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TORTOLA
TORTOLA
A QUAKER EXPERIMENT OF LONG AGO IN THE TROPICS
BY
CHARLES F. JENKINS
OF PHILADELPHIA, PA., U^A.
lA period of forty-five years covers the birth, the activity, the decline, and the death of this obscure and interesting episode in our Quaker history"
page 55
London :
FRIENDS' BOOKSHOP
140, Bishopsgate, E.C.2
1923
This volume is issued
as Supplement No. 13 to
THE JOURNAL OF THE
FRIENDS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Portions of it formed the
Presidential Address of the Society t
delivered in London, May, 1922.
The Journal, edited by Norman Penney, F.S.A., is issued half- yearly from Devonshire House, London, E.C.i. Price 5/- ($1.25) for the year.
FOREWORD TO THE READER
The author of a panoramic history is faced with the task of covering a great deal of elapsed time in a short space while assuring his publisher, reader, and critic that his research has been painstakingly careful. Generalities may be pointed up by specific examples of incidents, trends, or theories. While basic source material must be used, space may necessitate the elimination of the most interesting and meaningful detail in the final manuscript. This difficult situation might make it appear that the historian of a specific subject or period has a relatively pleasant prospect when he takes pen in hand. The converse is not necessarily true.
Charles Jenkins' gem Tortola is an example of the lat- ter, a story covering but forty-five years-concerned with only Quakers on one small island of the West Indies. A more narrow history could hardly be written The research led him from London to New York to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and to the island itself. Haverford and Swarthmore College libraries divulged secrets. Philadelphia Meeting records were perused. All this footwork gleamed for him only seventy-one pages for this tiny volume. Time, carelessness, hurricanes, and fires had destroyed valuable records, meaning that some frustrating gaps are yet -and never— to be filled. As you read, note: what was Dorcas Lillie's maiden name? Was her third husband of the New England shipping family of that name? Why are so many present day East End Tortolians named Penn. believing without doubt they are descendants of William Penn although all evidence is to the contrary'7 And so on. How Charles Jenkins must have wished he could ferret out these details, because he was an exacting historian. In researching for another project, I have had cause to retrace Jenkins' steps and repeat his inspections of journals, letters, maps, records, and manuscripts. The thoroughness of his work is astounding. I have found
:ligious beliefs often ran them afoul of the law for refusing to pay tithes, refusing to "doff the hat" to superiors, refusing to serve in the militia, and for holding religious services for their own slaves.
The development of the Virgin Islands as plantations (estates) and trading centers came later than in the more prosperous southerly islands. Thus the Quakers were not organized as a meeting in Tortola until the 1740's. Jenkins reviews in Chapter I what preceded the foundation of this meeting. What must be kept in proper perspective is the fact that Americans (and Quakers) are not taught the social and economic importance of the role of the vast Caribbean in the history of the world, including mainly England, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States. The West Indies was the bread-basket, the gold mine, the prime position in natural trade routes. The wars of Europe were fought in the Caribbean sea. The diabolical slave trade brought the labor and used the islands as a jumping-off place for the slave supply to the American colonies. We live with the result today. France depended on a large part of its wealth from Haiti. Thus we acquired the Louisiana Purchase for a pittance. This is panoramic history. Jenkins7 story points up in detail one incident of the social-economic interdependence between England, the West Indies, and the American Colonies. Although this book deals with the birth and death of a single religious group, one may read between the lines and appreciate the tremendous importance of the exportable crops which
were, during this period, preferably sold to American merchants. Perhaps Jenkins' interest was stimulated as his hometown, Philadelphia, was one of the most vital ports on the east coast and a high percentage of the shipping merchants were Quakers. It is a personal thesis that the American Colonies could not have survived to become the United States without the economic strength created by the productive West Indies. It was a two way street: the now eastern states were able to provide necessary flour, barrel stays, lumber, and foodstuffs in exchange for cot- ton, rum, brandy, spices, and sugar (the real king!). With- out this exchange, relationships with mother England would probably have been even more untenable. It is interesting to speculate what today would be without yesterday.
The Indies provided more than edibles. The island of Nevis gave the United States Alexander Hamilton. Empress Josephine was born in Martinique. Admiral Nelson found his wife Frances Nisbet in Nevis. Jenkins tells us of three Quakers who came from Tortola to various positions of acclaim-Humphrey, Lettsom, and Thornton. It is unfor- tunate here that this specific history could not have been more generous in space to these men. Lettsom, for exam- ple, became a famed physician in England at a time when medical knowledge was becoming more of a scientific art and less of a catch-all for old wives' tales. Jenkins suggests his greatness and leaves his life story to a later biographer.
A mere footnote on page 58 gives a hint as to the real man Tortolian William Thornton was to become. Known for 'architecting' our capital buildings and his running squabble with Benjamin Latrobe who appears to have envied Thornton's skills, Thornton was an accomplished artist, friend of the famous (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc.), a dedicated botanist, an active abolitionist, ingenious inventor of an international alphabet, and worker for the liberation of the Spanish colonies in South America. Only a complete biography-one is now in the making— could do justice to a man of so many talents.
During the 1740's and '5CTs, a Quaker traveling from, say Philadelphia, could reach Tortola in a sailing ship in seventeen to nineteen days, with any kind of luck. Today the jet shortens this to four hours. Being the thorough and curious man he was. Jenkins could not resist the pilgrim- age. In 1913, Jenkins and his son made the trip in some- what over five days. Ten years later when this book was first published he tells us that there are many changes in Tortola. In I960, I found it much as he had described it. Ten years later, there are real and glaring changes. Yet a taxi will deposit one at the edge of Fat Hog Bay. With a bit of inquiry, the interested can walk through the fields to see the Quaker rubble— no longer resembling a Meeting House and graves. But nearby stands a footnote to history a broken grave stone which reads: Sara Penn 1735.
Is there nothing more left of this short-lived but sincere group? Just several years ago, the school children of Road Town held a pageant which included a parade. A Tortolian marched in this parade dressed as Thomas Chalkley. This seemingly odd twist to history pleaded for investigation. No facts can support my findings, but logic may prevail. I am told that the Methodists followed the Quakers and they became strong in membership. Their respect for what had preceded them kept alive the memory of some of the earlier religious leaders thus, Thomas Chalkley is revered two hundred years after his death.
In Jenkins' leather-bound copy of his own book are tucked several letters from appreciative readers. One. dated 1953, seems a proper commentary on the spirit with which these early Quakers met the vicissitudes of life, never less in the tropics
". . .a carpenter here named Alvanley who had been one o( your guides discovered after you left, a grave with a marker which read There lies Ruth Lettsome who died January in the year of Our Lord 1809 in the 47th year of her age. Like Charity feeding the
poor and healing the sick, she attained praise and the rites of the grave duly given her. The present genera- tion rightly praises her, offering those deeds for them to contemplate. The heavens still living and by her virtue and glory [sic] , she is without death."
There is little doubt that this reprint of Jenkins Tortola— exactly as the original-shall be of great interest to an audience of Quakers, historians, and West Indians.
Harriet F. Durham
November 1971 Anse Galet St. Lucia, West
Conttnte
Chapters
i. — tortola and the virgin islands i
II. — Friends in the West Indies 7
III. — The Awaking in Tortola - . - - - 19
IV. — The Minutes of the Meeting 31
V. — Applying the Discipline 35
VI. — John Pickering - - - - - - 42
VII. — Dr. John Coakley Lettsom 45
VIII. — Slavery in Tortola ----- 51
IX. — The End of the Meeting - - - - 54
X. — Thornton and Humphreys 58
XI. — Later Visitors - - - - - - 64
Appendices
I. — Births, Marriages, and Deaths 73
II. — List of Adult Members - - - - 76
III. — Minutes and Records of Tortola Monthly
Meeting - 80
IV. — Partial List of Manuscripts and Records
in Devonshire House, London - - 83
V. — Thomas Chalkley's Letters to his Wife - 84
VI. — Times of Holding Monthly Meeting in
Tortola - - - 87
vi CONTENTS
PAGE
VII. — Journal of John Bringhurst 87
VIII. — Extract from Autobiography of Dr. Lettsom 88
IX. — Dr. and Mrs. William Thornton - - 89
X. — Information from Will of Richard Humphreys 91
XI. — Progress and Development of the Presi- dency, 1919 to 1921 92
XII. — Miscellaneous :
Hurricanes — Health — Scenery — Population — Episcopal — Governors — Civil Govern- ment— Affirmation — Statistics — An Epistle of London Yearly Meeting, 1742 94
Bibliography -------- 97
Index --------- ioi
ffluetv&tiona
Map of Tortola and Surrounding Islands Frontispiece
From a " Survey of Virginia Islands," by George King, 1802.
Part of Road Town and Harbor - 2
From a modern photograph.
Letter from John Pickering to Isaac Brown - - 18 From the original in the collection of Lydia T. Morris, of Philadelphia.
Birthplace of Dr. Lettsom on Little Jost Van Dykes 50 From the Gentleman's Magazine Supplement, lxxxv. pt. ii. p. 577.
East Front of the Capitol, Washington, D.C. 60
Fat Hog Bay -------- 66
Showing the graves of Thomas Chalkley, John Cadwallader, John Estaugh and Mary Hunt (marked with the figure 1). The foundations of the meeting- house show at the right. The figure 3 indicates Long Look, the home of Samuel and Mary Nottingham. This illustration is from a lithograph, which, in turn, was made from a drawing on the spot by George Truman, of Philadelphia, in 1840.
Street in Road Town ------ 70
With the Harbor in the distance. From a photograph taken in 1912.
Wedding Certificate of Joseph Ryan and Rebecca
Timberman, 1743 --76
From the original in the fireproof at 304 Arch Street, Philadelphia.
Note: In the original printing, the illustrations were placed facing the pages indicated above. In this reprint, they are placed after the Index.
ABBREVIATION
D=Friends' Reference Library, Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, London.
CHAPTER I
>Hj^XTENDING down on the map from the Florida Keys, the \T*s Land's End of the United States, like some irregularly ^■^ placed garden steps and stones, are the Greater and Lesser Antilles, making an almost continuous chain connecting North with South America, and enclosing the tropical garden of the Caribbean Sea.
First, there is a rather long stride to the largest island, Cuba, then a little lower and farther to the east, the frog-shaped island containing the black republics of Haiti and San Domingo. The third step in the same general direction and distance is to Porto Rico, for many years one of the Spanish pearls of the Antilles, now a part, but not a part, of the United States. Still another step down to the east and south, and some fifty miles from Porto Rico, are the Virgin Islands, now divided in ownership between Great Britain and the United States. Here the Greater Antilles end and the Lesser Antilles begin.
Until the United States purchased the rights of Denmark in the West Indies, in 1917, the three most important islands, St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix, were known specifically as the Danish West Indies. Ribald folks have a jest that this group is indeed a holy one, composed exclusively of Saints and Virgins. Of the group, St. Thomas with Charlotte Amelia, the capital town, is the most important and best known. But almost adjoining St. Thomas to the east, and within sight from its interior hill tops, is a group distinctively called the British Virgin Islands, belonging to Great Britain. These were discovered by Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, and it is thought, having been sighted on her saint day, Columbus named them in honor of St. Ursula and her following of eleven thousand martyr virgins. Other historians have suggested they were named by
2 TORTOLA
Sir Francis Drake in honor of Queen Elizabeth, while his ships lay in the harbor, since called the Bay of Sir Francis Drake, at the time he made his expedition against San Domingo in 1580 .x A native told me, however, that the islands took their name from an outstanding, hilly island of the group, Virgin Gorda, which roughly resembles a woman of matronly proportions lying on her back in the water.
Of the scores of islets and rocks composing the British Virgin Islands, Tortola is the largest, being about twelve miles long and three miles wide at its broadest part, the total area being about twenty-one square miles. Its name means Land of the Turtle Dove, from the brown colored doves which make their homes on the rocky hillsides. These doves are different in plum- age and smaller than the turtle dove we know in the United States. On all sides of the Island the land rises abruptly from the water's edge, the rugged hills seeming to come up out of the sea, the slopes covered to the summits with trees and undergrowth. These hillsides are cut by ravines and lagoons in every direction, so that the coast line is twenty miles or more from end to end of the Island. The general effect of the group is that of a partly submerged volcanic mountain range, the higher peaks forming the larger islands and the islets and detached rocks, the lower summits. " She sits among the group of surrounding islets like a tall girl with her little brothers and sisters grouped around her" is the way an early visitor describes Tortola. The only settlement is Road Town, along the shores of Road Harbor, a deep bay on the southeast side of Tortola, and almost directly under Sage Mountain, the highest peak, which rises boldly 1650 feet in the air. Here the houses seem to cling desperately to the steeply rising hillside and there is barely room for the single street, and its lining of buildings, which extends close along the shore. A little widening of the beach makes room for the market- place in front of the custom-house, at the principal landing.
Tortola was first owned by the Dutch, who are said to have built a fort there as early as 1648. It was taken from them by the English, recaptured by the French and Dutch, and finally retaken by Colonel Stapleton, for England, in 1672 . He demolished the fort, removed the guns and brought away about eighty subjects, Irish, English and Welsh, removing them to the more x The Present State of the West Indies, London, 1778.
TORTOLA AND THE VIRGIN ISLANDS 3
important island colony of St. Christopher. The Virgin Islands then were regarded as of small importance, or none at all.1
About the close of the seventeenth century, some English settlers with their families came from the comparatively nearby island of Anguilla, and made a permanent settlement.
" This busy and industrious race of men," said Chief Justice Suckling in 1780, " were not deterred by beholding the amazing craggy rocks and lowering mountains without one river, and very few springs of good water. In a few years, from the incessant toils of these people, cotton and sugar cane might be seen flourishing on the sides of the mountains and in the lowlands ginger was cultivated and indigo works appeared."2
In the days of the buccaneers and freebooters, these rocky islets and hidden bays and lagoons, with their dangerous reefs and shoals, furnished a safe hiding place. The great roadstead off Tortola — Sir Francis Drake's Passage — was also called the Virgin's Gangway ; and the names, less sanctified than those applied by Columbus, given to some of the nearby islets, are reminiscent of pirates and the buccaneers — Rum Island, Beef Island, Dutchman's Cap, Dead Man's Chest, Prickly Pear and Broken Jerusalem, are typical.
It was on this rough and religiously infertile soil, about the middle of the eighteenth century, that — like flames smothered in the ashes of the fireplace, which sometimes relight the newly- laid logs — a little Meeting of the Society of Friends came into existence, carried on its work for a generation or more and finally passed away. While it existed, its importance and possibilities seem at this distance out of all proportion to the interest which it aroused, and to the care and effort bestowed upon it. Several of our prominent and valued Friends lost their lives in visiting the Island and three of them are buried there. Itinerant ministers, harkening to the call for service, came to it from England and the American Colonies ; and it was the fact that a venerated ancestor, with a " concern " to visit this little Meeting, was taken ill on the voyage home to Pennsylvania,
1 Account of Lord Willoughby of Statia, Sabea and Tortola, in a letter to the Council of Trade and Plantations. Read 18th of May, 1677.
2 Historical Account of the Virgin Islands, by George Suckling, London. 1780.
4 TORTOLA
died and was buried at sea, that first aroused my interest in Tortola. A visit to the Virgin Islands in 1913 further stimulated the desire to gather the facts that follow.
Any account of Friends in the West Indies commences at a date but little after the rise of the Society in England. The island of Barbados, early settled by Englishmen, some of them Friends, was a fertile field when, in 1655, Mary Fisher and Anne Austin reached it on their way to their sufferings in New England. Many were convinced through their labors and by those of other Friends who soon followed.
John Burnyeat and William Simpson, leaving England in 1670, were among those who had great and weighty service in the West Indies. William Simpson was taken with a fever, died after a short illness and was buried in Barbados. The year 1671 was memorable on account of the large number of ministers from the mother country who visited America. It was in this year that George Fox, with twelve more of the fathers and mothers of the Church, for there were two women in the party, sailed from Gravesend in the yacht, Industry, bound for America by way of the West Indies. They were chased by a Barbary pirate ship, which, being a faster sailer, was ready to board them ; but a cloud covering the moon and a fresh gale springing up enabled them to escape. They were seven weeks on the voyage, and on his arrival at Barbados, George Fox was down with a fever, but meetings for Church discipline were held in the house where he lay. Religious meetings were held throughout the island and " many sweet and precious things were opened by the spirit and power of the Lord to the edifying, confirming and building up of Friends."1
The passengers on the Industry, called to different fields of religious labor, separated soon after their arrival in Barbados, some going to the neighboring islands of Antigua and Jamaica and to Nevis, where they were not allowed to land. George Fox recovered, visited Jamaica with William Edmondson, Robert Widders, Solomon Eccles and Elizabeth Hooton. Here they found three of their fellow-voyagers already at work and together they traveled up and down the beautiful island, " where there was a great convincement and many received the truth."1 While 1 Journal of George Fox.
TORTOLA AND THE VIRGIN ISLANDS 5
on this service, Elizabeth Hooton was gathered to her reward and buried in Jamaica.
In Barbados the Society grew rapidly, increasing by settlers from England and by convincements, until it became an influen- tial body of Friends. These included Thomas Rous, formerly a lieutenant-colonel, whose son, John, traveled in the ministry and later married Margaret, daughter of Margaret Fell ; Lewis Morris, formerly a colonel and member of the Council ; Ralph Fretwell, an important judge ; and others. Five meeting- houses were built throughout the island to accommodate the several hundred Friends. There was frequent communication by trading vessels with the American Colonies, and many of our prominent settlers reached Pennsylvania after varying lengths of stay in the West Indies. But Quakerism did not, I will not say could not, flourish under the heated shade of the palm tree and the exotic conditions of the tropics. The undermining effects of slave holding, a certain laxity of morals, the apparent necessity of military participation, the temptations of illicit trading, the ease with which wealth was accumulated, and the unhealthfulness of the climate, all combined to weaken the spiritual life and to reduce and scatter the membership. It was not long until the only settled Meetings in the West Indies were in Barbados, the most healthful, prosperous, and important British island at that time.
By the time of Thomas Story's visits in 1709 and 1714, the declension of Friends in Barbados was very evident, and when Edmund Peckover visited the island in 1744, there were scarce a hundred Quakers left, including children, and there was no ministering Friend.1
In Jamaica many Friends perished and the meeting-house was destroyed when Port Royal was engulfed by the great earth- quake of 1692. The only Friends saved were those attending a Monthly Meeting fourteen miles away. A meeting-house was afterward erected in Kingston, but in 1728 only one faithful member, John Reynell, remained, and although alone, he attended meeting regularly until his removal to Philadelphia.
In 1726, Joshua Fielding with William Piggott left England on a religious visit to the American continent. Joshua Fielding
1 Journal Friends Historical Society, vol. i (1904)- P- Io8-
6 TORTOLA
reported, with the exactness to be expected of a London merchant, to the Yearly Meeting, on his return in 1729, that he had traveled 21,000 miles, to 480 meetings in 952 days.1 In passing through the wilderness from South Carolina, he had journeyed alone several hundred miles through the forests, with only a small pocket compass to guide him when the sun and stars were overcast.8
It was in the course of this extensive and laborious journey, which covered all the British West Indies, that Joshua Fielding visited the Virgin Islands, and it was due to his labors and ministry that Quaker zeal was kindled in one little spot in the Leeward Islands. He had arrived from the island of Anguilla, stopping first at Spanishtown or Virgin Gorda Island, just across the bay from Tortola. Here the governor lived at that time and Joshua Fielding reports large meetings at the governor's house and elsewhere on the island. He then crossed over to Tortola, spending three weeks traveling up and down the Island, having many " large and comfortable " meetings among what he calls a sober, friendly people. Joshua Fielding spent Fifth Month 30th to Sixth Month 12th, 1727, on Virgin Gorda and Sixth Month 12th to Seventh Month 2nd on Tortola, leaving thence for St. John and St. Thomas, which, with true Quaker simplicity, he calls " John's Island " and " Thomas's Island." He was detained in Jamaica by " ye hurricane," finally taking leave for Charleston, S.C.3
The three islands, Anguilla, Spanishtown or Virgin Gorda, and Tortola, were reported in 1734 as being the only islands of the Virgin Group fully inhabited by His Majesty's subjects. They had no immediate intercourse with Great Britain or any part of Europe. Their commerce was so inconsiderable as not to deserve the appointment of custom officers. There were but eighty-five white men in Anguilla, seventy-eight in Virgin Gorda and an even hundred in Tortola.4
1 Minutes of London Yearly Meeting, vol. iii. p. 6j, in D.
3 As related by Samuel Bownas in his Life, 1756, pp. 138, 139.
3 The account of his " Travells in America " is in London Yearly Meeting Minutes, 1729, vol. iii. p. 61, in D, and seems never to have been published.
* Report of the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations to the House of Lords, dated Whitehall, January, 1734/5.
CHAPTER II
Jttenb* in t$t (pt*t >Mee
P4T is in a letter from John Pickering, sometime lieutenant-
1 governor of Tortola, that we learn of the influences which
KJ caused the awakening of Quakerism in this obscure corner
of the vineyard. It is dated Tortola, ioth April, 1741, and
addressed to David Barclay, Jr., in London.1
Esteemed jfriend
I received the favour of yours by Dr Turnbull & wrote you four days ago in much haste by Capt Purcell who goes directly for London, this goes by the way of Lancaster to be forwarded by my Good friend Miles Birkett. The Character the Doctor gives of you answers to the Opinion I have always had of your Profession ever since I have had the Comfort of being acquainted with any of their writings, which is now about 14 years Since One Joshua Fielding a jfriend Visited us, as he did all the English West India Islands, his Stay here was but about a week or ten Days, in which time he preached Several times, & twice at my house, And after he got home he Sent me but three Books, Namely Barclay's Apology, The Mite in the Treasury,8 and No Cross, No Crown, in which I found great Satisfaction : At that time, I dont remember, One in this Island that was any way learning that Way but my Father^ who lived here as Lot did in Sodom. For my Part, I owned the Way, but never lived any way answerable to it, but had always a great Love & tenderness for them People above all
1 Epistles Received, vol. iii. p. 54. London Yearly Meeting Records, in D.
2 The Mite into the Treasury, by Thomas Lawson, London, 1680.
3 Abednego (?) Pickering, formerly of the island of Anguilla, where in 1716, he is listed as having in his family one white woman (presumably his wife), three children, ten negroes, of whom five were "working negroes." From List of Inhabitants of Anguilla, referred to in General Hamilton's Letter, October 3rd, 1716, in Caribbeana (Magazine), vol. iii. (1914) P- 255-
TORTOLA
others, and believe then could have lost my life for them, and has had many Quarrells in Vindication of them, as my Father's being one, was often hove in my Teeth.
He Dying about five years ago, there was but One that Lived any thing to the Way, A tender hearted Young Man, who had served my jfather a little before his Death as an Overseer and by whose Conversation he was in some Measure Convinced, and he, after my Father's Death, Lived a very Sober & Exemplary Life, by which and his good Conversation, with the help of some good Books, he had, several of his Neighbours began to Copy after him & believed much in that Way, about which time being about three Years ago, one James Birkett a friend a young man from Lancaster came to this Island with a Cargoe of Dry Goods to Trade with us, and finding about half a dozen or more owned & allowed that to be the true Way of Worship which the People called Quakers hold with, he persuaded us to appoint Meetings, which we readily Con- curred with, And I Offered my house, and eversince we have Constantly & Strictly kept up Meetings twice a week, & I think it was the Third time we met, that the Lord was Pleased to show forth his Power amongst us, & opened the Mouth of One to Speak to his Glory to our great Comfort, and Since two others, by which I am Convinced that God is a God at hand, and that He is the Same God to Day as ever, to Raise up poor jfishermen or tradesmen to Speak with the Same Power as when he was present with them.
The thing Soon made a great Noise that I had turned Quaker, and was Soon Buzzed in the Generals Ears, on which He wrote me, He heard that I had turn'd Quaker and if so, he thought me not a Proper Person to Govern an Island : In answer to which I wrote him, That it was a Religion or Society I owned & Loved above all Others, and that I was Endeavouring with God's Assistance to Live up to, tho' I had not yet got over or seen beyond that of Self Preservation or defending my Country or Interest in a Just Cause, with some Reasons for my holding with their Principles, and that if he did not like my holding the commission on them Terms, he might give it to whom he pleased, for I should not alter my opinion or Religion for all the Honours he could confer on me nor all he could take away. In answer to which he wrote me very contrary to what I expected, that he was very well Satisfied with the Reasons I had given him for holding with them Principles, and that he should for ever Esteem me, and that he believed a good Quaker bid fairer for Heaven than a wicked
FRIENDS IN THE WEST INDIES 9
Protestant of his own Religion, and ever since has Continued to write very friendly to Me.
I thought from a letter I received from the Dr whilst in Ireland, that we should have had a Discreet friend out with him to Instruct us in Church Discipline, he wrote me to that Effect, we are very Ignorant of True Order that I Believe is kept in the jfriends Meetings, Especially the Manner of Marriages, and the Intent or what is meant by Mens or Womens Meetings, as I find no Book we have Clears that up fully, tho we have a great Number of the most Noted Books.
The Little jflock begun with has Increased to near thirty in number. The Reason of my enlarging on this Subject is to let jfriends know the present State we are in, and the first Rise of them Sort of People in this Island, which if you may think proper you may communicate to them.
Excuse the stile being never accustomed to write in the jfriends.
Thy Real friend,
John Pickering.
Supplementing this account, with some additional details, is a letter written the year before, by James Birkett.1 It envisions, from the angle of an outsider, the awakening of the Islanders :
Relating some Convincement in the Island of Tortola. — Tortola is a Small Island about Twenty Leagues East of Porto Rico which belongs to the Spaniards. Tortola has been settled above Twenty Years and the first that Professed our Principles there, was the present Governour's Father, his Name . . . Pickering,2 he came from Anguilla where formerly a Small Meeting was held & he at times frequented the same. After his Settling in Tortola, he was Instrumental in Convincing his overseer or Steward, who is now a very conscientious honest jfriend, and an Example worthy of Imitation by those who Enjoy far greater Priviledges : When I was first there, they had not held any Meetings, tho' Several were, pretty fully Convinced of our Principles ; But last year as their number Increased
1 Dated Dublin, 10th of Twelfth Month, 1740. Addressed to John Dilworth, of Lancaster. Epistles Received, vol. iii. p. 52. London Yearly Meeting Records, in D.
* Probably Abednego Pickering, as this name appears i Q some of the early records of Anguilla.
io T0RT0LA
they were concernd to meet together in Silence on First Days, and Sometime after on Week days also, which they still keep up, and attend very well considering how remote from one another : One woman friend whose name is Dorothy Thomas has a Publick Testimony to bear amongst them and appears pretty frequently : Their Meetings are very Broken & much tenderness appears amongst them, not only during the Testimony of Our said jTriend, but also in Silence ; there is also abundance of Love, Regard & Condescension amongst them one towards another : which with the many Renewed Visitations I have Witnessed in their Meetings Confirms me in the belief of their being upon the Right Foundation, for saith Our Lord, by this shall all men know that your' my Disciples if ye Love one another.
The friends hold their Meeting at the Governour's house, whose name is John Pickering, one First Day, & the other First Day at Townsend Bishops, and the Week day's Meetings at each place Seperate on Fifth Days. The Governour is a very Loving honest man, but does not give up to the Rules of jTriends, Yet has a tender Regard for them, and is a diligent Attender of Meetings, not only when they are kept at his Own house, but also when they are held at Townsend Bishops, which is Seven Miles asunder & bad Road, and is not ashamed to vindicate our Principles against any that Doth Oppose them, and has frequently Expressed the Satisfaction he has in reading jTriends books and is come to see thro' many things which he formerly seem'd to blame us for, as being of little Moment : But since would often say after a Meeting, O ! this would have been a Joyful Day to my Poor jfather if he had been yet alive.
While meetings were now being held regularly, as yet no outside assistance had reached the groping little Meeting. They deeply felt the need of advice on Meeting organization and matters of discipline, so that about the time John Pickering was addressing David Barclay in London, he forwarded a letter by his sloop to Friends in Philadelphia, telling of their situation and asking for assistance.1 " We should all be very much rejoyc'd to see
1 " A letter, being produced from John Pickering, Governor of the Island of Tortola, acquainted this meeting that about thirty persons in that island had embraced the principles of truth as professed by Friends, and kept their meeting twice a week, was read to the comfort and satisfaction of the meeting." Minutes Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, Fifth Month 3rd, 1 74 1. A copy of this letter is among manuscripts in D.
FRIENDS IN THE WEST INDIES n
a worthy good man of y* Profession in this Island," was the message. The receipt of this message sent a thrill through Quaker circles in Philadelphia. It was thought to be a mani- festation of Divine mercy and favor. Some had felt that Quakerism was approaching its Dark Ages, but here was life in what had seemed a barren wilderness. Even a generation later they recalled the feeling of reverent thankfulness with which they had first heard the good news.1
There came a prompt response. No one was better fitted for the task than that valiant minister and doughty sea-captain, Thomas Chalkley.2 In the thirty years following 1707, when he made his first visit to the West Indies, he made upward of twenty-one voyages there. He knew the islands ; he knew of the people ; and, no one knew better than he, the tides and winds and dangers of the journey. The average passage from Philadelphia to Barbados, with the little vessels of the period, was about thirty days ; several of his voyages continued six weeks. Of a trip home in his own vessel, the New Bristol Hope, in 1730, he says, with pardonable pride : " The shortest from land to land that I ever had, 14 days and 14 hours." When the passage was smooth and comfortable he spent much time writing, thus preserv- ing many intimate details of these mixed trading and preaching voyages. His Journal is replete in details of social intercourse, appointed meetings, the sufferings of Friends and other Quaker matters, enlivened with adventures of storms, water spouts, shipwreck, press-gangs, piracy and the like perils of the sea.
