8/7/12

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HICKSITE BURIAL GROUND, originally built as a site for a meeting hall in Pelham, ON, at the corner of Welland Rd. and Effingham St., was established in 1773 by Canada's first Society of Friends. The Society of Friends, or Quaker settlements, in Upper Canada were composed of immigrants from the United States, where among them, they found commonalities from their reactions against societal tensions... of liberal and evangelical revival trends, as well as increasing conservative responses towards Elias Hicks and other like-minded Friends who agressivley questioned traditional doctrines and their primary authorities. Hicks was one of the early abolitionists among the Friends, and spoke of slavery often and worked hard to persuade others to oppose it. Hicks had many exponents, including the renowned Walt Whitman, who spoke of Hicks as "a wonderful compound of the mystic ang logical reasoner... destined to make a radical revolution." Later in 1866, a church was built alongside the hall by the Hicksite Quakers, with an accompanying burial ground. The church was removed shortly after to 1141 Maple St. in Fenwick for the Fenwick's Women's Institute. Today, the burial grounds now stand in lonely vigil where the church once stood, with most of the 18th century burial marking stones overgrown and lost in the forest.

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