Yearly Meetings
One-paragraph descriptions for each yearly meeting in North America, with links to websites
Extracted and built from Monthly Meetings in North America: A Quaker Index, fourth edition, revised, and updated.
An attempt to record basic historical information (former name, parent bodies, location, meeting genealogy, records-storage locations, records known extant) about every monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends that has ever existed in North America.
YEARLY MEETINGS INCLUDED
(The main body of the Index uses the shortened names capitalized or the abbreviations underlined below.)
ALASKA Friends Conference [http://alaskafriends.org/] opened as Alaska Yearly Meeting in 1957, changed its name in 1969 to Central Alaska Friends Conference and adopted its present name in 1999. Friends General Conference admitted it to membership 1960/10/05.
ALASKA Yearly Meeting of Friends Church [http://www.akyearlymeeting.org/] opened 1970/07/17, set off by California Yearly Meeting (now Evangelical Friends Church, Southwest). It was an associate member of Evangelical Friends Missions after 1985 and joined in founding EFI in 1989. The Yearly Meeting stores its records in Kotzebue, Alaska.
The Alaska Yearly Meeting of Friends that is affiliated with FGC changed its name in 1967 to Central Alaska Friends Conference and then in 1999 to Alaska Friends Conference.
The Asociatión Religiosa de los Amigos en el Noreste de México, R.A. (in English, "Religious Association of Friends in the Northeast of Mexico") organized in 1996 to act for the Friends churches in Tamaulipas and neighboring Mexican states that did not choose to join ARIEA.
The Asociación Religiosa de las Iglesias Evangélicas de los Amigos, R. A. (in English, "Religious Association of Evangelical Friends Churches") opened 1993/06/28 as the yearly meeting for Mexican churches established under the care of Evangelical Friends Mission or of Friends Church, Southwest Yearly Meeting, now Evangelical Friends Church Southwest.
The ATLANTIC FRIENDS CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES [http://atlanticfriends.org/] organized in 2015 and held its first Annual Assembly in 2016 for local meetings that had withdrawn from North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM). Its member congregations' records remain at the Quaker Archives [https://library.guilford.edu/archives], Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina, or at one of the local meetings.
BALTIMORE Yearly Meeting [http://www.bym-rsf.org/] (A) opened 1672/04 as the Half
Yearly Meeting held [alternately] at West River and "Tredhaven" (Third Haven), (B) became Maryland
Half-Yearly Meeting in 1763, (C) began to hold only one annual meeting in 1774, (D) adopted the name
"The Yearly Meeting of Friends held in Baltimore Town for the Western Shore of Maryland and Adjacent
Areas of Pennsylvania and Virginia" (commonly rendered as "Baltimore Yearly Meeting") in 1790 when
it transferred the Eastern Shore Quarterly Meeting to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and accepted the
transfer of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Fairfax and Warrington Quarterly Meetings, (E) accepted
the transfer of Nottingham Quarterly Meeting from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1819, (F) separated
1828/10 into [1] Hicksite (later FGC) and [2] Orthodox (later FUM)
branches, and (G) reunited by filing "Articles of Consolidation" effective 1968/01/02. (While the
two branches consolidated into a single Baltimore Yearly Meeting, for about 30 years monthly
meetings were allowed to choose to join the FGC Section, the FUM Section or both. In the 1998
Fourth Edition, Revised, I described the Yearly Meeting as "CONSOLIDATED" only for
monthly meetings that had joined both Sections.)
[2] In 1844 the Orthodox (later FUM) branch accepted as Virginia Half-Yearly
Meeting the meetings and property of Virginia Yearly Meeting when that body laid itself down.
[3] BALTIMORE Yearly Meeting (PRIMITIVE) consisted of the Nottingham
Quarterly Meeting and, briefly, a branch of Baltimore Quarterly Meeting that separated 1854/10/24
from Baltimore Yearly Meeting (Orthodox, later FUM) when the larger body accepted the epistle from
the Gurneyite branch of Ohio Yearly Meeting. The Primitive Yearly Meeting laid itself down
1868/10/21, and the Primitive Quarterly Meeting last met 1868/11/13. The General Meeting of Men and
Women Primitive Friends for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland on 1868/09/09 agreed to accept its
one remaining monthly meeting, but by that time the West Nottingham Particular Meeting of Nottingham
& Little Britain MM had affiliated with New Garden MM (Orthodox) in Philadelphia (Orthodox) YM.
That congregation eventually became Colora MM in 1945.
[1] The Hicksite Yearly Meeting stored its records at the Baltimore, Stony
Run meetinghouse until it deposited them in Friends Historical Library [http://trilogy.brynmawr.edu/speccoll/bym/BYMindex.htm],
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, in 1967-1969.
[2] The Orthodox Yearly Meeting stored its records and those from Virginia
Yearly Meeting at the Homewood Meeting in Baltimore until it deposited them in the Quaker Collection
[http://www.haverford.edu/library/], Haverford
College, Haverford, Pennsylvania, in the 1960s.
[3] The Haverford Quaker Collection also holds the known records of the
Primitive meetings, and Haverford has made microfilm copies for itself and FHL.
[1] and [2] The Consolidated Yearly Meeting decided that, as a general rule,
the Maryland Hall of Records should continue to microfilm all records (until the Yearly Meeting
declined to pay the charge for that service sometime before 1993) and then it would deposit records
of the FUM meetings at Haverford and records of the FGC and united meetings at FHL. Phebe R.
Jacobsen, Quaker Records in Maryland (1966), lists all the microfilmed records and
their reel numbers at the Hall of Records in Annapolis as of that time and provides excellent
historical sketches. Bliss Forbush, A History of Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends
(1972), contains the authorized history, maps and some data on monthly meetings. Jay Worrall, Jr.,
The Friendly Virginians: America's First Quakers (1994), discusses all the meetings of
any branch and many individual Friends in Virginia, covering most of Baltimore's Fairfax Quarterly
Meeting. I based the references herein principally on (in order of my use) Stephen B. Weeks,
Southern Quakers and Slavery (1896) [available on-line at [http://books.google.com/books?id=2uM6AAAAIAAJ]],
the unpublished work of the late Willna Ann Uebrick-Pachelli, Meetings in Baltimore and
Virginia Yearly Meetings (1989 revision)[with a PDF copy now available at most
Quaker-college libraries], the Yearly Meetings' printed minutes, Jacobsen's list, and a review of
microfilm records at FHL [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html],
the Hall of Records, or Haverford [http://www.haverford.edu/library/].
California Yearly Meeting changed its name 1986/07/12 to Friends Church, Southwest Yearly Meeting and 2001/01 to Evangelical Friends Church Southwest [http://www.efcsw.org/].
CANADA Yearly Meeting opened 1867/06/28, consisting of the Pelham, Yonge Street and
West Lake Quarterly Meetings set off by the Orthodox branch of New York Yearly Meeting. Beginning
1881/02/10, the Conservatives separated and met under the same name.
[1] The Progressive branch joined in founding FUM.
[2] The CONSERVATIVE branch on 1916/06/23 accepted the Primitive branch of
Scipio Quarterly Meeting that constituted New York Yearly Meeting at Poplar Ridge until 1896. On
1955/06/24, both branches (except the FUM branch of Pelham Quarterly Meeting) "amalgamated" with
Genesee Yearly Meeting as Canadian Yearly Meeting but maintained their separate formal existence and
continued to deal with their established funds. The FUM branch of Pelham Quarterly Meeting
transferred in 1959 to Ohio Yearly Meeting (Gurneyite) [now EFC - Eastern Region] rather than
participate in Canadian Yearly Meeting with the other branches. The Canadian Yearly Meeting
paragraph below contains details on records storage and microfilm copies.
CANADIAN Yearly Meeting [http://www.quaker.ca/] opened 1955/06/24 upon the "amalgamation" of Canada (Conservative) Yearly Meeting, Canada (FUM) Yearly Meeting, and Genesee Yearly Meeting [a member of FGC], following the Young Friends' example (since 1936) of holding one yearly meeting for all branches. It continued its predecessors' memberships in FGC and FUM. The Yearly Meeting has deposited most of its and its predecessors' records in the Dorland Friends Historical Collection, Pickering College, Newmarket, Ontario, with the older records microfilmed in 1974 by the Archives of Ontario (collection Ms 303) and positive prints of the microfilm maintained at Pickering College, the University of Western Ontario, the Archives of Ontario and the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore ("FHL") [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html]. The "CYM" microfilm reel numbers herein refer to the 1974 filming and several small supplemental filmings. Arthur G. Dorland wrote both major histories of the Friends and monthly meetings in Canada: A History of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in Canada (1927) and The Quakers in Canada: A History (1968). However, Dorland did not include the meetings in New York and Michigan that once belonged to Genesee or to Canada (Conservative) Yearly Meetings. Even before the formation of Canadian Yearly Meeting, its predecessor Yearly Meetings deposited most of their U.S. meeting records in the New York Yearly Meeting Archives, moved in 1997 to FHL.
