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.

Tracing my "Ulster Presbyterian" Roots from Ireland to Pennsylvania

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #31

By Tonya Graham McQuade

Some of my ancestors come from Fermanagh, Antrim, Cavan, Derry,

Donegal, and Tyrone in Ulster in Northern Ireland

This summer, my husband Mike and I had the opportunity to visit Ireland and Scotland, where many of our ancestors originated. We were both excited to see places our ancestors had lived, as well as learn more about what their lives might have been like and why they might have chosen to brave the journey across the sea to come to America so long ago. While in Dublin, we learned more about the “Great Famine” of 1845-1852 that caused more than one million deaths and led more than a million people to emigrate from Ireland, mostly to the United States. However, while it’s likely some of Mike’s “McQuade” relatives as well as my “Graham” ancestors said their goodbyes to Ireland as a result of the “Great Famine”, that’s not the story for most of my “Irish” ancestors. 

According to my DNA results on Ancestry.com, my highest DNA match is Scotland - 43% - with very little Irish. So, something confused me. When I look at my family tree, I see quite a few relatives who immigrated from Ireland. Weren’t they Irish?

As it turns out, most were not. They were actually from Scotland and England, but moved to Northern Ireland for both religious and political reasons. Many were Scots Irish Presbyterians; others were “Irish Quakers.” Both groups moved to Ulster in Northern Ireland from the lowlands of Scotland and various parts of England in the 17th century, and many immigrated to Pennsylvania in the early 1700’s. I decided I wanted to learn more about them, and as I did so, I made some very interesting discoveries.

My next series of posts will explore the following topics:

1. Who were the Ulster Presbyterians, and why did so many settle in Pennsylvania?

2. Where do my own Ulster ancestors - the Renicks, Archers, Jacksons, and Hamiltons - fit in?

3. How were these immigrants impacted by the French & Indian War (1754-63); and what were the circumstances and results of my 6th great grandmother’s sister and her five children being captured by Shawnee, who also killed and scalped her husband? 

4. How does all this relate to a book I teach my juniors, Conrad Richter’s The Light in the Forest, which we discuss as part of our Native American unit?

5. Who were the Irish Quakers;  and why did they move first to Ireland, then Pennsylvania; and how am I related to Rev. Thomas Lightfoot, Sir Anthony Jackson, and Presidents Andrew Jackson and  Richard Nixon (not the greatest presidential connections, I know)? 

6. What was the Great Famine? Why did so many people leave Ireland during this time, where did they go, and where do the Grahams fit into this story?

Many of my earliest Scots Irish ancestors on my mom’s side - the Renicks, Archers, Jacksons - first settled in Pennsylvania in the early 1700’s after leaving Northern Ireland. Others, including the Hamiltons, settled in Virginia in the 1600's, but I will focus here on the Ulster contingent. As it turns out, after landing in Philadelphia, they were among the first Scots Irish to settle in western Pennsylvania, along the banks of the Susquehanna River.

According to The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia: “As the prototypical “peoples in motion” of their time, the Scots Irish moved first from the Scottish Lowlands to Ulster during the seventeenth century at the behest of the English, who desired them to act as a Protestant colonizing force among Ireland’s native Catholics. After 1700, when faced with deteriorating economic conditions and mounting religious and political persecution as dissenting Protestants (not members of the official, state-sponsored Church of Ireland) in Ireland …  they chose to migrate again. This time, the Scots Irish came to America, migrating as servants and free people, individuals and families, and sometimes as political exiles and refugees.”

Sign from EPIC Emigration Museum in Dublin, Ireland

The text reads:: "Many Irish people looked for livelihoods in Europe and North America. Catholics found employment in European armies, while the first waves of emigration to North America were largely Ulster Presbyterians, seeking religious freedom and economic improvement."

