Collecting area: Quakers

Gideon Wanton, a two-time governor of colonial Rhode Island, and his son John were Quaker merchants from Newport. During the middle years of the eighteenth century, they carried on an active trade who took an active part in the triangular trade.

This diminutive cash account book offers a window onto the business ventures of a powerful Newport Quaker family during the mid-eighteenth century. Kept during a five-year period, 1753-1759, the book contains terse records of cash expenditures in exchange for goods and services to Gideon and John Wanton. Records of the coastwise trade in commodities such as pork, flour, and mackerel to Philadelphia and other ports accompany notices of molasses from Surinam and rum. The lack of payments relating directly to enslaved people is likely the result of the sale of the human cargo in the West Indies prior to returning to Newport.

Quaker worship in Weare, New Hampshire, began in 1769, and by 1785, it was set off from Seabrook Monthly Meeting as a monthly meeting. Initially a part of Salem Quarter, Weare was transferred to Dover Quarter in 1958.

The records of Weare Monthly Meeting include minutes and newsletters from 1795-1944 and 2010-2018 (including reports on the ministry in Kenya). Financial records are represented by Treasurer’s and Trust Fund Reports. North Weare Preparative Meeting is documented through minutes and booklets dating from 1834-1940.

The Wellesley Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends) was set off from Cambridge Monthly Meeting in 1958 after fourteen years of worship. Since the outset, Wellesley has been a member of Salem Quarterly Meeting and since 1992, it sponsored a worship group (now a Recognized Meeting) at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk until 2020.

The records of Wellesley Monthly Meeting are comprised of relatively complete set of meeting minutes from 1954 (when Wellesley was a Recognized Meeting under the care of Cambridge) to 2004, along with newsletters from 1965-2011.

The present-day Westerly Friends Meeting can trace its roots to a Preparative Meeting established in 1744 under the care of South Kingstown Monthly Meeting. As the home meeting of John Wilbur, Westerly was deeply immersed in the Separation of 1845, with the South Kingstown Wilburite meeting persisting until the great reunion of New England Friends a century later. South Kingstown Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) was renamed Westerly Monthly Meeting after the reunion and continues under that name to the present.

The records of Westerly Monthly Meeting are incomplete, but include minutes recording its transition from its Wilburite predecessor, the South Kingstown Monthly Meeting, and sporadic minutes since.

In 1699, Quaker meeting for worship began in Acoaxet, Mass., a coastal village within the boundaries of what would become the town of Westport. The worship group was set off from Dartmouth Monthly as a monthly meeting of its own in 1766, and became affiliated with Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting. Gradually between 1803 and 1812 Acoaxet became known as Westport Monthly Meeting.

Westport Monthly Meeting of Friends is well documented, with nearly continuous minutes of business meetings stretching from 1766 to 1989, a collection of vital statistics from the establishment of the meeting through 1887, and over fifty years of newsletters (1961-2004).

A product of the Wilburite separation of 1845, the Westport Monthly Meeting of Friends (Wilburite) was short lived, gathering only until it was laid down in 1850. Members of the meeting continued for another year as a preparative meeting under the aegis of Dartmouth Monthly Meeting (Wilburite).

The records of this ephemeral Wilburite monthly include complete minutes of both the men’s and women’s meetings.

A convinced Friend who became an advocate for peace, Willis H. White was a member of the East Greenwich Monthly Meeting. A secretary in the Providence-based real estate firm William H. White & Sons, White was active in several organizations promoting peace and spiritual renewal within the Society of Friends in the years after the First World War.

The bulk of Willis H. White’s papers are concentrated on his activities on behalf of peace, social justice, and the Society of Friends in the period 1919-1922. The collection includes materials documenting White’s work with the American Friends Service Committee and on invigorating the Society through the London Conference of All Friends and the evangelical Forward Movement of Friends, and there is a relatively small, but interesting series of letters from the labor and peace activist, A. J. Muste.

Wilderness Monthly Meeting originated out of an independent worship group in Shrewsbury, Vermont, in 1972. Moving to the Farm and Wilderness Camps at Plymouth, Vt., in 1977, it came under care of Bennington Monthly as the Wilderness Meeting, setting off as a monthly meeting in the following year. It has subsequently moved to Ludlow, Rutland, Tinmouth, Wallingford, and (currently) Cuttingville, Vt.

The records for Wilderness Monthly Meeting in SCUA consist solely of state of the society reports, 1991-1994.

Quaker worship began in Windham, Me., around 1780, with a preparative meeting established there under the care of Falmouth Monthly Meeting. Windham was set off as a monthly meeting in 1803, and it had Limington Monthly set off from it in 1846. Windham has supported both a preparative meeting (1844-1889) and worship group (1903-1945) at nearby Casco, where the meeting continues to gather during the late summer months.

Windham Monthly Meeting is represented in SCUA by only two State of the Society reports, 1989 and 1993. The bulk of the records for Windham Monthly are held at the Maine Historical Society

With a complex history of names changes and switches in quarterly affiliation, Winthrop Monthly Meeting was founded in the Kennebec Valley, Maine, in 1813 as Leeds Monthly Meeting. It is currently a semi-programmed meeting under the care of Vassalboro Quarter.

SCUA’s holdings for Winthrop Monthly Meeting are limited to a single volume of meeting minutes (1944-1969); a volume recording births, death, and marriages; and two volumes of membership records. The bulk of the records for Winthrop are held in the collections of the Maine Historical Society.