been made for it, and that by 1732 not less than seventy such families had settled in this wild region. The heads of the families have been called "Fathers of the Colony". It has ever been the custom of Friends, upon arrival in any new settlement, to immediately hold meetings, sometimes out of doors, but usually held in the house of a Friend, as soon as such a house could be built and made available. Friends, everywhere, anywhere, had in early times, little need of shelters in order to hold meetings; their meetings were usually held in silence. When two or more Friends might meet on the road or in a forest, they were almost certain to stop and hold a meeting if circumstances permitted. They could sit down together under the shade of a tree and, "going into silence" have the experience of feeling the Presence of God amongst them. That the Friends who went first into the Shenandoah Valley held their first meeting almost immediately after they arrived, and on the very first day of their arrival, I have no doubt. for that is exactly what they would have done. The terrain was wild and entirely uncultivated; houses had to be built of logs, after clearings were made for them. but the new land,-"The Promised Land", as it were, was beautiful. Can anyone doubt that their spirits were uplifted when they reached their new homeland, which they had traveled long days to find, and that their first thought would have been to assemble together in praise and thanksgiving to god? We do not know what families formed the very first Caravan; but we must assume that Alexander Ross led them into this wilderness of beauty and fertility; and we know that however many families went in the first caravan, others soon followed, and that within two years some seventy families of Friends had settled themselves in that lovely valley, and that in their thriftiness they had soon created a large community, built houses of logs, set up sawmills and grist mills and had brought about a condition of orderby living, such as Friends have always established in every new wilderness into which they migrated, One has only to read over the names of the "Fathers of the Colony", all of whom are well known to history, to realize the great strength of this remarkable community of Friends. There were: Alexander Ross, Morgan Bryan, Caleb Pusey, John Wilson, Thomas Curtis, Nathaniel Thomas, Isaac Perkins, John Hiatt, Thomas Anderson, John Mills, John Mills, Jr., John Beals, John Peteate, George Robinson, Richard Beeson, Robert Luna, John Richards, Giles Chapman, James Brown, Luke Emlen, Cornelius Cochrine, Josiah Ballenger, William Hogg, Benjamin Borden, John Littler, James Wright, John Frost, Thomas Dawson, Thomas Branson, George Hobson (Sr. & Jr.), Evan Thomas, John Calvert, Morgan Morgan, Hugh Parrall, James Davis, Thomas Babb, Edward Davis, John Hood, Abraham Hollingsworth, Simeon Taylor, and many others, together with their wives, sons, and daughters, all brought together in this wonderful Shenandoah Valley. Many others soon followed them. Is it, therefore. any wonder that this community, now a large part of what became Frederick Co., Va., became one of the greatest strongholds of the whole of America for the up-building of character and civic virtue and Faith in God and in His Truth? The generations of the early families of this community have moved on southward and westward, spreading ever outward and going ever onward, generation after generation, until millions of descendants of these great families literally cover the entire face of the United States, mingling their precious blood with the descendants of other great Quaker families of Maryland, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and all New England States, going on to Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and all Middle Western States and up and down the Pacific Coast, thus linking together the genealogical lineages of many millions of our sturdiest Americans of today. Ohio, once called the Northwest Territory, was the "bottleneck" (or Gateway) through which all Quaker families passed in their migrations Westward, whether from the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and/or the New England States; they all met in Ohio, where they mingled their bloods through marriages between their children; and then they migrated to Indiana, from whence they spread northward and westward until they covered all states, with the exceptions of a few states to the South: Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, where few Friends have ever lived, on account that the Quakers could not live contentedly where slavery existed.
Hopewell Meeting was first
known as Opeckan Meeting; and the records and minutes of many other meetings,
both north and south, list many certificates of removal from Opeckan Meeting,
even as late as 1751/52. The official name of "Hopewell" was given to the
meeting, however, in 1734 when the meeting was authorized by the Quarterly and
Yearly Meetings under which Hopewell was established. Hopewell Monthly Meeting
was authorized to be established in 1735. To it were attached Hopewell Meeting
and Providence Meeting, these two meetings comprising Hopewell Monthly Meeting
after 1744, prior to which, both Monocacy and Fairfax Meetings belonged to
Hopewell Monthly Meeting. By 1744 the Friends belonging to Hopewell Monthly
Meeting had become so numerous that it was decided to divide the meetings and a
monthly meeting was established under the name Fairfax Monthly Meeting which
were assigned Monocacy and Fairfax Meetings.
