The Lucas Family, Quakers, and the Strong Lucasville Connection

John Lucas, founder of Lucasville, moved to the Scioto Valley with his two older brothers and a cousin around 1800. John was the son of William Lucas and Susannah Barnes. This Quaker family had roots that stretched back to 1679 in Pennsylvania, though the family had recently moved to Virginia. The Bicentennial of 2019 is an appropriate time to explore the times of the Pennsylvania Lucas family.

The patriarch of the family was Robert Lucas, of Deverall, Longbridge, County Wilts. He was a

yeoman (a man holding and cultivating a small landed estate) who arrived at Philadelphia on April 4, 1679 in the "Elizabeth and Mary" of Weymouth. Elizabeth, his wife, arrived in July 1680 in the ship "Content" of London with her eight children, John, Giles, Edward, Robert II, Elizabeth, Rebecca, Mary and Sarah.

Robert Lucas received a grant of 177 acres of land, below the Fails, on the west side of the Delaware, from Edmond Andross, Governor General under the Duke of York, and it was confirmed by patent from William Penn, May 3, 1684. This land he devised to his son, Edward.

Robert Lucas was a Justice of Upland Court, 1681; a member of Provincial Assembly, 1683, 1687 and 1688; and was a member of the first grand jury in Pennsylvania, summoned March 2, 1683. His will was signed in 1687, and he died in Bucks county in 1688. His will mentions his wife, Elizabeth, and sons, Edward, Robert, Giles and John, and provides for his younger children who are not mentioned by name.

Quakers – First Arrival

George Fox was an English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. The term “Quaker” arose as a popular nickname used to ridicule this new religious group when it emerged in seventeenth century England. It arose from the perception that, when experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit, some Friends physically shook and trembled in meeting for worship. Since the term was so widely recognized, some Quakers began using it informally.

Quaker missionaries had arrived in North America in the mid-1650s.The first was Elizabeth Harris, who visited Virginia and Maryland. By the early 1660s, more than 50 other Quakers had followed Harris.. In 1656 Mary Fisher and Ann Austin began preaching in Boston. They were considered heretics because of their insistence on individual obedience to “the Inner Light.” They were imprisoned and banished by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Their books were burned, and most of their property was confiscated. They were imprisoned under terrible conditions, then deported.

* Note of Interest – The Inner Light refers to the presence of Christ in the heart. Quakers took this idea of walking in the Light of Christ to refer to God's presence within a person, and to a direct and personal experience of God. The Quaker belief that the Inward Light shines on each person is based in part on a passage from the New Testament, namely John 1:9, which says, "That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

William Penn and Pennsylvania

The History of colonial Pennsylvania begins in 1681 when William Penn received a royal charter from King Charles II of England, although human activity in the region precedes that date. Penn established a colony based on religious tolerance; it was settled by many Quakers along with its chief city Philadelphia, which was also the first planned city. In the mid-eighteenth century, the colony attracted many German and Scots-Irish immigrants. It became one of the original 13 colonies.

Note of Interest – Charles II of England granted the Province of Pennsylvania to William Penn to settle a debt of £16,000 that the king owed to Penn's father. Penn founded a proprietary colony. Charles named the colony Pennsylvania ("Penn's woods" in Latin), after the elder Penn, which the younger Penn found embarrassing, as he feared people would think he had named the colony after himself.

Although born into a distinguished Anglican family and the son of Admiral Sir William Penn, William Penn joined the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers at the age of 22. The Quakers obeyed their "inner light", which they believed to come directly from God, refused to bow or take off their hats to any man, and refused to take up arms.

William Penn was a close friend of George Fox, the founder of the Quakers. In times of turmoil after Oliver Cromwell's death, the Quakers were suspect because of their principles which differed from the state-imposed religion and because of their refusal to swear an oath of loyalty to Cromwell or to the King. (Quakers obeyed the command of Christ in Matthew 5:34 – “But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne.”)

Penn's religious views were extremely distressing to his father, Admiral Sir William Penn, who had earned an estate in Ireland through naval service and hoped that Penn's charisma and intelligence would be able to win him favor at the court of Charles II. In 1668 William Penn was imprisoned for writing a tract (The Sandy Foundation Shaken) which attacked the doctrine of the trinity.

"If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by him....Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."

–William Penn

In time, the persecution of Quakers became so fierce that Penn decided that it would be better to try to found a new, free, Quaker settlement in North America. Some Quakers had already moved to North America, but the New England Puritans, especially, were as negative towards Quakers as the people back home, and some of them had been banished to the Caribbean.

In 1677, Penn's chance came, as a group of prominent Quakers, among them Penn, received the colonial province of West New Jersey (half of the current state of New Jersey). Penn, who was involved in the project but himself remained in England, drafted a charter of liberties for the settlement. He guaranteed free and fair trial by jury, freedom of religion, freedom from unjust imprisonment and free elections.

