Exploring My Irish Quaker Roots: From England to Ireland to Pennsylvania

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #34

By Tonya Graham McQuade

Quakers have been active in Ireland since 1654, and their meeting records go back to 1655 - a great boon for genealogists! Check out this Genealogy Webpage.

I’ve always been rather fascinated by the Quakers - not that I necessarily agree with all of their theological interpretations, but I find many of their beliefs intriguing. First and foremost, I admire many of their political stances based on their strong belief in equality – they have proven themselves to be on the right side of history on multiple occasions. Quakers played a key role in the abolitionist movement and in helping slaves escape through the Underground Railroad. They were leaders in the women’s rights movement, helping to secure women the right to vote (Alice Paul, Lucretia Mott, and the Grimke sisters were all Quakers). They believed in spiritual equality for men and women, allowing and encouraging women to speak up in worship services - and even serve as ministers! - when that was certainly not the norm. Furthermore, as pacifists, they have frequently spoken up against war and violence, looking for ways to find peaceful solutions whenever possible.  

So, I was pleasantly surprised upon digging into my Irish ancestry to discover I had some “Irish Quakers” in my family tree. Similar to the Ulster Presbyterian ancestors I wrote about in a previous post, these ancestors were not actually “Irish,” but were originally rooted elsewhere. While my Ulster Presbyterian ancestors mostly came from Scotland, the Irish Quakers mostly came from England – but both groups lived in various parts of Ireland before ultimately immigrating to Pennsylvania in the early 1700’s for both religious and economic reasons.

I discovered my own Irish Quaker connections while doing research prior to Mike’s and my visit to Ireland this past summer. As I looked up the names and places of our various Irish ancestors, I discovered that several of mine who came from Northern Ireland were listed among the “Religious Society of Friends” (aka. Quaker) meeting houses. I hadn’t yet had time to do much research, but when given the option during our visit to the Irish EPIC Immigration Museum in Dublin to input one of my own ancestors’ names into their database, I scanned my list of options and decided on Katherine Lightfoot. You can see here the photo I took after her name appeared on the screen.

The EPIC Irish Immigration Museum in Dublin, Ireland, has a data base for inputting Irish ancestors - when I was there, I plugged in Katherine Lightfoot's name.       

So, who is Katherine (in some records, Catherine) Lightfoot? Some distant relative of Gordon Lightfoot? Perhaps - lol. I haven’t found that connection yet. But, I do know she was my 8th great grandmother, born on September 12, 1682 in County Antrim in Northern Ireland to Rev. Thomas Lightfoot (b. 1645 in Cambridge, England) and his wife Mary. 

In 1700 Katherine married James Robert Miller, who was born in Timahoe, Kildare, Leinster, Ireland. They had one son and six daughters (I descend through their daughter Mary, b. 1713). She at some point became a Quaker minister, with her family being members of the Timahoe Meeting in County Kildare, then later the Quaker Meeting in Dublin. In September of 1729, after various other family members had already done so, she and her husband James immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with five of their children on the Sizargh of Whitehaven, captained by Jeremiah Cowman. There, sadly, just a few weeks after their arrival, she died on October 17. She is buried at the Friends Arch Street Meeting House Burial Grounds in Philadelphia. 

Arch Street Meeting House in Philadelphia

The current Arch Street Meeting House in Philadelphia, built between 1803-1805, sits on land donated to the Society of Friends in 1701 by Pennsylvania founder and Quaker William Penn. The land served as the first burial ground for Quakers in Philadelphia, and Katherine Lightfoot is among those buried here. The meeting house was “built to reflect Friends' testimonies of simplicity and equality … [and] is little changed after more than two centuries of continuous use” (1).

Katherine’s husband James and their children settled in New Garden. One of their daughters, Sarah, married Thomas Milhous - they are some level of great grandparents to former President Richard Milhous Nixon (not the greatest family connection, I know - and he is certainly not what I think of when I think of a Quaker! LOL). Another of their daughters, Ann, married William Farquhar, and they have ties to another president: Herbert Hoover. Richard Nixon and Herbert Hoover are the two presidents who identified as Quakers - at least in their family connections, if not always in their religious beliefs and practices.

Inscription: About 1735 William Farquhar and Ann his wife held a Friends

(Quaker) Meeting at his house. In 1771 he deeded two acres of land

on which the Meeting House and burying ground are located.

