All manuscript minute books for the men's Ohio YM are extant and stored in the safe at Olney. Copies of the printed minutes are also located in the safe.
The first volume of men's minutes was purchased in 1813 for Horton Howard to record the minutes. When Jonathan Taylor fell out of the Mount Pleasant Meeting House clerk's door during the division in 1828, he was holding onto this book. Later in 1828, Elisha Bates took this book with him to the trial in Steubenville to prove to the judge and jury that he was the legitimate Clerk of Ohio YM rather than David Hilles, who was the Hicksite YM Clerk.The minute book was taken to the opening session of Ohio YM in 2012, held at Mount Pleasant.
The second volume of men's minutes came close to being lost. Benjamin Hoyle's daughter copied some of his minutes into volume 2. After his service ended, she retained the minute book, though she had moved to Columbus. The minute book was returned in the mid 1870s, at which time about 15 years worth of minutes recorded by Clerks after Hoyle were recorded into the book.
Throughout the time that the men's YM existed (1813-1949), minutes being drafted during business meetings were not recorded directly into the minute book. Instead, they were usually written in small books. These original "clerk's notes" were sometimes messy due to alterations made on the floor. After YM time, the Clerk was usually responsible for copying the minutes from the clerk's notes into the minute book, though in some meetings a person was named the Recorder of the Minutes who copied the clerk's notes into the minute book. Only very small fragments survive of clerk's notes.
Originally, Ohio YM only printed extracts of the minutes (meaning that the minutes were abridged). These extracts were often printed on broadsides, or large sheets of newsprint. An original printed extract from the 1813 YM is framed and hangs on the wall in the Heritage Room at Stillwater. Beginning in the 1820s, Ohio YM began to publish the entirety of the minutes and have thousands of copies printed. Single copies of the minutes of each year are stored in the vault at Olney.
Volume 1 of the men's Ohio YM minutes has a few strands of hair between some pages. These strands of hair are very old and appear to date to the mid 1800s. |
