Ohio Yearly Meeting's Podcast

EOF04B The Eye of Faith, A History of Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative. Chapter 4 Part B, The Second Schism

• Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative)

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The scorching summer of 1854 became a crucible of division for Ohio Yearly Meeting as Thomas Gould's controversial presence catalyzed a long-brewing theological conflict between Wilburite and Gurneyite Quakers. What began as tension over recognizing a visiting minister culminated in the dramatic establishment of competing clerks and separate meetings that would divide Quaker communities for more than a century.

• Thomas Gould represented the "smaller body" of New England Yearly Meeting, seen by Gurneyites as insubordinate and by Wilburites as upholding traditional Quaker principles
• The yearly meeting of 1854 took place during extreme heat, drought, and cholera epidemics
• Benjamin Hoyle, the clerk, found himself caught between factions while trying to prevent separation
• The breaking point came Tuesday when Jabiz Coulson nominated Jonathan Benz as a competing clerk
• After Hoyle read a minute of adjournment, the Gurneyites remained behind while Wilburites had to wait outside
• The separation caused deep personal grief, as recorded in diaries of Friends like Aaron Frame
• The division reflected fundamental differences over Quaker identity, with Wilburites emphasizing plainness and tradition while Gurneyites viewed these as "small matters"
• Local meetings throughout Ohio were eventually forced to choose sides, creating painful divisions in communities and families


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Speaker 1:

Mind that which is eternal, which gathers your hearts together up to the Lord and lets you see that ye are written in one another's heart.

Speaker 2:

In this podcast we are continuing to read from the Eye of Faith, a history of Ohio Yearly Meeting, conservative, by William P Tabor Jr. Chapter 4 is titled the Second Schism, 1845-1874. In this podcast we will read Section B, the Separation of 1854. The yearly meeting of 1854 came in the midst of great heat and drought. Thomas Gould, whose mayor present was to precipitate a separation, wrote that the extreme heat of the weather exceeds anything I have ever before known. Both day and night, cholera epidemics raged in several places. For a time it looked as if Providence would keep Thomas Gould from his fateful trip to Ohio, because four of his children had been stricken. They recovered, though. He was even able to spend some time nursing in a makeshift hospital for cholera patients who had been abandoned by all but the most mercenary help until he stepped in to change the situation In Pittsburgh, about 70 miles from Mount Pleasant, and because many men felt that they must stay at home to make sure their animals got adequate daily water and food during the drought.

Speaker 2:

The first test came on Saturday morning preceding yearly meeting. When their yearly meeting of ministers and elders met to acknowledge visiting ministers and to transact other business, thomas Gould had been led to one of the upper seats in the minister's gallery by an ancient conservative friend, john Hubsons, with no opposition. But Gould's minute was not permitted to be read when the Gurneyite friends discovered who he was, then 41 years old. He was an important symbol to both parties. To the Gurneyites he was a special thorn because he was clerk of the smaller body in New England and he represented 10 years of insubordination by disowned individuals. They would never even say friends to the judgment of a world society of friends. Furthermore, he had not been recognized as a minister until after his disownment To the Wilburites. He represented an unflinching testimony for the ancient doctrines and practices of friends. Some may have known him as the man who, through his stream of letters to his brother-in-law, joshua Mall, had helped keep the New England question open and raw for 10 years. Also present as a visiting minister that morning was Eliza P Gurney, the American widow of the great Joseph John and apparently a strong preacher against Wilburism. Among the nine visiting friends whose credentials were acknowledged in the meeting was William Evans, clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and a Quaker statesman who favored what the extreme liberal rights would come to call middleism. Gould states that a number of friends broke out into a continuous string of abuse against the smaller body. And he defended the smaller body by referring to the various statements and documents in its favor issued by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. He was sorry that some friends who felt he was right kept silent, making a sacrifice of me rather than prolong the discussion or further endanger the quiet and peace of the meeting. Peace of the meeting.

