Journal of Family History

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"Tender Plants:" Quaker Farmers and Children in the Delaware Valley, 1681-1735 Barry Levy Journal of Family History 1978; 3; 116 DOI: 10.1177/036319907800300202

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"TENDER PLANTS:" QUAKER FARMERS AND CHILDREN IN THE DELAWARE VALLEY, 1681-1735

Barry Levy*

&dquo;And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea&dquo; (Matthew 18:5-6).

I They directed intense attention to mar- In the late seventeenth and early eigh- riage and the conjugal household and in teenth centuries, the settlers of Chester spoke endlessly their Meetings about and the Welsh Tract, bordering Philadel- &dquo;tenderness&dquo; and &dquo;love.&dquo; These families, however, were not affectionate, phia, devoted themselves to their children, religious, or isolated. It was their and the results were economically impres- sentimental, relig- sive but socially ambiguous. The settlers ious conception of the child that both in- and clearly limited the were under the influence of a difficult relig- spired development of these adults and their society in ious doctrine, which can be called &dquo;holy forming conversation,&dquo; institutionalized in their the Delaware Valley. The settlers were Monthly Meetings and practiced in their able, middling people households. &dquo;Holy conversation&dquo; dictated from remote parts of Great Britain. The Welsh came from social back- that implicit instruction by loving parents, varying included not coercion or stern discipline, would lead grounds ; they eight gentlemen Welsh was as to the child’s salvation. The farmers thus (the gentry not wealthy a rule) and and husbandmen. used the resources of the Delaware Valley twenty-five yeomen to create environments for children and The Chester settlers were mostly yeomen and artisans from Cheshire and surround- young adults, accumulating vast amounts counties in northwest Most of land, limiting the type of labor they ing England. in arrived in brought into their households, and devis- settlers both groups nuclear or more children. ing intricate, demanding strategies to families having two Ap- such Welsh hand out land and money to children. proximately seventy-five Quaker and seventy-eight Cheshire Quaker families settled between 1681 and 1690 *A longer version of this paper was presented at along the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers the Davis Seminar at Princeton February 17, 1978. near Philadelphia (Browning, 1912:1-29; is a Lecturer in at the Barry Levy History University Glenn, 1970: 1-72). of Pennsylvania. This article is based on his doctoral dissertation on rural Quaker families in the Delaware The farmers clearly thought the spiritual Valley. He is currently working on a comparison of fate of their children a vital reason for their Anglican and Quaker families in the same region. coming to Pennsylvania. Each settler car- Dr. would like to thank Dr. Richard Dunn and Levy ried a removal certificate of about two Dr. Jacquelyn Wolf for their assistance on sections hundred words his or her char- of this paper. He would also like to thank Dr. Ann describing Kibbey for assistance in dealing with the concepts of acter. Much of the discussion in these doc- socio-linguistics. uments concerned children and parent-

Downloaded from http://jfh.sagepub.com at MINNESOTA STATE UNIV MOORHEAD on February 17, 2010 117 hood. One Welsh Meeting, for example, loose behavior of youthes and the bad ex- wrote of David Powell that &dquo;he hath hope- ample of too many of riper years.&dquo; Bevan ful children, several of them having be- did not want to go, &dquo;but as I was sensible haved themselves well in Friends’ services her aim was an upright one, on account of where they lived and we hope and desire our children, I was willing to weigh the the Lords presence may go along with matter in a true balance.&dquo; He found that them&dquo; [Friends Historical Library, Rad- he could keep his three Welsh farms and nor Monthly Meeting Records (henceforth still buy land in Pennsylvania (a member RMMR), 3/23/I690]. The only thing said of the gentry in Treverig, near Cardiff, of Griffith John, a poor farmer, was that Bevan was the only settler not to sell his &dquo;all his endeavor hath been to bring up his British property). Bevan returned to Wales children in the fear of the Lord according in 1704 with his wife and favorite daughter to the order of Truth&dquo; (RMMR 4/22/ because &dquo;we stayed there (Pennsylvania) 1690). Sina Pugh was a &dquo;good, careful, in- many years, and had four of our children dustrious woman in things relating to her married with our consent, and they had poor small children&dquo; (RMMR 2/5/1684). several children, and the aim intended by The Welsh Meetings acted in loco parentis my wife was in good measure answered&dquo; for children left without parents and sent (Bevan, 1709). Bevan clearly saw Pennsyl- the orphans to Pennsylvania: the Tuddr vania has a place best suited for rearing orphans, for example, &dquo;were under the tu- children. ition of Friends since their parents de- In 1684 on arrival in Haverford, Thomas ceased and we found them living and hon- Ellis, a Welsh Quaker minister, prayed in a est children; and we did what we could to poem, &dquo;Song of Rejoicing,&dquo; that &dquo;In our keep them out of the wicked way and to bounds, true love and peace from age to preserve their small estate from waste and age may never cease&dquo; ... when &dquo;trees confiscation&dquo; (RMMR 2/3/1689). Meet- and fields increase&dquo; and &dquo;heaven and ings often referred to children as &dquo;tender,&dquo; earth proclaim thy peace&dquo; (Smith, 1862: &dquo;sweet,&dquo; and &dquo;loving,&dquo; virtues which typi- 492). Children were implicit in his vision. fied the descriptions of adult Friends with When on a return trip to England in 1685, the most praised behavior. The metaphor after he noted that many English Quakers most often used by the Welsh farmers were suspicious of the large emigration of when describing children was &dquo;tender Friends to Pennsylvania, he wrote to plants growing in the Truth.&dquo; George Fox stressing the relationship Two Welsh Tract leaders, John Bevan between children and wealth: &dquo;I wish and Thomas Ellis, thought that the need those that have estates of their own and to to protect children from corruption ex- leave fullness in their posterity may not be plained the Quakers’ emigration to Penn- offended at the Lord’s opening a door of sylvania. Barbara Bevan persuaded her mercy to thousands in England especially husband John Bevan to come to Pennsyl- in Wales who have no estates either for vania for the sake of their children. &dquo;Some themselves or children ... nor any visible time before the year 1683,&dquo; he later wrote, ground of hope for a better condition for &dquo;I had heard that our esteemed Friend children or children’s children when they William Penn had a patent from King were gone hence.&dquo; Ellis’s argument rested Charles the Second for the Province in on the promise of Quaker life in the new America called Pennsylvania, and my wife world. In Pennsylvania, Ellis showed, land had a great inclination to go thither and could combine fruitfully with community thought it might be a good place to train life: children sober up amongst people and to About fifteen families of us have taken our prevent the corruption of them here by the land together and there are to be eight more

