{"id":1372,"date":"2019-07-17T19:17:19","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T19:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/?p=1372"},"modified":"2021-01-17T16:21:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T16:21:30","slug":"blue-river-quarterly-meeting-celebrates-200-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/blue-river-quarterly-meeting-celebrates-200-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue River Quarterly Meeting Celebrates 200 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Peter Lasersohn, Urbana-Champaign Friends Meeting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Did you know that Blue River\nQuarterly Meeting was not created as part of Illinois Yearly Meeting? In fact,\nit was the other way around: Blue River Quarterly was one of two previously\nexisting quarterly meetings which jointly established Illinois Yearly Meeting\nin 1875.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The roots of Blue River Quarterly reach much further back. Friends began settling along the Blue River in southern Indiana about 1808,<\/g> when this area was still on the western frontier. The settlement grew quickly, as large numbers of Quakers moved into the area from North Carolina, hoping to disentangle themselves from the slavery-based economy of the south and find better opportunities for themselves in the west. By 1814, the city of Salem was laid out and platted, and a regular meeting for worship was set up. The following year, Blue<\/g> River Monthly Meeting was established, and a meetinghouse was built. Still standing\u2014though only half its original size and no longer in regular use\u2014the Blue River Meetinghouse is believed to be the oldest Friends meetinghouse in Indiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

As Friends continued to settle\nin southern and western Indiana, more and more meetings were established, and\nit soon became practical to organize them into a new quarterly meeting. Blue\nRiver Quarterly Meeting was established as part of Ohio Yearly Meeting, and\nheld its first session at the Blue River Meetinghouse, in First Month 1819.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Quaker presence in Indiana\ncontinued to expand, and in 1821, the western portions of Ohio Yearly Meeting\u2014including\nBlue River Monthly and Quarterly Meetings\u2014were set off as Indiana Yearly\nMeeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like other meetings all over\nNorth America, Blue River Quarterly Meeting and Indiana Yearly Meeting were\ndivided in the \u201cHicksite\/Orthodox\u201d schism of 1827\u20131828. Our current Blue River\nQuarterly Meeting developed from the Hicksite branch of this split, which\ninitially included just two monthly meetings: Blue River Monthly Meeting and\nHoney Creek Monthly Meeting, just south of Terre Haute. Hicksite sentiment was\nespecially strong in Blue River Monthly Meeting due to the influence of their\nmember Priscilla Hunt Cadwallader, who had prominently supported the Hicksite\ncause during a ministerial visit to Philadelphia just prior to the schism. The\nOrthodox branch of Blue River Quarterly Meeting was much larger, and survives\ntoday as the \u201cSouthern Area\u201d of Western Yearly Meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Hicksite Blue River\nQuarterly began to expand in the 1840\u2019s, as the frontier moved west and Quakers\nbegan to settle in Illinois. Blue River Quarterly was the westernmost quarterly\nmeeting on the continent, and therefore the most appropriate one with which new\nwestern meetings could affiliate. The first of these new Illinois meetings was\nClear Creek Meeting. Friends began to settle near what is now McNabb in the\n1830\u2019s, and formally affiliated with Blue River Quarterly Meeting and the\nHicksite branch of Indiana Yearly Meeting (now known as Ohio Valley Yearly\nMeeting) in 1841. Several other meetings followed: in Fulton County near Ipava;\nin Whiteside County near Sterling; at Benjaminville (now known as Bentown) near\nBloomington, where the meetinghouse still stands; and in Hoopeston, Vermilion\nCounty. By the 1870\u2019s, Blue River Quarterly lay predominately in Illinois.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attendance at yearly<\/g> meeting was problematic for Friends in Illinois. Indiana Yearly Meeting was held alternately at Richmond, Indiana and Waynesville, Ohio, both far to the east in an era was transportation was not easy. The problem was even more severe for Friends in Iowa, where Prairie Grove Quarterly Meeting had been established in 1863 as part of Baltimore Yearly Meeting. The two quarterly meetings developed a plan to establish a new yearly meeting, to be held at Clear Creek and known as Illinois Yearly Meeting. Indiana and Baltimore Yearly Meetings minuted their concurrence with the plan in 1874, and Illinois Yearly Meeting held its first session in Ninth Month 1875.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blue River Quarterly Meeting\ncontinued to expand in the first years after the establishment of ILYM. A major\naddition was Central Meeting in Chicago\u2014a forerunner of Fifty\u2013Seventh Street\nMeeting\u2014which affiliated in 1879. But in the 1890\u2019s, many of the old, rural\nmeetings began to close, not just in Blue River Quarterly, but in other parts\nof the yearly meeting as well. This trend accelerated, and by the 1930\u2019s, Blue\nRiver Quarterly Meeting and Illinois Yearly Meeting both consisted for\npractical purposes of just three meetings: Clear Creek, Fifty\u2013Seventh Street,\nand Blue River Monthly Meeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tide began to turn in 1942,\nwhen Oak Park and Peoria Meetings affiliated \u2014 the first new meetings in Blue\nRiver Quarterly since 1886. All through the 1940\u2019s and 1950\u2019s, new meetings\nwere formed, and independent meetings affiliated. By 1952, Blue River Quarterly\nwas large enough that it was decided to divide it into two quarterly meetings.