Hastings, Joshua, 1735-1816

Joshua Hastings was a Quaker who spent much of his life in Philadelphia and North Carolina. Hastings was born in 1735 to John Hastings and his second wife Sarah Powell Hastings, likely in Philadelphia. In 1758 he married Ann Edgerton at the Gloria Dei Church. The couple's decision to be circumvent their Quaker monthly meeting and be married by a Lutheran priest earned them the censure of their congregation, though they continued as members of the meeting after acknowledging their conduct. In 1779 Hastings and his wife and children moved to Wayne County, North Carolina, where they became members of Contentnea Monthly Meeting. Ann died in 1789, and the following year Joshua remarried to a woman named Anne Pearson. In 1797 the family moved to Randolph County and joined Back Creek Monthly Meeting. In 1815 Hastings and his wife moved to West Grove in Wayne County, Indiana, where they joined Whitewater Monthly Meeting. Hastings died in 1816.