Speaker 2:

After the vituperation had shifted from hymn to Philadelphia yearly meeting and all opposition to Gould's presence had ceased, the meeting went on with its regular business. In the afternoon Gould attended the meeting for sufferings without incident. During the long, hot meetings for worship on Sunday, thomas Gould sat in silence in astonishment at the capacity of this people. Apparently he felt that Eliza P Gurney had been preaching at and against him in a transparent and strong manner. But it was on Monday, as he was expected, that Thomas Gould had a difficult time. But then so did the yearly meeting. Things began calmly. To Gould's surprise, no one had labored with him over the weekend in an effort to keep him out of the business meetings that week. Nor had anyone threatened to seek legal aid to bar him from the sessions as he stepped into the meeting house out of the morning heat. No one even tried to stand in his way to keep him out. He made his way freely through the gathering members of silent friends, probably beside John Hobson, up to the minister's gallery and took his seat After the usual time of worship and after the clerk had begun to read the quarterly meeting reports, including the names of representatives, he was interrupted by several pointed remarks about the presence of individuals who should not be in the meeting for business.

Speaker 2:

Calmly, the clerk went on, perhaps because one of ancient friends, wilbur Wright, had already had arisen, and said that he knew no such person present. Then the clerk read the certificates of visiting ministers and elders sent to him by the meetings of ministers and elders and called for any other visiting certificates. It was like a striking of Flint To Thomas. The call by the clerk only served to direct attention to the strangers not accounted for. They opened such a tirade of abuse as never fell to my lot before he wrote. There was a deal of it, intermixed with some little censure of the clerk for having proceeded so far with the business as he had done while I was present. All of which I bore in silence until they began to reflect darkly on me for not having produced a certificate, but also for not having explained why I had not.

Speaker 2:

Thomas proceeded to deliver to the meeting a long defense of his being a true member of the only real New England yearly meeting, rising twice more to reply to those who spoke against him. The meeting, which lasted about four hours, finally turned from Thomas Gould to Benjamin Hoyle, the clerk, for it was obvious that one more public description of the New England question would be of little use. Friends, we are losing ground. Let us say less and act more firmly, was the advice of one Gurneyite present. Apparently, much criticism was then directed at Benjamin Hoyle for having allowed Gould even to think he could sit in that meeting. The Gurneyites insisted that the clerk had the moral as well as the legal power to bar Gould from any more sessions of the yearly meeting. Gould's account, which is most complete, one which has survived, suggests that there was considerable heat in the Gurdianite criticisms of the clerk. They had been struck with for 10 years.

Speaker 2:

As the long meeting dragged on, benjamin Hoyle made it clear that he was not responsible for the presence of either Thomas Gould or Israel Bluffding, gould's companion. Several times Hoyle told the meeting that he was willing for friends to make the meeting select, so long as they did not use force to apply to the civil authority. But to judge from Gould's report, he was less than successful. Benjamin Hoyle then tried more fully to clear himself of us and threw us more completely into the hands of the Gurneyites, who gnashed upon us with their teeth almost or quite literally, and seemed ready to destroy us. But they paid no attention to his earnest efforts to save himself, no matter what cost, and charged him with treachery. Finally, thomas Gould made it plain to the meeting that the clerk had been scrupulously careful not to give us the least encouragement and that he would be of great injustice to charge him therewith In a way that may have offended the clerk. For Thomas Gould quotes Hoyle as saying Friends, you must see how the individual has assumed the whole responsibility for being here to himself In a way that made Thomas feel ridiculous, for no friends minister on a religious visit could say that. But nothing could bring the meeting to any peace as the hot afternoon dragged on and finally the meeting had to be adjourned without conducting any significant business.

Speaker 2:

After the meeting closed, william Evans is supposed to have remarked there will be no separation here this year, it seems evident especially from the extreme Wilburite bitterness towards Hoyle and Evans, which came out later in the works of Gould, hodgkins and Mull, that Benjamin Hoyle and William Evans was determined to avoid separation if at all possible. What these men considered wise statements in trying to hold the Quaker fellowship together, the extreme Wilburites would soon call middleism, scornfully pointing out that the Gurney had been a middleman in the Beaconite controversy and had effectively prevented a clear testimony against Beaconism from ever being issued. The extreme Wilburites contended and they were probably right that Benjamin Hoyle and other leaders had great respect for the judgment and advice of William Evans and his concept of the middle party, that some evenings that the representatives had a very stormy time, 14 out of 42 being determined to have a new clerk. They were reported to have insisted that even if the two friends from New England were excluded henceforth, it was too late to continue with Benjamin Hoyle. They believed he had completely disqualified himself by his long record of refusal to disavow the members of the New England and New York smaller parties. Evidently there was an effort by some to find a middle course that would exclude Thomas Gould and Israel Buffington from the yearly meeting sessions, but it was too late. Tempers were short. It was a long hot night at the end of a long hot summer.

