The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1896-06-12
A Drive Through Hartford.

The last Friday in May your correspondent wen
to Darlington Friends Quarterly Meeting. Fully
eleven years have elapsed since l last attended
meeting at that place, many changes have taken
place in that time. All so many familiar forms
and faces gone from the assembled congregation
The old Darlington meeting house and the pleas
ant grounds adjacent, including the graveyard
has been placed in perfect order by and through
the generosity of Hugh J. Jewett, in honor of his
parents, John and Susanna Jewett. Susanna
| Jewett, the mother, was noted minister in the
| society of Friends in ante bellum days
Born and reared in slave holding community
where kindness to the slave was the rule, and not
the exception, Susanna Jewett, with her strong
good sense and charity for her neighbors who had
this burthen of slave holding bequeathed to them
| by their forefathers, was disposed in her public
dlscourses to be lenient toward the slave holder,
| and We remember on one occasion of hearing her
| say in her sermon that there were those among
Friends, who, while they condemned the slave
holder. were often guilty of unkindness to their
families and domestics. She was especially severe
upon the laws then existing which affected the
property rights of wives, and insisted that Chris
tan men should rise superior to these laws and if
dying before their wives should leave them by
will in undisputed possession of the home.
These mild doctrines used to be met and refuted
in fiery replies from Ellwood Brown, Levi Coates
and other abolitionists of Lancaster county. The
yertabe walls of old Darlington used to ring with
this war of words upon the subject of human
rights in those memorable days gone by.
But the abolitionists used to speak to better adj
vantage upon their own grounds, when the scene
OF the wordy warfare was transferred to Penn Hill
on Quarterly meeting occasions, when immense
eoncourse of people used to assemble there, and
the speaking often took the form of religious
debate, Susanna JeWett always leading the con-
servative side. She was woman of commanding
stature and ofnoble and distinguished appearance,
and it is undoubtedly from her that her million
aire son inherited those sterling qualities which
have enabled him to rise to affiuence and fntlu-
ence, as the father, John Jewett was of pecu-
liarly mild and submissive temperament perfect
contrast to his gifted wife.
Their graves are just inside the entrance gate of
the grave yard, which lies west of the meeting
house, and are marked by plain granite stones
into the lettering OF which the storms of many
years have drifted the gray lichens, almost oblt.
Grating the simple inscriptions The discipline of
Friends sensibly forbids the writing of ones obt-
uary upon his grave stone. An exception exists
in the Darlington grave yard, for near the centre
stands a marble stone which bears in part this
inscription Gam Crosby McIllvaiDe, great grand
daughter of John Norton who gave the casting
vote for American Independence, July 4th, 1776"
The generosity of Hugh ]. Jewett, in honor of
his mothers memory, also provides a bounteous
dinner, which on Quarterly meeting day was
served in the town hall of Darlington, where some
three hundred hungry Quakers of us satisfied our
hunger and decided in our own minds that this
was much more appropriate way of honoring
parents memory than that of piling over their
crumbling dust huge stones of marble or granite
filled with lines of bombastic fattery.
After partaking of dinner we proceeded on our
journey, which led us through region once famI-
iar but long unseen, sleepy old Dublin, Chestnut
Hill, Forest Hill and several minor villages
Along the dusty country roads we encountered
group after group of barefooted girls aud boys
with empty dinner pals and wild posies in their
sunbugnt hands, going home from school, just as
we used to go, dear reader, in those halycon days
so long ago The public school houses of Hartford
in the region through which we passed were COM
paratively new, and showed excellent taste in the
selection of elevated shady sites.
The w. c. L. U. Hall at Forest Hill is a neat and
commodious structure recently erected.
Wheat was looking well; potato fields were al
most as numerous as corn fields, and both were
growing finely, but beginning to show the need of
rain. The grass crop in that region will be total
failure. A. C.. S.