FROM: Samuel Smith's History
of Pennsylvania, a part of which was printed in the Register of Pennsylvania,
Vol. VII, p. 134, edited by Samuel Hazard, is quoted here from Hopewell Friends
History (1936). (Smith's History of Pennsylvania was compiled at the direction
of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1752.)
"About the year 1725, Henry
Ballinger and Josiah Ballinger, from near Salem, in West Jersey; and soon after
them James Wright, William Beals, and others from Nottingham, settled
in the upper parts of Prince
George's County, Maryland, near a large creek called Monoquesey [Monocacy].
About the year 1726, they applied to New Garden Monthly Meeting for liberty to
hold a meeting for worship on first days, which was granted, and held at the
house of Josiah Ballinger, and others till the year 1736, when a piece of ground
was purchased and a meeting-house built, which is called Cold Spring
meeting house, where meetings are still kept.
"About the year 1732,
Alexander Ross and Company obtained a grant from the Governor and Council at
Williamsburgh in Virginia, for 100,000 acres of land near a large creek called
Opeckan in the said colony, which about that time was settled by the said
Alexander Ross, Josiah Ballinger, James Wright, Evan Thomas, and divers other
Friends from Pennsylvania and Elk River, in Maryland, who soon after obtained
leave from the quarterly meeting of Chester, held at Concord, to hold a meeting
for worship, soon after which land was purchased and a meeting-house built,
called Hopewell, where meetings are still held twice a week.
"About the year 1733, Amos
Janney from Bucks County, and soon after divers other Friends settled about
forty miles lower in Virginia than Opeckon, who obtained leave to hold a meeting
for worship on first days, which was held at the said Amos Janney's and other
Friends houses till the year 1741, when a piece of land was purchased, and a
meeting-house built thereon, called Fairfax, where meetings are since held twice
a week.
"About the year 1733 or soon
after, Richard Beeson and divers others settled near a branch of Opeckon, called
Tuscarora, where a meeting was held at said Beeson's house for some time, till
the number of Friends being increased, land was purchased and a meeting-house
built, called Providence, where meetings are since held twice a
week.
"About the year 1736,
Friends in those back settlements applied to Chester quarterly meeting for
liberty to hold a monthly meeting, which was granted, and was held twice at
Hopewell, and once at Cold Spring, alias Monoquesy, and so continued till the
year 1744, when the number of Friends being much increased, they applied to the
said quarterly meeting to have the monthly meeting divided, which was granted,
so that since the year 1744, Hopewell and Providence make one monthly meeting,
which is held by turns at Hopewell and Cold Spring, and the meeting at Fairfax
makes another".
It is apparent, from the
foregoing statements that the historian was not certain of the dates, since in
each paragraph he begins with "About the year". Therefore, we cannot take his
dates as the exact dates at which such occurrences came to pass. The full
statement, however, is worth recording in any history of Hopewell and/or
Fairfax.
Nottingham Monthly Meeting,
in Cecil County, Maryland, was "set off" from New Garden
Monthly Meeting, Chester County,
Pennsylvania in 1730, and held its first monthly meeting on 20th of 4, mo. 1730.
This being the nearest monthly meeting to Hopewell, Fairfax, Providence and Cold
Spring (Monocacy), their monthly reports were made to Nottingham Monthly Meeting
until Hopewell Monthly Meeting was firmly
established in 1736. Their records of births, deaths and marriages, therefore,
before 1736 should be found in the books of Nottingham Monthly Meeting. In fact,
they are so found. So, to get a fair understanding of the activities of these
meetings before Hopewell was established, one needs only to study the minutes
and records of Nottingham Monthly Meeting. In these records we find items as
follows:
1730-6-15. Alexander Ross
appointed on a committee
1730-8-17. Richard Beeson
and Ann Brown declared marriage intentions
1730/31-11-16. Alexander
Ross again on a committee - with John Gartrill 1730-31-1-20. John Butterfield
and Mary Brown declared marriage intentions 1731-2-17. Rachel Oldham, Mary Elgar
and Katharine Ross to attend quarterly meeting 1731-7-18. Katharine Ross and
Dinah Brown on committee to disown Sarah Morgan
These minutes show that
Alexander Ross and others of the Shenandoah 7alley were already there as early
as the first above date.
1733-9-17. Elizabeth Renfro
(widow of Joseph Hollingsworth) was complained of for marrying out of unity and
Katharine Ross and Mary Littler were appointed to "labor with her". The first
marriage at Hopewell.
