Quaker History/Community

Coming in first: A pleasant surprise/Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia/PA/USA/14-Jul-05//… We always knew Moorestown was nice. Pleasant. Quiet. But so spectacular? We are, after all, a town with Quaker roots.

So we're presumably humble and modest, not horn-tooting.

While most people I meet on Main Street or at the cleaners are thrilled, a few, like the woman who's just sold her house and is moving to downtown Philadelphia, scoffed. She came here thinking she would love the bucolic look and feel of our Quaker town, only to find herself terminally bored.

Not a whole lot goes on here, unless you count the three major church rummage sales that bring throngs, the Random Acts of Kindness Week each winter, and - please don't snicker - the Home and School Fair where manning the lemon-sucker stand is considered the ultimate honor for a loyal Home and School parent.

"I can't live in a town that has a strawberry festival!" was the lament of relocated Manhattanites who came to town years ago and stuck it out "for the kids."

You should know that our schools are always identified as superior, that kids actually choose to take Latin without feeling nerdy, and that the rarified air of the Ivy League gets to be inhaled by enough of our high school graduates that guidance counselors smile a lot in mid-April.

Those guidance counselors also worry plenty, because Moorestown in one of those places where the pressure to succeed begins early and keeps a pretty tight grip on the young. ….

1 top ranking, 2 alike towns

Cherry Hill Courier Pos/Cherry Hill/NJ/USA/13-Jul-05

At first glance, the towns have common traits: Both were settled before America's independence, both have Quaker roots, both were likely stops on the Underground Railroad and neither sell booze.

NJ Town Rated No. 1/WPVI/Philadelphia/PA/USA/11-Jul-05//... Reporters visited the top 12 towns to decide which had the most community spirit. The Burlington County town has Quaker roots and was settled in 1682. ...

Magazine Proclaims NJ Town The Nation's Best, Yorktown Ranks 33rd/WAVY//VA/USA/11-Jul-05/AP/... Reporters visited the top 12 towns to decide which had the most community spirit. The New Jersey town has Quaker roots and was settled in 1682. ...


Magazine proclaims NJ town the nation's best, Yorktown #33/WVEC.com//VA/USA/11-Jul-05/AP/... Reporters visited the top 12 towns to decide which had the most community spirit. The New Jersey town has Quaker roots and was settled in 1682. ...



NBC 10.com/Philadelphia/PA/USA/11-Jul-05/AP/...

Quaker History/Community//Best Cities In America List Has One Focus, Of Course/Southwest News-Herald/IL/USA/12-Jul-05//… The number one town is Moorestown, in Philadelphia, a place that is filled with Quakers.

No, not people who make cereal you goofy sout sider! Quakers are people affiliated with a group called the Society of Friends which came from England in the 18th Century. Originally Christians, they also include Buddhists and agnostics, too. Happy people, basically. (You learn stuff in this column.)

They’re not talking about the Philadelphia Quakers, which was a successful hockey team, formerly known as the Philadelphia Pirates during the Great Depression. No, not the Depression of 1985-86.

Well, you don’t think they are going to pick a town filled with a lot of non-White minorities, do you? Who did you think is the magazine’s audience? (Let’s not open that can of worms.) ...