Now, it doesn’t take much study of Irish history to recognize the tension - politically, religiously, culturally, and economically - that has existed between Ireland and Great Britain throughout the centuries. This tension has frequently erupted in violence, wars, oppression, purges, restrictions, exclusions, and deep-seated hatred. The disagreements between Catholics and various Protestant sects as the Protestant Reformation swept Europe played a huge role in all of this, with each group at different times exerting its power over the other. Religious tolerance and freedom certainly did not reign supreme, and many were charged with heresy and killed - often in atrocious ways.

One time this tension reached a climax was in the Nine Years’ War between England and the Gaelic (native Irish) earls, led by Hugh O’Neill, the second Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O’Donnell, the Earl of Tyrconnell. After their defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in October 1601, the Gaelic earls sought help from Catholic Spain, but ultimately, they were defeated. The war ended with the Treaty of Mellifont in March 1603 (read more HERE), and Gaelic earls had to give up their titles, Brehon laws, private armies, much of their land, and control over lesser lords, as well as swear an oath of loyalty to the English throne. This they did, but then in 1607, during the “Flight of the Earls,” many of those same earls fled Ireland for Spain, Rome, and the Spanish-controlled Netherlands, never to return - marking the end of the old Gaelic Order in Ireland. 

This set the stage for the “Plantation of Ulster,” which began in 1609 during the reign of King James I and involved the organized colonization (aka. plantation) of Ulster by English-speaking Protestants (or planters) from Southern Scotland and Northern England. King James, you see, was the first king of a united England and Scotland, and he wanted to extend that rule to Ireland. How did he get that title? He was the son of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, who was executed and replaced with her protestant son James, making him King James VI of Scotland. Then, when Queen Elizabeth I died without an heir, he - as next in line - became King James I of England as well. 

So, my ancestors were among those who settled in various parts of Ulster after the Gaelic earls and their families were driven from their native land - a realization that definitely leaves me with a mix of emotions. Family research (and history itself) is certainly a mixed bag of good and bad, happy and sad, harmonious and haunting and harrowing. Some of my ancestors immigrated for political or economic reasons; others, because they experienced religious persecution where they were living. Whichever the case, the colonized land in Ulster, an estimated half a million acres in size, was confiscated from the native Gaelic chiefs in the counties of Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Donegal, and Londonderry - and that's where my "Irish" ancestors lived. But then, all of us live on land that once belonged to Native Americans. Indigenous groups around the world have been pushed out of their homelands.

As explained online, King James and his assistants “saw the plantation as a means of controlling, anglicizing, and ‘civilizing’ Ulster. The province was almost wholly Gaelic, Catholic, and rural and had been the region most resistant to English control. The plantation was also meant to sever Gaelic Ulster's links with the Gaelic Highlands of Scotland. The colonists (or ‘British tenants’) were required to be English-speaking, Protestant, and loyal to the king…. The Scottish settlers were mostly Presbyterian Lowlanders and the English mostly Anglican Northerners. Although some ‘loyal’ natives were granted land, the native Irish reaction to the plantation was generally hostile, and native writers lamented what they saw as the decline of Gaelic society and the influx of foreigners” (read more HERE).

John Knox Statue in St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh,

Scotland, on High Street along the "Royal Mile"

Scottish Presbyterianism traces its roots to John Knox - who also leaves me with very mixed feelings after our visit to Edinburgh in Scotland. We visited St. Giles Cathedral, where he is proudly celebrated, and toured a house across from the cathedral called the “John Knox House” where he lived for a time. I had learned about him before when I was studying church history and learned about Presbyterianism, which places an emphasis on the sovereignty of God, the authority of scripture, and justification by grace through faith. For many years, I attended Presbyterian churches (after having grown up Catholic). Still, hearing how the Catholics and Presbyterians attacked and killed each other - and how John Knox branded Mary, Queen of Scots, a “whore” and repeatedly called for her execution - couldn’t help but make me question his methods and whether anyone would know he was a Christian by the love he showed to others (John 13:35). 