CENTRAL Yearly Meeting of Friends Church [http://www.centralyearlymeetingoffriends.org/] opened 1926/09/17, composed of Union Quarterly Meeting organized 1924/02/23 and Eastern Indiana Union Quarterly Meeting organized 1926/07/17. Most members withdrew from meetings in Western (FUM) Yearly Meeting or Indiana (FUM) Yearly Meeting, but no monthly meeting moved intact from either group to Central Yearly Meeting. The Yearly Meeting stores its and certain subordinate-meeting records at the Yearly Meeting Campgrounds near Muncie, Indiana. Most quarterly and monthly meeting records are still held locally. The 50th anniversary publication, History of Central Yearly Meeting of Friends Church (1976), contains helpful histories of the local meetings.
Evangelical Friends Church EASTERN REGION [http://www.efcer.org/] opened 1813/08/14 as Ohio Yearly Meeting (set off from Baltimore Yearly Meeting), continued as the Orthodox branch following the separation 1828/09/08, continued as the Gurneyite branch following the separation 1854/09/05, accepted the transfer of Alum Creek Quarterly Meeting from Indiana (FUM) Yearly Meeting in 1856, accepted the transfer of Adrian Quarterly Meeting from New York (FUM) Yearly Meeting in 1869, accepted the transfer of the two congregations of Rhode Island Monthly Meeting from New England Yearly Meeting in 1951, accepted the transfer of Pelham Quarterly Meeting from Canada (FUM) Yearly Meeting in 1959, and changed its name to the present one 1971/08/26. It joined in founding EFA in 1965 and the succeeding EFI in 1989. The Yearly Meeting stores its and many monthly-meeting records in the Friends Archives, Everett L. Cattell Library [http://www.malone.edu/1275], Malone University, Canton, Ohio. In 1987, the Center for Archival Collections at Bowling Green State University microfilmed for the Genealogical Society of Utah the monthly-meeting records at Malone and other records gathered for this purpose. (In addition, the Ohio Historical Society microfilmed certain pre-separation records of Ohio meetings while microfilming in 1991 and 1992 the records of the Wilburite branch of Ohio Yearly Meeting.) The Yearly Meeting's two anniversary booklets, Quaker Sesqui-Centennial: 1812-1962 (1962) and A Heritage to Save, A Future to Serve (1987), trace the quarterly and monthly meeting histories.
Evangelical Friends Church MID-AMERICA [http://www.efcmaym.org/] opened 1872/10/11 as Kansas Yearly Meeting (set off by Indiana Yearly Meeting-Orthodox), constituted the larger or "Progressive" branch in the separation beginning 1879/10/11, adopted the name Mid-America Yearly Meeting in 1978, and adopted the present name in 2001. It joined in founding FUM in 1902 but withdrew in 1937. It joined in founding EFA in 1965 and EFI in 1989. The Edmund Stanley Library, Friends University, Wichita, Kansas [http://www.friends.edu/library/SpecialCollections/default.asp] houses the Yearly Meeting Archives. The Yearly Meeting has had several histories, such as (A) Sheldon Glenn Jackson, The Quakers in Kansas, (B) Henry C. & Melissa S. Fellow, Semi-Centennial Historical Sketch of Kansas Yearly Meeting of Friends, and (C) Vera J. Casado, Kansas Yearly Meeting in Panorama(1946). The late Elaine A. Maack, Mid-America Yearly Meeting Archivist and Curator of the Quaker Collection for Friends University, compiled much of the information herein, and I supplemented the entries after a review of the minutes.
Evangelical Friends Church SOUTHWEST [http://www.efcsw.org/] opened 1895/03/26 as California Yearly Meeting, set off from the Progressive, now FUM, branch of Iowa Yearly Meeting, changed its name to Friends Church, Southwest Yearly Meeting 1986/07/12, and adopted its current name 2001/01. It joined in founding FUM in 1902, but it withdrew from FUM by Yearly Meeting action 1993/06/17. It joined EFI effective 1996/01/01. The Yearly Meeting keeps its and certain subordinate-body records in a vault at the Yearly Meeting office in Whittier, California. The 75th Anniversary history, David C. LeShana, Quakers in California: The Effects of 19th Century Revivalism on Western Quakerism(1969), traced the background and founding of the Yearly Meeting, separately referencing several monthly meetings.
Evangelical Friends International [http://www.evangelicalfriends.org/] opened in 1989 as the broader-based successor to the Evangelical Friends Alliance organized in 1965. (EFA in turn grew out of the Association of Evangelical Friends, in which individuals had membership.) EFI coordinates mission and publication work for its member yearly meetings but does not have direct oversight of yearly or monthly meetings. The current North American member yearly meetings are Alaska, ARIEA, Eastern Region, Mid-America, Northwest, Rocky Mountain and Southwest.
FRIENDS CHURCH OF NORTH CAROLINA [http://friendschurchnc.org/], comprised of former congregations in North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM), opened 2018/08/03 to /05 as one result of the NCYM, Inc. 2017/08/05 reorganization. Its congregations' records remain at the Quaker Archives [http://library.guilford.edu/quakerrecords], Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina, or at one of the local meetings.
The Friends General Conference [http://www.fgcquaker.org/] was organized 1900/08/22 by the "Hicksite" yearly meetings at that time: Baltimore, Genesee, Illinois, Indiana (now Ohio Valley), Ohio, New York and Philadelphia. Even prior to 1900, those yearly meetings had cooperated in several types of work, including a Joint Committee on Isolated Friends that supported the formation of worship and discussion groups in cities where no Hicksite yearly meeting exercised active supervision. Beginning in the 1970s, FGC's Advancement & Outreach Committee assumed the direct care of certain monthly meetings when the FWCC's Section of the Americas laid down its New Meetings Committee. The following yearly meetings and "conferences" presently belong to FGC: Baltimore, Canadian, Alaska Friends Conference, Illinois, Lake Erie, New England, New York, Northern, Ohio Valley, Philadelphia, South Central, Southeastern and Southern Appalachian. FGC treats the Piedmont Friends Fellowship (joined 1975/04/13) as a yearly meeting, but this Index treats it as a quarterly meeting of FGC itself. A few monthly meetings have in recent years taken direct membership in FGC, sometimes while concurrently members of a yearly meeting not in FGC membership. FGC has deposited its records at the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/ead/4025frge.xml].
The Friends United Meeting [http://www.fum.org/] opened as the Five Years Meeting in 1902 with membership of most of the "Orthodox" yearly meetings in existence at that time: Baltimore, California (now E.F.C. Southwest), Canada, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas (now E.F.C. Mid-America), New England, New York, North Carolina, Oregon (now Northwest), Western and Wilmington. It changed its name to FUM in 1965, and its current North American member yearly meetings are: Baltimore, Canadian, Great Plains, Indiana, Iowa, New England, New York, North Carolina, Western and Wilmington, plus the Western Association of the Religious Society of Friends. FUM considers itself an association of yearly meetings and rarely accepts direct oversight of monthly meetings. However, one of FUM's predecessors, the American Friends Board of Foreign Missions, helped coordinate missionary work in Mexico, and FUM continues sponsorship of the monthly meeting in Ciudad Victoria and had records related to some of the monthly meetings in Mexico. FUM stores some records in the Quaker Archives of the Lilly Library [http://www.earlham.edu/~libr/quaker/], Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana.
The Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas, [http://www.fwccamericas.org/] was organized in 1938 as the American Section of the Friends World Committee for Consultation. It succeeded, by virtue of a merger effective 1954/01/23, the American Friends Fellowship Council, organized in 1936 more or less under the sponsorship of the American Friends Service Committee to nurture groups of Friends that were not under the care of established meetings. The Executive Committee of the Council (later the Section), on recommendation of the New Meetings Committee, "recognized" more than 60 groups as monthly meetings. Nearly all the monthly meetings so established eventually joined yearly meetings, where many have deposited their records, and FWCC laid down this function in the 1972. FWCC's records deposited in the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html] include records of the New Meetings Committee, the Executive Committee and the Fellowship Council.