Penn marketed the colony throughout Europe in various languages and, as a result, settlers flocked to Pennsylvania. Those Quakers (Religious Society of Friends) fled persecution not only in England, but also in Germany, Ireland, and Wales for the shores of the North American colonies

From 1682 to 1684 Penn was, himself, in the Province of Pennsylvania. Penn began construction of Pennsbury Manor, his intended country estate in Bucks County on the right bank of the Delaware River, in 1683. After he completed the building plans for Philadelphia and put his political ideas into a workable form, Penn explored the interior of the country. He befriended the local Indians (primarily of the Leni Lenape (aka Delaware) tribe) , and ensured that they were paid fairly for their lands. Penn even learned several different Indian dialects in order to communicate in negotiations without interpreters.

* Note of Interest – William Penn introduced laws saying that if a European did an Indian wrong, there would be a fair trial, with an equal number of people from both groups deciding the matter. His measures proved successful: even though later colonists did not treat the Indians as fairly as Penn and his first group of colonists had done.

What is a less assuredly myth – or fact – is whether Penn ever signed a 'Great Treaty' in 1682 at the village of Shackamaxon. As we have seen, for many Americans (and non-Americans such as Voltaire) this deed proved the most inspiring “event” of Penn's life. Francis Jennings believes that Penn signed the treaty and never broke it, but that his less scrupulous successors destroyed the document, presumably so that they could renege on its provisions. We do know that Penn did buy much land, so must have made at least one such agreement, instituting what was known in Indian terminology as a “chain of friendship.” And there do exist several references to this chain being made between Penn and the Delaware.

Penn had wished to settle in Philadelphia himself, but financial problems forced him back to England in 1701. His financial advisor, Philip Ford, had cheated him out of thousands of pounds, and he had nearly lost Pennsylvania through Ford's machinations. The next decade of Penn's life was mainly filled with various court cases against Ford. He tried to sell Pennsylvania back to the state, but while the deal was still being discussed, he was hit by a stroke in 1712, after which he was unable to speak or take care of himself.

Quakers In America

The Quakers’ arrival in the New World helped shape its moral and political fabric, including the eventual abolition of slavery. It is recorded that the first two prominent Friends to denounce slavery were Anthony Benezet and John Woolman. They asked the Quakers, "What thing in the world can be done worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away and sell us for slaves to strange countries.”

In 1688, a group of Quakers along with some German Mennonites met at the meeting house in Germantown, Pennsylvania, to discuss why they were distancing themselves from slavery. Four of them signed a document written by Francis Daniel Pastorius that stated, "To bring men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against." In 1758, Quakers in Philadelphia were ordered to stop buying and selling slaves. By the 1780s, all Quakers were barred from owning slaves. They were the first Western organization to ban slave-holding.

From the efforts of the Quakers, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were able to convince the Continental Congress to ban the importation of slaves into America as of December 1, 1775. Pennsylvania was the strongest anti-slavery state at the time, and with Franklin's help they led "The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting The Abolition of Slavery, The Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the African Race" (Pennsylvania Abolition Society).

Though the Quaker beliefs of gender equality, universal education, and positive relations with Native Americans were rejected by most colonists, by 1700 more than 11,000 Quakers had made America their home and come to dominate politics and daily life in Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey.

A number of Quaker beliefs were considered radical, such as the idea that women and men were spiritual equals, and women could speak out during worship. Based on their interpretation of the Bible, Quakers were pacifists and refused to take legal oaths. Central to their beliefs was the idea that everyone had the Light of Christ within them.

Their differences extended into social settings. Quakers did not bow as a popular greeting. They popularized the handshake. They typically lived plain, disciplined lives as farmers, shopkeepers, and artisans, but in Massachusetts, some faced the gallows for their religion, while others were banished. Many other Christians believed that the Quaker practice of silent worship undermined the Bible. Even so, Quakers remained loyal to their convictions, and over time inspired progress.

* Note of Interest – While all Quakers met in worship to hear more clearly God's "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12), Friends in the unprogrammed Quaker tradition based their worship entirely on expectant waiting. They took the Psalmist's advice literally: "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).

The congregation met in plain, unadorned rooms because they had found that, in such places, they were less distracted from hearing that still small voice. There were no pulpits in our meeting rooms because they ministered to each other. Their benches or chairs faced each other because they felt they are all equal before God. They had no prearranged prayers, readings, sermons, hymns, or musical orchestrations because they waited for God's leadings (guidance and direction) and power in our lives.

Prison reform was another concern of English Quakers. During the 1800s, Elizabeth Fry and her brother Joseph John Gurney campaigned for more humane treatment of prisoners and for the abolition of the death penalty. They played a key role in forming the Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate, which managed to better the living conditions of woman and children held at the prison.

As a primary Quaker belief is that all human beings are equal and worthy of respect, the fight for human rights has also extended to many other areas of society. In the early days Quaker views toward women were remarkably progressive, and by the 19th century many Quakers were active in the movement for women's rights. Many of the leaders of the women’s suffrage movement in the U.S. were Quakers, including Lucretia Mott and Alice Paul.

