Iowa
History Project
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The Conservative Friends in
Iowa: The Separation of 1877
The Iowa Yearly Meeting of
(Conservative) Friends, now numbering in all about four hundred members,(224) meets alternately in
its annual gatherings at Earlham, Madison County, and at West Branch, Cedar
County, Iowa, and at West Branch, Cedar County, Iowa, usually during the second
and third weeks on September. This independent body of Friends is, as has been
elsewhere indicated, the result of the separation which took place in 1877
between the conservative and the more progressive members of the Iowa Yearly
Meeting of Friends, principally upon the grounds of the introduction of
evangelistic methods and upon the departure of the majority from the primitive
precepts of the Society. This separation had its counterpart in other Yearly
Meetings and marks the last of the important schisms among the Friends in
America.
The troubles which culminated in the
separation of 1877 were years in developing. With the rise of a new generation
of Quakers in Iowa, together with the gradual loosening of the rigid bonds of
custom in many of the Quaker homes in this State, condition developed which
soon became intolerable to those who stood for the old order of things. In the
year 1867, at the Bear Creek Meeting in Madison County, there occurred the
first serious contest, so far as had been discovered, between these two growing
factions.
In that year, two Friends, Stacy
Bevan and John S. Bond, both ministers with minutes for religious service form
the Honey Creek and Bangor Monthly Meetings, respectively, stopped at Bear
Creek on their way to visit among the Friends in Kansas, and there held a
meeting. Of this occasion Stacy Bevan writes:
We made a brief stay at Bear
Creek and held one public meeting at least, where the power of the Lord was
wonderfully manifested. Many hearts were reached and all broken up, which was
followed by sighs and sobs and prayers, confessions and great joy for sins
pardoned and burdens rolled off, and pressious fellowship of the redeemed. But
alas, some of the dear old Friends mistook this outbreak of the power of God
for excitement and wild fire and tried to close the meeting, but we kept cool
and held the strings, and closed the meeting orderly.(225)
During the ten years following this incident
“general” or revival meetings became more and more prevalent in various parts
of the Iowa Yearly Meeting. For a time no attempt was made to control these
meetings; but by 1872, because of irregularities and occasional disturbances
which had occurred here and there, a conviction had come upon the Yearly
Meeting that “the time has come for this meeting to engage in such a work,
by setting apart a committee to arrange for, and have the oversight of, General
Meetings for worship, and the dissemination of the principles of the Christian
religion, in conjunction with similar committees of the Quarterly and Monthly
Meetings.” This official recognition of the new system, so sweeping in its
extent, aroused a storm of opposition and marks the beginning of the end of
unity in the Yearly Meeting.
The four succeeding annual
gatherings of the Yearly Meeting which assembled at Oskaloosa seemed peaceful
enough; but beneath the surface there was a growing discontent which but
awaited a favorable opportunity to give vent to its pent up force. The break
came in one of the most conservative centers in the Iowa field, namely, the
Bear Creek Quarterly Meeting.
Immediately upon the close of the
sessions of the Bear Creek Quarterly Meeting in February, 1877, a revival was
opened in the meeting-house by Benjamin B. Hiatt and Isom P. Wooten, both
ministers of great power. The meetings began on a Sunday evening, continuing
with an ever deepening interest through the morning, afternoon, and evening
sessions of Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday morning to a crowded house the
call was made “for all those who wished to forsake sin and lead a different
life to come to the he front seats.” Despite the fact that of all things
repugnant to the Quaker mind mourner’s benches and religious excitement were
the worst, when the call was made “about twenty arose at once and came.
Others followed, some not waiting to reach the isles be stepped over the seats.
Great confusion followed. Some who did not come forward were visited at their
seats where prayer groups were formed. Some were praying, others weaping
aloud, some pleading, and occasionally a stanza of a hymn would be sung.”
To those who all along had been
displeased with the revival methods, such a scene in their quiet meeting-house
was simply intolerable; and in utter astonishment and consternation they arose
and abruptly left the meeting. “One elderly woman, before departing, standing
in front of the ‘mourners bench,’ declared that the Society of Friends was now
dead, that this action had killed it.” On the following day the revival came to
a close, with a session which “continued over five hours without intermission”
in which the “feeling was intense”. When the meeting broke up with the shaking
of hands “some wept [while] others laughed”; and in the midst of it all a deep
consciousness prevailed that a breach had been made which would inevitably
result in a separation.
Three months passed by as the
offended Friends cautiously thought their way through the painful difficulties
which now confronted them. On the 29th day of May they reassembled
at Bear Creek to solemnly consider the “present and sorrowful condition of our
beloved and once favored society”. Under what they believed to be the guidance
of the Holy Spirit, and with an eye to the future in justification of the
course which they were about to take, the assembly drew up the following
statement relative to the conditions then existing in their midst:
The prevalent practice of
endeavoring to induce dependence upon outward means, thereby drawing away from
the spirituality of the gospel, and to settle down at ease in a literal
knowledge and belief of the truths of the Holy Scriptures.