Speaker 2:

Early on Tuesday morning the last meeting for ministers and elders met. Gould was again present, though silent. No one opposed his entry or his presence, but Eliza P Gurney again delivered sharp denunciations obviously aimed at him. Then the New England question was raised again, with strong efforts made by the more extreme Wilburites to get Benjamin Hoyle and others to come out plainly on one side or another. What must have been very irritating to them was the fact that William Evans never made any attempt to justify the actions of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in regards to the New England question, even though Gould and many others had often appealed to the judgment of Philadelphia during the stormy sessions of 1854. It must have been a very unsatisfying meeting. None of the old issues were resolved. Surely among hundreds or even more leading friends there were some who had riven with dark uneasiness about what the remainder of the day would bring.

Speaker 2:

At ten that morning, after the heat of the day had already begun, the second session of the yearly meeting gathered into the opening silence with Thomas School unopposed once more, having entered and taken a seat in the gallery where all could see him as soon as Benjamin Hoyle had opened the meeting for business, all could see him. As soon as Benjamin Hoyle had opened the meeting for business, jabiz Coulson, a representative from the Gurneyite meeting at Guernsey, rose to say that a large part of the representatives had asked him to nominate Jonathan Benz for clerk and James Brough for assistant clerk. Apparently, just as a wave of I approve rose from several parts of the meeting, nathan Hall rose and said that he was authorized to state that the representative had been unable to agree on anyone for clerk. Suddenly, then, the meeting unexpectedly had two reports before it. Coulson's and Hall's Friends began rising to agree to one or the other.

Speaker 2:

It is not surprising in this situation that the clerk, in conformity with former usage, though perhaps somewhat hastily, without waiting the direction of the meeting, made a minute that, because the representatives could not agree, the former clerk would be continued for another year. For perhaps two hours, according to Gould friends debated this issue as a number refused to accept Benjamin's minute. Finally, after repeated calls for Jonathan Benz to come forward and minute his own appointment as clerk, he and James Ruff came forward with obvious reluctance. William Evans and others like him, who had also been present in 1827, may have noted that, in comparison for the violent 1828 separation, this time the separating clerks walked alone and unopposed up the steps to the high table at which there was a vacant chair beside Benjamin Hoyle, as the assistant clerk, a Gurneyite had not taken his place under the circumstances. For a time the discussion continued under two clerks until Jonathan Binns was persuaded to minute the appointment of John Brough as assistant clerk and him as clerk.

Speaker 2:

By now Benjamin Hoyle and others had made abundantly clear their conviction that, as Benz had moved those steps to the clerk's table, he was declaring a separation because several Wilburite friends had indicated that friends should take no notice, should ignore those who were separating. Very few friends actually objected to Ben's minute, even though at least half of the meeting some accounts say two-thirds did not recognize him as clerk. Now, under two official clerks, the discussion continued more hours, which Gould described as a deal of time wasted in listening to them and their many and high charges against Benjamin Hoyle, who has gained nothing in any way by his weak endeavors to compromise with them and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and myself. I never uttered a word during either this or the select meetings today, but it seemed more than they could well bear, or indeed seemed others either even to see me sitting there though clothed in sackcloth and ashes.

Speaker 2:

Some attempts were made, it must be noted, during these last hot hours of the old Ohio yearly meeting to pull back before it would be too late. There were evidently many Gurneyites who had not known about the plan for new clerks and who were opposed to separation of any kind. Some wanted to wait at least a day for thought and consultation before making a final separation. Some attempts at compromise were suggested, such as the appointment of a committee to examine the entire situation, but no one was prepared to budge. The Wilburites would not consider negotiating with separatists, nor would they consider compromise as long as spurious clerks were at the table. They preferred to pretend that he just wasn't there. Finally, benjamin Hoyle, with concurrence of a number of friends, read a minute of adjournment at about four o'clock, ending all hope of compromise for the Benz group remained behind. The Gurneyite account states that Benjamin Hoyle very unexpectedly read a minute of adjournment.

