History of a Quaker Meeting

            According to a 1685 Minute of Sandwich Monthly Meeting: “Friends of Suckonesset were encouraged to meet together.”

This was the formal start of the West Falmouth Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, which 300 years later continues as a preparative meeting, like similar groups in South Yarmouth and East Sandwich, of the Sandwich Monthly Meeting.

It was barely 40 years after George Fox, in his preaching in the English countryside, drew adherents who believed with him in the presence of a Divine Light in man, who believed that Divine truth could be found without ordained clergy, sacraments or creeds.

It was also one year before the tiny settlement of Suckonesset on the shores of Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound was incorporated as the town of Falmouth.

Members of the Society of Friends had already been living and meeting together in Falmouth for some years. Religious persecution was the driving force which sent many of them to this uninhabited corner of Cape Cod. The Puritans who dominated the Massachusetts Colony in those early days viewed both the faith and the practices of the Quakers as heresy, even as seditious, a threat to the established order, a state church.

Quaker missionaries sent from England spread the new faith, in spite of colonial laws passed to extirpate the Quaker movement. Four were hanged in Boston; some had an ear cut off for returning to the Massachusetts Colony after being deported. Whippings and fines were the lot of many others. A Plymouth Colony law adopted in 1657 set a fine of five pounds for anyone who entertained a “Quaker or person commonly soe called”, and requiring any person knowing of the presence of any Quaker or “Rantor” in his town to notify any constable or his deputy.  If a Quaker meeting were held, the penalty for the speaker was a fine of 40 shillings, for each hearer who is head of a household a fine of ten shillings, and for the owner of the place who permits them to meet, 40 shillings a time.

Separated from Plymouth and even further from Boston, Sandwich was from the first a haven for Quakers who faced persecution in the first-settled communities. When the courts began imposing fines, and the constables in Sandwich began collecting them in money or kind, some families there moved to the comparative wilderness of Suckonesset. On the list of Quakers persecuted in Sandwich, the names of Thomas Ewer and Thomas Johnson appear among the first of those who took up land in what is now Woods Hole in 1677.  In 1678, lands were laid out at Hog Island and Great Sippewissett, West Falmouth, with William Gifford, Sr. and William Gifford, Jr. among the early settlers.

In Sandwich, Thomas Johnson had his house and land seized by the marshal for fines. After he moved to Suckonesset, the Monthly Meeting records tell of the meetings guardianship and relief of Thomas Johnson’s family.

Thomas Ewer, it is recorded, was a poor weaver with seven or eight children. Everything he had, including his two cows, went to pay fines. William Gifford, presumably Sr., was fined 57 pounds, this at a time when a laborer’s wages for a year amounted to 5 pounds.

A considerable landowner in Falmouth, though it is not clear that he ever lived here, was Robert Harper, who had been jailed and whipped in Boston when his faith was discovered, was fined 44 pounds in Sandwich and later was whipped in Barnstable.

One son-in-law of Robert Harper was Joseph Hull, and the Third month session of Sandwich Monthly Meeting in 1681 was held at Joseph Hull’s house at Suckonesset. In 1682 a meeting was ordered to be held at William Gifford’s at Sippewissett. In 1683, Robert Harper informed the Sandwich meeting that Friends at Suckonesset desired that Friends might have meetings among them. In Eighth Month of 1683 another Sandwich Monthly Meeting was appointed to be held at Suckonesset.

All this led up to the, so to speak, official establishment of the West Falmouth meeting in 1685.

In general, relations seem to have been amicable between the Congregational majority of the new settlement which became Falmouth and the Quaker minority. But for a time, persecution followed the friends to their new homes here, apparently on orders from Plymouth.  John Hoag Dillingham’s writings, as they appear in Simeon L. Deyo’s 1890 “History of Barnstable County”, records the tradition that Daniel Butler was tied to a cart and whipped through the town, but notes that town records contain an application from the “persecuted Quaker Daniel Butler” to the town to be released from liabilities to the minister on account of his being a Friend. The request was granted.

Thomas Bowerman II, another son-in law of Robert Harper (married to Mary Harper), also suffered for his faith. Refusing to pay the town rate for support of the minister of the Congregational church, he was committed to Barnstable jail in the winter of 1705-06. Sandwich Meeting voted to send “a bed and bedding to Thomas Bowerman 2nd he being a prisoner for the Priest’s Rate.”

His defiance continued, and so did the persecution. The records show that in March of 1709 the constable seized and sold two of his cows worth five pounds; three days later another cos. In 1710 and other cow was seized and sold, in 1715 still another cow and later that year the constable took off one fat swine, late in 1716 it was two calves.

This was the Thomas Bowerman who built the Bowerman homestead in West Falmouth. It was to be occupied by a Bowerman until 1930. He was early employed by the town to “repair the towne house”, was elected town clerk from 1703 to 1707, and also serve on the board of selectmen for four years.

