Politics – Quaker Theology

Chapter 8 — Indiana Yearly Meeting Schism Documents

Camping Out at the Borderland: Reflections on Life in a Liminal Time (Ruth 1: 1-14) By Stephanie Crumley-Effinger (Expanded from a message in Worship at West Richmond IN Friends Meeting, First Month 13, 2013) Read More
Theology & Peace Witness by Chuck Fager

A Letter to the Next Director of Quaker House, Fayetteville-Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Here’s the job description in a nutshell: as the Director of Quaker House (QH), besides managing a small non-profit, the essence of the work a call to continue a protracted, hand-to-hand combat with the Spirit of War, operating behind the lines of…
Editor’s Introduction by Chuck Fager

To be candid, I’m not accustomed to being consulted by Evangelical Friends. I’m not one, and over the past forty years, I’ve often found myself on opposite sides from many vocal or leading Evangelicals. Read More
Divine Protection through Extraordinary Dangers

Goff and her family lived through the ordeal of rebellion and massacre in Ireland in 1798. This amazing memoir is priceless both for its place in the long, sad history of British colonization of Ireland, and its more uplifting place in the saga of the Quaker Peace Testimony applied in situations where its implications and…
Wiliam Rotch of Nantucket A Quaker Hero

Rotch was a leading Friend in the Quaker community of Nantucket Island, and his story of faithfulness during the American and French Revolutions is a truly memorable story.
“AAA Authenticity of Historic Progressive Quakerism”

A concise explanation of why this Friend considers the liberal strand of Quaker history and thought a legitimate heir of early Quaker experience and thought.
Friends’ Ecclesiology and The Quaker-Wide Web

Ecclesiology, the nature of the church, is a bubbling issue among American Friends today, at least of the unprogrammed variety. Almost anywhere you care to look, Yearly Meetings are struggling with their structures, worrying about staff or no staff, laying down or propping up committees, taking corporate sabbaticals, and so forth. This is a very…
Moment of Truth: Wilmington Yearly Meeting Divides over a Familiar Set of Issues

By Stephen W. Angell Wilmington Yearly Meeting (WYM), assembled at the Friends Meeting in Maryville, Tennessee, on the last weekend of July, released five meetings (four monthly meetings and one preparatory meeting) that requested to sever connections with the yearly meeting. Wilmington Yearly Meeting includes Friends Churches in the states of Tennessee and Ohio, and…
The Separation Generation

By Chuck Fager; with material edited and adapted from previous issues of Quaker Theology. I – Background It’s not easy – in fact, impossible – to pick a starting date for what I call the “Separation Generation” in American Quakerism. My personal preference is July 1977, when the first major interbranch conference in decades, gathered in…
Back From The Brink: North Carolina Yearly Meeting Says No To A Split

Chuck Fager I North Carolina Yearly Meeting-FUM (NCYM) has ended the two-year effort to purge its “liberal meetings.” This seems to be the most definite outcome of its showdown annual session on August 13 and 14, 2016. It was a very close thing. The leadership wanted a purge disguised as a split, and the steamroller…
Thunder In Carolina, Part Two: North Carolina Yearly Meeting – FUM And “Unity” vs. Uniformity

Chuck Fager I We begin by looking back to August 30, 2014, at the annual session of NCYM-FUM. The Executive Committee has just made its report. Read More
Rufus Jones and the Laymen’s Foreign Missions Inquiry: How a Quaker Helped to Shape Modern Ecumenical Christianity

by Stephen W. Angell. Read More
03: The Cold War’s Effect AFSC, 1947-49

H. Larry Ingle Reprinted from Peace & Change, 23 (Jan. 1998) Read More
04: Pickett vs. Chambers: A Case Study of Elite Class Power

H. Larry Ingle Reprinted from: An Early Assessment: U.S. Quakerism in the 20th Century. Papers from the Quaker History Roundtable, 2017. Read More
06: AFSC and Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting & Association

An Exchange About Numbers; (SAYMA), 2011-2012 From SAYMA’s minutes, 2011: [SAYMA =] Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting & Association June 9-12, 2011[Below: SAYMA’s logo & Map of Meetings] Read More
Is There Life after Death in Quaker North Carolina?