Ex-President Hoover’s ancestors were members of this Meeting. (2)

Katherine Lightfoot is another ancestor of my great grandmother Fleeta Jackson Brandt, whom I wrote about in another previous post, through her father Joseph Erastus “Rasy” Jackson (1863-1925), who entered the world six generations later. Like Katherine, her daughter Mary also became a Quaker minister - which made me wonder what it took to become a Quaker minister. 

From my reading, I learned that the founder of the Society of Friends, George Fox (1624-1691), had “very strong opinions about [traditional] ministers … and would often confront ministers about the shallowness of their own spiritual lives. He sometimes called them ‘Hireling Priests’ because they lived well at the expense of their parishioners (who were required to pay a tithe).... [He argued that] an education at Oxford or Cambridge does not qualify a person to be a minister of Christ.” As one might imagine, this did not win him much support among the clergy - and in Ireland, it caused priests to argue for severe restrictions to be placed on the Quakers. Fox contrasted these “hireling priests” with “true ministers,” stating, “At the hearing of the speech of the true minister, there is a joy to all that seek and thirst after righteousness: for the preaching of the gospel is the glad tidings, the joyful news, and is a comfort to soul, body and spirit, to all that receive it" (3).

So, back to the question: how does one become a “true minister” in the Society of Friends? Here is one explanation I found online:

“As Friends, we reject the idea that some outward trait or experience could qualify someone to be a minister…. Instead, we believe that anyone may be called to pastoral ministry. Rather than setting human-engineered prerequisites, Quakers have chosen simply to observe those who work as ministers. When it becomes clear that a person is indeed doing pastoral ministry, then we make an official record of what God seems to be doing. That person is "recorded" as a minister among Friends.

“As Friends, we believe that all people are absolutely equal in worth. We also believe that God is directly present to any who open themselves to God's Spirit. So, whatever else can be said about ministers within the Friends tradition, it should be clear that being a minister does not give someone a higher 'rank.' Nor does it mean that the person is somehow closer to God than "ordinary people." We are equals, and God is available to all. In fact, Quakers have always emphasized the fact that we are all called to be ministers” (4).

As explained by Robert Barclay, a preeminent theologian among the early Society of Friends, Quakers believed that “the fruitful exercise of a person's gift should not depend on whether he or she holds a recognized ‘office’ (or ‘title’) in the church.” Therefore, people should use whatever gifts they have been given, whether ministry, teaching, hospitality, or something else. "That which we oppose,” he explained, “is the distinction of laity and clergy, which in the scripture is not to be found, whereby none are admitted to the work of ministry, but such as are educated at schools on purpose, and instructed in logic and philosophy, etc., and so are at their apprenticeship to learn art and trade of preaching, even as a man learns any other art” (5).

Katherine’s father, Thomas, and brother, Michael, were also Quaker ministers, so it seems many in the family followed that route. It was her father who chose to leave England for Ireland sometime before 1680 to avoid religious persecution, and he settled in Northern Ireland near the Lisburn Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Lisburn is a city in County Antrim in the Province of Ulster. It lies about eight miles southwest of Belfast’s city center on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary between County Antrim and County Down.

Map showing location of Lisburn (6)

Thomas became an active participant in Quaker circles and in 1692 was appointed a member of a committee to secure a piece of ground to be used for burials. It was in Lisburn that he met his first wife, Mary, and they produced four children: Katherine, Michael, William, and Abigail. After Mary died (sometime after 1685), Thomas moved to County Westmeath in the Province of Leinster, where he married a second wife, Sarah Wiley, and they produced five additional children: Elizabeth, Sarah, Samuel, Margaret, and Jacob. Sarah died in 1706. 

A lot of the information I found about the Lightfoot family came from this book. (7)

In 1716, when he was 71, Thomas immigrated to New Garden in Pennsylvania, where his son Michael had settled four years earlier. He married a third time to widow Margaret Blunston, continued to serve as a Quaker minister, and died April 9, 1725, in Darby, Delaware County, Pennsylvania - “greatly beloved for his Piety and Virtue, his sweet disposition, and his lively Ministry,” according to his good friend Thomas Chalkley (8). He is buried in the Darby Friends Cemetery.

