Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
John Orvis, Eliab W. Capron, Mary L. Cox, and Abraham Brooke were four Quakers who had much in common. Geographically they were widely separated: Orvis lived at Ferrisburg, Vermont; Capron at Walworth, New York; Cox near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; and Brooke in Clinton County, Ohio. All, however, were Hicksite Friends committed to abolition, the principles of nonresistance, and the repudiation of all coercive force. All selfconsciously patterned themselves on the early Friends by bearing witness to what they saw as truth, whether in Friends' meetinghouses or in the churches of the “world's people.” And all shared the same fate: disownment for “disunity.”
An earlier version of this article was read at the Nineteenth-Century Feminist Strategies for Reform Conference held at Swarthmore College, 21 March 1993.
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