Daughter of Thomas and Lydia (Hussey) Whinery;
Granddaughter of William and Abigail (McMillan) Whinery.
Esther Whinery Wattles and her husband:
underground railroad, community life, division
of Quakers, Women's rights, temperance, dietetic reform, spiritualism,
Kansas and John Brown and Oberlin College.
The memoir was written by Esther Whinery Wattles in 1905. This copy was sent to Dorothy Jane Carter by Willard Heiss, genealogist of Quaker history and historian of Indiana history, Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1981. He sent this copy after he returned my personal copy of the Spargur-Carter; Thomas and Deborah Marsh McMillan history.
He made copies for his personal library and for the Fort Wayne, Indiana, library. The photo of Esther Whinery Wattles came from the Joseph McMillan album. Esther was the influence that sent Grandpa Joe and Aunt Jennie (Jane McMillan Carey, whom my middle name came from) to Oberlin College to study at the Conservatory of Music and English class.
About 1985 Willard Heiss called the Mary L. Cook Public Library in Waynesville (Ohio), where I work, and asked if we would like "a little wagon" - that it "belonged" back home. We accepted it not knowing how important it was! He personally brought it to us the next week. The wagon was made by Abram Allen, copied from "The Liberator" that was used for the underground railroad between Harveysburg and Oakland; and carried John O. Wattles, Valentine Nicholson and others to New York for the conventions on the reforms they were working for. He made the wagon for Valentine Nicholson's grandchildren, the Steele brothers that lived near Indianapolis, Indiana.
In 1986 Willard Heiss retired and soon after died. His memory lives with the records he has preserved; Quaker and Indiana history.
This collection of Esther Whinery Wattles is dedicated in memory of Willard Heiss.
Dorothy Jane Carter
Waynesville, Ohio; 1995
Esther Whinery Wattles of Quaker parentage1 was born March 27, 1819, at New Garden five miles west of Salem, Columbiana Co. [Ohio] - I had eight brothers and four sisters, all lived till the youngest was fourteen years old. Then a bilious typhus fever came and took two brothers, and my youngest sister all within two weeks of each other, and the remainder of them dropped out one after another, so I, of all that big family, am all that is left now in 1905. Father and Mother lived to see all buried but three, brother Achilles died soon after they did. Seven of us married and had families. Five never married.
Father was a farmer so we all learned to work, the girls to spin and weave and to make up all our clothes for both girls and boys and our father's and brothers' clothing. Sister Jane Ann was the best spinner. Her yarn, whether in flax or wool, could be used for chain because she made no slips, hence, could be woven with much better results.
O! When I look back at those bright loving days in the dear old home with father, mother, brothers and sisters gathered in groups round about how glad I am to have been one of the number. After the day's work was done it was our delight to go to neighbors or friends or visit with each other; happy, happy times as I recall them.
In 1827 there was the first division among Friends, the Hicksites and the Orthodox. I was too young to know why there was a separation. My father, Thomas Whinery and Lydia his wife went with the Hicksites. My uncles went with the Orthodox, whose children were not allowed to play with us after the division. I took this so to heart-that it made a lasting impression. The Orthodox disowned the Hicksites. This was a grief and more widely separated us.
When I was thirteen and a half, Father sold his home in Columbiana Co. and went with his family to Clinton Co. (1832) and bought a farm near Wilmington [Ohio]. There I spun and wove many yards of cloth both for women's wear and men's. It was there, as a large family, we had such good times evenings after our day's work was done....