Any attempt to sketch the early history of Ohio Yearly Meeting must begin at the Atlantic seaboard. There began the political organizations and the national life. There were the earliest settlements of Friends and there the members, for mutual strength and encouragement, began to draw together in "general meetings," which soon came to be called Yearly Meetings. John Burnyeat tells of a Yearly Meeting for New England, held at Newport, in 1671, "that all things might be kept sweet and clean." This seems to have been the earliest gathering of the kind in America. Next year, 1672, both John Burnyeat and George Fox were at a general meeting of Friends at West River, in Maryland, and counseled those present, in what proved to be the beginning of Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Some years later, 1681, at Burlington, N. J., a "general meeting" was held, which in time took the name of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, though for more than half a century it alternated between the two cities. Here then are three cardinal dates which it is well to bear in mind. There were Friends in other parts, but they organized as Yearly Meetings at somewhat later periods.
    Not until disastrous Indian wars had forced the tribes to reservations, or driven them toward the Mississippi, was there any pronounced movement of Friends to the west. Inasmuch as William Penn's original grant of land extended "five degrees" westward from the Delaware, and wars had been less continuous and devastating in Pennsylvania than in other colonies, the earliest Friendly migrations were to localities now included in the extreme western part of that State.
    Historians are careful to point out that the westward movement of population was on geographical lines, and the people

carried their political, social and religious ideas with them. Thus, it is said, that certain fundamental principles in the making of state constitutions can be traced from Massachusetts and Connecticut far to the west, in the northern tier of states. Similarly South Carolina put her impress on the states in the southern tier, A strict application of this rule would have sent North Carolina and Virginia Friends into Tennessee and Kentucky. But in this and other cases, the antislavery feeling caused them to deflect to the north.
    Historians are probably correct in their deductions, but the average American was an independent thinker, and Friends took a serious view of the matter of seeking out new homes. Hence there were many exceptions to the geographical rule. The Updegraff (Opp-den Graeff) name first appears in Germantown, Penna., in the time of Francis Daniel Pastorius, but half a century later occurs in Virginia and soon after in eastern Ohio. The Foulkes, of Gwynedd, Pa., sent a branch to the most southern Quarterly Meeting in Ohio. Jonathan Taylor, of Bucks Co., Pa., went first to Winchester, Va., thence to Ohio, and was well known after 1800 in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood. The Janneys also were a Bucks County family and sent a strong branch to Virginia and another to Ohio.
    No actual date can be given for the first crossing of the Alleghanies by members of the Society of Friends. It is known that there were members at Uniontown, Fayette County, Pa., as early as 1769. in the year 1773 Zebulon Heston and John Parrish were on a mission to Indians in the west, and on their return, had one or more meetings with the members in those parts.
    The states of Virginia and North Carolina were more or less devastated during the Revolutionary war, and this circumstance may have stimulated Friends to seek homes far from the contested areas. Certain it is that an increasing number began to move to the west. Hopewell Monthly Meeting in Virginia was a distinct loser from this source and moreover was concerned for the welfare of the departing members. They reported to their Quarterly Meeting in 1776 that eighteen families had thus removed. The uneasiness continued and presently a committee was sent to investigate the conditions.

rington and Fairfax Quarterly Meeting, gave sanction to other changes, which in course were duly authorized. Westland became a Monthly Meeting, Redstone a Preparative Meeting, and the Monthly Meeting for a time alternated between these two places. Providence Meeting was set up in a few years, and that with Redstone formed Redstone Monthly Meeting. Thomas Scattergood, of Philadelphia, mentions four Particular Meetings as early as 1786. Martha Routh, a few years later, mentions two Monthly Meetings and eight Particular Meetings. A majority of the members of these meetings came from the limits of Baltimore Yearly Meeting and the discipline of that body was used. Mention is made in one place of the use of Philadelphia discipline.
    In earlier days there were no well defined rules as to territorial limits in the setting up of meetings. Some confusion resulted. Philadelphia had reached out to the South and West, so that Warrington and Fairfax, about to become separate Quarters, belonged to that Yearly Meeting, as indicated by the Minute quoted on a previous page. Baltimore, or as it was then called, Maryland Yearly Meeting, already had established some meetings to the North and West, reaching into the state of Pennsylvania. In the year 1790, after a great deal of correspondence and committee labor, an amicable arrangement was consummated which is thus expressed in the Philadelphia minutes (Tenth Month 3, 1789), and in substance in the Minutes of all other organizations involved in the transaction:
    "That the Quarterly Meetings of Warrington and Fairfax, after this Yearly Meeting, be considered as branches of the Yearly Meeting for Maryland, and the Monthly Meetings of Duck Creek, Motherkill and Deer Creek, after receiving the Extracts from the Minutes of this Yearly Meeting, through the Western Quarterly Meeting, the two former unite with the Quarterly Meeting on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and that Quarter henceforth to report to this meeting agreeable to the conclusion of the Yearly Meeting of Maryland, and the latter

in like manner to unite with the Quarterly Meeting held in Baltimore Town and become a branch thereof." About this time the name Maryland Yearly Meeting was officially changed to Baltimore. This digression has seemed necessary, in order to explain the frequent references to Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
    The first sitting of Redstone in a Monthly Meeting capacity was on the twenty-sixth of Fourth Month, 1793. The first Clerk was James McGrew. Both here and at Westland, for a considerable period, the time of the meeting was much occupied with receiving Certificates of Removal for the Friends who, in increasing numbers, moved into that part of the country. Westland was the older meeting and better known. It became a prevailing custom with all who sought homes beyond the mountains to deposit their certificates at Westland while they prospected in the surrounding country. The extension to these of any degree of disciplinary care and the supervision of the frequent marriages, entailed a heavy burden on the meetings. The prevailing tone, however, was one of great hopefulness, and the outlook every way encouraging.
    With a membership which increased with almost bewildering rapidity, it was natural that Westland and Redstone began to think of a Quarterly Meeting. Baltimore Yearly Meeting in 1794 had such a proposition under care, but got no further than to appoint a Committee to visit the western meetings and "feel after their situation." This Committee reported favorably in 1795, but the meeting appointed another delegation, including some women Friends, to visit the meetings and "if the subject shall appear clear to them to report to our next Yearly Meeting the times when and the place or places where it will be best to open and hold the said Quarterly Meeting, and the name by which it shall be distinguished."
    For some reason this Committee did not report until 1 797, when the Yearly Meeting finally agreed to the establishment of another Quarterly Meeting to be called Redstone, and to be held alternately at that place and at Westland.
    The body thus constituted held its first meeting on the fifth

of Third Month, 1798. Joseph Townsend was the first Clerk. When Baltimore Yearly Meeting convened in the Ninth Month of that year, the new Quarterly Meeting was represented by Rees Cadwallader, Jonas Catlett, John Cadwallader, Jacob Griffith, Jacob Ong, William Heald and James Mendenhall. As Baltimore was in some sense the parent of Yearly Meetings west of the mountains, so Redstone became the parent of organizations which sprang up in the near west.*