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presumably after the large Russian grain port on the Black Sea, now that this Delaware town had become a grain port.

In 1800, the land for the Meeting House was given by David Wilson, who had previously erected a Meeting House on these same grounds in 1785. This was the site of what is now the Odessa Friends Meeting House, which stands in Odessa on the state road leading from Odessa to Middletown.

This grant was by a deed dated September 2, 1800, to John Heron, Joab Alston, Pennel Corbit and Thomas Starr “in trust for the Society of Friends (or the people called Quakers)”… “The said lot whereon stands a brick Meeting House”… “Containing one hundred and forty-three perches of land.” This deed was recorded December 30, 1801.

In 1827, there was a division among Friends, and the members of the Odessa Meeting aligned with the Hicksite branch (being the followers of Elias Hicks, a so-called liberal in the Friends Society). Quaker history indicates that rural Quakers generally aligned with the Hicksite group and the urban Quakers remained apart as the Orthodox Friends. It is said that the division caused great displeasure and the Meeting interest slackened after that cleavage. Finally the Meeting activity in Odessa was discontinued in the late part of the nineteenth century. It is reported that John Alston was the sole attender. Reports of the status of the meeting during the later part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth indicate that the Meeting House and grounds had been all but abandoned, the grounds grown up and the House dilapidated.

Through the inspired management of James A. Finley and with the financial support of Mrs. Ann Rosetta Evans and H. Rodney Sharp, the Meeting House and grounds were rescued from their sad state in 1938. The grounds were cleaned up and the Meeting House was repaired and preserved and again used occasionally for Quaker Meetings by a group of interested Friends living in the area.

At the insistence of Margaret M. Crook, this group reorganized in 1946. Elizabeth S. and Harry B. Roberts, helped by Harry Hoch, Esquire, Middletown attorney, found the original deed to the Meeting House grounds as recorded in the County records, after an extended search. It was thought that the land, having been so long abandoned, had escheated to the State of Delaware; therefore, members of the Friends community consisting of Percival R. Roberts, Elizabeth S. Shall-

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