Westfield: A Quaker Town Built for Freedom
Near Indianapolis, Indiana
On May sixth, eighteen thirty-four, a Quaker named Asa Bales platted the streets of a new town in Hamilton County, Indiana and named it after his antislavery meeting in North Carolina: Westfield Friends Monthly Meeting. Bales had left North Carolina in eighteen twenty-two rather than live under a slave economy, settling eventually on land he believed would form a sanctuary for others with similar convictions. Westfield is believed to have been planned as a stop on the Underground Railroad, and several safe houses are said to have operated within its boundaries.
Quaker families and Wesleyan Methodist households sheltered freedom seekers moving north through Indiana, guiding freedom seekers north over the following decades. The town that grew from those first lots is now one of Indiana's fastest-growing suburbs, but the names on its oldest streets still belong to the families who built it as a refuge.