GENESEE Yearly Meeting opened 1834/06, set off from the Hicksite branch of New York Yearly Meeting. The Congregational Friends (sometimes called "Progressives") in its Scipio, Farmington and Michigan Quarterly Meetings separated 1848/10/06, forming three new "yearly meetings": The Scipio Quarterly Meeting group of Congregational Friends, principally the Junius Monthly Meeting, organized 1849/06/04 as Waterloo Yearly Meeting and eventually adopted the name Friends of Human Progress; the Farmington Quarterly Meeting group, principally from Collins Monthly Meeting, met for several years as the North Collins Yearly Meeting; the Congregational Friends in Genesee's Michigan Quarterly Meeting refused to accept the discontinuance of the Quarterly Meeting in 1848 and organized the Michigan Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends 1849/02. Genesee joined in founding FGC. It "amalgamated" with the FUM and Conservative branches of Canada Yearly Meeting into Canadian Yearly Meeting 1955/06/24. Its yearly meeting and many monthly meeting records are in the Canadian Yearly Meeting Archives, Dorland Friends Historical Collection, Pickering College, Newmarket, Ontario. The subordinate body records for the former Michigan and western New York meetings were deposited with the records of New York Yearly Meeting, originally at the Haviland Records Room of New York Yearly Meeting, New York, New York, but moved in 1997 to the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/friends/NYYM/NYYMindex.htm].
GREAT PLAINS Yearly Meeting [http://www.greatplainsyearlymeeting.org/] opened 1908/06/04 as Nebraska Yearly Meeting, set off from Iowa (FUM) Yearly Meeting by action of the Five Years Meeting (now FUM) 1907/10/19, including a few meetings originally in Kansas (now Mid-America) Yearly Meeting. It adopted the name Great Plains Y.M. effective 2002/01/01. It has remained a member of FUM. It set off the majority of its quarterly meetings and 21 of its 27 monthly meetings 1957/06/21 to establish Rocky Mountain Yearly Meeting. Skarstad, FRACTION: THINGS GET BROKEN -- A History of Nebraska Yearly Meeting of Friends 1947-1957 (1981), traces the 1957 separation, with focus on the Denver meetings. A few meetings store their records at Friends University, Wichita, Kansas [http://www.friends.edu/library/SpecialCollections/default.asp], and Central City Monthly Meeting has deposited Yearly Meeting, Platte Valley Quarterly Meeting and several monthly meetings' records at the Nebraska State Historical Society in Lincoln, Nebraska, in manuscript collection MS3639. Because several quarterly meetings transferred intact to Rocky Mountain Yearly Meeting, the Rocky Mountain Archivist now holds most pre-1957 quarterly-meeting and many pre-1957 monthly-meeting records, and RMYM meetings hold the records of many local meetings that were discontinued under Nebraska Yearly Meeting prior to 1957. The Nebraska State Historical Society also holds the Heiss typescripts of Hinshaw genealogical cards for eight of the Nebraska monthly meetings. I based several of the entries herein on J. Evelyn Mott, History of Friends in Nebraska Leading Up to the Establishment of the Yearly Meeting (ms 1927), supplemented through a review of the original minutes at the Nebraska State Historical Society or in the Rocky Mountain Yearly Meeting archives.
GREEN PLAIN Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends first met 1848/10/28 at the call of the Green Plain Quarterly Meeting that separated in 1843 from Indiana Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) [now Ohio Valley YM]. Copies of its printed minutes for three or four years survive, but I have found no evidence of any manuscript Yearly Meeting minutes or records. Some of the records of the Ohio Valley Y.M. meetings that suffered congregational separations cover the period when the larger portion only reported to the Congragational body.
ILLINOIS Yearly Meeting [http://www.ilym.org] opened 1875/09/13, consisting of the Blue River Quarterly Meeting set off 1874/09/18 from Indiana Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) [now Ohio Valley Y.M.] and the Prairie Grove Quarterly Meeting set off 1874/10/26 from Baltimore Yearly Meeting (Hicksite, later FGC). It joined in founding FGC. The Yearly Meeting deposited its earliest records at the Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/friends/RG2/illym.xml], Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and certain of the more-recent records at the Illinois State Historical Survey, University of Illinois Library, Urbana, Illinois, with microfilm copies placed at Wilmington College [http://www.watsonlibrary.org/SpecialCollections.htm] and FHL. The last trustees of Blue River Monthly Meeting deposited most records in the Washington County (Indiana) Historical Society, and the Frederic Luther Co. made microfilm copies (now at the Indiana Historical Society) of the early volumes. The Yearly Meeting's centennial booklet (1971) described its earlier monthly meetings.
INDIANA Yearly Meeting opened 1821/10/08, set off from Ohio Yearly Meeting, and
separated 1828/09/28 into [1] Orthodox (later FUM) [http://www.iym.org/] and [2] Hicksite (later
FGC) branches.
[2] The FGC branch changed its name to Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting [http://www.quaker.org/ovym/] in 1975.
[3] INDIANA Yearly Meeting of ANTI-SLAVERY Friends opened 1843/02/07 at
Newport (now Fountain City), Indiana, as a separation from Indiana Yearly Meeting (Orthodox) and
laid down itself and all subordinate bodies except Newport Monthly Meeting 1857/10/02. Edgerton,
A History of the Separation in Indiana Yearly Meeting; Which Took Place in the Winter of 1842
and 1843 on the Anti-Slavery Question . . . (1856), describes the separation from the
perspective of the Clerk of the smaller body.
[1] The Orthodox branch experienced a Gurneyite-Wilburite separation only in
three monthly meetings in Salem [IA] Quarterly Meeting, and the Wilburite group in Iowa never
described itself as a yearly meeting. William Hodgson, The Society of Friends in the
Nineteenth Century: A Historical View of the Successive Convulsions and Schisms Therein During
That Period (1875), discusses the Iowa separation at Volume 2, Chapter XIII, "The
Separation in Iowa, and the Mischief Effected There by the Middle Party." The (few) Conservative
meetings separating from Indiana (FUM) Yearly Meeting in the 1870s joined Western (Conservative)
Yearly Meeting.
[1] The Orthodox branch set off: Alum Creek Quarterly Meeting to the
Gurneyite branch of Ohio Yearly Meeting (now EFC-Eastern Region) in 1856; the Blue River, Concord,
Union, Western and White Lick Quarterly Meetings to open as Western Yearly Meeting 1858/09/20; the
Bangor, Pleasant Plain, Red Cedar, Salem and South River Quarterly Meetings to open as Iowa Yearly
Meeting 1863/09/10; the Cottonwood, Hesper, Springdale and Spring River Quarterly Meetings to open
as Kansas Yearly Meeting 1872/10/11; the Center, Fairfield and Miami Quarterly Meetings to open as
Wilmington Yearly Meeting 1892/08/07; and the Puget Sound Quarterly Meeting to Oregon (now
Northwest) Yearly Meeting in 1948. Indiana Yearly Meeting joined in founding FUM in 1902.
[4] In 2012-2013, Indiana Yearly Meeting (FUM) went through a
"Reconfiguration" process during which it allowed about 18 monthly meetings to leave IYM and to form
a new assosciation or to become independent Friends churches. Fifteen monthly meetings decided to
join The NEW ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS. The Indiana entries here started from the invaluable work of
Willard Heiss, A List of All the Friends Meetings That Exist or Ever Have Existed in
Indiana (revised 1961), supplemented by review of the minutes and inventories of the
archives provided by Tom Hamm, Professor of History and Quaker Archivist for Earlham College.
Gregory P. Hinshaw, Indiana Friends Heritage, 1821-1996 (1995), collects substantial
information about the properties and graveyards of present and past meetings in the FUM branch and
of non-FUM meetings at the times they separated from that branch.
[1] The FUM Yearly Meeting stores its records at the Quaker Archives, Lilly
Library [http://www.earlham.edu/~libr/quaker/],
Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, and either the Frederic Luther Co. or the Genealogical Society
of Utah has microfilmed most early monthly meeting records.
