Western Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative) Records

Collection — Box: 1

Identifier: FRG-39

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of account books relating to the yearly meeting education fund, deeds, correspondence, and financial records.Most of the deeds involve meetinghouse and cemetery properties, but a few involving the Vestal family may pertain to Maxwell family land.Also included in the collection is reminiscent material concerning the Sugar Grove Friends School, including the minutes of its annual reunions.

Dates

1831-1978

Biographical or Historical Information

Western Yearly Meeting of Friends was set off from Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends (Orthodox) and first held in 1858. In 1877, because of the objections of traditionalist Friends to the introduction of music, revivalism, and other innovations, a separation took place. Small groups of Conservative Friends formed separate meetings in several places, particularly in Hendricks and Morgan counties in Indiana. Relatively few in numbers and disproportionately elderly, Conservative Friends dwindled steadily after 1900. By 1930, only three of the original eight monthly meetings still existed, and by 1947 only one, Plainfield, remained. Friends there continued to hold Western Yearly Meeting at the Sugar Grove Meetinghouse south of Plainfield until they reached the decision to lay it down in 1962.

Note written by

Extent

1.00 Boxes

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Method of Acquisition

The bulk of Western Yearly Meeting (Conservative) records were deposited with the Indiana Historical Society after the yearly meeting ceased to function.These records and materials were retained in the family of the last clerk, Albert Maxwell, and were presented to the Friends Collection, along with a complete set of the printed yearly meeting minutes, by his son William Maxwell in 2002.