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"Rememb'ring our Time and Work is the Lords"
The Experiences of Quakers on the Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania Frontier
by Karen Guenther
Pennsylvania’s role in the development of American culture and society has received an increasing amount of attention over the past twenty-five years, as the tercentenary celebrations of the founding of the province led to a reexamination of the colony and state’s contributions to the ethnic and religious diversity of modern America. With increasing pluralism, however, the religious group that was most prominent in the establishment of the province—the Society of Friends, or Quakers—declined in its impact and importance. This book will demonstrate the extent that changes in the world around them affected backcountry Quak-ers by focusing on the activities of Exeter Monthly Meeting of Friends, based in Berks County , Pennsylvania .
Exeter Monthly Meeting serves as an ideal case study to determine the impact of life in the backcountry on members of the Society of Friends. The local meeting, then known as Oley Preparative Meeting, was first organized in 1725 and became a Monthly Meeting in 1737. From that year until 1789, it served as the only organ-ization for Quakers who had settled in the Berks County area and beyond; by 1775 it included meetings in the upper
Susquehanna valley, over one hundred
miles away. Friends within the realm of Exeter Monthly meeting had to confront matters the Quaker founders of the province could hardly have anticipated, such as surviving as an ethnic and reli gious minority and reconciling their pacifist principles with constant threats of Native American attacks. One response was an increasing rigidity in discipline that resulted in the expulsion of wayward members in the hopes of maintaining a more stable society. Some Quakers moved to other areas, either back east or to the south. Members of the monthly meeting were also forced to deal with neighbors of varied faiths and linguistic backgrounds.
By studying the reaction of Exeter Friends to crises, whether it was an internal problem concerning exogamy (marriage outside the faith) or members “endeavouring to learn the art of war,” it may be possible to show that the Quaker retreat from provincial politics was not really that unexpected. The turmoil of the backcountry had been brewing for some time, and the break from England merely provided an opportunity to overthrow Quaker control. Therefore, the political change in 1776 that for the first time provided for proportionate representation in the Assembly for each county only confirmed what had been occurring in the backcountry for over fifty years, the demise of the Quaker oligarchy as social, economic, and political leaders. By adapting to the chaos and confusion of the frontier, members of Exeter Monthly Meeting provided a model for the survival of Quakerism on the expanding frontier.
LC 2005010854
ISBN 1-57591-093-4
Printed in the U.S.A.
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