Quarterly NewsThe Lenni Lenape, The Cultural Heritage - Past & Present
On April 26, Megan Rose will present her program on the Lenape which was originally scheduled for last Quarterly Meeting which had to be cancelled due to the blizzard. Please see Megan’s excellent article from our January newsletter by clicking here.
Okehocking Lenape; Willistown Meeting’s Next Door Neighbors
Near Ridley Creek just off Route 3 near Ridley Creek State Park, once lived a documented band of Lenape called the Okehocking. I say “documented” because this small group, numbering about 25, petitioned William Penn for an official tract of land in 1703. They received a 500-acre land grant. It was the first Native American land grant in the American colonies.
From Willistown Township’s web page: “Because of the constant fear of being removed from their grounds, the Okehocking petitioned the Provincial Council for a secure tract of land where they would no longer be mistreated. They probably chose the Willistown land because of a symbolic turtle-headed rock outcropping located within the Okehocking tract, but on private lands.”
500 acres was a large area. Consider that Okehocking Preserve, owned by Willistown Township is 180 acres. For a small band of Lenape, a 500 acre space would have been enormous, allowing them to easily meet their needs for fishing, hunting, with some small scale planting in the summer. Since the clan was migratory, their crop harvest was not abundant. At the time, before dams lower downstream interfered, migrating fish could be easily snatched and forest wilderness provided much in the way of fowl and game. Men hunted, the women were gatherers of fruit, seeds and nuts found in nearby forests, and frogs and turtles from the streams.
Marshall Becker, the respected West Chester U. anthropologist, studied the Lenape, particularly this band of Okehocking and wrote about their enclave in 1986. He describes their foraging lifestyle, their desire to have their own private space away from European colonists, the care which local Quakers took to ensure the Okehocking their rights, and the probable ways which the clan adapted to encroaching colonization. One interesting Becker perspective was that the movement of Lenape away from increasing settlements near the Delaware River (Lenapewihittuck) was their desire to get out of the way of the settlers and the increasing cultural influence they wielded. In response to colonist expansion, Becker provides a thoughtful analysis, at the end of his piece, of five different psychological reactions that the Lenape used to either resist or assimilate European ways.
One of the parts of Becker’s monograph, of particular interest to Friends, is his depiction of the interaction of Penn-era Quakers with the Lenape. Researching Quaker minute books and deeds, he provides evidence that these Friends were mindful of Lenape settlements regarding the sale of property to Quaker buyers. There are a number of mentions of land purchases having boundaries with the local Indian settlements in mind. One such reference indicates that Mordecai Yarnall, in 1737, was granted possession of the 500 acres of land “…heretofore surveyed for the Crum Creek Indians who formerly settled and dwelt on the same but for some years past deserted their Habitations…” This was the Okehocking grant whose inhabitants Becker surmises headed west to join other Lenape who’d settled near Swatara Creek. In the original grant, usual at the time, was that abandonment of the grant area opened the land for sale.
Though this suggests that Quakers honored the original grant one can’t be entirely sure that the Okehocking were always treated fairly. In 1710 we find that a controversial road was built cutting through the Okehocking territory to assist Quaker farmers, in spite of a court order trying to delay the project. Today that road is Delchester Road.
Listening in a Quaker Way - Threshing Session
On the evening of March 7th, 2026, Concord Quarter Friends gathered for a threshing session regarding the socio-political conditions we are experiencing in our country. It was a time for Friends to speak and hear one another’s truths. We came together in a spirit of listening, setting aside the weight of minutes and decisions to simply hear one another. This session was requested by Friends attending our last Quarter’s Meeting for Business. We were blessed to have PYM General Secretary Chris Mohr and PYM Elders Cathleen Marion and Terri Whiteford in attendance.
The term “threshing” is an agricultural one - the process of separating the wheat from the chaff. In the Quaker tradition, it describes a noisy, earnest gathering where Friends are invited to speak plainly, to wrestle, and to release what no longer serves. Melinda Wenner Bradley reminded us of the Greek word Ephphatha - “to be opened.” We were asked to hold that posture: open to the Spirit, open to perspectives that differ from our own, and open to being changed. There would be no minutes and no decisions made. The sole task was to listen.
Three queries guided our time together, offered as a framework for our listening:
- How are we taking care of ourselves and the wider community?
- How might meetings in the quarter come together to act?
- How do we serve in faithful love?
As responses unfolded, a general theme emerged: how we live what we say we believe. Again and again, Friends returned to the tension between our testimonies and our actions. There was a strong sense we must be ready when the moment comes when we are called.