Speaker 2:

Meanwhile, women friends on the other side of the Great Partition must have been aware of the crisis. When they were ready to adjourn, their messengers were sent to ask the men's clerk when they should schedule their next meeting. As the men's meeting was in no position to decide that, the women were told to adjourn their meeting to meet whenever the men did. Men did After the Wilburites had shaken hands to break the meeting, and those who would shake and perhaps talk together as they drifted slowly out into the afternoon heat, pretending themselves the friends who remained on the facing benches and in the body of the meeting weren't really having a meeting.

Speaker 2:

Between one-fourth and one-half of the original meeting stayed behind along with some curious Wilburites. Their numbers included all accredited visiting ministers except William Evans. The Wilburites said that at least some of the visiting ministers encouraged the Gurneyites to maintain their course of separation, insisting that the other yearly meeting would recognize them. For two more hours they stayed together, hearing a number of encouraging communications from ministers and attendants and forging a unity that would permit the separate meetings to go on. Finally they adjourned after appointing a few friends to draft an mandatory opening minute. Thus it was that a Ben's yearly meeting session was held at 8 o'clock the next morning, wednesday, that a men's yearly meeting session was held at 8 o'clock the next morning, wednesday, with the regular women's clerk and assistant clerk they were Gurneyites holding a women's session at the same time, In their opening minute to explain the separation, the men's meeting, after describing their trials under Benjamin Hoyle, stated that, seeing no hope of better state of things while we continue in this situation, friends, under a deep feeling of weight of the matter, believed that the time had come when some change should be made.

Speaker 2:

At least they were able to fill the appointments to the meeting for sufferings. As for the Wilburite friends gathering for their meetings at 10 o'clock, it was obvious that the separation was an accomplished fact, for they had to convene in the yard for half an hour until the meeting house was cleared for them. For the rest of the week the two groups managed their meetings so as to not interfere with each other. The properties of separation had improved since 1828. Had improved since 1828. The two groups even met together at the regular time for worship on Thursday.

Speaker 2:

No record survives of the attempts which some individuals surely made outside of the separate meetings to effect a reconciliation. Probably members of both yearly meetings were being lodged and fed at the boarding school and surely a few were lodged with or in the homes of members of the other party. A sign of the isolation and trouble ahead for the Wilburites can be found in the tourist record. Concerning the annual Indian report, no report having come to hand. $300 to be raised, as heretofore, of the Gurneyite. For over 100 years the Wilburite friends were to be cut off from this cooperative Quaker activity. None of the $300 mentioned above ever reached the Indians, for it would have had to pass through Gurneyite hands.

Speaker 2:

As the Wilburites sought to explain their position to the rest of the world Quakerism and to hold together what was left of the yearly meeting, it was obvious that their internal troubles were not over. A number of Willoughbyites of the middle party felt that Thomas Gould's denunciation of the New England larger body as well as irritating presence were responsible for the separation. Some hard things are said of him, both in public and private relative thereto. The first official account of the separation was sent back to committee after Thomas Gould objected to a misinterpretation of his statement that the clerk was not responsible for Gould's being there. Gould had also warned friends that frequent mention of the clerk's repeated statements concerning the willingness for friends to expel Gould would injure the clerk's reputation in other places. Gould's own account says that many wept after he had finished speaking.

Speaker 2:

They revised the official account which was finally accepted on Friday it appeared to have been materially altered throughout. The most objectionable passage, respecting himself, was altered in conformity with my suggestion or request so as to say that I fully exonerated the clerk from the responsibility of my presence in other parts of this paper to where we had, in the first essay, been spoken of merely as individuals, as we were now spoken of as friends, members of society and, in other respects too, with more consideration and respect. Even with these changes, the women's meeting hesitated to accept the report because of the mention of Benjamin Hoyle's willingness to have the clerk of New England yearly meeting excluded. Willingness to have the clerk of New England yearly meeting excluded. Anne Branson, as one of the messengers to the men's meeting, gave a noble testimony for the truth and in support of the rights of the New England friends. After the final chastisement of Benjamin Hoyle, the women accepted the statement of the separation and the Wilburite portion of the yearly meeting moved towards its conclusion with no more harmony than it had before the separation.

Speaker 2:

At least two Weberite parties were clearly identified the middle party, which respected Benjamin Hoyle's desire to keep in harmonious contact with the rest of Quakerism, even at the cost of some compromise. Presumably this party would have had bitter feelings about the provocative and judgmental speeches of Gould, and an extreme Wilburite party which was ready to testify against and withdraw from any type of Quakerism which did not meet its external and internal standards. This later group was openly and strongly kindredical of Benjamin Hoyle. One thing both parties had been able to agree upon during the yearly meeting was the setting up of Pennsville quarterly meeting from a part of Stillwater quarterly meeting. This had been held up by the Gurneyites in 1853, presumably because the new quarterly meeting was primarily Wilburite, presumably because the new quarterly meeting was primarily Wilburite.

