Quaker Women in Waterford: Waterford Foundation history page

This information was gathered for an exhibit at the 2010 Waterford Homes Tour & Crafts Exhibit.

In modern parlance, "They were awesome!" Or at least many were. For more than 250 years, women of the Society of Friends, as the Quakers are more formally known, helped shape a remarkable village—and leave their mark in places far from the small mill town that survives today.

The women profiled here are by no means the only active women of Fairfax Meeting, but they are representative, and thanks to them and their families and the Society of Friends which kept careful records, we have a written, and sometimes material, record of their lives.

MARY JANNEY (1707-1767) [life events] and her sister JANE HAGUE(1708-1772) [life events] were present at the beginning. Theirs were the first two families to put down roots in the Waterford area, building from scratch and making a home far away from any settlement. And they faced two of the challenges most common to women of the era: Jane bore at least 12 children, and Mary was a widow by the time she was 40.

But Quaker women as a group had opportunities unavailable to most of their non-Quaker sisters. Their Society accorded them far greater equality with men than was the case in other denominations. They had access to education—and many were literate. They could take on leadership roles in their church (or "meeting"), and they could and did act independently of their husbands.

One extraordinary woman who took full advantage of her opportunities was ANN HERBERT MOORE [life events, letters] . Ann was born in Pennsylvania in 1710—22 years before George Washington. When she was very young her mother died, but she had the good fortune to be placed "amongst Friends." She grew up to marry a Quaker schoolteacher and bear him six children. The family joined Waterford's "Fairfax Meeting" in 1746, before eventually moving on to Maryland and back to Pennsylvania. It was during this later period that Ann began to travel for her church, leaving her family behind. In 1756 she trekked to Albany, New York, where no Quakers lived, and secured an interview with the recently arrived Earl of Loudoun, commander-in-chief of all King George's forces in North America. In accordance with Quaker pacifism she hoped to persuade the British that people should not rely upon warfare and physical weapons. This in the midst of the French and Indian War.

In January and February 1758, Ann Moore returned to New York, travelling through deep snow, and won permission from the commanding general to preach to British military forces in the colony. Her landlady asked how she could bear to travel in such weather. "It must he for some extraordinary thing." "Yes" Moore responded, "it is for the Lord's sake."

Three years later she set sail for Great Britain on a ministry trip, but in mid-ocean, the French boarded her ship and put her ashore, weak and seasick, in Catholic Spain. She and her shipmates were stranded there for several months until shipping was available to England. Moore used the time to preach to English residents in Bilbao — and, though she knew no Spanish — to debate the meaning of the New Testament with a Catholic priest at her lodging.

Meanwhile, in slowly growing Waterford, 20-year-old SARAH PLUMMER JANNEY [life events, letter] arrived from Frederick, Maryland, in 1758 as the bride of Mahlon Janney, son of Mary and Amos Janney, the town's founders. Within a year and a half she had become a minister of Fairfax Meeting, and she too felt the call to travel for her faith. In 1768 she and her traveling companion, Rachel Wilson, an English minister with an international reputation, were deep in the Shenandoah Valley. She wrote her husband from Staunton "to inform thee that we are all in a middling good state of health at present." She added the not entirely reassuring comment that "my companion Rachel Wilson had a fall from her horse which was a little surprise to us… "

In 1781 Sarah was charged with her husband as "two of the non-conformists" who had refused to permit an assessment of their property two years earlier for tax purposes. They evidently did not wish to support the ongoing Revolutionary War—not to underwrite the established Anglican Church, which routinely benefitted from tax revenues.

Eighty years later Waterford's Quaker women rose to the challenge of another conflict. Two, MIRIAM TAYLOR GOVER (1791-1863) [life events] and LOUISA BROWN STEER (1800-1870) [life events], were also ministers of Fairfax Meeting. Louisa and her husband William had already made a mark in the mid-1840s when they became involved in a nationally reported case of a freed slave woman, Kitty Payne, and her children who had been captured in Pennsylvania and returned to slavery in Culpeper, Virginia. In a closely watched court case, the Paynes were again ordered freed, and the Steers escorted them back to safety in Pennsylvania.

The two ministers, like all Quakers after 1776, were firmly abolitionist in their views. This put them at odds with the Confederate cavalrymen who took over Fairfax Meetinghouse as a barracks in 1861. After protests by the congregants, a compromise was worked out, and the Rebels agreed to vacate half the building on meeting days. In the words of an observer, "The old ladies ascended the steps into the gallery and took their seats, though rather daintily, as arms were stacked behind them, muskets and swords stored away beneath the benches… But when all were seated it was perfectly quiet, and when an aged and feeble lady [Miriam Gover] rose, every countenance wore a thoughtful aspect and each attentively listened to her words of truth and love." She "prayed that the wings of peace might be spread over our once prosperous and happy land, also for the strangers that were that day gathered in their midst, until loud sobs broke from strong men and great tears forced themselves down their sunburnt cheeks."

Meanwhile, all in Waterford were beginning to feel the pinch of war. One woman noted in her diary that same year that she had seen RACHEL STEER [life events], a spinster cousin of Louisa, in from her farm "... driving the wagon herself after seed wheat. What a change for her, who had such kind indulgent parents that she was provided for with concern & care on their part and now she has to see after everything indoors and out... " But Waterford's Quaker women were tough and resourceful. Rachel lived nearly 99 years.

In 1863. with the nation still mired in the depths of the Civil War, the intrepid Louisa Steer embarked on a marathon journey by rail and carriage to visit as many Quaker meetings as possible in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. Her 71-year-old husband dutifully trailed along as her escort.

