You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Join me via Zoom at 6 pm Tuesday when I look at Dover Friends’ influence in Maine – along with other surprises. We’ll start with sections of my book Quaking Dover and move on from there. (May I admit that preparing these PowerPoint presentations turns into a lot of fun?)
Preregistration for the Pembroke (Maine) Historical Society’s free event in its wonderful ongoing series is required. Hope you’ll be there.
One of the lingering questions about Dover Friends is what happened to our first meetinghouse after it was moved across the river to Eliot, Maine, in 1769.
It originally sat next to today’s Pinkham cemetery just south of St. Thomas Aquinas high school and was used there from the 1680s until the current meetinghouse was built in 1768.
Quaker history buff Silas Weeks was long puzzled about its destiny, relating that it had been moved again and incorporated into a neighboring garage, but he got no further than that. When we looked about, nothing resembled what we would have expected as a Quaker meetinghouse.
As he related in his comprehensive 2001 book, New England Quaker Meetinghouses: Past and Present, a bronze plaque at the corner of State Route 103 and River Road in Eliot marks the site of the first Quaker Meeting in Maine and is affixed to what is said to have been a carriage stone used as a horse block for dismounting.
When I was back in Dover last month to do a presentation at the public library, I decided to swing by the Shapleigh manor grounds to take a few additional photos for my history project. I missed the turnoff and was surprised when I came upon the Eliot Quaker site instead. I pulled over to get fresh photos of the small burial ground and, on impulse, decided to take some shots of a 1950s’ red garage sitting nearby.
As I was doing that, a woman came out from a house behind it and called out, “Are you from the town?” The tone was accusing, but I explained who I was and why I was interested. That’s when things got interesting.
She mentioned that the building had been used as a garage for at least a century and that the planks in the flooring upstairs were quite wide – something that often indicates a very old structure, as well as the King’s Pine restrictions.
As we looked about, some other things began to click.
The building is square – a nonconforming size in the town’s current zoning rules – 24 or 25 feet on each side. It would have allowed for separate men’s and women’s sides with a divider down the middle, one that could be opened or closed as needed. When I saw one side, I recalled seeing something similar a few years earlier in Fort Fairfield, Maine, where the sides and back of the meetinghouse had been left untouched when a steeple and stained-glass windows were installed on the front. The footprint of the two meetinghouses, I now see, is about the same.
It’s not uncommon for old buildings in New England to undergo huge changes over the years. Adding the garage doors where the men’s and women’s entrances were would make sense, then, as did the dormer upstairs and a back entry. A cement floor and foundation would have been reasonable changes, too. Who knows if the original even had flooring or what remodeling occurred when the house was relocated to Maine. Bigger windows, including the one upstairs on the front, would have been a no-brainer. It’s not uncommon to hear of old houses that have barely a stick of the original wood remaining.
The fact remains that when Dover Friends built their first meetinghouse, there was no tradition to adhere to. One in Third Haven, Maryland, may have been earlier. Dover’s may have predated the one in Salem, Massachusetts – a replica of that structure sits on the grounds of the Peabody-Essex Museum and looks quite different from this but of roughly similar size.
The low pitch of the roof of the Eliot garage was a concern for me, but I now see it matches Henniker’s 1790 meetinghouse in New Hampshire.
The garage and burial ground are on what had been the extensive Asa Allen farm, a surname common in Dover Quaker records. I am inclined to go along with the view that the cemetery was the Allen family’s, rather than the Meeting’s. Once gravestones were allowed, the ones that were erected adhere to common dating rather than the traditional Plain designations.
The garage, meanwhile, appears doomed for demolition as a new generation takes ownership. The Eliot Historical Society’s website suggests that the meetinghouse was torn down in the [late?] 1800s, but even if that were the case, portions may have still been used in the garage across River Road.
As for my assumption that this was a 1950’s garage? Back to the proverbial drawing board.
For much of its first century of settlement, Dover was on the frontier of English settlement. Tenuous outposts clung to the coastline as far as Pemaquid and Monhegan Island in Maine, but after hostilities broke out in 1689, European settlement was pushed down to Wells, just beyond Dover.
During this time, Dover Friends were both the furthest north and furthest east Quakers in the New World. Did they feel isolated or vulnerable? They did get some strong visiting ministry during those years.
Only when Casco Bay, or today’s Greater Portland, was resettled around 1740 did that begin to change.
The number of Dover Friends relocating to new Maine lands by 1800 continues to astound me. After all, the traditional historical focus tends to look south, to Boston and to the west beyond.
I’m sensing that there’s a much richer story looking in the other direction, involving Dover families of all stripes.