We were reminded of the biblical command to love our neighbors as ourselves - not as an abstraction, but as a guide for tangible, collective action. Across the room, a clear leading emerged - the need to exhibit tenderness, both with ourselves and others. There was an urge to move away from fear and toward life, trusting that love is not born of anxiety but of open hearts. Several Friends lifted being grounded in faith to take necessary steps beyond the walls of our respective meeting houses.
Reflecting afterward, Chris Stern, CQM Coordinator, captured the spirit many of us carried home: “There was a real sense of being ‘gathered’ and of really listening to one another and to the Spirit. Friends felt held and uplifted, feeling the opportunity to share what was on our hearts. We felt the support of one another and a deep sense of being drawn closer together by a Power greater than our own.”
For me, the evening felt sacred but not due to resolution, but rather willingness. Concerns were voiced alongside hope, leaving us with a sense of connection, community, and inspiration.
Our New General Secretary
Greetings and best wishes to Friends of Concord Quarterly Meeting!
I began service as General Secretary of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM) on November 8, at Fall Continuing Sessions. The day included discernment, fellowship, and sinking down together in small groups in the afternoon workshop. It was a rewarding way to start!
For the last four-plus months, I’ve been drinking at the firehose of information to ingest, of technology to learn, and, most important, of relationships to grow.
As I hope you know, PYM is the regional association of 110 affiliated Quaker meetings and worship groups in the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware, southern and central New Jersey, and eastern and central Pennsylvania. Founded in 1682, PYM meets as a body for Annual Sessions plus two Continuing Sessions per year, to discern how the Spirit is calling us as a body. Councils of volunteers carry the work of PYM between sessions. A staff of 18 manages PYM operations, including organizing sessions and other events, running youth programs, and providing financial and administrative support for our meetings and faith community.
For ten years before joining PYM staff, I served as Executive Director of Friends Center, the Quaker building complex in Center City Philadelphia co-owned by PYM, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and Central Philadelphia Friends Meeting. I only had to move from an office on one side of the first floor to the other!
With my feet somewhat planted on the ground, I now look to the future. My vision is that PYM is a thriving set of Quaker meetings and communities across our region. Thriving may be defined in several ways: number of members and attenders, having resources to do the work we’re called to, vibrant community, and deep spiritual life.
As I step into the role, I am focusing five goals for my first few years:
- Increase engagement of Friends with the yearly meeting, by visiting and connecting with Friends throughout our region;
- Support development of the next generation of Quaker leaders to be our meeting and committee clerks, treasurers, trustees, and board members;
- Lean into the yearly meeting-wide witness of addressing racism;
- Balance PYM’s unrestricted operating budget; and
- Support outreach efforts by Friends across the yearly meeting.
So far in 2026, I have visited several monthly and quarterly meetings, including your Quarter’s own threshing session on 3/14, with many more visits already on my calendar. Worshipping with Friends in other meetings is spiritually nourishing!
During several of my visits, I have also conducted listening sessions where Friends share the work they are doing on the two yearly meeting-wide witnesses, climate justice and racial justice, and other work that has life and power for them. I also ask how that work is going, and what spiritual or other resources PYM might provide to support that work. The sessions have been rewarding for participants as well as me, because they learn all the other things that Friends are doing. In these difficult times, it is vital to remember we are working together in community, even when we work on different projects.
Friends who would like to invite me to visit may contact Cecilia Filauro, our Executive Administrator, at cfilauro@pym.org to find a mutually agreeable date. I look forward to seeing you!
Spring Continuing Sessions 2026
Our PYM community met March 12 - 14 virtually, in keeping with our climate action witness. We have been working toward a 50% reduction in carbon emissions for several years and know that transportation emissions are the most difficult to reduce because we travel afar by car, bus, and train to gather.
Friday evening saw Friends gathered for Meeting for Worship for Healing which was deep and centered. Saturday included worship with attention to business and small group work following the theme “Members of One Another”. Nominating Council reported on its difficulties in filling positions and the number of vacancies and asked Friends to consider service as both an act of faith and an opportunity for growth. Joint Council shared its work over the year, as the Administrative, Quaker Life, and Nominating Councils continue the experiment of meeting together monthly. A Sprint was tasked with exploring the importance of monthly and quarterly meetings in the business of the yearly meeting.
