I would again like to thank Ruth Dobyns for her presentation during our last podcast about the Meriam R. Hare Quaker Heritage Center located at Wlmington College, Wilmington, Ohio.  She spoke about the Walthall family that settled near Dover Monthly Meeting of Friends in the late 1820s. 

The Heritage Center is now hosting the display: "Silent Witness: Quaker Meetinghouses in the Delaware Valley, 1695 to Present", and, the next exhibit will be "Some Considerations on Keeping Negroes, John Woolman and Other Anti-Slavery Friends"(April 1-June 22) which is being shown in conjunction with the upcoming Quaker Genealogy & History Conference in April on the topic of Anti-Slavery.  

I would highly encourage our listeners, those who have any Quaker artifacts or journals in their possession and are wondering what to do with them, to consider a gift to the Meriam R. Hare Quaker Heritage Center.

In our last podcast concerning a local Quaker involved in anti-slavery, we examined the life of "Public Friend"  Thomas Arnett, an Orthodox Quaker Traveling Minister and preacher.  Today we will tell the story of another local Orthodox Quaker, Dr. Jesse Harvey, and his wife Elizabeth Burgess Harvey who lived in Harveysburg.  This family of educators and physicians was involved in the founding of the first Black School in Ohio at Harveysburg, the founding of the Harveysburg Academy (High School), were conductors on the Underground Railroad, and were ministers to the Shawnee Indians at the Quaker Shawnee Mission and School in Wapakoneta, Ohio and then later in Kansas Territory after the Shawnee were forced to migrate west in 1833.

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License. 

Our special guest today is Ruth Dobyns, the curator of The Meriam Hare Quaker Heritage Center at Wilmington College, Wilmington, Ohio.  The Quaker Heritage Center and The Mary L. Cook Public Library have partnered to present the annual Quaker Genealogy and History Conference. 

Today Ruth gives us  a history of and an audio tour of the Quaker Heritage Center.

For more information about the Quaker Heritage Center see:

http://www2.wilmington.edu/qhc/, and,

http://qugenswohio.blogspot.com/2005/09/opening-and-dedication-of-new-quaker.html.

For information about the Quaker Genealogy & History Conference, see:

http://www2.wilmington.edu/qhc/news.cfm?news_id=582&archive=no

Our intro music is Mozart's Violin Concerto in G, Third Movement Rondeau, K 216, performed by David Oistrakh.  Used with permission, see Internet Archive, http://www.archive.org/index.php.

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License. 

Our guest today is Larry Gara, Professor Emeritus of History of Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio.  He has also taught at many other colleges:  Eureka, Blufton, the University of Delaware, Grove City College, and Mexico City College.  He has written a number of books:

1. The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad
2. The Underground Railroad Handbook (National Park Service), a contributor.
3. The Baby Dodds Story: As Told to Larry Gara
4. The Presidency of Franklin Pierce
5. A Few Small Candles: War Resisters of World War II Tell Their Stories, Compiled and edited by Larry and his wife Lenna Mae.

He has published a multitude of articles in his carreer. Some of them about the Underground Railroad are:

1. The Underground Railroad: Legend or Reality?, Proceedings of the American Philosphical Society, Vol. 105, No. 3 (Jun. 27, 1961), pp. 334-339
2. Friends and the Underground Railroad, Quaker History (Vol. 51, Spring, 1962, No. 1), pp. 3-19.
3. Who was an Abolitionist?, The Anti-Slavery Vanguard: New Essays on the Abolitionists, edited by Martin Dubermaw (Princeton: Princeton Universtiy Press, 1965), pp. 32-51.
4. Brilliant Thoughts and Important Truthes: A Speech of Frederck Douglass edited by Larry Gara (Ohio Journal, Vol. 75, pp. 3-9). This article is online at: http://publications.ohiohistory.org/ohstemplate.cfm?action=detail&Page=00753.html&StartPage=3&EndPage=9&volume=75&notes=notes%2067&newtitle=Volume%2075%20Page%203  

In 1984 Mr. Gara won the War Resisters League Peace Award given by the War Resisters League.  A pacifist of great conviction, Mr. Gara spent 3 and a half years in federal prison for refusing to register for the World War II draft.

Books mentioned in Larry's presentation:

1. The Underground Railroad by William Still (tells many stories of African-American self help when escaping)
2. Reminiscences of Levi Coffin
3. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself
4. The Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
5. Black Abolitionists by Benjamin Quarles
6. Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation by John Hope Franklin
7. Four Fugitive Slave Narratives by Robin W.Winks, Larry Gara, Jane H.& Wm. H. Pease, and Tilden G. Edelstein  (There are many other books which relate Slave Narratives.)
8. Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad by Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond Dobard (Larry believes that this book contributes to the mythology of the UGRR but not the realities.) 

For more information about the upcoming conference, Anti-Slavery/UGRR ~ Taking a Risk for Freedom, and related activities in April 2007, please click on:

Schedule & Registration Form for Anti-Slavery ~ Taking a Risk for Freedom~ PDF File

Photo Credit:  Randy Sarvis of Wilmington College, Wilmington, Ohio.

Our intro music is Mozart's Violin Concerto in G, Third Movement Rondeau, K 216, performed by David Oistrakh.  Used with permission, see Internet Archive, http://www.archive.org/index.php.

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License.

For more information about Achilles H. Pugh click on the following links:

http://www.mlcook.lib.oh.us/Achilles%20Pugh%20-%20Orthodox%20Quaker-Publisher-Anti-Slavery%20Leader.htm (Mary L. Cook Library website), and,

http://qugenswohio.blogspot.com/2005/07/famous-quakers-from-southwest-ohio.html (Quaker Genealogy in SW Ohio blog)

A short biography about his daughter Esther is at:

http://qugenswohio.blogspot.com/2005/07/famous-quakers-from-southwest-ohio_01.html

See our third podcast about the detail of the 3rd Quaker Genealogy & History Conference ~ Anti-Slavery/UGRR ~ Taking a Risk for Freedom:

http://campbeka.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=176470

Our intro music is Mozart's Violin Concerto in G, Third Movement Rondeau, K 216, performed by David Oistrakh.  Used with permission, see Internet Archive, http://www.archive.org/index.php.

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License.

The "Quaker O'Nealls and Friends Genealogical Website" is at:

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~joneall/.

Also see the following article, "The O'Nealls and Slavery" on this same site:

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~joneall/famhisty/on_slavery.html

For more information about Miami Monthly Meeting see:

http://qugenswohio.blogspot.com/2005/06/miami-monthly-meeting-of-society-of.html

The story of Abijah O'Neall as told by Ella B. Keys is found in the publication of the Committee to Arrange For and Hold Friend's Commemorative Services entitled: "Friends Centennial, Miami Monthly Meeting, Waynesville, Ohio, 1803-1903," pp. 117-121. 

The full text of this work can be found at ancestry.com:

http://content.ancestry.com/iexec/?htx=BookList&dbid=27940&offerid=0%3a7858%3a0 

 Our intro music is Mozart's Violin Concerto in G, Third Movement Rondeau, K 216, performed by David Oistrakh.  Used with permission, see Internet Archive, http://www.archive.org/index.php.

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License.