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McCool Name Study - McCool Quakers

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Surname/tag: McCoole, McCool
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This is one of several research areas of the McCool Name Study.

Many McCool/McCoole families, from the mid-1600s to the 1900s (and beyond), were members of the Society of Friends - widely known as Quakers. Quaker records often provide information not otherwise available. The Toberhead McCool Line line in particular had strong early ties to the Friends.

"Quakerism had its origins in the northwest of England in the mid seventeenth century. William Edmunson established a meeting in Lurgan as early as 1654. Quaker meeting houses in the Bann Valley area that were formed in the mid to late seventeenth century and included Toberhead, Dunglady and Coleraine in county Derry and in Co Antrim - Ballynacree (on the Vow road near Ballymoney), Lower Grange near Portglenone and Antrim town. Ideally weekly meetings were to be held in each of these regional locations (often in a local home) and then representatives were to be sent to the monthly meeting held in Antrim, which was the regional hub for Quakerism in the area."[1]

"Today there are no Quaker Meeting Houses in the North Antrim area for the following reasons:

  • In 1704 a Test Act was passed which required office holders to take all three Sacraments of the Church of Ireland (Anglican or "state" church).
  • Presbyterians, Roman Catholic, and other minor religions such as Quakers could not join the army, the militia, educate their children or pass on land, worship within five miles of a town or own a horse over £5 if they did not obey the three sacraments of the state church: baptism, marriage, and burial.
  • A drought in the "teen" years of the 1700's was the "last straw" for these yeoman farmers. Ruined crops included flax, which meant that farmers, weavers and townspeople had their lifestyle ruined.
  • In 1716 sheep were affected with "sheep rot," a disease of the feet, and flocks were wiped out.
  • Absentee landlords, who lived in England and did not know or care what was happening, kept increasing rents.

By 1717, what had began as a trickle in 1702 became a great migration of Ulster people to America. The bulk of immigrants were Presbyterians; Quakers had started to immigrate at the beginning of the 17th century mainly because of persecution."[2]

Contents

Quaker Categories on WikiTree

Please copy and paste the following category before the Biography header of any McCool profile who was a Quaker at any point in their life:

[[Category:Quakers, McCool Name Study]]

Then, include any regional categories that apply (partial list):

[[Category: North Carolina Quakers]]
[[Category: South Carolina Quakers]]
[[Category: Ohio Quakers]]
[[Category: Quaker Migration from the Carolinas to Southwest Ohio]]

For a full list of available categories, visit American Quakers category. There are also categories for other countries.

Early McCool Quakers

The Toberhead McCools became some of the first Quakers in Ireland. Unfortunately the family followed several common practices that make accurate genealogical research difficult:

  • The eldest son was almost always named for his grandfather (but what if there were an exception?)
  • The eldest son always inherited the family homestead, while his younger siblings had to fend for themselves (and usually emigrated to America) - no known exceptions

This has positive and negative effects:

  • We can make assumptions about the relationship between two McCool men based on their given names and their land inheritance.
  • We end up with a lot of fathers, nephews, and cousins with identical names who lived in and migrated to the same places - possibly causing researchers to consider different McCools to be the same person.

Ancestry Quaker Catalog

Ancestry subscribers are able to access multiple databases of Quaker records. On 13 Aug 2021, there were 57 record collections that included Quaker in the title[3] and 76 record collections that included quaker as a keyword (many of which overlap).[4] In those collections, hundreds of McCool records are available (presumably, large numbers overlap). There are also spelling variations (McCool and McCoole) which are important - and other variations (McColl) which may or may not be related to McCool lines.

One of the significant collections is "U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935"[5]. That collection includes:

  • McCool - 265 records
  • McCoole - 111 records

Meeting Houses

Some of the Friends Meeting Houses with the most McCool/McCooles are listed here.

