Evans, Joshua, 1731-1798

Joshua Evans, a Quaker farmer, minister, and abolitionist, was born in 1731, the son of Thomas and Rebecca Evans of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting, New Jersey. In 1753, he married Priscilla Collins under the care of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting. About the year 1754, he experienced a religious conversion and thereafter, devoted his life to sharing his rigorous interpretation of the gospel through an ascetic and pious life style and simple ministry.

Barely educated, he was nevertheless acknowledged as a minister by Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in 1759 and visited Friends in New Jersey, New York, the South, and elsewhere, mostly in the period 1788-1798. Evans was a vegetarian and a fervent proponent of the peace testimony, Quaker plainness, and ending slavery. He also argued for temperance and the fair treatment of Indians. In 1798, he traveled through the southern states condemning slavery in the strongest terms. Returning to New Jersey, he died in July 1798. Controversial in his own time, Evans is representative of a radical, "primitive" Quaker tradition and reflects the diversity of late eighteenth century Quakerism.

From the description of Papers, ca. 1788-ca. 1804. (Swarthmore College).