Halliday Jackson papers

Halliday Jackson (1771-1835) was a Quaker minister from New Garden and Darby, Pennsylvania. From 1798 to 1800, he was part of the Quaker mission to the Seneca Nation organized by the Indian Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Shortly after his return from the mission, Halliday Jackson married Jane Hough and moved to Darby, Pennsylvania. Following Jane's death in 1830, Halliday Jackson remarried in 1833, to Ann P. Paschall (1792-1874), also a Quaker minister.

The Indian Committee of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM) began in 1795 and continues at the present time. Previous to this, Philadelphia area Friends formed the Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures. The "Friendly Association" grew out of the violence of the French-Indian War of the mid-1700s and was active as a formal organization from around 1755 to 1764.

Work of the Indian Committee included teaching Native American people and their children, monitoring legislation affecting First Nations, and helping them combat frauds and abuses. The Committee worked primarily with the Seneca Nation on the Allegany and Cattaraugus Reservations in New York. Earliest work was with Cornplanter on both sides of the border in Pennsylvania and New York. In 1798, Cornplanter (Gaiänt'wakê) invited five Quaker missionaries to the Seneca Nation to instruct the members in husbandry and to establish a school. This group included three young men, Henry Simmons, Halliday Jackson, and Joel Swayne, as well as two Quaker elders, John Pierce and Joshua Sharpless. The men established a mission, including a model farm and a school, which was run by Henry Simmons beginning in the fall of 1798. Handsome Lake (Sganyodaiyo), Cornplanter's half brother, was exposed to Quakerism through these missionaries.

Work was also centered at Quaker Bridge ("Tunesassa"), New York, where Friends established a boarding school in 1852 adjacent to the Allegany Reservation. Friends Indian School operated as a boarding school for Native American children until 1938. The completion of the Kinzua Dam (Allegheny Reservoir) led to the flooding of much of the Allegany Reservation and the evacuation of Seneca families. Philadelphia Friends were active in helping the Seneca Nation fight the construction of the Kinzua Dam.

In 2022, the Committee's name was changed to the Quaker Fund for Indigenous Communities Granting Group.

Source: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Records: Quaker Fund for Indigenous Communities and its predecessors (Indian Committee, Friendly Association) (1795- ) finding aid (QM.Phy.838)