[3] The Indiana State Historical Library, Indianapolis, Indiana, holds the
known records of the Anti-Slavery Yearly Meeting and two of its quarterly meetings, and Swarthmore
[http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html] has microfilm copies. Earlham holds some Anti-Slavery monthly-meeting records, as indicated in individual entries.
[4] The records of monthly meetings that join the new Association of the
Religious Society of Friends formed in 2013 will remain stored at the Earlham College Quaker
Archives.
INTERMOUNTAIN Yearly Meeting [http://www.imym.org] organized itself 1974/06/08 at the fifth annual meeting of the Intermountain Friends Fellowship (begun 1970/06 at Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, New Mexico), and its first annual session opened 1975/06/12, including the New Mexico Quarterly Meeting and the Arizona Half-Yearly Meeting released by Pacific Yearly Meeting. Copies of its annual minutes are distributed to Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html], Haverford College [http://www.haverford.edu/library/] and Guilford College [http://www.guilford.edu/library/fhc/].
IOWA Yearly Meeting opened 1863/09/10, set off from the Orthodox branch of Indiana
Yearly Meeting.
[2] The CONSERVATIVE branch of IOWA Yearly Meeting [http://www.quakernet.org/] separated from the larger
body beginning at a conference at Bear Creek held 1877/05/29, with further separations in Salem
Quarterly Meeting in 1879 and in Springdale Monthly Meeting of Springdale Quarterly Meeting in 1883.
Darius B. Cook, Memoirs of a Quaker Divide (1914) discusses the separation. In 1918,
the Conservative branch accepted the transfer of Hickory Grove Quarterly Meeting from Ohio
(Wilburite) Yearly Meeting [http://www.ohioyearlymeeting.org/].
[1] The larger branch [http://www.iaym.org/] (generally called "Progressive") joined
in founding FUM in 1902, and FUM by action 1907/10/19 set off Great Plains (originally "Nebraska")
Yearly Meeting from Iowa Yearly Meeting to open 1908/06/04. The Yearly Meeting at its extra session
on 1996/09/28 allowed each monthly meeting an option to withdraw from FUM; at least one monthly
meeting affiliated with EFI instead of FUM. The FUM Yearly Meeting centennial booklet,
Spiritual Trails 1863-1963 (1963), and its 125th anniversary booklet, Spiritual
Trails of a People Called Friends: Book II (1988), chart and map monthly and other local
meetings. The FUM Yearly Meeting's vault, located in the Yearly Meeting office building in
Oskaloosa, Iowa, contains most of the records of the larger branch and of the pre-separation
meetings except in Bear Creek Quarterly Meeting.
[2] The Conservative Yearly Meeting and most monthly meetings have stored
their records at the Iowa State Historical Society, Iowa City, Iowa, or at the local meetings. The
Iowa State Historical Society in Des Moines in 1980-1981 microfilmed most records of meetings in the
Conservative Bear Creek and Salem Quarterly Meetings. The county historical societies working with
the Genealogical Society of Utah microfilmed a few of the records from each branch, and the
post-World War II meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska had most of its records microfilmed by the Nebraska
State Historical Society in Lincoln.
[1] and [2] The Iowa Humanities Council in 1996 and 1998 funded microfilming
of records from the Oskaloosa vault and some Conservative records, as indicated on the individual
monthly-meeting entries. Researchers can obtain copies of the microfilm from Heritage Microfilm of
Cedar Rapids or review the microfilm at The State Historical Society of Iowa in Iowa City, Earlham
College [http://www.earlham.edu/~libr/quaker/],
Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html],
Haverford [http://www.haverford.edu/library/]
College, and Guilford College [http://www.guilford.edu/library/fhc/]. The
Quaker Collection ofthe Edmund Stanley Library, Friends University, Wichita, Kansas [http://www.friends.edu/library/SpecialCollections/default.asp]
holds the Heiss typescripts of the Hinshaw abstracts of Iowa and other midwest monthly meetings, and
the Wilcox Library of William Penn College in Oskaloosa, Iowa [http://www.wmpenn.edu/Library/library.html]
holds photocopies. The most-often cited history is Louis Thomas Jones, The Quakers of
Iowa (1914), now available on-line at [http://www.quakerrecords.com/databases/quakers_of_iowa/pg003.html].
KANSAS Yearly Meeting opened 1872/10/11, set off from Indiana (Orthodox) Yearly
Meeting.
[1] The larger body ("Progressive") changed its name to MID-AMERICA Yearly
Meeting [http://www.efcmaym.org/] in 1978 and to
Evangelical Friends Church, Mid-America in 2001.
[2] The CONSERVATIVE branch separated 1879/10/11 and continued until
1929/10/29, transferring its last monthly meeting to Iowa (Conservative) Yearly Meeting. In 1973,
the Quaker Collection of the Edmund Stanley Library, Friends University, Wichita, Kansas [http://www.friends.edu/library/SpecialCollections/default.asp]
accepted care of the Conservative branch's records from the Orthodox vault at Third and Arch Streets
in Philadelphia or from Scattergood School in West Branch, Iowa. I obtained most of the details
herein from a special compilation by the late Elaine A. Maack, Curator of the Quaker Collection, or
from a review of minutes.
LAKE ERIE Yearly Meeting [http://www.quaker.org/leym/] opened 1963/08/31, as an outgrowth of the Great Lakes Regional Conference begun 1939/05 and called Lake Erie Association of Friends Meetings after 1944. The Association began meeting annually 1946/10/05 and continued meeting concurrently with the Yearly Meeting until 1969/08/23. Many of its monthly meetings were originally recognized by FWCC. The Green Pastures Quarterly Meeting joined FGC 1960/06/28, and the Yearly Meeting joined FGC in 1967. Certain of its early records have been deposited at the Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/RG2/LEy.xml], Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and its annual-session and Representative Committee minutes are printed in the Bulletin, nearly complete runs of which are deposited at FHL and Wilmington College [http://www.watsonlibrary.org/SpecialCollections.htm]. The Yearly Meeting in 1993 designated Earlham College as the official depository but changed the designation and transferred its records to FHL in 1997.
MICHIGAN Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends opened 1849/02, consisting of most of the meetings formerly in the Michigan Quarterly Meeting that separated from Genesee Yearly Meeting in 1848. Some historians report that it dissolved following a further division in 1860. Davidson, "A Profile of Hicksite Quakerism in Michigan, 1830-1860," 59 Quaker History 106 (1970), and Bradley, "Progressive Friends in Michigan and New York," 52 Quaker History 95 (1963), trace its history. The New York Yearly Meeting Archives, now stored at the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html], hold a few volumes of records of its meetings, and genealogy researchers report that the Michigan meetings belonging to EFC-Eastern Region hold a few volumes.
The Missouri Valley Conference has since 1955 acted (and I treat it herein) as a gathering, with its affiliates having direct membership in the Friends General Conference and/or in a yearly meeting.
Nebraska Yearly Meeting opened 1908/06/01 and changed its name 2001/06 to GREAT PLAINS Yearly Meeting.
The NEW ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS [www.newassociationoffriends.org] organized in early 2013 out of meetings in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan leaving Indiana Yearly Meeting (Orthodox/FUM). Indiana Y.M. formally released the meetings at the August 2013 IYM sessions and transferred a portion of endowment funds and a few properties on October 1, 2013. I have so far entered the new affiliation of fifteen of the meetings. The monthly meetings decided to continue to store their records at the Quaker Archives, Lilly Library [http://www.earlham.edu/~libr/quaker/], Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana. Its early history is traced in Stephen W. Angell & Chuck Fager, Indiana Trainwreck: Divisions in Indiana Quaker Communities Over Inclusion of Homosexuals, Church Authority & the Bible 2008-2013 (2020).
NEW ENGLAND Yearly Meeting [http://www.neym.org/] began holding general meetings on Rhode
Island in 1661, held business sessions under the name Rhode Island Yearly Meeting beginning with the
session at Portsmouth attended by George Fox in 1672/06, and separated into [1] Gurneyite
(later FUM) and [2] WILBURITE (later sometimes called Conservative)
branches in 1845, named, respectively, the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England and the New
England Yearly Meeting of Friends.
[1] The Gurneyite branch joined in founding FUM in 1902.
