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American Protestants have always excelled at starting new religious organizations. All it takes is a charismatic individual with a vision and a willingness to convince others of the rightness of that vision.

Such a person was a farmer named Joseph Nichols who was living in southern Kent County, Del., in the early 1760s. His gregarious nature and love of fun made him a neighborhood leader in the Sunday “frolics” that were popular at the time. These were gatherings that featured horse racing, singing, dancing and storytelling. But at one of these parties a good friend fell ill and died, and this sudden disaster had such a sobering effect on Nichols that he “undertook a spiritual pilgrimage,” as biographer Kenneth L. Carroll wrote.

The Sunday games became serious discussions among neighbors, who followed and joined him in his spiritual quest. They came to be known as Nicholites, or “New Quakers” or “Primitive Quakers” because so many of the beliefs they espoused were similar to those of the well-established Quakers in the area. Their practices included plain clothing, refusal to take oaths, refusal to participate in the revolt against the British as it came in the 1770s and refusing to own slaves. Above all, they came to believe that an “inward light,” much like the Quaker “inner light,” could help each individual choose between good and evil. An important difference between Nicholites and Quakers was that the Nicholites saw danger in too much education and seldom taught their children beyond basic reading and writing.

By 1778, a number of Nicholites had moved into western Guilford County and settled along Deep River and upper Reedy Fork Creek. After a few years, they built a meeting house, probably in what is now the Oakview Estates area of High Point, perhaps along what is now Beverly Hills Drive, according to research conducted by the late Jack L. Perdue. Quaker records indicate that one of their ministers visited this meeting house in 1789.

Perdue’s research led him to conclude that Paris Chipman and Joseph Standley were the leaders of this migration. Chipman purchased land on the south or west fork of Deep River in May 1775. By August 1778, they and James Caldwell, Levin Charles, William Charles, John Horney, William Horney, Valentine Pegg and William Wheeler had signed a petition to the North Carolina General Assembly requesting that they be relieved of the duty of taking oaths and bearing arms because of religious beliefs that were similar to those of Quakers.

Eventually, the Nicholites lost the cohesion of their beginning. This occurred among those who had remained behind in the Maryland-Delaware area and those who had come to Guilford County, and by 1800 many had become Quakers.

Some of the Nicholites settled in Jamestown. One of these was Levin Charles, Jamestown’s first postmaster, appointed in 1811. He purchased the corner lot best known as the original location of the Madison Lindsay House, on the west side of Scientific Street where it joins Main Street. He purchased the lot from George Mendenhall in 1800, and it was later sold to David Lindsay, whose nephew Madison Lindsay used it for his medical office and taught students there about 1820.

Charles’ wife was Mary Tumlin Nichols, the widow of Nicholite founder Joseph Nichols, who died in 1770. Charles and Elijah Charles also owned lots in the village. I speculate that Levin Charles may have built the house or part of that house that we now call the Madison Lindsay House because it appears to pre-date Lindsay’s occupancy.

Mary Pegg Mendenhall, daughter of Nicholite Valentine Pegg, was born in Guilford County in 1788 and grew up as a Nicholite. She applied for membership in Deep River Monthly Meeting and was accepted in 1808. She married Richard Mendenhall at the meeting in 1811. Her father also was accepted as a member of Deep River, as were other members of the Pegg family. Mary Pegg Mendenhall lived in the Richard Mendenhall House in Jamestown until her death in 1867 and was buried beside Richard Mendenhall at Deep River Cemetery. Valentine Pegg moved to the Midwest, but Martin Pegg, his brother, settled in what is now Deep River Township in Guilford County, where many descendants still live.

Major Anderson, another Nicholite, did not live in the village of Jamestown but married Miriam Mendenhall, daughter of John Mendenhall, and lived in the area surrounding Deep River Meeting. The Wheelers ­— John, Jonathan and Manlove — were Nicholites. They built and operated a well-known mill. Many other early residents of the wider Deep River community probably had early Nicholite connections. Those with surnames Horney, Shaw, Sullivan, Wright, Chilcutt, Cranor, Dawson, Goslin, Gray, Jester, Melvin, Miner, Moore, Pope, Ross, Rumly, Russell, Stafford and Sapp are possibilities, as all of them came during that same period from the Delmarva Peninsula. I’m sure there are others, as well.

An interesting true story survives involving a man named Isaac Linnegar, described by Carroll as a “part colored man.” He was a member of the original Nicholite group, witnessed two marriages performed by the meeting, married an ex-slave and was part of the migration to North Carolina. He is known to have lived in Guilford County and then to have moved back and forth between Gum Swamp on the Little Pee Dee River, where a very small group of Nicholites had settled, and Guilford.

He applied for membership at Deep River Monthly Meeting in 1796. The meeting wasn’t sure what to do about this unique request from a man of color, so they referred the matter to New Garden Quarterly Meeting, which in turn forwarded it upward to the North Carolina Yearly Meeting. That body found that “the Discipline was clear on this point,” as Carroll put it, and Linnegar was received as a member.

If you are interested in learning more about the Nicholites, you can read several works by Carroll. His articles are in the Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. XIV, No. 1 for March 1950, pp. 47-61; Vol. XLVI, 1951, pp. 278-289; and Vol. LII, 1957, pp. 74-80. Carroll’s book “Joseph Nichols and the Nicholites,” published by the Easton Publishing Co. in 1962, contains all the information from the articles, I believe. Carroll’s update “Another Look at the Nicholites” was published in the Southern Friend, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1983. Jack L. Perdue added important and interesting local information to Carroll’s findings and published it in The Guilford Genealogist, Vol. 11. No. 2, 1984.

Mary Browning is a longtime resident of Jamestown. Contact her at maryab30@triad.rr.com.