Accidental Founders of the Beanites

Joel Bean (1835-1914) and Hannah Elliott Bean (1830-1909) were prominent Quakers esteemed in the United States and England for their spiritual gifts. Despite this wide respect, their path among Friends was not smooth. They are key actors in the establishment of Pacific Yearly Meeting as we know it today and for bringing the Religious Society of Friends to the West.

The pair, from established Quaker families in the East, met in Iowa. Joel had migrated to Iowa from New Hampshire in 1855, traveling with 200 family members in the “Bean Wagon Train.” Hannah Elliott Shipley then traveled from her home in Philadelphia to visit Friends in Iowa, and met Joel, who asked for Hannah’s permission to become acquainted with her, with the intention of marriage. They wed in 1859 in Philadelphia, then settled into farming and teaching in West Branch, Iowa.

The couple also traveled extensively in the ministry, beginning with the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii). Later, their ministry took them to New England and Europe. During their travels, they came to be widely respected as ministers.

They took their infant daughter with them on their journey to Hawaii in 1861, stopping along the way to worship with Friends who had settled in California. After ministering in the Hawaiian Islands for eight months, Joel and Hannah made the return trip in 1862 to their farm in Iowa, where they would start a school for their two daughters and other Quaker children.

Iowa Friends valued the Beans for the spiritual quality of their vocal ministry. Joel and Hannah served as clerks of Iowa's Men's and Women's Yearly Meetings, and were both recorded as ministers. Joel’s writing appeared in Friends’ publications in the U.S. and England. By the 1870s, Joel Bean had become one of the best-known Friends in America, esteemed by Quakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the 1870s, the couple’s ministry took them to New England and farther east to England and Ireland. Their travels included two years teaching at Friends School in Providence, Rhode Island, where their daughters, Lydia and Catharine, also studied. Upon returning to Iowa in 1877, they found a very different situation from the one they had left. A wave of evangelical revivals, a part of the Holiness Movement, had swept into Iowa earlier, then during the Beans’ absence, a radical evangelical faction emerged among Iowa Friends. That faction had gained control of the Beans’ yearly meeting. The group’s dominance would soon extend to the Beans’ monthly meeting.

Joel objected to the Revivalists evangelical doctrine and published articles about his concerns. This put him at odds with those who had gained control in his yearly and monthly meetings, drawing the Revivalists’ ire.

In an attempt to escape this conflict, in 1882, they sold their farm in Iowa and sought refuge in San Jose, where they started their lives over. They began attending the Quaker meeting that had formed in San Jose in 1865. However, the Revivalists followed the Beans to San Jose. The revivalist authorities in Iowa redrew the yearly meeting’s borders, which had already extended far west to include several western meetings under its care. The new borders absorbed the Beans' new meeting into a highly “revived” quarter of Iowa Yearly Meeting.

Joel Bean and his followers left that meeting in 1883 to worship elsewhere, initially gathering above a saloon in downtown San Jose. Two years later, they constructed a new meetinghouse three miles from the one they had left, with the inaugural worship held on April 26, 1885. Friends have continued to worship in that historic 1885 building ever since, seeking the Inner Light and spiritual growth, while following traditional silent worship practices. In contrast, the Revivalists’ San Jose Meeting fizzled out, their building was sold in 1883 to Methodists, and it burned down soon after. The Beans’ 1885 building is now the oldest Quaker meetinghouse west of Iowa.

The Iowa revivalists revoked the Beans’ membership in Iowa Yearly Meeting, denied their authority as ministers, and refused to recognize the new meeting in San Jose. Consequently, in 1889, the new meeting incorporated as College Park Association of Friends and invited other meetings to join them. Thirty other meetings did join them. The College Park Association eventually provided a major portion of the Pacific Coast Association of Friends. That association evolved into the Pacific Yearly Meeting in 1947, which, in turn, blossomed into three yearly meetings (Pacific, North Pacific, and Intermountain) in the 1970s. These yearly meetings form the Beanite branch of Quakerism.

Currently, San Jose Friends have been working to upgrade the building to make it wheelchair accessible so that our community can truly welcome everyone. We have raised 80% of the funds we will need to complete this renovation, and we welcome contributions. Also, we invite Quakers from near and far to join our 141st Anniversary Celebration of the historic meetinghouse, the “mother ship” of the Beanite branch of Quakerism, focused on the Inner Light and gradual spiritual growth. Join us Sunday, April 26, 2026 in person or online in a session with historian Thomas Hamm, author of The Quakers in America, and prominent Quaker activist Church Fager. For details, visit sanjosefriends.org.

Anna Koster is an artist, climate activist, and longtime member of San Jose Friends Meeting (PacYM), currently serving as SJFM’s co-clerk.

Additional resources

Klein, Mary. “All Ages: Beans and ‘Beanites.’” Western Friend, January/February 2025, pages 24-25

King, Thomas M. History of San Jose Quakers, West Coast Friends. Lulu.com, 2012