Chuck Fager Demolishing a 320-Year-Old Meeting At 10:58 Eastern time, Seventh Day (Saturday), Eighth Month (August) 5, 2017, at Quaker Lake Camp near Liberty, NC, Clerk Michael Fulp asked, “Do you approve?” Read More
An Increasingly Familiar Story: Northwest Yearly Meeting Expulsions & Sequelae

Chuck Fager We’ve also been following the growing tensions in Northwest Yearly Meeting, out west (see Issue #24:, Issue #27 ; and Issue #28 ). Read More
Wilmington YM: Another Yearly Meeting Schism?

By Stephen W. Angell Read More
Lucretia Mott & The Perils of Dissent – Excerpts from James & Lucretia Mott, Life & Letters.

Anna Davis Hallowell. Boston Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1884 1860: “[The black abolitionist] Robert Purvis has said that I was “the most belligerent non-resistant he ever saw.” I accept the character he gives me; and I glory in it. I have no idea, because I am a non-resistant, of submitting tamely to injustice inflicted either on…
Joseph Southall & The Ghosts of the Slain:

A Quaker Artist Takes on World War One Editor’s Note: Joseph Southall (1861-1944) was a successful British artist, who was at the peak of his renown and productivity when World War One began. A lifelong Quaker pacifist and socialist, he set aside much of his conventional work to make drawings of protest against the…
Everyday/Extraordinary Resistance: Two True Stories from the Vietnam Years

Leafleting a Meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marion Anderson By 1970, I had been organizing against the war full-time for five years. First, in Washington where I was an organizer of the televised National Teach-In which was watched by about ten million Americans and then in Michigan as chairman of Michi-gan Clergy and…
Jim Corbett, Sanctuary Prophet of Post-Desert Quakerism

Chuck Fager Friend Jim Corbett, of Pima Meeting in Tucson, died on his Arizona ranch August 2, 2001 after a short illness. He was 67. With his passing a quiet giant of Quaker resistance departed. Read More
Remembering Tom Fox Introduction to: Tom Fox Was My Friend. Yours, Too.

Chuck Fager Christian Peacemakers Kidnapped in Baghdad John Stephens called me with the news: Tom Fox and three other members of the Christian peacemaker Teams’ group (CPT) in Baghdad had been kidnaped. It was just after Thanksgiving, late November, 2005. Read More
Passages by Tom Fox & James Loney

1. From James Loney Easter 2006 For 118 days we lay in a tomb – Norman Kember, Harmeet Sooden and me. Tom Fox too, for 104 days, until he was murdered in the early morning hours of March 9. Read More
Resisting Oppression: Friends and the Stuart Restoration, 1660-1689

This article explores the responses of Quakers to the Stuart Restoration from 1660 to 1689, highlighting their struggle against religious persecution, efforts in political lobbying, and the development of internal organizational structures. Key figures like Margaret Fell and William Penn played crucial roles in advocating for religious tolerance, culminating in the 1689 Act of Toleration,…
The Quaker Peace Testimony as Questing Beast

The 1995 Roundtable was sponsored by the Pendle Hill Issues Program, for which I was then the coordinator. I asked Chel to prepare an overview of the Quaker Peace Testimony, because I was looking, quite frankly, for “new talent” and new thinking in the field.
The Influence of Psychoanalysis and Popular Psychology on Quaker Thought & Practice: An Exploratory Survey

Jacob Stone One Saturday back in the early 1990’s I found myself in a brief workshop sponsored by a Quaker organization; there was a short business meeting, a presentation, some socialization and networking during “dinner on the grounds”. And then….. …..a program about how I could “heal” myself. I didn’t at that time feel…
Narrative Theology: The Land

Ken Bradstock On the Appalachian Plateau in Southwestern Pennsylvania, a farm lies fallow from decades of disuse. The fine old Pennsylvania bank barn has collapsed toward the silo. The roof is lying on the wooden ruins and they, in turn, have buckled and fainted onto the stonework foundation. The pastures and crop fields all across…
Whittaker Chambers, Alger Hiss, and Quaker Leadership: A Problem for Friends

This post explores the complex relationship between Whittaker Chambers, a mid-20th-century Quaker and anti-Communist witness, and the broader Quaker community, including prominent leader Clarence Pickett. Despite Chambers’s profound religious conviction and his significant role in exposing Alger Hiss as a Soviet spy, many Quakers distanced themselves from him, highlighting tensions within Quaker politics and theology…
Attachments: NC Yearly Meeting Documents