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that have not yet come, who took (to begin) 30 to be communicated almost all the time by acres which we apiece with build upon and do a man or woman’s &dquo;conversation&dquo; (Haller, improve, and the other land we have to range 1957; Hill, 1967; Nuttal, 1946; Kibbey, for our cattle, we have our burying place where 1973; Bauman, 1974). we intend our Meeting House, as near as we can to the center, our men and women’s Meet- &dquo;Conversation&dquo; was defined in the seven- ing and other Monthly Meetings in both week teenth century, according to the Oxford dayes unto which four townships at least be- English Dictionary, as the &dquo;manner of longs. And precious do we find other opportu- conducting oneself in the world or in soci- nities that are as free will unto given offering The Quakers’ of &dquo;conversa- the Lord in evenings, some time which not in- ety.&dquo; concept tended but Friends coming simply to one an- tion&dquo; included the idea that it was reflec- other and sitting together the Lord appears to tive of a person’s inner being and that it his name be the Glory (Ellis, June 13, 1685). communicated meaning, as suggested in With land broadly distributed for children the King James and Geneva Bibles [&dquo;Only to inherit, settlers like Ellis could hope to let your conversation be as becometh Gos- permanently realize their goals. pel&dquo; (Phil. 1:27), &dquo;Be an example of be- The attention and worry that the Welsh lievers in conversation in purity&dquo; (1 Tim. Meetings, John Bevan, and Thomas Ellis 4:12), &dquo;they may also be won by the con- directed to children stemmed from the versation of their wives&dquo; (1 Pet. 3:1)]. Quakers’ world view which made child- &dquo;Conversation&dquo; thus included not only rearing difficult and important. By speech but also behavior and non-verbal dividing the human behavior into two communication. Human communication, &dquo;languages&dquo;-&dquo;holy conversation&dquo; lead- as Dell Hymes has argued, includes not ing to salvation, and &dquo;carnal talk&dquo; leading just written and spoken words, but all to corruption and death-Quakers had no &dquo;speech events,&dquo; events that a culture re- choice but to secure environments of &dquo;holy gards as having a clear human message conversation&dquo; for their children. Quakers (Hymes, 1972; Hymes, 1974). Quakers thought that the Word was communicated posited in effect two &dquo;languages&dquo;’ under- only spontaneously in human relations, lying all formal languages and gesture: that all set forms of speech were ineffec- &dquo;holy conversation,&dquo; the language of the tive. They thus challenged the Puritan Word, and &dquo;carnal conversation,&dquo; the lan- view that God’s reality was set forth solely guage of pride and of the world. in the Bible and that grace could only be The emigrants’ removal certificates into received by listening and responding to Pennsylvania described the settlers’ &dquo;con- ministers’ explications of the Biblical text. versation&dquo; and give some idea of the qual- In his Journal George Fox always called ities that made up the charismatic pres- the Puritans &dquo;professors&dquo; in order to ence of the converted Friend. Thirty-six stigmatize them as people who only pro- different adjectives or adjectival phrases fessed their faith in response to sermons described the adults in these sixty-two cer- they had heard. Quakers, on the other tificates. The adjectives most often used hand, lived their faith, they claimed, be- were &dquo;honest&dquo; (thirty-three), &dquo;blameless&dquo; coming virtually embodiments of the (fourteen), &dquo;loving&dquo; (thirteen), &dquo;tender&dquo; &dquo;serviceable&dquo; Word. Quakers found appropriate means (nine),t &dquo;savory&dquo; (nine), of expressing the Word in their communi- (nine), &dquo;civil&dquo; (eight), &dquo;plain&dquo; (seven) and ties. In the worship meeting, after a period &dquo;modest&dquo; (five). Except for three cases- of silence, the Word was communicated two cases of &dquo;industriousness,&dquo; and one through a &dquo;minister’s&dquo; words, he or she 1 "Language" is used here metaphorically to rep- being a conduit of the Word, or by spon- resent a whole communicative system. The Quakers, non-verbal communication be- taneous, particularly George Fox, were hostile to "language" tween attenders. In society the Word was in its usual sense.

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case of &dquo;punctual&dquo;-the adjectives related have not anything to say to the contrary to Christlike qualities. but they behaved themselves very well as Almost all the adjectives had Biblical they come from a very honest family&dquo; origins. &dquo;Holy conversation&dquo; was the lan- (RMMR, 1686). Virtually all the children guage and behavior of both the Apostles were discussed in these terms. Bachelors and of the Quakers, who both claimed and spinsters, moreover, were also &dquo;hope- direct knowledge of Christ. All Quaker ful&dquo; when like Elizabeth Owen, they came testimonies and practices were defended from &dquo;good and honest parentage&dquo; by Biblical reference. Fox, Barclay, Penn- (RMMR, 1686). No belief developed in ington, Naylor, and other Quaker ministers these Meetings similar to the idea which had interlarded their texts with Biblical Edmund Morgan has shown developed quotation. Friends used &dquo;thee and thou&dquo; among Massachusetts’ ministers in the instead of &dquo;you&dquo; because it was the pro- late seventeenth century who believed that noun which Quaker ministers thought the children of church members, being Christ and the Apostles used. As was the part of Abraham’s Seed, were virtually case in the Genevan Bible, Quakers avoid- assured justification (Morgan, 1966 :161- ed the use of pagan names for months and 186). Quaker members were known only days, and refused to use titles, even Mr. by their &dquo;conversation&dquo; and children were and Mrs. Refusal to give hat honor, refusal only &dquo;hopeful&dquo; because of their parents’ to take oaths, pacificism, non-violence, conversation.&dquo; and special dress were all vocabulary in By 1680 the guiding institution of &dquo;holy conversation.&dquo; The Bible (as well Quaker life was the Monthly Meeting, as the leadership of the Monthly, Quar- whose purpose was, as George Fox said, terly and Yearly Meetings), though not the &dquo;that all order their conversation aright, source of Truth for Friends, provided an that they may see the salvation of God; anchor against what easily could become they may all see and know, possess and the anarchy of revelation (Levy, 1976 :35- partake of, the government of Christ, of 45). the increase of which there is no end&dquo; The removal certificates discussed the (Fox, 1963:152). The men’s and women’s relationship between &dquo;holy conversation&dquo; Monthly Meetings in Chester and the and children’s spiritual development. Welsh Tract, like those elsewhere, encour- Children were born with both Adam’s sin aged &dquo;holy conversation&dquo; by identifying and Christ’s redeeming Seed. Which de- and disowning carnal talk and by organiz- veloped as the major principle in their lives ing life for the rule of the Word. Their aim depended greatly on the environment in was, in a sense, to construct an ideal which they grew, and particularly impor- speech community, where Word would tant was the character of their parents constantly be exchanged in human rela- (Frost, 1973). The Merionth Meeting said tions. Newcomers would not be recog- of William Powell, for example: nized as members unless they presented a removal certificate, an informed discus- His conversation since [his conversion] hath sion of their vouch- been honest and savory in so much that his wife spiritual personality, came soon to be affected with the Truth, and ing for the high quality of their &dquo;conversa- became a good example to her children by tion.&dquo; The term is centrally mentioned in which means they also became affected with ninety-five percent of all the Welsh certif- Truth, innocency, and an innocent conversa- icates from 1680 to 1694 (65) and eighty- tion to this day (RMMR, 1686). seven percent of those fully recorded for The Tyddyn Gareg Meeting said of the Quakers within the jurisdiction of the children of Griffith John: &dquo;As for their Chester Monthly Meeting (22). When honesty and civility and good behavior we Friends got married in Chester and the

