Appoquinimink Friends Meeting House
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The Appoquinimink Friends Meetings House, erected in 1783, is located
in a community where a strong Quaker antislavery movement existed. The
Meeting House is associated with John Hunn (1818-1894) and John Alston
(1794-1874), two Underground Railroad "station masters" who
were members of the congregation. Referenced in William Still's 1872 book
The Underground Railroad, John Hunn gained notoriety by helping the
Hawkins family and several other fugitive slaves, in the care of freedman
and famous "conductor" Samuel Burris, escape through Delaware
and into Pennsylvania to freedom in 1844. Turned in to local law officials
by neighbors who lived near Hunn, the two men were sued by the owners
of the fugitive slaves for loss of property under the Fugitive Slave Law
of 1793; Hunn was fined $2,500, which forced him to sell his farm, and
Burris was sentenced back into slavery, but was later purchased from the
auction block by a Philadelphia antislavery activist. John Alston, another
member of Appoquinimink involved in the Underground Railroad, worked with
his cousin, John Hunn, in helping fugitive slaves escape to freedom. An
1841 entry in Alston's diary closes with: "O Lord...enable me to
keep my heart and house open to receive thy servants that they may rest
in their travels that this house that thou has enabled me to build may
be holy dictates unto thee of the pilgrim's rest." Alston was the
treasurer of the Appoquinimink Meeting and was the weekly caretaker of
the building until his death in 1874.
Appoquinimink Friends Meeting House is located on SR 299,
west of US 13 in Odessa, Delaware. It is open by appointment only, please
contact the Wilmington Monthly Meeting House to do so, 302-652-4491 or wilmmtg@juno.com.
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