quakerism in dartmouth
fig. 1: An illustration of the offshoots of the original Apponegansett (Dartmouth) Meeting superimposed on “A Map of Bristol County Massachusetts: based on the trigonometrical survey of the state,” by Henry Francis Walling, 1852, courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library
1. H. Larry Ingle, First among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 3–53, 54.
2. The best accounts of early Quaker thought are Hugh Barbour, The Quakers in Puritan England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964); and Rosemary Moore, The Light in Their Consciences: Early Quakers in Britain, 1646–1666 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000).
3. William C. Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism (London: Macmillan, 1923), 486–99.
4. See, for example, Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas during the English Revolution (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1972), 231–58; and Barry Reay, The Quakers and the English Revolution (New York: St. Martin’s, 1985).
5. Barbour, Quakers in Puritan England, 127–59; Raymond Brown and Alan P. F. Sell, “Quakers and Dissenters in Dispute,” in The Quakers 1656–1723: The Evolution of an Alternative Community, ed. by Richard C. Allen and Rosemary Moore (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018), 124–47; Andrew Bradstock, Radical Religion in Cromwell’s England: A Concise History from the English Civil War to the End of the Commonwealth (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011), 104–07.
6. Thomas D. Hamm, The Quakers in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 18–22; Rosemary Allen, “Seventeenth-Century Context and Quaker Beginnings,” in The Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies, ed. by Stephen W. Angell and Pink Dandelion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 26–28.
7. Arthur J. Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1980), 9–10.
8. Ibid., 10–11; Richard P. Hallowell, The Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1884).
9. Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast, 12–14. Charles Dyer, a grandson of Mary, was later a member of Dartmouth Monthly Meeting. See his marriage to Mary Lapham in 1709.
10. Hugh Barbour and J. William Frost, The Quakers (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood, 1988), 52–53; Rufus M. Jones, The Quakers in the American Colonies (London: MacMillan, 1923), 94–99; George Bishop, New England Judged, Not by Man’s, but by the Spirit of the Lord, and the Summe Sealed up of New England’s Persecutions, Being a Brief Relation of the Sufferings of the People Called Quakers in Those Parts of America, Etc. (London: Robert Wilson, 1661).
11. Barbour and Frost, The Quakers, 52–53.
12. Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast, 15–17; Ann Gidley Lowry, Quakers and Their Meeting House at Apponegansett: Paper Read at Meeting of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society, August 14, 1940 (N.p., 1940), unpaginated; Walter Spooner Allen, “The Family of George Allen, the Immigrant, and Its Connection with the Settlement of Old Dartmouth,” Old Dartmouth Historical Sketches, 18 (1907), 12–22. Christopher Holder’s daughter Mary (Holder) Slocum (1662–1737) was a member of Dartmouth Monthly Meeting. See William A. Wing, “Peleg Slocum of Dartmouth and His Wife Mary Holder,” ibid., 3 (1903), 4–6.
13. Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast, 18–20, 31–41; Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies, 171–212; Sydney V. James, Colonial Rhode Island: A History (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975), 39–47, 186–88; David D. Hall, Anne Hutchinson: Puritan Prophet (Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, 2010); David S. Lovejoy, “Roger Williams and George Fox: The Arrogance of Self-Righteousness,” New England Quarterly, 66 (June 1993), 199–225; Robert J. Lowenherz, “Roger Williams and the Great Quaker Debate,” American Quarterly, 11 (Summer 1959), 157–65.
14. Lowry, Quakers and Their Meetinghouse, unpaginated.
15. Rosemary Moore, “Gospel Order: The Development of Quaker Organization,” in The Quakers 1656–1723, ed. by Allen and Moore, 54–75; Souvenir of the Bi-Centennial of the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends, Massachusetts (N.P.: Franklyn Howland, 1899), 13–14; Carol Hagglund, “Disowned without Just Cause: Quakers in Rochester, Massachusetts, during the Eighteenth Century” (Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, 1980), 132–38.
