Table Of ContentFRIEND KENNETH L. CARROLL
FRIEND KENNETH L. CARROLL
1924
May 8, Thursday: Kenneth Lane Carroll was born as the 3d child of Albert Raymond Carroll and Mary Ethel
Lane Carroll of Easton, Maryland. He would be educated in the Easton public schools and then
matriculate at Duke University.
1946
Fall: Kenneth L. Carroll’s connection with Quakers began when he was 22 while he was a Duke University
student and dishwasher, at the Friends meeting in Durham, North Carolina.
It has been said that a good meeting for worship comforts
the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. It may do even
more than these two things as, in the living silence or
through the vocal ministry, we experience a sense of
direction or redirection, feel our consciences awakened
or made more sensitive, or find within us a yearning for
the triumph of God’s will in our own lives and in the world
around us.... In the autumn of 1946 I attended my first
Quaker meeting for worship, finally discovering some
Friends present (after two unsuccessful efforts). At that
time the Durham, N.C., Meeting was held only on the second
and fourth Sundays, and not being aware of that fact I had
come on the preceding fifth and first Sundays — hoping to
find a religious approach and type of worship which might
prove meaningful and alive to me. This was at the end of
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a spiritual pilgrimage which had, at first, taken me away
from the church in which I was raised and then led me to
a rejection of organized or institutionalized religion as
such. I became convinced that religion is purely personal,
with there being no need for a religious community.
Ultimately I came to see that I was wrong, that for me
there is a real need for a religious community — for the
help, guidance, fellowship, encouragement, etc., that are
so vital for a satisfying religious life. This discovery
led me to sample a variety of religious approaches:
Protestantism in many delicious flavors, Roman
Catholicism, and even Reform Judaism. None of those spoke
to my condition, so that there still remained the Quakers
for me to visit. I knew about the Quaker peace testimony,
which I found appealing, but had no real understanding of
their worship — waiting in expectant silence until God
spoke to them before speaking to each other. Also, at this
time when much of the world was marked with despair and
almost overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness and
helplessness (given the great destruction and collapse
brought on by World War II), I too was wrestling with the
questions “What can a person do in a world that needs so
much help, so much healing, so much rebuilding?”
The meeting for worship was rather small, about twenty or
twenty-five people sitting in a circle in the middle of
the Social Room at the Duke Divinity School building.
Without a signal, and almost without notice, those present
slipped from their initial joy in seeing each other into
a silence that soon became a living silence. Although
totally unused to such an approach to worship I found
myself increasingly a part of what was happening. Well
along in the hour the silence was broken for the first
(and only) time when an elderly, white-haired man with a
gentle South Carolina accent uttered a brief message that
came from his heart, and that spoke to most if not all of
us, for it rang of experience, reality, and sincerity.
This professor of medicine at the Duke Medical School told
us how he, too, had been troubled by the question of what
he as an individual could do to help in this world and age
that cried out in so many ways for attention and action.
He, too, had felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the
needs, experiencing almost a spiritual “paralysis.” Yet,
in the preceding week, he had received a great deal of
help and encouragement as he had read a biography of
Elizabeth Fry who had accepted the situation of women in
English prisons as a challenge and then gave her life to
meeting the need she had found. As he had read this and
then meditated on her work it had become increasingly
clear to David Smith that he was not called to take on all
the world’s problems. He now knew that he was called to
meet those individual needs that called out to him for
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action.
This simple message, arising out of a living silence,
stemming from what he had himself experienced, and
delivered in a quiet way, spoke to my condition and my
needs. I now knew that the Quaker meeting for worship,
based upon silent waiting and entered into in holy
expectancy, was what I had been seeking all those months
of going from one church to another. Truly in this, my
first, meeting for worship God had reached out to touch
me.
Winter: In his senior year at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, majoring in History with minors in
Religion, Political Science, and Economics, Kenneth L. Carroll had been elected to Phi Beta Kappa
national academic honorary society. During a holiday break from classes he began attending Quaker
meeting for worship with the Third Haven Friends Meeting at 405 S. Washington Street in his home
town, Easton, Maryland.