Attachments to North Carolina Yearly Meeting Split debate
Tom Fox: In Memoriam: Introduction

by Chuck Fager Read More
North Carolina & Northwest Yearly Meeting Updates: Ambushed, Sandbagged, and Kicked Down The Road

Chuck Fager I Have you seen moments like this in detective films, or in stories? When Sherlock, or whoever the sleuth is, hunches forward and shouts: “Good God, Watson! How could I be such a FOOL??” (Usually, it means things are about to get very interesting.) Read More
George Fox University and West Hills Friends:

Controversy and Conflict in NorthwestYearly Meeting By Stephen W. Angell [Editor’s Note: In Issue #24, we reported on a two-sided struggle that had appeared in Northwest Yearly Meeting (NWYM). On one side, there emerged a visible support group for LGBT students, staff and alumni at the Newberg. Oregon campus of NWYM’s academic offspring, George Fox…
Part II: Northwest Yearly Meeting Elders “Release” (i.e., Expel) West Hills Friends Meeting

Background On July 24, 2015, only hours after the annual NWYM sessions had adjourned, NWYM elders communicated to West Hills Friends Meeting (WHF) that they had been expelled, or, in the elders’ term, “released,” from the yearly meeting. Read More
“Holy Nation: The Transatlantic Quaker Ministry in an Age of Revolution”* Reviewed

The review critically examines Sarah Crabtree’s book “Holy Nation,” which argues that early Quakerism was shaped by a “Zion tradition” viewing Quakers as a chosen people, analogous to biblical Israel. While the thesis sheds light on a neglected aspect of Quaker identity and activism, the book suffers from numerous factual inaccuracies, weak research, and a…
“A Sustainable Life: Quaker Faith and Practice in the Renewal of Creation”* A Review

Reviewed by Chel Avery “What sustains sustainability?” Mark Helpsmeet(1) has proposed this question as an alternative title for Doug Gwyn’s deep examination of Quaker life and sustainability. How do Quaker thought and Quaker practice provide a firm foundation for individuals and communities that are trying to live in harmony with creation and with prophetic attention…
Thunder In Carolina: North Carolina Yearly Meeting – FUM

Chuck Fager Read More
Letters From Meeting Demanding Disciplinary Action Against Meetings With Which They Differ – And Responses

[Note: The letters are reproduced here, and are also online at our website. Links are listed after the letters. The quality of reproduction is as good as we could make it from the available copies.] Read More
Links to NCYM-FUM letters online

Protesting Letters Poplar Ridge Letter:www.afriendlyletter.com/files/Poplar-Ridge-Friends-NCYM-FUM.pdf Read More
“From Personality & Place”* An Excerpt

Douglas Gwyn In Pendle Hill’s Upmeads library hangs a print of Edward Hicks’ The Peaceable Kingdom. Hicks (1780–1849) was a noted Quaker minister who lived in Newtown, Pennsylvania (about 45 miles northeast of Pendle Hill). He was also a painter at a time when Friends still shunned the arts. His great theme was the prophet…
“A Convergent Model of Renewal: Remixing the Quaker Tradition in a Participatory Culture”*

Reviewed by Chuck Fager There’s more than little déjà vu about A Convergent Model of Renewal. Quakerism, Wess Daniels argues, will be renewed by the coming together of Friends from the fringes of the various branches, particularly younger members and seekers. Or as he puts it: “It could be said that convergent Friends signal the emergence of a…
Forgiveness over Khmer Rouge: a journey or an obligation? A Beginning of Dialogue

Editor’s Introduction: Forgiveness is a frequent topic of discussion among Friends these days. For American Quakers, most of whom live in relatively comfortable circumstances, the issue is typically posed in personal terms: as a means of coping with lingering grievances, failed relationships, family trauma; in broader social contexts, it might involve experiences of group injustices…
Response: Forgiveness and Letting-Go: An Inter-Religious and Internal Dialogue Sallie B. King