16. Moore, “Gospel Order,” 54–75; Souvenir, 14.
17. Moore, “Gospel Order,” 54–75; Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies, 141–42.
18. Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies, 143–45; For the 1661 claim, see http://scua.library.umass.edu/new-england-yearly-meeting/
19. Elizabeth Cazden, “‘Within the Bounds of Their Circumstances’: The Testimony of Inequality among Eighteenth-Century New England Friends,” in Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690–1830, ed. by Robynne Rogers Healey, (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2021), 44–64.
20. Barbour and Frost, The Quakers, 54; Alice Sue Friday, “The Quaker Origins of New Bedford, 1765–1815” (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1991), 239.
21. Michael P. Graves, “Ministry and Preaching,” in Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies, ed. by Angell and Dandelion, 277–83; Souvenir, 21; William C. Braithwaite, The Second Period of Quakerism (London: Macmillan, 1921), 542–44. For Nicholas Davis, see A Collection of Memorials Concerning Divers Deceased Ministers and Others of the People Called Quakers, in Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, and Parts Adjacent, from Nearly the First Settlement Thereof to the Year 1787. With Some of the Last Expressions and Exhortations of Many of Them (Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank, 1787), 165–67. The men’s minutes of 11th Mo. 17, 1736 refer to “the Elders of Rochester meeting.”
22. For women Friends generally in this period, see Rebecca Larson, Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700–1775 (New York: Knopf, 1999).
23. Friday, “Quaker Origins of New Bedford,” 233–34.
24. Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies, 145–46.
25. See, generally, Frederick B. Tolles, Quakers and the Atlantic Culture (New York: Macmillan, 1960). For the influence of London Yearly Meeting, see Elizabeth Cazden, “‘Within the Bounds of Their Circumstances,’” 44–64.
26. Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies, 139–40. See also Larson, Daughters of Light, 172–231. For an example of a prominent minister visiting Dartmouth not mentioned in the minutes, see The Works of John Woolman. In Two Parts (London: James Phillips, 1775), 127.
27. Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 4th Mo. 1, 1775, 9th Mo. 18, 1780; Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Women’s Minutes, 11th Mo. 16, 1778; Friday, “Quaker Origins of New Bedford,” 130. For this subject generally, see Jack D. Marietta, The Reformation of American Quakerism, 1748–1783 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984).
28. Lowry, Quakers and Their Meeting House at Apponegansett, unpaginated.
29. Robynne Rogers Healey, “Quietist Quakerism, 1692-c.1805,” in Oxford Handbook, ed. by Angell and Dandelion, 47–62.
30. Souvenir, 17; Pink Dandelion, An Introduction to Quakerism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 217–19.
31. Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 12th Mo. 18, 1705, 12th Mo. 20, 1742, 2nd Mo. 20, 1747, 6th Mo. 21, 1749, 9th Mo. 19, 1757, 4th Mo. 21, 1766; Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Women’s Minutes, 8th Mo. 17, 19th Mo. 1772.
32. William Ricketson’s views echo those of the Ranters of the 1640s and 1650s. See A. L. Morton, The World of the Ranters: Religious Radicalism in the English Revolution (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1970), 76–79.
33. Braithwaite, Second Period of Quakerism, 459.
34. For people who attended worship regularly but never became members, see Friday, “Quaker Origins of New Bedford,” 186–87.
35. Hagglund, “Disowned without Just Cause.” 287–88; Souvenir, 15.
36. For the Gifford case, see Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 8th Mo. 2, 1730. The most detailed treatment of the process of Quaker marriages in this period is J. William Frost, The Quaker Family in Colonial America: A Portrait of the Society of Friends (New York: St. Martin’s, 1973), 150–86. See also Mary E. Austin, “Courtship and Marriage of Ye Old Time Quakers,” Old Dartmouth Historical Sketches, 34 (1912); and Barry Levy, Quakers and the American Family: British Settlement in the Delaware Valley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). Dartmouth historians note that after 1700 marriages in the Friends meetings were also entered in the town records, even though Friends denied civil government any authority over marriage.
37. Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast, 77–78; The Book of Discipline, Agreed on by the Yearly-Meeting of Friends for New-England: Containing Extracts of Minutes, Conclusions and Advices of That Meeting, and of the Yearly-Meetings of London, Pennsylvania and New-Jersey and New-York: Alphabetically Arranged (Providence: John Carter, 1785). For the Discipline in this period, see Andrew Fincham, “Friendly Advice: The Making and Shaping of Quaker Discipline,” in Quakerism in the Atlantic World, ed. Healey, 65–88. The Dartmouth records include a copy of “Christian and Brotherly Advices Given forth from Time to Time by the Yearly Meeting for London.” See https://dartmouthhas.org/uploads/1/0/0/2/100287044/book_of_disipline_1_p_1-125_signed.pdf
38. Marietta, Reformation, 66–67; Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 12th Mo. 25, 1771.
39. Peter Brock, The Quaker Peace Testimony 1660 to 1914 (York, Eng.: Sessions, 1990), 24–61; Meredith Baldwin Weddle, Walking in the Way of Peace: Quaker Pacifism in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 132–33, and passim.
40. See J. William Frost, “From Plainness to Simplicity: Changing Quaker Ideals for Material Culture,” in Quaker Aesthetics: Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Consumption, ed. by Emma Jones Lapsansky and Anne A. Verplanck (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 16–40.
41. Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast, 104–05; Braithwaite, Second Period, 183–84.
42. Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 10th Mo. 2, 1761. For the larger context, see Ruth Wallis Herndon, Unwelcome Americans: Living on the Margins in Early New England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).
43. For the “Youth’s Meeting,” see the men’s minutes for 4th Mo. 21, 1708 and 6th Mo. 17, 1776 and the women’s minutes for 1st Mo. 17, 1718. For Quakers and education, see Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies, 166–67.
44. Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast, 112–13.
45. Ibid., 118–19; William G. McLoughlin, New England Dissent 1630–1833: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State (2 vols., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 166; Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 6th Mo. 16, 1708.
46. Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast, 119–23; William G. McLoughlin, “The Dartmouth Quakers’ Struggle for Religious Liberty, 1692–1734,” Quaker History, 78 (Spring 1989), 1–23; Lowry, Quakers and Their Meeting House at Apponegansett, unpaginated. McLoughlin is mistaken in making Taber a Baptist, as he regularly appears in the Dartmouth minutes. See McLoughlin, New England Dissent, I, 175, 181. For Philip Cummings, see https://dartmouth.theweektoday.com/article/new-video-tour-features-one-dartmouths-oldest-houses/32155
47. For early Quaker views of slavery, see Thomas E. Drake, Quakers and Slavery in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), 1–47; and Brycchan Carey, From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1657–1761 (ibid., 2012). For Friends and “Christian slavery,” see Katharine Gerbner, Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), 49–73.
48. Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 3rd Mo, 30, 10th Mo. 17, 1711, 1st Mo. 15, 1714. For differing views of the impact of this case, see Donna McDaniel and Vanessa Julye, Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice (Philadelphia: Quaker Press, 2009), 13.
49. Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 1st Mo. 19, 10th Mo. 17, 1716, 5th Mo. 15, 7th Mo. 19, 8th Mo. 21, 1717; Drake, Quakers and Slavery, 30–32.
50. Drake, Quakers and Slavery, 63–64, 78–79.
51. Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 5th Mo. 20, 1765, 4th Mo. 7, 7th Mo. 20, 1772, 1st Mo. 17, 6th Mo. 20, 9th Mo. 19, 28, 1774, 9th Mo. 23, 11th Mo. 27, 1776, 1st Mo. 19, 1777, 12th M. 20, 1784. See Gloria Whiting, “Emancipation without Courts or Constitution: The Case of Revolutionary Massachusetts,” Slavery & Abolition (Nov. 2020), 41:458–78
52. Ibid., 2nd Mo. 17, 4th Mo. 21, 1783, 1st Mo 28, 1784.
53. A detailed treatment of the experience of Dartmouth Quakers in this period is Friday, “Quaker Origins of New Bedford,” 122–475.
54. Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 1st Mo. 20, 2nd Mo 17, 4th Mo. 21, 6th Mo. 16, 8th Mo. 17, 10th Mo. 20, 1777, 10th Mo. 19, 11th Mo. 16, 1778, 4th Mo. 19, 5th Mo. 26, 9th M. 20, 11th Mo. 14, 1779, 3rd Mo. 20, 1780, 8th Mo. 19, 1782, 4th Mo. 21, 1783.
55. Ibid., 10th Mo. 16, 1775, 1st Mo. 15, 2nd Mo. 19, 4th Mo. 15, 1776.
56. Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Women’s Minutes, 1st Mo. 20, 1777.
57. For examples of purchasing prize goods, see ibid., 11th Mo. 27, 1776, 1st Mo. 30, 2nd Mo. 7, 3rd Mo. 17, 4th Mo. 21, 1777, 2nd Mo. 22, 1778; and Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 11th Mo. 17, 1776, 1st Mo. 0, 1777, 2nd Mo. 17, 3rd Mo. 17, 4th Mo. 21, 6th Mo. 16, 1777. For the ship case, see ibid., 3rd Mo. 15, 4th Mo. 19, 1779. For the Smith case, see ibid., 5th Mo. 19, 1783. For privateering, see Fred J. Cook and William L. Verrell, Privateers of Seventy-Six (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976).
58. Friday, “Quaker Origins of New Bedford,” 205–07, 263–65, 279; Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 9th Mo. 21, 1778.
59. Arthur J. Mekeel, The Quakers and the American Revolution (York, Eng.: Sessions, 1996), 257; Friday, “Quaker Origins of New Bedford,” 238–42, 260.
60. Friday, “Quaker Origins of New Bedford,” 251.
61. Ibid., 331–36; Mekeel, Quakers and the American Revolution, 260–61.
62. Mekeel, Quakers and the American Revolution, 168–69, 335–36; Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 6th Mo. 19, 8th Mo. 20, 9th Mo. 18, 11th Mo. 20, 12th Mo. 18, 1780, 5th Mo. 21, 7th Mo. 16, 1781; Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Women’s Minutes, 9th Mo. 20, 1779, 6th Mo. 19, 10th Mo. 16, 1780, 2nd Mo. 19, 1781. The most detailed account of Davis and his group is Hagglund, “Disowned without Just Cause,” 217–48.
63. Dartmouth Monthly Meeting Women’s Minutes, 5th Mo. 24, 1782.
1. Like Puritans, Friends eschewed the usual names for the months of the year as honoring pagan gods. Thus “11 month” etc.
2. A 1693 Massachusetts statute required adult men “to train, to watch under arms, and to be impressed for service.” Apparently the monthly meeting hoped that if members liable for such service presented certificates that they were Friends in good standing authorities might excuse them. See Arthur Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of new England, 1980), 132-33.
3. Over the years, clerks spelled the Wampanoag place name Acoaxet (the modern town of Westport, Massachusetts) in a variety of ways. This is the only place in the transcription where the modern spelling will be inserted in square brackets.
4. Flushing Monthly Meeting in New York included New York City Friends.
5. George Keith (1638-1716), a Scot, was educated as a Presbyterian minister but converted to Quakerism in 1663 and emerged as an influential Quaker preacher and writer. He emigrated to New Jersey in 1684 and to Philadelphia in 1689. There he became involved in a bitter controversy with leading Friends, whom he accused of departing from essential Christian doctrines. Friends disowned him and he was ordained an Anglican priest. He then produced a series of attacks on Quaker theology and individual Friends. See Hugh Barbour and J. William Frost, The Quakers (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood, 1988), 343-44; and Jon Butler, “‘Gospel Order Improved,’ The Keithian Schism and the Exercise of Quaker Ministerial Authority in Pennsylvania,” William and Mary Quarterly , 3rd Ser., 31 (July 1974), 431-52. The “great Sheet” is probably Keith’s A Serious Call to the Quakers Inviting Them to Return to Christianity, published as a broadside in London in 1700. See Joseph Smith, A Descriptive Catalogue of Friends’ Books, or Books Written by Members of the Society of Friends, Commonly Called Quakers, from Their First Rise to the Present Time, Interspersed with Critical Remarks, and Occasional Biographical Notices, and Including All Writings by Authors before Joining, and by Those After Having Left the Society, Whether Adverse or Not, as Far as Known (2 vols., London: Joseph Smith, 1867), II, 38-39.
