Joseph John Gurney in Farmington

After 1828, the 1816 Quaker meetinghouse became officially a Hicksite (Quaker) Meetinghouse, but Orthodox Friends continued to use it for large gatherings.

In 1841, British Friend Joseph John Gurney traveled through the U.S. Gurney, son of a wealthy Norwich banker, was an aristocrat and a philanthropist, devoted to antislavery. He visited dignitaries in Washington, including the British ambassador, Senator Henry Clay, Senator John C. Calhoun, and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, trying to convince them that slavery could successfully be abolished, as the British had abolished it in the West Indies.

He also traveled throughout U.S. When he went west across upstate New York, he stopped in Farmington. There he spoke to “a large settlement of Friends.” “Great was the multitude of persons, including many of the Hicksite denomination,” he wrote, “who flocked to our meeting both in the morning and afternoon.” He held several meetings among this “sturdy, intelligent, and prosperous people,” including one in the Hicksite meetinghouse. He had “a memorable time; two large overflowing meetings; that in the afternoon, from the pressure of the multitude, held in the Hicksite meeting-house,” he noted in his journal. “ I think they were good times,” he added, “the truth being triumphant, and Christ fully preached.” [1]

Gurney spent the evening with a “veteran minister” (probably Caleb McCumber), “whose sterling good sense, comprehensive views of Christianity, and fervent piety, are not the less striking for the perfect originality and even quaintness of his manners and appearance.” Gurney, a British aristocrat, could not resist adding that “I give this brief description of our friend because it characterizes the effect produced by divine grace in the midst of he hardy discipline of these rough regions.” When Elizabeth Cady Stanton visited England on her honeymoon the following year, she and her husband Henry B. Stanton stopped to visit Joseph John Gurney. “We spent a few days with John Joseph Gurney at his beautiful home in Norwich,” Stanton remembered in her autobiography. “He had just returned from America, having made a tour through the South. When asked how he liked America, he said, ‘I like everything but your pie crust and your slavery.’"

[1]Joseph John Gurney, A journey in North America, described in familiar letters to Amelia Opie (Norwich [England]: J. Fletcher, 1841), 308-9; Joseph John Gurney, Journal, Rochester, New York, 7 Mo. 28, 1839; Joseph Bevan Braithwaite, ed., Memoirs of Joseph John Gurney (Norwich [England]: Fletcher and Alexander, 1854), 2:173.

Lessor-Known Figures Associated with Farmington

Also important, although less well known, were:

• Caroline C. and William G. Barker (Farmington Quakers, signers of Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments)
• Josephine Brown (African American author) lived in Farmington as a girl
• Darius and Otis Comstock (Farmington Quakers, major Underground Railroad supporters)
• Daniel and Mary Anthony (members of Farmington Quarterly Meeting, abolitionists and woman’s rights supporters), Susan B. Anthony’s parents
• Elias J. and Susan Doty (Farmington Quakers, signers of Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments)
• Jacob Ferris (Farmington Quaker abolitionist lecturer)
• Sunderland P. Gardner (Farmington Quaker minister for 42 years, who preached widely throughout the U.S. and Canada)
• Cassandra Green Hathaway (Farmington teacher, abolitionist, and woman’s rights activist)
• Esther Hathaway (Farmington abolitionist and Underground Railroad, friend of Frederick Douglass)
• Phebe Hathaway (Farmington abolitionist organizer and Underground Railroad supporter, friend of Frederick Douglass)
• Anson S. Lapham (founder of Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College)
• Pliny Sexton (Farmington Quaker, abolitionist, Underground Railroad activist, attended national woman’s rights conventions)
• Asa B. Smith (Farmington Quaker, abolitionist, Underground Railroad activist)
• Catharine Fish Stebbins (born in Farmington, Quaker abolitionist, signer of Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments, friend of Sojourner Truth)
  
• Maria E. Wilbur (Farmington Quaker, signer of Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments).

Important Regional and National Reformers Associated with Farmington

by Judith Wellman, with help from Charles Lenhart and Chris Densmore.

• Susan B. Anthony (Quaker and major woman’s rights leader) spoke in this 1816 meetinghouse in 1873, at the time of her trial for voting

• William Wells Brown (freedom seeker from Kentucky) lived in Farmington from 1844-46 and wrote his autobiography there

• Eliab W. Capron (Farmington Quaker, editor, and signer of Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca Falls woman’s rights convention)

• William Chaplin (major Underground Railroad activist and editor, whose capture in Maryland in 1850 became a focal point of national abolitionist activity)

• Griffith Cooper (Farmington Quaker, Indian rights activist, and Underground Railroad supporter)

• Frederick Douglass (one of the nation’s most important abolitionist editors, lecturers, and freedom seekers) spoke many times in Farmington

• Mary and Emily Edmondson (escaped from slavery after being captured on the Pearl in1848) lived in Farmington before receiving help from Harriet Beecher Stowe to attend Oberlin College

• William Lloyd Garrison (outspoken editor of Boston-based Liberator and anchor of American Anti-Slavery Society) spoke in Farmington

• Joseph John Gurney (British Quaker abolitionist) spoke in Farmington

• Joseph C. Hathaway (Farmington Quaker, lecturer, Underground Railroad supporter, President of Western New York Anti-Slavery Society, President pro tem of first national women’s rights convention in Worcester in 1850)

• Elias Hicks (national Quaker reformer) spoke in Farmington

• Thomas M’Clintock (Quaker abolitionist, woman’s rights advocate, Underground Railroad supporter, organizer of Congregational Friends in Farmington, 1848)

• Myrtilla Miner (set up nationally known school for African American girls in Washington, D.C., based in part on Farmington model)

• Lucretia Mott (nationally known Quaker minister and reformer) spoke many times in Farmington

• Lindley Murray Moore (Clerk of Farmington Quarterly Meeting, Orthodox, and President of Haverford College, 1848-52)

• Amy Post (member of Farmington Quarterly meeting, major woman’s rights activist, abolitionist, and Underground Railroad supporter)

• Gerrit Smith (nationally known abolitionist leader, nominated for President by the Liberty League, meeting just north of Farmington in 1848)

• William R. Smith (nationally important Underground Railroad activist, mentioned in Josiah Henson’s autobiography, ran for Governor of New York State as the Liberty League candidate in 1852)

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton (major woman’s rights leader and organizer of Seneca Falls convention) gave her second major woman’s rights speech in 1816 Farmington meetinghouse

• Austin Steward (nationally important freedom seeker and African American leader) lived in Farmington from 1815-1818