Reading can be an intimate connection between an anonymous individual and a writer. The action really is one-on-one, even for a bestselling book.
Too often, though, it’s one way, like therapy with no one piping up on the other end.
Authors typically work in isolation on a work of passion and then step forward in a state of exposure. It can be especially tense if you’ve taken risks, knowing they can backfire.
Unless you’ve been there, you have no idea how much a reaction, positive or negative, can feel. There really is a shock and elation when you see that someone else “gets it.” Or even if they don’t, they’ve at least engaged.
Typically, though, there’s silence.
That’s why I’m still astonished by people who tell me they love the tone and content of my new book.
In addition, even a brief review or comment can help a writer sharpen the direction of future work.
Reactions to Quaking Dover are definitely encouraging fresh perspectives for my own public presentations around the work. Remember, one publishing house rejected the book because they detested first-person. Thankfully, I listened to a wise beta reader and reacted accordingly.
I definitely look forward to hearing your reactions. In addition, if you like the book, please leave a brief review plus stars at your retailer’s website or other places. Nothing beats word-of-mouth, either, in the book world.
In reviewing passages I deleted from my draft version of Quaking Dover, I found this troubling detail. The conflicts with the Indigenous people, after all, are not the focus of the book. And yet …
After “the Indians renewed their ravages on the frontiers in small parties [in 1711, with several of the attacks detailed] in consequence of these ravages the House of Assembly passed the following vote: ‘Voted for Incouragement of Volunteers to Kill and Destroy the Indian Rebels in the province of New Hampe for every man shall be paid sixty pound, for every woman forty pound, for every child thirty to be paid out of the Treasury, and that the said Volenteers shall Remain in that service at least four months, not leaving any Garrison unnarmed, but have the consent of the comitte of Meletia for there so Inlisting … by order of the house. Sam’l Keais, Clark.”
~*~
That’s it, a bounty for killing children, and another, their mothers. Men might be considered warriors, but not necessarily.
Even if this was never paid, it’s inexcusable.
And the English considered the Natives barbarian savages?
I had initially dismissed them as inconsequential, but when Massachusetts annexed New Hampshire, it allowed two crucial exemptions in the Live Free or Die province.
The first let all free males vote in town affairs, not just those in good standing in the tax-supported church. And it let them hold land.
What that meant for those joining the Quaker and Baptist movements was that they wouldn’t be disenfranchised for their faith.
That wasn’t the case in the Puritan colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Among the stories I deleted from the draft of Quaking Dover was one dealing with the fate of a grandson of Dover founder Edward Hilton.
While both of the immigrant Hilton brothers eventually left Dover, Edward’s family married prominently.
I still feel that the story illuminates the tensions of living on the frontier of early New Hampshire, as you’ll see. It just didn’t fit into the emerging thrust of my book.
Take a look:
In the summer of 1706, Winthrop Hilton led a work crew of 17 men into the forest of Epping, which was then still part of Exeter. Across New England, all white pines of two-foot circumference or more were reserved for the Royal Navy to use as masts, and the provincial surveyor recorded and marked these as the King’s pine. Hilton’s task was called limbing, in this instance the removal the limbs and bark from mast trees felled the previous winter.
“Their only tool was an ax,” Joy True, curator of the Epping Historical Society, explains. If the bark was not peeled off these tall, straight, majestic trees, they would become damaged by worms.
Hilton was also the highest-ranking military officer in New Hampshire, a position he filled after the death of Major Waldron in 1689. The family homestead in Newfields, also then part of Exeter, was a fortified, manned garrison.
“In 1706 the natives kept careful watch,” True writes. “They attacked and killed any man that left the shelter of the garrison. By the summer of 1710, the ravages of the war had greatly exhausted the people of the upper New England villages. Many of the men that were fit for military service were away at Port Royal in Nova Scotia defending settlers from Indian attacks. In the meantime, small bands of Indians in this area were making forays into the white settlements with increased daring.”
Colonel Hilton made for an exceptional target. As a leading figure in the expeditions to the eastern frontier, he had taken in the raid against the Indian settlement at Norridgewock, Maine. “As a result, he became the object of bitter grudges by the enemy,” True observes. “He was above average size, of muscular physique, and of resolute character. He was one of the best, a leader in his community; and he was respected by friends and neighbors. But Hilton had a darker side; he thought nothing of killing the enemy, man, woman or child. On Indian raids, he often spared the women and children, taking them into captivity. Hilton and his band of men, traveled far and near, pursuing the enemy. Is it any wonder, the Indians hated him, and plotted their revenge?”
