Friends, The Library of Virginia has a current exhibition on the above statute authored by Thomas Jefferson, and several articles in the new _Broadside_ discuss the Act. In compiling a list of every local Quaker meeting in Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, central Pennsylvania and eastern West Virginia since 1656, I have identified several Friends congregations that disappeared long before 1786. The Anglican persecution of Quakers was particularly effective on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake. By 1730 the Friends had lost all trace of the early meetings near Annamessex in Accomack County (established before 1681) and at Pocatynoran/Guilford Creek in early Northampton County (met first in 1677). Various histories say that most Friends moved north to Maryland to escape the zeal of Virginia authorities. Kenneth Carroll discusses these persecutions in both _Quakerism on the Eastern Shore_ (1970) especially at pp. 48f and 96f; and in "Quakerism On The Eastern Shore Of Virginia", 74 _Virginia Magazine Of History & Biography_ 170 (1966). By comparison, the Friends in southeast Virginia -- at Chuckatuck in Nansemond, now Suffolk City, and Southampton Counties -- have met continuously since 1672. More centrally, Weyanoke Meeting [opened 1678] in Henrico County and Cedar Creek Meeting [opened 1721 with the Pleasants family as members] in Hanover County -- moved to Richmond in 1875 -- also prospered. Virginia Yearly Meeting opened about 1696 encompassing Chuckatuck, Weyanoke and Cedar Creek and as a sister regional body to Maryland Yearly Meeting that opened in 1672. Maryland YM (for local meetings on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay) reorganized as Baltimore YM in 1790 with several meetings in northern Virginia, and in 1844 the Orthodox branch of BYM absorbed the remnants of Virginia YM in central and southeastern Virginia. Did the debates on the 1786 Act document or even discuss the earlier persecution of dissenters? Tom Hill Thomas C. Hill Charlottesville, VA 22901-6355 U.S.A. www.QuakerMeetings.com E-mail: [log in to unmask] ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html