Speaker 2:

The Wilburite tensions showed even after the separation and the treatment which Thomas Gould received in various places. Hick's credentials were never approved on the yearly meeting level and Benjamin Hoyle said that no special local meetings should be convened especially for him. Special local meetings should be convened especially for him, though he might be allowed to attend them at their regular times. Robert Holloway and John Hobson, however, did call the ministers and elders together and urged them to permit Gould to appoint special meetings if he felt led to do so. Accordingly, most Wilbright meetings except Stillwater, that's Benjamin Hoyle's meeting, did permit Gould to appoint special meetings. He spoke with great power At Harrisville, a non-member hearing him wept so copiously that he made a wet spot on the floor, and at New Garden the crowd was so large that many had to stand outside the meeting house.

Speaker 2:

The diary of Aaron Frame, a skilled master carpenter and the stern elder who silenced more than one speaker in meeting and who removed worldly gravestones from the Stillwater Graveyard, suggests that grief and discouragement felt by many friends as they faced the rending of their local meetings At the time of this entry, that's 10-29-1854. He was still young and had a growing family. The entry reads as several weeks have passed since the separation in our yearly meeting took place, the members of both bodies still meet together in our meetings for worship and discipline, nothing official having reached them. As to separation having occurred in the main body and will not until after the next quarterly meeting. How I dread the approach of the time when circumstances will compel us to separate one from another in our subordinate meetings. To behold the rending of our yearly meeting is truly sorrowful to endure. But when it shall reach our small meetings and extend its disastrous consequences into our immediate neighborhoods and families, how can the heart, which is filled with love towards neighbors and friends, do other than bleed and grievously mourn as parting. Thus that ends the entry.

Speaker 2:

An older friend, a minister, from the same monthly meeting left in his diary the following comment Surely the cup of bitterness is past. Surely the cup of bitterness is past, but it seems some have yet to drink the cup of trembling. Never have I been so discouraged about our being a united people. This man's daughter wrote that the separation was a long-felt, keen and bitter trial to his soul, a grief that hung about him with poigency to his dying day. When the separation had finally reached Aaron Frame's monthly meeting, then Short Creek, it was, as recorded in the diary, a solemn time. The Gurney friends remained mostly quiet until after we had finished our business meeting and adjourned, after which, I am informed, they appointed a clerk and proceeded with their business and adjourned their meeting to be held in Mount Pleasant in the future instead of Short Creek.

Speaker 2:

This separation is dividing meeting after meeting and the query arises with me is this the Lord's work, or has the enemy of all good made this sad inroad upon us? Surely there is wrong somewhere, otherwise brethren of the same household of faith would dwell together in unity. Ending that entry, on the next meeting day, aaron Frame wrote sorrowfully about seeing the seats of ministers whom he had loved and respected that would now be vacant forever. Those who later knew Aaron as a stern elder might be surprised that he felt in 1854, there are discouraging features on both sides. He has chosen the Wilbur Friends because of their plainness of dress and consistency of appearance and testimony to friends, as our forefathers were called upon to maintain. He also chose them because of their support of friend schools and abstinence from various places of public resort and other things which the Gurney Friends term but small matters. The choice must not have been easy for Aaron and hundreds of others on both sides. He tells of lying awake at night going over the history of the separation though I hope to be preserved from dwelling too much on these matters Once he dreamed about the separation and once he heard a loud voice yes, the Lord is able, of these stones, to raise up the children unto Abraham. This concludes the reading of Section B, the Separation of 1854, and Chapter 4, the Second Schism 1845-1874, from the Eye of Faith.

Speaker 2:

A History of Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative, by William P Tabor Jr. This podcast that you just heard was a production of Ohio Yearly Meeting. It was read by Kent Palmer. The words from our introduction were written by George Fox in 1653. The music was composed and sung by Paulette Meyer. More information at her website, wwwpaulettemeyercom.

Speaker 1:

Mind that which is eternal, which gathers your hearts together up to the Lord. No-transcript.