Hannah Barnard - Timeline

Hannah Barnard:

in England,

in America

Main sources: 

Foster, T. (1801). An appeal to the Society of Friends: On the primitive simplicity of their Christian principles and church discipline; 

Barnard, H., & Foster, T. (1804). A Narrative of the Proceedings in America, of the Society called Quakers,

in the case of Hannah Barnard. With a brief review of the previous transactions in Great Britain and Ireland:

intended as a sequel to an Appeal to the Society of Friends. [By Thomas Foster.]. London: J. Johnson.

See also:

New Light on Hannah Barnard, A Quaker "Heretic", David W. Maxey, Quaker History, Vol. 78, No. 2 (Fall 1989), pp. 61-8.

Friend Hannah Barnard, Austin Meredith.

Hanna Barnard - A liberal Quaker hero, Chuck Fager

Note: I am surprised not to have discovered more scholarly work on Hannah Barnard, and no Doctoral thesis.

It may be that it is there but I’ve not found it. I think she deserves and would reward much more detailed study.

________

Timeline, mostly accusations and hearings.

Background

1754? Born

1772 Became a Quaker

1775-1783  American War of Independence

Early 1780s with husband, Peter Barnard, she  lived in the Quaker colony of Hudson, NY

They had three children, of whom two were surviving in 1804.

1789  French revolution

1798  Irish Revolution 

1799  Napoleon came to power

 1803  war between France and England declared

1790 J. G Bevan published, A summary of the history, doctrines and discipline of Friends:

Written at the desire of the meeting for sufferings. Seeking to rehabilitate Quakers in British public opinion.

Also tilted towards evangelical theology.

1797 Hannah Barnard received a certificate from Hudson Monthly Meeting to visit Friends in Europe. 

In England and Ireland

July 1798 Hannah Barnard arrived at Falmouth with Elizabeth (Hosier) Coggeshall.

Visited Friends in the area where she established good relationships with Methodists.

Visited throughout England and Scotland. 

May 1799 Traveled to Ireland where they visited all Friends’ meetings except two.

Left with certificate commending them to English Friends

Joseph Williams present at a conversation between HB “and another person at Carlow” [A Narrative, p5.]

At the Friends Annual Meeting in London:

Barnard with other women Friends urge meeting to agree that Friends could allow other religious groups to use Meeting Houses.

Even after the meeting decided against, she continued to argue the case and, with the whole group, was removed from the meeting.

Returned to Falmouth

London Morning Meeting

2/6/1800 Morning Meeting of Ministers (london), considered Barnard’s certificates from New York and Ireland, commending her to English Friends. 

9/6/1800 Yearly Meeting: asked 6 members and others of the Meeting to visit HB. Bevan appears to have been present at all of them.

10/6/1800 Meetings:

1st (with “Friends from the country”): she disbelieves parts of OT

(incl. God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac) and NT (esp. Virgin birth and  miracles.) 

 attempt at entrapment with 1) tame atheist 2) doctrine of Fall. She was urged to leave the Quakers.

20/6/1800 2nd meeting. Further questions focused on the  significance of Christ’s death, miracles, and war.

              Accusation:  

“That she promoted a disbelief, of some parts of the scriptures of the Old Testament,

particularly those which assert, that the Almighty commanded the Isrealites to make war on other nations.

In which also she includes, the command given to Abraham, to offer up his son Isaac. 

  "It further appears, that she is not one with Friends, in her belief,

respecting various parts of the New Testament,

particularly relating to the miraculous conception, and miracles of Christ.” 

30/6/1800 Yearly Meeting of Minister and Elders. Judgement made and referred to the Devonshire House Monthly Meeting (HB andElizabeth Coggeshall present).

2/7/1800 Summoned to hear judgement: “not one with friends" on certain parts of Scripture

14/7/1800 HB submitted a written request that they rescind their judgement - declined.

4/8/1800 Morning Meeting informed HB not followed advice of the meeting, Referred to Devonshire House monthly meeting. 

(HB in Brighton “for the benefit of her health”.)

9/9/1800 3 members appointed to visit HB and report. Meeting recommends her suspension in the interim.

Accusation: That she was out of harmony with Friends’ teaching, in that she:

promoted disbelief in some parts of the OT, especially those in which God commanded the Israelites,

to make war on other nations;

denied that God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac,

thus implicitly accusing God of inconsistency;

and that she was not one with Friends respecting various parts of the New Testament, in particular,

the miraculous conception, and miracles of Christ.

Meetings: September 10th, 16th, October 7th, November 4th, 1800. Nothing changed. 

4/11/1800 Minute: “... this Meeting approves of the recommendation of the Morning Meeting of Ministers and Elders, and advises her to return home.”

9/11/1800 HB submits appeal To the quarterly Meeting for London and Middlesex

Appeal

30/12/1800 Appeal received and referred to a committee of 16.

1/1/1800 Anonymous attack on Barnard published as The short cut

9/1/1801 Appeal and committee report read (2 members of the committee refused to sign the report). Appeal refused.

March 1801 Second, longer, anonymous written attack “on her character and principles”

24/3/1801 Quarterly Meeting. HB gives notice she would appeal to next annual meeting

HB in Ireland. 

24/4/1801 to Ireland

25/4/1801 at annual meeting of ministers and elders in Dublin

Yearly Meeting

20/5/1801 Appeal submitted to Yearly Meeting & presented to Meeting same day

23/5/1801 Appeal 1st sitting PM: Appeal 2nd sitting

26/5/1801 Appeal 3rd sitting PM: Appeal 4th sitting

26/5/1801 letter from annual meeting to Friends of Monthly meeting, Hudson, NY

28/5/1801 Appeal 5th sitting 6PM: Appeal 6th sitting

29/5/1801 Appeal 7th sitting

30/5/1801 Appeal 8th sitting Read her summary of proceedings

4pm Appeal 9th and last sitting

June

1/6/1801 Yearly Meeting received the Report of the Committee of Appeals. It upheld the previous finding.

August

9/8/1801 HB offered financial help to return to America. Refused.

30/8/1801 returned to America

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In America

21/11/1801 HB returns to New York

24/11/1801 Attends women’s Meeting. That evening, visited by eight Friends on behalf of the Monthly Meeting. 

12/12/1801 HB informed Friends from local meeting had passed the issue back to the Monthly Meeting

22/12/1801 Issue before Hudson Monthly Meeting [MM]

23 - 25/12/1801 Sessions 2+3 on 23rd; 4+5 on 24th, 6th- 25th, Conference with HB.

26/1/1802 Hudson MM. Their committee were dissatisfied with Barnard’s answers.

13/2/1802 HB’s appeal to Quarterly Meeting at Standford: committee appointed.  

15/3/1802 9  Friends appointed by the Monthly Meeting call on HB in her own home to question her further

23/3/1802 Men’s and Women’s MM propose to disown her (unless she recant)

20/4/1802 MMs sent delegation to inform Barnard she had been disowned.

1802 Publication of An examination of the first part of a pamphlet, called An appeal to the Society of Friends,

Bevan, J. G. (published anonymously). 

December 1802 HB, suffered serious illness (into January 1803)

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She subsequently established a separate meeting which grew larger than that of the continuing Quakers.

1825 Hannah Barnard died peacefully at home.

1838   “more than a decade after her death, Joseph John Gurney, the most famous British evangelical Quaker of his day,

detoured from a trip down the Hudson River specifically to preach his gospel in Hudson, in the lair

of "the heretical Hannah Barnard." http://www.quakertheology.org/liberal-history-barnard.html