He thought he had enough men to avert trouble, but it was, as True notes, “a wet and stormy day, and all their powder was wet, so of little use to them in an emergency. The attack was so sudden; they never had a chance to respond.
“Colonel Hilton had determined many years before that he would not be captured by the Indians. He would fight to the death rather than being captured. The enemy was aware of this, and after all their planning, they knew they could steal closer to Colonel Hilton and give him little opportunity to defend himself. Then they struck, their first target was Hilton, and then two other men were quickly killed, and two men were captured. The rest of the men fled for Exeter, and safety.”
One of the captives “was probably Dudley Hilton, brother of Winthrop. His body was not recovered at the massacre, and he was never heard from again.”
~*~
Let me now ask:
Does any of this fit into what you had envisioned as early New England?
Maintaining a unique group identity can be perilous, no matter how necessary.
The necessity side, at its best, has to do with trying to make progress, improve justice and physical comfort, live healthier, counter the corrosive forces of status quo and lethargy, be smarter, and so on. Put it any way you want, things in general could be better, and even thinking something like that will set you apart from the status quo of broader society.
On the other hand, humans are social animals. We need others as family, friends, colleagues, cohorts. We even need them to share our stories, histories, songs, and place on this earth. Relax, right?
It’s a complex calculus, then, around the world.
What I started to see in researching my book on a Quaker community in New England, though, was a blatant arrogance within the Puritan wave of immigration. I suspect similar sides are apparent in the Spanish settlers to the south or the French to the north, or, well, back in the Old World, all the way to China. Even one tribe over another.
I’m trying to look at this clearly.
The English, of course, knew they were superior to the French, who I gather saw it the other way around. (Insert proper expletive and spit appropriately.) And they were both superior to the Spanish or Portuguese or Italians, according to this scenario.
Germans? Not really on the scene in earliest settlement in America, far as I can tell, though the Dutch of New Netherlands add their own twist.
Remember, the English also looked down on the Scots and Irish, as well as the Welsh and Cornish.
Sounds to me like the old game, King of the Hill.
The comedian Eddie Izzard has an insightful riff on this where he says it all comes down to a flag. If you have no flag, you have no claim to your country or land. So, here, I’ll stick mine in the ground and this place is mine.
That does make for a short ride on the papal Doctrine of Discovery. Look it up, if you must.
What I’ve seen in my research is how this air of superiority made equitable dealings between the Europeans and the Indigenous peoples impossible. There was no eye-to-eye even exchange. Even the concept of farming was viewed as more productive, and thus superior, than the Native hunting and gathering use of a piece of land.
Well, I could argue that God preferred a wild-game offering over grain in Cain vs. Abel, Genesis chapter 4.
You know, quality over quantity.
As for equality? We have our guns and Bibles.
Which points to another distinction: written language. I’m a writer and a reader. You expect me to not take sides here?
Still, in the New England story, the English weren’t shy about labeling the Natives as “barbarians,” “savages,” and “heathens.” Never mind many of the practices of the English and French, who not only offered bounties on scalps – Native and the other side’s European – but also indulged in the practice themselves. As for heathen? For the Puritans, with their Calvinist inclination of proclaiming themselves God’s Elect, most other Christians were also lumped in that group, perhaps at a slightly lesser degree.
Many of the consequences, however, have been tragic, for all sides.
In some theology, pride is a sin, right? Ahem. (Hopefully, in contrast to justifiable self-esteem.)
Well, as some among us might note, I’m proud to be a humble Quaker. Not that we didn’t fall into that trap of feeling superior, too.
There’s plenty of work for all to do on this issue. I’ll leave my end of the discussion at that, for now.
Assuming they’re well written.
For my own contributions to the field, see Quaking Dover. Order your copy at your favorite bookstore. Or request it at your public library.
Continuing research into topics related to my new book Quaking Dover has greatly changed my view of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in New England. And thus the greater legacy of the region itself.
And here I’d thought I was done!
When Carla Gardina Pestana’s history, Quakers and Baptists in colonial Massachusetts, presented the Salem Friends Meeting as the only Quaker body in the Puritan colonies, I was initially baffled, only to learn that it was true, including those of today’s Connecticut.
Besides Dover and Hampton in New Hampshire, the other Quaker congregations were in Rhode Island or what was then the Plymouth colony or, in Nantucket’s case, the province of New York.
Massachusetts’ unification of the Plymouth colony in 1691 does muddy the waters, but by then, the persecution by Puritans had greatly lessened.
The ultimate impact was on freedom of religion and speech and political opinions, all of which are facing renewed opposition today.
As I had said, here I thought I was done.
Jnana's Red Barn 