For long it was policy in Falmouth to have one Friend on the three-man board of selectmen. Following Thomas Bowerman were Richard Landers, Stephen Bowerman, Paul Swift, Prince Gifford, William Gifford, Daniel Swift, Barnabas Bowerman (12 years), Prince G. Moore (14 years), Meltiah Gifford and James E. Gifford, who was also town moderator.

Despite some incidents of maltreatment – Thomas Bowerman III, an uncompromising as his father, had five sheep and 12 pounds of wool seized by the constable in 1725, and three bushels of malt, a linen wheel and a basin in 1728, to satisfy his unpaid taxes for the minister – Falmouth from the earliest days was a comparatively comfortable place for the Quakers. Jenkins notes that “There are many instances recorded where individuals made it appear that they had conscientious scruples on this subject (of paid ministry) and their tax was promptly remitted.”

From the first, Quakers seem to have been active in town affairs and to have been counted as freemen, thought their practice of “affirming” instead of taking an oath was not legal throughout Massachusetts until 1759.

In the same year, 1685, that the Meeting for Worship in West Falmouth was established, came the first burial in the cemetery on the hill east of the present meetinghouse, off Blacksmith Shop road. Burials took place there until 1775, 69 in all, though individual gravesites are not marked. These early Friends insisted on simplicity in death, as in life.

The Society insisted on simplicity, too. A minute from a 1688 session of Sandwich Monthly Meeting held in Falmouth reads: “It is concluded that the Friends appointed in every particular meeting shall give notice publicly in the meeting that cross-pockets before men’s coats, side-slopes, broad hems on cravats, and overfull skirted coats are not allowed on Friends.”

The 16-mile distance to East Sandwich, where most monthly meeting were held, must have been a problem when walking was the most common form of locomotion and a horse was the fastest. Sandwich meeting complained in 1703 that “Falmouth Friends are remiss in attending monthly meeting” and a monthly meeting committee urged them to attend more faithfully.

Beginning in 1709, West Falmouth Friends were allowed to have their own meetings for business, to discuss matters which representatives then could bring to monthly meeting.

Members contributed in 1717 to fence the burying ground, and monthly meeting appointed Richard Landers to dig graves for Friends in Falmouth.

Decision to build a meetinghouse at West Falmouth was taken at a Sandwich Monthly Meeting in July of 1720, attended by Richard Landers and Stephen Harper representing Falmouth.

Of the 44 pounds subscribed for the purpose, 8 pounds were contributed by ten Sandwich Friends.  The 14 Falmouth Friends who contributed 36 pounds for the building of their meeting house were Richard Landers, Thomas Bowerman, Stephen Harper, Joseph Landers, Benjamin Bowerman, Justes Gifford, Stephen Bowerman, Isaac Robinson, John Robinson, Peter Robinson, William Gifford, Benjamin Swift, John Wing, and Daniel Allen.

The first monthly meeting recorded as being held in Falmouth Meeting House was on June 2, 1725.

That first house of worship Quakers in Falmouth was close to the north-south road which then ran along the hillside midway between the present routes 28 and 28A, not far from the burial ground. It has been described as a one-story structure 30 feet square with a triangular shape hopper roof, at its peak a hole to let out the smoke of a charcoal fire used for heating. A stone marked “FMH 1720” marks the site.

Half a century later the first meetinghouse was too small. A new cemetery had been established, facing on the new main road through West Falmouth, and Richard Blake gave the land for the new building there, site of the present one. Benjamin Swift and his wife Mary are said to be the first Quakers to be buried in the new cemetery. Their headstones may be seen well back of the meetinghouse. Custom of not marking graves continued at least in part, because the section south of the meetinghouse, though occupied, has no gravestones. By 1794 the meetinghouse was enlarged and continued in use until 1842 when it was torn down. The oak frame was barged to South Yarmouth to become the frame of Quaker David Kelley’s barn.

A Women’s Meeting for Business was inaugurated in West Falmouth in 1755, stressing family life and charity.  The movable partition dividing the two halves of the present meetinghouse is a reminder of that era.  Women were not only considered able to conduct their business meeting alone, not a common view at the time, but also they were encouraged to preach in meeting.  Several in West Falmouth were recorded as ministers of the Society of Friends and traveled widely in that capacity.

Sandwich Quarterly Meeting, comprising the meetings of Barnstable, Bristol, and Plymouth counties, held its midsummer (Seventh Month) meeting in West Falmouth from 1779 to 1792, when it was transferred to Nantucket.

Dillingham’s history recounts how the Nantucket Friends came to Woods Hole by sailing vessel for the 10^th Month meeting at Sandwich. Procuring carriages at Woods Hole, they drove to West Falmouth to lodge at the houses of Friends. Next morning the West Falmouth Friends in their carryalls and buggies would join the solid and weighty procession as all moved on to Sandwich. There they joined the New Bedford and Plymouth county Friends in the Great Meeting.  Then it was back to West Falmouth, Woods Hole, and eventually the island.