To set individuals at work in the
will and wisdom of the natural man to comprehend an explain the sacred truth of
religion to bring them down to the level of his unassisted reason and make them
easy to the flesh.
The running into great activity, in
religious and benevolent undertakings showing an untampered zeal by taking up one
particular truth and carrying that to an extreme to the exclusion of other
important truths.
A tendency to undervalue the
writings of ancient Friends, and to promulgate sentiments repugnant to our
Christian faith…
The introduction into meetings for worship
much formality in the way of reading and singing and in the character of the
ministry and prayer.
The manner in which general meetings
are conducted, leaders being selected to conduct the exercises who many times
point out and dictate services, also the introduction of the mourner’s bench
and the manner of consecration the disorder and confusion and exciting scenes
attending many of them wherein the young and inexperienced are urged go give
expression to their over-wrought feelings in a manner inconsistent with our
principles.
In a word, the whole procedure and
spirit of the old-time Quaker meeting had been overturned; and in the process
those who stood for the old order of things had gradually been displaced form
positions of authority. It was to meet this situation, therefore, that those in
conference were moved to declare:
We believe that the time is now
fully come when it is incumbent upon us to disclaim the appointment of all the
offices imposed upon us by the nondescript body now in the seat of church
government and replace them by those in unity with the doctrine and in favor of
supporting the ancient principles and testimonies of our society.
So clear was this declaration that
no one could mistake its meaning. Sympathetic leaders in each of the
subordinate meetings of the Bear Creek Quarter were given copies of the
statement, with instructions to carry it into effect as best suited the
condition in their individual localities. On Saturday, June 16th,
the North Branch Monthly Meeting assembled for business, and the project was
there first launched. Such confusion attended the attempt of the Conservatives
to displace the regular clerk that in dismay they finally withdrew to the yard
and in a brief conference decided to reassemble for separate organization on
the following Wednesday; while the Friends within continued their meetings
within continued their meeting as though nothing had happened. At Bear Creek
the Separatists, if they may be spoken of as such, took the precaution to
assemble separately form their brethren, and at the schoolhouse on June 30th
they organized an independent Monthly Meeting. At Summit Grove a similar plan
was followed with no attendant friction.(226)
On August 12th the three
Monthly Meetings thus segregating themselves united; and when the Iowa Yearly
Meeting convened at Oskaloosa on September 5th there were two sets
of reports presented from Bear Creek, each purporting to be form that Quarterly
Meeting. The subject was at once referred to the representatives present from
all the Quarterly Meetings—Bear Creek excepted—for action; and in their report
on the following day they said that parties to each side of the controversy had
been present and made their statements, “which we considered to the best of
our judgment, and we were entirely united that the reports signed by Jesse W.
Kenworthy and Catherine R. Hadley as clerks [representing the progressive
sect], are the reports of Bear Creek Quarterly Meeting, to labor within the
limits of Bear Creek Quarterly Meeting, with a hope, that through the blessing
of our Heavenly Father there may be a restoration of the harmony that appears
to be interrupted in that Quarterly Meeting.”(227) This recommendation was approved and the
committee was duly appointed.
Those determined upon separation had secured two distinct advantages by this action of the Yearly Meeting. In the first place, they had gained wide-spread publicity for their cause through this treatment of their case by the representatives form all of the Quarterly Meetings; and in the second place, the refusal by the Yearly Meeting to recognize their reports and delegates gave them strong justification, so they considered, for withdrawing from that body. They accordingly issued a general call for all who were in sympathy with them to meet in a building at Oskaloosa which had been secured for the purpose; and on September 7th, under the following minute, the Iowa Yearly Meeting of (Conservative) Friends was organized:
In
consideration of the various departures in doctrine and principle and practice
brought unto our beloved Society of late years by modern innovators who have so
revolutionized our ancient order of the church as to run into views and
practices out of which our Early Friends were led, and into a broader and more
self pleasing and cross shunning way than that marked out by our Saviour and
held by our ancient Friends and who have so approximated to the unregenerate
world that we feel it incumbent upon us to bear testimony against all such
doctrines principles and practices and sustain the church for the purpose for
which it was peculiarly raised up, and in accordance therewith we appoint Zimri
Horner clerk for the day.
Thus arose the Separation of 1877 which was soon to complete itself by spreading into two additional Quarterly Meetings in Iowa.
Notes and References
224- The Conservative Friends, unlike the other Quaker sects in Iowa, do not record detailed statistics of their membership, and in consequence it is difficult to determine just how many members of that body there are in this State.
225- For the materials dealing with the separation in the Bear Creek Meeting the writer is indebted to Darius B. Cook of Earlham, Iowa, who compiled the data from official records in the hands of the Conservative Friends. Mr. Cook intends to publish the full results of his researches.
226- Minutes of Iowa Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1872, p. 6.
227- Minutes of Iowa Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1877, pp. 2, 4. See also the Cook Manuscript.