s held by the Society. In the year 1802 they
removed to a farm at Blacker, three miles south of Barnsley, and attended
the meeting at Monk Bretton, or Burton, near that town, where the
meeting-house then stood. At Blacker it was John's business to ride into
Barnsley daily on a pony, with two barrels of milk to distribute to the
customers of his mother's dairy. His elder brother Thomas worked on the
farm.

Their attendance at Burton meeting brought the family under the notice of
Joseph Wood, a minister of the Society, residing at Newhouse, near
Highflatts, four miles from Penistone. Joseph Wood had been a Yorkshire
clothier, but relinquished business in the prime of life, and spent the
rest of his days in assiduous pastoral labor of a kind of which we have
few examples. To attend a Monthly Meeting he would leave home on foot the
Seventh-day before, with John Bottomley, also a Friend and preacher, and
at one time his servant, for some neighboring meeting. He would occupy the
evening with social calls, dropping at every house the word of exhortation
or comfort. The meeting next day would witness his fervent ministry. In
the afternoon they would proceed to the place where the Monthly Meeting
was to be held the following day, which they would attend, filling up the
time before and after with social and religious visits. In the intervals
of the Monthly Meetings, when not engaged on more distant service, it was
his practice to appoint meetings for worship in the villages around
Highflatts, and very frequently to visit those places where individuals
were "under convincement," particularly Barnsley and Dewsbury, where at
that time many were added to the Society. On his return home from these
services he would spend the day in an upper room, without a fire, even in
the severest weather, writing a minute account of all that had happened.

It was in 1803 that Joseph Wood first had intercourse with Joel Yeardley's
family. Under date of the 19th of the Fourth Month, he says, speaking of
himself and some other concerned Friends:--

We felt an inclination to visit Joel Yeardley's family, who are under
convincement, and who have lately removed from near Handsworth Woodhouse.
We went to breakfast. He and Frances his wife, with Thomas and John their
sons, the former about nineteen, the latter seventeen years of age,
received us in a very kind and affectionate manner, expressing their
satisfaction at our coming to see them. They appeare