ligious body in the State.

In the fall of 1672, the hearts of the members of this infant church
were gladdened by the tidings that George Fox himself was on his way to
visit the little band of brethren in the wilds of Carolina. One cool,
crisp October morning, the great preacher arrived. Again was the home of
Phelps chosen for the meeting; but so great was the crowd that gathered
to hear him that the house would not hold the congregation. Standing a
little distance from Phelps' simple dwelling were two great cypress
trees. Close down by the water's edge they grew, their feathery
branches shading the rippling waves, and shielding the listeners from
the glare of a sun whose rays had not yet lost their summer's heat.
Under one of these trees the preacher stood, and spoke to the assembled
crowd as the Spirit gave him utterance. It was a "tender meeting," as
Fox reports in his letters describing his stay in Perquimans. Many who
were present became converts to the faith of Fox and Edmundson; and
Perquimans County and her sister, Pasquotank, became for many years the
stronghold of the Society of Friends in Carolina.

For a number of years after George Fox's visit to Perquimans, the
Quakers were the only religious body in the colony that regularly
assembled its members together for divine service. Their ministers were
for the most part from the congregation itself; no salary was demanded
by them; and the home of some Friends was the scene of their religious
meetings. In a new country where ready money is a scarce commodity, a
church that could be conducted without any expenditure of cash could
more easily take root, than one whose existence depended upon a certain
amount, however small, of filthy lucre.

The Lords Proprietors, members for the most part of the Church of
England, were too intent upon extracting wealth from their colony in
Carolina to be willing to expend any of their gains for the good of the
colonists. Disregarding the petitions of their officers in Albemarle,
who saw the great need for missionaries in the struggling settlements,
they refused to become responsible for the salary of a minister.

But after a while the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
foreign parts took hold of the matter, and in 1702 a church was built in
Chowan, near where Edenton now stands. By 1709 Rev. Mr. Gordon, who was
one of the two ministers sent out by the S.P.G., writes to the secretary
of the Society from Perquimans: