How to recognize a Quaker will

Question

The Quaker sticker was recently added to William Lawrence.

 A younger man of that name, perhaps the grandson of the linked William, appears in the minutes of Shrewsbury Meeting marrying in 1719:

https://archive.org/details/cu31924028855217/page/n57/mode/2up

but I have seen no record that William the immigrant was a Quaker.

Are there tell-tale signs in a will that could be used to infer that someone was a practicing Quaker?

I notice that William's will has a certain simplicity. The initial part just asks for a decent burial but does not go on about the salvation of his soul, etc. that I see often in wills from this period. And when he dates the will, he makes no mention of the monarch.

Comments

How did he date the will?

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The transcription is on the profile: " this My last will and Teastement performed Dated the Third day of December in the yeare one thousand seven hundred and one." So I guess he would have said 12th month... and was likely not a Quaker? 

I am still interested in the other aspects of Quaker wills though: did they refrain from mentioning the monarch?

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If he wrote the will himself or the clerk doing so were Quaker it would probably have been dated 3rd of 10th 1701 (December is the 10th month in this era). However, I do not know if legal docs required the name of the month. I don't know if you can infer anything based on lack of mention of the monarch. They are not mentioned in any will of my Quaker ancestors that I have seen and I don't know if they might appear in colonial records absent regnal dating.

I see the 2nd wife is a Scudder (Elizabeth here is my 9th great grand aunt) and the majority of the Scudder family were Quaker and heavily taxed, fined and what have you for it. I don't know if Elizabeth was Quaker.

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Thanks, T.

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Adding to: Elizabeth's brother John Scudder, my ancestor, is Quaker but his father is not presently documented as Quaker. So, whether Elizabeth was Quaker is an open question. If she were, it is unlikely she would have married outside the Friends. 

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Samuel, brother to John and Elizabeth, was also Quaker.

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If a will begins with an oath such as "In the Name of God, Amen." It is probably not a will made by a Quaker.

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Barry, in case it's any use, here is a Quaker will I assisted in transcribing.  It is dated 1715 and includes a discussion of dating in the notes.  (I think I've done others, but can't remember now and don't know how to locate something I could have posted to WT any time in the last few years.)

Answer 1

Witnesses are usually found at same monthly meeting. Non family executor often more prominent member.

Answer 2

Taking a look at William Lawrence, I'm not finding clues that he was Quaker.  

He is not found in the U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935 at Ancestry.  

On his profile the source, "Family of Longstreet, page 74, states he was a Baptist.

Answer 3

As others have said, the will is not dated as a Quaker would have dated it. The will says “Third day of December.” A Quaker would have written “third day of tenth month.”  They used numbers because several day and month names had non-Christian origins.

Also, prior to 1752 the Julian calendar was used, so December would have been the 10th month, not the 12th.

Comments

The entire calendar was Roman based months and Norse days of the week.

During this time, there was also used O.S. and N.S. to differentiate between Julian (OS) and Gregorian (NS).), since the colonies used the dates from their mother country (everyone except British Empire and colonies switched over by the 1580s), hence the confusion.

In the colonies, the skipped dates on the Julian are in Sept (no dates exist between 2-14) 1752 to catch up to the Gregorian.