6. In 1696, Parliament had given English Friends the right to offer affirmations instead of oaths, but the law did not apply to the colonies. This may have been the relief Dartmouth sought. Regardless, their petition was unsuccessful. See William C. Braithwaite, The Second Period of Quakerism (London: Macmillan, 1921), 183-84; and Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast, 104.
7. The Sippican Meeting was located on land in what was then the town of Rochester, but is now the modern town of Marion, Massachusetts.
8. These Friends apparently filled the roles later known as overseers.
9. Prisoners had to provide for many of their own needs, such food or fuel. Apparently the monthly meeting wanted accounts, perhaps to pay help pay some of their costs.
10. The law in question had been made in 1656. It imposed a fine on those who sheltered Quakers, banned circulation of Quaker books, and ordered Quakers jailed or banished. In October 1705, the Privy Council in London ordered its repeal after lobbying by English Friends and with the support of Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley. See J. Hammond Trumbull, ed., The Public Records of Connecticut Prior to the Union with New Haven Colony, May 1665 (Hartford: Brown and Parsons, 1850,), 283-84; and Charles J. Hoadly, The Public Records of Connecticut, from August, 1689 to May, 1706 (Hartford: Case, Lockwood and Brainard, 1868), 546.
11. Apparently Macomber had held his hand in such a way as to suggest an oath, which would have been a violation of the Discipline.
12. Rochester Friends were erratic in their participation in the affairs of Dartmouth Monthly Meeting. The reasons are unclear. See Carol Hagglund, “Disowned Without Just Cause: Quakers in Rochester, Massachusetts, during the Eighteenth Century” (Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, 1980), 132-37.
13. In November 1706 the Massachusetts General Court passed a law granting it the right to appoint a Congregational minister for all towns lacking one and impose rates for his pay. Dartmouth’s magistrates refused to obey and were jailed. Governor Joseph Dudley, who was sympathetic to Quakers, ordered their release. See Alison Gilbert Olson, Making the Empire Work: London and American Interest Groups, 1690-1790 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 85-86.
14. The stock was the meeting treasury.
15. As with Acoaxet, these records contain a variety of spellings for the Wampanoag place name indicating the modern town of Acushnet, adjacent to New Bedford, Massachusetts. The insertion of the proper spelling in square brackets will not be repeated.
16. Hereinafter the correct spelling is not inserted.
17. References to payments for making and copying Quaker records are rare.
18. Patrick Henderson was an Irish Friend. His book was Truth and Innocence, the Armour and Defence of the People Called Quakers, against the Wiles of Satan and His Emissaries: Being an Answer to Part of a Book, Entituled, The Man of God Furnished, Put Forth by Several, Who Call Themselves Ministers of the Gospel in the Churches of New-England. Wherein That Part, viz., Is Fairly Examined and Detected (London, J. Sowle, 1709). One chapter of The Man of God Furnished was “Armour against the Wiles of Quakerism.”
19. Any Friend traveling as a minister was expected to carry a certificate proving membership and the unity of Friends of his or her monthly meeting. See Rebecca Larson, Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 109.
20. The “primer” was G[eorge] F[ox] and E[llis] Hookes, Instructions for Right Spelling, and Plain Directions for Reading and Writing True English, Etc. With Several Delightful Things Very Useful and Necessary for Young and Old to Read and Learn (London: T. Sowle, 1706). It was first published in 1673.