Sallie B. King I thank Claire Ly for giving the interview, “Forgiveness: a journey or an obligation?” in which she shares her reflections upon her experience under the Khmer Rouge regime. I also thank Chuck Fager for sending the interview to me and inviting me to respond. Coming from an entirely secure and comfortable background,…
“From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1657-1761″*

Reviewed by H. Larry Ingle Read More
“Paper Trail: Writings from the Front Line of Peace Action, Quaker House/Fort Bragg, 2001-2012″* A Review

This review highlights Chuck Fager’s book “Paper Trail,” a detailed and personal account of peace activism at Quaker House during some of the most militarily intense years. The book covers topics like opposition to torture, the human cost of the Iraq War, and the complexities of peace work, emphasizing a message of support for troops…
“Remaking Friends: How Progressive Friends Changed Quakerism & Helped Save America, 1822-1940″* A Review

Reviewed by Isaac May In his introduction to Remaking Friends, Chuck Fager informs his readers that his book “attempts to answer a question… How did the liberal branch of Quakerism become what it is in the early 21st century?” (p. 3). He takes on this rather considerable task principally by examining an important historical antecedent of modern…
Links to NCYM-FUM letters online

Protesting Letters Poplar Ridge Letter: https://afriendlyletter.com/files/Poplar-Ridge-Friends-NCYMFUM.pdf Read More
“Angels of Progress: A Documentary History of the Progressive Friends: Radical Quakers in a Turbulent America”* Reviewed

This review examines “Angels of Progress,” a volume documenting the history and sources of the Progressive Friends, a radical Quaker movement that emerged in the 19th century advocating social reform and opposing conservative Quaker authority. The reviewer highlights the movement’s complex stances on abolition, peace testimony, and liberal theology, noting its influence on modern liberal…
An Excerpt from Remaking Friends: How Progressive Friends Changed Quakerism & Helped Save America, 1822-1940

By Chuck Fager FIVE: “Oh! No, It Cannot, Cannot Be – My Darling Babe Will Live . . .” Read More
Blessed Unrest: The Radical Act of Gathering

Scott Holmes I am a Quaker lawyer finding myself in the middle of the legal defense of Quakers arrested for failing to disperse from an unlawful assembly at the North Carolina General Assembly during the “Moral Monday” protests this summer. I have been inspired, moved, and challenged by Moral Monday protesters. I am…
Separation Accomplished: New Beginnings for a New Association of Friends and a “Reconfigured” Indiana Yearly Meeting

By Stephen W. Angell The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. Read More
Northwest Yearly Meeting and “Shattering” Conflict: Chapter One

Chuck Fager with Jade Souza With the schism in Indiana Yearly Meeting over one meeting’s open welcome to LGBT persons now complete, one could have thought this journal would have a break from coverage of such events. Read More
Progressive Friends: The Top Ten Reasons Why They’re The Most Interesting Quakers We Never Heard Of

Chuck Fager (Adapted from a presentation at the Conference of Quaker Historians & Archivists, Sixth Month 2012) Read More
The Battle for Battle Creek: Sectarian Competition in the Yankee West

The article explores the history of liberal sectarianism in 19th-century Battle Creek, Michigan, highlighting the significant presence and influence of Hicksite Quakers, Progressive Friends, Swedenborgians, and Spiritualists. It details how this religiously tolerant and reform-minded environment shaped Battle Creek’s development, including its health reform movements, and impacted the rise of Seventh-Day Adventism and the cereal…
“Quaker Brotherhood: Interracial Activism and the American Friends Service Committee, 1917-1950″*

Reviewed by H. Larry Ingle Friends often are at their best when they have visible opponents who are deeply entrenched, respectable, and powerful but support some odious practice – think slaveholders. But the reality is that partially through dramatic Quaker pre-Civil War and wartime pressure, President Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery 150 years ago this year.…
Indiana Yearly Meeting Update & Documents

In This Section: Read More
“350 Years of the Society of Friends in North America: 1661-2011″*

The post reviews Geoffrey Kaiser’s detailed and provocative “Quaker Family Tree Chart,” which visually represents 350 years of Quaker history in North America, highlighting numerous schisms and theological tensions. Kaiser’s perspective emphasizes Robert Barclay’s theology, particularly the universality of the Inner Light, and contrasts the numerous evangelical splits with the more stable liberal Quaker tradition.…
The Proposed Split of Indiana Yearly Meeting: What Its Monthly Meetings Say