Along with climate concerns, the full yearly meeting is under the weight of addressing racism. The Addressing Racism Collaborative reminded us that racism affects all of us and is part of our society and institutions. We were reminded that we continue to do harm when we do not examine and work to change how issues of race and dominance conflict with our belief in equality and that of God in everyone. We met in small groups to share the tools used in our meetings to address racism. A list of books to open discussion and ground action are listed in the Mott’s Memo: https://www.pym.org/mott-memo-spring-continuing-sessions-2026/.
The Collaborative is planning a thread gathering this year. General Secretary Chris Mohr shared that “One Pamphlet, One Yearly Meeting” will resume this year with a collective reading of the Pendle Hill pamphlet #495, “Patterns of Racial Wounding and Racial Justice in Quaker Communities” by Lauren Brownlee and Zenaida Peterson.
Chris also shared an update on the DHS Lawsuit. Oral arguments are scheduled for May. The temporary injunction protecting PYM meetings as “sensitive sites” has been upheld. He also posted on the website signage and green cards meetings are encouraged to use. The signs state, “All immigration enforcement actions at this location must comply with the Court’s preliminary injunction and protective order.” https://www.pym.org/dhs-lawsuit/
After lunch, we gathered to explore the 2023 Pendle Hill lecture by Matt Rosen, entitled “Awakening the Witness”. We focused on what “membership” means and how Friends have been called over our long history to witness, noting that the concept of membership did not arise until 100 years after George Fox and friends began meeting and witnessing! On Sunday, Friends gathered from across the yearly meeting for worship. Individuals and meetings joined by Zoom.
Mark your calendars now for Annual Sessions, which will again be held at nearby Cheyney University, July 22 - 26. Annual Sessions is a great opportunity to gather with friends from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland to worship and explore our faith and callings together. There will be events for children and families. Friends can stay on campus or commute. It would be great to have strong attendance from Concord Quarter!
Time to Celebrate - Asylum for Simon!
On Friday, March 20, the West Chester Area Refugee Resettlement Project hosted an “Asylum for Simon” potluck dinner at Birmingham meetinghouse to celebrate the granting of asylum to our friend Simon Peter Gasuza on January 22.
There was joy and gratitude, celebrated with good food and company. Simon shared the story of his journey from Uganda, a saga of perseverance and resilience. Deb Wood, of Westtown MM, part of the Asylum Seekers Sponsorship Project welcomed Simon into her home at the end of February 2022. WCARRP served as an additional support.
Since his arrival, Simon, who holds a B.S. degree in accounting, completed training to become certified as a Fraud Examiner. Unable to secure an accounting position, Simon took a job as a home care aide and was promoted to a position of monitoring standards compliance for his company. He is now in process of developing his own Home Care Agency. He has already obtained licensure by the Health Department and approval from the state for Medicaid reimbursement.
Simon has begun working with his attorney to apply for permission for his family to join him in the U.S., a process that may take two years.
A Visit to the Underground Railroad
The Middletown Meeting Men’s Group went on retreat over the weekend of March 13-15, 2026 at Ellerslie at the Crosslands Retirement community. While planning the retreat, we thought of visiting Longwood Progressive Meetinghouse, built circa 1854, whose initial members left Marlborough Meeting to pursue their activism regarding the abolition of slavery and other progressive social causes. It was felt at the time that Friends at Marlborough were not paying enough attention to these causes. In time, this group of Friends at Marlborough came to disagree about the level of involvement the meeting should have in abolition efforts among other issues. In 1853, over 50 Friends withdrew from Marlborough Meeting and formed Longwood Progressive Friends Meeting, which figured prominently in abolition and other progressive causes of the era.
Our overall goal was to learn more about the involvement of regional Friends in activities of the Underground Railroad. Our organizer, Chris Stern, discovering the Meetinghouse was unavailable, learned about the Kennett Underground Railroad Center (KURC), located within the Kennett Heritage Center in Kennett Square, PA. He arranged a private visit to KURC and we met with Adrian and Debbie Burston, history interpreters at the center. Debbie and Adrian were gracious with their time and very willing to focus their presentation on Friends’ involvement in Underground Railroad activities in the years following 1850. Debbie Burston turned out to be a wonderful speaker, peppering her presentation with many telling anecdotes regarding Quaker and enslaved African activities at the time.
KURC inhabits two rooms in the Kennett Heritage Center, one of which has a full wall sized graphic timeline from the time of the first Africans’ arrival in Virginia in 1619 through the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865. For our focus on the Underground Railroad and Friends’ involvement in it, we picked up the story with events leading up to the Compromise of 1850 and the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act.
