2 Page Autographed Letter Women Friends Meeting, Gravelly Run, Virginia, May 21-20, 1832

Pages are largely about the religious struggles of faith by Margaret Crew who notes that Hannah E. Blackhouse has come from England and favored their meeting. The Gravelly Run Quaker Meeting House was built in 1767 but their opposition to slavery and war, they moved to Ohio before the Civil War. Hannah Backhouse [she was the cousin of Elizabeth Fry] began to visit Quaker meetings in America in 1830. the Quaker Review noted she had attend Yearly Meetings in five states but here for the first time we find she had been to Virginia. Later sources in 1834 refer to this time where she say writes she had observed the "inequities of slavery". After travelling hundreds of miles through the slave states she wrote: "the distress of seeing these poor creatures on the road, just brought up by the slave-dealers, separated from their nearest relatives..the system is horrible. She travelled then to New York where she met opposition since she was a "woman preacher". While the document is largely of religious devotion, it does establish an historical connection not noted elsewhere. There is a small tear at the fold with minor loss of a letter or two.