[2] The Wilburite branch suffered a further separation lasting from 1863 to
1911 consisting principally of its Nantucket Monthly Meeting, forming [3] the
"General Meeting of Friends for New England, held on Rhode Island," after 1885 named the "Quarterly
Meeting of Men and Women Friends for New England" (called OTISITE herein). The Otisites rejoined the
Wilburite Yearly Meeting in 1911 under the name Nantucket Monthly Meeting, though by then meeting
only in Rhode Island. The FUM and Wilburite branches reunited in 1945, along with the Connecticut
Valley Association of Friends, Friends Meeting at Cambridge and Providence Friends Fellowship, as
New England Yearly Meeting of Friends. The Newport and Portsmouth congregations of Rhode Island
Monthly Meeting declined to join the merger and transferred in 1951 to Ohio Yearly Meeting
(Gurneyite) (now EFC-Eastern Region). The united Yearly Meeting continued as a member of FUM and
joined FGC in 1959. The Yearly Meeting now stores the records of the Yearly Meetings and most
subordinate bodies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Library and most of the records of
early meetings in Maine in the Maine Historical Society in Portland [http://www.mainehistory.org/library_overview.shtml].
The Otisite yearly-meeting and quarterly-meeting records and the records of all branches of
Nantucket Monthly Meeting are at the Nantucket, Massachusetts, Historical Society [http://www.nha.org/library/mslist.html] as
its Collections 51 and 52. The records of meetings in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode
Island are now mostly held at the respective local historical societies [http://www.newbedford.com/whalingmuseum.html]
and [http://www.newporthistorical.org/collections_libraryspecial.htm#Church%20Records].
The Yearly Meeting Archives in Amherst contain microfilm of nearly all records at any of these
locations more than 50 years old and many more-recent minutes. I based many corrections and all
references herein to Records Known Extant on the volumes originally prepared by the Yearly Meeting's
Historical Records and Archives Committee and completely revised by the Rhode Island Historical
Society's Archivist, Richard D. Stattler, as Guide to the Records of Religious Society of
Friends (Quakers) in New England (1997) [http://www.neym.org/GuideToRecordsRSOF_1997.pdf],
with its sketch of meeting histories and helpful maps.
NEW YORK Yearly Meeting http://www.nyym.org/]
opened 1696/05/29 as the Yearly Meeting at Flushing or Long Island, consisting essentially of the
Flushing Quarterly Meeting set off from New England Yearly Meeting 1695/06/14. It separated into
[1] Hicksite (later FGC) and [2] Orthodox (later FUM) branches
1828/05 and reunited in 1955 as a member of both FGC and FUM.
[1] The Hicksite branch set off Canada and Pelham Half-Yearly Meetings and
Scipio and Farmington Quarterly Meetings to open as Genesee Yearly Meeting 1834/06. The Hicksite
branch suffered a Progressive separation 1846/07/08 when the larger body in Marlborough Monthly
Meeting refused to accept a transfer from Cornwall to Westbury Quarterly Meeting, and that
Marlborough group became the Friends of Human Progress 1854/12/19, often called "Milton" because of
the location of the meeting.
[1] The Hicksite branch joined in founding FGC in 1900.
[2] The Scipio, Farmington and Ferrisburgh Quarterly Meetings of the Orthodox
Yearly Meeting further divided in 1847 in response to the Gurneyite/Wilburite separation in New
England Yearly Meeting, leading to the organization in 1853/05 of [3] New York
Yearly Meeting held at Poplar Ridge (generally called PRIMITIVE). In 1859, the Primitives divided
again into [4] OTISITE and [5] KINGITE branches (named after their
first respective men's Clerks), whose respective branches of Scipio Quarterly Meeting reunited in
1880 and continued until 1896/05/26 as New York Yearly Meeting at Poplar Ridge. It appears that the
meetings within Ferrisburgh Quarterly Meeting were laid down and its remaining members attached to
Nantucket Monthly Meeting (Otisite). As to the Primitive/Kingite branches of Farmington and
Ferrisburgh Quarterly Meetings, the Yearly Meeting Archives has received some records from the
Kingite monthly meetings in Farmington Quarterly Meeting, and the Ferrisburgh (VT) Town Clerk and
the University of Vermont Library hold some Vermont Orthodox records that may include Primitive
Friends. From 1916/06/23 to 1955, the Primitive Scipio Quarterly Meeting attached itself to Canada
(Conservative) Yearly Meeting, but in 1955 Canadian Yearly Meeting transferred the surviving
Primitive monthly meeting to the reunited New York Yearly Meeting.
[2] The Orthodox/Gurneyite branch of New York Yearly Meeting set off Pelham,
West Lake and Yonge Street Quarterly Meetings to open Canada Yearly Meeting 1867/06/28. It joined in
founding FUM in 1902. The Genealogical Society of Utah in 1952-53 microfilmed most of the early
monthly-meeting records. The Haviland Records Room held the records of nearly all Yearly Meeting
groups and other New York meetings, but the Yearly Meeting in 1997 moved all meeting records to the
Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore [http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/friends/NYYM/NYYMindex.htm]
for further microfilming and permanent storage. One can find several partial histories of the Yearly
Meeting, and Hugh Barbour, et al., eds., Quaker Crosscurrents: Three Hundred Years of
Friends in the New York Yearly Meetings (1995), attempts to pull together the many
strands of the Yearly Meetings' ministries. However, John Cox, Jr., Catalogue of the Records
in the possession of, or relating to, the two New York Yearly Meetings of the Religious Society
of Friends and their subordinate bodies (1940), on which I initially based these entries,
contains by far the most information on monthly meetings and records prior to the 1930s. The Yearly
Meeting's DIRECTORY 1993 provides succinct histories and maps for all the monthly and
quarterly meetings then in existence and a few historical meetings and meetinghouses. Folks
interested in genealogy will find helpful Loren V. Fay, Editor, Quaker Census of 1828: Members
of the New York Yearly Meeting, the Religious Society of Friends at the Time of the Separation
of 1828 (1989) and James E. Hazard's Index of all New York records, now
posted on-line by the Friends Historical Library and referenced in the individual monthly-meeeting
records in this Index.
The NORTH CAROLINA FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS [https://ncfriends.org/], comprised of former congregations in North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM), organized 2017/09/23 as one result of the NCYM, Inc. 2017/08/05 reorganization. Its member congregations' records remain at the Quaker Archives [https://library.guilford.edu/archives], Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina, or at one of the local meetings. It requested membership in FWCC 2018/04/11.
NORTH CAROLINA Yearly Meeting opened 1698/09/26 as an outgrowth of the Quarterly
Meeting for Pasquotank and Perquimans Counties [later Eastern Quarterly Meeting] that began meeting
by 1680 (even before establishing its second monthly meeting).
[1] The Yearly Meeting [http://www.ncym-fum.org/] joined in founding FUM in 1902;
[2] beginning in 1903 six meetings divided or started anew after individual
members' withdrawals to form the CONSERVATIVE branch [http://www.ncymc.org/]; and [3] 2017/08/05
"reorganized" as NCYM, Inc. as more of a holding company and devolved most local churches to
[3A] Friends Church of North Carolina [http://friendschurchnc.org/] or [3B]
North Carolina Fellowship of Friends [https://ncfriends.org/] . All branches and devolved bodies
continue to store their records at the Quaker Archives [https://library.guilford.edu/archives],
Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina, or at one of the local meetings. The annual report of
the Friends Historical Collection, published until 2007 in the Southern Friend [http://www.ncfhs.org/SouthernFr.htm], lists
the specific volumes deposited each year. The FUM branch described in some detail in its
tercentenary booklet Carolina Quakers (1972) the establishment of its then-existing
monthly and quarterly meetings, and Appendix III to Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery
(1896) [available on-line at [http://books.google.com/books?id=2uM6AAAAIAAJ]],
listed the earliest meetings. In recent years the North Carolina Friends Historical Society has
published separate histories of many of the older monthly meetings that also describe their daughter
meetings. In 1997 it published Damon Hickey's Sojourners No More: Friends in the New South,
1865-1920, which discusses the establishment of many monthly meetings during the revival
movement beginning in the 1880s and the (related) Conservative separation beginning in 1903.
NORTH COLLINS Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends encompassed the Congregational Friends that separated from the Farmington Quarterly Meeting of Genesee Yearly Meeting 1848/10/06. The "yearly meeting" first met under this name in 1855, apparently included only scattered Friends outside Collins Monthly Meeting and continued until 1859 or 1860. The New York Yearly Meeting Archives, now stored at the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/friends/NYYM/NYYMindex.htm], hold a few records and several epistles of this group.