By Stephen W. Angell Read More
“Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet”*

Reviewed by Chuck Fager Read More
Editor’s Introduction: Divorce in Indiana – Quaker Style

Divorce is not as traumatic an experience as it once was. In fact, today most spouses resolve to part peaceably. No-fault laws and mediators can smooth the way to property and custody agreements. The results are still wrenching, but civilized, and much better for the children. Not only couples, but countries have managed this: in…
The Darkness of Mother Teresa, Two Reviews*

by George Amoss Jr. Read More
Two Current Conflicts in Midwestern Friends Meetings

Stephen W. Angell Read More
Postscript: Allen Jay on the Spirit of Separation

This post highlights Allen Jay’s role as a peacemaker among various Quaker divisions in the nineteenth century, emphasizing his view that separation and judgment among Friends impede the spirit of the Gospel and Christian love. Jay advocated for unity, recognizing the value in differing perspectives within Quakerism and warning against the bitterness caused by schisms.…
“A History of Southland College: The Society of Friends and Black Education in Arkansas,”* A Review

This article reviews Thomas C. Kennedy’s comprehensive history of Southland College, a Quaker-supported African-American educational institution in Arkansas from 1864 to 1925. It highlights the school’s religious and educational mission, the challenges it faced due to racial violence and financial difficulties, and the evolving Quaker commitments to racial equality. The review also emphasizes the significance…
“Climate Wars” & “The Green Zone”* Reviewed

Reviewed by Chuck Fager Read More
An Argument for Comprehensive Religious Education of FGC Young Friends

Joyce Ketterer I am a life-long Quaker and a product of ten years of formal Quaker education as well as nine years of Young Friends experience in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. In high school, I was not only an avid attendee of Young Friends but also a strong Quaker leader, the co-founder, and co-clerk of an…
“Hostage In Iraq” & “118 Days: Christian Peacemaker Teams Held Hostage in Iraq”* Reviewed

Reviewed by Chuck Fager This is a bad news-good news review. Bad news first: In US army jargon, the “Tooth-to-Tail-Ratio” describes the fact that for every armed soldier on the Baghdad streets or in Afghan mountains, there is a “tail” of eight to ten others, stretching back to the states, and typically including civilians. Read…
Narrative Theology: from Psychological Warfare to Peace; My journey to/into Quakerism and nonviolence

Jeanne-Henriette Louis My Ph.D. dissertation on the concepts of psychological warfare in the United States during the Second World War originated in the need to investigate the period corresponding to the first years of my life (I was born in 1938) but also to an extremely painful part of world history. I was teaching North…
“The Dark Side” and “Never Surrender”* Reviewed

Reviewed by Chuck Fager Since I live and work next door to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, I looked forward to these two books. From very different angles, they shine sharp spotlights on Fort Bragg and its important role in our current war. Beyond that, they illuminate much of our common landscape in the United States…
“Hideous Dream,” “Full Spectrum Disorder: the Military in the New American Century” & “Hold On to Your Humanity: An Open Letter to GI’s in Iraq”* Reviewed

Reviewed by David Gosling In preparing this collective review of three written pieces by Stan Goff, a one-time Army Master Sergeant turned Socialist; I found myself simultaneously repulsed and intrigued, pushed and pulled, by his suggestions, opinions, insights, findings, memories, and rants. Of the three works, one is a straightforward memoir of Goff’s experiences in…
An Interview with David Gosling, Winter 2008

Q. Can you tell us first a bit about your military service and your deployment to Iraq? Read More
Opening the Scriptures, Then and Now

By Stephen W. Angell From East Africa to the Midwestern United States, the first decade of the twenty-first century has proven to be a momentous time for the Religious Society of Friends. In Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting, to which I belong, Friends have been discussing whether our minute on environmental sustainability should include the concept…
“The Trouble with God: Building the Republic of Heaven”* A Review

A theist Friend’s Appreciation of Quaker Non-theism
“Putting the Bible into Perspective: Hicksites and the Theological Treatment of the Bible in Progressive Reform”