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Welsh Tract they had their &dquo;clearness and A prospective marriage couple had first to conversation&dquo; inspected, and when dis- obtain permission for both courtship and owned, they were denounced for &dquo;scandel- then marriage from all the parents or clos- ous,&dquo; &dquo;disorderly,&dquo; &dquo;indecent,&dquo; or est relatives involved. They then had to &dquo;worldly&dquo; &dquo;conversation.&dquo; announce their intention of marriage be- The primary support of the Quakers’ fore both the Men’s and Women’s social design was their elaborate marriage Monthly Meetings. After hearing the an- discipline, which controlled the establish- nouncement, the Meetings appointed two ment of new households. Most of the busi- committees, each composed of two well ness that came before the Welsh Tract and established Friends, in order to investigate Chester Men’s and Women’s Meetings the &dquo;clearness&dquo; from prior ties and partic- directly concerned marriage. In the Welsh ularly the &dquo;conversation&dquo; of the man and Tract, in the Men’s Monthly Meeting woman (two women investigated the (1683-1709) forty-six percent of the busi- woman, two men the man). The man and ness dealt with marriages; the next largest woman would appear at the next Monthly category of business, administrative con- Meeting to hear the verdict, which was cerns, like building burial grounds and ar- usually favorable, since the Meetings ranging worship meetings, included only warned off Friends with problems. After seventeen percent of the itemized business. the second visit to the Monthly Meetings In the Women’s Monthly Meeting mar- the marriage ceremony took place usually riages took fifty-four percent of the busi- in the Meeting house of the woman’s fam- ness and charity nineteen percent. In ily. The Quakers married directly before Chester the Men’s and Women’s Meeting God, the guests and attendants served as sat together until 1705. Between 1681 and witnesses, signing the marriage certificate. 1705, forty-three percent of the business The precedent for this type of ceremony concerned marriages; the next largest was, according to George Fox, the mar- category, discipline, accounted for four- riage of Adam and Eve in the Garden. The teen percent of the business. These figures couple had thus to be restored to the sin- do not account for the fact that marriage less state of Adam and Eve before the Fall infractions composed the majority of disci- in order for the ceremony to be meaningful pline cases. In the Welsh Tract between (Fox, 1663; Fox, 1911: II, 154; Braith- 1684 and 1725, eighty-two percent of all waite, 1919:262). Not all Pennsylvania condemnations involved young men and Friends conformed to Fox’s spiritually women and seventy-eight percent marriage pure concept of marriage. Both Meetings or fornication (fornication without mar- allowed a few questionable men and riage was rare, involving only four percent women to marry &dquo;out of tenderness to of the cases). Jack Marietta found similar them&dquo; if they sincerely promised to reform figures for a number of other Pennsylvania and live as Friends. Two officials from the Monthly Meetings, and Susan Forbes Monthly Meeting closely watched the cere- found that over seventy-five percent of the mony to assure that it was conducted ac- disownments in another Chester County cordingly to &dquo;Gospel Order.&dquo; A committee meeting, New Garden, related to marriage of &dquo;weighty&dquo; Friends also visited the new (Marietta, 1968; Forbes, 1972; Radnor couple (along with other families in these Men’s and Women’s Monthly Meeting communities) at least four times a year in Minutes, 1684-1725; Chester Men’s and order to see that they were living according Women’s Monthly Meeting Minutes, to the standards of &dquo;holy conversation.&dquo; 1681-1725). The Quaker marriage discipline and ritual The Quaker marriage procedure was aimed to insure that every Quaker spouse time-consuming, thorough, and intrusive. was sustained by another Quaker and that

Downloaded from http://jfh.sagepub.com at MINNESOTA STATE UNIV MOORHEAD on February 17, 2010 121 every Quaker child grew up under con- The rest &dquo;acknowledged&dquo; their sin and verted parents in a sustaining, religious after a period of spiritual probation were environment. accepted fully as Friends. In order to enhance the religious tone of Institutional surveillance could only go the family, despite the control exercised by so far; Quaker families also needed wealth parents and Meetings, Friends wanted to assure that their children would live couples to love one another before they their lives among people of &dquo;holy conver- wed. Quaker writers stressed that this was sation.&dquo; In England and Wales farms were to be a virtuous, Christian love, not ro- typically from forty to forty-five acres; mantic lust. It is of course impossible to farmers could rarely keep their children know what quality of love these Friends from service or from leaving for the city, expected, demanded, or actually received. particularly London (Hoskins, 1963 :151- Nevertheless, the idea was taken seriously; 160 ; Campbell, 1942:chap. 3,4). For this the Monthly Meetings record a number of reason William Penn wanted Pennsylvania Friends, mostly women, rejecting their settlers to form townships, &dquo;for the more male Friends at the last minute before the convenient bringing up of youth ... ,&dquo; of ceremony. After laboriously inspecting 5000 acres with each farmer having ample, and approving one marriage in 1728, for contiguous holdings of from one hundred example, the men of Chester were sur- to five hundred acres. The Quaker pro- prised to discover that the marriage had prietor believed that farming was the least not taken place. The investigating com- corrupting employment and that in Eng- mittee reported &dquo;that the said Jane Ken- land parents were too &dquo;addicted to put dal signified to them that she doth not love their children into Gentlemen’s service or him well enough to marry him.&dquo; Similarly send them to towns to learn trades, that in 1705 at Chester, Thomas Martin gained husbandry is neglected; and after a soft approval to marry Jane Hent, but next and delicate usage there, they are unfitted month &dquo;the above marriage not being ac- for the labor of farming life&dquo; (Penn, 1681, complished, two Friends-Alice Simcock Lemon, 1972:98-99). An analysis of re- and Rebecca Faucit-spoke to Jane Hent moval certificates and tax lists from to know the reason thereof and her answer Chester and Radnor indeed shows that was that she could not love him well youth did live and work at home. enough to be her husband.&dquo; Two other The Welsh Tract and Chester settlers cases of this type occurred in Chester and accumulated more land than William the Welsh Tract between 1681 and 1750. Penn proposed. By the late 1690’s the The annoyed Meetings always deferred to mean holding of the seventy resident fam- the young people (Friends Historical Li- ilies in the Welsh Tract was 332 acres. In brary, Chester Men’s Monthly Meeting the towns comprising the Chester Monthly Minutes, 10/30/1728, 5/30/1705, 9/6/ Meeting, the mean holding of seventy-six 1705, 4/9/1730, 4/10/1708). families was 337 acres. Only six men had The marriage discipline, despite such holdings of under one hundred acres, and responsiveness, was an obstacle to many eighty percent held over 150 acres. The Quaker children. Many went to a &dquo;priest&dquo; Chester and Welsh settlers continued to or magistrate in Philadelphia to marry. buy land after 1699 as appears from a Sometimes they had married a non- comparison of the landholdings of fifty- Quaker, but more often Quaker children three Chester and Welsh Quaker settlers would avoid the marriage procedure and in 1699 and the land which they distribu- their parents’ approval by eloping to Phila- ted to their children or sold at death. In delphia, often after sexual intimacy. Over the 1690s these men had an average of one half of the offenders were disowned. 386, acres about the same average as the

