QUAKER-ROOTS-L Archives

Archiver > QUAKER-ROOTS > 1998-05 > 0894122978


From: Dan Treadway <>
Subject: Re: Ouster of Virginia Quakers
Date: Sat, 02 May 1998 10:29:38 -0500


JYoung6180 wrote:

> In a message dated 98-05-02 10:03:50 EDT, writes:
>
> > I think it is safe to say there were no Quakers in
> > America before 1655.
>
> Dan, I am sure that is true but there were people in America before 1655 who
> LATER became Quakers--the Lippincotts would be a prime example.
>
> Joan

Sure. I agree. Lots of them. The Richard Ewen in my message is another
example.

The point of my message was to provide background and as part of that to point
out a wrong assumption in Don's message. No Quakers were driven from Virginia
to Maryland in the 1640s or early 1650s. Not that the Virginia government
wouldn't have done it, there just weren't any there to drive out yet.

It is true that early Quaker evangelistic efforts had their best success among
Puritans. In many ways the early Quaker message was an extension (or even
radicalization) of Puritan ideas. (A full treatment of how the early Quaker
movement was related to its Puritan neighbors is given in _The Quakers in
Puritan England_, by Hugh Barbour. Anyone with questions on the relationships
between Quakers and Puritans will get better answers there than I can give.)

This may seem like a quibble beter suited to a Quaker history list. It's true
that as a student of Quaker history, I don't like to let misconceptions like
this one pass. But from a genealogical point of view, the bottom line is this:
you won't find Richad Ewen or Don's ancestors who moved from Virginia to
Maryland in 1649 in Virginia Quaker records, because they weren't Quaker until
after they moved to Maryland. Genealogy is a lot easier if you get your history
right.

(Another reason you won't find Richard Ewen in Quaker records is that the first
generation of Quakerism was more a movement than an organization. Some records
of "sufferings" exist from the earliest days, but the complete membership
records we expect to see from Quakers did not begin until later.)

--
Dan Treadway
US mail: P. O. Box 72, Gilbert, IA 50105-0072
Email: mailto:
Web page: http://www.netins.net/showcase/treadwa

This thread: