Saturday, October 6, 1866

Lizzie & I went in to Richmond this morning to attend a part of [Indiana] Yearly Meeting. Several others of our acquaintance also went in.

Cousin Rebecca Harvey and her brother Jesse are here. We also very unexpectedly met Juliet Stanley, a teacher we first met at Jackson. Miss [sic]. I went with cousin William & Rebecca out to Wilson Charles’ nine miles from Richmond, to stay all night [and] found very comfortable quarters and nourishment for the hungry man.

-Mary Jane Edwards

The sisters would have caught what they knew as the Indiana Central Railroad- in nearby Raysville, Indiana, just east of Knightstown- to travel the thirty-some miles to Richmond. The railroad had merged and changed names twice in the previous three years, but Mary Jane refers to it as the Indiana Central in other parts of her diary.

No doubt, the women spent most of their time trying to keep sooty ash and cinders from covering their best clothing. Their autumn journey would have taken sixty to ninety minutes as they jostled along heading east, parallel to the Old National Road and stopping in Cambridge City and Centerville.

Mary Jane and Lizzie arrived at Richmond’s primitive passenger railroad station, a simple brick trackside building constructed on land donated by Friends Charles and Elizabeth Starr. The simple building had become famous for hosting the first Hoosier stop of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train in the wee hours of April 30, 1865, just eighteen months earlier. 

Likely, the city was overflowing. Thousands of Friends had traveled by train, wagon, and carriage to Richmond to attend the Indiana Yearly Meeting, the annual business gathering of Quakers. The agenda included several days of business, countless committee reports, and letters from other meetings as well as the discussion of spiritual matters.

In addition to Friends, vendors, peddlers, and general gawkers filled the northeast part of the city. Local newspapers reported that police were overwhelmed with the inundation of all manner of people to the city. 

Due to the massive influx of visitors, finding commercial lodging was difficult. To meet the need, hospitality was often provided by relatives or even complete strangers, as Friends opened their homes, barns, and other buildings to attendees. Some families camped in their wagons or spent the night under their carriages. Discomfort was all part of the experience- and sacrifice- of attending yearly meeting.

Mary Jane was lucky to have comfortable quarters only nine miles away and with family. Who knows where LIzzie ended up staying!

The sisters attended yearly meeting for four of the six total days. Surely they were eager to hear the official report of the work they had done educating freedmen in Mississippi while working with Ohio Yearly Meeting teachers. 

Depending on when they arrived each day, they may have sat through the women’s sessions in the enormous Whitewater Friends Meetinghouse, said to hold 2,000 people. If no inside space were available, they may have attended one of the meetings held on the grounds outside the meetinghouse.

Visiting with old and new Friends was undoubtedly one of the best parts of yearly meeting. But this particular year, the sisters were not happy to meet the man who originally recruited them to go South to teach. For months, he had been haranguing them to return to their mission, and before they could leave Richmond, he enticed them to meet with other returning teachers at the Friends Tract Depository. It was a trying time.

Transportation home from yearly meeting was tenuous with so many people needing passage. Mary Jane reported that the train was too early to catch one day and caused one family a rift. A wife and her brothers took the train, but left her husband “to paddle his own canoe” home!

The Edwards sisters stayed until Tuesday, catching the ten o’clock train. Brother David drove the buggy from home to meet them at the Raysville station, but on the way back to the farm, “one wheel smashed up and we had the pleasure of walking the rest of the way.”

In all, yearly meeting was probably not the uplifting event Mary Jane had eagerly anticipated.