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general population of landowners. They nists. They were active members of their gave or sold to their children, however, an Monthly Meetings, acquaintances of Wil- average of 701 acres, an average increase liam Penn, and first purchasers. Most set- of 315 acres from 1690. Seventy percent of tlers did not engage in land speculation. the settlers gave 400 acres or more (see Thirty-nine of the forty-one wills existing Table 1) (Land Bureau, Harrisburg, Land for the fifty-three settlers show large quan- TABLE 1. WELSH TRACT AND CHESTER tities of unused land which was later be- SETTLERS’ LAND HELD AT DEATH OR queathed to children. Joseph Baker, for DISTRIBUTED TO THEIR CHILDREN BE- example, besides his plantation in Edge- FORE DEATH, 1681-1735 mount, bequeathed a 200 acre tract in Thornberry to his son. Francis Yarnell, beside his plantation in Willistown, bequeathed a 120 acre tract in Springfield. Only three men worked their additional land and only two men had tenants (Ches- ter County Court House, Chester County Deeds, 1681-1790; Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia County Deeds, 1681-1790; Chester Court House, Chester Source: Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia County 1724: County Deeds, Philadelphia County Wills and In- County Wills, August 25, A-155, ventories ; Chester County Court House, Chester 6/6/1721: A-124). County Deeds, Chester County Wills and Invento- A study of these families’ inventories ries. confirms the child-centered use of land. Of Commissioner’s Minutes of the Welsh the forty-one inventories, twenty-seven of Tract, 1702; Chester County Historical So- these men at the time of their death ciety, Chester County Treasurer’s Book, already portioned at least two of their chil- 1685-1716). The settlers bought land as dren. Seven of these men were nearly re- their families grew. A correlation exists tired, though they still used their farms. between the number of sons families had’ The rest (fourteen) had portioned only one and the amount of land they held. Between child or none at the time of their death, so the 1690s and the end of their lives, the they were probably near the height of pro- three men without sons did not increase ductivity. The average farmer had a small their acreage; those with one son increased herd of animals (six cows, four steers, six their acreage an average of 135 acres; horses, fourteen sheep, and eight pigs) and those with two sons increased their acreage was cultivating between forty and fifty an average of 242 acres; those with three acres for wheat, barley, and corn. The rule an average of 309 acres; and those with of thumb in eighteenth century farming four or more an average of 361 acres. Sons was three acres for one cow (this was the received over two hundred acres on an practice in Cheshire), so the cows and average, and daughters received the equiv- steers would require at least thirty acres. alent in Pennsylvania currency. The six horses would need about six acres The settlers bought land almost exclu- and grain, and the thirteen sheep about sively for their children. The fifty-three two acres a year. This gives a figure of, at men gave away or sold a total of 160 par- least, eighty acres in use for the average cels during their lives, a third of these to farmer who had about 700 acres. The ad- their children. Six men engaged in forty-six ditional 620 acres awaited children (Ches- percent of the sales, however. These men ter County Court House, Chester County were land speculators, though this role Inventories, 1681-1790; Philadelphia City combined with serving as middle men Hall Annex, Philadelphia County Inven- between William Penn and arriving colo- tories, 1681-1776).

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The land use pattern of Edmund Cart- sons’ and daughters’ labor and to secure ledge was typical, although he used more their aid when old (Henretta, 1978: 3-32). land than most. He had a personal estate These Quaker accumulations roughly fit of ae377, including ae63 worth of crops, such an economic model, though they ex- mostly wheat, and ae90 worth of livestock. ceed the average needs of a young farmer. In the &dquo;house chamber&dquo; and &dquo;in the barn&dquo; An average young man might need forty to Cartledge had about 115 bushels of wheat, one hundred acres of land to begin a fam- which was the harvest of about ten to fif- ily, not two or three hundred acres. Most teen acres. &dquo;In the field&dquo; he had twenty fathers, moreover, did not need their sons’ acres of wheat and rye (worth about aE30) economic assistance in old age. A large and ten acres of summer corn, barley, and percentage of sons bought their land from oats (ael8). He had in all at least forty to their fathers, who retired on interest from fifty acres under cultivation. &dquo;In the yard&dquo; bonds. To a large degree, the Quaker were a large number of cows, pigs, and farmers were responding to the require- horses; and in the field a flock of sheep. ments, as they perceived them, of &dquo;holy According to the usual feed requirements, conversation.&dquo; Three hundred acres could he used from fifty to fifty-five acres for seem to insure a new household’s protec- these animals. For both livestock and tion from the world. he used about one hundred acres. crops, II His inventory describes his farm as &dquo;250 acres of land, buildings, orchards, garden, In order to buy land Quaker farmers often fences, wood, and meadows,&dquo; evaluated at needed to take &dquo;strangers&dquo; into their ae400. From 1690 to 1710 ten inventories households as laborers. However, laborers show the evaluation of improved land brought into the household who fostered could ruin was ae2:3:6 per acre and unimproved ungodly relationships the whole of the land .was at ae0:6:7 per acre. A compari- purpose insulating family from evil son of his evaluation with the general eval- influences. These rural Quakers had few uations of improved and unimproved lands slaves or servants. Of the forty-one men tends to confirm that he used about one- who left inventories, among those families half to two-thirds of his plantation. At that were reconstructed, only nine re- his death, he also had 100 acres in Spring- corded servants or slaves (twenty-five per- field and 1,107 acres in Plymouth at a low cent) and four had slaves (five percent) or evaluation of ae300, indicating that they about one in every twenty families. The were unimproved. Like the other Quaker fertile but inexpensive land of the Valley farmers, Cartledge bought land to farm allowed rural Friends-unlike those in the and more land to settle his children upon city-to keep the use of servants to a mini- (Chester County Court House, Chester mum. At the same time, the wealth de- County Inventories, 2/2/1703: 143). rived from the Valley allowed many Although individual farmers and plant- Friends to afford slaves. The restriction of ers in early America had more land than slavery was therefore partly the response to the average Quaker in the Delaware Val- an explicitly expressed self-conscious pol- ley, few seventeenth- or early eighteenth- icy. century communities appear collectively to have had such a high mean acreage, such a 2The economy of these farmers was relatively Over fifty of the farmers, broad distribution of land, or a land distri- sophisticated. percent according to their inventories, held bonds of over bution so devoted to children. generously £100. The money was lent to other farmers. Older James has Henretta argued that northern men had the most bonds and were clearly living on farmers accumulated land to pay off their the income (Levy, 1976:145-150).

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Chester County Friends clearly remained issued five letters or messages to the Phila- sensitive to evidence of carnal talk or ex- delphia Yearly Meeting between 1690 and otic people in their households. Robert 1720, requesting a testimony against buy- Pyle, a prosperous Concord farmer writing ing or importing slaves. The Chester in 1698, testified that he bought a slave be- Monthly Meeting in 1715 recorded that &dquo;it cause of the scarcity of white domestic la- is the unanimous sense of this Meeting bor. Pyle, however, felt the threat of con- that Friends should not be concerned here- tamination and had bad dreams: after in the importation thereof nor buy I was myself and a Friend going on a road, any, and we request the concurrence of the and by the roadside I saw a black pot, I took it Quarterly Meeting.&dquo; The Philadelphia up, the Friend said give me part, I said not, I Quarterly Meeting in the same year chided went a little further and I saw a great ladder Chester Friends for acting prejudicially standing exact upright, reaching up to heaven, slave owners in their up which I must go to heaven with the pott in against Meeting by them from of my hand intending to carry the black pot with excluding positions authority me, but the ladder standing so upright, and (Turner, 1911: 60-75; Davis, 1966: 315). seeing no man holding of it up, it seemed it Holy conversation and child- would fall upon me; at which I stepped down centeredness also brought these Friends laid the at the foot of the ladder, and said pot white, indentured servants them that take it might, for I found work using problems. enough for both hands to take hold of this lad- Friendly &dquo;conversation&dquo; conflicted with the der (Cadbury, ed., 1937:492-493). need of keeping servants diligently at work. The Chester Meeting called John Worral Pyle concluded that &dquo;self must be left be- before them in 1693 for whipping one of hind, and to let black Negroes or pots his male servants. He condemned his act alone.&dquo; To purify his household and him- &dquo;for the reputation of Truth&dquo; but said the self, Pyle manumitted his black slave. fellow was &dquo;worthless&dquo; and &dquo;deserved to Cadwallader Morgan of the Welsh Tract be beaten&dquo; (Historical Society of Pennsyl- bought a Negro in 1698 so he could have vania, Chester Monthly Meeting Acknowl- more time to go to Meetings. But Morgan edgments, 10/2/1693). By placing a lazy realized that greed was his real aim, that woman servant in a &dquo;noxious hole,&dquo; the slave symbolized the rule of the self Thomas Smedley thought he had found over the Word. Pyle and Morgan also wor- the alternative to whipping and beating, ried over the social and familial problems but the Chester Monthly Meeting thought attending slavery. Pyle projected that his solution unseemly, and he had to con- Quakers might be forced to take up arms, demn it (Historical Society of Pennsyl- if Negroes became too numerous in their vania, Chester Montly Meeting Acknowl- communities. Morgan saw a host of prob- edgments, 1/3/1740). In 1700 the Welsh lems for Quaker families. &dquo;What,&dquo; Mor- Tract Monthly Meeting established a gan asked, &dquo;if I should have a bad one of &dquo;committee to maintain good order,&dquo; them, that must be corrected, or would which recommended &dquo;that Friends be run away, or when I went from home and watchful over their families and that they leave him with a woman or maid, and he should be careful what persons they should desire to committ wickedness.&dquo; brought or admitted to their families, Fearing many varieties of corruption, whether servants or others, lest they Morgan manumitted his slave and testified should be hurt by them.&dquo; The committee against slavery (Cadbury, ed., 1942:213; devised techniques for disciplining ser- Drake, 1941: 575-576). vants without flogging them. When their Such fears were widespread. The terms expired, masters were to write &dquo;cer-