Ballancree MM - Ireland

Kennett MM - Chester County, Pennsylvania

The Kennett Monthly Meeting house known as Old Kennett was first constructed in 1710[6] in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

Hopewell MM - Frederick County, Virginia

Hopewell Meeting was established in 1734, about one mile west of Clearbrook in Frederick County, Virginia. It was established nine years prior to the creation of Frederick County.[7]

Mill Creek MM

Back Creek MM - North Carolina

  • 1876, 7, 8 Thomas M McCool & wife July Ann rocf Le Grand MM, IA, dated 1876, 6, 10.
  • 1877, 9, 8 Thomas & wife Julia Ann rqct West Branch MM, Miami Co OH

New Garden MM - North Carolina

1812,12,26 John McCool gct West Branch MM, OH

Union MM

Bush River MM - Newberry, South Carolina

The Bush River Quaker Meeting was established in Newberry in 1770 and is located on Dennis Dairy Road, in Newberry County, South Carolina. The Quakers had been coming into Newberry County since 1762, some coming to escape religious persecution, and others because of the reasonable price of farmland. Bush River was the largest and most influential of the Piedmont South Carolina meetings, with attendance reportedly as high as five hundred. The Quaker settlement was on Bush River and the Beaverdam. The Bush River Meeting was a monthly meeting (1770-1822) and a quarterly meeting with jurisdiction over all meetings in South Carolina and Georgia from 1791 to 1808.[8][9]

Almost all Quakers from Bush River migrated from South Carolina to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois in the very early 1800s.[10][11]

Page 2 - James McCool, the elder, d 2-9-1751, aged 42 yrs[12]

Page 36 - James McCool and Ann are listed with children:[12]

  • Mary b. 11-27-1743
  • John b. 8-10-1745
  • James b. 12-12-1747
  • Martha b. 10-31-1749
  • Gabril [Gabriel] b. 8-17-1851

Page 44 - Gabriel McCool and "Alisabeth" are listed with the following children:[12]

  • Rachel b. 27-11-1774
  • Ann b. 11-11-1776
  • James b. 10-13-1777
  • John b. 11-10-1780
  • Thomas b. 3-3-1782
  • Gabriel b. 1-12-1784

Miami MM - Warren County, Ohio

West Branch MM - Miami County, Ohio

The West Branch Monthly Meeting of Friends was established on 1st Month 7th, 1807 in West Milton, Miami County, Ohio. Some of the very earliest members were McCoole families.

  • 1819, 7, 17 - James & w, Charity & ch, Eliza Ann & Rachel, rocf Hopewell MM, VA, dtd 1819, 2, 4, endorsed by Mill Creek MM, 1819, 6, 26[13]

Western Plain MM - Iowa

Le Grand MM - Iowa

Research Notes

The River Bann flows through Ulster (in now-Northern Ireland), separating eastern County Londonderry from western County Antrim. It drains Lough Neagh to the north, meeting the sea at Coleraine near the Giant's causeway. The Toberhead McCool line lived and worshipped in the Bann Valley starting in the early to mid 1600s. See valley map [14] and Quaker Meeting map[1]

Sources

  1. 1.0 1.1 Quaker meeting houses connected to Antrim: http://www.ulstergenealogyandlocalhistoryblog.com/2017/11/quaker-meeting-houses-connected-to.html
  2. Comments by Joan L. Petticrew (a professional researcher commissioned by Thomas E. McCool) in Co. Antrim
  3. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/catalog/?title=quaker
  4. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/catalog/?keyword=quaker
  5. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2189/
  6. Old Kennett Meetinghouse
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Kennett_Meetinghouse
  7. Hopewell Meeting
    https://quaker.org/legacy/hopecentre/history/hopewellmeeting.html
  8. Quakers in South Carolina
    https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/quakers/
  9. Quakers in Newberry
    https://www.genealogytrails.com/scar/newberry/quakersettlement.htm
  10. Bush River MM
    https://www.anamericanfamilyhistory.com/Quakers/Meeting%20Bush%20River.html
  11. https://historicalmarkerproject.com/markers/HM8LM_bush-river-quaker-meeting_Newberry-SC.html
  12. 12.0 12.1 12.2 https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/228116:3753?_phsrc=xAJ23332&_phstart=successSource&gsln=McCool&ml_rpos=4&queryId=0fd55d37d9b23d8edfdce677732014ec
  13. U.S., Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Vol I–VI, 1607-1943 for James McCoole, Vol 5 - https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/3753/images/quakergenvolv-005312?pId=76028
  14. http://genealogy.torrens.org/BannValley/




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