From “Joseph Nichols and the Nicholites”
By
Kenneth Lane Carroll
Published 1962
Easton Publishing Company
Context from Pages 18 - 22

JOHN WOOLMAN AND THE NICHOLITES
Chapter II

 The greatest external influence upon Nichols and his followers during the formative period of their movement came from John Woolman of New Jersey. John Woolman (1720-1772) has been called "the most Christ-like individual that Quakerism has ever produced."  His life and thought touched thousands of people in his own age and through his Journal and essays still continue to do so to this very day.

 Woolman over the years came to feel that slavery was a great evil. This view arose from personal experiences and observa­tions in his own New Jersey area and from several religious journeys he made into the South in 1746 and 1757. A work entitled Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes presented his views in 1754; a second part appeared in 1762. Although this was not the earliest Quaker treatise published on the subject, it was certainly one of the most effective that have ever appeared.

 In 1766 John Woolman made the first of his famous "foot-journeys" into the Upper South walking through Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. This "foot-journey" was a part of Woolman's attack upon the institution of slavery. He saw slavery as a cancerous disease, eating away at the moral and spiritual life of the Society of Friends and of America. Slavery was an evil that must be destroyed. As he made his way slowly through Delaware and the Eastern Shore, Woolman became an "embodied conscience," seeking to awaken people to the great evil of slavery which sprang from luxury and selfish profit (which alone made luxury possible).

 Woolman had long felt that actions speak louder than words that behavior is more convincing than speech. As he called upon others to cut themselves loose from the institution of slavery and to give up their love of luxury and ease, his own example underlined his message. Woolman had also begun to wear undyed clothes sometime before this 1766 journey southward­perhaps as early as the end of 1762. This strange costume became his "cross"; he wore it as a protest against both slavery and war, testifying against the slave labor used in producing the dye and the love of luxury that led people to seek it.

 This journey in the early summer of 1766 through the Delmarva Peninsula took Woohnan to a number of Quaker meetings in Delaware and on the Eastern Shore. After visiting Friends of Motherkill Meeting in Delaware, he moved on to Maryland and spent time among Quakers of Tuckahoe Meeting (near Matthewstown in Talbot County) and Marshy Creek Meeting (near Preston, in Caroline County). Concerning these three places he writes : "At these our three last meetings were a considerable number of people, followers of one Joseph Nichols, a Preacher, who I understand is not in outward Fellowship with any Religious Society of People, but who professeth nearly the same principles as our Society doth, and often travels up and down, appointing meetings to which many people come." Woolman was struck at this time by the similarity between Nicholite and Quaker beliefs and practices a likeness quite clear to the Nicholites also, for a little later on some of them wrote, "We Do profess and Confess the same principals that the Quakers doth, but for Some reasons which we Could render if required we hitherto have not thought it best to Joyn Membership with them."

 Woolman, after commenting on the similarity of the Nicholites to Friends, does not speak of any apparent differences between the two societies or of anything unusual about them which strikes his attention. The remainder of his brief description of them runs as follows: "I hear some Friends speaking of their neighbours who had been Irreligious people that were now his followers, and were become Sober well behaved men and Women. Some irregularities I hear have been amongst the people at Several of his Meetings, but from the whole of what I have [heard] I believe the man and some of his followers are honestly disposed, but [believe] Skilful Fathers are wanting amongst them."

 Woolman does not define the "irregularities" which he mentions in this passage. Probably the word refers to the emotion which pervaded the audience at some of Nichols' gatherings and which sometimes expressed itself in unusual ways. We are told elsewhere that "some would cry out audibly, and even prostrate themselves in the meeting."  Once again it should be remembered that the mid-eighteenth century was a time of growing religiosity in America. Frequently this heightened religious feeling expressed itself in various physical manifestations.

 The Journal of John Woolman does not record a meeting of Woolman and Nichols but speaks only of the presence of some of Nichols' followers at these meetings in the summer of 1766. At the same time, Woolman's account does not rule out the possibility of such a meeting. Moreover, it must be pointed out that on several different occasions followers of Joseph Nichols were present at Woolman's meetings. Even if Nichols did not, for some reason, meet this man whose outlook and message was so like his own, accounts of what he said and did would soon reach Joseph Nichols. Also it seems quite probable that Nichols, living not far from Philadelphia and surrounded by Quakers, may have been acquainted with some of Woolman's ideas before Woolman ever made this trip. Woolman's two part essay on Slavery, published in 1754 and 1762, had carried the approval of the Overseers of the Press in Philadelphia and was widely read by both Quakers and non-Quakers. It is only reasonable, therefore, to expect Joseph Nichols and his followers to have been influenced by Woolman during this formative period of his movement's growth and development.

