Lincoln Quakers in the Culture of Slavery: their voices and stories

Samuel McPherson Janney

Samuel McPherson Janney wrote and lectured against the institution of slavery, eventually being arrested for anti-slavery essays published in Virginia newspapers.

Yardley Taylor

Yardley Taylor, an active abolitionist, was arrested in 1828 for helping an enslaved man escape Virginia for freedom in the North. 

Francis H. Ray

Francis Ray, raised in a properous New York Quaker family, left Lincoln in the middle of the night to escape threats of violence for his abolitionism.

William and Priscilla Tate

William drove off in his carriage with an escaping slave the Tate’s had disguised in wife Priscilla’s Quaker dress and bonnet.

Goose Creek “Black Republican” Literary Society Meeting

Oakdale School, site of the 1856 Goose Creek Literary Society Meeting of “Black Republicans”

Kitty Payne/: “…the case in Rappahannock”

When Kitty Payne and children were kidnapped & taken to Virginia as slaves, Lincoln Quakers sprang into action.

Dr. J.E. Snodgrass: “My money – ay, my life would be well sold in such a cause!”

Dr. J.E. Snodgrass of Baltimore, influenced by Samuel M. Janney, became an ardent abolitionist. He was involved in the escape attempt of 77 enslaved fugitives aboard The Pearl

Circleville

Portrait of Emily Nichols of Circleville. After freedman Nelson T. Gant’s trial for kidnapping his own enslaved wife, Emily and Thomas Nichols gave the Gants a job and welcomed them into their home.

Eliza Coffin Janney Rawson

Eliza C. Janney Rawson’s detailed newspaper essays about her years in Lincoln, Virginia provide anecdotes and episodes of the years leading up to war and life in this little Southern Quaker village.