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Weekly News July 30, 2012Description
A Brief History of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers): I used to consider myself an active member of the Society of Friends. Ruth and I were married in a Quaker ceremony in the Hockessin Friends Meeting House, with about 150 friends and relatives packed inside. There was never a connection between Quakers and Shakers, or between Quakers and the Amish, although 18th- and 19th-century Quaker women wore bonnets, and men wore plain black suits with hats not unlike the Amish. The tradition came from the original opposition to frivolity and lavish dress as exemplified by society in 17th-century England. George Fox, considered the founder of Quakerism in the early 1650s, and William Penn, its most famous early supporter who persuaded King Charles II to give him a large land grant in America, both spent time in English jails because of their opposition to the Church of England and its authority. Both traveled far and wide, in and outside England, not easy in the 17th century, and their message of religious freedom was popular, especially among the middle and lower classes. Penn’s first visit to his new colony along the Delaware was in 1682, a few years after the first British Quakers had settled in West Jersey (Burlington, Camden, etc.).
Although Penn invited all people seeking religious freedom to settle in Pennsylvania, British Quakers outnumbered all others, especially near his new capital at Philadelphia. Since farming was their primary livelihood, they spread out to the surrounding countryside, and new Quaker Meetings sprang up in many rural places. John Marshall, whose family had been converted to Quakerism in Derbyshire 25 years earlier, arrived at the mouth of Darby Creek in 1683 and was married in the Darby Quaker Meeting House in 1688. One of his sons named Thomas (1694-1740) moved west and established himself as one of the leading citizens of Concordville. Thomas’s youngest son John moved on west in 1759 and bought land in Kennett Township, Chester County, where the two branches of Red Clay Creek converge. To members of his family, he was called “John of Kennett.” A public road from his farm to Hockessin Friends Meeting House, built in 1738 and just over two miles away, meant that his branch of Marshalls belonged to Hockessin Meeting for several generations.
Although Quakers were known to live the “simple life,” they were fiscally conservative, and some amassed large fortunes, both in England and in this country. Until the mid-20th century, the three largest chocolate companies in England were owned by Quakers. Philadelphia Quakers were known for their elaborate resort hotels, such as the Inn at Buck Hill Falls, Pocono Manor Inn, and Skytop Lodge, all in the Poconos, the Marlborough-Blenheim, the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall, and the Hotel Dennis in Atlantic City, and Galen Hall near Wernersville west of Reading, Pennsylvania. The Smiley family, Quakers from Providence, Rhode Island, and Poughkeepsie, New York, opened the Lake Mohonk Mountain House (in the Catskills) in 1870 and are still operating it today.
Quakers were prominent in early education. About 1790, the first school in the Hockessin area was established next to the Quaker Meeting House, and the second Friends School there was an octagonal schoolhouse that functioned until the Hockessin Public School opened in 1869. In Wilmington, the Quaker Meeting there established a Friends School in 1748, which continues to operate as a day school with about 600 students. Westtown School in Chester County, still going strong, was the first co-ed boarding school in the country when it opened in 1799.
Work Report: Early in the week, Bill Rule got a new water pump and installed it on the ’87 Ford pick-up truck, so that vehicle, owned by the state but available for use by F.A.H.P., is back in service. Jerry Novak and Steve Bryce, master carpenters, moved the partition and the “hands-on” exhibit in the museum, and prepared and hung a new banner, a life-size picture of the Model EX, next to the exhibit and the car itself. This ties in with the memorial to Joey Boxler, as it did previously. Jerry installed the rebuilt fuel pump on our 1932 Packard, drove it five miles, and reported that this special car ran very well. Richard Bernard and Peter Parlett completed the next-to-last week of the Auburn Heights Steam Course at the Osher School (formerly Life-Long Learning at the Univ. of Delaware), with participation from several F.A.H.P. volunteers. Kelly Williams did a firing-up demonstration with the Model 87 for visiting members of the EMF Club and gave five of them a ride. Our museum docent Dan Muir assisted Kelly and the staff with tours of the museum and the mansion.
At the Tuesday work session, with 17 members present, minor mechanical maintenance was completed on the Rauch & Lang, significant progress was made on the 1914 Stanley Model 607, including the placing of the boiler in the chassis, and the feed water heater was removed and tested from the Model 76. The original brass pipe in this heater appears to be in good condition, and the serious leak was in one of the flare fittings at the rear of the heater. Work was done on the whistle valve of the Model 725, and the front truck of Locomotive 402 was discovered to be out of place, which was easily corrected, and all the springs and equalizing bars on this locomotive were put back in their correct positions. Spare parts taken to the Vermont Steam Car tour were properly stored for future use.
On Thursday, with 13 volunteers on hand, more assembling was done on the 607, a low track joint was raised on the A.V.R.R., the partially-clogged vaporizer was cleared on the Model 740, and the feed water heater for the 76 was repaired by making three new 3/8-inch copper “loops.” After a thorough cleaning, the heater and surrounding flue should be ready for installation on the car.
Tuesday’s volunteers were Steve Bryce (in charge), Jay Williams, Richard Bernard, Butch Cannard, Bill Schwoebel, Bob Stransky, Bob Jordan, Art Wallace, Ted Kamen, Robert Hopkins, Paul Kratunis, Tim Ward, Tim Nolan, Dave Leon, Emil Christofano, Jeff Pollock, and Tom Marshall. On Thursday, the following were on hand: Richard Bernard, Rose Ann Hoover, Ed Paschall, Eugene Maute, Gerhard Maute, Paul Kratunis, Bob Jordan, Butch Cannard, Steve Bryce, Art Wallace, Jerry Novak, Dave Leon, and Tom Marshall (in charge).