NORTH PACIFIC Yearly Meeting [http://www.npym.org/] opened 1972/07/14, made up of the Willamette and Pacific Northwest (now generally called Northwest) Quarterly Meetings set off from Pacific Yearly Meeting. Since 1988, the Montana Gathering of Friends has had the authority of a quarterly meeting. Certain of the Yearly Meeting's records are stored at the Oregon Historical Society Library, Portland, Oregon.
NORTHERN Yearly Meeting [http://www.northernyearlymeeting.org/] organized 1975/09/14, growing out of the Northern Half-Yearly Meeting, some of whose constituent meetings had withdrawn 1971 from Illinois Yearly Meeting. Its first business sessions opened 1976/05/15, during which it decided to affiliate with FGC. The Yearly Meeting decided to deposit full copies of the Yearly Meeting and Executive Committee minutes at Earlham College [http://www.earlham.edu/~libr/quaker/], Richmond, Indiana, and Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html]
NORTHWEST Yearly Meeting of Friends Church [http://www.nwfriends.org/] opened 1893/06 as Oregon
Yearly Meeting, set off from the Progressive, now FUM, branch of Iowa Yearly Meeting. It joined in
founding FUM in 1902 but withdrew in 1926. It joined in founding EFA in 1965 and the succeeding EFI
in 1989. It has stored most of its and the subordinate-body records in the Yearly Meeting vault
located in the Newberg Friends Church or George Fox University's Murdoch Library, Newberg, Oregon.
Ralph K. Beebe, A Garden of the Lord: A History of Oregon Yearly Meeting of Friends Church
(1968), contains histories of nearly all monthly meetings established in the first 75 years.
In 2017 it released some monthly meetings to organize the Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends,
which held its opening sessions 2018/05/18-20. The two YMs completed their legal separation
2018/07/01, and some monthly meetings chose to move to Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting after that
date.OHIO Yearly Meeting opened 1813/08/14 by authority of Baltimore Yearly Meeting. It separated
into [1] Orthodox and [2] Hicksite (later FGC) branches
1828/09/08; in 1850-1852 the [3] CONGREGATIONAL meetings separated from the
Hicksite branch in New Garden, then Salem Quarterly Meetings; and on 1854/09/05 the Orthodox
separated into [4] Gurneyite and [5] "WILBURITE" branches [http://www.ohioyearlymeeting.org/]. (I call them
Wilburites because they initially and after 1880 accepted epistles and visiting ministers from the
smaller branch of New England Yearly Meeting, but many others call this branch "Conservative"
because the Yearly Meeting refused to correspond with the New England Wilburites for over 20 years
until the Conservative separations in other yearly meetings.)
[2] The Hicksite branch joined in founding FGC in 1900, but ceased holding
business sessions 1919/09/03 and delegated full authority to its Representative Committee, which
stored Yearly Meeting and all available quarterly and monthly meeting records at the Friends
Historical Library, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania ("FHL") [http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/friends/RG2/ohioym.xml].
Some monthly meetings continued into the 1940s.
[3] The Congregational branch of Salem Monthly Meeting reportedly continued
until 1874, but all reports suggest the Congregational Ohio Yearly Meeting became the Friends of
Human Progress in the 1860s.
[4] The Gurneyite branch in 1971 changed its name to Evangelical Friends
Church, EASTERN REGION [http://www.efcer.org/], under
which name I provide details of that group.
[5] Charles P. Morlan, A Brief History of Ohio Yearly Meeting of the
Religious Society of Friends (Conservative) (1959) contains helpful monthly meeting
details, and William P. Taber, Jr., The Eye of Faith (1985) provides some charts and
maps for pre-separation and Orthodox meetings. In 1862-63, members of nine Wilburite particular
meetings separated and formed [6] the OHIO General Meeting of Men and Women Friends
(commonly referred to as MAULITE to reflect the first men's Clerk), which reestablished three
monthly meetings by action 1865/06/20. William Hodgson, The Society of Friends in the
Nineteenth Century: A Historical View of the Successive Convulsions and Schisms Therein During
That Period (1875) discusses the Ohio divisions from the Wilburite/Otisite perspective,
especially in Volume II at pp. 112-166, 191-225.
[7] The majority of members separated from Salem Monthly Meeting (Maulite) in
1867 because of their desire to correspond with the Otisite branch of various yearly meetings and
joined the General Meeting of Men and Women Primitive Friends for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and
Maryland. I call this monthly meeting Salem (Otisite), but others refer to this group as "Kollite"
to reflect the leader Daniel Koll and Mary Koll, the second Clerk.
[5] In 1917/09 the Wilburite branch transferred its Hickory Grove Quarterly
Meeting (with four monthly meetings in Iowa and California) to Iowa Yearly Meeting of Conservative
Friends.
[5] The Wilburite branch stores Yearly Meeting and some subordinate meeting
records in a vault at Olney Friends Boarding School, Barnesville, Ohio; some subordinate body
records in the Salem Quarterly Meeting house at Salem, Ohio; and some on loan at FHL [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html].
The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio, made microfilm copies in 1991-92 (microfilm group 168
for records from Barnesville ["OHS-B"] and microfilm group 170 for records from Salem and some
records returned by FHL for this project ["OHS-S"]). The OHS, the Barnesville, Ohio Public Library,
FHL, Guilford College [http://www.guilford.edu/library/fhc/], Malone
University [http://www.malone.edu/1275] and Earlham
College [http://www.earlham.edu/~libr/quaker/] hold
copies of the OHS microfilm.
[6] FHL holds the minutes of Ohio General Meeting and personal papers of
Joshua Maule. The Pennsylvania (Primitive) records at Haverford
College [http://www.haverford.edu/library/] and the Wilburite safe in Barnesville, Ohio each contain some
records of the Maulite meetings. (In addition, the OHS microfilmed various pre-separation
records of Ohio meetings while microfilming the records of the Wilburite branch.)
OHIO VALLEY Yearly Meeting [http://www.quaker.org/ovym/] opened 1821/10/08 as Indiana Yearly Meeting, set off from Ohio Yearly Meeting; became the Hicksite (later FGC) branch that first met separately 1828/09/28; and changed its name to Ohio Valley in 1975. It set off its Blue River Quarterly Meeting (with meetings in southwestern Indiana and Illinois) 1874/09/18 to constitute part of Illinois Yearly Meeting opening 1875/09/13. It joined in founding FGC in 1900. The Executive Committee has stored its records and archives in the Quaker Collection, S. Arthur Watson Library, Wilmington College of Ohio [http://www.watsonlibrary.org/SpecialCollections.htm], and the Whitewater Monthly Meeting records in the Quaker Archives, Lilly Library [http://www.earlham.edu/~libr/quaker/], Earlham College, with inventories of the archives published in the Yearly Meeting minutes in 1968 and 1988. The Watson Library of Wilmington College has posted some of the transcribed monthly- and quarterly-meeting minutes on its website [http://www2.wilmington.edu/academics/ThomasC.HillsAreaQuakerHistoryResources.cfm]. Many monthly meeting records were microfilmed in the 1960s by the Frederic Luther Co. (now at the Indiana Historical Society), with copies provided to Wilmington College [http://www.watsonlibrary.org/SpecialCollections.htm] and Earlham College, and in 1987-88 for the Genealogical Society of Utah by Wright State University. Seth E. Furnas, Sr., A History of Indiana Yearly Meeting (1968), charted the earliest local meetings based on Clarkson Butterworth, Account of all meetings . . . which belong, or ever have belonged . . . to Indiana Yearly Meeting (ms, delivered 1914). Oregon Yearly Meeting changed its name in 1976 to NORTHWEST Yearly Meeting [http://www.nwfriends.org/].
PACIFIC Yearly Meeting [http://www.pacificyearlymeeting.org/] opened 1947/08/21 as an outgrowth of the Pacific Coast Association of Friends, opened 1931/04, and the College Park Association founded in San Jose, California 1889/12. Most of its early meetings (other than in the Bay Area) received their recognition as monthly meetings from the American Friends Fellowship Council, later merged into FWCC Section of the Americas. It set off its Pacific Northwest and Willamette Quarterly Meetings to open as North Pacific Yearly Meeting 1972/07/14. It released its New Mexico Quarterly Meeting and Arizona Half-Yearly Meeting to join Intermountain Yearly Meeting at its opening 1975/06/12. The Yearly Meeting has deposited its archives and many local-meeting records in the Whittier College Library [http://www.whittier.edu/library/], Whittier, California. Chapter 7 of David C. LeShana, Quakers in California(1969), traced the Yearly Meeting's growth and establishment.