Ken would continue at Duke, in its Religious Studies program, to earn both the B.D. degree (1949)
and the Ph.D. degree (1953).
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1949
The property of the Friends in Princeton, New Jersey, which had for many years been being held in
trust by the Quaker monthly meeting of a neighboring town (probably Crosswicks), was deeded back
to the Princeton Monthly Meeting of Friends at Stony Brook.
At Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, while attending Quaker meeting there, Kenneth L.
Carroll was awarded the B.D. degree in Religious Studies.
Clerks of Meeting
1943-1947 Edward K. Kraybill
1947-1948 William Van Hoy, Jr.
1949-1949 John de J. Pemberton, Jr.
1950-1951 Harry R. Stevens
1951-1952 John A. Barlow
1952-1957 Susan Gower Smith
1957-1960 Frances C. Jeffers
1960-1961 Cyrus M. Johnson
1961-1965 Peter H. Klopfer
1965-1967 Rebecca W. Fillmore
1967-1968 David Tillerson Smith
1968-1970 Ernest Albert Hartley
1970-1971 John Hunter
1971-1972 John Gamble
1972-1974 Lyle B. Snider (2 terms)
1974-1975 Helen Gardella
1976-1978 Cheryl F. Junk
1978-1980 Alice S. Keighton
1980-1982 John B. Hunter
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1982-1984 Edward M. Arnett
1984-1986 Calhoun D. Geiger
1986-1988 John P. Stratton
1988-1990 J. Robert Passmore
1990-1992 Karen Cole Stewart
1992-1995 Kathleen Davidson March
1995-1998 Nikki Vangsnes
1998-2000 Co-clerks J. Robert Passmore
& Karen Cole Stewart
2000-2002 Amy Brannock
2002-2002 Jamie Hysjulien (Acting)
2002-2005 William Thomas O’Connor
2005-2007 Terry Graedon
2007-2009 Anne Akwari
2009-2012 Joe Graedon
2012-xxxx Marguerite Dingman
1950
Kenneth L. Carroll’s “Joseph Nichols and the Nicholites of Caroline County” (Maryland Historical
1
Magazine 45, pages 47-61).
The Hicksite Friends and the Orthodox Friends merged. What had that been all about? A Conference
of American Friends (Quakers) in Richmond, Indiana produced the following statement:
Though we meet under the shadow of loyalty oaths,
restriction of liberties, conscription, and a
governmental policy relying on armed force, we are neither
[intimidated] nor fearful. Out of similar conflicts grew
Friends’ original testimonies, and in the face of these
conflicts one of the most searching tests of Friends’
principles and way of life today ... will be the extent
of our enlightened and dedicated implementation of the
peace testimony. Both the inescapable involvement of
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Friends in a war-making and war-breeding culture and the
sense Friends have of responsibility to society lead us
to affirm that more is required than the refusal to bear
arms, more is demanded than opposition to war.
Conscientious objection to evil must be complemented by
conscientious projection of God’s spirit into affirmative
peace action.
THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
MILITARY CONSCRIPTION
UNAMERICANISM
September: Kenneth L. Carroll’s “Maryland Quakers and Slavery” (Maryland Historical Magazine 45, pages
215-225).
1951
Kenneth L. Carroll’s “More About the Nicholites” (Maryland Historical Magazine 46, pages 278-289).
RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
1952
Fall: Kenneth L. Carroll’s “Maryland Quakers in the Seventeenth Century” had been published in
Maryland Historical Magazine 47 (pages 297-313). He joined the Department of Religious Studies
at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. (When he arrived there as a member of the
Durham, North Carolina monthly meeting, he would discover there to be no Quaker meeting in the
area, but would soon hook up with several other Friends who had recently relocated to Dallas to
create a Dallas monthly meeting and would be chosen as its 1st clerk; he would also serve as the 1st
clerk of the South Central Yearly Meeting of Friends and as clerk of the Executive Committee of the
South Central Region of the American Friends Service Committee.)
