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Rememb'ring our Time and Works is the Lords: The Experiences of Quakers on the Eighteenthy-Century Pennsylvania Frontier
Karen Guenther
Susquehanna University Press, Associated University Presses, dist. ISBN: 1-57591-093-4. Price: $52.50
This book treats a small portion of Pennsylvania Quakers (Exeter Monthly Meeting) who merit attention because they lived on the Pennsylvania frontier. The author wishes to learn how the backcountry world and changes in it affected Quakers. In Berks County, the site of Exeter Monthly Meeting, they were a small religious minority surrounded by people whose first language was German; they had only a minor presence in the government of the country and were pacifists living exposed to wartime attack by Native Americans.
This book examines significant aspects of Quaker and local history, including: Office holding; the effects of wars and revolution; wealth and economic dominance; wills, executors, and legacy patterns; geographical mobility; family constituencies in the Quaker population; ecclesiastical discipline and delinquency; education; and slavery and manumission.
The book contains valuable, interesting revelations about these Quakers. For example, family was important in Exeter. Core families comprised a large proportion of the population, and families and marriages greatly influenced migration into and out of the monthly meeting. Quakers dominated the upper economic strata of the three townships where they lived, but wealthy Quakers did not dominate the leadership of the church; piety overbore wealth as a qualification for leadership. Wars damaged the vitality of Exeter Meeting. In the years 1755-1764, while settlers in Berks were exposed to Indian attacks, a large number of Friends deviated from their pacifist professions. In the Revolution, Exeter disowned 9 percent of the male members for joining the army or the militia. Additional men were disowned for other war-related actions. Regarding antislavery, Exeter Quakers were the slowest in Pennsylvania to manumit their slaves, and their reluctance may have resulted from the resistance by their non-Quaker Berks neighbors to public abolition in the commonwealth in 1779-1780.
The book has a significant inadequacy: it needs a larger context and more comparisons for its quantitative data. Most of its data come from the three townships in Berks County population. Similarly, data from the Exeter Monthly Meeting needs to be compared with data from other Quaker meetings in order to characterize these Quakers. For example, Exeter Quakers accrued only 1.8 percent of all the Quaker delinquency before the Revolution. But were Exeter Quakers also only 1.8 percent of all the Quakers? The author concludes that the deviance in Exeter varied little from that in other meetings in Pennsylvania, but she does not deduce from that anything about the effect of different environments upon Quaker behavior-one of her announced goals.
On Exeter Quakers and their meting, the information in this work, especially its many tables and appendices, is definitive and commendable. The chapters on the cultures of Berks County and the wartime experiences of Quakers are engaging. The bibliography is extensive and a boon to future researchers. This is a useful book about a small number of significant Quakers.
This book examines significant aspects of Quaker and local history, including: Office holding; the effects of wars and revolution; wealth and economic dominance; wills, executors, and legacy patterns; geographical mobility; family constituencies in the Quaker population; ecclesiastical discipline and delinquency; education; and slavery and manumission.
The book contains valuable, interesting revelations about these Quakers. For example, family was important in Exeter. Core families comprised a large proportion of the population, and families and marriages greatly influenced migration into and out of the monthly meeting. Quakers dominated the upper economic strata of the three townships where they lived, but wealthy Quakers did not dominate the leadership of the church; piety overbore wealth as a qualification for leadership. Wars damaged the vitality of Exeter Meeting. In the years 1755-1764, while settlers in Berks were exposed to Indian attacks, a large number of Friends deviated from their pacifist professions. In the Revolution, Exeter disowned 9 percent of the male members for joining the army or the militia. Additional men were disowned for other war-related actions. Regarding antislavery, Exeter Quakers were the slowest in Pennsylvania to manumit their slaves, and their reluctance may have resulted from the resistance by their non-Quaker Berks neighbors to public abolition in the commonwealth in 1779-1780.
The book has a significant inadequacy: it needs a larger context and more comparisons for its quantitative data. Most of its data come from the three townships in Berks County population. Similarly, data from the Exeter Monthly Meeting needs to be compared with data from other Quaker meetings in order to characterize these Quakers. For example, Exeter Quakers accrued only 1.8 percent of all the Quaker delinquency before the Revolution. But were Exeter Quakers also only 1.8 percent of all the Quakers? The author concludes that the deviance in Exeter varied little from that in other meetings in Pennsylvania, but she does not deduce from that anything about the effect of different environments upon Quaker behavior-one of her announced goals.
On Exeter Quakers and their meting, the information in this work, especially its many tables and appendices, is definitive and commendable. The chapters on the cultures of Berks County and the wartime experiences of Quakers are engaging. The bibliography is extensive and a boon to future researchers. This is a useful book about a small number of significant Quakers.
Jack D. Marietta, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona <Top>
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