Here’s a photo of the Darby Friends Burial Ground where Thomas Lightfoot is buried (9).

So, what exactly do Quakers believe? Why did they choose to leave Ireland, and why did so many choose to settle in Pennsylvania? Why did their laws and practices sometimes clash with the Ulster Presbyterians who also settled there, especially along the western frontier? Tune in to my future posts to learn more about Quaker beliefs and practices; Pennsylvania’s Quaker founder, William Penn; how Quaker pacifism added to tensions on the frontier; and where some of my other Irish Quaker ancestors ended up. I might even throw in some thoughts on the Quaker characters introduced in Outlander!

Endnotes:

1. “Arch Street Friends Meeting House.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Street_Friends_Meeting_House.
2. Pfingsten, William. ““Pipe Creek Meeting” Historical Marker.” The Historical Marker Database, https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=3015.
3. “Quaker Pastors — West Hills Friends.” West Hills Friends, https://westhillsfriends.org/quaker-pastors.
4. “Quaker Pastors — West Hills Friends.” West Hills Friends, https://westhillsfriends.org/quaker-pastors.
5. “Quaker Pastors — West Hills Friends.” West Hills Friends, https://westhillsfriends.org/quaker-pastors.
6. Evans, Dorothy. “Lisburn.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisburn.
7. Myers, Albert Cook. Immigration of the Irish Quakers Into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750: With Their Early History in Ireland (Classic Reprint). FB&C Limited, 2016.
8. Myers, Albert Cook. Immigration of the Irish Quakers Into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750: With Their Early History in Ireland (Classic Reprint). FB&C Limited, 2016.
9. “Darby Friends Cemetery in Darby, Pennsylvania.” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2163102/darby-friends-cemetery.

Exploring Family Connections to the 1758 Fort Sebert Massacre, Col. Henry Bouquet’s 1764 Treaty, and The Light in the Forest

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #33

By Tonya Graham McQuade

My 7th great grandparents, John and Dorothy Reager, were both killed in the massacre at Fort Seybert, and their three children (including my 6th great grandmother) were taken captive.

For many years, I have taught Conrad Richter’s 1953 novel The Light in the Forest to my juniors in English 11. The book begins in Ohio in November 1764 as various tribes - including the Shawnees, Senecas, and Delawares (aka. Lenni Lenape) - are returning their white “captives” to Col. Henry Bouquet at the forks of the Muskingum River as part of a peace agreement. The 15-year-old protagonist True Son, born John Butler, is among these captives - and he is not happy about returning to his white family in Paxton Township, Pennsylvania. He wants to remain with his Lenni Lenape family and live in the village along the Tuscarawas River where he has lived since he was kidnapped and adopted at age four.

Earlier the previous year, in February 1763, the Treaty of Paris had officially ended the French and Indian War, resulting in France ceding its territory east of the Mississippi River to England. Many of the tribes who had previously allied or signed treaties with France, however, were not happy with these terms. In May 1763, the Ottawa leader Pontiac led a number of tribes in seeking to drive out English settlers from the Ohio Country. They laid siege to forts and frontier outposts; nearly captured Britain’s two most important fortresses west of the Appalachian Mountains, Fort Detroit and Fort Pitt; successfully captured Fort Sandusky and murdered the entire garrison; and killed or captured hundreds of other English colonists.

Ottawa Chief Pontiac meets with Major-General Henry Gladwin, the British commander at Fort Detroit during the siege. Source: The Ohio History Connection (1)

According to an article titled “Pontiac’s Rebellion” on the MountVernon.org website, “The violence represented an unprecedented pan-Indian resistance to European colonization in North America, in which Indigenous nations – Ottawa, Delaware, Potawatomie, Shawnee, Mingo (Seneca), Wyandot, Ojibwe, Huron, Choctaw, Piankashaw, Kickapoo, Tunica, Peoria, and Mascouten – challenged the attempts by the British Empire to impose its will and abrogate Native sovereignty” (2). 

The tide of Pontiac’s Rebellion turned, however, at the Battle of Bushy Run in Southwestern Pennsylvania in August 1763. There, Col. Bouquet and a force of 500 men, most of them Scots Highlanders, defeated the tribes and prevented a takeover of Fort Pitt. Bouquet soon became the fort’s new commander. The following Fall, Bouquet led an army expedition of about 1500 militiamen and British soldiers from Fort Pitt into the Ohio Valley to put down the ongoing rebellion. 

