Joshua B. Maule (1806-1887) of Colerain, Belmont County, Ohio, was an important Quaker leader in the Wilburite Separations in Ohio in 1858 and 1863. An ultra-conservative, his followers were known as "Maulites," a sect that did not survive beyond his death.

The son of Jacob and Jane (Baldwin) Maule, he was born in Radnor, Pa. His father was an elder in Radnor Monthly Meeting. The family aligned with the Orthodox Quakers in the schism of 1827-28, and although Joshua attended Hicksite worship while apprenticed in Baltimore, Md., he retained his membership at Radnor Monthly Meeting. In 1831, he transferred on certificate to Short Creek Monthly Meeting (Orthodox) in Ohio, and in 1862 he was disowned from that meeting and led a group known as Maulites which created a General Meeting in 1863.

In 1832, he married Sarah N. Ecroyd at Muncy Monthly Meeting, and they had three sons: James E. (1828-1862), Jacob (1840-1933), and Henry E. (1851-1855). Sarah Maule died in 1872, and in 1875, Joshua married Hannah T. Cope, the daughter of Darlington and Sally (Thomas) Cope of Chester County, Pa. Hannah had accompanied Joshua Maule's friend and fellow Quaker minister Hannah Hall of Ohio on her ministry to England in 1874. Joshua and Hannah Maule had one child, Sarah (1876-1968).

Joshua Maule opposed Benjamin Hoyle, Clerk of Ohio Yearly Meeting (Wilburite), for his moderate approach to the schisms in New England Yearly Meeting. In 1863, he withdrew from the Wilburite (Middleite) Yearly Meeting to create a General Meeting (Primitive). Maule wrote articles and books on the issues dividing the Society of Friends, and he corresponded with many of the persons involved. He gathered the correspondence and kept copies of some of his own correspondence, much of which he used in his book Transactions and changes in the Society of Friends and incidents in the life and experience of Joshua Maule. With a sketch of the original doctrine and discipline of Friends. Also a brief account of the travels and work in the ministry of Hannah Hall. In particular, he saved the correspondence of his brother-in-law, Thomas B. Gould, a extreme Wilburite of Rhode Island Monthly Meeting who vehemently opposed the Gurneyite approach, and of his friend Hannah Hall, a convinced Friend also from Short Creek Monthly Meeting. Gould's visit in 1854 precipitated the schism in Ohio Yearly Meeting into Gurneyite (now Evangelical Friends) and Wilburite (Conservative) factions. The Conservatives split again in 1863 when the Maulites withdrew to create a General Meeting. In 1867, the General Meeting was divided by a schism divided over an epistle from Fallsington General Meeting. In 1870, Joshua Maule withdrew from the so-called Maulites, according to Maule, because of a disagreement about Hannah's ministry which was not authorized by the General Meeting. Maule's family then became an independent meeting.

Edward Williams, son of Richard and Sarah Williams, and his wife, Sarah, were members of Upper Springfield Monthly Meeting, Columbiana Co., Ohio. Edward was born 2 month 5, 1821, and died 9 month 2, 1894. Sarah was the daughter of James B. and Sarah Bruff and born 8 month 27, 1823, and died 10 month 11, 1882. They were married under Upper Springfield Monthly Meeting in 1849, and their daughter Sarah was born in 1850. In the 1863 Separation of Orthodox Friends, Edward and Hannah affiliated with the Wilburites. Edward Williams was a member of the Ohio Yearly Meeting Freedmen's Committee which provided clothing for freed slaves and sent teachers to the south to start schools. In late 1867, Edward Williams removed to Jackson, Mississippi, which was also the location of a penitentiary, and his wife soon joined him. When their service was extended, their daughter Sarah joined them. The original intention had been to find a married couple to be in charge of the Teachers' Home with the Williams family staying until another couple could replace them. However, their mission in the South continued for many years with only visits to their families in Ohio.

By 1870 the family was in Huntsville, Texas, on a mission to educate freed slaves during the era of the controversial Freedmen's Bureau in Texas. The family lived in a rural area outside town, and Hannah wrote to her mother with description that they "seldom see any white people to converse with." The final letter in the collection, written by Edward Williams to his mother in 1876, reflects the increasing tension and violence in Texas as well as the lack of financial support for the newly centralized public schools and growing objection to the education of African Americans.

The family returned to Ohio. Edward and Hannah were released from membership in Upper Springfield Monthly Meeting in 1881, but the following year requested to be restored. Both are buried at Upper Springfield. Sarah, their daughter, left the Wilburite meeting in 1889, but was returned to membership in 1898. A year later she married Abraham Maris, a member of Upper Springfield Monthly Meeting, Gurneyite.

Edward F. Stratton (1876-1968) was a Quaker from Salem and Barnesville, Ohio. He was the son of Edward and Mary (Raley) Stratton. In 1902, he married Clara E. Frame at Stillwater Monthly Meeting, Ohio. He served as Curator of the Salem Quarterly Meeting records and was Librarian of the Friends Society, Salem, Ohio. In 1964, he moved to The Walton, a Quaker boarding home in Barnesville, Ohio, where he maintained an avid interest in preserving the history of Ohio Quakers. As Curator of Salem Quarterly Meeting Records, Edward F. Stratton was involved with the deposit of Ohio Hicksite and western Pennsylvania Quaker records in Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College in the early 1960s.