The Religious Society of Friends was founded in the mid-17th century in England by George Fox (1624-1691). Friends came to be known as Quakers after a judge told Fox to quake before the authority of his court, and Fox responded that the judge should quake before the authority of God. Almost immediately, the religion spread to the American colonies and later, around the world.
Early Friends sought to revive Christ’s teachings of peace, simple living, concern for the marginalized, and equal access by all people to the Spirit’s leadings. From the beginning, Quakers have actively engaged in a variety of social justice activities including:
The American Friends Service Committee and the British Friends Service Council, two prominent Quaker relief organizations, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 on behalf of Quakers worldwide. The prize was awarded for Quakers’ pioneering work in the international peace movement and their humanitarian aid given before, during, and after World Wars I & II. This aid was given without regard to race, nationality, or civilian or military status.
Over the centuries, several branches of Quakers evolved with varying degrees of Christian theology. Indeed, some Quakers do not identify as Christian but embrace the teachings of many religious traditions, and some are non-theistic.
Today, some Quakers, like Eno Friends Meeting, hold “unprogrammed” worship without pastors, a formal liturgy, or prescribed format. Instead, we wait in expectant silence for messages from Spirit. Most Quakers around the world, however, hold “programmed” worship which is led by a pastor and resembles a typical Protestant service.
Before Hillsborough became a town, a large community of Quakers settled in the Eno River valley. Around 1750, extended families undertook the long journey from Pennsylvania to new homes in the Piedmont of North Carolina. They had seen advertisements describing the abundant, fertile lands available in the newly opened central region of North Carolina and applied for grants from John Carteret, the second Earl of Granville.
The group traveled along the Great Wagon Road which extended westward from Philadelphia, turning south at Winchester, Virginia, through the Shenandoah Valley, crossing over the Blue Ridge Mountains at the Roanoke River Gap, and continuing to the North Carolina border.
These early Quakers were mostly farmers, small merchants, or innkeepers. Joseph Maddock built the first mill in the area on the west bank of the Eno River. From the first sitting of the Orange County Inferior Court in 1752, Quakers were appointed to minor public posts, serving as constables in their own communities, on grand and petty juries, and on small committees of adjudication. Because of their testimony against taking oaths, they were prevented from holding higher office.
In 1754, local Friends petitioned Cane Creek Meeting, the first meeting established in the Piedmont, for recognition as a Quaker meeting. They were granted provisional status and began regular meetings for worship under the care and oversight of Cane Creek. Joseph Maddock and Mary Jackson were appointed as overseers of the meeting and of the women’s meeting, respectively.
The Eno Friends Meeting was expected to prepare most of its concerns for consideration by Cane Creek Meeting, to report regularly on the adherence to the discipline of the Society by the members in the area, and to answer queries from the yearly meeting. The Eno Friends were often cited as derelict in providing written reports which led to their long oversight by Cane Creek Meeting.
In 1759, they acquired land near what is now Mars Hill and built a meeting house, school, and burying ground. The meeting thrived until around 1766. Farmers and small merchants began to protest the corrupt government officials. They became known as the Regulators; they asserted their loyalty to the British government, and asked only that the laws be applied fairly. Herman Husband, a Friend from Cane Creek Meeting, wrote a pamphlet laying out a series of demands and tried to negotiate a peaceful settlement.
Joseph Maddock, fearing retaliation from the county officials after he was named as a leader among the Regulators, sold his mill and moved with a large group of his followers to establish a new community in Wrightsville, Georgia, leaving the meeting and the Quaker community in disarray. The protest, now known as the Regulator Rebellion, culminated in a bloody battle in Alamance County in 1771. The colonists lost the battle, but many of the corrupt officials resigned. Six of the Regulators were hung in Hillsborough, at least one of them a Quaker. The American Revolution a few years later further decimated the membership of Eno Friends Meeting as young men were disowned for choosing to join the local militia.
In 1793, the remnant of about fourteen members of Eno Friends Meeting came under the care of Spring Meeting, along with Friends from Chatham and South Fork. Before the end of the Eighteenth Century, Eno Friends began to marry members of Spring, South Fork, and Chatham meetings and often moved their affiliation to these meetings, further reducing the membership of Eno Friends Meeting.
Although few Friends were living in Hillsborough, the Quaker presence was not yet over. In 1824, Stephen Grellet, a French-American minister, reported that he was at “a large Meeting” in Hillsborough, but found no Friends living in town; the Eno meetinghouse was big enough to hold a large audience eager to hear of his concerns for education, the poor, and other social problems. In 1837, Joseph John Gurney, a British Friend on an evangelical missionary trip throughout North America, stopped overnight at Eno, enroute from New Garden to the eastern part of North Carolina, and found “a degree of satisfaction” with Friends along the Eno.
The meeting did not last long afterward. At the request of Spring Meeting and Western Quarter, Eno Friends Meeting was finally discontinued. This action is reported in the minutes of the yearly meeting held at New Garden in 1847:
“Spring Monthly Meeting informs this Meeting that they are united in the opinion that the members of Eno are not capable of holding a meeting to the Honor of Truth & credit of Society; after a time of deliberation thereon, this meeting unites therewith and lays it down accordingly. The Clerk is directed to furnish Spring Meeting with a copy of the foregoing Minute & report.”
Eno Friends Meeting no longer met as a community. The meetinghouse fell into ruin and burned to the ground in 1877. The log school house was conveyed to the town and in 1904 became “Tidy Hall” public school. The building was eventually razed. The only remaining indication of the Quaker community is their burying ground, now surrounded by private land.
About 2010, a small group of Quakers started worshiping together under the care of Durham Friends Meeting and with the support of Chapel Hill Friends Meeting. They initially gathered in the home of Sally Freeman and Paul Klever, becoming known as the Hillsborough Friends Worship Group. In September 2013, the Worship Group began meeting in the building on Margaret Lane that was being leased by Hillsborough Yoga & Healing Arts.
Friends started holding monthly meetings for worship with attention to business in 2015. When the building went up for sale in 2016, Mary and David Knox purchased it for an art gallery, and Friends were able to continue meeting there. The group went through many months of discernment and then felt led to take steps to become a monthly meeting in the Religious Society of Friends. Many attendees wanted membership and felt a strong commitment to the Hillsborough group. Friends contacted Piedmont Friends Yearly Meeting (PFYM) and went through a clearness process to become an independent monthly meeting affiliated with PFYM in 2016. They formally joined in Spring 2017 under the name Eno Friends Meeting of Hillsborough, taking the name from the early Quakers who settled the town.
In December 2024, Eno Friends Meeting of Hillsborough needed more space and moved its meeting location to the church office building of the Hillsborough United Methodist Church.