SITE OF FIRST QUAKER MEETING IN CAYUGA COUNTY DEMOLISHED

Historic Ledyard home demolished, site of Cayuga County's first Quaker meeting

Hello Everyone,

It may be of interest to some that the first Quaker Meeting in Cayuga County, New York was demolished this past Tuesday.

Click Here to read the newspaper report.

I did a little further digging and found a very compelling history:

Click  here to read the whole of the Early History Of Friends In Ca...

Read before the Cayuga County Historical Society, April 8th, 1880
By Miss Emily Howland

Here is an extract from the Early History of Friends In Cayuga County, N.Y. relating to the Ledyard home. (BTW, the whole history is worth the time investment.)

"There was a log house, a living spring gurgling from the bank of the glen before the humble home, a saw mill, and a clearing of three acres, which a man named Wheeler had made and relinquished to the original owner, Judge Wood.  From him Benj. Howland bought these improvements, with a farm of 135 acres, paying $4 per acre for 85 acres and $10 for the remaining 50.  A framed house, two stories high in front, was built without delay; for Mary Howland, having no taste for rustic living, had come into the wilderness with the stipulation that she should not live in a log house, except temporarily. This house still stands, showing as little change as the "Deacon's one hoss shay" after its long run, and looks good for a century to come.  The wide-throated chimney is just as it came from my grandfather's hands.  He was a mason, and laid the foundations of many of the homes and firesides of the settlers.

Not a little of his work stands, attesting the thoroughness of the worker.  His business was in such request that he employed several men, receiving $3 per day for himself and one assistant, the highest wages paid for any work at that time, ordinary farm work receiving 50 cents per day.

Benjamin Howland was a model pioneer ; his spirit was strong and genial, and his kindness acknowledged all drafts.  A proof of this, as peculiar as convincing, is that he extracted teeth for hapless, suffering neighbors, for whom no dentist lived. When his work was well done, he sometimes received a thank offering of words, but if he failed, "Uncle Ben," as he was familiarly styled, had to endure something more than ingratitude.

In the front room of Benjamin and Mary Howland's new house the first Friend's meeting in this county was held, in 1799. On preparative meeting occasions the men withdrew to the upper room.

The following persons including the family circle, assembled twice a week: Allen Mosher and Hannah with their family, natives of Dartmouth; sometimes Judge Wood and his wife from Aurora; Wm. and Hannah Reynouf from New York; Sylvanus and Lydia Hussey and family from Dartmouth; Content Hussey, called "Aunt Tenty," from Dartmouth ; Samuel Haines from New Jersey ; John and Dinah Wood, Jethro and Sylvia Wood, the former son of John Wood, the latter, daughter of Benjamin Howland ; Joshua Baldwin, Elizabeth Baldwin, his mother, and Anne and Elizabeth, his sisters, from New York ; Isaac and Ruth Wood, parents of Judge and James Wood, from Dartmouth.

Benjamin Howland set apart a burial place below his house, on the height above the glen. The first form laid in " its kindred dust " in this ground, was that of Slocum Hussey, in 1803. He was a son of Jonathan and Content Hussey, a young man of unusual promise, a student of law under Judge Wood's instruction.

The meeting, after some months, was removed to Benjamin Wilbur's "front room," he having bought three acres from Benjamin Howland, and built a house.  After a year, the room proving too small for the growing numbers, a log house, a few rods east of Benjamin Howland's, was fitted with partitions, to be closed during meetings for discipline ; and thither the meeting was removed, to remain until the meeting house was built in 1810.

It may be well to illustrate the church polity of the society, by tracing the dependence of this little meeting upon authority, for its right to exist.  Being within the limits of Farmington Monthly meeting, Ontario Co., an appeal to it for permission to hold a meeting, was made and granted for six months, and a committee appointed to attend the "indulged " meeting, as it was styled, and report.

At the end of this probation, a preparative. meeting, to report to Farmington, was asked for, and granted.  This monthly meeting was subordinate to Easton Quarterly meeting, in Washington Co., and that, with other similar bodies, to the New York yearly meeting.  In 1808 the Quarterly meeting assented to the request of the Scipio Friends for a monthly meeting, separate from Farmington.  In 1810 the yearly meeting constituted Farmington, Scipio, and DeRuyter monthly meetings; a quarterly meeting to be held at Farmington and Scipio alternately."

I enjoy Quaker history and thought some of you might enjoy this little piece of Quaker history.