This is an entirely new topic for me, so please excuse me while I try to learn more about it! Here are a few high-level facts which I think are true:
- The Quaker religion was started by an Englishman named George Fox, generally around 1652.
- George Fox and William Penn visited the Rhine valley in Germany in 1677 and they invited several families to join them in the "Holy Experiment" that would be Pennsylvania. In 1682, 13 Quaker families sailed to Philadelphia and founded Germantown.
- Generally speaking, Quakers had no preacher, they allowed women to speak in their meetings, they were anti-slavery, and they often would not take any oath of allegiance, not because they were not willing to give their allegiance, but because they would not swear. It seems they were widely persecuted in New England as well as some other colonies, including Virginia.
So wowee. It looks to me like being Quaker in Sussex County, New Jersey in the mid- to late- 18th century was a possibility. This all gets more interesting by the minute!
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