Chester Quarterly and Monthly Meetings tificates ... concerning their behavior ac-

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cording to their deserts.&dquo; No credit or jobs similar task. Puritan parents shared were to be extended to ex-servants unless responsibility with the local minister for they had such references. The Meeting es- their childrens’ conversions, they had bap- tablished a public committee to &dquo;deal hard tism, an intellectual regimen (sermons and with servants&dquo; and to hear their com- Bible reading) and by the 1690s a general plaints about their masters. No evidence belief that the children of church members exists as to what techniques the committee were likely to be justified (Morgan, 1966: used to handle unruly servants, but they 65-86; Axtell, 1976: 160-200). They also were probably non-violent. Because of had power. Quaker parents had environ- their ideas about purified households, ments, wealth, and their own example. As these rural Friends discouraged bringing Philip Greven has shown, during the seven- blacks into the house and invented gentler teenth and early eighteenth century in An- ways of disciplining labor. dover, Massachusetts, it was common for parents to allow sons to marry, live on ill their fathers’ land and yet not own the until their fathers died. to Controlling their children as they passed land According from youth to adulthood presented the fi- Greven’s description, &dquo;although the great nal challenge for Chester and Welsh Tract majority of second generation sons were parents. Quaker doctrine demanded that settled upon their father’s land while their children be guided, not coerced into Quak- fathers were still alive, only about a quar- erism. The choice to preserve the Light ter of them actually owned the land they their father’s had to be a free one. There was very little lived upon until after death.&dquo; evidence of disinheritance among Chester The proximity of the father to the house- and Welsh Tract families.3 3 The choosing of holds of his married sons reinforced this of economic and a mate involved parental approval and pattern dependency pa- direction, but also courtship and free triarchy. Seventy-five percent of the sons choice. The Meetings asked couples when of the first generation settled in the closely announcing their proposed marriage to packed township of Andover. Well into the face both the Men’s and Women’s Meet- middle of the eighteenth century, &dquo;many members of families lived within reason- ing alone. A youth, as it has been seen, short distances of each as could call off his or her marriage at any ably other,&dquo; time before the ceremony. Parents, how- Greven describes it, &dquo;with family groups ever, still had to make new households often concentrated together in particular Quakerly and substantial. For Quaker areas of the town.&dquo; This strong system of as Greven parents &dquo;holy conversation&dquo; meant esta- parental power,t argued, the blishing all their children on decently changed only slowly during eighteenth wealthy farms, married to Friends of their century in the town (Greven, 1970: 72-99, own choosing, with parental approval-a 139). difficult job. Delaware Valley families were similar in structure to those in Andover. Because In.Andover, Massachusetts in the seven- birth and death records were teenth and early eighteenth centuries, par- Quaker it is to estimate ents had more implements to accomplish a poorly kept, possible only what health conditions were like in the seventeenth century along the Schuylkill and 3A collation of wills and deeds of families whose Delaware Rivers. Twenty-five Quaker set- children married out shows that there was seldom any tlers, traced through the Quaker economic penalty. Male children who married out registers were often not deeded land. They got land when their in England and America, had an average father died (Levy, 1976:121-123). age at death of sixty-seven years, with only

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four men dying in their forties, and four in The fertile land of the Delaware Valley was their fifties. The survival rate of children more conducive to lucrative farming than also supports the view that conditions were the rocky soil of Andover. The settlers en- fairly healthy. Based on a total of seventy- joyed the fast growing market in Philadel- two reconstructed families in the first gen- phia under the control of able Quaker eration, the average number of children merchants with connections in the West per family to reach twenty-one years of age Indies. One thousand Finnish and Swe- was 4.73 in the Welsh Tract and 5.65 in dish farmers, who had been living mo- Chester. In the Welsh Tract and Chester, destly along the Delaware River for over based on ninety-three reconstructions of fifty years, helped provide the settling second generation families, the average Quakers with provisions. Cash and credit number of children to reach twenty-one existed in Pennsylvania, as attested by the was 5.53. These families were smaller than frequent and early purchasing of estates by those of 7.2 children to reach twenty-one sons. As early as 1707, twenty-six years af- which Greven found for early eighteenth ter settlement, Ralph Lewis sold over one century Andover families whose children hundred acres to his son Abraham were born in the 1680s and 1690s (Greven, for ae60, and after 1709 deeds of pur- 1970: 111). chase were more frequently given than Compared to the Andover settlers and deeds of gift (Bridenbaugh, 1976: 170; descendants, the Delaware Valley settlers Chester County Court House, Chester consistently had more land (see Table 2). County Deeds, April 15, 1707: B-86; Andover, moreover, began in a remote wil- Greven, 1970: 68). derness where it took many years to devel- Begging the question of the typicality of op a cash economy. Throughout much of Andover as a New England town, it is clear the lives of the founding generation, as that the road to an independent household Greven noted, both grain and livestock (independent from kin, not from commu- were being used in lieu of cash in exchange nity) was smoother in the Welsh Tract and for hard goods from Salem merchants. A Chester communities than it was in Ando- lack of specie, cash, or credit is suggested ver. The economy of the Delaware Valley by the fact that sons did not regularly was more conducive to the setting up of in- purchase land from their fathers until dependent households than that of Ando- after 1720, eighty years after settlement. ver. Quaker families were also smaller.

TABLE 2. LAND DISTRIBUTION OF CHESTER, WELSH TRACT, AND ANDOVER SET- TLERS

Source: Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia County Deeds, Philadelphia County Wills and Inventories; Chester County Court House, Chester County Deeds, Chester County Wills and Inventories. Greven, 1970: 58.

