Rees Cadwalader was the first Friend to be recognized as a minister in a meeting west of the Alleghany Mountains. He also played a major role in helping Friends move into the Redstone area.
Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, Cadwalader was a son of Joseph & Mary (Williams) Cadwalader. He moved to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in 1772. He was active in Hopewell MM and served as an overseer at his local meeting (Mount Pleasant, Virginia). When Hopewell MM appointed its first committee to visit the scattered Friends in the Redstone Settlement, Cadwalader was one of the three Friends appointed (1779). He soon thereafter purchased a tract of land called Redstone Old Fort and moved there by 1782.
Cadwalader became active in the newly established Westland MM, which recognized him as a minister in 1786. He worshipped at Redstone, originally in the early site to the south. When that meeting house burned, Cadwalader gave land on Prospect Street in Brownsville for the new "Peace Hill" Meeting House. Cadwalader died in 1800 and was buried in the Peace Hill burial ground.
Sources: EAQG 4: 23, 77; Hopewell Friends History, multiple pages; Redstone QM 9/7/1801; Anna H. Baker, Descendants of John Cadwallader of Wales, Horsham, and Warminister (N.p.: n.d.), pp. 25, 34. |
