350 years of Quakerism in Carolina
'Fox drew more people to the Society of Friends, after coming across a family of Quakers already in the state.'
North Carolina Friends are celebrating the 350th anniversary of Quakerism in the state this year.
Quaker archivist Gwen Gosney Erickson, a special collections librarian at Guildford College, told Fox News that while many associated George Fox with Pennsylvania, he arrived in North Carolina before.
‘North Carolina has been a much more kind of borderland inland and is noted in the historical records of a group of rather non-religious people,’ she said.
The news clip – available to view on YouTube – describes how, in 1672, Fox landed in North Carolina after visiting some northern states and making his way down the east coast.
‘We know from his magazine that he was in the Albemarle region. He describes swamps and encounters with Native Americans,’ said Gwen Gosney Erickson.
Fox drew more people to the Society of Friends, after coming across a family of Quakers already in the state. As Quakerism took hold, the families moved west, including to Guilford County, where Friends set up a boarding school for collaborative learning in 1937. The school became Guilford College in 1888.
The North Carolina Friends Historical Society posted an excerpt on Facebook describing the gathering of the first group of convinced Friends. William Edmondson, who brought Quakerism to Ireland, described walking in the rain through the night until he discovered a Quaker, who agreed to ‘send for people’.
‘The people who gathered had little or no religion and smoked pipes in meeting. But in a little time, the Lord’s testimony arose in the authority of His power, and their hearts being reached with it, several of them were tendered and received the testimony. After meeting, they desired me to stay with them and let them have more meetings.’