The Battle of Bushy Run, by Charles William Jefferys, 1915 (3)

According to a historical account of the expedition, Bouquet “had no intention of surprising the natives. He hoped to avoid battle altogether by convincing the Indians that they had no chance against the sizable number of British soldiers. Bouquet had every intention of destroying the native villages, especially those of the Delaware Indians and the Mingo Indians, in eastern Ohio unless they surrendered and agreed to all of the colonel's demands. In October 1764, Bouquet's army reached the heart of Indian country and shortly thereafter, the Shawnees, Senecas, and Delawares came to Bouquet to sue for peace. As part of the peace treaty, Bouquet demanded the return of all white captives in exchange for a promise not to destroy the Indians' villages or seize any of their land. Over the next several weeks, the Natives brought in their captives and eventually more than two hundred were returned to Bouquet” (4).

Many of these “captives,” however, did not see themselves as such. In his introductory “Acknowledgements” to The Light in the Forest, Richter writes: “In records of the Eastern border, the author was struck by the numbers of returned white captives who tried desperately to run away from their flesh-and-blood families and return to their Indian foster homes and the Indian mode of life. As a small boy he himself had tried to run off to Indian country without the benefit of ever having lived among the savages” (5).

There is much more I could say about this novel, but that is not the point of this post. I encourage you to read The Light in the Forest for yourself. The point is, it was interesting teaching the novel this year knowing that several of my own ancestors were among that group of white captives returned to Bouquet in November 1764 by the various tribes that had taken them captive - in the case of my relatives, the Shawnee. I can only wonder how they felt about their captivity and their return to “civilized” life. 

In my last post, where I talked about my Scots-Irish "Ulster Presbyterian" ancestors, I relayed the story of Elizabeth (Archer) Renick, the sister of my 6th great grandmother Sarah Archer on my mother’s side, who was taken captive by the Shawnee at the forks of the James River in Augusta County, Virginia, on July 25, 1757, along with her seven children. Her husband Robert was scalped and killed that same day. Prior to moving to Augusta County, the Renicks had lived in Paxton Township, where many Scots-Irish Presbyterians had settled - the same place that True Son/John Butler’s parents lived in The Light in the Forest, so there I discovered another family connection to the novel.

In The Light in the Forest, True Son is especially dismayed to learn his white family is from Paxton Township, for he has heard stories of the “Peshtank men” and their evil acts against the Conestoga tribe. They had killed an entire village, including women and children, with guns and hatchets. As his Lenni Lenape father Cuyloga recounted, “The white barbarians scalped them. They did indecencies. They chopped off the hands of the men and squaws. They put guns in the mouth of one of our Conestogo cousins while he was yet speaking and blew his head to pieces” (Richter 39). For a fuller description of this historical episode, check out this LINK.

Modern-Day Location of Augusta County, Virginia - but these borders were not
finalized until 1790; it used to be a much larger county (6)

What is especially surprising, though - almost unbelievable - is that my 6th great grandmother on my father’s side was ALSO taken captive by the Shawnee in Augusta County, Virginia, just one year after the Renicks! And ironically, her name - Barbara Reager (1750-1834) - appears along with the names of her sister Dorothy and brother John on the SAME PAGE as the Renicks in the book Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country, by Ian Steele (2013), which has a 112-page alphabetized Appendix of “Named Captives Taken on the Allegheny Frontier, 1745-65.” I have to tell you, it’s rather shocking to see so many names listed - including eleven relatives from both my mother's and father's sides of my family. I had no idea so many whites were taken captive! (And yes, I definitely know Whites committed many atrocities as well).

Notice the “Reager” and “Renick/Ranock” names - the following page lists additional children of Robert & Elizabeth Renick: Nancy, Robert, and William. (7)

Barbara, Dorothy, and John Reager were captured by the Shawnee on April 28, 1758, and their parents were killed in what became known as the Seybert Massacre. Fort Seybert was located on the south fork of the south branch of the Potomac River in an area that is now part of Pendleton County, West Virginia (then Augusta County, Virginia). At the time of the attack, a number of men were away on business in the Shenandoah Mountains, and there was a shortage of ammunition in the fort.