1. The Nicholites began in about 1760 with Joseph Nichols of the region of Delaware near the Maryland border. During
an escapade one of Joseph’s best friends became ill and died, and the experience shook him. Soon he was testifying to
friends of a light he had experienced, that was leading to obedience to an “Inward Director.” His group would not believe
in paid ministers; and may have taken a stand against slavery even before the local Quakers. Their wedding ceremonies
were similar to those of the Quakers and marriage outside the group was cause for disownment. Nicholites, like Quakers,
opposed fighting during the American Revolution. They referred to each other as Friends and were often referred to by
others as “New Quakers.” They differed from Quakers in being dubious of the benefit of education — their children
seldom learned more than to read and write and some could not sign their names. Nicholites influenced by Friend John
Woolman were plain and austere to an extreme, wearing only undyed cloth, not mixing natural colors of yarn in woven
cloth, not wearing black leather or using blacking on their shoes, etc. Their furniture was simple and their gardens without
flowers. Whenever possible they traveled on foot. Joseph Nichols died during December 1770 after only a few years of
ministry, and his widow Mary remarried with Levin Charles and migrated to the Deep River section of Guilford County.
The Nicholite group organized itself there during December 1774 to meet monthly at the house of a new leader, James
Harriss. Meetings were held in various members’ houses and sometimes at nearby Quaker meetinghouses. By 1775 the
group had three meetinghouses of their own in the border area of Maryland and Delaware.
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1953
During his undergraduate education at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, Kenneth L.
Carroll’s studies in history had led to Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Divinity degrees (he was made
a member of Phi Beta Kappa), and he had gone on to do graduate work in religion and publish two
scholarly articles. These articles had been based upon the minutes of the Third Haven monthly
meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Easton, Maryland, minutes beginning in 1676. In this
year he achieved the degree of PhD (T 1946, D 1949, G 1953) with a dissertation entitled SCRIPTURE
AND THE EARLY CHURCH.
He had already accepted a position as instructor in the Religion Department at Southern Methodist
University in Dallas, Texas. In seven years he would rise from instructor to full professor there —
which is still a record for that institution!
February 15, Sunday: Faced with the issue of what to do about policies with clauses freeing the life insurance
company from payout if the insured was killed in war, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided that
the insurance needed to pay — because the present conflict in Korea was officially a peace action of
the United Nations and not a declared war of the United States of America.
KOREAN WAR
It was pointed out in the US Senate that it would be cheaper to put federal maximum security
prisoners up at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, than it was costing us to house them at Alcatraz
in San Francisco Bay.
President Dwight David Eisenhower warned the American people that the current arms race with the
USSR, including nuclear weapons, was going to be expensive and long-term.
Condemned prisoners Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, awaiting electrocution at Sing Sing in
Ossining, New York, were allowed to spend two hours with their sons Michael, age nine, and Robert,
age five.
Friend Susan Gower Smith, Clerk of the Durham, North Carolina monthly meeting of the Religious
Society of Friends, wrote to Friend Kenneth L. Carroll mentioning the new meetinghouse on the
grounds of the Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island, and experiments on the impact of
intercessory prayer on the sprouting of seeds by Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine of the Parapsychology
Laboratory at Duke University (it was being suggested that three years of experiments had been
inconclusive and positive results unrepeatable simply because the lima beans, sweet peas, and corn
kernels being prayed over had been planted too close to the seeds not being prayed over, so that some
of the control seeds not being prayed over had sprouted due to their beneficial closeness to prayer
activity for the sprouting of the test seeds):
Your letter about your wonderful meeting should have been
answered immediately. It was greatly appreciated and read
to the meeting. I’m sure we felt almost as happy over it
as you did.
Now I want to tell you about our meeting last Sunday. We’ve
been dragging along with seldom more than 10 present, more
often just six or eight. Last Sunday afternoon Prof.
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Bennington (Eng. Dept.) called to say that a very dear
friend of theirs was visiting them. He is a Quaker and has
expressed a desire to attend our meeting. He was a
wonderful person John Alford (an artist I think) from the
Providence R.I. meeting. He brot greetings and special
sympathy. They have recently either bought or built a new
Meeting House and they had heard via the grape vine that
we were up to the same thing. All told we had 22 present
at the meeting and about six spoke. It was one of the most
meaningful meetings we’ve ever had. It gave us great hope
after going through a period of great discouragement.
