Quaker Hill / A Sociological Study

by Warren H. Wilson

The hospitality of the neighborhood expressed this simple code. It was the custom to entertain the traveler in any house to which he might come. It would have been wrong to exclude him; he was welcomed with a dignified and formal respect by these old Friends, because entertainment of guests in those days was a vital reality, as well as a religious practice. These settlers in the wild forests believed that in every wayfarer was a divine voice, a possible message from heaven. They also treated every traveler as a possible object of their "preachments," and spared not to "testify" to him of their peculiar beliefs and "leadings." It was the Friends' method of propagating their gospel to send men and women on journeys, without pay, to distant states and provinces. This religious touring was not peculiar to them, but it was made by them an official agency of great power in evangelizing the Colonies.

As an itinerant Friend, Woolman, the anti-slavery apostle, came to the Hill in 176-. So Paul Osborn joined himself to a party of Friends "travelling on truth's account," and with them visited the Carolinas, in the years before the Revolution. The same pioneer left in his will directions for the entertainment of such travellers upon his estate forever.[16]

This religious itinerating was a part of the economic life of those days as well; for the Friends never separated the one from the other. Wherever they went they "testified," and to every place they came with shrewd appreciation of its value as a place of settlement. Says James Wood: "Each Quaker home as it was settled became a resting-place for those who followed, for it was a cardinal principle of Quaker hospitality to keep open house for all fellow-members, under all circumstances."[17]

The development of the hospitality that was a part of the religion of the Quakers would be itself a sufficient study. It has furnished some of the most interesting chapters of the history of the Hill. It is now completely transformed, through the pressure of competitive economic life; and, with undiminished
activities, has become a means of revenue in "the
keeping of boarders." Seven of the old Quaker homes, in the period of the Mixed Community, took on the aspect of small hotels. For this business the Quakers have a preparation in their history and traditions. They have an inbred genius for hospitality. They have also a thrift and capacity for "management" which have made their efforts successful. One is impressed in their houses by a union of abundance with economy, impossible to imitate.

Like other American pioneer neighborhoods, of a religious type, the Quaker community at Oblong had a history in the matter of sexual morality. The relations of the sexes offered to the Friends a field in which their favorite doctrine of the indwelling divine spirit produced moral harvests. The records of Oblong Meeting are filled with cases of moral discipline. There is scarcely a meeting in whose minutes some case is not mentioned, either its initial, intermediate or final stages. No family was exempt from this experience. The best families furnished the culprits as often as they supplied the committees to investigate and to condemn.

The regular method of procedure in marriage will best exhibit the moral standards of the time. When a couple would marry, they indicated to the Meeting their intention; and a committee was at once appointed to investigate their "clearness." That is, these two must be free of other engagements, and must be free of debt or other incumbrance of such sort as would render marriage impossible or unadvisable. At the next monthly meeting the report of the committee advanced the case one stage; and if they were found "clear of all others," another committee was appointed "to see that the marriage was orderly performed."

The parties on the day set appeared before the Meeting,[18] and in its regular course, stood up and said the words of mutual agreement which made them man and wife. A certificate was used, and to it the guests signed their names. But no minister had official part in the ceremony. It was their belief, to which they adhered with logical strictness, that the divine spirit in each of the parties to a marriage made it sacred, and that in marrying they spoke the will of the Spirit.

Entire continence was expected of every unmarried person, and the strictest marital faithfulness of man and wife, because of the sacredness of personal life. But in a pioneer society, through those rough early decades, when for long times war was disturbing the serenity of social life, the conduct of men and women, not mindful of propriety, was determined by the strong, masterful passions of an out of door people. Besides, the government of the Meeting was contrary to the general opinion of the countryside, and the Meeting House members were immersed in a population whose standards were looser, as well as sanctioned by authorities not recognized by the Meeting. The result was that in the first century of the Hill, 1728-1828, there were many instances of sexual immorality, many accusations of married persons untrue to their vows, and a resulting attention of the whole community to this theme which we do not know to-day. Frankness of discussion of these matters prevailed. The punishments inflicted, the public confessions demanded, the condemnation of specific and detailed offences read from the steps of the Meeting Houses, were all as far from present day approval as the offences themselves from modern experience. The writer is sure that, comparing the records of the Quaker Community with his own knowledge of the annals of the Mixed Community, there were more offences of this kind considered by the Monthly Meeting of Oblong in any one year, 1728-1828, than were publicly known in a population of the same extent in the ten years 1890-1900. The commonest of these offences were simple cases of illicit relations between unmarried persons, or between persons, one of whom was married; the offence often being associated in the minds of the accusers with "going to frollicks." In these, as in all cases, the Meeting received the complaint and appointed a committee to investigate and to labor with the accused. On receiving its report, if guilt was evidenced, the Meeting pressed the matter, often increasing the size of the committee. It always demanded an expression of repentance, and the restoration of right conduct, without which no satisfaction was to be had. If the accused persons, being found guilty, did not repent, they were in the end "disowned." The disownment by the Meeting was a serious penalty. It diminished a man's business opportunities, it shut the door of social life to him, and it effectually forbade his marriage within the Meeting.

Its power is shown in a number of cases recorded in the minutes, in which the ban of the Meeting had been laid upon some one, who was compelled later to come to the Meeting, make a tardy acknowledgement, and be restored, before he could proceed freely in some of the communal activities controlled by the Meeting. Often the committee appointed by the Meeting reported that they were not satisfied with the repentance offered, seeing in it evidently more of policy than penitence. Usually they received, in later visitations of the accused, sufficient tokens of submission, and the Meeting was satisfied; but not always.