It is no wonder that the Whittier family, sitting around the blazing hearth of the hill-hidden Massachusetts farmhouse, listened with , absorbing interest to the evening reading, by Abigail Whittier, from The Journal of Thomas Chalkley, as recorded in Snow Bound :
Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, — Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! — Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, And water-butt and bread-cask failed,
1 Endorsement and message to the surviving Friends in Tortola, on Samuel Wyley's certificate on his return to that Island, by Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, 31st of Third Month, 1769.
a Born at Southwark, England, 1675, died in Tortola, 1741. A member of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting for over forty years. His home was in Frankford, now a part of the City of Philadelphia.
12 TORTOLA
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence, mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,
Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
" Take, eat," he said, " and be content ;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham."
This incident which Whittier has poetically paraphrased from the Journal occurred on the homeward voyage in 1716, on the sloop Dora.
Thomas Chalkley, answering the call for help, left Philadelphia in the sloop John, a trading boat belonging to Governor John Pickering, on the 19th of Seventh Month, 1741, and in nineteen days reached Tortola. John Pickering and his wife, Dorcas, at their home on the shore of Fat Hog Bay, saw the sloop as it hove in sight. " They met me at the water side and Lovingly Embraced me," says Chalkley. He did not know as he stepped ashore that he was destined to end his days under the shade of the Island's palm trees. It is from his own account of his voyage and labors, written at the time and found by John Pickering in a pocket of his coat, at his death a few weeks later, that the following graphic account of his voyage and service is taken :x
We left the Capes the 23d of ymo & was Eighteen Days from Land to Land, Falling in with the Island Thomas's one of the Virgin Islands, we turn'd it up in one Day to Tortola, which made nineteen Days in all in this Voyage. We Saw nine Sail of vessels, but spoke with None, had a Rough Passage, the wind being very high and contrary for above a week, and much Rain, Yet Thro' the
1 This constitutes the four and a half concluding pages of Chalkley's Journal, where the full text will be found. The descriptive and explana- tory parts only have been included here. This account is taken from a manuscript in D, and differs slightly from the matter appearing in the printed text of the Journal.
FRIENDS IN THE WEST INDIES 13
Grace and Mercy of God, I was preserved above all fear, Except the Holy fear of the Living Lord, in which I blessed his holy Name.
The 12th of the 8th Month we went a Shore to the Governours house, where at our Landing, the Governour John Pickering and his Spouse met me at the water side and Lovingly Embraced me and led me up to his house ; where on the 15th of the month being the fifth day of the week, We had a Large Satisfactory Meeting, at which was many People, and divers not of our Profession ; and hope I may note That the Good hand of the Lord was with us. . . .
The First day of the Week being the 18th of the Month, we had another Meeting Larger than the former, altho' that was accompted Large : The Governour told me he never Saw such a Large Gathering on the Island on any Accompt : My Spirit was much set at Liberty at this Meeting, and great Openness and Brokenness was among the People, and the Gospel was freely and Largely declared to them : The Case of Cornelius and the Apostle Peter going to his house was treated on, with divers other things tending to Edification : I was so Affected with the Power Spirit & Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, when the Meeting was over, I withdrew & went in private and poured out my Soul before the Lord, and begged that he would Please to manifest his Power and Glorious Gospel more & more.
At this Meeting there was a Woman that Suffered much on account of going to Meetings, Her Husband a Proud haughty man, beat her to the drawing of Blood, he also drew his Sword and Presented his Pistol, and threatned to kill her ; But She thanked God that she was Enabled to Lose her Blood for Christ's Sake. This Woman had some Words in Supplication in this meeting in a very broken manner. There was another Beautiful young Person, a woman of this Meeting whose father turned out of Doors for coming among friends, and coming to Meeting, who is an hopeful young Plant.1
We went to visit a few families up the Mountains had a Meeting at which the Governour and his wife were, at this Meeting there was great brokenness & tenderness in time of Prayer.
Second Day we visited Several families in the Division called the Road, to which we went by water in a Coble, somewhat like our Canoes, there were four of these in
1 This was Dorcas Powell, first clerk of the Women's Monthly Meeting.
TORTOLA
Company, five People in two of them and Seven in the other two, who had been at the Meeting.
In this Meeting of families the People came and filled the Rooms and we had Seasonable Meetings : The People were so Loving and so Affected with the Meetings, that We could Seldom go in a friendly way to visit our friends, but they would presently fill their Little Rooms and we scarcely could depart without having a time of Worship.
Next day we went to visit a young man's habitation who had not yet finished his house, and the Neighbours coming in as usual, we had a good Meeting, and I cannot but hope, the Hand of the Lord was with us ; and I felt his visitation as fresh and Lively as ever, for which I was truly thankful, and thought, If I never saw my Habitation again, I was Satisfied in this Gospel Call and Religious Visit ; — tho' being in Years it was sometimes a little troublesome in the Flesh being in the Sixty Sixth year of my age, Stiff in my Limbs, and hurt with many falls and Bruises, but as to my Natural health, I had it better now than for many Years Past, for which I humbly am thankful to Him in whom we live and have our Being.
Third and Fourth Days. Visited Several families and had divers good Opportunities, in one of those Meetings a young man named Jeremiah Martin spoke a few words in Prayer, in which Season I think, we were all Broken in tenderness. . . .
Fifth day being the Week day Meeting, it was larger than was ever known of a week day there at that place, there being divers friends who came from an Island Called Joes Vandikes, and many Neighbours and Sober People, all whom were very attentive.
Sixth Day, was at Several Peoples houses & had Religious Meetings, which we could not well avoid, the People were so loving and Desirous to hear what might be Spoken to them. They being many of them like thirsty Ground wanting Rain, and our Good and Gracious Lord gave us Celestial Showers which were very Refreshing to us and which we thankfully Received.
Seventh Day, I went with Several friends to the House of One who with his wife had been at our Meeting on fifth day. He kindly invited me to his house, his Name was Blake. He and his Wife were Loving, tho' he had formerly wrote against jfriends, he was now better informed, from his house I went to Townsend Bishop's, and on the First day of the Week, being the 25th of the Month, we had
FRIENDS IN THE WEST INDIES 15
Larger Meetings than Ordinary, and in Expectation of Larger Meetings than usual the Governour John Pickering had made several New Forms to Accommodate the People at his own house, which he sent six miles on mens heads, the Road not being passable for Carts or other Carriage : This I thought worthy of noting, that their Zeal might be had in Remembrance when I and they may be laid in the Cold Grave, and that others may be provoked or stirred up to a more Religious Concern, who will hardly go Six Steps to a Religious Meeting, Nay, (that is) they will not go at all. . . .
After this Meeting we went by Water from the Road, an Harbour so called, to Fat-hog Bay, where the Governour lives, there were three Cobles in company : In this meeting, Dorcas, the Wife of the Governour, Spoke to the People, They behaved soberly & gave good attention to what she said.
So we came home to friend Pickering's, I call it home because I was like to make it my home chiefly for this Winter, where I meet with an hearty welcome, as I did also at divers other Places : Having a little over-run the Time, I must go back to the Seventh Day night at friend Bishops, There were divers friends from another Island, in so much that some were obliged to Lay on Forms & some on Chests, as for my Part I chose an Hammock as I mostly did and do in the Carribbees ; Here with this People in the Evening I had a most Comfortable Tender Broken Meeting.
These Two Weeks time I spent in this Island of Tortola to my Great Satisfaction.
Here the Journal ends. Much of it may have been written on the 27th, which he devoted chiefly to writing. Two days later, at the breaking up of the mid-week meeting, he found himself much indisposed — a hot fever upon him. This continued off and on for six days until he passed away, the 4th day of the Ninth Month, 1741, at 3 o'clock in the morning, and was buried the same evening, in Friends' burial ground at Fat Hog Bay, " accompanied to the grave by most friends and many others," is the comprehensive record.1 It was prophetic that he had concluded his last public testimony in the words of Paul : "I
1 John Pickering's letter to Thomas Chalkley's wife, giving a minute account of his illness, death and burial, is to be found as a supplement to Chalkley's Journal.
16 TORTOLA
have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."
From two letters written to his wife1 we get a more intimate picture of home life among the Islanders :
The father who turned his daughter out-of-doors for attending meeting complained that he had been to all the expense to buy her fine clothes and had her taught to sing and dance and now, alas, all for nothing.
The exertion and stimulus of the trip was such that, he was able to write, he found his health better than it had been for several years, which he accounted a great blessing.
There was one matter he confides to his wife, but does not mention in his Journal. The information was for those women who wear hoops. " The Governour's wife, her two Sisters, Capt Hunt's Wife, and the young Woman whose Father turn'd her out of Doors, wore Hoops before they were Convinced of the principles of our Friends," but they now felt obliged to lay them off, and by this example others did the same ; though on account of the heat, they had as good an excuse to wear them all the year as the girls at home had in the summer-time. " The Great Lord of all Gird our Youth with the Girdle of Truth," he feelingly exclaims, " and then they will not need those monstrous, pre- posterous Girdles of hoops." He called them monstrous because, "If Almighty God should make a Woman in the same shape her hoop made her, Everybody would say she was a monster in Nature, and they would say Truly, so according to this Real Truth, they make themselves Monsters by Art."
"This is an Island of as great Plenty of the Country Produce as any in these parts, and in times of want it has supply'd divers other adjacent Islands of which there are many,"' he writes, and tells of Townsend Bishop, though not by name, who, in a very scarce time with corn at six shillings a bushel, would take no more than three shillings, the usual price.
Of his labors he says he never experienced such openness, love and increase, except once on the island of Nantucket.
1 I have not had access to the originals. Copies are in the possession of Haverford College. There are two letters,, the first dated " Tortola, y 16th 8th Mo. 1741 "; and the second, "Tortola, 28th 8th Mo. 1741." Copies of both letters are also in D. The first is printed in Comly's Friends' Miscellany, with the statement that it is the last letter written by Chalkley. This is a mistake. (See Appendix v.)
FRIENDS IN THE WEST INDIES 17
Thirty persons had joined themselves to the Meeting. He found the Island much more populous than he had anticipated.1
He tells of Jeremiah Martin coming out in the ministry and calls him a " Young Innocent lad." There might be some who would be afraid- that all this sudden zeal " is too hot and too Quick to hold," but he hopes it will both hold and also grow.
One effect he surely noted : that even those who had been opposed to Friends up to the time of his visit, are now better satisfied and had lovingly received and invited him to their homes. Two great men in the Island, who exceedingly disliked his principles, entertained him in their homes.
He then concludes with this note of a final farewell : " Thus, brokenly & abruptly I am obliged to Conclude with Love unfeigned to thee, my Dear, and to my only Daughter Rebecca, and all thy Children, who I love and wish well, as I do all who Sincerely Love our Lord Jesus Christ." He signed himself : "Thy faithful, Loving Husband,
"Tho. Chalkley," and added a postscript written under the dark shadow of his impending end :
" P.S. I do not Expect to be at home these five or Six months, if ever."3
Governor Pickering had donated a plot of ground near his home for graveyard purposes and was erecting a meeting-house nearby. This was land formerly known to have been his father's, adjoining the place where the governor lived. It was enclosed with a prickly pear fence and contained about one-half acre, also a house within the enclosure furnished with the conveniences for a meeting-house, all of which he freely gave to the people called Quakers, as long as there were any Friends in the Island, which he earnestly hoped would be as long as Tortola remained inhabited.3
1 Bryan Edwards's History of the West Indies, vol. i. chap. 4, gives the population in 1756 as 1236 whites and 6121 blacks.
2 In the Supplement to Chalkley's Journal will be found John Pickering's account of his illness, death and burial, with considerable detail. There is preserved in D a copy of a letter from Dorcas Pickering to the widow of Thomas Chalkley, dated Third Month 2nd, 1742. It gives an appreciative account of his services on the Island and records his last words.
3 A copy of this deed, dated " Sixthday of 1st Mq. 1741 /2," is given in the minutes of Tortola Monthly Meeting, 1742.
18 TORTOLA
At Road Town, Townsend Bishop set aside a quarter of an acre in his own yard, immediately adjoining his dwelling ; it, too, was to belong to Friends as long as any remained in the Island.1
In addition to these two Meetings, there was a Particular Meeting on the island of Jost Van Dykes. One hundred Friends, at the time of Chalkley's death, were considered as belonging and regularly attending on First-days.
It was John Pickering's sad duty to write to the widow in her Frankford home, and also to Chalkley's married daughter. All Chalkley's belongings were packed in his sea chest which was forwarded to James Birkett at Antigua, with the possibility of catching an earlier vessel to send it home.*
x A copy of this deed of gift, made the 5th day of Second Month, 1742, is given in the minutes of Tortola Monthly Meeting.
3 The first Epistle to London Yearly Meeting reciting these facts and transmitting Thomas Chalkley's account of his visit, is dated the 27th of Tenth Month, 1741. This was in answer to one addressed to Friends of Tortola, from the Meeting for Sufferings, dated 17th of Fifth Month, 1 74 1. which had been accompanied by some books which were later gratefully Jacknowledged. See Epistles Received, vol. iii. p. 90. London Yearly Meeting Records in D.
CHAPTER III
t,%t ilwafting in Zottota
HOKN PICKERING had written that he found it a hard I matter to be a governor and a Christian in such a place %J as Tortola. In his letters, to both London and Philadelphia, he told of the effort of the governor of the Leeward Islands, at Antigua, in whose care rested the administration of the Virgins, to remove him from the lieutenant-governorship of the Island. The danger of attacks from the Spaniards, then at war with Great Britain, was real, and Governor Matthew felt a sense of responsi- bility for the safety of Tortola ; but as the Friends were incapable of engaging an enemy or using offensive weapons, he would be without excuse to His Majesty, if the inhabitants in general should suffer through Governor Pickering continuing in office. He therefore asked him, notwithstanding his high personal regard for the governor of Tortola, to resign, as they were now in actual war and danger, and he therefore commissioned Captain John Hunt, a " gentlemen of worth and resolution, to succeed you in this troublesome post, as well as no salary or advantages."1
No appointment more distasteful to the deposed governor could have been made. Captain Hunt's wife, Mary Hunt, had early thrown her lot with the Quakers, and she was the woman whose husband had drawn his sword and pistol, and beaten her to prevent her attending meetings. Governor Pickering said he would have quitted the office long before but for the fear that Hunt would be appointed. He called him " a very cruel enemy to Friends, a haughty, proud, austere man whose wife had suffered cruel persecutions on account of her being one."2
1 Letter of Governor William Matthew to the Honble. Jno. Pickering, Esq., dated Antigua, June 7th, 1742. Copy in D.
, a Letter to Philadelphia Friends, June 18, 1741.