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The older marriage ages of the Quakers clauses. Once established, three quarters strongly suggests, however, that religious of the new households in the Welsh Tract community also played some role in creat- and Chester were independent.&dquo;4 ing a different pattern in Pennsylvania. Typical of the Quaker father was The settlers in the Welsh Tract and Ches- Thomas Minshall, whose son Isaac ter carefully helped establish their chil- married Rebecca Owen in 1707. That drens’ new households by providing suffi- same year, three months after the mar- cient material wealth, even if it meant riage, Thomas Minshall &dquo;for natural love making children wait a long time before and affection&dquo; gave Isaac gratis the &dquo;380 marriage. The community closely watched acres in Neither Providence where he now new households. Yet, in contrast to Ando- dwelleth.&dquo; A younger son, Jacob, married ver, Quaker parents tended to make their at the age of twenty-one in 1706 to Sarah children financially independent at mar- Owen and that year received gratis five riage or soon after marriage. They also set hundred acres of land and a stone dwelling up their sons further from home. house. The Minshalls were among the Fifty-four of the settlers’ sons received wealthiest families in Chester and Radnor deeds in Chester and the Welsh Tract; and Meetings. Poorer families also granted seventy-three percent (40) received them independence to their married children. either before marriage or in one year after Ralph Lewis, who came over as a servant marriage. Fifty-nine of the eighty-four to John Bevan, gave deeds to three of his sons who received land from wills also re- sons before or just after marriage. In 1707 ceived their land before marriage. Among he sold to his son Abraham at marriage a all the second generation sons in the Dela- 200 acre tract for ae60. Samuel Lewis, ware Valley whose inheritance, deeds of another son, bought 250 acres from his gift and purchase, and date of marriage father for ae60 in 1709. A deed three can be known (139), seventy-one percent years later, shows that his debt to his received land before, at, or within two father was paid off in 1712, the year he years of marriage without restrictions. In married (Philadelphia City Hall, Philadel- Andover when a father gave a deed to a phia County Deeds, 2/3/1706: A-203, son he usually placed restrictions upon the 8/23/1707: A-172; Chester County Court gift. Most sons shared the experience of House, Chester County Deeds, October 6, Stephen Barker, who received a deed of 1709: B-342, 3/2/1712: C-326). from his a gift father for homestead and In contrast to the situation in Andover,t land,t provided &dquo;that he carefully and moreover, most second generation Dela- faithfully manure and carry on my whole ware Valley sons did not live in the same living yearly.&dquo; His father also retained the townships as their fathers. Forty-five per- right to any part of his son’s land &dquo;for my cent of the sons (71) of the first generation comfortable maintenance.&dquo; Thomas Ab- Welsh Tract and Chester families settled bot of Andover sold his homestead, land, in the same township as their fathers, but and buildings to the eldest of his three sons a majority fifty-five percent (88) did not. in 1723 for a~20, but reserved for himself Most sons (65) lived in other townships be- the right to improve half the land and to cause their fathers bought land for them use half the buildings during his life time there. Francis Yarnell of Willistown, for (Greven, 1970: 144, 145). Only one Welsh Tract or Chester deed from the first to ’John Waters found differences between inheritance patterns of Quakers and Puritans in second contained a restrictive generation seventeenth-century Barnstable similar to the differ- clause, and no Quaker deeds from the sec- ing patterns between Andover and Delaware Valley ond to third generations contained such families (Waters, 1976).

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example, found land for five of his sons in teachings and do thy own will and not His Willistown (his own town) and one in than thou will be a fool and a vagabound&dquo; Springfield and one in Middletown. An- (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Cope drew Job bought two of his sons land in Collection, 1704: F-23). Greven found no Virginia. Indeed eleven of the second exhortations in Andover and most likely generation Delaware Valley sons moved they did not exist. Seventeenth- and early outside southeastern Pennsylvania to eighteenth-century rural Puritan fathers Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and left land, not advice, to obedient, married Long Island onto land purchased by their sons. fathers. John Bevan who moved to Wales The mutual obligations in the Quaker never saw his American sons again. family system show that the Welsh Tract Quaker fathers often sacrificed control for and Chester families were nonetheless &dquo;holy conversation&dquo; and land. both well organized and demanding. The The tendency of fathers to give away case of a family of comfortable means land to their sons and money to their gives an idea of how independent house- daughters, when they married, left many holds in the Delaware Valley were created. of these fathers bereft of power. Quaker In the family of Philip Yarnell, almost all fathers took to giving exhortations, some the sons received land for a price, and the of which have survived. Edward Foulke, time between marriage and receiving a the richest was a for sons to work Quaker farmer in Gwynedd,t deed time the land left an exhortation to his children written in order to pay off their father. The pur- just before his death in 1741. He gave all chase price would be returned to the four of his sons land near the time of their family kitty in order to help portion the marriages. Evan Foulke, for example, re- other children. Among the Yarnells’ nine ceived 250 acres in Gwynedd at his mar- children, six sons and three daughters, riage in 1725 (Philadelphia City Hall, Phil- their eldest sons married at the age of adelphia County Deeds, December 15, twenty-six in 1719 and completed pur- 1725: 1-14-248). But Foulke worried. He chase of the land in 1725, when he received urged his children and grandchildren not 200 acres and a farm house for £60 to let business take priority over attending Pennsylvania currency from his father. week-day Meetings. He noted that busi- Their second son also married in 1719 and ness carried out at such a time &dquo;did not bought his land from his father in 1724, a answer-my expectation of it in the morn- year earlier than his brother. He received a ing.&dquo; He worried also about his child- similar amount of land and also paid rearing practices: &dquo;It had been better for ae60. The purchase price was about half the me, if I had been more careful, in sitting actual market value of the land. Yarnell’s with my family at meals with a sober coun- fifth son, Nathan, married in 1731 at the tenance because children, and servants age of twenty-four and three years later have their eyes and observations on those received his land free in Philip Yarnell’s who have command and government over will. Yarnell’s third, unmarried son, Job, them.&dquo; This, he wrote, &dquo;has a great influ- had a different role. In Philip’s will he re- ence on the life and manners of youth&dquo; ceived &dquo;all my land in Ridley township,&dquo; (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Cope but had to pay ae80 to daughter Mary Collection, 1740: F-190). Another exhorta- Yarnell, half at eighteen and half at the tion was left by Walter Faucit of Chester in age of twenty. Mary was then only ten 1704 who was nervous about his wealthy years old, so Job had eight years to raise grown son’s spiritual and economic future, the first payment. He never married. &dquo;If thou refuse to be obedient to God’s Though the Yarnells were one of the

Downloaded from http://jfh.sagepub.com at MINNESOTA STATE UNIV MOORHEAD on February 17, 2010 129 wealthiest families in the Chester Meeting, farm land, their children married later they managed a vulnerable economic unit. than the Andover settlers’ children and Their children tended to marry by inclina- also later than the third generation in tion, not in rank order. When a son or Andover, who matured between 1705 and daughter married, his or her work and the 1735, coeval to the second generation in land given was lost to the other children. Chester and the Welsh Tract. The mar- Like most Quaker families, the Yamell’s riage ages of Quaker men were older than made the family into a revolving fund; new those of men in Andover in both the households became independent relatively second and third generations, and the mar- soon after marriage, and with the returned riage ages of Quaker women were older money the other children became attrac- than those of Andover women in the tive marriage partners, and the parents second generation, though slightly lower bought bonds for their retirement (Chester than Andover women in the third genera- County Court House, the Chester County tion (see Table 3). While bachelors and Deeds, December 8, 1724: f-43, February spinsters were rare in New England towns., 27, 1725: E-513; Chester County Court at least 14.4 percent of the Chester and House, Chester County Wills, 6/14/1733: Welsh Tract youth did not marry (see A-414).s Table 4). This demanding family system explains Another symptom of economic pressure why the settlers’ children married rela- late in life, the settlers’ tively despite large 5The "revolving fund" method was used by all landholdings. Although the Quaker famil- but the wealthiest and poorest Quaker families. For ies had fewer children and over twice the other examples see (Levy, 1976:210-214). TABLE 3. AGE AT MARRIAGE: DELAWARE VALLEY QUAKERS AND ANDOVER

Source: Friends Historical Library, Radnor Monthly Meeting Records, Chester Monthly Meeting Records; Greven, 1970: 31-37, 119, 121.

