Ancestry just sent me a link to the copy of an original record that names the first four children of Jacob and Elizabeth Elliott and gives their dates of birth. The record is said to be from the Menallen Monthly Meeting in Adams Pennsylvania. I had not had this information before....well that may not be accurate. If I had this information before, it did not sink in. So this blog post is about where this Monthly Meeting was located and what it might tell me about proving parents for either Jacob or Elizabeth. [I saved this document to my Ancestry Tree]
Menallen Monthly Meeting was founded in 1748 as a Preparative Meeting by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and became a Monthly Meeting in 1780. It is an active spiritual community that supports its members and the surrounding community. In addition to weekly worship, we have a monthly spiritual study group and other activities including community outreach. Menallen Monthly Meeting (also known as Menallen Friends) follows the tradition of unprogrammed silent worship, and is a member of Warrington Quarter and Baltimore Yearly Meeting. So it seems that it is still an active meeting.
This is such a surprise to me as I had thought that the Elliott family had been located in the environs of Philly. Instead the map below shows the location of Menallen MM:
In 1691, William Penn (a member of the Religious Society of Friends) founded a government and a society that welcomed all people and all religions. This tolerance attracted immigrants of varied religions and backgrounds, including many Quakers. By the 1730’s some of these families moved to York and Adams Counties in Pennsylvania. The percentage of Friends (Quakers)was significant. To support these new communities new Quaker Meetings were established, notably, Newberry (Redlands) Meeting in 1739, Warrington in 1745, Menallen Meeting in 1748 and Huntington Meeting in 1750.
At the time that Jacob and Elizabeth's children were born, Menallen was a preparatory meeting:
to hold regular meetings and for several years to come all members of Menallen Meeting were members of Sadsbury Monthly Meeting. However, upon establishment of Warrington Monthly Meeting in 1747, all Friends west of the Susquehanna River became members of the new Monthly Meeting. There is a description of where the original and also the newer meeting houses were built at this same site.
Menallen Preparative was set up as in 1748 by Sadsbury Monthly, having been an Indulged Meeting since 1733. In 1748, the meeting became part of Warrington Monthly Meeting, the registers of which show that the first marriage to be conducted at Menallen in 1751. Menallen's earliest meeting house was a log structure, which they tore down in 1838, and rebuilt on a new property in Flora Dale, about a mile south of Bendersville. About 1890, that structure was replaced by the red brick building currently in use.
Records of Menallen Monthly Meeting, 1733-1993. Includes men's and joint minutes 1780-1963, women's minutes 1780-1891, vital records 1733-1991, Ministers and Elders minutes 1884-1911, and miscellaneous 1851-1993. So it does not look as if there would be more information available during the time that Jacob and Elizabeth were in PA. By 1763 they had moved to North Carolina. Which brings me to the reason that I had assumed that they were from Warrington MM.
1763, 11, 26. Jacob (Ellott) & W& ch, Jacob, Elizabeth, Hannah, Israel & William rocf Warrington MM, Pa, dated 1763, 9, 20 (I have a copy of the original MM records for this) This is found in the records of New Garden MM in what is now Guilford County, NC. It would have been Rowan County in 1763
They would have taken a certificate from Warrington MM because at the time Menallen was not yet a MM. It was still just a preparative meeting.
I bought that book. I don't have time to look at it this morning. I would guess that it is Hawkins' that connect to Thomas of Old Rappahannock County....but don't know for sure. Here is the name of the book if I want to look at it on my computer at a later date. It should be on Google Play and is among the bookmarks on my computer. Oh, wow.....I need to spend some time on looking at my collection of books on Google Play....AMAZING!