St. Giles Cathedral, founded in 1124 by King David I, 

has been a working church for almost 900 years

As Presbyterians began to experience more persecution in Scotland for not being part of the Anglican Church of England, they began to look for other places to live, and Ulster - with its many land grants - provided that opportunity. Remember, this is around the same time the Pilgrims and Puritans also decided to leave England as a result of religious persecution. As early as 1636, a group of Ulster Presbyterians - in communication with Puritan leader John Winthrop - set out for America on the ship Eagle Wing, but bad weather caused them to turn back. They viewed the weather as a sign from God that they were not meant to leave Ulster and did not try to set out in large numbers again until 1718.

In the meantime, the 1662 Act For Encouraging Protestant-Strangers And Others To Inhabit and Plant in the Kingdom of Ireland inspired others - including French Huguenots and German Moravians - to immigrant to Ireland. The Act especially sought "Merchants, Traders and Dealers of Ability to exercize a Traffic as of skilful Artificers, Artizens and Workman for the making and working all Sorts of Manufactures" because so much of Ireland had been destroyed and depleted by wars (read more HERE).

So, why did so many Presbyterians - an estimated 200,000 before the start of the American Revolution - eventually choose to leave Ireland? And why did they choose to go to Pennsylvania? Apparently, for several reasons. 

One reason was the 1704 Test Act, which stated that those wishing to hold civil or military office had to prove they had taken communion in the Church of Ireland (tied to the Church of England), which effectively barred Presbyterians. The Test Act also refused to recognize marriages conducted by Presbyterian ministers and considered children born of such marriages illegitimate. Another cause for anger was the tithes demanded by the Church of Ireland. Memories of the 105-day long Siege of Derry led by the Catholic James II in 1689 and his Jacobite supporters, during which an estimated 15,000 people died of fever, starvation or were killed, also contributed. 

By 1718, many believed it was time to emigrate - and 319 Ulstermen, including nine Presbyterian ministers, addressed a petition to Samuel Shute, Governor of Massachusetts, asking for a place to do so. Known as the Shute Petition, “it declared their ‘sincere and hearty inclination to transport ourselves to that very excellent and renowned plantation.’ The petition was carried to New England by Rev. William Boyd, the minister of Macosquin Presbyterian Church near Coleraine [in Londonderry]…. On his arrival in Boston in July 1718 Boyd met with the local authorities. They were keen to have new settlers, especially people used to farming and frontier life; the colonial government thought that Ulster settlers could be placed on the outer reaches of their colony” (see SOURCE).

 The 1718 Shute Petition is on display at the New Hampshire Historical Society

Soon after that, the Rev. James McGregor led his own family and many others from his congregation in Ulster to America. In his farewell sermon he said they were leaving “to avoid oppression and cruel bondage, to shun persecution and designed ruin, to withdraw from the communion of idolators and to have an opportunity of worshipping God according to the dictates of conscience and the rules of His inspired Word” (see source above).

So, why did so many Scots Irish Presbyterians settle in Pennsylvania? For one, many Presbyterians already lived there; in fact, the first "Presbytery" was organized there in 1706 by Rev. Francis Makemie, who is considered the "Father of American Presbyterianism." He had arrived in 1683 to begin planting Presbyterian churches in the American colonies.

Furthermore, according to the essay "Scots Irish," by Judith Ridner: “Pennsylvania had much to offer them. Because of the value proprietor William Penn (1644–1718) had placed on religious tolerance in planning his colony, Pennsylvania had a pluralistic society where these Scots Irish Presbyterians would no longer be stigmatized as dissenters. The colony’s economy, anchored by the rapidly expanding port city of Philadelphia, was also growing rapidly. An expanding flaxseed trade with Ireland during the eighteenth century, one closely tied to the immigrant trade, offered immigrant Scots Irish merchants abundant commercial opportunities in Philadelphia and encouraged farm families to continue the linen production they had done in Ireland in America. The growing colony and its practice of purchasing lands from Indians also offered newcomers abundant rural lands and a generally peaceful climate in which to settle. Finally, with Philadelphia as the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in America, the Delaware Valley also offered Scots Irish Presbyterians the promise of a spiritual home” (see SOURCE).

So, where specifically do my ancestors fit in? This post is already far too long, so tune in next time to hear about the Archers, Renicks, Jacksons, and Hamiltons!