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The Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, was founded in England in 1652 by George Fox, who had been preaching since the 1640s. The
first missionaries to North America arrived in 1655–56. The first New England Yearly Meeting—the first major meeting of the denomination in the American Colonies—took place in Rhode Island in 1661. The Quakers were welcomed there, unlike in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Perhaps the most famous Quaker in colonial America was William Penn, who settled in Pennsylvania with his followers.
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