Engagement with the Land
Quakers began migrating northward from the Oblong, arriving in the central portions of the Nine Partners Patent, today’s Millbrook, in the 1740’s. Here they found solitude, fertile lands, water power and access to established routes connecting the central and eastern interior to the Hudson River.
Unlike more isolated Quaker settlements, the Nine Partners community quickly entered into trade and prospered. Among the early families were Thorne, Coffin, Willet, Haight, and Talcott.
Completed in 1780, the Nine Partners Meeting House reflects the prosperity and influence of the community. Its large size—capable of seating 1,000—brick construction, and refined yet simple design distinguish it within the region.
In its picturesque appearance and free of ornament and built mainly with local materials, the meeting house continues to embody the enduring presence of Friends in this community.
Unlike more isolated Quaker settlements, the Nine Partners community quickly entered into trade and prospered. Among the early families were Thorne, Coffin, Willet, Haight, and Talcott.
Completed in 1780, the Nine Partners Meeting House reflects the prosperity and influence of the community. Its large size—capable of seating 1,000—brick construction, and refined yet simple design distinguish it within the region.
In its picturesque appearance and free of ornament and built mainly with local materials, the meeting house continues to embody the enduring presence of Friends in this community.
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Nine Partners School: A Legacy of Equality and Reform 1796-1863
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In 1794, the New York Yearly Meeting appointed a committee to establish a Friends’ school. The group purchased a house and ten acres just east of the brick meeting house from Friend Joseph Mabbett.
The Nine Partners School opened on December 20, 1796, as the state’s first co-educational boarding school, welcoming 100 students - 70 boys and 30 girls - ages 7 to 15. The school built its community on the tenets of the Quaker faith - teaching peace, simplicity, integrity, and service to others, stressing the equal worth of all persons. The principle of antislavery was so central to school values that it was included in a catechism taught to the students. The school had a profound influence on students, some of whom went on to shape social reform movements. Among them were Jacob and Deborah Willetts, widely respected educators, known to have sheltered fugitives from enslavement at their home just down the road; Lucretia Mott who became a Quaker minister in 1821 in recognition of her powerful speaking abilities for women’s rights and abolition; and Daniel Anthony, father of Susan B. Anthony. |
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‘Their Just Right of Freedom’:
Quaker Manumission at Nine Partners
In the second half of the 18th century, New York was home to the largest number of enslaved people in the north, nearly six times the number in the more populous Pennsylvania, according to the 1790 census. The farms and river towns of the Hudson Valley had substantial enslaved populations, as roughly 10 percent of families in Dutchess County were slaveholding. For much of the Colonial Era, Quakers in New York, and specifically in the Charlotte precinct, were no exception. Many prominent families that were part of the Nine Partners Meeting, among them the Thorns, Haights, and Hoags, enslaved people of African descent.
Although some Quakers had denounced both the slave trade and slavery itself on moral grounds as early as the 1670s and 80s, it was not until the period immediately prior to the American Revolution that yearly meetings took a formal position on the issue of whether Friends could hold slaves. In 1775, the Flushing Yearly Meeting, to which Nine Partners Quakers were subsidiary, required Friends to manumit those they had enslaved and ‘restore them to their natural right of liberty’. This was not to take effect immediately for all, however, as minors remained enslaved until ages 18 for women and 21 for men, ‘suitable age[s] for freedom,’ in the language of the Yearly Meeting. Those who refused to comply were to be disowned, or exiled from their meeting. The Nine Partners Meeting formed a committee to ‘treat with those [Quakers] that kept Negroes and Slaves’ to convince them to ‘discharge’ them. As of April 1776, the committee reported that of the 17 previously enslaved people, 3 remained ‘undischarged.’ After these manumissions took effect, Quakers typically visited the formerly enslaved to ensure their welfare. For those still enslaved because they were not yet 18 or 21, the meeting took care ‘to instruct the youth to read and other wise to fit them for business’. Some of the newly free justifiably believed that there was ‘considerable due to them for their past labour’ and in the early 1780s Nine Partners Quakers allocated payments to a number of the formerly enslaved to compensate them for their unpaid work.
Although some Quakers had denounced both the slave trade and slavery itself on moral grounds as early as the 1670s and 80s, it was not until the period immediately prior to the American Revolution that yearly meetings took a formal position on the issue of whether Friends could hold slaves. In 1775, the Flushing Yearly Meeting, to which Nine Partners Quakers were subsidiary, required Friends to manumit those they had enslaved and ‘restore them to their natural right of liberty’. This was not to take effect immediately for all, however, as minors remained enslaved until ages 18 for women and 21 for men, ‘suitable age[s] for freedom,’ in the language of the Yearly Meeting. Those who refused to comply were to be disowned, or exiled from their meeting. The Nine Partners Meeting formed a committee to ‘treat with those [Quakers] that kept Negroes and Slaves’ to convince them to ‘discharge’ them. As of April 1776, the committee reported that of the 17 previously enslaved people, 3 remained ‘undischarged.’ After these manumissions took effect, Quakers typically visited the formerly enslaved to ensure their welfare. For those still enslaved because they were not yet 18 or 21, the meeting took care ‘to instruct the youth to read and other wise to fit them for business’. Some of the newly free justifiably believed that there was ‘considerable due to them for their past labour’ and in the early 1780s Nine Partners Quakers allocated payments to a number of the formerly enslaved to compensate them for their unpaid work.
