A Period of Change in North Carolina Quakerism

A PERIOD OF CHANGE IN NORTH CAROLINA QUAKERISM By B. Russell Branson* QUAKERISM in the Carolinas withstood the separations and divisions that afflicted Friends in most other areas on the eastern seaboard of America. Not until many years after the Civil War did any appreciable departure from original Friends beliefs, procedures, and forms come about. Even then it was not so much a matter of conflict arising from within as it was an invasion from without. Westward migration and the wave of Evangelicalism were the two forces that brought great change to the Society of Friends in the Carolinas. The period from 1865 until a few years after the turn of the century can rightly be called "a period of change" in the history of Quakerism in North Carolina. This paper is an effort to describe that change. The information is drawn largely from a careful reading of the Yearly Meeting minutes. It is rather remarkable that these minutes have so consistently recorded the facts that mark the change as it came about over a period of approximately thirty years, from 1880 to 1910. I In 1865 North Carolina was a good place to be from. The minutes of London Yearly Meeting record that bands of Quakers left North Carolina and traveled by foot to Baltimore, so destitute and so pitiful in their rags as to arouse the great sympathy of Baltimore Friends.1 To many Friends in Carolina the situation seemed hopeless . It did not warrant their efforts at rehabilitation and reconstruction . Those within Contentnea Quarterly Meeting suffered most. They were in the line of march of two armies that left nothing in their wake. Migration seemed to them to be the * B. Russell Branson, formerly a minister in North Carolina Yearly Meeting, is now Associate Secretary of the Southeastern Regional Office of the American Friends Service Committee. 1 Extracts from the Minutes and Proceedings of the Yearly Meeting of Friends held in London .... 1865, p. 41. 74 A Period of Change in North Carolina Quakerism 75 answer, and migrate they did. To Baltimore Friends this migration was alarming. To Stephen B. Weeks, the historian, it was the "Decline of Southern Quakerism." Living so near the period about which he was writing, he could not possibly foresee the mighty effort that was to stem this tide. What eventually stopped this tide of migration and who brought relief and reconstruction? The plight of the freedman and the white man were different but equally great. The eastern Yearly Meetings organized to assist the freedman. Baltimore Friends organized to "Advise and Assist Friends in the Southern States." Francis T. King was the president of the Association, but he was more. It was his vision and his power that brought the Baltimore Association into existence and organized the movement among Friends that supported the work. A wealthy Quaker with a strong spiritual concern for the preservation of the Society of Friends in the South, he could not and would not see it decline in North Carolina. In the sessions of North Carolina Yearly Meeting he became a familiar figure, the beloved sage and benefactor of a grateful, needy, but eager band of Quakers. Joseph Moore, teacher and minister, was brought from Earlham College to North Carolina to direct the work of the Association. The needs among Friends called for just such a man as Joseph Moore—a teacher and a minister. On the field, Joseph Moore could see at first hand why the tide of migration was flowing again as before the war. Then the problem had been that of living in a slave society. Following the war the problem was that of complete poverty and destitution. North Carolina was a good place to be from. To change this scene and stop this migration it was the plan of Francis T. King and the Baltimore Association to bring to North Carolina a ministry of encouragement. Friends were encouraged to improve their farms and educate their children. North Carolina Friends were farmers and knew how to work with their hands. They had known the value of schools before the war. But now they "had no schools, no good schoolhouses and no books."2 2...