Biography
Paul Barker Cates was a Quaker conscientious objector from East Vassalboro, Maine. While a student at Haverford College he was sentenced to two years in prison for refusing the United States postwar draft, and actually served seven months. After graduating in 1951, he worked with the American Friends Service Committee in Germany and later became a teacher and Quaker minister. The memorial establishes imprisonment for conscientious objection but does not identify its exact dates or prison.
Paul Barker Cates was a Quaker conscientious objector from East Vassalboro, Maine. While a student at Haverford College he was sentenced to two years in prison for refusing the United States postwar draft, and actually served seven months. After graduating in 1951, he worked with the American Friends Service Committee in Germany and later became a teacher and Quaker minister. The memorial establishes imprisonment for conscientious objection but does not identify its exact dates or prison.
NEYM Permanent Board advance documents May11,2019, PDF page 68; NEYM Permanent Board advance documents May11,2019, PDF page 69; NEYM Permanent Board advance documents May11,2019, PDF page 70; NEYM Permanent Board advance documents May11,2019, PDF page 71; supplement-neym-memorial2019, PDF page 3; supplement-neym-memorial2019, PDF page 4.
His Quaker memorial reports that he contracted tuberculosis during imprisonment and cared for the prison dairy cows. It credits intervention by Haverford’s president with the commutation that limited his service to seven months.