20 T0RT0LA
The following year, 1742, came to Tortola John Estaugh1 and John Cadwallader2 from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Around John Estaugh the halo of romance and poetry has gathered a store of intimacy and sympathy, which has endeared him to younger generations and made him one of our best-known standard-bearers even outside the borders of the Society of Friends. Lydia Maria Child, in her Youthful Emigrant, tells the story of Elizabeth H addon, her coming to the new land as a girl of eighteen, the careful management of her father's consider- able estate and her happy marriage wifh the young minister, John Estaugh. He had become convinced at seventeen in London, and stood forth in the ministry at the age of eighteen. The poet Longfellow, in one of the best-known and best-liked Tales of a Wayside Inn, sympathetically continues the story of the religious services, proposal and marriage of John and Elizabeth Estaugh. However, not without some liberty as to facts.
Then John Estaugh came back o'er the sea for the gift that
was offered, Better than houses and lands, the gift of a woman's affection. And on the First-Day that followed, he rose in the Silent
Assembly, Holding in his strong hand a hand that trembled a little, Promising to be kind and true and faithful in all things. Such were the marriage rites of John and Elizabeth Estaugh.
We celebrated on October 18th, 1913, the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of Haddonfield, N.J., and the building of their home, some ten miles out from Philadelphia, where the ancient yews brought from England and planted by the young mistress are still growing.
John Estaugh and John Cadwallader had both traveled much in the ministry, both having made former visits to the West Indies. Their hearts naturally turned toward the newly estab- lished little Meeting in Tortola. The year before their visit, John Estaugh had addressed a tender letter to the " Newly Gathered
1 " John Estaugh — a mild man desiring people to be true to what was made known to them." (From a memorandum penned by one of the early settlers of Pennsylvania, quoted in Bowden's History, 1850, vol. ii. p. 230.) He was born in England 1676, died 1742. -
a A resident of Montgomery County, Pa., born c. 1676, died 1742. " He traveled much in the exercise of his gift in the ministry . ■ . . in most or all parts of this continent and crossed the seas twice to Europe and once to the Island of Barbadoes." Collection of Memorials, Philadelphia, 1787.
\
THE AWAKING IN TORTOIA 21
Little Flock at Tortola,"1 but he had not found this sufficient to release him from a concern to visit them.
The two Johns landed the 8th of Ninth Month, and were lovingly welcomed by John and Dorcas Pickering at Fat Hog Bay. They immediately engaged upon the labors of their service. John Cadwallader had not been well on his arrival ; he continued poorly, and, in a little more than two weeks, he succumbed. Those attending his funeral were caught in a shower, from the effects of which John Estaugh was taken ill and soon died. John Pickering, writing to Elizabeth Estaugh, details his closing days :2
He had his Health very well until the Death of his dear Companion, but going to his Burial, we were caught in a Shower of Rain which we, and he, believed was the Occasion of his Illness. However, he was mightily favoured with the Divine Presence, which enabled him to answer the Service of that Day ; and the next, being the first Day of the Week, we had a blessed Meeting, the Lord's Presence accompanying us ; and tho' thy dear Husband was so near his End, his Candle shin'd as bright as ever, and many that beheld it, were made to glorify God on his Behalf. This was the last Opportunity On this Island, save his Farewell upon his dying Bed, where he both preached and prayed, a little before his Departure.
On the next Day, being the second of the Week, he went to a little Island called Jos Vandicks, accompanied with several Friends ; but on the 3d day in the Morning he complained very much, yet was enabled to go to Meeting, where were a pretty many People waiting to hear the Word of Life declared, and a blessed Opportunity we had together, to the tendring and melting our Hearts into a heavenly Frame.
But he, who never spared his labour whilst amongst us, extending his Voice as a Trumpet of the Lord's own founding, was so inwardly spent he was ready to faint. However, he went on board the Sloop that Afternoon, and next morning came ashore at our House; where he had not been long before a shivering Fit seized him, and a Fever
1 Entitled, " An Epistle from John Estaugh to the Newly gathered Flock of Christ in the Island of Tortola," dated 15th of First Month, 1741 /2. Printed in Estaugh 's Call to the Unfaithful Professors of Truth, part iv. p. 95, Philadelphia, Printed by B. Franklin, 1744.
* Estaugh's Call, p. viii. ; also, slightly changed, in Collection of Memorials, Philadelphia, 1787.
22 TORTOLA
soon followed, which kept its constant Course every Day. This being the ist day of the ioth Month, he took great Notice that it ended Forty Years since his Marriage with thee ; that during that Time you had lived in much Love, and parted in the same ; and that thou wast his greatest Concern of all outward Enjoyments. And tho' the last two Bays he was in much Pain, yet he was preserved under it in much Patience and Resignation, and had his perfect Senses to the last, exhorting friends to Faithfulness, &c. And on the 6th Day of the ioth Month, about 6 a Clock at Night, he went away like a Lamb, with Praises and Thanks- givings in his Lips but about two minutes before.
Thus far from the said letters. His wife, Elizabeth, continues :
And thus finished this dear Worthy in the 67th year of his Age ; at the House of William Thomas on the Island of Tortola, highly favour'd by his great and good God in the very extreme Moments ; the Consideration whereof, and the Account given of his Service, afford me, at times, some Relief. ... I have a secret Satisfaction in that I was enabled to give him up (tho' so dear to me) unto the Service into which he was called. This is but just a hint for those who may be under the like Exercise and Tryal, that they may not hold back, but submit, and freely give up their All, leaving the Consequence to the wise disposing Hand, who knows for what Cause it is He is pleased so nearly to try his people.
In the minute book of Haddonfield Women's Monthly Meeting, which Elizabeth Estaugh as Clerk kept for upward of fifty-five years, a model of neatness and precision, is a blank page, 165, between the entries of the meetings of Tenth and Eleventh Months, 1742. It was at this time she received word of her husband's death and burial in far away Tortola. This blank page remains to this day — a touching tribute and mute token of her desolation.
John Cadwallader had been laid by the side of Thomas Chalkley, and John Estaugh requested that he should be placed on the other side of him. " These three valiants to be laid in the dust of our Island has been very shocking to us," wrote the Tortolan Friends to London Yearly Meeting.1
1 ist of Third Month, 1743. Epistles Received, vol. iii. p. 100. London Yearly Meeting Records, in D.
THE AWAKING IN TORTOLA 23
James Birkett, the young Antigua merchant, whose part in establishing meetings in Tortola has already been related, continued to take a deep interest in the welfare of the little group. He writes to the ever watchful John Barclay as follows :
Antigua, 10th of 7th mo., 1743.
Our Friends in Tortola are generally pretty well, only our mutual friend, John Pickering's wife, has been ill above 4 weeks, and he writes he fears she is in danger. She will be a loss to the church if she should be taken away, for they are People in good circumstances, they are a great help to the poor, she also is greatly beloved and respected as a Minister — having a testimony to bear in meeting, to the edification and confirmation of her bretheren and sisters. I have been twice down amongst them since I saw thee and hope to get down again towards latter end of 8th Month when I expect Edmund Peckover here on his journey for that Island. He leaves North America this fall and comes to Barbadoes, from thence here and so designs for Tortola, as above. I wish he may not have the fate of the friends that have already visited that place, — first our dear friend Thomas Chalkley died just at the time I arrived here. Last year John Cadwallader and John Estaugh — they came together and died soon after their arrival and within a few days of one another. Three workers who laid down their lives in the discharge of their duty ; and though their labor was soon over in that Island I believe they were instrumental in bringing several into the right way and also in strengthen- ing others to the glory of our great creator.
To be sure John Pickering is a man of great worth but since he has adhered so closely to Friends and their principles, they have taken the Government of that Island out of his hands and given it to a very severe man which makes the people complain heavily and wish for their Quaker Governor again, but that will never come to pass I believe.
I am, etc.,
James Birkett.1
From Edmund Peckover's Journal3 we learn the cause of his non-arrival in Tortola ; he says :
1 " James Birkett to John Barclay (Merchant in Dublin)." Abstract in D.
3 Journal Friends Historical Society, vol. i (1904). p. 109.
24 TORTOtA
The West Indies, I suppose, no better for Religion than formerly. I fear there is a great Declinsion. My Intention was for Antigua and Tortola. I was detained by Contrary Winds some weeks in Barbados. Did at last set sail for Antigua, but could not get forward, was about thirty six hours beating against Wind & Strong Currents, and could get no further than about nine miles. So got ashore at Spikes's, and then I found the weight of it taken from me, and I was thoroughly easie to give up said Voyage. So took my things Out of the Vessel, and Embraced the first Vessel for Europe ; and I have been very Easie ever since there about, for had I pursued it afterwards, when the Concern was removed from me, It appeared to me like tempting Providence. The Privateers Lurk very much in and about those Islands.- I hear a good account of the Friends at Tortola.
It was several years after the death of these three prominent ministers before another came. In 1746, arrived Peter Fearon, a much traveled minister from New Jersey and a neighbor of John Estaugh. He was in Barbados early in that year when a concern came upon him to visit Tortola. " He came in a needful time as a cloud full of rain upon a thirsty land " is the vivid expression used in the " large and full " certificates which Tortolan Friends sent home with him.1
Two years later, arrived two more messengers of love. These were Daniel Stanton,* of Philadelphia, and Samuel Nottingham,3 an Englishman, who, later, was to become closely identified with Tortola.
It was while attending his first meeting and under the ministry of John Estaugh, that Daniel Stanton was drawn to Friends and
1 Collection of Memorials, Philadelphia, 1787. He was born in England, 1683, died 1762, " having been a minister about sixty years."
3 Born in Philadelphia, 1708. The son of Thomas Chalkley's wife's sister. Died 1770, in the forty-third year of his ministry.
3 Samuel Nottingham (17 16-1787) was born at Wellingborough in Northamptonshire. David Sands, an eminent minister (1 745-1 81 8), in his Journal tells of attending a meeting near Cornwall, N.Y., appointed by " Samuel Nottingham, a Friend, from England," where the views expressed fitted his own exercised state of mind. " The plain, humble appearance [of the preacher] seemed to him to be more than was necessary for any man to adopt to assist him to be a Christian." . See MS. Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 30, London Yearly Meeting Records in D. For a further account of Samuel Nottingham, see " Biographical Memoirs," MS. in D.
THE AWAKING IN TORTOLA 25
" was greatly contrited and baptised." " It was/' he says, " a joyful day of good tidings to my poor seeking soul."
The two visitors had sailed from Philadelphia for England by way of the West Indies. They had service in Barbados, then in the island of Antigua. Here they lodged at the home of James Birkett, whose early account of the convincements in Tortola has already been cited. Fortunately, Daniel Stanton has left us an illuminating account of the condition of the Society in Tortola. Owing to their inability to get shipping to England, they were greatly delayed and spent four months in the Island and in the vicinity.
I left my habitation on the 13th day of the fifth month, 1748, after being on that day at a large meeting in our city, with Samuel Nottingham, a Friend from Northampton- shire, in Old-England, who was to be my companion. . . . We arrived safe at Barbadoes, on the 21st day of the sixth month ; where we met with several Friends who were kind and loving towards us. . . . We were on this island twenty-one days, and having seen Friends generally, and been favoured with several edifying seasons, we departed from thence with Captain Austin, to Antigua, in our way to Tortola ; we staid one week and a day at Antigua, lodged at James Birket's, who was very kind to us ; but my mind was much burthened and distressed for that place and people, who are for the most part a wicked and sinful generation ; we had no meeting among them, there being , no Friend on the island, except Friend Birket. . . .
From thence we went to Tortola, where we landed on the 28th of the seventh month, and met with several Friends in the evening, that were glad to see us, at the house of our Friend John Pickering ; where, and at our Friend William Thomas's, we lodged most of the time we were upon that island, they being truly kind and friendly to us ; we were favoured with many good edifying meetings among Friends, there being two meeting-houses on the island, viz. one at a place called Fat-hog bay, the other at the Road ; we attended both of them with diligence, near the space ot six weeks, only that we were once at an island called Joes- Vandikes, where we had a large good meeting.
On the ninth day of the ninth month, we left Tortola, in order to return to Antigua, with design to get a passage, for England ; but being in a vessel the captain of which knew not how to manage her, we were going a contrary
26 TORTOLA
course, in which if we had proceeded, we might all have been lost ; we were much tossed and driven about, and through persuasions we prevailed with the captain to turn back, and he brought us to Santa Croix ; but our going into the harbour called Lime-trees to drop anchor, seemed as if it would have proved fatal to us, there lying a vessel armed with guns, from which we were fired at three times, and my companion had like to have been shot ; it seems they had a design to have sunk our vessel, having heard there was a Spanish privateer on the coast, and the Governor had given orders to keep her off ; they suspected our's to be that vessel ; but our mariners being in a great fright, made signals that we had no ill design ; when seeing we were in distress, they forebore firing, and through the kind deliverance of the Almighty we got safe in and dropt anchor. . . .
The travelers found a vessel to take them back to Tortola. Daniel Stanton continues :
We set sail, and arrived at Tortola on the 15th of the ninth month. The Captain and sailors were a wicked company, took some of our things from us, and demanded considerable more for our passage than we had agreed for, which we thought unreasonable ; but they said we could afford to pay, for that we were always going about ; we told them we had the more need to be saving of what we had ; they hoisted out the boat in an angry manner, and we paid them more than our passage to put us on shore ; they first took us some distance from any house, and then landed us, which put us to the more difficulty what to do with our chests, and other necessaries, that they might be safe ; but being seen by one Isaac Pickering1 (a kinsman to our Friend'john Pickering) he sent his lad to ask us to his house, where we went, and he was so kind as to send for our things, and took care of them, and lent us horses to go to his uncle's that night, where we were kindly received, and tenderly sympathized with on the disappointment and
1 Isaac Pickering's will is dated 16th June, 1802. He seems not to have joined the Quaker movement in the Island. He gave his plantation in Tortola, which was not far from Road Town, to his daughter, Elizabeth, his plantation in St. Croix, to his son, John Arthur Hodge Pickering, and " to my other son, William Pickering, my plantation in St. Croix in the right of his mother." (Caribbeana, vol. iii (1914). p. 301.)
On the map of the Island of 1798, he is called Isaac Pickering, Tortola, to distinguish him from his cousin Isaac Pickering of Fox Lease, Hampshire, England, the son of John Pickering, the lieutenant-governor.
THE AWAKING IN TORTOLA 27
trouble, we had met with ; they were dear and affectionate Friends to us on this island. We were at a meeting at Fat-hog bay, the 16th of the ninth month ; and on the fourth day following, I was at one at the Road, both of them were good meetings.
On the 23d of the month, I was taken ill of a fever at the house of our Friend Thomas Humphreys, and the next day my kind Friend John Pickering brought a man and horse and took me to his house, where I remained very ill several weeks, and some of the time I apprehended I should lay down my life among them ; but it was the blessed will of the Lord to restore me again to some degree of strength, and I attended several meetings with Friends, wherein I had satisfaction, and on the 8th day of the eleventh month, I went to Guana Island, with our Friends James Parke and his wife, and staid till the eleventh of the same, and after having a comfortable time in his family, I returned to Tortola, it being the meeting day at Fat-hog bay, and it proved to be a meeting to satisfaction.
