EVANS, Joshua, 1731-1798

{{Infobox|
|name=Joshua Evans
|alternative names=
|gender=M
|birthdate=1731
|birthplace=Evensham, N.J.
|nationality= US
|spouses= Priscilla Collins (m. 1753), Ann Kay (m. 1777)
|children= 
|meeting= Haddonfield Monthly Meeting
|branch= Pre-separation
|disowned=
|deathdate= 7 July 1798
|deathplace=
}}

'''Joshua Evans''' (1731 - July 7, 1798) was a mason and an eccentric Friend who travelled in ministry for Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in Haddonfield, New Jersey.

==Biography==
===Personal===
Joshua Evans was born in 1731 in Evesham, New Jersey to Thomas and Rebekah Evans.  By 1745, he was apprenticed to a bricklayer.  In 1752, he contracted pleurisy in Philadelphia and was taken to the home of John and Elizabeth Collins.  He married Priscilla Collins in 1753 and moved to Mount Holly, New Jersey, where he worked as a mason.  The couple later removed to a house near John Woolman's.  In 1757, they settled on the south side of Cooper's Creek in Gloucester County, New Jersey, within the limits of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting.  In 1756, Evans had his goods requisitioned on account of his refusal to be a soldier.  He abstained from all intoxicating liquors, tea, coffee, sugar and molasses.  By 1762, he adopted the use of undyed clothing and wore a beard.  In 1761, he purchased a farm in Newton township.  Evans married a second time in 1777 to Ann Kay (d. 1807).  He died on July 7, 1798 and was burried in Haddonfield, New Jersey.

===Travelling ministry===
For 13 or 14 years, Evans' meeting did not release him to travel in the ministry on account of his peculiarities, but in 1794 he was set at liberty to visit New England and Canada with a minute of unity. In 1797, he returned after a 14-months’ absence in the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania.  In 1798, he retired from visiting Virginia and Pennsylvania.  In 1796 he had a prospect of going to England, but his meeting not concurring. With John Hunt of Moorestown, New Jersey, Evans often visited Indians near Indian Mills, New Jersey, taking blankets and supplies.<br>

==Works By==
*An abstracted journal of the life, early baptisms, and religious exercises of Joshua Evans'' (ed. George Churchman, 1804) 
==Sources==
* [http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/record=b2209350| Evans, Joshua, Journal, 1837.]<br>
* Journal (Comly), 1831.<br>
* [http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/record=b1108038| Comly, John Friends ''Miscellany,'' Philadelphia : William Sharpless, Printer, 1831-1839 1:241 10:1, 312. Jos. Smith's Cat., 1,578]

[[Category:Quakers of Philadelphia]]
[[Category:Quakers of England]]
[[Category:E]]