There is scant mention of Quakers in Exeter's history.  Charles Bell, in his History of the Town of Exeter, New Hampshire, gives passing reference to the group, "About the middle of the last century (the 1700s) there were a few Quakers in Exeter, who held meetings for a time in a barn which stood on the southerly side of what is now Front Street, just opposite the head of Centre Street."  Quakers eventually became quite prominent in the early days of the United States, but remained uncommon in Exeter.

The Quakers, or Society of Friends, were founded in England during an era of religious turmoil.  In the mid-1600s, the Church of England was challenged by the Puritans, who sought to reform the church and rid it of its papist trappings. Puritans distained most rituals and holidays, viewing them as un-Biblical in origin.  George Fox, the son of a weaver, was a serious and devout young man who had been brought up within Puritanism.  At first his family thought he might make a good minister and considered sending him to the University.  But Fox, although well versed in Biblical studies, was disillusioned with the professors and ministers he met.  To Fox, the clergy seemed to be too rigid in their relationship with God and far too petty when dealing with matters of the world.  One minister he spoke with talked loftily of the kingdom of heaven and then berated Fox for stepping across the border of his flower garden.  Another told him that women had no soul and were as important to God as geese.

While wandering, searching for the way, Fox was hit with a revelation - God is in all people at all times.  He called this the "inner light".  Self revelation needed no formal clergy and no specific written text.  He began to hold meetings and preach his ideas.  Because these notions challenged those of the accepted churches, Fox was often imprisoned and fined.  Undeterred, he continued to explain his beliefs.  While in court one day facing charges of blasphemy, he visibly shook while testifying.  The judge derisively called him a "quaker".  But instead of finding the name an insult, Fox and his followers embraced it and have accepted it as a nickname, of sorts, for the movement.

Quakerism came to America as early as the 1650s.  To the New England Puritans, who were more orthodox than their counterparts in Britain (an 18^th Century Vermont politician, Matthew Lyon, once said of them that they would "punish their horses for breaking the Sabbath") Quakers were more than just religious blasphemers, they threatened the very social order.  By allowing everyone, regardless of class, gender or age, the right to speak in church and not having a designated clergy, the whole New England system of law and justice was under attack.  In most New England towns, including Exeter, the minister was at once the spiritual, moral and educational leader.  And he was always male.

Quaker women were particularly frightening because they dared to speak.  When faced with this onslaught of seemingly lawless people, including mouthy women, the Massachusetts Bay Colony quickly outlawed Quakers and even the harboring of Quakers.  Laws were passed to refuse them entrance into the colony and if they did manage to enter, they faced imprisonment, deportation and heavy fines.  If they persisted in re-entering the colony, they could be put to death.

New Hampshire's laws weren't much more open.  In 1656, fines were imposed on anyone who harbored a Quaker.  According the Gazetteer of the State of New Hampshire, written much later in 1817 by Eliphalet and Phinehas Merrill, in 1656 "if a Quaker should arrive, he should be immediately sent to the house of correction, receive twenty stripes, and be confined to hard labour until he could be transported.  At the next session, an act passed, by which all persons were liable to a fine of forty shillings for harbouring a Quaker one hour.  After the first conviction under this act, the offender, if a man, was to lose one ear, and upon the third conviction, the other; if a woman, she was for each offense to be whipped, and upon the fourth conviction, the offender, whether man or woman was to have the tongue bored through with a hot iron."

With penalties like that, was it any wonder that there are no early accounts of Quakers in Exeter?  By the mid-1700s, the colonies had become slightly more open to opposing ideas and Charles Bell notes that a few local Quakers spoke during regular services at the town meeting house in 1753.  It didn't go over very well and the speakers were brought up before the court for "breach of the peace and violation of the act for the better observance of the Lord's day."  Both of the Friends brought up on charges were women.  They pleaded not guilty but the court ruled against them and they were fined.  Bell concludes, "The fine and costs were at once paid, and no further account is found of Quakers in the town."  They got off easy; many more Quakers in New England were publicly whipped.  The persecutions didn't end until after the American Revolution when toleration laws were passed.