One of the small number of Wilburite quarterly meetings, the Salem and Dover Quarter was established in 1851 when the Salem Quarterly Meeting and Dover Quarterly Meeting were merged. It oversaw two Wilburite monthly meetings: Berwick, Maine, and Salem, Massachusetts. When Salem and Dover was laid down in 1881, its remaining members were transferred to Sandwich Monthly Meeting (Wilburite).

This small collection is comprised solely of a complete set of minute from the men’s quarterly meeting.

Conflict over doctrinal matters in the Salem Monthly Meeting of Friends was endemic in the first half of the nineteenth century, beginning with the New Light agitation after the War of 1812. With the Separation of 1845, a Wilburite monthly meeting was established there that persisted until 1863. Part of the Salem Quarterly Meeting (Wilburite) from 1845-1851 and Salem and Dover Quarterly (1851-1863), Salem Monthly’s remaining members were officially transferred to Berwick, however many members chose to join the Otisite (or Primitive) Nantucket Monthly Meeting instead. Their worship group lasted until about 1911.

The slender collection for the Salem Monthly Meeting of Friends (Wilburite) include complete minutes for both the men’s and women’s meetings.

The Separation of 1845 that affected the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends was profoundly felt throughout Rhode Island and Cape Cod. The meeting at Swansea, Mass., split in 1844, with the Wilburite Monthly of that name becoming part of the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting. In 1863, Swansea Monthly was laid down, with the Fall River Preparative Meeting transferring to Providence Monthly Meeting (Wilburite). A small number of Friends in Swansea rejected the decision to lay down the meeting and continued to meet as an independent body until 1865.

The short history of the Wilburite Swansea Monthly Meeting in four slender volumes of meeting minutes (one from the women’s meeting) and a thin records of marriages.