Society of Friends, Quakers

Record of Removals from Friends, Quakers Burying-Ground to Oak Hill Cemetery
Battle Creek, MI 1921

1835 – Four New York Quakers: Johnathan Hart, Abram, Joseph, and Isaac Merritt purchased a one half interest in the village of Battle Creek, then Merriton.  

1836 – A Meeting was organized, and a parcel of land was selected outside the village, on the east side of the Emmett line for a burying-ground.  

1848 – Having become too near, it was abandoned and a new site purchased on Fremont St. to which the bodies were removed by Ogden Green and David Waters.  

Members of this early Meeting were Eli and Rachel Lapham, Isaac and Mary Merritt, Isaac and Sarah Sutton, Jacob and Mary Frost, William and Gulielma Knowles, Joseph Kirby and wife, Reynolds and Deborah Cornell, Jonathan and Mary Hart, John Meachem, Linlay Bowne, Henry and Phoebe Willis, Erastus and Sarah Hussey, Isaac Mott, Elias and Amy Manchester, George Tagg, Cholett and Martha Cady, Nathaniel and Eliza Potter, Homer Case, Amos Harrington, Almon E. Preston, George Bradley, Ambrose Cocke, Jeremiah Brown and wife Deborah.  

Mary Tagg and Linlay Bowne were the first to be married in the Meeting.  

1843 – The society erected a Meeting house on Maple St., now Capitol Ave.

1860 – This property was sold to the Catholic Denomination.  

1861 -A second Meeting house was erected on West Main St., now W. Michigan Ave. in Bedford Township, Calhoun Co. where there were several families of the faith: Taggs, Stringhams, Pugsleys, Kirbys, Frosts, Bownes, Beviers, Shotwells, Bunnells. The building is still standing (1934). It is used as a dwelling.  

1871 – After selling the Main St.house, a little white building was erected in their burying-ground on Fremont St. It is still standing (1934). Nathaniel Potter and George Bradley helped with the building. Nathaniel Potter was the last one buried in the burying-ground.  

1899 – Lack of immigration of Friends from the East, marrying out of the Meeting, Spiritualism, and other religions and the, “call of the world” had so reduced the membership to six: Levi Pitman and wife, Isaac Willis and wife, George Case, Amos Farrington; so the Meeting was “laid down” and the members became members of the Half-yearly Meeting, its superior, at *Pelham, Ontario, Canada.   

The last Meeting was held by one person, George Case.  

1899 – The city secured the lease of the property for park purposes. The lease is to own 99 yrs., at $50 per year. At its expiration to be returned to the Friends’ control. It was called Fremont Park.  

1899-1900 – Bodies were removed to Oak Hill Cemetery. See Burial section.  

*The Battle Creek Monthly Meeting and the Pelham Half Yearly Meeting belonged to the Genesee Yearly Meeting, which was composed of the Liberal Branch in Western New York, Ontario and parts of Michigan and Ohio.  

1921 – The Battle Creek Chapter D.A.R. by petition, secured the name Fremont Park changed to Quaker Park, and placed a boulder with a bronze plate mark the Friends’ last spiritual home and meeting place:  

Site of Burying-Ground
And Meeting House
Of the
Society of Friends, Quakers
(Insignia)
Placed by the Battle CreekChapter
Daughters of the American Revolution
1921

There were over 30 unknowns, but as many of the markers were made of wood.  The old Friends did not believe in monuments, and at one time, grave stones were abolished.