The Quaker Cemetery is about two miles from the Inn. The Yeaton family with other neighbors had constructed The Old South Church in 1826. It was dedicated in 1828. Donna Yeaton, who passed away in the early 1980s, was still attending that church. It was not affiliated with the Quakers.
With so many Quaker references throughout the region, the small numbers of Quakers, made a significant impact on our history.
Two Shakers still live in the Sabbaouthday Lake home, about 45 minutes from here.
The Quakers in Belgrade
The Quaker way of life grew out of very hard times in 17th century, church-ruled England. Quakers who emigrated to America found safety and tolerance in some places, but not under the Puritanical government of Massachusetts. A few groups on Cape Cod and those on Nantucket, quietly clung to their ways, and on the wilder frontiers, settlers were too busy surviving to worry about a group who were honest and non-violent.
Increasing trouble between Americans and English before the War of Independence caused terrible financial hardship to New England's coastal fishing and shipping. Quakers tried to stay neutral but were called traitors by both Patriots and English. Many fled their homes during these hard times and the depression which followed the Revolution.
Forts Western and Halifax had been built in 1754 to encourage and protect new settlement on land being surveyed and sold by the Kennebec Proprietors. Belgrade is part of that so-called Kennebec Patent. Between 1750 and 1800 the population of the Province of Maine grew from 10,000 to 150,000. It was natural for Quakers to settle in the Kennebec Valley, because Quaker merchants on Nantucket were already shipping wood products from lands they owned along the Kennebec River.
Quakers, also called the Society of Friends, in general tended to help one another to work hard, to maintain high morals, and to prosper. Vassalboro had the earliest Quaker Group or "meeting" in our area, sanctioned in 1780; North Fairfield, Sidney, Winthrop and China also had meetings by 1800. Belgrade first met in 1801 or 1802, with Samuel Taylor as the well-respected first leader. The group met here for worship but went to Sidney's full monthly meeting to decide Quaker business affairs.
The Calvin and Samuel Stuart/Stewart families are the earliest recorded members; they are buried in our own Quaker cemetery along with other early Quakers, Eleazer Burbank, his family, the Pinkhams (Pinkham's Cove) and three Taylor families (Taylor Woods Road). Eleazer was a Revolutionary War veteran and "was afterward dropped from the society for receiving a military pension." There are probably unmarked graves also in our Quaker Cemetery because some Friends considered stone markers too ostentatious.
In 1839 a small meeting house was built beside the cemetery on the Burbank's farm, on the east side where Route 135 meets Routes 8 and 11. The church was moved in 1853 by ox teams a mile north on Route 11 near the Joseph Taylor farm (Frank Page's in 1892; now Loyce Hayslett's). There "they held meetings for several years, but the society gradually died out" and closed down in 1879. The structure was sold to Taylor for a barn, and it burned in 1880. Typical of Maine Quaker Meetings, the Belgrade group was probably more influential locally than it's small numbers would indicate.
The Quaker way of life grew out of very hard times in 17th century, church-ruled England. Quakers who emigrated to America found safety and tolerance in some places, but not under the Puritanical government of Massachusetts. A few groups on Cape Cod and those on Nantucket, quietly clung to their ways, and on the wilder frontiers, settlers were too busy surviving to worry about a group who were honest and non-violent.
Increasing trouble between Americans and English before the War of Independence caused terrible financial hardship to New England's coastal fishing and shipping. Quakers tried to stay neutral but were called traitors by both Patriots and English. Many fled their homes during these hard times and the depression which followed the Revolution.
Forts Western and Halifax had been built in 1754 to encourage and protect new settlement on land being surveyed and sold by the Kennebec Proprietors. Belgrade is part of that so-called Kennebec Patent. Between 1750 and 1800 the population of the Province of Maine grew from 10,000 to 150,000. It was natural for Quakers to settle in the Kennebec Valley, because Quaker merchants on Nantucket were already shipping wood products from lands they owned along the Kennebec River.
Quakers, also called the Society of Friends, in general tended to help one another to work hard, to maintain high morals, and to prosper. Vassalboro had the earliest Quaker Group or "meeting" in our area, sanctioned in 1780; North Fairfield, Sidney, Winthrop and China also had meetings by 1800. Belgrade first met in 1801 or 1802, with Samuel Taylor as the well-respected first leader. The group met here for worship but went to Sidney's full monthly meeting to decide Quaker business affairs.
The Calvin and Samuel Stuart/Stewart families are the earliest recorded members; they are buried in our own Quaker cemetery along with other early Quakers, Eleazer Burbank, his family, the Pinkhams (Pinkham's Cove) and three Taylor families (Taylor Woods Road). Eleazer was a Revolutionary War veteran and "was afterward dropped from the society for receiving a military pension." There are probably unmarked graves also in our Quaker Cemetery because some Friends considered stone markers too ostentatious.
In 1839 a small meeting house was built beside the cemetery on the Burbank's farm, on the east side where Route 135 meets Routes 8 and 11. The church was moved in 1853 by ox teams a mile north on Route 11 near the Joseph Taylor farm (Frank Page's in 1892; now Loyce Hayslett's). There "they held meetings for several years, but the society gradually died out" and closed down in 1879. The structure was sold to Taylor for a barn, and it burned in 1880. Typical of Maine Quaker Meetings, the Belgrade group was probably more influential locally than it's small numbers would indicate.
For those interested in historical details:
For information on Edwin Yeaton, son of the builder, please select here…
For the story of the most recent Yeaton to live in the home, click here to read Donna Yeaton's fascinating 1979 "A Chronicle of Sorts." She was daughter of Edwin, born in 1891…
