THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606140718
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: George Tucker
LENGTH: 70 lines
George Fox (1624-1691), the 17th century English founder of the Society of Friends, familiarly known as Quakers, would have heartily endorsed the action of two of his latter-day Norfolk followers who were featured in a front page article in The Virginian-Pilot on June 4, 1996.
The story chronicled how Lloyd Lee Wilson and his wife Susan, operators of Norfolk Quaker House, a counseling center for military personnel who develop doubts about what they are doing, assisted Josh Dworak, a Navy personnelman, to obtain an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector to military service.
In doing this, the Wilsons carried on the anti-war objections that have been a Quaker belief since Fox founded the peace-loving sect in the 1640s when he became disillusioned by the failure of professed Christians to live their beliefs. What makes the Wilson-Dworak story even more interesting, however, is that Fox visited the Norfolk area in 1672 during a missionary journey to North America. This shows the seeds of his quiet faith have continued to bear fruit in the Old Dominion for over three centuries.
Born in Leicestershire, England, Fox early experienced what he called the ``Inner Light of Christ.'' His mysticism attracted many who were then seeking for positive affirmation of faith during the troubled times of the English Civil War and the subsequent Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell.
Since Fox's teachings were contrary to those of England's Established Church as well as anti-military, it was not long before he and his followers were in trouble. Until the passage of the Act of Toleration by the British Parliament in 1688, Fox and his converts were subjected to violent persecution. But that only made the Quakers more zealous.
Incidentally, the sect gained its popular name when Fox told an English judge to ``tremble at the Word of the Lord.'' Since Fox and many of his followers actually trembled when they proclaimed their faith, the name stuck and became the popular name for the persuasion from then on.
As for Virginia, there were Quakers here from 1656, at which time Elizabeth Harris, one of Fox's missionaries, founded settlements of Friends along the James River. The movement spread rapidly eastward into Isle of Wight, Nansemond and Lower Norfolk Counties. Since the Virginia Quakers, like their English brethren, flouted civil obedience, the magistrates became increasingly hostile. After the restoration of Charles II in 1660, at which time the arch royalist, Sir William Berkeley, again became Virginia's governor, the persecution became intense.
Since the Quakers had become particularly numerous in Lower Norfolk County (now the cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth and Chesapeake), Berkeley fired off a steamy missive to the ``gentlemen of the County of Lower Norfolk'' in 1663, enjoining them to use every effort to root out ``ye abominal seede of ye Quakers.'' Berkeley's hatred of the sect was echoed by Henry Beecher, a Lower Norfolk County Anglican who declared of one dissenter: ``It would be better for that Quaker dog to go stark naked into a red hot oven than to put his foot on my plantation.''
Even so, the Virginia Quakers continued to thrive, and by 1672, when George Fox was on his missionary journey to North America, he preached to a great concourse of Lower Norfolk County people at the Elizabeth River plantation of John Porter, an event he described in his journal as ``precious and glorious.''
Fox died in London, England, three years after the Act of Toleration had taken the heat off the Society of Friends. Meanwhile, they had continued to increase throughout the world. That this was true in Virginia is evident from the following caustic quotation from The History of the Dividing Line (1729), written by Col. William Byrd II of Westover.
``We passed no less than two Quaker meeting houses. The persuasion prevails much in the lower end of Nansemond County for want of ministers to pilot the people to a decenter way to heaven. The ill reputation of the tobacco in these lower parishes make the clergy unwilling to accept of them except such whose abilities are as mean as their pay.'' by CNB