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TABLE 4. WEALTH, MARRIAGE AND DISCIPLINE

Source: Friends Historical Library, Radnor Men’s and Women’s Monthly Meeting Minutes, 1681-1745, Chester Men’s and Women’s Monthly Meeting Minutes, 1681-1745; Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Chester County Tax Lists, 1715-1765. upon families was a competitive marriage IV in which Friends and their market poorer The distribution of prestige confirmed and children tended to fail as Quakers. In reinforced the economic and religious pres- Chester and the Welsh Tract chil- poorer sures on parents to perform their tasks well. dren had to control (or to control) appear In these communities successful parents re- their sexual than wealthier impulses longer ceived not only Quakerly children but also children. the families the Among poorer religious status and self-assurance. Partici- mean was seven older marriage age years pation in the Monthly Meeting was broad, for men and almost six older for wo- years but not all Friends participated equally. In men than for for the children the of weal- the Welsh Tract (1683-1689, 1693-1695) thiest families. The children of Ellis Ellis, twenty men and women, for example, for example, a poor Welsh Tract relatively shared a majority of the tasks of the all married in the Radnor Meet- farmer, Monthly Meetings. These Friends domin- but his two sons married at the of ing, ages ated virtually all the differing categories of and and his three forty thirty-four, daugh- tasks assigned to the Meeting, including ters at the of ages twenty-nine, thirty-three, the arbitration of disputes, discipline, mar- and thirty-one. John Bevan’s son Evan, on the other hand, who inherited over one MARRIAGE PORTIONS AND thousand acres, married at nineteen years TABLE 5. of age and John Bevan’s three daughters DISCIPLINE married at the ages of twenty, twenty, and eighteen. Poorer Friends also married out more often. Only fifteen percent of the children of the first generation in Chester and the Welsh Tract married out of discipline, and virtually all of these came from the poorer families (see Tables 4 and 5). The wealthiest families like the Simcocks, Be- vans, Worrals, and Owens had among one hundred and one children only three children who married out of discipline. Two of the nineteen wealthiest families had children who broke the to Source: Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia discipline, compared County Wills, 1681-1776, Philadelphia County fourteen families evaluated at of thirty-four Deeds, 1681-1776; Chester County Court House, aE30 and £40 in Philadelphia and Chester Chester County Wills, 1681-1765, Chester County County tax assessments. Deeds, 1681-1765.

Downloaded from http://jfh.sagepub.com at MINNESOTA STATE UNIV MOORHEAD on February 17, 2010 131 riage investigations, and visiting families. TABLE 6. REAL PROPERTY AND MEET- Quakers described their leaders in terms of ING INFLUENCE AMONG WELSH TRACT spiritual achievement: honorific terms MEN, 1683-1695 included &dquo;elder,&dquo; &dquo;ancient Friend;&dquo; or they were familial: John and Barbara Be- van were a &dquo;nursing father and mother to some weak and young amongst us.&dquo; The Meetings expected leaders, more than others, to express &dquo;holy conversation.&dquo; An elder in Radnor in 1694 allowed his daughter to marry a first cousin, an act against the discipline. It is a &dquo;scandal upon the Truth and Friends,&dquo; the Meeting decided, &dquo;that he being looked upon as an elder should set such a bad example&dquo; (Friends Historical Library, Radnor Men’s Monthly Source: Friends Historical Library, Radnor Meeting Minutes, 2/3/1694). These men Men’s Monthly Meeting Minutes, 1683-1689, 1693- and women were supposed to provide the 1695 ; Bureau of Land Records, Harrisburg, Penn- Land Commissioner’s Minutes of the same charismatic, loving authority for sylvania, Welsh Tract, 1702. Quaker adults as Quaker parents provided for their children. fact more distinguished by their Quakerly Approximately seventy percent of the children than by their wealth. Though Welsh leaders came from gentry families, above average in wealth, the leaders were but so did eighteen percent of the less not consistently the wealthiest men. On the active, and thirty percent of the leaders other hand, their families were twice as well were yeomen and artisans. Although some disciplined as the remaining families (see significant correlation existed between land Table 7). and leadership (see Table 6), the high stan- The religious standing of the men in dard deviations show that wealth was not Chester and the Welsh Tract clearly hinged the sole determinant of leadership. Among on family events. Those who could not con- the men in the fifty-three reconstructed trol their own family had no claim to honor. families, those who were leaders were in The Meetings did not usually penalize a TABLE 7. MEETING POSITIONS, WEALTH, AND CHILDREN’S BEHAVIOR

Source: Friends Historical Society, Radnor Men’s Monthly Meeting Minutes, 1681-1715, Chester Men’s Monthly Meeting Minutes, 1681-1715.

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parent if only one child married out. Ran- his father Edward who appears to have dal Malin, for example, held ninety-eight been remiss in endeavoring to prevent the positions in the Chester Meeting between marriage.&dquo; When his daughter Hannah 1681 and 1721, more than the other Friends married out in 1732, the Meeting decided studied, despite his daughter marrying out that &dquo;her father has been more indulgent in 1717 (as did another in 1721, after Ma- therein than is agreeable with the testimony lin’s death) (Friends Historical Society, of Truth.&dquo; In 1733, James Kinneson, Ed- Chester Women’s Monthly Meeting Min- ward’s last son, married out. The Meeting utes, 2/30/1716, Chester Men’s Monthly treated Kinneson gently: &dquo;Considering his Meeting Minutes, 10/29/1717, 3/29/ age and weakness [we are] willing to pass by 1721). Richard Ormes, however, stumbled his infirmity.&dquo; Though he remained a from leadership when his pregnant daugh- Friend until he died in 1734, his wife Mary ter got married in Meeting in 1715 after responded to his humiliation. In 1741 the fooling the female inspectors. Ormes had Goshen Meeting got the word &dquo;that Mary been a fully recognized minister, sent by the Kinneson, widow of Edward, who some Meeting on trips to Maryland, and an El- time since removed herself into the colony der, holding about five Meeting positions a of Virginia hath forsaken our Society and year. Between 1693 and 1715 the Radnor joined herself to the Church of England&dquo; Monthly Meeting sent him to the Quarterly (Friends Historical Library, Goshen Men’s Meeting five times. After his daughter’s Monthly Meeting Minutes, 3/21/1733, case, however, Ormes did not serve the 6/21/1732, 9/4/1726, 8/19/1741). A Meeting again until 1720, five years later source of Kinneson’s problem was clearly (Friends Historical Library, Radnor Men’s his relative poverty. He had only two Monthly Meeting Minutes, 9/3/ 1701, 7/2/ hundred acres of land. His children all 1716). Neither Ormes nor Malin cooper- married in their early twenties; they most ated with their wayward children. If a likely would have waited to marry or might father did cooperate, he was disciplined not have married at all, if they had confined and dropped from leadership instantly. themselves to the Quaker marriage market. Howell James held four positions between In these communities the assessment of 1693 and 1697, but in the latter year went to spiritual and social honor depended heavily his son’s Keithian wedding. He acknowl- then on having a successful Quaker house- edged his mistake but never served the hold, and wealth helped to achieve this Meeting again (Friends Historical Library, standard. Wealth reduced marriage ages Radnor Men’s Monthly Meeting Minutes, and helped keep sons and daughters 6/27/1716). isolated from the world. Insufficient wealth When more than one child married out, increased the age at marriage and even if a father did not cooperate, the man increased the contacts likely between lost prestige and often was subjected to the Quaker children and carnal talkers. attention of the Meeting. Edward Kinne- Wealth was not monopolized nor simply son held twenty-four Meeting positions in emblematic of a social or political upper Chester and Goshen between 1709 and class. It was regarded as necessary for full 1721, when his daughter Mary married out. participation in the Quaker community. He continued to be appointed at nearly the The cheap land of the Delaware Valley same rate until 1726, when his son Edward helped create this situation, but it was legi- married out, and then he was dropped from timized and partly formed by &dquo;holy conver- leadership. Although he did nothing to sation&dquo; and the settlers’ Quakerly devotion encourage the marriage or cooperate with to their children. his son, the Meeting decided to &dquo;treat with Religious ideas about children, not pure