After a solid sitting and parting with several at our Friend John Pickering's, on the 21st of this month, we went on board a vessel bound to the island called St. Thomas's (belonging to the Dutch), accompanied by our said dear Friend, and Thomas Humphreys, Jonas Lake, and Joseph Ryan, and on the 22d landed there, and understood that the Captain of the ship, bound for Amsterdam, in which we were to take our passage, in order to get to England, was very ill. We lodged at John Demane's one night, and the next day went on board the vessel, where we staid mostly till the last day of the month, and our dear Friends above-mentioned, after seeing us placed in the ship, parted with us in a tender, loving manner, and my heart was affected in parting with them. In the time we lay at anchor, the Captain died, and the chief mate, Robert Stewart, was appointed Captain in his stead, who was very kind to us in the many distresses we met with on our passage.
Some days before we sailed, my companion [Samuel Nottingham] was taken sick, which so increased, that on the passage he seemed near unto death, which was a great trial and exercise to me, being myself weakly and feeble, for we were companions in tribulation, but thro the mercy of the Almighty, he recovered.1
Happily, a chronicler, of Cork, Ireland, records the safe arrival of " Samuel Nottingham, Northamptonshire, Black Smith
1 Journal of Daniel Stanton, Philadelphia, 1772, beginning p. 33.
28 TORTOLA
and Daniel Stanton, Philadelphia, Ship Joiner. ' '* Samuel Notting- ham remained in Cork for a time, being much out of order with his bad voyage. His long stay in Tortola was not without its effect in another way, for he had become engaged to marry Mary Hunt, the widow of Captain John Hunt, the former governor of the Island.2 Six months later, he sailed from England for Tortola, " in order to marry and settle there."
So far, these visiting itinerant Friends had been men ; but about this time two earnest women from Pennsylvania felt drawn to undertake the hazardous voyage and pay a visit in the " love of the Gospel " to Tortola. Phoebe Smith,3 of Bucks County, and Mary Evans,4 of Montgomery County, in Pennsylvania, arrived Second Month 14th, 1750, conducted by John Pickering, Jr., in his father's sloop. " They remained thirty- two days and had good service and went well away."5
The two women Friends from Pennsylvania had hardly reached home, when three prospective visitors sailed from Philadelphia for the West Indies, with Tortola as one of their objectives. These were Peter Fearon, on his second visit ; Thomas Lancaster, a minister from Richland, Bucks County, and John Bringhurst, a business man of Philadelphia, who was making the voyage partly on account of his health. They reached Barbados late
1 First Month 28th, 1749. Journal Friends Historical Society, vol. x (1913). pp. 248, 249.
3 " We heard that Dan1 Stanton and Sam1 Nottingham were well there [Tortola] and that the latter was likely to be married to the widow Hunt — wch was thought a little strange here, because he was remarkably- shy of women while among us, and said several times before he went away that he has not kissed a woman in America." — From John Smith's manu- script diary [Philadelphia], 1748, Eleventh Month 4, 4th day.
3 Phoebe Smith was the daughter of Thomas and Sarah ( Jarvis) Canby, born in Abington township, Montgomery Co., Pa., Seventh Month 19th, 1699. She married Robert Smith, of Buckingham, 1719. Upon his death, she married Hugh Ely. She is an ancestress of the author. For further details, see Robert Smith Genealogy, by Josiah B. Smith.
4 Mary Evans, daughter of Samuel Nicholas, of Philadelphia, born "in or about the year 1695." Second wife of Owen Evans, of Gwynedd, Pa., to whom she was married Second Month 29th, 1736. She died Fifth Month 20th, 1769. See Collection of Memorials, Philadelphia, 1787, and Howard M. Jenkins's Historical Collections Relating to Gwynedd.
5 Minutes Tortola Monthly Meeting.
THE AWAKING IN TORTOLA 29
in August, and here John Bringhurst died1 at the home of the Widow Oxley in Bridgetown. It is a singular coincidence that the widow's husband, John Oxley, had died some years previously at John Bringhurst's house in Philadelphia.
Soon after the death of John Bringhurst, Thomas Lancaster and Peter Fearon took passage to Tortola,2 where they labored earnestly about three weeks. They embarked for home, but shortly after they sailed Thomas Lancaster3 was stricken with a fatal illness, died and was buried at sea.
It was this religious service, untimely death and watery grave of Thomas Lancaster, my great-grandmother's great- grandfather, that first aroused my interest in Tortola.
A period of six years elapsed before another visiting Friend reached Tortola, in the person of Thomas Gawthrop,4 of West- morland, England. When leaving the Island he took with him a minute5 to " Friends and Brethren at Barbados and Elsewhere," in commendation of his labors.
Of the two ministers on the Island, William Thomas and Jeremiah Martin, both had service traveling in foreign parts. William Thomas made an extensive visit to the American Colonies in 1742/3. He traveled through Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina with Edmund Peckover, who speaks highly of his
1 Born February 25, 1691, died September 20, 1750. See Appendix vii.
2 Monthly Meeting, Fat Hog Bay, Eighth Month 1st, 1750 — " At this meeting was read two certificates from Peter Fearon and Thomas Lancaster."
3 Thomas Lancaster was born in England, probably 1703, and was brought to Pennsylvania with his sister Mary, by Ann Chapman, a visiting Minister, in 171 2. He married Phebe Wardell, Eighth Month 19th, 1725. They were the progenitors of the Lancaster family (see Lancaster Genealogy) . See also Collection of Memorials, Philadelphia, 1787. Phebe Lancaster, the widow, was also a minister and was later three times married.
* Thomas Gawthrop (1709-1780), born at Skipton, Yorkshire. He was a soldier for five years in early life. He made four voyages to the American Continent. On returning from the first, in 1747, he was captured by a French privateer and carried into France. It was on his second visit, 1756/7, he visited the West Indies and Tortola. In his visit in 1766/7, he was particularly concerned for the hard and suffering state of the poor negroes. His last visit was made 1775 /8. See Henry Gawthrop's account of Thomas Gawthrop, Friends' Quarterly Examiner, vol. xxxii (i9°3) • P- 237.
5 Dated Third Month 29th, 1 756, Minutes Tortola Monthly Meeting.
3o T0RT0LA
companion, recording that " he grew bravely in the ministry."1 He was absent from the Island nearly a year. His brother-in-law, John Pickering, says of him : " He was very young in the ministry when he left us and had but a short testimony, but his growth has been such that I think he comes little short of any I ever heard."8
In the same year, 1749, much to the regret of Tortola Meeting, both these Tortolan ministers started on other voyages ; Jeremiah Martin in a small sloop, for Philadelphia, on a religious visit, and William Thomas in a snow for Lancaster, England, on a similar errand.3 In 175 1, Jeremiah Martin made a short visit to Barbados with Samuel and Mary Nottingham.
1 Journal Friends Historical Society, vol. i (1904). p. 97-
3 Copy of letter from John Pickering, dated 26th of Sixth Month, 1744, in D.
3 " At this meeting was William Thomas, a ministering Friend from Tortola, lately landed." Daniel Stanton's Journal, Lancaster, Eng. 1749.
CHAPTER IV
€0* (TWnufc* of *0e (meeting
/j4^HE business of Men's Monthly Meeting over the period of tf ^ twenty years, as disclosed by the minutes, presents but ^L^ little variety. It groups itself into five general classes — the marriages among the members ; the receipt of epistles from London and the evident labor of committees to draft suitable replies ; the monthly searchings of heart to know if all was well with the little flock, and the meetings duly attended ; toward the last the numerous cases of discipline and disownment, and the almost continuous plaint of the shortcomings of the Friends on the island Jost Van Dykes.
The receipt of a considerable number of epistles from individuals in England and America is recorded and gratefully acknowledged in the minutes.1 A Treasurer* was early appointed to hold money for the relief of poor Friends, and this care was extended on several occasions. For a time a collection was taken up at each monthly meeting.
The only reference to the subject of slavery occurs early in the history of the Meeting, when James Lake complained that his mother-in-law had kept from him two negroes. A committee was appointed to give the matter attention.
Friends early considered a Meeting of Ministers and Elders to meet three or four times a year, but nothing came of it.
As the first devotion of membership passed away, breaches of discipline became more frequent, and they reflect the wildness and disorder of the times and place. A member from Jost Van Dykes had been " out into great excitement." He had started
1 These were John Bringhurst, Philadelphia, 1742 ; Robert Jordan, Philadelphia, 1743 ; John Bell of London, 1743 ; Benjamin Holme, 1744 ; Simeon Walker, London, 1744; Peter Fearon, New Jersey, 1748; Samuel Fothergill, Warrington, 1760, " abounding in good wholesome advice." Ireland Half Year's Meeting sent letters on two occasions.
9 James Parke was appointed 1743.
31
32 TGRTOLA
in a coble, armed, to pursue a boat that was thought to have been retaken by the enemy. Passing Guana Island, he had fired ashore in the night among his friends, and had wound up by " beating in a wicked unmanly manner, William Clandaniel, a Friend."
Another important Friend was disowned, " having resolved to take his pleasures while he lives." Later this Friend retaliated by closing the meeting-house at The Road to the use of Friends, despite it had been both deeded and willed to them by Townsend Bishop. There seems to have been only one case of concern over excessive drinking and two serious breaches of the moral law. Two members to the " great dishonor of Friends were disowned for engaging in that odious exercise of dancing, which raises a suspicion in the well minded that they rather fall away from grace than become professors therein." To show the extent of the labors of the Monthly Meeting, of the eighty-six adult members whom we have listed, twenty-one were dealt with or admonished, and, of the^e, nine were disowned.
John Pickering was appointed the first clerk, serving until 1753, when he was released at his request and William Strong took his place and served until the end.
The weather and sickness played an important part in so small a Meeting. " It being a very sickly time " — " No Meeting on account of the extremity of the weather " — " No business being done, it being a rainy day " — " No Meeting " — " Being very rainy weather four friends coming " — " But one friend at meeting, no collection " — are some of the brief but expressive entries. Towards the end, the clerk is given 3/3 " for paper to write Epistles, Certificates, Papers of Condemnation of Bad Practices, Monthly Meeting Minutes and what other."
By Tenth Month, 1755, the clerk records : " Meetings for business are so much neglected from a supineness among friends that nothing more remains at present then to nominate the date such meetings shall be held on." Yet a few months later he says : " Love still corresponds with the few Friends."
The minutes of the Women's Monthly Meeting begin three months later than those of the Men's Meeting, the 7th day of Twelfth Month, 174 1/2, and they continued, with some omissions for twenty years, until the laying down of the Meeting.
THE MINUTES OF THE MEETING 33
Their first duty was the appointment of some discreet Friends as Overseers to " inspect Friends behavior according to truth." Dorothy Thomas was appointed for The Road Meeting, Dorcas Pickering for Fat Hog Bay, Ann Smith for the East End Meeting of Jost Van Dykes Island, and Catharine George for White Bay Meeting. It would thus appear that there were four Meetings regularly held at this time. There was little to concern the Meeting except occasional breaches of discipline, and month after month we have records substantially like the following :
At our Monthly Meeting held at Fat Hog Bay in Tortola, this, y*5 6th of 8th Month, 1746.
The friends appointed in respect to the good order of friends gives account that things in the general seems to be pretty well and this meeting desires their care may be continued.
Occasionally, a meeting was "disappointed by the weather so that we could not meet." On many occasions the absence of Friends from Jost Van Dykes prevented a full report being made. All travelers to the Virgin Islands know of the swift currents and tides which race through these scattered islands, and it can well be imagined that the Smiths, Brabstons, Georges and Lettsoms from Jost Van Dykes Island and the Lakes from Guana, often found it unsafe and even impossible to reach the Island and attend the meeting at Fat Hog Bay.
The Monthly Meetings alternated between The Road and Fat Hog Bay for two years, but, after Tenth Month, 1743, were held continuously at the latter place with one slight exception. Men's and women's business meetings were held separately. Under the tutelage of the visiting ministers, the procedure and forms of long established Meetings were generally adopted. A prospective groom, with the formality of the time, would appear in Women's Meeting, accompanied by two men Friends, to announce his intentions of marriage.
They undertook some care of their members, placing a daughter of two indigent members where she could learn to read and sew according to the good order of Friends, "for which this meeting agrees to allow eighteen shillings by ye quarter " to Elizabeth Lake, who received the child in her home. Collections were also made for the relief of the poor.^
34 TORTOLA
On Dorcas Pickering's death, Mary Hunt was appointed to succeed her as an Overseer for Fat Hog Bay. By 1750, slackness and breaches of discipline became more frequent. Rebecca Powe is accused of " coldness of coming to our meeting " and " gave the committee but little satisfaction." In 1757, the Friends appointed in Jost Van Dykes in respect to the good order of Friends, give account " that things are not as well as may be desired." Of Friends in Tortola it is recorded that " things else seems to be as well as can be expected at present." Several meetings were omitted through storms, of which this entry is typical :
The Monthly Meeting of 12th Mo. 1760, we think it necessary to mention, the cause of our omission occasioned by much rain.
The entries by 1760 begin to savor much of present-day minutes. " Friends are loving and duly attend meetings for worship, but slack in attending meetings for discipline."1
The last entry in the Women's book, that of Seventh Month 25th, 1762, is prophetic of the end. It reads : " Few friends attend this meeting, it being ocationed by sickness. So we refer to the next . . ." — a next that was never to arrive.
Some of the records of births are set forth in minute detail :
Benjamin Smith, son of Thomas and Ann Smith, was born the 5th day of the 1st Month called March, 1742, in the presence of the hand woman who assisted, Susannah Markes and several others. The child was named by the father and mother and called as above, Benjamin.
Signed by Testees
Susannah Markes, Patience Markes.
1 Minutes, Tenth Month 27th, 1761,
CHAPTER V
f-4 AMUEL NOTTINGHAM'S marriage to Mary Hunt, C^) previously mentioned, had no restraining effect on his C*^ activity in traveling in the ministry. Eight months after the event, he and his wife visited Barbados. Again, in 1752, he made an extended visit to England. Sometime later he and his wife journeyed to the American Colonies, returning in 1757. A short stay in the Island and again a two years' visit to North America.
It was upon his return in 1759, that he turned his attention to matters of discipline ; and, reading between the lines of the minutes, he must have been oppressed with the necessity for action, and the members of the Meeting not unconscious of their shortcomings. Whether this correction was in a spirit of meekness and love, which our modern queries demand, is not entirely clear, but the Meeting proceeded with vigor to treat with the slackness that prevailed and to disown several of its important members.1
William George, of Jost Van Dykes, wrote the Meeting explaining why he could not attend Monthly Meeting, that his " distemper was not agreeable to catch cold upon, and for to tarry to afternoon would be running great risk and for that reason am anxious to get away in the forepart of the day."*
The widow Lettsom retorted, in answer to chidings for non-attendance at meetings, that " Friends slited her and set her at noat and she being left destitute from human help not a
1 MS. Letter of William Strong to Peter Smith of Jost Van Dykes, 3d of Fourth Month, 1760. Tortola Monthly Meeting Records.
2 MS. Letter William George to William Strong, 7th of Eighth Month, 1759. Tortola Monthly Meeting Records.
36 TORTOLA
negro to assist her. Meetings being at a distance and thinking it hard to be slited by Frjends in her distress, had quit attending meeting."1
She had remarried, and her husband, Samuel Lane, in justifying his sympathy for Friends, said his mother was a " weighty " Friend in Barbados and he himself spoke well of Friends. Even John Pickering, whom we have seen for so many years carrying the responsibility of the Meeting — Clerk of the Monthly Meeting and Correspondent — did not escape censure, and sent a letter to the Meeting explaining and condoning his absences.
Samuel Nottingham, having at least stirred up the Meeting, departed for another visit to Long Island, where he had spent much of his time on previous visits northward, and remained away for two years. On his return the Meeting had ceased to function as a Meeting for Discipline. The minutes of both Men's and Women's Meetings close with " the 25th day of y6 7th Month, 1762." The concluding minute of Men's Meeting reads : " No business to proceed with, and things in the general are as our last, the meeting ends in love." The skeleton heading for the next monthly meeting had been prepared in advance by the clerk, but it was never to become useful.
It is from the letters, or epistles as they are called in Church correspondence, addressed to London Yearly Meeting* that we get the details of the condition of the Society, painted with a broader brush than we obtain from the more prosaic minute books.
Reporting on their condition in 1743, soon after the three Quaker worthies had laid down their lives, the Meeting writes that it can not give as good an account as they could wish :
1 MS. Letter of Friends of Jost Van Dykes to Tortola Monthly Meeting, 7th of Eighth Month, 1759. Tortola Monthly Meeting Records.
2 Epistles from Tortola to London Yearly Meeting are preserved at Devonshire House for the following years. From James Birkett, 1740. John Pickering, 1741. From " Our Monthly Meeting held at Fat Hog Bay, in Tortola, this 27th day of the io,h Month, 1741 " andfor" first Day of the Third Month, 1743," Tenth Month 6th, 1743, 1746, 1746 (original), 1746, 1748, 1749, 1750, 1752, 1753- 1755. 1756, 1757, 1758, 1759. 1761, 1762, 1763. Some of the epistles from Tortola to London Yearly Meeting have been copied into books or are on loose sheets in the fire proof at Third and Arch Streets, Philadelphia, for the following years : 1756, 1757, 1758, 1759, 1760, 1761. See Appendix iv.
APPLYING THE DISCIPLINE 37
We can see great declension in some and some run quite out, yet through mercy, we have had as many or more added to our number, and We Still hope, and have faith to believe that the Lord our God who has begun the Work without the help of any outward Instrument, will Carry it on to Our Comfort. In as much as it hath pleased God of his infinite Goodness & Mercy, to visit a poor People in this Remote Part of the World, who sat in Darkness and under the Region & Shadow of Death, with the Dawnings of that Light which shews Israel his Transgressions and Jacob his Sins.
The reason for this falling off was explained in the next letter. Some members were alarmed at the prospect of perse- cution, due to a change in Government.1 But one of their number suffered persecution for refusing to bear arms : "He was Tyed neck & heels, and while the Governor brought in by the change of administration threatened the others, yet up to this time they had escaped."
By 1745, these difficulties were increased by the arrival of a " priest " whom the Islanders had employed, possibly to offset the aggressiveness of the Friends. " His coming made a great noise in the elements, speaking great swelling words." Worse than this, Dorcas Powell, who had been clerk of Women's Monthly Meeting, was drawn to the newcomer, married him, and was promptly disowned by the Meeting, the first of many similar actions which later were to weaken the Meeting. An interchange of letters passed between the minister and Friend John Pickering, and the other Islanders were anxious that they should hold a " publick dispute, but the priest himself, does not seem to be forward for it, being put much to his shifts." " The Meeting feeling its own weakness also felt that Silence to be much safer at this time than Controversies."
The next year they again had to report " great declension from the Christian Plainness and humble deportment which our ancient worthies were examplary in."
The accession of one new member was reported during the year, but, alas, before the epistle was forwarded, he had been
1 This was undoubtedly the time John Pickering was discharged from, or relinquished, the lieutenant-governorship. This office was held under appointment from the governor of the Leeward Islands, whose seat of Government was on the island of Antigua.
38 TORTOLA
removed out of this troublesome world. They had to apologize for the fact that for two successive years the epistles had arrived in London too late for the Yearly Meeting, though they had used all diligence in having them forwarded.
In this year, they regretfully reported " that one that partook of the ministry had gone out of that peaceable spirit of love, humility and patience unto the Spirit of this World, even unto Gaming, Buffetting and Soliciting the Government for a Com- mission for another man to go a privateering in order to retake a sloop he la§t by the Spaniards." He was disowned ; but the same day their testimony went out against him the balance was struck by another joining in membership with the Meeting.
As to their outward state, " though some were sick, yet in general they were well and hitherto they had been preserved from the sword of the enemy." This was almost a constant peril. The whole history of Friends in Tortola covered the period of the Colonial Wars. First, the War of the Austrian Succession from 1740-1748, and overlapping this, the first war with France from 1744 to 1748 — King George's War, we call it on our side of the water — followed after six years of peace by the French and Indian War from 1754 to 1760 in America, and roughly coincident with the Seven Years War in Europe.
From the days of Columbus, the West Indies and the Spanish Main had been harried by the contending navies of Europe, as war succeeded war. For 200 years violence and disorder were the expected lot of the settlers in these parts. The keys and islets were the haunts of the so-called buccaneers, who made relentless war on Spain and all her settlements. Drake and Hawkins, Penn and Rodney, and scores of naval officers won fame and fortune fighting the Spanish, French and Dutch, throughout the waters of the Caribbees. Every war brought its troop of privateers, and privateering was but little more than piracy writ large, as Milton might have expressed it. About the time our little island of Tortola was settled, Blackbeard, Sprigg, Avery, Captain Roberts and a host of lesser pirates, made the seas unsafe throughout the islands and up the coast as far as Boston. The peaceful merchantmen viewed with fear and suspicion every approaching sail, and was ready on the instant to take flight or, by superior speed, to seek a place of refuge.
APPLYING THE DISCIPLINE 39
Throughout all these trying times, Tortola, while often alarmed, seems not to have actually suffered. On the breaking out of the second war with France, some of the inhabitants of the islands joined with English merchants concerned in the trade with Tortola, in sending a petition to the authorities, praying that a supply of cannon and ammunition might be sent them for their immediate defense.1 It is likely that Fort Charlotte and Fort George, guarding Road Town on each side, were built about this time and the cannon mounted there. These forts have long since fallen in decay.
In writing to the Yearly Meeting of 1748, Tortola Friends reported the loss of " several of the most worthy in our Church who have gone (we hope & firmly believe) into the mansions of eternal rest." There had been many alarms, but the Island had been free from public molestation or great hurt. They expected to suffer from the late Act of Parliament requiring every family in the islands to keep firearms in their homes and to respond to every alarm, as well as from an order by the lieutenant-governor and his council to raise a great sum of money to build forts and towers. They were unwilling to conform thereto. The governor and his council were without legal authority3 to lay this levy, but, nevertheless, they expected it at any time. The governor was reported a " Great Enemy and Despiser of Friends." Their former governor had " threatned as hard as this on his first coming " ; but some time before his last sickness and death, he had " spoke well of friends & their Principles and seemed to desire their company, and appointed two Friends only his executors."
At the end of another year (1749), they sorrowfully reported the death of " one of them, the most knowing amongst us and a Serviceable member this way of helping out with Epistles as he wrote well and good English . ' ' The aid they had asked of Lond on, in bringing pressure on the governor through the English authorities, was bearing fruit. They reported him as " carrying himself in a general way pretty moderate," and silent as to their
1 Minutes of the Board of Trade and Plantations, Tuesday, March 9, 1756. Record Office, London.
3 It was not until 1773 that a popular legislative body was set up in the Virgin Islands with powers of taxation. Up to that time what money was necessary for public works had been raised by contributions.
40 T0RT0LA
carrying arms " because, he says there is no more need for it, but some can see the Poyson of Asps yet under his Lips."
We are now approaching the time of great prosperity in the West Indian Islands. The wars were ended, population had increased, production grew and trade expanded. It was the so-called Golden Age in the American Colonies. This impulse to wealth is reflected in the letter to London of 1750 — " The love that had kept them in the fear of the Lord appears to be much abated and the too eager pursuit after the things of this World that choke and hinder the growth of Truth, too much sought after."
Two years pass and they begin to fear the constant repetition of declension and weakness and fallings away would bring only sorrow and trouble to the hearts of their London Friends and had they not a sincere desire to keep up the correspondence, " we would Choose to lay our mouths in the Dust and with Rachel take up a Lamentation and Mourning for them that are not, But are gone astray in the World and the Vanities thereof, so that there is small hopes of a rising generation."
The Meeting gratefully acknowledges an acceptable present of well-collected books, and also the Act of Parliament, sent them in 1751, for changing the Calendar from Old Style to New, which they proceeded to do at the proper time. The New Year, 1752,1 instead of beginning March 25, according to the Julian Calendar, was made to begin January 1st, as it had been in Catholic countries since the sixteenth century, and the troublesome double dating of the year between December 31st and March 25th was no longer necessary. The accumulated overtime of eleven days was dropped in September, the next day after September 2nd being accounted September 14th, giving that month but nineteen days, and making it short enough to satisfy the dullest schoolboy thumbing his spelling-book.
The coming of Thomas Gawthrop in 1756, the first outsider visiting Friends for several years, gave them an encouragement and resulted in bringing back many who had become lukewarm,
1 " In our Monthly Meeting the 27th of the Month called January, in which month by the Late Act of Parliament, the date of the year from the first day of said month alters from which henceforward is to be accounted the first month, so was held on the 27th of 1st Month, 1752. No business done."
APPLYING THE DISCIPLINE 41
and some new accessions were made to the Meeting. " But as our grand enemy knows our weakest part, there he attacks closest," and they acknowledged that their " over love of Money, which is the root of all evil, has been our greatest hurt," and the cause of many discords.
The war with France had been under way for four years, but they wrote in 1758, they had been wonderfully preserved and no evil had so far befallen them.
Their ownership of slaves is first mentioned in 1759, and they question whether this has not been a hindrance in Divine progress. They caution themselves that their authority over their human chattels must be stamped with the impression of the true fear of God."1
We are now rapidly approaching the end both of the Meeting as an existing body and of the correspondence with London. The letter from London was read in 1760, and afforded solid comfort to the few living members who remained. The following year they had to report, with that candor which seems to characterize their letters, that a spirit of wickedness and indifference prevailed and that the present conduct is a scandal to religion ; and with the one dated 1763, the letters cease. In it, they earnestly entreat that the Christian and brotherly care toward them be still continued, since none ever stood in more need than they did under their present situation, reminding their London friends " that they that be whole have no need of the Physician."
This last letter is signed by six Friends, and heading the list is John Pickering. He had signed the first letter and many, if not all, that had intervened. He had been instrumental in starting the Meeting, had carried its burdens and continued in the way of Friends until the end.
1 This is interesting as being the only mention of their slaves and slavery that I found in their records, with the exception of a case of discipline where a Friend complained his mother-in-law was keeping him out of two slaves.
CHAPTER VI
2fo0n (ptcforins
dfct
SYMPATHETIC contemporaneous account of John Pickering by a relative and friend has been preserved.1
He was in early life brought up to a mechanical employ- ment, but by strength of genius and dint of self-exertion, he acquired a competent knowledge of English, and an extensive acquaintance with Mathematics. By industry he became possessed of a large tract of uncultivated land, and by perseverance he covered it with Canes and Cotton, and gradually rose to be one of the wealthiest Planters in the West Indies. He was, about his fortieth year, made Governor of the Island of Tortola, and held the rank of Major in the Insular Militia. At length he publicly pro- fessed the religious principles of the Quakers and relinquished all his civil and military honours and employments. He afterwards rarely attended the Courts of Judicature, unless he thought some poor person, some orphan, or widow, was oppressed by some more powerful neighbour, when he voluntarily attended and publicly pleaded the cause of the weak, if he deemed them oppressed ; and his justice and weight were such as generally preponderated.
I frequently accompanied him to his Plantations, through which, as he passed, his numerous negroes saluted him in a loud chorus or song, which they continued as long as he remained in sight. I was also a melancholy witness of their attachment to him after his death ; he expired suddenly, and when few of his friends were near him. I remember I had hold of his hand when this fatal period arrived, but he had scarcely expired his last breath, before it was known to his slaves, and instantly about five hundred of them surrounded his house and insisted upon seeing their master. With this they commenced a dismal and mournful yell, which was communicated from one Plantation to another, till the whole Island was in agitation, and crowds
1 Memoirs of Dr. John F other gill, by John Coakley Lettsom. This account of John Pickering was written by Lettsom, who was with him when he died. It also appears in Memoirs of John Coakley Lettsom, by T. J. Pettigrew, 1817, vol. i. p. 175.
JOHN PICKERING 43
of negroes were accumulating around us. Distressed as I was with the loss of my relation and friend, I could not be insensible to the danger of a general insurrection ; or, if they entered the house, which was constructed of wood, and mounted into his chamber, there was danger of its falling by their weight and crushing us in its ruins. In this dilemma I had resolution enough to secure the doors and thereby prevent sudden intrusion. After these precautions I addressed them through a window, assuring them that if they would enter the house in companies only of twelve at a time they should all be admitted to see their deceased master, and that the same lenient treatment of them should still be continued. To this they assented, and in a few hours quiet was restored. But it affected me to see with what silent, sullen, fixed melancholy they departed from the remains of this venerable man. He died in 1768, aged about sixty years. His only surviving son, an amiable young gentleman, resides in England.1
The youngest sons of John Pickering, Senior, Isaac and Josiah, were sent to England under the care of Samuel Fothergill, who placed them at school at Penketh with Gilbert Thompson. When that school was broken up, they were removed to a school at Shelborne.*
His eldest son, John Pickering, Junr., was active in trading voyages and made several trips to the Colonies and to Great Britain.3 Later he went to England for his health and returned in 1761, with a certificate " from the Monthly Meeting at Hart- shaw," Gilbert Thompson, Clerk of the Meeting. This interest- ing clause appears in the minute :
As this part of the nation hath a considerable connec- tion with you and several of your members have some relation to us, we are well pleased with this instance of your care and request you would continue to certify with such friends as may come from you to us, that we may thereby be better enabled to oversee, advise and assist them which we apprehend may be of use to the particulars and mutually satisfactory to you and us.
1 This was Isaac Pickering, of Fox Lease, in Hampshire.
2 Pettigrew's Memoirs of Letts om, vol. i. p. 12.
3 20th of Fourth Month, 1753. " John Pickering Jr. being just returned from England, produced a certificate from the Monthly Meeting at Lancaster, setting forth his soberly and orderly behavior while there, and constant attendance at Meetings for Religious Worship." Tortola Monthly Mtg. Minutes.
44 TORTOLA
On the return of John Pickering, Junr., to Tortola, he married Sarah, a daughter of Bezaliel Hodge1 one of the principal planters on the Island. This marriage was not under the care of the Meeting and became a matter of disciplinary action, but he made an acknowledgment and was retained as a member. He later removed to New York.
