Sunday, August 2, 2020
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1109 E Baltimore Pike/Old Kennett Meetinghouse (c 1731)
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Old Kennett Meetinghouse is thought to be one of the oldest extant Friends Meetinghouses in PA. This Kennett Friends Meeting was to experience at least two divisions. First in 1827 was the split of the liberal Hicksites (followers of Elias Hicks) from the conservatives, and the Hicksites remained at this meetinghouse. Later in 1852, the progressives left this meetinghouse to join the Longwood Friends Meeting.
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300 Greenwood Road/Longwood Progressive Friends Meetinghouse (c 1855)
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The Longwood Progressive Friends (i.e., Quakers) Meeting was established by Quakers who had been 'read-out' of their meeting communities because they used the meetinghouse as a platform for secular concerns, such as abolition. Former members of the Kennett Friends Meeting, John and Hannah Cox, used a portion of their land for the Longwood meetinghouse. Many prominent abolitionists spoke to large crowds here before the Civil War, including Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sojourner Truth, and John Greenleaf Whittier. The meetinghouse was also a forum for other social concerns such as women's rights, child labor laws, and temperance.
In 1862, six members of the Longwood Progressive Friends Meeting went to President Abraham Lincoln to present a petition urging emancipation of slaves. Just weeks later, Lincoln presented the first draft of his Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. Did the Longwood petition influence President Lincoln?
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921 E Baltimore Pike/John & Hannah Cox Residence (c 1797)
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This home was situated 20 miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line and was used as a refuge for hundreds of escaped slaves. The Coxes also offered hospitality to speakers who visited Longwood Progressive Friends Meetinghouse.
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735 E Baltimore Pike/Bartholomew Fussell (c 1823)
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Bartholomew Fussell was a Quaker physician who also opened his home to escaped slaves, and the practice continued with subsequent owners of the house, including Dr Sumner Stebbins and Chandler & Hannah Darlington. Prior to moving to PA, Dr Fussell opened a Sabbath School for African American students. He also worked for women's rights, founding the first medical school for women in Philadelphia.
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120 S Willow Street/Harriet Tubman Mural (2010, by Dave Mass and Joey Goetheli)
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119 E Linden Street/Edwin Brosius Residence (1870)
(Seen on the Historic Kennett Square Walking Tour) |
Edwin Brosius owned a pottery factory who not only employed a diverse population, but also assisted escaped slaves by hiding them in false-bottomed wagons when transporting his pottery farther north.
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301 E Linden Street/Bethel African American Methodist Episcopal/AME Church (1895)
(Seen on the Historic Kennett Square Walking Tour)
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309 E Linden Street/New Garden Memorial Union American Methodist Episcopal/
UAME Church (1910-1911) (Seen on the Historic Kennett Square Walking Tour) |
The New Garden Church was originally established in 1825 in the New Garden Township in a community called Bucktoe. When that church was burned down in 1904, the congregation moved here.
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325 E Linden Street/Joseph Carter Residence (1847)
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Joseph Carter was an escaped slave from Virginia. He served in the Civil War and afterwards helped found the Bethel AME Church. Carter also owned mushroom houses.
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The Carter Residence was part of the Pennock Dennison House (1847)
a series of spec row houses built for new workers
of the Samuel Pennock American Road Machine Company |
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361 Marlborough Road/Marlborough Quaker Meetinghouse (c 1801)
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The story of Thomas Mitchell, who was born a slave but had been living as a free African American for 12 years, involved local Quakers. In 1859, Mitchell was kidnapped by slave hunters. The Quakers followed them to Baltimore, and using $600 dollars raised by neighbors, they were able to have Mitchell released from his chains. Later that year the Quakers held an "Indignation Meeting" to express their outrage at slave hunters who often abducted free blacks and forced them into slavery.
In 1852, Oliver Johnson, a Quaker abolitionist, was "scheduled" to speak at the Marlborough Meetinghouse. While Quakers could not hold slaves, they generally believed the meetinghouse was to be used only for spiritual purposes. A meeting consisted of participants gathered in silence for prayer and meditation, and occasionally someone might stand to deliver a message. When the "messages" became secular, the offenders were 'read out' by the community, as happened to Johnson and his supporters. Although done quietly without violence, the disturbance has been called the "Marlborough Riot." This incident precipitated the establishment of the Progressive Friends.
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Typical bucolic Chester County landscape
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716 S Wawaset Road/Eusebius & Sarah Barnard Residence (c 1810)
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An abolitionist and one of the founders of the Longwood Progressive Friends Meeting, Eusebius Barnard often hid escaped slaves in his kitchen before passing them on to the next Underground Railroad station.
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