Quakers Lead the Settlement of West Jersey

Quakers Lead the Settlement of West Jersey. . In the 1670s and 1680s, most of the proprietors of the Province of West Jersey were Quakers. Quakers were attracted to the new colony by the promise of economic prosperity and religious freedom as well as the opportunity to raise families in a setting free from the constraints they had encountered in England. Although Quakers are better known for their role in the colonization of Pennsylvania, they actually settled in New Jersey first. William Penn, the Proprietor of Pennsylvania, was involved in both enterprises., Quaker beliefs, based on the concept of the “inner light” or direct spiritual contact with God, were formulated in England in the 1650s and 1660s by a group of preachers, chief among them George Fox. The religious movement rapidly coalesced into the Society of Friends, but was banned from group worship in England in 1662. Quakerism does not employ a paid ministry, but rather relies on personal example and self-discipline to spread its doctrine of plain living, hard work and peaceful co-existence., Quakers from Yorkshire and the North Midlands of England, families like the Stacys and the Lamberts, were at the forefront of settlement in the Middle Delaware valley in the final quarter of the 17th century. They established large farms and practiced Quaker worship at meetings held initially in private homes and, later, at the nearest meetinghouse. The first Quaker meetinghouses in the area were built in the late 17th and early 18th centuries and were located in the city of Burlington, the capital of West Jersey, and in the villages of Crosswicks in Chesterfield Township, Stony Brook outside Princeton and Fallsington in Bucks County. A meetinghouse was not built in Trenton until 1739., Links to learn more – Quaker Meetinghouses in Trenton, Fallsington and elsewhere in the region