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The Hicksite Separation on Nantucket by Robert J. Leach THE TRAGEDY OF the Great Schism of 1827-1828 had its small repercussion on the Island of Nantucket, almost alone of meetings in New England Yearly Meeting. Fortunately for us one of the main par ticipants, Obed Macy, was not only a sensitive Quaker elder, but a historian. His "History of Nantucket" is generally welcomed as the best of pre-twentieth century accounts. During the Hicksite controversy, Friend Obed kept his own running commentary contemporaneously to the events beginning in the Autumn of 1827 and finishing in the Autumn of 1835. This account, labelled "A Compendium, or abstract history, or a narrative of the Monthly Meeting on Nantucket toward their members— commenced in the tenth month 1827", indicates by its inception that Obed Macy was aware that troubles were brewing for Quakerism on the far away island. Macy was no ordinary member. He had been monthly meeting clerk of the original Nantucket Monthly Meeting, thirty years back, when forty years old. He had served actively in every phase of monthly meeting appointment. His portrait reveals an open sensitive countenance framed in appropriate Quaker simplicity. The great separation did not come unknown and unexpected upon the Island Quaker establishment. They had welcomed Hannah (Jenkins) Barnard, the woman minister from Hudson Monthly Meeting, New York (in itself almost a colony of Nantucket) shortly before she went on the fateful trip to the British Isles, which involved her in the so-called "White" Quaker separation in Ireland, and her subsequent disownment. This upsetting event came in 1798, just after Nantucket Monthly Meeting had set off its Northern portion as Nantucket Monthly Meeting for the Northern District—in 1794. A new Meetinghouse had been built on Broad Street in 1792 (56' x 38'), while later that year the old meetinghouse, which stood by the burial ground, was reconstructed at Main and Pleasant Streets. This was presumably a larger structure than the North Meeting House, as the membership of the two monthly meetings stood approximately at 500 and 800 in 1794. Parenthetically it is interesting to note that in the year 1800 the Methodists built their first meetinghouse on pair Street, having won many converts away from the Congregationalists (who were, before that, the only rivals to Friends on the Island). Then in 1809 the State Church divided in an orderly manner, as had Friends, to build the South Church as opposed to the original, now North Church. In 1823 the Methodists followed suit, building the present church on Main Street Square. In 1825 a Universalist church was built on
