Hi: Found this Hinds info at another list.. Regards, Nan [email protected] =========================== Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 19:13:28 -0600 To: [email protected] From: Clif Hinds <[email protected]> Subject: [hinds] Quaker burial practices From: Clif Hinds <[email protected]> I received this information from the Pearsall family list. It is very interesting. For Oliver and Wanda, this might explain why we can not find the burial place of Revolutionary War, John Hind. As I told you before, I had seen a lot of evidence that he may have been a Quaker. As some of you know, it is a myth that Quakers never fought. There is a lot of evidence that they fought in several instances to include the French and Indian Wars and the Revolution. At any rate, read the information below. Clif Hinds ------------ >From: "Rosalie V. Grafe" <[email protected]> >To: [email protected] > >Those of you wondering about the absence of Quaker tombstones for >Pearsalls in the graveyard at Flushing Meetinghouse or at others from the >seventeenth and eighteenth century might be heartened to read...or >not...the reasoning laid out below, forwarded from another list. > > Rosalie V.Grafe > >From: Dan Treadway <[email protected]> >To: [email protected] >Subject: Quaker burial practices > >The following post appeared on another list. I thought some >quaker-rooters would like to see it, so with the author's permission, >and some changes she suggested, I quote it here. > >> Subject: Re: Friends' mortuary practices >> Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 09:44:31 -0500 >> From: Mary Ellen Chijioke >> To: [email protected] >> >> I am sharing my Quaker burial practices stem from Quaker theology. >> Whatever their notions of an afterlife (and they have varied >> considerably), Friends have historically have not believed in bodily >> resurrection (other than the Easter event itself) and thus always regarded >> the physical remains of a person as spiritually insignificant. They also >> have a testimony of simplicity, discouraging anything that would tend to >> "puff up" individual pride. Burial or other disposal of the dead is, >> therefore, first and foremost a public health measure. >> >> That being said, Quakers have never been immune to the winds of change in >> the world's culture, and so funeral practices have changed over time. >> Headstones were not officially permitted for Friends until the late 1840s >> (the exact date varies by yearly meeting), but the best evidence of how >> common they had become by the end of the 18th century is the number of >> warnings being sent down to monthly meetings about stopping the practice. >> Even earlier are the warnings of excessive partying at weddings and >> funerals. >> >> Many stones for dates before the 19th century were added later, by family >> wanting to remenber their own dead or by Friends succombing to hero >> worship. This is certainly true for the grave of George Fox, which is not >> even in its original location. (Margaret Fell Fox's burial site is marked >> by a general historical marker noting that she is among 228 Friends buried >> in the general location.) We have at least one instance where a family in >> the early 1860s provided a whole line of about 10 identical stones to mark >> earlier burials. And the Penn family stones at Jordans (the only ones in >> the burial ground) are similarly modern. >> >> The primary way in which Friends remember the dead has changed remarkably >> little in the past 340 years. The "service" is a called meeting for >> worship, in which the silence is broken by those remembering various >> aspects of the person's life. A remarkably rich picture often develops as >> people testify to those elements they know, leaving a sense of celebration >> of the person more than mourning. The body is is generally not present at >> the meeting for worship. In the past, burial was usually immediately >> afterwards; today cremation is more frequent, and arrangements for >> disposal of the ashes (or burial) are completely private, with no mention >> at the memorial meeting. >> >> Meetings also wrote and recorded memorial minutes for adult members who had >> been active in the meeting. For those whose ministry was especially >> recognized, the minutes were forwarded to the quarterly and yearly meeting, >> and in the late 18th century, yearly meetings began publishing collections >> of memorials of ministers and elders. >> >> In the late 18th and early 19th century, the romanticization of death >> manifested itself in Quakerism by the emergence of a genre of publication >> generally entitled "Piety Promoted." These volumes, intended for religious >> education of children, were anthologies of reports of the beautiful deaths >> of young people. >> >> The increasing care about matters of death also show in the way in which >> records were kept. Many meetings kept either a record of the deaths of >> members (with or without a note about where buried) or a record of all >> burials in the burial ground. (Many non-Friends are buried in Quaker >> cemeteries.) A few kept both. The burial records of Philadelphia Monthly >> Meeting (for the Arch St. burial ground) give one of the first signs of the >> increasing concern about sentimental attachment to physical remains. (At >> Arch St., where burials ceased after the meetinghouse was built on the site >> in 1804, the burials are 4 layers deep; there are no headstones.) Until >> the mid-18th century, burials were simply chronological, with the next dead >> person taking the next available space in a row. Then toward the late 18th >> century, one notices that when an older person died, the next space was >> often left empty to await the spouse. By the 19th century, family >> groupings are common in Quaker burial grounds. >> >> I hope this isn't too much historical detail for those on the list. But I >> find the details fascinating in the way they illustrate continuity and >> change in our faith. >> >> Mary Ellen Chijioke >> Swarthmore MM