Winthrop Friends Church in central Maine has opened its doors to an Anglican congregation. The arrangement seems to suit both worshiping bodies.
The uncharacteristic spire and bell were at the insistence of the donor who underwrote the costs of constructing the meetinghouse. Change was in the air, not just for Friends.
The first Quaker meetinghouse in New Hampshire was later moved across the river, where it became the first Quaker house of worship in Maine. This plaque marks the spot.A small Friends burial ground remains across the road.
The low, simple stones of the burial ground behind the Winona Friends meetinghouse maintain a witness of simplicity. I find them together to be elegant.Many of the burials are in unmarked graves, keeping with a discipline of Plainness. The stones are much more recent.
The marker for Nicolas Shapleigh in Kittery, Maine, overlooks his crucial role in advancing religious plurality and tolerance in North America. In 1662 he granted asylum to three Quaker women who had been condemned in Dover, New Hampshire, and been ordered tied to a cart and whipped in each town from there to Cape Cod — a ruling that would have resulted in their deaths. Shapleigh’s courage makes him a hero in my eyes.