By an old record these reasons are given for establishing a meeting: “Ye objects of Religious assn. are to strengthen ye bonds of love, to encourage to good works, to support ye weak, to comfort ye mourners, to watch over one another for good and to reclaim those who have gone astray.”
A few quotes from the minutes of the meetings and a short review of Friends accomplishments in Loudoun may let us see how well they attained “Ye objects of Religious Assn.” The meetings were frank and firm with their members, for when Goose Creek was “informed that Jonathan Bradfield had joined with light company in dancing,” a committee pleaded with him several times to reform his ways and at last upon his not giving satisfaction he was reluctantly dropped from the rolls.
A more unfortunate event is recorded in the business meeting of the 28th of 1st month, 1819: “A testimony was produced against S— N— which was read, approved, and signed being as follows and handed to the Women’s Meeting. S— N— who has a right of membership in the Society of Friends thru in attention to the dictates of Truth in her own Breast hath so far deviated as to be guilty of fornication for which reproachful conduct we deny her any longer a right of membership until she be enabled & make suitable satisfaction for her offence, which is our desire for her.”
Fairfax and Goose Creek records are a mine of genealogical data. Henry B. Taylor in response to the request from a lady out west once sent her what the minutes had to say about her Quaker ancestors. Several had been “kicked out of meeting or been delt with” for drunkness, fighting and adultery. She received his letter and some time later wrote again to Henry, “that she was glad to state that her family had done better since they had joined the Methodists.”
The Meetings took care of their own, for often entries like the following are found in the minutes: “Samuel Nichols, Seir. produced his account of articles furnished for the support of Martha Scott.” Social security was unknown in those days. At Fairfax we find that a committee was appointed to divide the estate of Richard Brown, deceased; to raise a fund to settle the estate of a member who died poor and in debt; to look after the widows and orphans; to see that members paid their debts; to attend to a member “for encouraging the visits of a man not of our Society in Courtship of his daughter”; to reprove a man “for taking off his hat at a courtsmartial to gain favor with the officer in charge.”
Friends in Loudoun owned slaves in the early years and for the first quarter of a century the Fairfax minutes mention only that “Blacks in the home should be well treated,” and “African children” should be given a useful education. In 1790 a committee was appointed “to care for freed slaves.” Later there was considerable opposition against slavery in the meetings, several Friends were disowned for owning slaves. In 1836 a committee “treated” with William Stone for hiring a slave, and in 1856 Mary Jane Hough was disowned for doing the same, though her husband escaped a like fate by saying he was sorry and wouldn’t do it again. It was not until 1818 that the last ownership of slaves by Friends ceased in Virginia. The story is told that John Woolman talked long and earnestly with William Nichols that he free his slaves but when William died in 1804 there were slaves mentioned in the inventory of his estate. My grandfather, Francis Hogue Janney, was disowned for hiring a slave and marrying out of meeting.
A manumission society was organized in the Oak Dale schoolhouse in 1824 for the purpose of sending slaves to Haiti and Africa, though we have no information of any being sent.
It is my understanding that the small colored settlements at Rock Hill and Guinea Bridge were made on land (rocky and poor, it is true) sold cheaply to free negroes by Friends that they might build a home of their own and not be sold back into slavery.
The first county map published in what was once Prince William County was that of Loudoun by the Quaker Yardley Taylor. This work of enduring value was published in 1853 and up to its time was the finest in Virginia. Yardley was a nurseryman and the beautiful spruce trees around Lincoln are his still living legacy to the beauty of Loudoun.
Yardley Taylor was engaged in the underground railroad trade. He was castigated for it in at least one newspaper article in the fifties written in the peculiar vehemence of the time. Samuel M. Janney never said he helped a slave along physically but he was brought before the county court for publishing that “the owners had no right of property in their Slaves.” His Statement to the court, “That the more you keep this subject before the people the more they will be to my way of thinking,” had the desired effect and the indictment was squashed.