That same year, when Waterford civilian William Williams was seized by the Confederates and imprisoned in Richmond as a hostage, his frail wife, MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS [life events], rounded up her brother and another prominent Loudoun Quaker and made her way to Washington, where she went straight to the top. She pleaded her husband's case in person with Abraham Lincoln and won his commitment to do what he could to win his release. (The objections of Secretary of War Stanton delayed the effort for a time.)

Young Quakeresses also showed initiative and courage. In 1864 bid to aid the Union cause, Rachel Steer's niece SARA STEER [life events] fellow Friends LIZZIE and LIDA DUTTON [life events] managed to produce and have published an underground newspaper that boldly proclaimed its allegiance to the United States. Lizzie also sneaked across the Potomac border to Baltimore to deliver monies and goods raised in Loudoun County to support the work of the "Sanitary Commission," a precursor of the Red Cross. After the war, Sarah Steer opened her home to teach freed slaves and other African Americans—the immediate precursor to the Second Street School.

The harsh realities of war continued to test the pacifist convictions of Waterford Quakers, even as the number of Friends in the village declined steadily into the 20th century. When World War II erupted, young ANNE STABLER [life events] decided that military service did not necessarily conflict with the nonviolent principles of her faith. Resolving to do "something to help end the conflict and bring the boys home," she joined the Marines, the first woman in Loudoun County do so. After the war, she returned to the farm where she was born, and to a varied career in business and in service to her community. She was the last of the Phillips family to occupy that farm, one that is now preserved in part as a memorial to the remarkable people who preceded us and helped make this beautiful place. Anne Stabler Parsons died early in 2010.

Quaker Women Life Events

Letters

My dear children,

I am now in the sixty-six [sic] year of my age and have it in my mind this evening to leave behind me once more a word of tender advice. First to love and fear God and to serve Him with a willing mind that when that awful barrier doth appear you may feel the sting of death and the fear of the grave, removed from you, witnessing a life held with God in Christ and an evidence of a right to the crown of life. This is, oh my children, the blessing which the righteous do reserve and my advice is that you may seek things the best of riches, yea that treasure that fadeth not away. Secondly to love one another and your neighbor as yourselves. This is the whole duty of man.

Ann, your mother

Staunton town, in Auguster” County, the 13th of ye 12 Mo 1768

Dear Husband,

Having an unexpected opportunity to send a few lines to thee I was willing to embrace it and to inform thee that we are all in a middling good state of health at present my companion Rachel Wilson had a fall from her horse which was a little supprise [sic] to us but was not much hurt as the horse went by her struck her on her leg But it is got Bravely and I think my mind seemy [sic] seemly(?) Deeply Poised under a sence [sic] séance(?)? Of the tender Regard of heaven toward us poor creatures as we pass along mostly among other societies But they behave well to us and Express their Sattisfaction [sic] in such opportunities amongst them I feel pretty easy and quiet in my mind and hope it is so with thee my Dear who did all in thy power to forward me along my Sincere Desires are Dayly [sic] that I may be so Conducted as that I may Return to thee in peace. Thou art Brought very near to my Life and I think I may say that I never met with anything to compare with this but Do beg that I may be Kept resigned to what all soficient [sic] arm of power who is able to support in every needful time I must now conclude with my earnest Desires for thy preservation in my absence and bid thee dearly farewell

Remaining thy loveing [sic] wife

Sarah Janney

Courtisy of the Friends Library, Swarthmore College, PA SC 065, Janney MS

The letter below is to Rachel and Sarah A. Littler, Waterford Va, from Ann Moore in nearby Winchester, 9th Month (September )1815. Moore was Ann Littler Moore, third wife of Asa Moore of Waterford (they had married about September 1811, in Wilmington, Delaware)

Winchester, 9th Mo 2nd 1815

My Dear Children,

I just received [Sarah’s] letter informing me you were all well & Rachel Ann getting better but the post is gone and I do not know when you will get this. However, I thought I would write and perhaps I could meet with a private opportunity [to mail a letter..] I am in hopes your Aunt Lavinia is not in as much danger as we at first thought her she had not had her child yet, I called in Doctor Baldwin to attend her and he says he does not see any danger as yet. He thinks the child is dead but she may get well over it & that it may be a week or two before she is confined. She gets up and walks about the room and seems stronger than when I first came up....I feel very uneasy about your tippets do examine them and come & shake them often, this is the worst time in the year for moths, after they are well beat lay them amoung [sic] linen cloaths [sic]. I want you to send

[p. 2] the wool to be carded. That wool Peter picked must go to John Schooly’s [sic] machine if he can card it soon but if not send it to J. Steers. & if you have not got the wool we bought of him yet, you must send out a course [sic] sheet to put the rolls in. I don't know that I have much more to say except my love to you and unto A. & B Nancy & all our friends. I have a little of the head ach [sic] this evening and can’t write much more. I am glad to hear Peter can walk but he had best be careful and not get his leg broke again. I wish you would gather all the seed cucumbers & take care to keep them out of the way of the chickens. Be good girls until I come home which will be as soon as possible for I feel anxious about you ... I must now conclude your very affectionate mother,

Ann Moore

I want Rachel to save butter and pack it up & have the milk house often cleaned---your Aunt don't know I am writing or I think she would send her love to you.

Letter courtesy of descendant Anne Stabler Parsons

Quaker Women of Waterford

Quaker Women Life Events

Letters

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