Sadsbury Monthly Meeting

From "The Monthly Meeting of SADSBURY" pamphlet (Copyright © 2004 Sam Bradley):

William Penn intended to "plant the seed of a nation." On the American land of his province he intended a Holy Experiment, a blending of peoples who sought to get away from European wars and poor economic conditions and religious and political persecution. He journeyed into the interior of his province and made a treaty with Indians at Gap in 1700. South of there, he located a tract of one thousand acres, the William Penn tract which included an Indian village.

On another one thousand and fifty acres, called the Servants' Land, Penn marked off other land. On it, the town of Christiana now stands. Original settlers in Sadsbury Township were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and Friends. Friends attended the New Garden Monthly Meeting of Chester Quarterly Meeting. Among newcomers to that meeting was Andrew Moore from northern Ireland , who asked permission to build a new meeting house in 1724. In 1725, it was built and was called Sadsbury. Overseers of this preparatory meeting were Andrew Moore and John Walter.

Other Friends of this new meeting were Samuel Miller, who had petitioned with Andrew Moore for its founding, James Moore, Nail Mooney, Anthony Shaw, Isaac Taylor, James Clemson, Jane Jones and daughter, Sarah Metcalf, John Truman, Asahel Walker and Calvin Cooper. Soon after them came various families such as the Pownells, the Brintons, the Williams, the Whitsons, the Chamberlains, the Slokoms, the Sprouls, the Guests, the Simmons and the Livingstons.

Two decades passed and numbers of Friends increased. So, in 1747, a larger meeting house was built: the present stone building. Its second story had, originally, high galleries. During the Revolutionary War, the woodwork was burned; Joseph Guest restored the meeting house, putting a ceiling where the galleries had been.

Sadsbury Monthly Meeting (organized in 1737) was of Chester Quarter until 1756, then of Western Quarter until 1800, and thereafter of Caln Quarter. Early records tell little enough of property or, for that matter, of Quakerism. Looking over some ten years of the first records, Thaddeus Harry noted that records were concerned with individuals, appointment of representatives, requests for marriage, marriages outside the society, and even with swearing and drunkenness. Names found often were, besides Andrew Moore and his sons James, David and William, Martha Walton, Benjamin Miller, Samuel Miller, Joseph Pownell, Moses Brinton, George Beyer and John Walter. One year the meeting collection was 15 shillings, half of which went to Quarterly Meeting.

Cost of the original tract granted by Thomas and Richard Penn, sons of William, in 1749, was eight pounds and a few shillings, and was some 56 acres to be held in trust for the people called Quakers. Finding that the log meeting house was not on this tract, meeting elders bought four acres from the Servants Tract; on this four acres stands the present meeting house and once stood the old schoolhouse. When the public road was straightened in 1907, the schoolhouse was torn down. Sarah Guest was one of the early teachers. Friends also, in 1893-94, operated a college preparatory school for about fifty scholars. Among its teachers were Luella Passmore and Viola K. Eastburn.

Prior to the Civil War, prominent Friends used their homes as stations on the Underground Railroad: such men as Samuel Brinton, Thomas Whitson, Lindley Coates, and Dr. Joseph Gibbons. The anti-slavery activity culminated in what is known as the Christiana Riot, which occurred in 1851. Friends were active in the Civil War as well.

A "town" meeting house in Christiana was built in 1903, and to pay for it part of the fifty-six acres granted by Penn's sons was sold. Aid was given by the Samuel Jeans Fund. But at the new location the meeting did not prosper. Eventually, the old meeting house, vacated in 1903, was claimed again by Friends, and was remodeled under the leadership of the trustees: George Jackson, chairman; Elizabeth Brinton, Wayne Webster, Clifford KreisI, Leigh Walton and Mary Louise Maule. The clerk, Mary Joyce Walton, began holding meetings in the remodeled building in 1974. In 1975, the meeting house is being rededicated.

The meeting house in Christiana was bought by some of the Maple Grove Mennonites, who much earlier, around 1900, had rented the now-being-rededicated Sadsbury meeting house as a place to make their beginnings. Friends are proud of the association.

As Penn made bond with the Indians, so would we with all men. "We will be as brethren, your people and my people, as children of one father." To each other, "all the paths shall be open." When a wrong is righted, "the wrong shall be forgotten." "We will transmit this league between us to our children. It shall be made stronger and stronger, and be kept bright and clean without spot or rust, between our children and our children's children, while the creeks and the rivers run, and while the sun, moon, and stars endure." And Penn added, "We will go along the broad pathway of goodwill to each other together."

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