He was nicknamed Quaker Sargeant. At the time Quakers were persecuted much as the Pilgrims themselves had been in England. "It was 30 years before it was legally safe to become a Quaker, and even after that it was suicidal for any ambitious man. It precluded service in army or militia, it was a bar to all political life, depending on popular election or not. It was social ostracism. Town and church were a unit, the minister the central figure. He above all fought the man or woman who did not yield blind subservience to him. Against the Quaker, also, was discrimination in everyday business; the non-Quaker would not trade if he could find another market. Yet, the very night of that whipping there were waverers; in a dozen years a dozen citizens had more or less secretly embraced the faith. The leading spirits were Joseph Dow, sturdy and ever unafraid, and Abraham Perkins, son of Abraham, styled the Father of Hampton. Tradition says that Joseph joined in 1675, when he was 34. His wife was equally an enthusiast. In 1683 came trouble. Joseph and other jury-men, all Quakers were passing the Governor's house (the notorious Cranfield), were invited in and friendely received, but on asking the question whether they might not when sworn (as before they had done) hold up their hands instead of kissing the Book, the Governor fell into a rage and asked them how they came there, to whom Dow replied "at your honor's invitation." Mr Cranfleld complained of this matter to the next court as a riot. Dow was forced to give 100 £ bonds for his appearance next session. When Dow appeared nothing was alleged against him, he was discharged and his arms restored; but at another session, after Dow was called again on the same bond, and the penalty was enforced against him, he was forced to flee out of the province with his wife and nine children, leaving his house and goods, with the corn in the ground, to the Governor.

This paragraph is in the words embodied in the complaint against the Governor. It is only one in a hundred. Capt Henry Dow framed it and many others, taking up cudgels for his brother with diplomatic caution. It may be remembered that the two pages torn out of his secret diary are just of the dates to cover these matters. The two Dows and Mr Weare held many conferences, and Mr Weare undertook the journey to London, where he was at least half successful. Cranfleld was at once transferred to a West Indian post ...
Some amends for loss of crop were made to Joseph Dow, who returned in the fall of 1683, but this was not by Cranfleld. The Friends met and quickly evolved a plan to sell out in Hampton village and move southward. Another small circle had come into existence in Amesbury, and a move in their direction might be advantageous. The new site had been carefully surveyed by Joseph Dow.
As farm land it was as good as that in Hampton, barring the salt hay crop. It could be bought for a small fraction the cost of similar acreage near Hampton village. About this time Joseph was at the height of his material prosperity, so he bought as freely as his means afforded. He took 20 acres in Salisbury once owned by Francis Dow and about nine pieces in all, from 20 to 50 acres each. At a point just over the Seabrook border the first meeting house was put up, following plans made, no doubt, years previously. Here the community began as wholly Quaker. It made once and for all an impassable gulf between Hampton and Seabrook. Capt Henry Dow, astute political leader, tactful diplomat, could not be expected to show sympathy with the outcast faith; his son Dea Samuel Dow was orthodox of the orthodox. Between Henry and Joseph Dow, however, there was a lifelong brotherly love. No appeal from one to the other was ever disregarded. Thereafter, however, the two great genealogical lines never met. Quaker sought Quaker in marriage and dismissed such as married outside the Society. On the other hand, church people were seldom inclined to risk the social consequences of marrying into a Quaker family. "789

He served in between 1694 and 1696 in King William's War.784