Frontier Friends, 1828–1836

Despite Friends’ rules against marrying a deceased sister’s husband, Amy Kirby married Isaac Post in 1828 and became stepmother to Hannah’s two children. Escaping disciplinary action, she moved to Isaac’s farm in Ledyard, New York, and immersed herself in the Scipio Hicksite Meeting. While Amy forged fast friendships with young married Quakers with whom she shared pregnancy and motherhood, she wrote regularly to family and friends back home. She remained especially close to her cousin Mary Robbins who married Isaac’s brother Joseph. Amy loved life in Ledyard, but the death of Hannah and Isaac’s son Edmund in 1830 and of Isaac’s brother Edmund in 1832 made the distance from Jericho loom large. As the Post family continued to grow, Amy cultivated her medical skills and nursed friends and traveling Quakers as well as family. The Posts were also active in Genesee Yearly Meeting (GYM), established in 1834 to meet the needs of Friends from Central New York to the Midwest and Upper Canada. GYM members testified against slavery, sought even greater equality for women in the meeting, and advocated the rights of Indians. Then in 1836, as many Friends migrated further west, the Posts relocated to Rochester, New York.