One member who has come recently is most interesting viz
— Laurel Glass who is doing some work on Prayer with Glenn
Clark. He was in Durham last Tues and she invited me along
with all who stayed to our Business Meeting to attend an
informal gathering at her house that evening. People came
from Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Greensboro. He sat in a
comfortable chair and talked for at least an hour and a
half without stopping. I thot he was quite interesting and
a rare personality of unusual spiritual depth. Apparently
she (Laurel Glass) is working in Dr. Rhine’s Dept. and
they are actually experimenting with intercessory prayer.
I feel that she is going to be a great addition to our
meeting.
Have you hears the bad news that Helen and Ed Kraybill
have removed their membership completely to the Trinity
Ave Pres. church. We miss them and it looked for a while
as if we could not replace Helen as treas. Finally we asked
Stanley Guise, a graduate student and an exceedingly fine
person to take it and he accepted with graciousness and
enthusiasm. He is young but a rock of Gibraltar!
Ever good wishes,
Susan Gower Smith
December: Kenneth L. Carroll’s “The Expansion of the Pauline Corpus” (Journal of Biblical Literature, 72:4,
pages 230-237).
1954
September: Kenneth L. Carroll’s “The Creation of the Fourfold Gospel” (Bulletin of the John Rylands
Library, 37:1, pages 68-77).
October: At the Moses Brown School of the Religious Society of Friends in Providence, Rhode Island, it was
announced that Schoolmaster L. Ralston Thomas was retiring and his post being filled by a member
of the New Haven monthly meeting, Friend George St. John.
Kenneth L. Carroll’s “The Nicholites of North Carolina” (North Carolina Historical Review 31,
pages 453-462).
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1955
September: Kenneth L. Carroll’s “The Earliest New Testament” (The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library
38, pages 45-57).
1956
March: Kenneth L. Carroll’s “Joseph Nichols of Delaware: an Eighteenth Century Religious Leader”
(Delaware History 7:1, pages 37-48).
RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
Summer: At the Quaker Study Center in Wallingford, Pennsylvania known as “Pendle Hill,” Professor
Kenneth L. Carroll taught a course in the New Testament.
RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
1957
Friend Milton Sanford Mayer’s THE TRADITION OF FREEDOM.
The 22-room New England Friends Home at 230 Main Street in Amesbury, Massachusetts was found
no longer to be in compliance with updated state safety standards and notice was given that at the end
of the year the facility would need to close down (the basic construction of the building, with long
dark stairs, etc., meant that there was no feasible way to meet the new code). At that time, room and
board there was $17 per week for elderly Quakers, $3 less expensive than for non-Quakers.
Dr. David Tillerson Smith was awarded the Trudeau Medal for research in tuberculosis by the
American Thoracic Society.
Kenneth L. Carroll’s “The Fourth Gospel and the Exclusion of Christians from the Synagogue”
2
(Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 40, pages 19-32).
March: Kenneth L. Carroll’s “Additional Nicholite Records” (Maryland Historical Magazine 52, pages 74-
80).
RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
2. In this year, during a raft trip down the Rio Grande, Ken’s life was saved in Santa Elena Canyon by his adopted brother
Lon Slaughter of San Angelo, Texas.
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1958
Friend Floyd Schmoe went to the Middle East to help reopen water wells that had been damaged
during the Egyptian/Israeli wars.
Friend Milton Mayer’s THE REVOLUTION IN EDUCATION.
Dr. David Tillerson Smith was awarded the Southern Tuberculosis Conference Medal for
distinguished service.
Kenneth L. Carroll’s “Talbot County Quakerism in the Colonial Period” (Maryland Historical
Magazine 53, pages 326-370).
1959
The Friends of Princeton, New Jersey established a Quaker First Day School.
“Quakerism in Caroline County, Maryland: Its Rise and Decline” (Friends Historical Association
Bulletin 48, pages 91-94). Also, COMMEMORATION OF FIRST MEETING HELD IN OLD MEETING
HOUSE 24 OCTOBER 1684, THIRD HAVEN MEETING, RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS NOW OF
EASTON, MARYLAND, 13 DAY 9 MONTH 1959, by Clarence Pickett, Kenneth L. Carroll, and
Edward T. Miller.
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