The General Meeting of Men and Women PRIMITIVE Friends for PENNSYLVANIA, New Jersey and Maryland organized 1860/09, separating from the Orthodox branch of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and it reestablished two monthly meetings 1866/09/04. In 1867 it accepted care of the Kollite/Otisite branch of Salem [Ohio] Monthly Meeting, and in 1868 it accepted the last surviving monthly meeting from Baltimore Yearly Meeting (Primitive). From 1906 until its closing in 1940, Falls constituted its only monthly meeting. It or the united Falls Monthly Meeting kept all records of the monthly meetings in the General Meeting and its affiliated groups at Fallsington, Pennsylvania until it deposited them in 1986 at the Quaker Collection at Haverford College [http://www.haverford.edu/library/], Haverford, Pennsylvania, as its collection 1145. Haverford had these records microfilmed, with copies provided to Swarthmore's FHL [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html
PENNSYLVANIA Yearly Meeting of PROGRESSIVE Friends opened at Old Kennett, Chester County, Pennsylvania 1853/05/22 as a separation from meetings in the Western Quarterly Meeting of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Hicksite), moved to Hamorton in 1854/05, purchased property at Longwood Hall in time for the third annual meeting in 1855, and continued to meet until 1940 (though it stopped publishing its annual proceddings after 1906.) It did not establish quarterly or monthly meetings, and nearly all its early members rejoined their Hicksite meetings after 1860. The Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html], Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, holds its records.
The body later named the Yearly Meeting of Friends for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the
Eastern parts of Maryland (called PHILADELPHIA [http://www.pym.org/] because it met only there for 250 years)
opened at Burlington, New Jersey 1681/08/28; first met for discipline at Philadelphia 1683/05; and
agreed to meet jointly and alternately as a yearly meeting on either side of the Delaware River in
1685. The Yearly Meeting (A) began to meet only at Philadelphia after 1745; (B) in 1790 transferred
Fairfax and Warrington Quarterly Meetings to Baltimore Yearly Meeting and accepted the transfer of
BYM's Eastern Shore Quarterly Meeting as its new Southern Quarterly Meeting, and (C) transferred
Nottingham Quarterly Meeting to Baltimore Yearly Meeting in 1819.
[2] Friends from at least three monthly meetings in Philadelphia separated
beginning 1781/02 due to disputes over participation in military efforts of the American Revolution
and formed the "Free Quakers." Only the one monthly meeting in Philadelphia subscribed to the Free
Quaker discipline, though it corresponded with the Davisites in Massachusetts as late as 1802.
[3] The HICKSITE branch met separately beginning 1827/10, and the Hicksite
and [4] ORTHODOX branches reunited in 1955. The united Yearly Meeting after 1955
retained the Hicksite branch's founding membership in FGC. The Friends Historical Library ("FHL") of
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html],
and the Quaker Collection, Haverford College Library [http://www.haverford.edu/library/], Haverford,
Pennsylvania, hold numerous histories of the monthly meetings but few of the yearly meetings. John
M. Moore, Ed., Friends in the Delaware Valley: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting 1681-1981
(1981) deals with the broad issues, and the local meeting histories listed in many records provide
details on the local Friends. I extracted the information herein mostly from Jack Eckert,
Guide to the Records of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (1989), supplemented from the WPA's
Inventory of Church Archives: Society of Friends in Pennsylvania (1941) [now superseded
by the on-line Guide at [http://trilogy.brynmawr.edu/speccoll/PYMindex.htm]]
and review of the microfilm or original minutes. In recent years I have used Thomas Chalkley
Matlack, Brief Historical Sketches concerning Friends' Meetings of the Past and Present with
Special Reference to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (ca. 1937), to fill in details
Matlack collected in his extrordinary travels around the mid-Atlantic states. Haverford [http://www.haverford.edu/library/] and FHL http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html]
hold the records of the Yearly Meetings and most quarterly and monthly meetings. Third Haven Monthly
Meeting has stored its, Northwest Fork Monthly Meeting's, and some of Eastern Shore Half-Yearly
Meeting's records in the Maryland Hall of Records in Annapolis. Beginning in the 1940s, the
Genealogical Society of Utah microfilmed many volumes of vital records, and FHL and Haverford have
continued that effort in recent years for minute books as well. The Maryland State Archives
microfilmed many volumes of records of Maryland meetings, as documented in Phebe R. Jacobsen,
Quaker Records in Maryland (1966). FHL has obtained microfilm copies of nearly all
records deposited at Haverford and the Maryland Hall of Records and many volumes deposited
elsewhere. The Free Quakers deposited their records at the American Philosophical Society in
Philadelphia, and FHL has obtained microfilm. James E. Hazard has begun to abstract PYM records in
the format used in his extraordinary New York YM abstracts, and FHL has assembled more than 20 bound
volumes, providing copies to other Quaker libraries. When Hazard completes Philadelphia YM meetings,
FHL will post the database on a Swarthmore website.
The PIEDMONT FRIENDS FELLOWSHIP organized 1972/01/09 after meeting for three years as the Quaker Lake Conference of Friends. It decided to join the Friends General Conference 1975/04/13. It has substantial authority and oversight of member monthly meetings and other groups, which join it directly. However, the Fellowship declined the title of "yearly meeting," and this Index treats the Fellowship as a quarterly or half-yearly meeting conferring membership in F.G.C.. One can find originals or copies of its records and those of most of its member meetings in the (newly-renamed) Quaker Archives at Guilford College [https://library.guilford.edu/archives]. Separately, after several years of discussion, in 2014 The Piedmont Friends Fellowship allowed those member meetings who so desired to form the PIEDMONT FRIENDS YEARLY MEETING, with an organizing meeting in 2014/11 and 2015/03. [https://piedmontfriendsfellowship.org/welcome/piedmont-friends-yearly-meeting/about/] Its session held 2016/03/12 (held concurrently with a mid-year meeting of Piedmont Friends Fellowship) was described as its first yearly-meeting session, and it applied for membership in F.W.C.C.
The REUNION GENERAL ["General Meeting"] de México has since 1958 functioned as a gathering welcoming all Mexican Friends to its sessions held every 18 months. FUM and individuals have stored correspondence files documenting the founding efforts for several early Mexican meetings (before or through the American Friends' Board of Foreign Missions, later merged into FUM) at the Quaker Archives in the Lilly Library [http://www.earlham.edu/~libr/quaker/], Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN Yearly Meeting of Friends Church [http://www.users.qwest.net/~lfpchild/] opened 1957/06/21, consisting of 21 of the 27 monthly meetings that had made up Nebraska (now Great Plains) Yearly Meeting. Rocky Mountain Yearly Meeting joined in founding EFA in 1965 and EFI in 1989. Skarstad, FRACTION: THINGS GET BROKEN -- A History of Nebraska Yearly Meeting of Friends 1947-1957 (1981), traces the separation with focus on the Denver meetings. Because several quarterly meetings transferred intact to the new yearly meeting, Rocky Mountain meetings hold the records of many local meetings that were discontinued under Nebraska Yearly Meeting prior to 1957. The Yearly Meeting's 25th Anniversary Committee, DeLancey et al., produced Friends Ministering Together (1982), which provided the early basis for the information here. The Yearly Meeting Archivist, most recently Kevin Harrison, has stored most Yearly-Meeting, many quarterly-meeting and some local-body records at the Colorado Springs (CO) Friends Church.
SIERRA-CASCADES Yearly Meeting of Friends organized during 2017 as a separation of Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends Church. Its first annual sessions opened 2018/05/18 and adopted by-laws for its Oregon corporation 2018/05/19 [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59791f3537c581de3f155d87/t/5b072104f950b764cdd572e9/1527193866233/SCYMF+BYLAWS+APPROVED+5-19.pdf]. SCYMF completed its legal separation from Northwest Yearly Meeting 2018/07/01, but it continued to accept former Northwest Y.M.meetings after that date.SOUTH CENTRAL Yearly Meeting [http://www.scym.org/] opened in 1961 as a member of FGC, growing out of the Southwest Conference that began meeting 1957/01/25. Most of its early monthly meetings were originally recognized as such by FWCC. The Yearly Meeting agreed to store its archives, including records of any discontinued meetings, at the Austin, Texas meetinghouse under the care of the Yearly Meeting's Archivist appointed by the Friends Meeting of Austin.