1 Pettigrew's Memoirs of Lettsom, vol. i. p. 12. After Pickering's death she married John Purcell, of Tortola, sometime lieutenant-governor of the Island. Bezaliel Hodge's will is dated 1787, and in it he directs that his house at Hog Bay \sic\ is to be kept up out of his estate. The genealogies of the Hodges, Purcells, Lettsoms, Georges and other Tortolan families, will be found in Caribbtana, vol. iii.
CHAPTER VII
>^OLDSMITH'S lines,
Cfj 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
^*-^ Where wealth accumulates, and men decay,
might have been written especially for Tortola.
The constant influx of slaves and the increasing production of sugar and cotton, sold at good prices, was pouring wealth into the Island. Gradually the cane fields were extended and crept up the steep hillsides, through laborious terracing by the toiling blacks. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, practically the whole Island was under cultivation. The stony mountain roads, inaccessible for wheeled vehicles, were often blocked by trains of mules bearing between them, front and back, casks of sugar suspended on long poles. Cotton and rum, the latter mostly shipped to the American Colonies, contributed their share of prosperity. Shipping and trade grew by leaps and bounds and the value of plantations greatly increased.1
Amidst this abounding wealth the little circle of Friends struggled to maintain its orderly existence, but even the elements made it hard to live regular and steadied lives. Hurricanes swept over the islands, and lesser tropical storms brought devastation in their wake. Occasionally an earthquake would spread terror, particularly among the blacks. Tortola seems not to have been more unhealthful than any of the other West Indian islands ; but sickness often prevailed, and children of the well-to-do were sent at an early age to the home-lands to be' educated, often with too much money for their best welfare, and
1 In 1770, the total value of all exports from the Virgin Islands was ^72,000 ; by 1788 it had increased to ^164,128. In the latter year, forty ships sailed from the Islands, of which twenty-five were for Great Britain and three to the United States. Bryan Edwards's History of the West Indies, vol. i. chap. iv.
45
46 TORTOLA
in some cases, not seeing their parents until they reached man- hood. Life as a rule was short and hot. Liquors were plentiful and in general use, with the burning sun taking its toll of the intemperate. A visitor, some twenty years after Friends had disappeared, gives this dark picture of life on the Island at that time. He was the doctor in a slaver that had been wrecked on the West Indies and some of the slaves were sold at public auction in Tortola. He was contemplating marrying and settling there, but —
my diffidence of succeeding as a practitioner in the West Indies — through want of that essential qualification, an easy confident address — is in nowise increased by what I see of the faculty on this island. It is well nigh the most miser- able, worst inhabited spot in all the British possessions ; yet, although it might afford respectable employment to two medical men, no less than six are in competition for a practice here. And such a set of beings ! Even this unhealthy part of the globe appears overstocked with every description of people, except honest ones. . . .
From sunrise every face is important with business, real or pretended, until dinner-time, when the animal man is recruited at five o'clock. After this, the circulation of the wine-bottle occupies two or three hours of boisterous conviviality, followed — if it ceases then — by the quieter pursuits of gaming, cards, or the dice box. Late at night they retire to sleep off the effects of debauchery, and prepare for the same routine to-morrow. The softer sex, without whom society can hardly be said to exist, are in most circles altogether unknown ; and no marvel, when we consider the paucity of their number. Tortola is supposed to contain eleven thousand inhabitants, at least nine hundred of them white people ; a friend summed up the ladies now on the island, old and young, married and single, and they amounted to thirteen I1
Back of and underneath these undermining causes were the sinister influences of slavery. If Governor Pickering exclaimed in despair that it was hard to be a governor and a Quaker, it was still harder to be a Quaker and a slaveholder. It was against these tremendous odds that the Meeting struggled, its member- ships forming possibly a tenth of the total white population. Well might Samuel Fothergill say, in addressing a letter of farewell
1 A picture of Tortola in 1803, by a young surgeon on the slaver General Abercrombie, quoted in Letters from the Virgin Islands.
DR. JOHN COAKLEY LETTSOM 47
to James Jolley, a fellow townsman who was about embarking for Tortola, where he soon afterward died: "Thy lot is changed from the warm bosom of society to a land of drought, where the distilling of heavenly doctrine outwardly as the dew is little known and, with many, little desired."1
Reference has been made to the island of Jost Van Dykes, which lay to the northwest and just off the shore of Tortola. Near Jost Van Dykes were the still smaller islets of Little Jost Van Dykes, Green Island and Sandy Island, all belonging to Edward Lettsom, at whose house it is probable a meeting was held at one time. Compared with these small " keys," nearby and towering Tortola seemed like a continent. Edward Lettsom, in addition to these home islands, which are said to have been devoted to cotton, owned a sugar plantation on Tortola at Cane Garden Bay.
On Little Jost Van Dykes, was born, November 22nd, 1744, John Coakley Lettsom, later to become the successor of Dr. John Fothergill as the most distinguished London physician of his day. He is said to have been one of the seventh pair of boy twins born to his mother,2 of which number he and his brother, Edward, were the sole survivors. In the care of a friendly sea captain, William Lindo, John was sent, as a boy of six, to Lan- caster, England, to Abraham and Hutton Rawlinson, two brothers who carried on an extensive business with these islands. The vessel stopped at Dublin and no one thing impressed the little boy more than, to him, the strange sight of carriages in the streets and the ease and speed at which they moved.3
In the Rawlinson's home in Lancaster, Samuel Fothergill saw Lettsom and later became, with John Pickering, Junr., his guardian. It is said that Fothergill's attention was attracted to the little stranger as he was performing a dance which he had learned from the negroes at home, and for which the renowned preacher rewarded him with a half-penny.4
1 Life of Samuel Fothergill, by George Crosfield, 1857, p. 417.
a Pettigrew's Memoirs of Lettsom, vol. i. p. 5, who says Lettsom gave him this information.
3 Ibid. p. 6.
* Ibid. p. 7.
48 TORTOLA
He was placed at school with Gilbert Thompson at Penketh ; and at sixteen was made an apprentice to Abraham Sutcliff, an apothecary, at Settle, in Yorkshire. " I went to Settle," he said in after life, "a fatherless lad. I rode alone from the house of my guardian, Samuel Fothergill, at Warrington. When we parted he addressed me thus : ' Please thy master, and above all thy mistress, and if thou turns out well, I will recommend thee to my brother, the doctor ; and never forget that to be good is to be" happy.' " Completing his first five happy years of apprenticeship at Settle, he spent a year at a hospital in London, and on October 8th, 1767, sailed for Tortola,1 for the purpose of obtaining his inheritance, his father and elder brother having died. The voyage covered exactly two months. He found his patrimony much depleted, but one of his first acts was to free the slaves belonging to the estate, although the act left him " five hundred pounds worse than nothing." It should be recalled that this was long before the Society of Friends in England, as a body, was actively urging the abolition of slavery.2 He remained six months in Tortola practising his profession, and so great was his popularity and skill that he acquired, in this short time, nearly £2000, half of which he gave to his mother, and with the other half he returned to England in July, 1768, and completed his medical education at Edinburgh. On Dr. Fothergill's death, he succeeded largely to his practice and in a lesser degree to the position the former held in religious, scientific and philanthropic circles. He was a man of broad sympathies and strong individu- alities, the "volatile Creole," he once called himself. Of him, this bit of doggerel was long remembered and is still quoted :
I, John Lettsom, Blisters, bleeds and sweats 'em. If, after that, they please to die, I, John Lettsom.
1 Extracts from Dr. Lettsom's Journal of a Voyage from Liverpool to Tortola, in the brig Alice, Captain James Fazakerley, will be found in Pettigrew's Memoirs of Lettsom, vol. i. p. 177.
2 Lettsom's views as to the wisdom and proper method of freeing slaves will be found in a letter written in 1804, printed in Pettigrew's Memoirs of Lettsom, vol. i. p. 29. In later life he doubted the wisdom of the immediate liberations which he had made in 1768, through the impulse of youth.
DR. JOHN COAKLEY LETTSOM 49
Dr. Lettsom was the correspondent and friend of many liberal minded, scientific and philanthropic persons. He dressed plainly and simply after the manner of Friends of the day, and was formally received by the King on more than one occasion, without the required court dress or sword. He enjoyed a tremendous practice, usually dined with his wife once a week, and while in his carriage driving from patient to patient, spent the time in writing. He was the author of many medical treatises and the editor of the three-volume edition of Memoirs of his friend and patron, John Fothergill. His many activities gave him little time for Quaker activities, yet he always regarded him- self as a member. " I was born a Quaker," he tells a corres- pondent, " and what is still more strange, I was born so within the Tropics." Eleven years before his death, he said, " I am no bigot, ever thinking as well of other religions and sects as I do of that in which I was born and now remain — as I believe the only Quaker in the world a West Indian."1
After his first visit, Dr. Lettsom never returned to Tortola. " There is a propensity, and I think it grows with age, towards one's native soil," he writes.2 He conceived the idea of buying back his native island and even considered having the house of his birth taken down and shipped to England to adorn his beloved retreat at Camberwell ; but although his correspondent reported the timbers of the house in good order, this plan was never carried out.
In later life a talented friend3 in Tortola, of whom we shall hear more later, sent Dr. Lettsom a drawing of his birthplace4 and the following description of it :
The place where thy parents lie is under the two tama- rind trees which stand in the middle of the picture, a little to the left of thy old mansion house. The view is taken from Gros Van Dikes and represents the scene after a shower of rain. There may be a boat in the channel between
1 Pettigrew's Memoirs of Lettsom, vol. ii. p. 101.
2 MS. Letter in Congressional Library. Washington, D.C., to William Thornton, dated July 25, 1792. Vol. i. Thornton Collection.
3 Dr. William Thornton, who was living in Tortola, 1790- 1792.
4 " March 5th [1795] is arrived and so are the paintings. I am singularly obliged to thee for Jos Van Dike's, which I value too much for words to express." From a manuscript letter John Coakley Lettsom to William Thornton, in the Congressional Library, Washington, D.C.
50 T0RT0LA
the two islands. At a little distance from the shore, in a line with the house (in the passage between the two islands), is the greatest variety of beautiful corals, sea ferns, sea-eggs and various productions that I almost ever beheld. The sea looks purple with them when very clear. On the picture I have drawn a few plants of the great American aloe. The whole hill abounds with them in great perfection. I have seen some of these plants forty feet high and could easily distinguish them seven miles.1
His youngest son, Pickering Lettsom, having been educated for the law, settled in Tortola, and practised his profession there. Here he married a wealthy widow, but died within a month of his marriage and was buried near his namesake, John Pickering, whom Dr. Lettsom3 always refers to as " Major " Pickering. Within a very short period, Dr. Lettsom lost his daughter, two sons and their widows. Well might he exclaim in the desolation of his heart : " My path seems to be over the ashes of my children."*
Among these deaths was that of the widow of Pickering Lettsom, of Tortola. Her property came to Dr. John Coakley Lettsom and his grandson. This was a large estate in Tortola, said to include ownership of not less than iooo slaves and an income of £20,000 a year.4 Lettsom, passing away November 1st, 1815, did not live to receive the benefits of this legacy. He is buried in Bunhill Fields Friends' Burying Ground, with George Fox and Edward Burrough.
1 Letter Dr. William Thornton to Dr. J. Coakley Lettsom in Pettigrew's Memoirs of Lettsom, vol. ii. p. 549.
a See Dr. R. Hingston Fox's delightful chapter on Lettsom in Dr. John F other gill and His Friends, London, 191 9, with many references to printed and manuscript sources of information.
3 Letter of March 29, 1809, quoted in Nichols's Illustrations of Literature .
♦ " Pickering Lettsom married Mrs. Georges, widow of William Payne Georges and sister of Lord Livingston," presumably in Tortola (Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, ii. 670).
CHAPTER VIII
§bfavtty> in Codofa
/^j^HROUGHOUT Tortola, as everywhere in the West Indies, t^v slavery was general. The estimated number of blacks ^"^ in the Island about the time we are considering, was at least ten thousand. John Pickering owned five hundred or more at his death, and one planter a little later owned as many as a thousand. The slave trade was bringing wealth to the wharves of Liverpool, Bristol and London. The West Indian islands were the principal market for these human chattels. Ships, loaded with sugar, rum and cotton for Great Britain, completed the triangle by sailing for the Guinea Coast, bringing their loads of stolen, manacled and suffering blacks to be sold in the principal slave centers, and to be further distributed among the smaller islands. Black folks had no souls except in the Catholic islands, and Friends had been severely punished for allowing them to attend meetings in Barbados.
But already here and there, little candle lights of protest were burning in the darkness. The agitation in the Society of Friends for the abolition of human slavery, begun in America by the little Meeting of German Friends in my home- town of German- town in 1688, was carried on through the succeeding years by Ralph Sandiford, Benjamin Lay, Anthony Benezet, John Wool- man and others. The importing and buying of negroes was made a matter of discipline in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1754, and the agitation against owning slaves became more and more active and earnest.
In Thomas Clarkson's absorbing book, The History of the Rise and Abolition of the Slave Trade, is a chart showing the sources from which came the currents in this great movement. The little springs of individual protest, uniting, form the rivulets of organized effort, which in turn made the great rivers of public opinion which were finally to wash the evil thing away. And
52 TORTOLA
because we had slavery in our midst, there is reason that the the American river of opposition to slavery was a mighty Amazon with many affluents, so many in fact, there was hardly room along its banks for the entry of any River of Doubt.
There is little information as to the treatment of slaves in Tortola. The minutes of the Meeting mention them but once. While Dr. Lettsom was on the Island, he was sent for by a hard- hearted master to cut off the leg of a negro who had run away and been recaptured. It is needless to say how greatly he was shocked.1 We have seen how John Pickering's slaves mourned his death. The case of Arthur Hodge, of Tortola, an educated, wealthy planter, a little later became a cause celebre. He was hanged for the murder of a slave who had run away, whom he had beaten so unmercifully that he died. It was shown at his trial that this was a common practice.
In 1802, but a few years before its abolition, there were 155 vessels engaged in the slave trade, capable of carrying 40,000 blacks, four-fifths of whom went to the. British West Indies. In 1803, a ship load of slaves arrived in Tortola and was publicly auctioned off to the planters.
Our Abolition Society, uniting the efforts of Friends and others, was formed in 1774, and its English counterpart, ten years later, when Clarkson and others, building on the firm foundation which Friends in England had laid, began the agitation which in but little more than twenty years forced Parliament, in 1807, to pass the first Act prohibiting the slave trade. A second generation of devoted workers continued the work, until the liberation of the slaves in the West Indies was decreed by Parliament in 1833, to take effect August 1, 1834. It provided for a system of apprenticeship, of four years for house servants and of seven years for agricultural laborers, the planters fearing that immediate freedom would bring a cessation of all labor, the ruin of their industries, and possibly uprisings of the blacks. None of these evils seriously developed, and in 1838 the apprenticeship system was brought to an end before its time, and, quoting the Act of Parliament, " Slavery shall be, and is hereby utterly and forever abolished throughout the British colonies, plantations and possessions."
