Description:

Colonial New England Quakers
Philadelphia, PA, ca. September/October, 1795
Quakers Meeting in Philadelphia Recommend Vigilance Against Abuse of Liquor and a Fund for Native American Education
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Clerk Jonathan Evans wrote these extracts from the Minutes of the Yearly Meeting of Quakers in the Middle States, held in Philadelphia from September 29 to October 3, 1795. The file note indicates it was made "for Goshen," likely a reference to the Goshen Meeting of Friends in Chester County, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia. The excerpts concern a general decline in religious fervor, the "free use of distilled spirits," Quaker opposition to war and taking oaths, the treasurer's account, and concerns over the condition of Native Americans.

At the 1795 Yearling Meeting, the Quakers appointed an "Indian Committee" of 29 Friends to consider the "improvement and gradual civilization of the Indian natives." From 1796 to 1799, the Committee focused on the Oneida peoples of New York.

The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting gathered representatives of Quakers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and portions of Maryland and Virginia. Other Yearly Meetings existed at the time in New England, New York, and North Carolina.

Excerpts
"On renewed attention to the State of the Church, as set forth in the Summary of the Reports from the Quarters, a lively sense of the prevailing Influence of a worldly Spirit, as the radical cause of defection, occasioning sorrowful complaints in various Instances, being witnessed to impress & animate the minds of divers Brethren....
"The promoting a free use of distilled spirits, by distilling importing or vending them as a commodity in trade; also, on a revival of the subject, exciting a degree of fervent Zeal, under the influence whereof the Ruin & Desolation proceeding from an intemperate use of this inflammatory Article, both in Individuals & Nations was affectingly set forth, and the Minute of this Meeting thereon last Year, being recurred to, it's purport is afresh recommended to Quarterly & Monthly Meetings, which are exhorted to a continued exercise of faithful Labour in patient Stability, guarding against Discouragement, which given way to will disqualify for this necessary service, of the effect whereof they are desired to give account to this Meeting next year." (p1)

"The Committee appointed on the interesting concern for promoting the Welfare of the Indian Natives, report that at several Meetings in which we have had the company of divers concerned Brethren not particularly named to the Service, we have deliberately considered this important subject, which hath for a series of Years deeply exercised the Minds of many Friends, and been latterly revived in the Yearly Meeting with increasing weight, our Minds have been measurably drawn into sympathy with these distressed Inhabitants of the wilderness; and on comparing their situation with our own, and calling to grateful remembrance the kindness of their predecessors to ours in the early settlement of this Country, considering also our professed principles of Peace and Good-will to Men, we were induced with much unanimity to believe that there are loud calls for our benevolence & charitable exertions to promote amongst them the principles of the Christian Religion as well as to turn their attention to School Learning Agriculture and useful mechanic employments, especially as there appears in some of the Tribes, a willingness to unite in the exercise of endeavours of this kind. We believe that this end may be much promoted, under the divine Blessing, by a recommendation from this Meeting to the several Quarterly Meetings that a liberal Subscription be set on foot and a fund raised to be under the direction of a special Committee to be appointed by the Yearly Meeting, in order that these pious purposes may be carried into effect as early as practicable and the apparent friendly disposition of Government towards this desirable object improved.


Jonathan Evans Jr. (1759-1839) was born in Philadelphia into a Quaker family. He had a "liberal education" at the Friends school, and he learned the trade of a carpenter. During the Revolutionary War, he was imprisoned for refusing to fight for the American cause. He married Hannah Bacon (1765-1829), and they had several children, including Dr. Charles Evans (1802-1879), who was a consulting physician at the first private psychiatric hospital in the United States, founded by the Quakers. In 1795, he was appointed clerk of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, a position he held for sixteen years. A proponent of Quaker orthodoxy, Jonathan Evans played a key role in the division of Quakers into Hicksite and Orthodox groups in the 1820s.

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