Early suffragettes Quaker minister Lucretia Mott was a fierce abolitionist who refused to use cotton cloth, cane sugar, and other slavery-produced goods. Frustrated by anti-slavery organizations that would not accept female members, Mott set about establishing women's abolitionist societies.

In 1848 Mott helped bring together the first American women's rights meeting in Seneca Falls, New York, and was elected as the first president of the American Equal Rights Association after the end of the Civil War. When slavery was outlawed in 1865, she didn't stop her activist aims and began to advocate giving black Americans the right to vote.

Another Quaker, Susan B. Anthony, also dedicated her life to attaining equal voting rights for women in America. Born into a Quaker family and committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. When she first began campaigning for women's rights, Anthony was harshly ridiculed and accused of trying to destroy the institution of marriage. She founded the American Equal Rights Association in 1866.

Ignoring opposition and abuse, Anthony traveled, lectured, and canvassed across the nation for the vote. She also campaigned for the abolition of slavery, the right for women to own their own property and retain their earnings, and she advocated for women's labor organizations. In 1900, Anthony persuaded the University of Rochester to admit women.

* Note of interest – To date, two U.S. presidents have been Quakers: Herbert Hoover and Richard M. Nixon. Other famous Quakers include author James Michener, philanthropist Johns Hopkins and John Cadbury, founder of the chocolate business bearing his name.

In 2007 there were approximately 359,000 adult members of Quaker meetings in the world, with about 87,000 in the United States. This includes all the various branches of the Religious Society of Friends.

Quaker meetinghouses were unadorned spaces where men and women worshiped equally. 

On Sundays, which they called “First Day,” Quakers worshiped in silence, waiting until 

“the spirit found them,” and inspired them to speak. 1735, Pennsylvania. 

(Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Lucasville Connection

The remarkable history of the Lucas family includes many early American references. Even Robert II's wife had a decidedly strong Quaker connection – On the March 7, 1816, 35-year-old State Senator Robert Lucas II married Miss Friendly Ashley Sumner, a daughter of Edward Sumner, who had accompanied her parents in their migration from New England. Friendly was Robert's second wife. He had been married to Elizabeth Brown, his landlord's daughter, in 1810. Elizabeth died in 1812 leaving him with an infant daughter. How fitting a name for a member of the Religious Society of Friends – Friendly.

About this time, or shortly after, Robert and Friendly moved north into Pike County (then newly organized) and settled in the town of Piketon on the main street, which, for many years was to be his home. Residents there remarked of Robert's “tall, straight figure and stern face.” Of Friendly, many recalled her “delicious currant pies.” Of course, John Lucas was busy platting the town of Lucasville, just a few miles to the south.

In July of 1819, Lucas united with the Methodist Church at Piketon, and throughout the remainder of his life he remained a prominent worker in the cause of that denomination. Lucas was as intense in his religion as he was in political activities or military matters. His Quaker roots likely served him well in his work with the new denomination.

Shortly after, Robert Lucas built himself a house on the Jackson road two miles east of Piketon which was said to be “among the finest in all Southern Ohio.” A biographer wrote of the idyllic home ...

“The Lucas house was a large, two-story brick house with a hall in the center and sitting-room and parlor opening on either side of the hall. Each room, upstairs and down, was provided with a fireplace. Over the front door was placed a stone on which were cut the following words: 'Virtue, Liberty, and Independence.' Beneath the word 'Liberty' appeared a five-pointed star; while below the motto were carved name and date: ''K. Lucas, 1824.' Located on a farm of four hundred thirty-seven acres, surrounded with large trees and with sweet brier and eglantine growing in profusion about the place and over the walls, it was indeed a home of wonderful attractiveness.”

The grove about the house was the distinctive feature of the farm; and so, in honor of his wife, Lucas fittingly named his new home "Friendly Grove.” The Lucas family lived there, and Robert and his wife “entertained in great state” for fifteen years. Political friends came “to discuss weighty matters of public concern and to laugh at the quick-witted sallies of Mrs. Lucas.”

Methodist circuit rider also stopped there and “found spiritual improvement in religious conversation with the serious minded legislator – while they incidentally nourished their gaunt frames upon the ample and delectable meals outspread by their hostess.” And history also records “not least eagerly came the nephews and nieces from Piketon and the neighborhood to spend a week or so amid the charms of Friendly Grove.”

Virtue, liberty, independence – these were not just words but rather revered applications to the Lucas family. Their dedication to these behaviors proved their undying American commitment. From Pennsylvania to Virginia and from Virginia to Southern Ohio, the pioneers forged a righteous chapter of settlement, one of superior determination and service. Children of a Revolutionary War veteran, soldiers of the War of 1812, and public servants of Ohio and the Iowa Territory, the Lucases lived their lives with integrity and honor. And, just as impressive, they did so with friendly reverence to all. Their forefathers established tenets that proved truly fundamental to a growing society in a very young country.

* Final Note – I would like to acknowledge the wealth of information taken from this source: The Independence Hall Association, a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded in 1942. Publishing electronically as ushistory.org. On the Internet since July 4, 1995.