Friends and the American Revolution

FRIENDS AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION25 is to be included in the first volume (1926) of the Norwegian American Year Book published by the newly founded Norwegian-American Historical Society. A brief article, also by the present writer, in The Friend (Philadelphia . Tenth Month 1st, 1925) and a notice in The Friend (London, October 30, 1925) conclude the more recent notices of this centennial. The latter, availing itself of a privilege forbidden by law in America, offers in a cut a reproduction of the two-cent ,memorial U. S. stamp whose design includes a picture of the famous sloop. Some clear pictures of the Larsons are to be found in the issue of American Scandinavian Review mentioned above. The immigrants of 1825 founded no Quaker meeting at Kendall, N. Y., where they first settled, nor have I yet been able to find any trace of affiliation with Friends at the Fox River settlement in Illinois to which most of them moved about ten years later. In Iowa, however, new waves of migration established a more enduring Norwegian Quakerism on this continent. Its links with the earlier migration have not been recovered entirely, but besides J. F. Hanson's Light and Shade from the Land of the Midnight Sun (Oskaloosa, Iowa, 1903) one may now consult an article "De norske Kvaekere i Marshall Co., Iowa" in Decorah-Posten, November 7, 1924. FRIENDS AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. By Milton H. Hadley. In going through the journals of the Revolutionary Committees of Safety, I have had occasion to note several items in regard to the attitude and conduct of the Quakers in the Revolution. The information given is from three colonies, that from Pennsylvania being omitted as it is more familiar to the average Quaker.1 These colonies are New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York. New York sent two hundred and twenty-four tories and disaffected to New Hampshire for confinement.2 The latter made arrangements for them to be confined within six miles of Exeter, with the exception that "any of the above persons being of the society called Quakers (not of the number ordered to prison) observing the above caution [not to 'hurt the Interest of the States of America'] may go to the Towns of Dover, Hampton Falls, Seabrook & Kensington, if they think fit and take quarters with the People there of that Society."11 'See Isaac Sharpless, History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania; C. H. Lincoln, Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania. The Penna. Magazine of History, 15 :264, shows where four Quakers resigned from the Bucks County Committee of Safety. 2New Hampshire State Papers, 8:381^1. 2Ibid., 8:393-4. 26 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. Complying with the recommendation of the Continental Congress, New Hampshire had her men sign the Association, their resolution reading "We, the Subscribers, do hereby solemnly engage and promise, that we will, to the utmost of our Power, at the Risque of our Lives and Fortunes, with Arms, oppose the Hostile Proceedings of the British Fleets and Armies against the United American Colonies."4 Out of 8,964 men of New Hampshire, 773 refused to sign. Of these 773, eighty-seven are definitely listed as Friends. Kensington gave fifteen names and added, "so far is Quakers as these two Collums. And what is to come your honours may call what you pleas."5 Rochester reported that "the undernamed persons are of the Society of Friends and do not Choose to Sign"—listing twenty-two, most of whom are Tebbets and Meeders." Forty-one Quakers of Weare refused to subscribe to the test.7 If all the towns in which Quakers refused to sign had designated them, the list would undoubtedly be increased. However, members of the Society were probably not numerous in many towns. The Committee of Safety of New York must have been exasperated at the independent ways of the Quakers. They asked for "a list of all the males belonging to their society, from the age of sixteen to sixty," which the "respectable" members of the Society refused to furnish.8 The Quarterly Meeting at Oblong, Dutchess County, requested that the Test oath should not be administered before their next quarterly meeting...