21. No record has been found of the publication of this work.
22. This was not for the yearly meeting for business, but rather for one of the annual general meetings for worship.
23. John Salkeld (1672-1739) was a native of Cumberland, England. A minister, he emigrated to Chester County, Pennsylvania about 1705, where he lived until his death. See “John Salkeld,” Friends Miscellany, 3 (9th Mo. 1832), 66-70.; The Salkeld Family of Pennsylvania, from John Who Emigrated in 1705, to the Fourth Generation, So Far as Is Known (n.p., 1867), 1-2.
24. It was an established rule that one Friend could not sue another without authorization of the monthly meeting. Dartmouth Friends proposed extending this to lawsuits againsts non-Friends.
25. I.e., Pembroke, Massachusetts. The misspelling is not noted hereafter.
26. Concerns about the legality of Quaker marriages went back to the 1650s, but by the eighteenth century the question had generally been resolved in favor of Friends. See Rufus M. Jones, The Quakers in the American Colonies (London: Macmillan, 1911), 147. Dartmouth historians note that at least through 1720, one of the witnesses to marriages in meeting was often a Congegationalist justice of the peace from Little Compton: Joseph Church, Benjamin Church, or Job Almy.
27. New England Friends by 1728 had settled on a policy of discouraging marriages of second and even third cousins, but not forbidding them. See J. William Frost, The Quaker Family in Colonial America: A Portrait of the Society of Friends (New York: St. Martin’s, 1973), 161.
28. Robert Jordan (1693-1742) was a minister from Nansemond County, Virginia, who traveled widely in North America and visited England. See A Collection of Memorials Concerning Divers Deceased Ministers and Others of the People Called Quakers, in Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, and Parts Adjacent, from Nearly the First Settlement Thereof to the Year 1787. With Some of the Last Expressions and Exhortations of Many of Them (Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank, 1787), 109-18.
1. Robert Barclay’s An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, as the Same Is Held Forth, and Preached by the People, Called in Scorn, Quakers; Being a Full Explanation and Vindication of Their Principles and Doctrines, by Many Arguments, Deduced from Scripture and Right Reason, and the Testimonys of Famous Authors, Both Antient and Modern, with a Full Answer to the Strongest Objections Usually Made against Them, Presented to the King was first published in 1678. Friends regarded it as the authoritative statement of their beliefs. The New England Yearly Meeting sponsored a printing by James Franklin in Providence in 1729.
2. Here “sons-in-law” means stepsons.
3. Zachariah Nixon (1684-1739) of Pasquotank Monthly Meeting, North Carolina. See William Wade Hinshaw, ed., Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy (6 vols., Ann Arbor: Edwards Brothers, 1936-1950), I, 110.
4. The previous six lines are crossed out in the manuscript.
5. Written at the bottom of the page: “began to record 1745”
6. In the ms., the record of the monthly meeting for the 16th day of the 8th month 1738 appears here. In this edition it has been repositioned in the proper chronological order. [See p. 392.]
7. Moses West, A Treatise concerning Marriage, wherein the Unlawfulness of Mixt-Marriages Is Laid Open from the Scriptures of Truth. Shewing That It Is Contrary to the Will of God, and the Practice of His People in Former Ages, and Theerefore of Dangerous Consequence, for Persons of Different Judgments in Matters of Religious Worship, to Be Joyned Together in Marriage. Written for the information and Benefit of Christian Professors in General, and Recommended More Particularly to the Youth of Either Sex amongst the People Called Quakers. To Which Is Added, by Way of Appendix, Sundry Piece of Advice, Extracted from Several of the Yearly Meeting’s Epistles (Leeds, Eng.: James Lister, 1736). First published in 1707, West’s work had gone through six printings between 1726 and 1736. There is no record of a New England imprint, but an edition was printed in Philadelphia in 1738.
8. The minutes of the 8th month 1738 are inserted here in correct chronological order from p. 92 of the original manuscript.
9. The Oblong was a narrow but largely unsettled strip of land granted to New York, running from the northern border of Greenwich, Connecticut, to the southern boundary of Massachusetts. The Oblong Meeting House was first constructed in Pawling, New York in 1742.