Jody Cross-Hansen This article is part of one chapter of my doctoral dissertation–a work-in-progress in which I am examining the Nancy Hewitt hypothesis that perhaps the Hicksite schism was a positive event because it led to liberal reform among women. The jury is still very much out on this hypothesis. Read More
Melting Icebergs Don’t Scream: A Response to Keith Helmuth’s: “The Angel of History, the Storm of Progress, And the Order of the Soul”

By Chuck Fager In Quaker Theology #12, we published an essay by Keith Helmuth, which offered a theological interpretation of our environmental plight, its associated crises and very uncertain outlook. Your editor praised the piece highly, as offering a superior quality of analysis and articulation of this very difficult situation. Read More
“Godless For God’s Sake: Nontheism In Contemporary Quakerism”* — A Review

What have we come to in Friends religious thought, when the most exciting book of Quaker theology I’ve read in years is produced by a bunch of Quaker non-theists–twenty-seven in all?
Apocalypse – Later*

A Postscript by Chuck Fager As noted in our review of this novel in QT #12, the author had used the novel form to spread a prophecy that the real town of Farmington, Maine would be transformed into the New Jerusalem, free of death, sin, and illness, on June 6, 2006, at dawn. The transformation…
The Angel of History, the Storm of Progress, And the Order of the Soul

Keith Helmuth Read More
“Farmington! Farmington!” A Review*

Licia Kuenning and her prophecy.
A Conservative Yearly Meeting is Born

This post recounts the history and reasons behind the 1904 formation of the North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative), a group that separated due to disagreements over evangelistic revivals, formal education for ministers, and changes in worship practice. Rich Square Monthly Meeting, opposing new evangelical methods and the Uniform Discipline, led the split to maintain traditional…
In Search of Religious Radicalism

By Charley Earp 1. The Radicalization of a Preacher’s Kid A Long Strange Trip At the very core of my being, I have undergone an earth-shaking religious transition in the past few years. Less than nine years ago, I was a passionately committed Bible-believing Christian. Not that I was a conventional evangelical by any stretch…
Lucretia Mott, Liberal Quaker Theologian

Chuck Fager Let me begin by posing a question: If Lucretia Mott had ever been arrested for being a liberal Quaker theologian, would there have been enough evidence to convict? Read More
“Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power In a Violent World” a Review

Reviewed by Chuck Fager I First a bit of autobiography: Jean Bethke Elshtain and I were both undergraduates at Colorado State University, and late in my time there, we became acquainted. I recall with a smile a party where she, a known intellectual, amazed me by dancing wildly to the Beatles, at a time when…
Quakers and The Lamb’s War: A Hermeneutic for Confronting Evil, Non-Violent Resistance

By Gene Hillman Read More
Real Presence and First-Day Pitch-Ins: Why Quakers Are, and Must Be, a Eucharistic People

By Patrick J. Nugent “Wait upon God for the Living Bread, that never fades away.” Read More
A Great Deep: The Peace Testimony and Historical Realism

By Chuck Fager Walking in the Way of Peace: Quaker Pacifism in the Seventeenth Century. Meredith Baldwin Weddle. Oxford University Pres, 2001 Read More
A review of “Anabaptist Theology in Face of Postmodernity: A Proposal for the Third Millennium”*

Reviewed by Thomas Finger1 Western systematic, or constructive, theology has developed largely within “mainline” communions– most notably, Reformed, Lutheran and Catholic. Since about 1970, however, a broadly postmodern atmosphere has encouraged explicit theologizing among more particular, often marginalized, groups: blacks, women, Hispanics and many others. And since about 1980, these have been joined by “believers’…
Friends’ Ecclesiology and The Quaker-Wide Web

By Chuck Fager Read More
An Exchange: Quaker Theology Without God?

By Edward James. Read More
The Making of a Quaker Atheist

Copyright © George Amoss, Jr., 1999All rights reserved. Read More
Lucretia Mott, Liberal Quaker Theologian

How a woman minister set the course and the content of most US liberal Quaker theology, and why she has not received her proper recognition as a seminal figure in our religious history.
Inventory of the William Rotch Papers

William Rotch, prominent shipowner and resolute Quaker friend, was born October 4, 1734 on Nantucket into a family already involved in whale fisheries. When the American Revolution erupted, Rotch maintained the pacificist stance of his Quaker religion, which in turn reflected the official policy of neutrality adopted by Nantucket.