The purpose in presenting the minutes of the Salem Monthly Meeting is to aid family members in understanding our Quaker ancestors--to understand how they lived and what they believed. Quakerism is a religion that governed almost every aspect of the member's life. So, to understand Quakerism is to understand an important aspect of how our ancestors lived. The minutes of the Salem Monthly Meeting offers a window into the world of early American Quaker life, and thus into the world of our Quaker ancestors.
In addition, genealogists are especially interested in the minutes to monthly meetings because they provide a primary source for names, dates and events. William Hinshaw in his Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy has provided an invaluable index to these records. However, as a primary resource, examination of the actual minutes well-worth the added effort required to decipher the poor images.
Zaccheus Test was born and lived in New Jersey until he moved to Ohio in 1803. In 1783, at the age of 21 Zaccheus married the 25 year-old Rebecca Davis. They had five children (Benjamin, Issac, Samuel, Sarah and Rebecca) before Rebecca died in 1798. In 1800, at the age of 38, he married the 25 year-old Hannah Reeves. They would eventually have six children (Joseph, Elizabeth, Mary, Zaccheus, Lydia and Edith). Joseph was two years old when they made the trek to Ohio and Elizabeth would be the first member of the Test family born in Ohio in 1805. All except Lydia and perhaps Rebecca, from his first marriage, survived birth. Zaccheus was 41 years old and Hannah was 28 years old when they moved the family to Ohio, arriving in the summer or fall of 1803.
Zaccheus Test was one of the founding members of (a) the Middleton Monthly Meeting, (b) the Salem Preparative Meeting, (c) the Salem Monthly Meeting (d) the Salem Quarterly Meeting, and (e) the Ohio Yearly Meeting. The Salem Monthly Meeting met for the first time on September 17, 1805. At that meeting a committee was appointed to suggest a member to serve as the clerk who would lead the meeting in its deliberations and who would write the minutes of each meeting. The minutes contained here (at least through the first 17 pages) are in the hand of Zaccheus Test.
Remaining active in the Salem Monthly Meeting until his death in 1820, the record of births and deaths of Salem Monthly Meeting record that Zaccheus Test was a minister, like his grandmother Susan Elizabeth Bacon Test. He regularly attended the Salem Quarterly Meeting as a representative of the Salem Monthly Meeting and although he was never named as an appointed representative to the Ohio Yearly Meeting he attended its meetings and served on several committees each year between 1813 and 1817.
RWT March 2000