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New Garden Meeting House, 1869. Original watercolor by John B. Collins. Digital image by the Friends Historical Collection, Guilford College, Greensboro, NC. Those wishing to use this image for web sites or other forms of publication should contact the Friends Historical Collection www.guilford.edu for permission. Use of this image does not imply affiliation with or endorsement by the Friends Historical Collection or Guilford College.

Used with permission

New Garden Monthly Meeting was set up in 1754 by direction of Perquimans and Little River Quarterly Meeting. This action of the Quarterly Meeting is recorded in the following minutes. "Perquimans and Little River Quarterly Meeting held at Old Neck in the County of Perquimans, N.C., the 25th of the 5 mo. 1754.

Friends at New Garden requested this meeting to Grant them the privilege of holding a Monthly Meeting amongst them by Reason of the hardship they underwent in Attending the monthly meeting at Cane Creek; And it appeared to this meeting that there is Near or Quite Forty Families of Friends seated in them parts; In consideration of which, this meeting thought proper to grant them there request.

"From our Quarterly Meeting held at Old Neck, in the County of Perquimans, ye 25th to ye 26th of ye 5th mo. 1754.

Dear Friends: These are to inform you that your request of having a Monthly Meeting settled among you, was laid before this meeting, and Friends having weightily considered thereof, unanimously agreed to grant your request. Signed on behalf, and by order of, our aforesaid meeting by Joseph Ratliff, Clerk.

A list of the names of some of the men embraced in the original membership of New Garden Monthly Meeting includes Thomas Beals, Benjamin Beeson, near Deep River, Wm. Beeson, Abraham Cook, Daniel Dillon, Eleazar Hunt, William Hunt, Mordecai Mendenhall, near Deep River, John Mills, Henry Mills, Hur Mills, Thomas Mills, Benjamin Rudduck, John Rudduck, Thos. Thornbrugh, (appointed first clerk) Thomas Vestal, Richard Williams. Among those who became members by the presentation of certificates during the first few months were James Brown, William Smith, wife and children, Richard Beeson and wife, George Hyatt, Isaac Cox and wife, Anthony Hoggatt and wife, Benjamin Britain, Joseph Unthank, wife and children, Samuel Pearson, wife and children, Nathan Dicks, Zacharias Dicks, Peter Dicks, wife and children, Isaac Pidgeon and Joseph Hoggatt. Robert Hodgson, Manuel Edwards and George Hodgson were received in membership by request.

The following account of the early history of New Garden Meeting is abstracted from "Southern Quakers and Slavery", pages 104-108.

"Of the settlers who formed the New Garden meetings the first to arrive were doubtless the immigrants from Pennsylvania by way of Maryland. They brought the name with them from Pennsylvania. It has always been a characteristic of Quakers to reproduce the names of the sections with which they have been associated in former years. Many English Quaker names are reproduced in America. There is a New Garden and a Springfield in Pennsylvania. They were carried thence to North Carolina, and from there, in turn, to Indiana." (Dr. Albert Cook Myers, in "Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania", says that New Garden Meeting in Pennsylvania was named in remembrance of New Garden Meeting in County Carlow, Ireland.)

"The first settlement at New Garden was about 1750. In 1751 a meeting for worship was granted by Cane Creek Monthly Meeting. For the next three years the monthly meeting circulated between Cane Creek and New Garden. The settlement must have grown rapidly, for New Garden Monthly Meeting was set up in 1754. It was destined to become the most important meeting in the State, and was the mother of many others. In the first year, 1754, we have settlers coming in from Pennsylvania, from Hopewell and Fairfax meetings, Virginia. During 1755 nine certificates were received, representing Pennsylvania and Virginia only. According to the official minutes, which note all certificates received, there were brought in during the sixteen years, 1754-70, inclusive, eighty-six certificates in all. Of these forty-five came from Pennsylvania, thirty-five from Virginia, one from Maryland, and four from northeastern North Carolina.

"The New Garden settlers were soon to be reinforced by other immigrants who also came from old Quaker stock. These were the settlers from Nantucket Island, Mass. This movement began in 1771, and Libni Coffin was the first Nantucket man to arrive at New Garden. During the period of five years from 1771 to 1775 there were forty-one certificates recorded at New Garden Monthly Meeting from Nantucket out of a total of fifty certificates received."

Migration from the northward stopped suddenly at the outbreak of the Revolution. From that time the meetings were kept up by natural increase, not by new arrivals. About the end of the eighteenth century there began the great migration to the Middle West, which sapped the strength of all North Carolina meetings and ended the existence of many. New Garden contributed in large numbers to the movement but had suffi8cient vitality to withstand the losses in membership.