10. This reference shows how even after the end of active witch hunting in New England, belief in magical arts continued to be a concern. For context, see Jon Butler, “Magic, Astrology, and the Early American Religious Heritage, 1600-1760,” American Historical Review, 84 (April 1979), 317-46.
11. The preceding six lines repeat material included in the minutes of the previous monthly meeting.
12. See above, Book 1, n. 19.
13. The Nine Partners land grant was in Dutchess County, New York, adjacent to the Oblong. A meeting house was constructed there in the modern town of Millbrook, New York, during the 1740s.
14. In the manuscript, an X is placed over the last three lines.
15. I.e. Mishaum Point on the south coast of the town of Dartmouth.
16. “Friends imprisoned” is written in pencil at the bottom of the manuscript page in later hand.
17. The preceding sentence has been crossed over in the manuscript.
18. I.e., Old Tenor, the provincial currency.
19. The preceding five lines in the manuscript are crossed out with a large X.
20. The preceding two lines are crossed out with a large X.
21. The preceding two lines are crossed out with a large X.
22. The previous nine lines are crossed out with a large X.
23. In December, 1757, the Massachusetts General Court, faced with the need to contribute troops to the Seven Years War, tried to accommodate Quaker objections. In a complicated formula, Friends in each town would present a list of names of members liable to military duty. They would not be forced into service, or punished for refusal to serve. Instead a poll tax for the cost of a replacement soldier was added to the cumulative tax paid by these towns. Friends objected on the grounds that furnishing lists of members implicated them in warmaking. See Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast, 137-38; and Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1758-1759 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1963), 84.
24. The East Branch of the Westport River used to be called the Noquochoke, so the “head of the Noquechuck” is now the area known as the Head of the Westport, although the actual place of the meeting was about a mile further west.
25. The preceding four lines, originally omitted at this point, are inserted here according to instructions at the end of the book.
26. A great fire swept over Boston on the evening of March 20, 1760, destroying much of the South End and leaving over one thousand people homeless.
27. The reference to “friendly people” is one of the few bits of evidence we have of people not in membership attending Quaker worship.
28. I.e., Acushnet.
29. Henry Stanton (1719-1777), a native of Newport, Rhode Island, had moved to North Carolina with his parents as a youth. See Hinshaw, Encyclopedia, I, 166; and William Henry Stanton, A Book Called Our Ancestors, the Stantons (Philadelphia: William H. Stanton, 1922), 32-33.
30. The Long Plain Meeting House in Acushnet was built in 1759.
31. Susanna (Hudson) Hatton Lightfoot (1720-1781) traveled widely as a minister. See Larson, Daughters of Light, 327; and Collection of Memorials, 400-09. Several women named Susanna Brown were members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
32. New York Yearly Meeting was often referred to as the yearly meeting held at Flushing.
33. The previous thirty-three lines inserted here were omitted on page 324 of the original text, but are included here following instructions written on the final page of the book.
34. This admonition is significant for two reasons. First, it is evidence that the recorder of births and deaths depended on families to provide information. Second, it explains why many births and deaths were not recorded.
1. John Woolman (1720–1772), an intinerant minister and early opponent of slavery, traveled extensively throughout the colonies and was the author of Considerations on Keeping Negores and a Journal, published posthumously, that became a classic text of early American religious literature. Samuel Eastburn (1702–1785) preached more locally in Pennsylvania, but was a close ally of Woolman in the cause of abolition. See Amelia Mott Gummere, The Journal and Essays of John Woolman (Philadelphia: Friends’ Book Store, 1922), 538.
2. A Journal or Historical Account of the Life, Travels, Sufferings, Christian Experiences, and Labour of Love in the Work of the Ministry of That Ancient, Eminent and Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, George Fox was first published in London 1694. The third edition was printed in London by Richardson and Clark in 1765.
3. John Griffith (1713–1776) was one of the most influential Friends of the eighteenth century. See A Journal of the Life, Travels, and Labours in the Work of the Ministry, of John Griffith (London: James Phillips, 1779).
