Location Details
- Lincoln, VA, 20160
This area was home to Virginia’s largest settlement of Quakers, vocal abolitionists during the war.
The Goose Creek Monthly Meeting of Friends was established in 1750 along a tributary of the Potomac River. The Friends (Quakers) were devoted pacifists; they refused to fight in the Revolutionary War so consistently that military leaders eventually ordered them left alone and made no further attempts to recruit them. They were vehemently opposed to slavery as well, and set up a manumission society in 1824 to help freed blacks; the Goose Creek Meeting also set up the first school in the area for black children. During the Civil War, most members of Goose Creek were devoted to the Union cause; some young men fought in both armies, however, despite their belief in pacifism. Their area was occupied several times by both Federal and Confederate troops; when General Philip Sheridan raided northern Virginia in 1864, many of the Friends’ barns and much of their personal property was spared. During the war, their strong Union sentiment led to the changing of the district’s name, from “Goose Creek” to “Lincoln,” under which name it remains today.