\nThe northern half became Fox Valley Quarterly Meeting (which was later folded\ninto Metropolitan Chicago General Meeting), and the southern half continued as\nBlue River Quarterly Meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was some contraction in\nthis period as well. Blue River Monthly Meeting\u2014which had long since moved from\nthe Old Blue River Meetinghouse to the Highland Creek Meetinghouse on the\nopposite side of town\u2014was inactive by the late 1940\u2019s. It last hosted the quarterly\nmeeting sessions in 1947, leaving Blue River Quarterly with no meetings\nanywhere near the Blue River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of the 20th\ncentury, many of the original business functions of quarterly meetings were\neliminated or reassigned to the yearly meeting or the monthly meetings. In the\n1960\u2019s, it was felt that it was no longer necessary to meet four times a year,\nand that hosting the quarterly meeting had become burdensome for smaller\nmeetings. Blue River Quarterly dropped to a three\u2013times\u2013a\u2013year, then to a\ntwice\u2013a\u2013year, schedule, but retained the word Quarterly in its name in the hope\nthat it might eventually return to meeting more frequently\u2014a hope which has not\nyet been realized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 1991, Blue River Quarterly\nhas held its sessions as weekend retreats at rustic camps or retreat centers,\nrather than at the meetinghouses of hosting meetings as previously. This has\nproven to be a popular format, and many Friends look forward to quarterly\nmeeting sessions in part for their woodland settings and recreational\nopportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps what Friends look\nforward to most, however, is simply to meet with other Friends: to connect or\nreconnect with Quakers from nearby meetings, and to build and maintain a sense\nof Quaker community larger than just the local meeting. For young\nFriends\u2014especially those from smaller meetings, or meetings with few\nchildren\u2014the chance to spend time with other Quaker kids can be invaluable in\ndeveloping a sense of Quaker identity. For all of us, of any age, there is a\nreal spiritual benefit from keeping up our ties to one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quarterly meeting is the venue\nin which State of Society Reports are read aloud, with an opportunity for\ngathered Friends to respond out of the silence. This is a very different\nexperience from simply reading the reports in the ILYM minutebook, and builds a\nstronger group sense of our collective condition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The quarterly<\/g> meeting also provides a valuable opportunity for business to be seasoned before it is brought to the yearly meeting. Experience has shown that careful advance consideration of a proposal by a quarterly meeting or other body helps to identify issues and potential snags, smoothing the approval process when the proposal is ultimately brought to the floor of the yearly meeting for business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blue River Quarterly also\nconducts its own internal business which is not forwarded to the yearly\nmeeting, often in support of specific concerns. Recent examples include\nfinancial aid to a Kenyan Friend who was forced to leave his studies at the\nEarlham School of Religion after losing a scholarship from his home meeting\nover issues of sexual orientation; support for BRQ Friends engaged in various\nservice projects; successful petitioning for the closure of the prison in\nTamms, Illinois; and support for \u201cgreen\u201d funerary burial practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of two\ncenturies, Blue River Quarterly Meeting has experienced many ups and downs,\nsometimes functioning as a large and robust organization, and sometimes\nstruggling just to keep going. Through it all, Friends have found it worthwhile\nand fulfilling. We look forward to another 200 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Lasersohn, Urbana-Champaign Friends Meeting Did you know that Blue River Quarterly Meeting was not created as part of Illinois Yearly Meeting? In fact, it was the other way around: Blue River Quarterly was one of two previously existing quarterly meetings which jointly established Illinois Yearly Meeting in 1875. The roots of Blue River Quarterly reach much further back. Friends began settling along the Blue River in southern Indiana about 1808, when this area was still on the western frontier. The settlement grew quickly, as large numbers of Quakers moved into the area from North Carolina, hoping to disentangle themselves from the slavery-based economy of the south and find better opportunities for themselves in the west. By 1814, the city of Salem was laid out and platted, and a regular meeting for worship was set up. The following year, Blue River Monthly Meeting was established, and a meetinghouse was built. Still standing\u2014though only half its original size and no longer in regular use\u2014the Blue River Meetinghouse is believed to be the oldest Friends meetinghouse in Indiana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,1],"tags":[],"series":[16],"class_list":["post-1372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-among-friends","category-uncategorized","series-among-friends-summer-2019"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/BlueRiverQuarterlyMeetingHouse_Outside.jpg?fit=350%2C267&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1372"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1541,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1372\/revisions\/1541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1372"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}