Friday, February 9, 2007

James Stanton ~ A Dinwiddie Quaker

Minister to African Americans and Native Americans

James Stanton (1779-1852) born of Quaker parents in Dinwiddie Co., Virginia; James and Ann Stanton of Dinwiddie County, Virginia. He was brother to John, b. Oct. 7, 1777; William, b. Nov. 16, 1782; Fredersec, b. Feb 2, 1784; Mary, b. March 28, 1786 and Robert, b. July 17, 1788, whose births were recorded in the Blackwater Monthly Meeting records of Southside Virginia.

Stanton achieved considerable success in assisting the plight of Virginia's black population.He was well known as an abolitionist and member of The Society of Friends (Orthodox).In 1826 Stanton, at age 43, and his family moved to Warren County, Ohio and purchased a 114-acre farm in Clear Creek Township. The farm, known as Greenhill Farm, was a station on the Underground Railroad. The house is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.In 1828 Stanton he is a member of the society of Friends of Indiana Yearly Meeting, and that he attended at Mount Pleasant meeting house, with a committee on Indian concerns. “James was a ‘lay preacher’ in the Society of Friends and made many trips among the Indians of the Miami Valley and as far away as the Oklahoma Territory. He married Ann Jones and they had a daughter Catherine Ann who was six years old when she and her family came here from Virginia in 1826” (A Souvenir Booklet Telling The Story In Word And Picture And Dedicated To Those Who Have Lived And Labored In The Community During The Past One Hundred Fifty Years, . Springboro Sesquicentennial, 1815-1965, p. 19)

James Stanton, as well as being a conductor on the Underground Railroad in Ohio, was also on the Indian Concerns Committee of Indiana Yearly Meeting (Orthodox). He and his neice, Ann Stanton assisted Elizabeth Harvey and her family after her husband, Dr. Jesse Harvey of Harveysburg, Ohio who was the superintendent of the facility, died in 1849 at the Quaker Shawnee Mission in Kansas Territory (now Johnson Co., Kansas), see Ohio Yearly Meeting Minutes, 1849, p 18.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You write very well.