When the Indians arrived at Fort Seybert, only three men were present - including Captain Jacob Seybert and my 7th GGF John Reager - and a number of women and children. Given the circumstances, Seybert surrendered after being promised by Bemimo, a Shawnee war chief, that their lives would be spared. However, after their surrender, the Indians killed 17 people and took up to 24 others captive - including the three Reager and seven Seybert children.  

In this grave site monument at Fort Seybert, Seybert’s wife is listed as being killed, but in the book Setting All the Captives Free, it lists her as captured and later seen at Muskingum in 1759, but it says she never returned. (Photo posted on Findagrave.com)

When Seybert’s teenage son returned to the region years later after being released from his captivity, he gave the following account: “They bound ten, whom they conveyed without the fort, and then proceeded to massacre the others in the following manner: They seated them in a row upon a log, with an Indian standing behind each; and at a given signal, each Indian sunk his tomahawk into the head of his victim: an additional blow or two dispatched them” (8). A documentary I found on Youtube (LINK) tells more about this history and describes the reenactment they do each year of the massacre to remember the victims.

As written on the page above, Barbara and Dorothy Reager were returned to Col. Bouquet at Muskingum River on November 15, 1764; their brother never returned. Barbara later married John Caplenger, and their daughter Barbara married William Traughber in 1790. Traughber is the maiden name of my father’s mother, Margaret Ruth Traughber. She would not have been born if Barbara had been killed by the Shawnee.

William Traughber and Barbara Caplinger Traughber
(Photo posted on Ancestry.com)

It was common, however, for the tribes to adopt their captives rather than kill them. Often, these captives would take the place of family members who had been killed or who had died of sickness. In The Light in the Forest, True Son is adopted by his Lenni Lenape father Cuyloga “to take the place of a son dead from the yellow vomit,” and he is told from the time that he is four that “his father had said the words that took out his white blood and put Indian blood in its place,” making him a “full member of the family” (Richter 1-2). As I explained in my last post, one of Elizabeth Renick’s sons, Joshua, never returned to white society but rather stayed with the tribe. The Captives book says of him: “Seen at Lower Shawnee Town in 1764. WHITE INDIAN who became a war chief” (9).

Six days after the attacks on Fort Seybert and nearby Fort Upper Tract, where 18 militiamen were killed, Gen. George Washington wrote to acting Virginia Governor John Blair to tell him of the disasters: "The enclosed letter from Capt. Waggener will inform your Honor of a very unfortunate affair. From the best accounts I have yet been able to get there are about 60 persons killed and missing. Immediately upon receiving this Intelligence I sent out a Detachment of the Regiment, and some Indians that were equipped for war (Indians were in the employ of the colonists as well as the French) in hopes of their being able to intercept the Enemy in the retreat. I was fearful of this stroke, but had not time enough to avert it” (10).

So, why could these attacks not be averted? There are several contributing factors, but one goes back to the governing philosophy of the Quakers who founded Pennsylvania - and they make up another set of my Scots-Irish ancestors. Tune in next time to learn more about them!

Endnotes:

1. Anderson, Fred, and Lauren Cooper. “July 31, 1763: Chief Pontiac Wins Battle of Bloody Run at Fort Detroit.” Zinn Education Project, https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/battle-of-bloody-run/.

2. “Pontiac's Rebellion · George Washington's Mount Vernon.” Mount Vernon, https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/pontiacs-rebellion/.

3. “Battle of Bushy Run.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bushy_Run#/media/File:The_Battle_of_Bushy_Run.jpg.

4. Smith, Charles Guillaume Frédéric Duma. Historical Account of Bouquet's Expedition Against the Ohio Indians, in 1764. Creative Media Partners, LLC, 2022.

5. Richter, Conrad. The Light in the Forest. Curtis Publishing Company, 1953.

6. “Augusta County, Virginia.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusta_County,_Virginia#/media/File:Map_of_Virginia_highlighting_Augusta_County.svg.

7. Steele, Ian Kenneth. Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013.

8. “Fort Seybert Massacre.” West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, https://archive.wvculture.org/history/settlement/fortseybert01.html.

9. Steele, Ian Kenneth. Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013.

10. “Fort Seybert Massacre.” West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, https://archive.wvculture.org/history/settlement/fortseybert01.html.