1735-Oct.11. Ross, John, was
carried to Lydia Hollingsworth, daughter of Stephen. They had to go to
Nottingham to declare their marriage intentions; such appearances had to be made
before monthly meetings.
Unfortunately, the first
book of minutes of Hopewell Monthly Meeting covering activities of the meeting
from 1735 to 1759, inclusive, was burned in a fire at the house of the Clerk,
Wm. Jolliffe, Jr; but all other books from that day to this have been carefully
preserved and their records and minutes have been meticulously extracted and
compiled from the original books for this compilation. Since it has ever been
the custom of all monthly meetings to register all certificates issued by them,
and also all certificates received by them from other meetings, it has been
possible to recover from those meetings closely connected with Hopewell a fairly
good record of certificates of removal to and from Hopewell during that rrlostrr
period of some 24 years. These have been collected and placed in this
compilation in proper chronological order. A large number of these certificates
we have taken from the historical department of a splendid book, "Hopewell
Friends' History", published in 1936 by "The Joint Committee of Hopewell
Friends" and printed by Shenandoah Publishing House, Inc., Strasburg, Virginia.
I wish here to express my appreciation to Mr. and Mrs. Walker McClun Bond, of
Winchester, Virginia, who, acting for their Committee, graciously offered us the
privilege of using as much of their material as we might find helpful to this
compilation. They went to a great deal of trouble to collect a vast amount of
historical data from other meetings and from individual descendants of early
members of Hopewell Meeting to be published for their celebration of the 200th
anniversary of Hopewell Meeting in 1936. Those desiring a more detailed history
of Hopewell than is possible to include in this compilation will find the above
named book highly informative.
During the two centuries of
the life of Hopewell Monthly Meeting, there have been some 30 meetings for
worship and preparative meetings which were at one time or another under its
oversight. These meetings covered a large terrain, including all of northern
Virginia, and all of what is now West Virginia, as well as parts of western
Pennsylvania and one meeting in Maryland (Monocacy).
The original books of
minutes of Hopewell Monthly Meeting show almost a complete record of
certificates of removal to and from that meeting with the exception, as stated,
of its first 24 years. The books of records of births and deaths, however, are
incomplete, and only a comparatively small part of all births and deaths are
listed. This was probably caused by the fact that so many families belonging to
meetings for worship lived so far away (hundreds of miles in many cases) that it
was scarcely possible to send in the family records to be recorded. Travel was
exceedingly difficult over mountainous roads running through wild terrain
fraught with great danger. Committees were appointed periodically to go out and
collect such data; but although they made faithful efforts to do so, they could
not visit all families living in so many remote places. Marriage records
covering the entire life of Hopewell Monthly Meeting seem quite complete. In the
book of marriage records we find more than 300 full marriage certificates.
Children listed as born to such marriages will be found directly under the data
taken from each such marriage certificate with the dates of birth and other
information alluding thereto where such has been found. But a great number of
marriages were of young people residing in remote places, and although it stands
to reason that children were born to these parents, their births have not been
registered. In many such cases, however, the names of such children are found
listed in certificates of removal; and in other cases, names of children of
parents not listed in the Register of Births and Deaths are found in their own
marriage certificates which give the names of their parents. In writing up the
data from marriage certificates, we have inserted the dates of births and deaths
of the parties thereto, when possible, taking the dates from the record of
births and deaths, doing this to aid searchers in
identifications.
During the first 150 years
of the life of Hopewell many families migrated to southern Virginia and to the
Carolinas; when the Northwest Territory (Ohio)was opened up great numbers of
Hopewell families migrated to that region, some of whom stopped enroute for a
time at Redstone and Westland Meetings in western Pennsylvania, where their
certificates were deposited. The names of hundreds of Hopewell families are
found in the records of many meetings in Ohio and Indiana, and even on into
Iowa, Illinois, Kansas and still farther west. Many hundreds of families now
living in California and Oregon and other western states seek their ancestral
lineages in the records of Hopewell and all other Virginia Meetings. The people
now living in Virginia, Maryland, and other eastern states scarcely realize that
they have some millions of cousins now living in those western states, from Ohio
to the Pacific Coast.
Hopewell Monthly Meeting at
Winchester, Virginia is still in existence as an active meeting; it has
flourished continually since its organization over 200 years ago. Its labors and
influence have spread in an ever widening and continuous wave to cover the
entire United States; descendants of its early families are now living in every
state of the Union. The meeting was divided by the Hicksite separation but both
branches continued to use the same meeting house. In 1910 the branches began
holding their services together and have continued to do so since that
date.
William Wade Hinshaw