Jacob Ong was an early Quaker settler in Ohio, a recorded minister at Smithfield MM, and the contractor for the Mount Pleasant Yearly Meeting House.
Ong was born in Burlington NJ. During the American Revolution, Ong served in a Pennsylvania regiment that monitored western Pennsylvania. After the war, Ong apologized for this military service, and he rejected his military pension.
Ong moved several times early in life: to Hopewell, Virginia, in 1786, to Westland in 1792, and then to Jefferson County, Ohio, in 1803.
Concord MM recorded him as a minister in 1803. Ong was a founding member of Short Creek MM in 1804 and then of Plymouth/Smithfield MM in 1808. Joel H. Carr, who was raised at Smithfield, later recalled Ong's ministry: "He usually had a message for the people, his theme was always love. In the earnestness of his soul he would deliver the message, while tears would trickle down his furrowed cheeks. Trembling from head to foot, he would exhort young and old to love the Lord and one another."
When Ohio YM decided to construct a large new meeting house in Mount Pleasant to house yearly meeting sessions, Ong was chosen to oversee the work. At the time, his position was called "carpenter," though we would call it a contractor today. Ong included an interesting vestigial architectural element found in early meeting houses he had seen in his youth: the narrow walkway over the gallery.
In 1832, Ong was one of six Friends attending a meeting of the M4S who objected to a proposed address to members drafted by Elisha Bates on the grounds that Bates used language that was unscriptural and varied from the traditional beliefs of Friends.
The Ohio records have some contradictory information about the date of death for Ong, but what is used here comes from the Smithfield records.
Sources: EAQG 4:52, 104, 155, 490-491; Hopewell Friends History 1734-1934, pp. 423-428. |