 The most obvious point of influence appears to have been on the subject of slaveholding, the main reason for Woolman's journey through the area. The extent of Woolman's influence on Nichols here is open to some question, for there exists the strong probability that Joseph Nichols had already developed his anti-slavery position shortly before the arrival of Woolman in June of 1766. Two bits of information support this point of view. The first is a claims made by Lambert Hopkins, who in 1817 recorded that he then remembered about Joseph Nichols whom he first met in 1764 or 1765 and followed until 1770. Hopkins says that Nichols "was the first man in these parts who preached against the evil of slave-holding; so far did his con­scientious scruples extend that he avoided putting up at places where the labour was done by slaves. His testimony in this respect met with some opposition, and even members of the Society of Friends opposed him; but it happened a short time afterwards, two Friends [Woolman and Sleeper] came down on foot and publically preached against the evil of slavery. Friends then received that testimony which they had refused from Joseph, and in a few years it became general among them to free their negroes."

 In an earlier essay entitled "The Influence of John Woolman on Joseph Nichols and the Nicholites," I questioned the accuracy of Hopkins' memory.  At that time I felt that this claim probably resulted from a later rivalry on the subject between Nicholites and Friends. I therefore suggested that it probably had its origin in the fact that the early Nicholites, almost as a group, manumitted their slaves early in 1768-several months before the Quakers of Marshy Creek Meeting did, but some months after Quakers in neighboring Talbot County did so. In another article published in 1961, entitled "Religious Influences on the Manumission of Slaves in Caroline, Dorchester and Talbot Counties," I once again expressed my feeling of doubt concerning the authenticity of Hopkins' claim.

 My views expressed in 1960 and 1961 were based upon an analysis of the manumission records of Dorchester County (which in 1768 still contained the area inhabited by most of the Nicholites). Since that time I have examined the records of Kent County, Delaware, and have discovered that James Anderson, one of Nichols' earliest and staunchest followers, and his wife Ann Anderson freed a slave named Jane in the fourth month of 1766 -two months before John Woolman arrived in the area. Jane is described as a "Girl Born of the body of a Negroe Woman but supposed to be begotten by a White man which said Girl according to the Custom of the Land is held in Slavery and bondage."   Another manumission deed for the same county, dated May 24, 1766, shows Paris and Margaret Chipman freeing a Negro boy named Thomas.   These two deeds of manumission are the only ones in which Nicholites freed slaves before Woolman's visit in the area. Although James and Ann Anderson and Paris and Margaret Chipman may possibly have arrived at their anti-slavery view independently, as some Delmarva Quakers also had, it seems wiser to accept these two cases as support for Hopkins' claim on the prior preaching of Nichols against slavery.

 If Nichols, as seems likely, did proclaim anti-slavery views prior to June, 1766, and if he did persuade the Andersons and the Chipmans to free their slaves, then it is also true, as Hopkins claims, that Nichols met opposition both from his followers and others on this matter. Examination of the deeds of manumission for this area shows that all other Nicholites freeing slaves did so after Woolman, accompanied by John Sleeper, made his "foot­journey" through the area. Woolman appears to have made it possible for Nichols to move the rest of his followers to free their slaves.

 Still another influence that Woolman may have had on Nichols and his followers centered around the type of clothes they wore. John Woolman, like his lesser known contemporary Joshua Evans, had begun to wear undyed clothes sometime before his 1766 journey. With the exception of Lambert Hopkins' testimony of fifty years later (with all the possibilities of telescoping facts and remembrances), there is no evidence that Nichols wore undyed clothes before Woolman's arrival. There exists absolutely no evidence that the followers of Nichols dressed in undyed clothes prior to 1766. Woolman, with all the thoughts he had had on this subject since 1762, would have mentioned the fact. A few years after Woolman's journey the Nicholites became well known for their undyed clothing. Quaker journalists of a later date, such as Isaac Martin, Job Scott, and Elias Hicks all show an interest in this aspect of Nicholite life as did also the less sympathetic Methodist leaders Francis Asbury and Freeborn Garrettson.

 What little information we do possess about the early preach­ing of Nichols suggests that Nichols had already started himself and his followers on a movement from luxury and display to austerity in appearance. Early in his ministry Nichols had moved some of his female followers to the point where they gave up all ornaments, refusing to wear flowered or striped apparel. Their husbands are reported to have been opposed to this development; and they therefore attended Nichols' meetings in order to ridicule this practice. The husbands, too, were soon won over. It was about this time that Woolman, dressed in undyed clothes, arrived in their midst. His great sincerity and his deeply spiritual nature won their admiration. One can easily understand how the Nicholites, already embarked on an ascetic pilgrimage insofar as clothing is concerned, would be brought to adopt Woobnan's undyed clothing as the "official" garb of their whole group (without catching the spirit that led Woolman to dress in this fashion).

 Yet a third influence that Woolman must have wielded in this formative period of Nicholite growth and development would have centered around his peace testimony. Woolman was as opposed to war as he was to slavery. He believed that war came from the same basic causes as slavery-luxury and desire for selfish profit. In essays, letters, and public preaching he advocated a rejection of war. Rather than engaging in war man must live in the spirit that takes away the occasion of all war, seeking his true position in the one great family united in love and service of God. The Nicholites, a decade following Woolman's visit, possessed a very strong peace testimony.