In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

3 The “Worldly Cares and Business” of Friends In late January 1827, Thomas Irwin, “one of the oldest and most intelligent merchants” in Alexandria, passed away at the age of sixty-five. Born in Ireland, he migrated to Philadelphia in 1784, arriving in Alexandria in his mid-twenties in 1789. Two years later, he married into a respected local family and established a successful import-export firm, shipping the region’s grains to Europe and importing metal goods. His business success led to civic and professional recognition. In 1803, voters elected him one of the town’s four aldermen and the following year, in a reorganized municipal government, one of sixteen councilmen. Reflecting his growing local prominence, in 1806 stockholders elected him director of the Bank of Alexandria, then the town’s only chartered bank. Over the next twentytwo years, Irwin held positions of regional importance and responsibility, reflecting his standing as one of Alexandria’s leading citizens. But the local community also respected his character. “He was,” his obituary declared, “gifted by nature with a clear and vigorous mind.” As a merchant, he was “honest in his dealings and his sentiments,” setting “the best example of active industry, punctuality and integrity.” The practice of “uniform frugality ” “guaranteed his perfect independence in conduct, thought and word.” In matters of “conscience,” “he was uncompromising and singularly firm,” while in “friendship” he was “warm and untiring.” “His course was upright,” the obituary concluded, “and his end was peace.” In the only overt mention of his religious faith, the notice added that Irwin would be laid to rest at “the Friends burying ground.”1 Careful readers of the obituary could have guessed as much. Quakers celebrated the qualities attributed to Irwin, and yearly meetings in the United States and Great Britain inculcated them through regular epistles and queries. Irwin’s death became another opportunity for Friends to The “Worldly Cares and Business” of Friends · 73 remind themselves and the broader public of their ethical standards. He was a charter member of the Alexandria Monthly Meeting, founded in 1802, and when he married Elizabeth Janney he joined one of the most prominent extended Quaker families in northern Virginia. He also raised his six children who lived to adulthood in Quaker fashion, and all became members of the local meeting. Yet like many Quakers in northern Virginia and elsewhere, Irwin had not always abided by Friends’ discipline. In 1798, the meeting reprimanded him for sharing ownership of a vessel that his partners had armed during the Quasi-War with France, and in 1816 he faced disciplinary action for “taking an oath before a Military Court,” attending balls and theater in Alexandria, and his “deportment,” which Friends found “inconsistent with the order of our society.” Even an upstanding Quaker like Irwin found it difficult to escape the influence of the broader society.2 Irwin’s public successes and spiritual travails reveal much about the experiences of northern Virginia’s Quakers in the early national era. From social and political pariahs during the Revolution they became community leaders, respected and praised for their fair dealing and public spiritedness. They played a key role in the region’s postwar economic boom—grounded in the shift from tobacco to grains—through their participation in business enterprises, internal improvement projects, and local government. The end of the Revolutionary War removed Quaker pacifism as an overt point of contention between Friends and the broader community—at least until the War of 1812. During peacetime, Friends enjoyed a largely welcoming and economically prosperous environment. The Quaker community thrived, through both natural increase and continuing migration from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Many Friends like Irwin came south in the 1780s, drawn by the economic potential of the region and the personal and economic ties between the Quaker communities of the middle states and those of northern Virginia. Local Friends established three new monthly meetings: Crooked Run, lying south and east of the Hopewell meeting from which it split in 1782; Goose Creek in Loudoun County, which separated from the Fairfax meeting three years later; and the Alexandria meeting, created in 1802.3 But in Quakers’ successes lay spiritual danger, as Irwin’s experience reveals . As they prospered, Friends became embedded in the economic and social life of the region. Geographic concerns prompted the local meetings to separate from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and affiliate with the Baltimore Yearly Meeting in 1790, a decision that strengthened ties with Maryland Quakers who faced similar challenges. Friends...

Share