Newtown Quaker Young Adults Receive Hicks Peaceable Kingdoms

Newtown Quaker Young Adults Receive Hicks Peaceable Kingdoms

Four young adults of Newtown Quaker Meeting were recognized at Quaker Homecoming December 28, 2014 after meeting for worship at the historic Friends Meetinghouse, 219 Court Street. www.newtownfriendsmeeting.org.

Each young person in the Quaker Meeting, at age twenty-one, receives a framed replica of one of Edward Hicks’ paintings of The Peaceable Kingdom inscribed “in recognition of your being a part of our own ‘peaceable kingdom’ and in celebration of attaining your majority as an adult member of Newtown Friends Meeting.”

Similar copies of this painting have been presented by members of the local Newtown Quaker Meeting to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, to Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, and to Quaker leaders throughout the country.

The young adults who received their Hicks paintings this year are:

Sarah Haber of Sarah Lawrence College (New York) and Newtown, PA, majoring in Liberal Arts and Theater;

Dan Hoskins of Earlham College (Indiana) and Newtown, PA, majoring in Theater;

Gabriel Haug of Ursinus College (PA) and Richboro, PA, majoring in Environmental Science; and

Willa Rowan of Oberlin College (Ohio) and Trenton, NJ, majoring in Geology and Environmental Studies.

Edward Hicks was co-founder of Newtown Friends Meeting in 1815. During his lifetime, he was known primarily as a Quaker minister, and painted coaches, signs and “ornamentals” for a modest living.

Hicks traveled throughout the area and sometimes gave one of his sixty versions of The Peaceable Kingdom to Friends who provided hospitality for him during his travels. The paintings are based on the Old Testament prophecy in Isaiah 11:6 that “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” In the background of the painting is the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, arranging a treaty with Native Americans.

Hicks paintings now hang in leading museums throughout the country and are highly valued. Many replicas of his Bucks County farmscapes, paintings of historic occasions such as The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, and General George Washington on his horse, as well as several versions of his Peaceable Kingdom are exhibited in the Newtown Meetinghouse Gathering Room. Edward Hicks’ home, a Newtown historic site, is on Center Street, and his modest grave is in the burying ground at Newtown Friends Meeting, another Newtown historic site.

Newtown Quaker Meeting presents Bibles to children in the Meeting at age twelve and copies of the Quaker “Faith and Practice” guidebook to young people at age sixteen.

Newtown Friends Meeting is open to everyone for First Day School with classes for children and adults at 9:45 a.m. and worship “after the manner of Friends” at 11 a.m. Childcare is provided.