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affection, dominated the families of the working adults sustained by their belief Welsh Tract and Chester Quaker commu- that, if protected and nurtured with &dquo;holy nities in the late seventeenth and early eigh- conversation&dquo; in the rich, isolated lands of teenth centuries. Though many Quaker Pennsylvania, the innocent child would doctrines approached those of the senti- spring to life among their own children. In mental, domesticated family,t doctrines this way they began the development of such as the emphasis on household environ- what would become a privatistic, middle- ments, childrens’ right to choose their own class social order in the Delaware Valley. marriage partners, and the independence of conjugal units, Quaker doctrine often strongly directed families away from affec- BIBLIOGRAPHY tion, emotion, and eroticism. Late marriage ages and celibacy among poorer Axtell, James families-&dquo;poor&dquo; relative only to other 1974 The School Upon a Hill: Education and Society in Colonial New England. New Quakers-show the constraints on emotion Haven: Yale University Press. the The in- imposed by Quakers’ discipline. Bauman, Richard tense &dquo;holy watching&dquo; in both Chester and 1974 "Speaking in the Light: the Role of the the Welsh Tract shows clearly that Quaker Quaker Minister." In Richard Bauman and families were subordinated to demanding Joel Sherzer, eds., Explorations in the communal ideals of &dquo;holy conversation.&dquo; Ethnography of Speaking. New York: Cam- bridge University Press. on the of these Only fringes communities, Bevan, John among the children who married out and 1709 "John Bevan’s Narrative." In James Levick, the disowned and humiliated fathers and ed., Pennsylvania Magazine of History and mothers who cooperated with them, does Biography. XVII: 235-245. the isolated affectionate nuclear Braithwaite, William Charles family 1919 The Second Period of Quakerism. Cam- Such families have been as appear. may bridge, England: Cambridge University numerous as those who retained full loyalty Press. to the Quakers’ world view, but they could Bridenbaugh, Carl not match the organization, power, or au- 1976 "The Old and New Societies of the Dela- thority of the Quaker tribe in the Delaware ware Valley in the Seventeenth Century." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Bio- Valley. graphy. 2:143-172. V Browning, Charles 1912 Welsh Settlement of Pennsylvania. Phila- For the Quakers, their view of delphia : William Campbell. religious Bureau of Land Record, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania the world was crucial and demanding. Land Commissioner’s Minutes of the Welsh Their impulse originated in the 1650s in Tract, 1702. England and Wales. The First Publishers Campbell, Mildred of Truth (the original core of Quaker mini- 1942 The English Yeomen under Elizabeth and sters), revitalized their conversions in the Early Stuarts. New Haven: Yale Univer- by Press. the had become like sity 1650’s, joyous, unpre- Chester County Court House, West Chester, dictable, fearless children themselves; but Pennsylvania by the 1680s the Quaker farmers of Ches- Chester County Deeds, 1681-1776. ter and the Welsh Tract had real children of Chester County Wills and Inventories 1681- 1776. their own. No longer joyous children them- Chester County Historical Society, West Chester, beset with and selves, responsibilities Pennsylvania exhausted by persecution and poverty, the Chester County Treasurer’s Book, 1681- Quaker settlers became responsible, hard- 1760.

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Davis, David Brion Hoskins, W. G. 1966 The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. 1963 Provincial England: Essays in Social and Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Economic History. London: Cromwell. Drake, Thomas Hymes, Dell 1950 Quakers and Slavery. New Haven: Yale 1972 "Toward Ethnographies of Communica- University Press. tion : The Analysis of Communicative Ellis, Thomas Events." In Peter Paolo Giglioni, ed., Lan- 1685 "Thomas Ellis to George Fox, 13 June, guage and Social Context. London: Pen- 1685." Journal of Friends Historical So- guin. ciety. 6:173-175. 1974 Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethno- Forbes, Susan graphic Approach. Philadelphia: University 1972 "Twelve Candles Lighted." Ph.d. disserta- of Pennsylvania Press. tion: University of Pennsylvania. Kibbey, Ann Fox, George 1973 "Puritan Beliefs about Language and 1911 The Journal of George Fox. ed. Norman Speech." Paper given before the American Penny. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Anthropological Association, New Orleans, University Press. 30 Dec., 1973. 1663 Concerning Marriage. London: n.p. Marietta, Jack B. Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore, 1968 "Ecclesiastical Discipline in the Society of Pennsylvania Friends, 1685-1776." Ph.d. dissertation: Chester Men’s Monthly Meeting Minutes, Stanford University. 1681-1760. Morgan, Cadwallader Chester Monthly Meeting Records: Births, 1700 "Morgan’s Testimony." In Henry Cadbury, Deaths, Removals, 1681-1760. ed., "Another Early Quaker Anti-Slavery Chester Women’s Monthly Meeting Min- Document." Journal of Negro History. 27: utes, 1705-1760. 213. Radnor Men’s Monthly Meeting Minutes, Morgan, Edmund S. 1681-1778. 1966 The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Radnor Monthly Meeting Records: Relations in Seventeenth Century New Eng- (RMMR): Births, Deaths, Removals, 1681- land. New York: Harper and Row. 1770. Nuttal, Geoffrey Radnor Women’s Monthly Min- Meeting 1946 The in Puritan Faith utes, 1683-1765. Holy Spirit Experi- ence. Oxford, England: Blackwell. Frost, J. William Penn, William 1973 The in Colonial America. Quaker Family 1681 "Some Account of the Province of Penn- New York: St. Martin’s Press. sylvania." In Albert Cook Meyers, ed., Nar- Glenn, Thomas Allen ratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New 1970 Merion in the Welsh Tract. Baltimore: Jersey and Delaware 1630-1707. New York: Genealogical Publishing Company. Barnes and Noble. Greven, J. Philip City Hall 1970 Four Generations: and Philadelphia Population, Land, Philadelphia County Deeds 1681-1776. in Colonial Andover, Massachu- Family Philadelphia County Wills and Inventories setts. New York: Cornell Ithaca, University 1681-1765. Press. Haller, William Pyle, Robert 1957 The Rise of Puritanism. New York: Harper 1698 "Robert Pyle’s Testimony." In Henry J. and Row. Cadbury, ed., "An Early Quaker Anti- Henretta, James Slavery Statement." Journal of Negro His- 1978 "Families and Farms: Mentalité in Pre- tory. 22:492-493. Industrial America." William and Mary Smith, George Quarterly. 1:3-32. 1862 History of Delaware County. Philadelphia: Hill, Christopher Ashmead. 1967 Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolution- Turner, Edward ary England. New York: Schocken. 1911 The Negro in Pennsylvania: Slavery, Free- Historical Society of Pennsylvania dom 1639-1861. New York: Arno Press. Chester County Tax Lists, 1715-1776. Vann, Richard Cope Collection, Volumes 1-95, 1681-1790. 1969 The Social Development of English Quak-

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erism, 1655-1755. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Warner, Sam Bass 1968 The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth. Philadelphia: Uni- versity of Pennsylvania Press. Waters, John 1976 "The Traditional World of the New Eng- land Peasants: A View From Seventeenth Century Barnstable." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 130: 19. Wolf, Stephanie 1976 Urban Village: Population, Community, and Family Structure in Germantown, Pennsylvania 1683-1800. Princeton: Prince- ton University Press.

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