SOUTHEASTERN Yearly Meeting [http://www.seym.org/] arose in April, 1962 from the Southeastern Friends Conference, and its first full sessions opened Easter weekend, 1963/04/12. The Southeastern Friends Conference in 1957 grew out of the Florida (or "All-Florida") Friends Conference that began meeting in 1941 and began to hold more formal annual gatherings in 1950. The Yearly Meeting initially joined both FGC and FUM, but it decided 2010/04/04 to formally withdraw from FUM. Its official Archives and additional unofficial records are kept near or with the Archivist. It deposits copies of its minutes at several Quaker colleges and at the Florida Historical Society at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Nearly all of its constituent meetings still keep their records in the local meetings. Caroline Nicholson Jacob and Sue Greenleaf, Quakers Discover the Southeast (1981) contains the most complete history.
SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN Yearly Meeting and Association [http://www.sayma.org/] opened 1970/05/02 as an outgrowth of the Southern Appalachian Association of Friends, itself formally organized 1959/05/17 at its fourth annual gathering. It joined FGC in 1977. The Yearly Meeting and most monthly meeting deposit minutes at Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html], Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and/or at the Friends Historical Collection [http://www.guilford.edu/library/fhc/], Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina.
VIRGINIA Yearly Meeting opened 1696/10 or 1702/09, after meeting half-yearly since 1682, and laid itself down 1844/05/22, attaching itself to Baltimore Yearly Meeting (Orthodox) as (the new) Virginia Half-Yearly Meeting. Baltimore (FUM) Yearly Meeting in 1967 stored the Virginia records at the Quaker Collection, Haverford [http://www.haverford.edu/library/] College Library, Haverford, Pennsylvania; the Virginia State Library, Richmond, having earlier obtained photostats of many of these and other records held privately. Phebe R. Jacobsen, Quaker Records in Maryland (1966), traces the meetings and lists the records microfilmed by the Maryland State Archives before the transfer to Haverford, with microfilm stored at the Hall of Records in Annapolis and copies at the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html], Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Appendix III to Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery (1896) [available on-line at [http://books.google.com/books?id=2uM6AAAAIAAJ]], listed the earliest meetings. I based many geographical references to monthly and subordinate meetings on the unpublished work of the late Willna Ann Uebrick-Pachelli, Meetings in Baltimore and Virginia Yearly Meetings (1989 revision) [PDF copy now available at most Quaker-college libraries]. Jay Worrall, Jr., The Friendly Virginians: America's First Quakers (1994), discusses all the meetings and many individual Friends in Virginia from the 1650s until about 1991.WABASH Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends apparently consisted of a single congregation in Fountain County, Indiana, rather than a yearly meeting with constituent monthly meetings. I found it first in Willard Heiss, A List of All the Friends Meetings That Exist or Ever Have Existed in Indiana (revised 1961). Thomas D. Hamm, God's Government Begun: The Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform, 1842-1846(1996), beginning at page 139, describes the community.
WATERLOO Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends opened 1849/06/04 under the 1848/10/06 Basis of Religious Association, composed of the former Junius Monthly Meeting and other Friends separating from the Scipio Quarterly Meeting of Genesee Yearly Meeting, became the Annual Meeting of the Friends of Human Progress in 1854, and continued until approximately 1884. It maintained close correspondence but probably not a formal relationship with the Yearly Meeting in North Collins, New York, later using the name the Friends of Human Progress. A. Day Bradley, "Progressive Friends in Michigan and New York," 52 Quaker History 95 (1963), traces its history. The New York Yearly Meeting Archives, now stored at the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/index.html], holds some of its records, as do other historical libraries such as The Huntington Library in San Marino, California.
The WESTERN ASSOCIATION of the Religious Society of Friends [http://www.firstfriendswhittier.org/warsf.html] organized 1996/05/06 for individuals and meetings in Friends Church, Southwest and elsewhere that sought to maintain a tie with FUM even though their yearly meeting had withdrawn from or chosen not to join FUM. Whittier M.M. and Berkeley M.M. in California are the only monthly meetings to join so far, but Bakersfield Worship Group joined after E.F.C. Southwest laid it down. FUM granted the Association affiliation 1996/07/06.
WESTERN CANADA Yearly Meeting opened 1911/06/28 at Borden, Saskatchewan and closed 1936/07/08 with a minute asking that Norwich Monthly Meeting and Yonge Street Four-Months Meeting of Canada (Conservative) Yearly Meeting accept into membership its only monthly meeting, Halcyonia. It corresponded at all times with Fritchley General Meeting in England, some of whose members had opened Halcyonia Monthly Meeting 1905/09/18. It recorded its minutes in the Halcyonia Monthly Meeting books, now on deposit with the Canada (Conservative) Yearly Meeting archives at Pickering College, Newmarket, Ontario.
WESTERN Yearly Meeting opened 1858/09/20, set off from Indiana Yearly Meeting
(Orthodox, now FUM).
[2] The CONSERVATIVE branch first met separately 1877/09/14; the (few)
Conservative meetings separating from Indiana (Orthodox) Yearly Meeting eventually joined this
branch.
[1] The larger or "Progressive" branch joined in founding FUM [http://westernym.net/]. The Semi-Centennial
Anniversary of Western Yearly Meeting of Friends Church (1908) contains a helpful listing
of congregations by quarterly meeting. The latest yearly-meeting history is J. Brent Bill,
Western Yearly Meeting, 1858-2008: 150th Anniversary: the History of Western Yearly Meeting
from its Founding to its Sesquicentennial (2008). The FUM branch in 1995 deposited at
Earlham College [http://www.earlham.edu/~libr/quaker/],
Richmond, Indiana, its records and those of many of its quarterly meetings formerly stored in a
vault in Plainfield, Indiana, and its subordinate bodies have subsequently deposited additional
volumes. The Frederic Luther Co. (now at the Indiana Historical Society) and the Genealogical
Society of Utah have microfilmed many of the early records, though each filmed some records not
available to the other.
[2] The Conservative Yearly Meeting, having stored its records at the Library
of the Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, Indiana, laid itself down 1962/09/04, leaving
Plainfield Monthly Meeting as an independent meeting. The entries here for both branches started
from the invaluable work of Willard Heiss, A List of All the Friends Meetings That Exist or
Ever Have Existed in Indiana (revised 1961), supplemented by review of the minutes and
inventories of the archives provided by Tom Hamm, Professor of History and Quaker Archivist for
Earlham College.
WILMINGTON Yearly Meeting [http://www.wilmingtonyearlymeeting.org/] opened 1892/08/07, set off from Indiana Yearly Meeting (Orthodox/Progressive, later FUM), with the Friendsville Quarterly Meeting transferred from North Carolina Yearly Meeting in 1897/08. It joined in founding FUM. One of its centennial booklets, McNemar and Knight, eds., Wilmington Yearly Meeting, 1891-1991 (1991), focuses on the meetings, while the other, D. Neil Snarr, et al., Claiming Our Past: Quakers in Southwest Ohio and Eastern Tennessee (1992), focuses on individuals and key ministries. The Yearly Meeting stores its records and those of its constituent meetings in the Quaker Collection, S. Arthur Watson Library [http://www.watsonlibrary.org/collections.html], Wilmington College of Ohio, and published an inventory of its archives in its 1988 minutes. The Watson Library of Wilmington College has posted some of the transcribed Ohio and Tennessee monthly- and quarterly-meeting minutes on its website [http://www2.wilmington.edu/academics/ThomasC.HillsAreaQuakerHistoryResources.cfm]. The Genealogical Society of Utah microfilmed the Ohio monthly-meeting records in 1966, with partial retakes in 1975 and 1980. Its Friendsville Quarterly Meeting deposited certain records of Tennessee meetings at the Friendsville [Tennessee] Meetinghouse, and the McClung Historical Collection of Knoxville-Knox County [Tennessee] Public Library [http://knoxcounty.org/library/] in 1980 microfilmed 40 of those volumes. North Carolina Yearly Meeting's Records Committee has kept at the Friends Historical Collection [http://www.guilford.edu/library/fhc/] of Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina, a few of the earliest Tennessee meeting records, with photocopies provided to the Wilmington Yearly Meeting Archives at Wilmington College and to the meetings in Tennessee.