The process was reversed for the Seventh Month meeting on Nantucket.

That midsummer meeting was returned to West Falmouth after 1850.

It was a time when Friends were under strict discipline and those not conforming were read out of meeting. David Douglas’s 1974 address on Cape Cod Quakers sums up this close and loving religious community where every private action of a member was the accepted natural concern of all and where the rule was irreproachable moral conduct:

“All facets of family, meeting, and business life were carefully overseen, basically out of love, but occasionally to ‘maintain good order’ as when somebody married out of the Society or didn’t attend worship regularly. There were human frailties exposed even here, among people to whom honesty was central: One female member was severely censured for spreading scandalous tales about another woman; and more than one member was condemned or put out of the Society for allowing himself to become extended beyond his ability and resources so as to be unable to pay his debts.”

At this point Quakers no longer spread the word with evangelical fire. They no longer thought their religion would take over the world, but viewed themselves as a “saving remnant”, and stress was put on the plain speech and plain dress which led to their being labeled a peculiar people. “Birthright” membership took on importance and converts were not sought.

Establishing a separate elementary school for the children of Friends came in 1831, when a school building was erected on the lot where the West Falmouth library now stands. Eventually moved, as were many buildings of the time, the former school is now part of a house on the south side of the Main road and Chapoquoit road corner.

The third meetinghouse, on the same site as the second, was essentially the building that we now know (1985). It was built under contract by Moses Swift. The cost is unknown. The building committee acknowledged receipt of $202 in 1842.

Next were the carriage sheds, built in 1861, across the main road from the meetinghouse. Stephen Dillingham offered to give the meeting $100 toward the proposed sheds, or if the meeting would raise $175 by subscription, he would build the sheds. This was accepted. Rendering to the preparative meeting a report on his care, he concluded: “I have done the best I could for the meeting’s benefit. The sheds are finished and offered to Friends; and I hope they will be of use to many, long after I am laid away.” He died in 1872. Most of the sheds remain, now, sheltering cars in First Day mornings.

In spite of material improvements, these decades of the 19^th century saw a decline in membership in the West Falmouth Quaker meeting. Cape Cod itself lost population, as the younger people moved to the West or to the cities, in search of economic opportunity which was lacking here. Some were dropped from membership for taking part in the Civil War. Thee were also, for the first time, competition in West Falmouth village itself, with opening of the Methodist Church, complete with pipe organ, in 1857.

There were factional disputes within the Society of Friends, too, with backers of the Wilburite and Gurneyite sides splitting New England Yearly Meeting into two separate groups. It did not reunite until 1945.

The closing years of the 19^th century saw a considerable change and revitalization in the West Falmouth meeting. It was primarily due to two brothers, natives of the village, who had gone away to seek their fortunes, successfully and then returned.

Daniel Swift was a blacksmith in West Falmouth; his shop still stands behind the building, which now houses the firm of C. H. Newton Builders Inc. For a time the smithy turned out the metal fittings for the sailing vessels then being built in West Falmouth, but when shipbuilding ended there, there was little opportunity in the village for his sons, Daniel Wheeler Swift and Henry D. Swift. Tradition has it that they packed up their belongings in one great trunk when they went to Worchester and found employment as craftsmen. D. Wheeler started with an envelope company, and soon both brothers were working together on improving the cutters and other machinery that changed the industry. The Swift brothers prospered.

For summers, they returned to West Falmouth and built two large houses, those that still flank the meetinghouse, now occupied by the Stephen Miller House and the Jenkins Funeral Home.

D. Wheeler Swift led the way in rejuvenating the physical properties of the meeting.  He was first concerned about the appearance of the graveyard, and in 1888 raised funds to level the ground, have a stonewall constructed along each side, and to replace old boulders used as headstones by more conventional ones.

Next, in 1894, came the interior of the meetinghouse.  The old wood stoves were removed and a large wood-burning furnace was installed in the cellar, with floor registers.  The old plain benches and facing benches for the elders were removed and the interior of the meetinghouse was remodeled.  Dark wainscoting covered the lower walls; church style pews put in place, and in the front a movable platform with a lectern. The balcony was enclosed, giving space for classrooms or for serving meals. There was not, however, running water, to ease the task of serving and washing up after meals.  This did not come until 1964, when the meetinghouse was connected to the town water mains, and flush toilets were introduced.

The Swift’s also paid attention to the ancient burial ground up on the hill and to the site of the first meetinghouse.  A granite post marked “FMH 1720” is near where the building once stood.  The first burial ground was enclosed with an iron fence on granite posts.  D. Wheeler Swift also initiated a perpetual care fund for the current cemetery, which surrounds the meetinghouse.