Collecting area: Wilburites

The Friends’ Monthly Meeting at Berwick, Maine, divided during the Wilburite split of 1845, with the smaller Wilburite Meeting organized under the Wilburite Dover Quarterly Meeting (1845-1851) and then under the combined Salem and Dover Quarterly. Berwick was laid down on April 28, 1881, with its last recorded meeting on May 26, 1881. Its members joined Dartmouth Monthly Meeting (Wilburite).

Surviving records of this short-lived Wilburite Friends meeting include one volume each of minutes from the Men’s and Women’s meetings.

Separating from the main body of the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting in 1845, the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting became one the more successful Wilburite meetings, strengthened by the absorption of smaller peers including Westport (1850), New Bedford (1865), and Berwick (1881). In 1944, just prior to the New England Friends’ reunification, Dartmouth Monthly changed its name to North Dartmouth Monthly to distinguish itself from the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting situated in South Dartmouth.

The relatively rich documentation for Dartmouth Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) begins with the meeting’s establishment in the separation of 1845 and continues through reunification as the North Dartmouth Monthly Meeting. This collection includes continuous minutes from 1845 through 1989 (including the men’s and women’s minutes), with less thorough records from the Treasurer and, for a brief period only, for the Ministers and Elders. The vital records are restricted to a single volume of certificates of removal.

A small group from Greenwich Monthly Meeting in East Greenwich, R.I., separated from the larger body during the Friends’ doctrinal controversies of the 1840s to form the Greenwich Monthly Meeting (Wilburite). Established under the aegis of Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting (Wilburite) in 1844, they were laid down just one year later and its members transferred to Kingstown Monthly Meeting (Wilburite).

These three slender volumes document the short-lived Greenwich Monthly Meeting (Wilburite). A thin notebook contains the surviving minutes of the Men’s meeting, while the Women’s minutes (and partial copy) were continued after the members transferred to the care of South Kingston Monthly Meeting in 1845.

In the complex history of Quakerism on Nantucket, the Wilburite Nantucket Monthly Meeting of Friends stands out. Separating from the numerically smaller Gurneyites in 1845, the “Otisite” monthly on Nantucket separated again in 1863, drawing away from the Wilburite Sandwich Quarterly Meeting, drawing with them a number of sympathetic Friends on the mainland, particularly in Warwick, R.I. Although worship on the island effectively ended in 1894, the mainland Otisites maintained their separation until 1911. Quaker worship on Nantucket was revived in 1939 and with the reunion of Wilburites and Gurneyites in 1944, the monthly meeting decided to remain independent, joining New England Yearly Meeting only in 1956.

This small, but important collection is centered on the latter years of the Wilburite meeting on Nantucket, during the period of reunification with Gurneyites. The bulk of records for the Nantucket Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) are housed at the Nantucket Historical Association.

During the reunification of New England Friends in 1945, the Narragansett Quarterly Meeting (Wilburite) was formed as a transitional body. Established as a successor to the Rhode Island and Sandwich Quarterly Meeting (Wilburite) in 1944, it was the sole remaining Wilburite Quarterly, overseeing monthly meetings in North Dartmouth, Providence, and South Kingstown (which became Westerly in 1945). In 1951, Narragansett Quarter merged with the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting.

The sparse collection for this ephemeral body consist solely of financial records maintained by the treasurer.

Formed during the separation of 1845, the Wilburite monthly meeting in New Bedford, Mass., was active until 1865. A member of Sandwich Quarterly Meeting (Wilburite), its members were joined to Dartmouth Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) after it was laid down.

The records of the New Bedford Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) include comprehensive minutes for both the men’s and women’s meetings, along with records of births, deaths, marriages, and removals.

Doctrinal and cultural disputes roiled the Society of Friends in the United States during the early nineteenth century. While evangelical influence had grown within the majority of meetings in New England since at least the 1820s, resistance to the innovations grew too, culminating in a major separation of meetings in 1844 and 1845. A small, but significant portion of Friends coalesced around a Rhode Island Quaker minister, John Wilbur, a strong critic of the evangelical star Joseph John Gurney, to form a separate New England Yearly Meeting of Friends (Wilburite) in 1845. Although most Wilburite monthly meetings were relatively small and short-lived, three persisted, reuniting with the “larger body” of New England Quakerism in 1945.

The records of the Wilburite New England Yearly Meeting consist of a nearly comprehensive set of minutes, records of ministers and elders, meetings for suffering, and epistles. The records are particularly strong for the period of division in the 1840s and reunion in the 1930s and 1940s. The records of Wilburite quarterly and monthly meetings are described separately.

Formed in the Separation of 1844-1845, the Providence Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) was, for a time, a significant presence in the Wilburite community. As part of the Rhode Island Quarterly, Providence oversaw worship groups or preparative meetings in Fall River, Greenwich, Newport, North Providence, Pawtucket, and Warwick. During the challenging years of the Civil War, Providence absorbed the smaller Swansea Monthly (1863) and Rhode Island Monthly (1864), but it persisted only until 1881.

The records of the Wilburite Providence Monthly Meeting consist of a complete set of minutes from both its men’s and women’s meetings.

Established within the Wilburite Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting in 1844, the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) was a small product of the Separation of 1844-1945 within the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends. By 1863, the men’s meeting had declined to such an extent that only a single member remained, and therefore for a year, join meetings were held with the women’s meeting. The meeting was laid down in April 1864, with members transferring to Providence Monthly Meeting (Wilburite), although a handful of members rejected the decision to disband and continued to meet through the end of the year.

This small collection contains a nearly comprehensive minutes for the men’s and women’s meetings of the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting (Wilburite), along with a volume of records of births, marriages, and deaths.

Following the Wilburite separation in the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends in 1845, the Wilburite “smaller body” reconstituted the structure of the Quaker church. The Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting was formed after the split overseeing four monthly meetings in Rhode Island and one in Massachusetts, most of which were relatively short lived.

The records of the Wilburite Rhode Quarterly Meeting include a relatively complete set of minutes and thorough documentation of the Ministers and Elders.