A more unfortunate event is recorded in the business meeting of the 28th of 1st month, 1819: “A testimony was produced against S— N— which was read, approved, and signed being as follows and handed to the Women’s Meeting. S— N— who has a right of membership in the Society of Friends thru in attention to the dictates of Truth in her own Breast hath so far deviated as to be guilty of fornication for which reproachful conduct we deny her any longer a right of membership until she be enabled & make suitable satisfaction for her offence, which is our desire for her.”
Fairfax and Goose Creek records are a mine of genealogical data. Henry B. Taylor in response to the request from a lady out west once sent her what the minutes had to say about her Quaker ancestors. Several had been “kicked out of meeting or been delt with” for drunkness, fighting and adultery. She received his letter and some time later wrote again to Henry, “that she was glad to state that her family had done better since they had joined the Methodists.”
The Meetings took care of their own, for often entries like the following are found in the minutes: “Samuel Nichols, Seir. produced his account of articles furnished for the support of Martha Scott.” Social security was unknown in those days. At Fairfax we find that a committee was appointed to divide the estate of Richard Brown, deceased; to raise a fund to settle the estate of a member who died poor and in debt; to look after the widows and orphans; to see that members paid their debts; to attend to a member “for encouraging the visits of a man not of our Society in Courtship of his daughter”; to reprove a man “for taking off his hat at a courtsmartial to gain favor with the officer in charge.”
Friends in Loudoun owned slaves in the early years and for the first quarter of a century the Fairfax minutes mention only that “Blacks in the home should be well treated,” and “African children” should be given a useful education. In 1790 a committee was appointed “to care for freed slaves.” Later there was considerable opposition against slavery in the meetings, several Friends were disowned for owning slaves. In 1836 a committee “treated” with William Stone for hiring a slave, and in 1856 Mary Jane Hough was disowned for doing the same, though her husband escaped a like fate by saying he was sorry and wouldn’t do it again. It was not until 1818 that the last ownership of slaves by Friends ceased in Virginia. The story is told that John Woolman talked long and earnestly with William Nichols that he free his slaves but when William died in 1804 there were slaves mentioned in the inventory of his estate. My grandfather, Francis Hogue Janney, was disowned for hiring a slave and marrying out of meeting.