4. Thomas Ross (1708–1786), a minister from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, died on a visit to England. See Memorials of Deceased Friends: Being a Selection from the Records of the Yearly Meeting for Pennsylvania, Etc., from the Year 1788 to 1878, Inclusive (Philadelphia: Friends’ Book Store 1879), 8–19.
5. Joseph Rotch (1704–1784), a native of Salem, moved to Nantucket in 1725, where he grew wealthy as a whaling merchant. He expanded to Dartmouth in 1764 and established a shipyard. His first ship was the Dartmouth, one of the three tea ships boarded in the Boston Tea Party in 1773. See Barbara K. Wittman, Thomas and Charity Rotch: The Quaker Experience of Settlement in Ohio in the Early Republic 1800–1824 (Newcastle upon Tyne, Eng.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), 72.
6. William Hunt (1733–1772) died on a visit to England. Memoirs of William and Nathan Hunt, Taken Chiefly from Their Journals and Letters (Philadelphia: Uriah Hunt, 1858).
7. Thomas Carleton (1699–1792), a native of Ireland, was a member of Kennett Monthly Meeting, Chester County, Pennsylvania. See Martha Reamy, ed., Early Church Records of Chester County, Pennsylvania (3 vols., Westminister, Md.,: Willow Bend Books, 1999), 8. Aaron Lancaster (1744–1786) was a native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who moved to Purchase Monthly Meeting, New York, as a young man. See Harry Fred Lancaster, The Lancaster Family: A History of Thomas and Phebe Lancaster, of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Their Descendants, from 1711 to 1902. Also a Sketch on the Origin of the Name and Family in England (Huntington, Ind.: A. J. Hoover, 1902), pp. 143–44. Joshua Sherman (1730–1770) died at Oblong Monthly Meeting in Westchester County, New York. See James Hazard, comp.
8. Samuel Fuller (died 1736) was an Irish Quaker schoolmaster, and the author of Some Principles and Precepts of the Christian Religion, by Way of Question and Answer. Recommended to Parents and Tutors for the Use of Children (Dublin: Samuel Fuller, 1736). It was reprinted by S. Southwick in Newport in 1769. For the primers see below, p. 749 below.
9. Rachel (Wilson) Wilson (1720–1775) made an extended visit to America in 1768–1769, preaching before the students at Princeton and visiting Patrick Henry in Virginia. See Geoffrey Braithwaite, Rachel Wilson and Her Quaker Mission in Eighteenth-Century America (York, Eng.: Sessions, 2012). Sarah Hopkins (ca. 1744–1812) was an elder in Haddonfield Monthly Meeting. See Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Men’s Minutes, 1813, p. 226, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Archives (Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pa.). John Pemberton (1727–1795) was one of the leaders of the “reformation” among Friends. He died on a ministerial journey to Germany. See William Hodgson, The Life and Travels of John Pemberton, a Minister of the Gospel of Christ (London: C. Gilpin, 1844).
10. Joseph Oxley (1714–1775) traveled extensively in the colonies in 1770–1771. See “Joseph Oxley’s Journal of His Life, Travels, and Labours of Love, in the Faith and Fellowship of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” in The Friends’ Library: Comprising Journals, Doctrinal Treatises, and Other Writings of the Religious Society of Friends, ed. by William Evans and Thomas Evans (14 vols., Philadelphia: Joseph Rakestraw, 1837–1850), II, 415–76.
11. The present city of New Bedford, Massachusetts was first known simply as Bedford or Bedford Village. This change from the original name will not be further noted.
12. William Sewel (ca. 1650–ca. 1725) was a Dutch Friend. His The History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People Called Quakers, Intermixed with Several Remarkable Occurrences. Written Originally in Low-Dutch by William Sewel, and by Himself Translated into English. Now Revis’d and Published’d with Some Amendments (London: J. Sowle, 1722) The edition referenced here is printed in Burlington, New Jersey, by Isaac Collins in 1774.