Rachel Wells

  General Notes:

Rachel and her husband moved to Orange County, North Carolina from the Monacy Meeting, Prince George Co., Maryland about 1749. They helped found the Cane Creek Meeting in Orange Co., North Carolina. She with Abigail Overton Pike and severak others rode on horseback to the Little River Quarterly Meeting in Peruimans in 1751 to seek permission for Cane Creek's Monthly Meeting status. This was granted by them on the sixth month, 31st day of 1751. Cane Creek held their first monthly meeting on the tenth month of 1751 wherein fifteen certificates of removal were submitted.

She was the center of a major controversy in this region during the movement known as the Regulators. She apparently committed an offense. Her apology was accepted until she applied to remove to Fredericksburg, SC in 1763. Some of the members doubted the sincerity of her apology and thought her certificate should not be granted. A principle, outspoken well known liberal Quaker of the time, Hermon Husband, was caught up in the feud. Due to his violent reaction, he was disowned in 1763 and moved north back to Pennsylvania with his family after the decision was appealed to the Quarterly and Yearly Meetings where only his disownment was not reversed. Rachel was granted her removal at the 1764 yearly meeting and that appears to be the timing where Rachel and her family moved to South Carolina. The Cane Creek meeting back in North Carolina mentions her kindly at her death 23 12m 1771, aged about 52 years as "a friend of the Ministry, wife of John, one of the first beginners of a meeting at Bush River."

Rachel married John C. Wright, son of James Wright and Mary Bowater, about 1737 in Hopewell Mm, Frederick, Virginia. (John C. Wright was born on 4 Nov 1716 in East Nottingham, Chester County Pennsylvania and died in 1779 in Newberry, South Carolina, USA.)