Between Two Armies: The Quakers of New Jersey and New York During the Revolution

How a community devoted to peace found itself caught between conscience, suspicion, and cannon fire — and why traces of that story still stand a short drive from home.

By Douglass Gillespie  |  7 min read

Most of us picture the American Revolution as a story with two clear sides. But drive through parts of central New Jersey or out toward Long Island, and you'll find communities that refused to pick either one — not out of confusion, but out of conviction. The Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers, had built a quiet, orderly world of meeting houses and farms across New Jersey and New York long before the fighting started. When war arrived at their doorsteps, their answer wasn't allegiance. It was restraint.

That restraint came at a cost. Neighbors who wouldn't fight were sometimes assumed to be loyal to the Crown. Neighbors who quietly helped the Continental cause were disowned by their own meetings. And still others tried to walk a narrower path than either side found easy to respect. Understanding that story tells us something about who settled this part of the country, and why a handful of plain, unadorned buildings still standing in Union County and Queens matter more than their size would suggest.

Peace as Policy, Not Just Preference

By the time the Revolution began, Quakers had been established in both colonies for over a century, with especially deep roots in West Jersey and on Long Island. Their faith held that no war could be justified, and by the 1750s that belief had hardened into formal church policy rather than a personal opinion members were free to set aside. When Pennsylvania Friends stepped back from colonial government in 1756 rather than fund a war effort, it settled the question for good: pacifism wasn't a preference. It was membership.

So when the Second Continental Congress declared independence in 1776, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, which governed Friends across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, issued a firm instruction: complete neutrality, with no exceptions for either army. Members who joined the Continental forces, paid taxes specifically meant to fund the war, signed loyalty oaths, or even helped build supply wagons could be disowned. Thousands remained quietly neutral. But a meaningful number didn't, and their meetings held them to account regardless of which side they'd chosen.

The Quakers Who Chose a Side Anyway

Not every Friend could reconcile neutrality with what was happening around them. Some, convinced that liberty was worth defending, joined the fight and accepted being disowned as the price of that decision. Others, viewed with suspicion for refusing to swear loyalty oaths to the new United States, were branded as Tories and lost property, or even their homes, as a result. Samuel Moore, a Quaker born near Rahway, is one example: his land was confiscated in 1779, and he was evacuated by the British to Nova Scotia along with his wife and nine children. Neutrality, it turned out, rarely protected anyone from being mistrusted by somebody.

"We are not exempted from an active discharge of our duty to our Prince and Country ... but a conscientious scruple against bearing arms is not, we hope, a crime."

— From a 1775 testimony issued jointly by Friends in Pennsylvania and New Jersey

That appeal captures the position most New Jersey and New York Quakers actually held. They didn't see themselves as disloyal, uninterested, or above the conflict. They believed there was a way to serve their communities that didn't involve a musket, and they spent the war years trying to convince skeptical neighbors and committees of safety of exactly that.

New Jersey's Meetings Under Occupation

New Jersey saw more marching armies than almost any other colony, and Quaker communities in Rahway, Plainfield, Woodbridge, and Shrewsbury felt every bit of it. Meeting minutes from the Rahway and Plainfield Monthly Meeting describe soldiers taking over the Woodbridge meeting house without so much as asking, and Friends noting dryly that the troops "don't much interrupt" worship, as though that settled the matter. During one especially difficult stretch, representatives couldn't even travel to their own quarterly meeting because armies on both sides controlled the roads between towns.

The financial toll was just as real. In the first half of 1777 alone, Quakers in the Rahway and Plainfield area were fined more than 250 pounds for refusing either to bear arms or to pay a substitute war tax — a considerable sum for farming families. Rather than fight, they paid, again and again, whatever penalty their conscience allowed.

That last point matters more than it might first appear. New Jersey Quakers like Samuel Allinson were pressing revolutionary leaders, including Patrick Henry, on the contradiction of demanding liberty from Britain while denying it to enslaved people. Friends had been among the earliest and most consistent voices against slavery in the colonies, and the Revolutionary years didn't slow that work down. If anything, the argument for liberty going on all around them gave it sharper edges.

Long Island and New York City Friends

Across the Hudson, Quaker communities on Long Island faced a different problem: full British occupation. Flushing, Westbury, and Oyster Bay had been Quaker strongholds since the 1650s, and their oldest meeting house in Flushing, built in 1694, is still the oldest religious structure standing in any of New York City's five boroughs. During the war, the British Army seized that very building for its own use, a plain reminder that neutrality offers no guaranteed protection from occupying forces.

Most of Queens sided with the Crown in practice, sheltering British troops and supporting the effort around the Battle of Long Island, whether or not individual Quaker families agreed. Flushing Friends, for their part, tried to hold the same even-handed line their New Jersey counterparts did. In 1782, Quakers across New York City jointly refused a British order to help staff the city watch — not as an act of rebellion, but as one more instance of declining to serve either army's purposes.

A Head Start on Abolition

New York Quakers moved even earlier than their New Jersey neighbors on slavery. Flushing Meeting had members speaking out against it as early as 1716, and by 1774 the New York Yearly Meeting had formally barred its members from owning enslaved people. It wasn't a universally easy transition, and some records show real reluctance among longtime slaveholders. But by the time the war ended, most New York Quakers had freed the people they'd once enslaved, years ahead of most of their non-Quaker neighbors.

A Quiet Legacy You Can Still Visit

None of this history sits far from where many of us live now. The Plainfield Friends Meeting House, built in 1788 not long after the fighting ended, still stands a short drive from Bloomfield and Montclair, and the Rahway and Plainfield meeting's records remain some of the most detailed firsthand accounts of what wartime neutrality actually looked like on the ground. It's a modest building, unlikely to draw a crowd, and that's rather the point. Quaker meeting houses were never built to impress anyone.

What they preserve instead is a different way of thinking about conviction under pressure. It's easy, looking back, to assume the Revolution split neatly into patriots and loyalists. The Quakers of New Jersey and New York are a reminder that a meaningful number of people held a third position, one that cost them fines, property, and sometimes their standing in their own community, because they believed it was right.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did all Quakers refuse to fight in the Revolution?

No. The overwhelming majority held to their meeting's neutrality policy, but a meaningful number chose to fight for independence anyway and accepted being disowned as a result. A much smaller number were viewed, fairly or not, as loyal to the Crown.

What happened to Quakers who joined the war effort?

Meetings that governed Quaker membership, such as the Philadelphia and New York Yearly Meetings, disowned members who enlisted, paid war taxes, signed loyalty oaths, or otherwise actively supported either army. Disownment meant losing formal membership, though families often continued attending meetings informally.

Were New Jersey and New York Quakers loyalists or patriots?

Officially, neither. Their faith required neutrality toward both sides. In practice, individual Quakers sometimes leaned one way or the other, and neutrality itself was often misread by neighbors as quiet support for the British.

Can you still visit historic Quaker meeting houses near Essex County?

Yes. The Plainfield Friends Meeting House, dating to 1788, is a short drive from Bloomfield, Montclair, and Glen Ridge. On Long Island, the Old Quaker Meeting House in Flushing, built in 1694, is the oldest religious structure still standing in New York City.

What is the connection between Quakers and the abolition movement?

A strong one. New Jersey and New York Quakers were among the earliest organized groups in the colonies to formally oppose slavery, with New York barring members from owning enslaved people in 1774. Their wartime insistence on liberty for all people helped lay groundwork for the broader abolition movement that followed.

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