In the fall of 1672, the hearts of the members of this infant church were gladdened by the tidings that George Fox himself was on his way to visit the little band of brethren in the wilds of Carolina. One cool, crisp October morning, the great preacher arrived. Again was the home of Phelps chosen for the meeting; but so great was the crowd that gathered to hear him that the house would not hold the congregation. Standing a little distance from Phelps' simple dwelling were two great cypress trees. Close down by the water's edge they grew, their feathery branches shading the rippling waves, and shielding the listeners from the glare of a sun whose rays had not yet lost their summer's heat. Under one of these trees the preacher stood, and spoke to the assembled crowd as the Spirit gave him utterance. It was a "tender meeting," as Fox reports in his letters describing his stay in Perquimans. Many who were present became converts to the faith of Fox and Edmundson; and Perquimans County and her sister, Pasquotank, became for many years the stronghold of the Society of Friends in Carolina.
For a number of years after George Fox's visit to Perquimans, the Quakers were the only religious body in the colony that regularly assembled its members together for divine service. Their ministers were for the most part from the congregation itself; no salary was demanded by them; and the home of some Friends was the scene of their religious meetings. In a new country where ready money is a scarce commodity, a church that could be conducted without any expenditure of cash could more easily take root, than one whose existence depended upon a certain amount, however small, of filthy lucre.
The Lords Proprietors, members for the most part of the Church of England, were too intent upon extracting wealth from their colony in Carolina to be willing to expend any of their gains for the good of the colonists. Disregarding the petitions of their officers in Albemarle, who saw the great need for missionaries in the struggling settlements, they refused to become responsible for the salary of a minister.
But after a while the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts took hold of the matter, and in 1702 a church was built in Chowan, near where Edenton now stands. By 1709 Rev. Mr. Gordon, who was one of the two ministers sent out by the S.P.G., writes to the secretary of the Society from Perquimans: