
Isaac Post was a radical
Hicksite Quakers from
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in and the county seat, seat of government of Monroe County, New York, United States. It is the List of municipalities in New York, fourth-most populous city and 10th most-populated municipality in New York, with a populati ...
, and leader in the nineteenth-century
anti-slavery
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world.
The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. T ...
and
women's rights
Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...
movements. Among the first believers in
Spiritualism
Spiritualism may refer to:
* Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community
* Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at leas ...
, he helped to associate the young religious movement with the political ideas of the
reform movement
Reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social system, social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more Radicalism (politics), radical social movements such as re ...
along with his wife
Amy Post.
Early life
Isaac Post was born February 26, 1798, in
Westbury, New York
Westbury is a Village (New York), village in the town of North Hempstead, New York, North Hempstead in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore of Long Island, in New York (state), New York, United Stat ...
, to Edmund and Catherine (Willetts) Post, members of the Religious Society of Friends, also known as
Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestantism, Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally ...
. Amy Kirby Post was born December 20, 1802, in
Jericho, New York
Jericho is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, on the North Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States, approximately 29 miles (47 km) east of Midtown Manhattan. The population wa ...
, among the eight children of Joseph and Mary (Seaman) Kirby, who were also Quakers. Commitment to humanitarian reform was characteristic of Quakers and foundational to the Posts' later work as abolitionists and women's-rights activists.
Around 1821, Isaac married Amy's elder sister Hannah. In 1823 they moved to the village of
Scipio in
Cayuga County, New York
Cayuga County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 76,248. Its county seat and largest city is Auburn. The county was named for the Cayuga people, one of the Native American tribes in the I ...
, and established a farm where Amy soon came to live with them. In 1827 Hannah fell ill and died, and Amy became nursemaid to her sister's two children.
Also in 1827,
Elias Hicks
Elias Hicks (March 19, 1748 – February 27, 1830) was a traveling Quaker minister from Long Island, New York. In his ministry he promoted doctrines deemed unorthodox by many which led to lasting controversy, and caused the second major schism w ...
, a relative of the Kirbys, charged that the Religious Society of Friends had lost its way, initiating a split of the "Hicksites", including Isaac Post, from their more orthodox brethren. When in 1829 Amy Kirby married Isaac Post, criticism for having taken a "Hicksite husband" led to her withdrawal from the Jericho Meeting to which she had belonged since birth. In addition to her niece and nephew, Amy's maternal responsibilities came to include four more children she had with Isaac: Jacob (1830), Joseph (1834), Matilda (1840), and Willet (1847). The couple moved to Rochester in 1836.
Abolitionists
The couple quickly became involved in radical causes. Isaac dedicated much of his time to a very progressive group of Quakers who sought to give both men and women the same rights during the meetings of the Religious Society of Friends. In 1842, Amy and Isaac Post became two of the founders of the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society (WNYASS). WNYASS was not an abolitionist group only for Quakers. Among its members were evangelical Protestants and deists. By the early 1840s, radical Quakers began to hold abolitionist meetings in the Post home, where prominent reform lecturers such as
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was an Abolitionism in the United States, American abolitionist, journalist, and reformism (historical), social reformer. He is best known for his widely read anti-slavery newspaper ''The ...
,
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 14, 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was the most impor ...
,
Susan B. Anthony, and
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth (; born Isabella Bomefree; November 26, 1883) was an American Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist and activist for African-American civil rights, women's rights, and Temperance movement, alcohol temperance. Truth was ...
visited and spoke. Douglass became a close personal friend of the Posts who helped establish him in Rochester where he published his newspaper the "North Star". Douglass and the Posts also collaborated in ferrying fugitive slaves and their home served as a station on the
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an organized network of secret routes and safe houses used by freedom seekers to escape to the abolitionist Northern United States and Eastern Canada. Enslaved Africans and African Americans escaped from slavery ...
, holding as many as 20 escaped slaves at a time. In 1848, the Posts also left the GYM due to pressure from elders to end their abolitionist activities as well as to help form the
Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends (YMCF), which differed greatly from the GYM in several ways. They had no ministers or elders as all people were considered equal within the YMCF. The members of YMCF would do whatever they considered necessary to end slavery, and therefore put no limit on "worldly" efforts to abolish slavery. Finally, the YMCF had no tolerance for racial or sexual discrimination. They believed that all people should be considered equal morally, religiously, and politically. The motto of the Congregational Friends was "common natures, common rights, and a common destiny."
Spiritualism
In 1848, the Posts took into their home the
Fox sisters
The Fox sisters were three sisters from Rochester, New York who played an important role in the creation of Spiritualism: Leah (April 8, 1813 – November 1, 1890), Margaretta (also called Maggie), (October 7, 1833 – March 8, 1893) and Catheri ...
, Kate and Margaret, who appeared to have acquired the ability to communicate with spirits through rapping noises. They introduced the girls to their circle of radical friends, and almost all became ardent believers in the emerging religion of
Spiritualism
Spiritualism may refer to:
* Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community
* Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at leas ...
. Isaac Post himself became an acknowledged
medium
Medium may refer to:
Aircraft
*Medium bomber, a class of warplane
* Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''The Medium'' (1921 film), a German silent film
* ''The Medium'' (1951 film), a film vers ...
. His 1852 book, ''Voices From the Spirit World, Being Communications From Many Spirits'', was presented as the
spirit writings of eminent persons such as
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...
and
George Fox
George Fox (July 1624 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. – 13 January 1691 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) was an English Dissenters, English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Quakers, Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as t ...
.
[, , Braude 2001]
Personal life
Isaac's brother, Joseph (1803–1888), was also an abolitionist and had early differences with the Quakers, although they finally came around to his point of view. He encouraged
Isaac T. Hopper, Charles Marriot, and James S. Gibbons when they were disowned by the Religious Society of Friends on account of their outspoken opposition to slavery. Joseph spent his whole life in the house where he was born.
Isaac Post died in April 1872. Amy Post died January 29, 1889. They are buried together in
Mount Hope Cemetery in
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in and the county seat, seat of government of Monroe County, New York, United States. It is the List of municipalities in New York, fourth-most populous city and 10th most-populated municipality in New York, with a populati ...
.
References
Sources
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*
* Hewitt, Nancy A. "Post, Amy Kirby." American National Biography Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. , url= http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00553.html ,
* Ripley, C. Peter. The Black Abolitionist Papers: Vol. 3, United States, 1830–1846. North Carolina: Chapel Hill University Press, 1991. Also available online at , url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080226213028/http://www.netlibrary.com/ ,
* Western New York Suffragists: Amy Kirby Post. Rochester Regional Library Council: 2000. , url=
,
Further reading
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*
External links
Isaac Post biography on History of Women's Suffrage siteThe Post Family Papers Project at the University of Rochester which contains digitized letters
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Post, Amy And Isaac
1802 births
1798 births
1872 deaths
1889 deaths
19th-century occultists
American Quakers
American spiritualists
Suffragists from New York (state)
Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester)
Quaker abolitionists
Married couples
Underground Railroad people
Quaker feminists
American women civil rights activists