In the early 1800s, Friends in southeast Pennsylvania became active in the support of persons seeking to escape from enslavement in southern states. Thomas Garrett was born in Upper Darby, PA and later moved to Wilmington, DE. Garrett was a businessman who sold building supplies, and often delivered supplies to locations in Delaware by wagon; during such deliveries, people escaping enslavement were often hidden in the wagons. Friends across the border in Pennsylvania, including Hannah and John Cox, who lived on Longwood Farm near the entrance of the current Longwood Gardens, and Dinah and Isaac Mendenhall, whose farm was in Pennsbury Township, were prominent in hiding and otherwise protecting such persons as they moved northward.
Following our visit to KURC, we met with Chip Thomas at Marlborough Friends Meeting, which was originally formed circa 1800 and is now affiliated with Ohio Conservative Yearly Meeting. Chip researched the events leading to the separation of 1853 from the perspective of Marlborough Meeting; it was helpful in our understanding of the complexities of discernment of a way forward for Friends at that time. Chip also related the events leading to the formation of the meeting, which are themselves remarkable and about which I may contribute a future newsletter article.
From the perspective of the Middletown Meeting Men’s Group involved in the retreat, our time away in silence, prayer and study as well as our activities as described above provided considerable spiritual nourishment. In particular, we saw how similar Friends’ involvement with activities related to abolition in general and the Underground Railroad in particular are related to activities and causes regarding protection of our neighbors and furthering the causes of justice and democracy in our own time. We are deeply grateful for becoming more aware of these connections to earlier Friends and those they sacrificed to serve.
Finding Faith & Practice in a Friends School
When my eldest child entered primary school, I prayed they would find a caring Quaker community and develop an authentic sense of belonging; that they would grow in their love of learning and build the foundational skills necessary to support their curiosity about the world. Fortunately, they had a wonderful start at the Quaker school where my husband and I teach. They made friends, loved their teachers, and had a truly positive educational experience.
As they moved through the early grades and their gifts began to reveal themselves, we noticed a gap forming between their innate ability and their academic performance. The gap was not the fault of the school or their teachers, nor was it due to a lack of hard work or partnership from home. Rather, it was the starting place for understanding our child’s remarkable mind and the ways they learn differently.
As we began exploring schools, both public and private, I kept returning to Quaker education as the right path for our child. Heartsick that they might not have access to it, I comforted myself knowing that regardless of where they enrolled, they could still attend worship with me on Sundays and participate in our Children’s program and community events. As a product myself of rural public schools, I know that learning can happen in myriad ways and places. I simply wanted to make sure there would be more to school for them than academic skill-building, grade-level catch-up, and/or the pursuit of excellence defined by systems built for typical learners. I wanted them to belong to a community that values difference, honors the bright Light in every student, and embraces multiple ways of learning and knowing. Thank goodness there were Quaker parents and educators who came before me who set out to found Delaware Valley Friends School. For the past two years, our eldest has been enrolled at DVFriends and aside from the necessary bumps of childhood development, is making wonderful progress.
As a mother, a Quaker, an educator, and a member of the DVFriends Quaker Care Committee, I wear many hats when I think about DV. It is heartening to witness how intentionally the school aligns its educational mission with the lived spirit of Quaker identity. At DV, my child is learning how to learn and apply academic skills. They are building confidence and experiencing a new found trust in their abilities. At the same time, they are also growing in the ways Friends schools are so well known for supporting. They are learning to listen and discern, to celebrate their own joy and the joy of others, to meet challenges with courage and collaboration, to seek justice through understanding and action, and to participate in collective decision-making and community building.
At our October Quarterly Meeting, I shared a Care Committee report highlighting the newly created DVFriends Faith and Practice. The testimonies chosen to guide that document, Care, Equity, Courage, Discovery, and Joy, are visible in DV classrooms, in relationships across divisions, and in the school’s engagement with the wider community. The DVFriends Faith and Practice document is a thoughtful reflection of insights gathered from students, staffulty, families, alumni, and trustees. The deep listening and discernment required for such an undertaking is itself a testament to the spirit that guides the school. The reason for this extensive endeavor is answered within the document itself: it is both an articulation of values born from mission and lived experience, and a clear commitment to students who learn differently and to the community they are building together.
Linked here you will find a digital version of their Faith and Practice. Kirk Smothers, Head of School, will be sharing it at our Spring Quarterly meeting. I hope you enjoy seeing the incredible work they have put into this important project.
Converted to a single-column web version from pages 1-3 of Concord Quarterly Meeting Newsletter Volume 23, Issue 2, April 2026.