Correspondence: [The writer of the following letter is an octogenarian. It has been permitted to him in the evening of life to rejoice in the spread of Truth in his vicinity.]
New Martinsburg, Fayette County, Ohio 9th Month 14th 1871
William J. Allison
Dear Friend:
I thought I would once more drop thee a line to give thee a statement of the affairs of Society in this once small but now large Quarterly Meeting.
Fairfield Quarterly Meeting, Ohio, which embraces the eastern limits of the Indiana Yearly Meeting, was last held at Fairfield. It was very large; harmony prevailed throughout. Twenty recorded ministers were present, several of them from abroad.
The meeting for Ministers and Elders was regarded as one of the best ever held there. On First-day morning and afternoon, meetings for worship were held in the house, and at two places outdoors in the shade. It was estimated that five to six thousand people were in attendance.
A Monthly Meeting was established at Londonderry, set off from Fairfield, and since opened. Fairfield Monthly meeting was last held at Oak Grove, at which time fifty-six adult persons were received into membership, residing at Hamden Furnace, 65 miles east of Fairfield. A few of them had occasionally attended meetings at Londonderry in the two past years. A young woman visited them and held several meetings while there. They forwarded requests for membership by her to our Monthly Meeting.
A large committee visited them and found them holding meetings twice a week, to the best of their understanding in the way of Friends, which they continue to hold. Application for nine or ten others is now before us, for membership from the same place.
Several meetings have very lately been held near the Ohio River, in the vicinity of Sciotoville, about sixty miles from Fairfield, where several persons have recently joined with Friends.
Some 50 miles up the river, at the most southern part of Ohio, at a place known as Quaker Bottom, a very large and interesting meeting was held, where a few families of Friends settled in 1797 and held the first meetings of Friends northwest of Ohio. They remained there only a few years but left a good name that will long continue. One family, members of Miami Monthly Meeting, now resides six miles below this lovely place, with whom a good little meeting was held.
The number of members in Scioto valley and east of it is 200 – of these 160 belong to Londonderry Monthly Meeting. The number now belonging to Fairfield Monthly Meeting is 740. Of these, 195 have been received by request since the report to the last Yearly Meeting, and five requests were handed over to Londonderry Monthly Meeting and received there. The number of members in the Quarter at this date (9th mo., 1871) I think will reach 2200. Chesterfield Monthly Meeting is some 60 miles east of Harnden. I have been attending a General Meeting at Chesterfield.
I have given this notice in order that ministers and other laborers visiting this Quarter may know its extent. The field is very wide, and the harvest is fully ripe.
Very truly their friend, Gershom Perdue
Source: Friend’s Review (Quaker Religion)
Philadelphia, Sept. 23, 1871, page 92
Submitted by Martha J. Martin
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