1 Letter to Sir Mordaunt Morton. Memoirs of Lettsom, vol. ii. p. 41.
SLAVERY IN TORTOLA 53
It was indeed an unusual step, way in advance of its time, when John Coakley Lettsom, returning to Tortola fresh from the influences of Dr. Fothergill and other English abolitionists, freed his slaves in 1768, as has already been pointed out. A near relative wished to take similar action at the time, but Lettsom discouraged him. Samuel and Mary Nottingham later followed Lettsom's example. These Friends, having lived several years in the freer atmosphere of Long Island, returned to Tortola uneasy over the ownership of fellow-men. They finally manu- mitted all their slaves and gave them their plantation, Long Look on Fat Hog Bay, as a home, to be enjoyed by them in perpetuity as tenants in common. The Nottinghams left the Island for Long Island, and in 1778, removed to England. Not long after, they wrote a letter1 which shows the continuance of their deep interest in the welfare of their emancipated slaves. This was preserved by the blacks for many years in the nature of a title deed for their holdings. The presence of these Nottingham free negroes was not relished by the planters still owning slaves, and opinions differ as to their real welfare, according to the focus of the glasses which viewed their progress. Some of them took to maritime pursuits ; and burning the coral rock for lime, with which they obtained ready money in St. Thomas, was one of their vocations. We shall see later how friendly abolitionists regarded the experiment.
1 It is dated Bristol, 30th of Ninth Month, 1782, and is included in both Joseph John Gurney's A Winter in the West Indies, second edition, 1840, and George Truman's A Visit to the West Indies, 1844.
CHAPTER IX
tyt 0n© of i$t (NUtting
rE closing words of the final session of Tortola Monthly Meeting were : " The Meeting ends in love." This was in 1762, and although the business meeting had ceased to function, meetings for worship were continued for some years. London continued its interest, noting in 1765 that no letter had been received from Tortola, and directing the Meeting for Sufferings to prepare and send an epistle. The following year a package of books was forwarded.
Samuel Wyley traveling to Pennsylvania in 1768, the year of John Pickering's death, took a certificate signed by three men and three women Friends at the close of this First-day Meeting, " the small remains of Friends " desiring to signify their regard for him ; and the following spring he returned to Tortola with a certificate directed " to such friends as remain."
Samuel Fothergill, maintaining his interest, reported in 1769 that he was still in correspondence with a Friend on the Island, who told him a few Friends remained who constantly met together for divine worship. He again was directed to forward some books for their use. In 1770, Thomas Humphreys, a lad who had been apprenticed in Philadelphia, returned from a visit to Tortola, with his membership certificate signed by only five Friends at the close of a meeting for worship. They give a sad account of social conditions in the Island. " We have had no meeting for business for years past," they write, " on account of the fewness of our numbers." They speak well of the bearer, " considering his youth and the many temptations such are incident to and the many bad examples they are surrounded with in this country, where pride and vanity almost universally prevails." London continued to send books from time to time, the last consignment being in 1774.
54
THE END OF THE MEETING 55
Of just how much damage came to Tortola by the great hurricane of 1780, no record is available, but what damage there may have been to the meeting-house was repaired by Isaac Pickering, the son of John. London Yearly Meeting closes its correspondence with a letter, 1786, signed by John Coakley Lettsom and Zachariah Cockfield, addressed to Isaac Pickering and Samuel Wyley, who were apparently still on the Island at that late date.
This would seem to close the official connection of either London or Philadelphia with Tortola Friends. It makes a period of forty-five years cover the birth, the activity, the decline and the death of this obscure and interesting episode in our Quaker history. With some possible qualifications, Dr. Lettsom might truthfully exclaim, as he did in 1804, that he was the sole surviving West Indian Quaker in the world.
It may be, recalled that the first clerk of Women's Monthly Meeting had been Dorcas Powell,1 a young widow. She early was drawn within the little circle of seekers, largely through the two sisters, Dorcas Pickering and Dorothy Thomas. Chalkley refers in several places to the poor young woman whose father turned her out-of-doors, because she had thrown in her lot with Friends. The father becoming ill, she was permitted to visit him, and while there met John Latham, the clergyman whom the non-Quaker Islanders had brought in to combat the growing schism. Dorcas Powell's father made it a condition of reconciliation with him that she marry Latham, which she finally did. As has been recited, the Meeting disowned her and there was much bitterness and controversy, Latham wielding his cudgels with vigor. In later life she stated she was anxious to retain her membership, which she valued highly, but at the time she told the committee she had got a very good husband and should go with much freedom to his worship. On the death of her father, the Lathams removed to St. Croix, one of the Danish islands nearby. Latham died in a few years and she married Thomas Lillie. Her faith in Quakerism was revived through family afflictions, and later her husband shared her views. Together they built a meeting-hQuse where meetings were regularly held, attended by a few sober-minded
1 Born in Anguilla, 1721. Removed with her father to Tortola, about 1735. Married at the age of fifteen, Giles Powell, who survived his marriage about three years.
56 TORTOLA
people. Some years after the Monthly Meeting in Tortola had disappeared, she visited the few remaining Friends on the Island, desiring to make condemnation, even at that late date, fdr her out- going in marriage. She was told she had never been disowned, which we now know from the minutes was an error. A hurricane having impaired their fortunes, and the husband having died, she moved into the town of Christianstad. With the consent of the Danish authorities and with the aid of English Friends, a new meeting- house was started in the town, but never completed, meetings for worship being held in her home. In 1785, she arrived in Phila- delphia. She went about preaching without, of course, a minute, there being none to supply it, much to the concern of the Elders of our Philadelphia Meetings, who appointed a few " solid " Friends to visit her and learn her story. They came away apparently fully satisfied with her spiritual experiences and walk in life.1
It may have been due to Dorcas Lillie's visit or possibly to the efforts which London and Philadelphia Yearly Meetings were making to put in order the trust funds and titles to property in Barbados, that John Parrish and James Cresson and later, Samuel Emlen and Daniel Offlej', Jr., all of Philadelphia, visited the West Indies in 1786 and 1787.* A great hurricane in 1780 had destroyed all five meeting-houses on that island and the death list had been placed at a thousand. So terrible was the tempest and so great the consternation, that many thought the end of the world had come.
Daniel Offley, Jr., extended his visit from Barbados to Antigua, St. Croix and Tortola, to ascertain the conditions of the meeting- houses and other property belonging to Friends. In Tortola, there was but little left. He reported the one-quarter of an acre at The- Road so situated and so trifling as not to be worthy of
1 The full story, as gathered by the committee, is set forth in The Friend, Philadelphia, vol. 17 (1844), p. 310.
a The efforts to straighten out the ownership of meeting-house and graveyard properties in Barbados occupied the Meetings for Sufferings and the two Yearly Meetings from 1774 on for upwards of twenty years. The full history of the various steps taken will be found at Friends' Arch Street Centre, Philadelphia, in a box labelled ' ' Papers Relating to Property in Barbadoes, including much correspondence between London and Philadelphia." See also Journal of Friends Historical Society, vol. v. P-43-
THE END OF THE MEETING 57
notice ; while as to the one half acre at Fat Hog Bay, he was informed that the title had never been vested in Friends.1
It was, however, to Daniel Ofiley's care that almost all the minute books and many of the papers in connection with Tortola Meeting were gathered up and brought by him to Philadelphia.2
1 This was an error. Copies of the deeds are in the minutes of Tortola Monthly Meeting. See " An Account of the Property of Friends in Barbadoes, Selected from the Records of the Meeting for Sufferings, London." Prepared 13th of Second Month, 1789. In fireproof 3rd and Arch Streets, Philadelphia. After giving a list of those in Barbadoes, it gives, — " An Account of the Property of Friends in the Islands, Antigua, Jamaica, Tortola and Santa Cruz. Tortola : NN258 3/2d Mo. 1786. A lot of land with a house in the division of the old road, \ of an Acre. Given by Townsend Bishop for the Use of Friends as long as any remain in the Island, 4th of Second Month, 1742.
Meeting House and Grounds in Fat Hog Bay, £ an Acre. In a letter from Samuel Wyley to J. C. Lettsom, dated 30th of Seventh Month, 1781, said to be much ruined, given by John Pickering for the Use of Friends as long as any remain in the Island, 6th of First Month, 1741/2. See Samuel Wyley 's Letter with Deeds of Gift.
" Santa Cruz : Letter Book, vol. 5, p. 44, i8/5th Mo. 1799. A Meeting- house built near the Church yard in Christianstadt, in Town Lot No. 33. £60 advanced by National Stock of Friends in England toward defraying the expense and it is proposed to register the Lands in the names of three or four Friends of England, when instructed how to do it. See Letter Book, vol. 5, p. 93, 24th of Ninth Month, 1780. A House on Thomas Lilley's land, sold into other hands."
2 See Appendix iii. for a complete list of these papers. They are deposited in the fireproof at Arch Street Centre and have been largely drawn upon in preparation of this sketch.
CHAPTER X
^F1 MONG the active early members of the Tortola Meeting -j"V had been William Thornton. He had come out from ^^ England and married a sister of the second wife of John Pickering. His sons, Edward and William,1 had been sent to Lancaster, England, to be educated. Edward died in 1781. William became a druggist's clerk at Ulverston, studied medicine at Edinburgh, became the friend and warm admirer of his fellow Tortolian, Dr. Lettsom, and like him was filled with zeal for the enslaved Africans. Completing his studies, he returned to Tortola ; but in 1786, coming to Philadelphia as a young man with an ample fortune, he was fired with a desire to transport the free blacks of the North, as well as the seventy or more slaves which had come to him by inheritance on his Tortola plantation, to their native homes in Africa. Such a plan had been discussed for some time by English philanthropists, including Fothergill and Lettsom, and one or more ill-fated expeditions sailed from England for Sierra Leone. Dr. William Thornton desired to lead such an expedition personally, and wrote repeatedly from America, begging Lettsom's advice and assistance in the undertaking.
" I know of no other person," he writes, " who will make the same sacrifices of family, friends, fortune and an expensive education with the most precious years in the prime of life, to live with the rejected and despised part
1 Born Tortola, May 27th, 1761. His diary from 1777 to 1782, while living at Ulverston and Edinburgh, contains many references to attending meetings and of visiting Friends, etc. In the later years much of it is in shorthand. In the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., are seventeen volumes of Thornton papers, including the diaries, and letters from Dr. Lettsom, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and many other distinguished men. In the Librarian's safe is a sealed packet relating to a controversy Thornton was engaged in, which is not to be opened until January 1st, 1925.
THORNTON AND HUMPHREYS 59
of mankind. I mean to give my lands in Tortola to my mother. My estate in England, I have given the rents to my aged grandmother and aunts for their kind and affec- tionate care of my brother and myself during our infancy."
He had a poor opinion of Tortola, which he said was hotter than Africa, and equally unhealthful. In another letter to Dr. Lettsom, he says significantly : " Though I love not my country it is so debased, it gives me a secret pleasure that thou art my countryman."1
But Dr. Lettsom dissuaded him from the Sierra Leone adventure. He advised him to return to Tortola, make himself independent, and he then could do as he pleased. He wrote to Thornton :
I have not the least doubt but in Tortola thou would command the business of the Island. Get a sufficiency and come to England. I hardly think that Island worthy of thee. I must except thy Mother and Father and some few others. (Letter dated London, Feb. 3rd, 1789, in the Congressional Library, Washington, D.C.)
Thornton traveled to New England, furthering his plan of repatriating the blacks. While in Wilmington, Del., he un- successfully paid his attentions to the daughter of Governor John Dickinson. Thornton wrote his parents in Tortola that the Governor thought his daughter too young by several years, " but knows no objection whatever to me." He married in Phila- delphia,2 and he and his young bride sailed three days later to Tortola on their wedding trip. Dr. Thornton, though entirely untrained, had considerable skill as an architect, and before leaving Philadelphia had produced, in a competition, the winning plan for a new building for the Philadelphia Library, which Franklin had founded years before. It still stands, though now otherwise occupied, its lines testifying to the ability of the amateur designer. The Thorntons remained in Tortola for two years, he practising his profession of physician, writing a book,3 which later
1 See letters Dr. William Thornton to John Coakley Lettsom, Petti- grew's Memoirs of Lettsom, vol. ii. pp. 497, etc., written about 1789.
3 Dr. Wm. Thornton and Anna Maria, daughter of Mrs. Brodeau, were married October 13th, 1790. He was twenty-nine, she fifteen.
3 Cadmus, or a Treatise on the Elements of Written Language. R. Aitkin & Son, Philadelphia, 1793.
60 TORTOLA
received a gold medal from the American Philosophical Society, and warm commendation from his friends. Nor was he idle in carrying out his plans for freeing his slaves, petitioning the Council1 and Legislature for permission to do so and transport them to Sierra Leone.
The new capital of the young republic was then in course of building, in what we call the District of Columbia, and President Washington was deeply interested in the plans for the city which bears his name. In March, 1792, while Thornton was still in Tortola, Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, wrote an advertise- ment asking for plans for the President's house and for the Capitol, which the Commissioners actually in charge of building the city placed in the newspapers of the country. Dr. Thornton heard of it in Tortola, decided to compete, immediately got to work and wrote asking permission to submit plans. When he reached Philadelphia, the competition was closed : but none of the fourteen drawings submitted was satisfactory, and Thornton took his plan to President Washington, then residing in Philadelphia, the temporary capital, who was greatly pleased with it and gave him a letter to the Commissioners, urging them to consider it. The upshot was that Thornton's plan was accepted and the Capitol building, probably the best known and most imposing structure in America, was erected substantially from his plans.2 " Grandeur, Simplicity and Convenience appear to be well combined in the plan of Dr. Thornton," wrote Washington, while Jefferson, who himself was no mean architect, described the plan as " simple, noble, beautiful and excellently arranged." When Jefferson was planning the buildings for the University of Virginia, generally
1 Dr. Thornton's letter to " The Honorable the President and Members of Council of the Virgin Islands " is dated Tortola, February 22nd, 1791. A rough copy is among the Thornton papers in the Congressional Library, Washington, D.C.
2 " I began practicing physics when I staid in the West Indies, but I found the climate and fatigue injurious and returned to America.
When I travelled I never thought of architecture, but I got some books and worked a few days, then gave a plan in the ancient Ionic order, which carried the prize [this was for the Library in Philadelphia]. The President and Secretary published a premium of a Gold Medal of 500 Dolls, and a lot f jr a house in the City of Washington for the best plan and elevation of a Capitol for the U.S. I lamented not having studied architecture, and resolved to attempt this grand undertaking and study at the same time. I studied some months and worked almost night and day." (Letter from Dr. William Thornton, dated Washington, June 25th, 1802, in the Congressional Library, Washington, D.C.)
THORNTON AND HUMPHREYS 61
recognised as unsurpassed examples of Georgian architecture in America, he solicited Thornton's aid.
For his plan of the Capitol, Thornton received the prize of $500 and one of the £100 city lots in the new city. Thornton became the friend of Washington, was made one of the three Commissioners for building the city, and in 1802 was made the first Commissioner of Patents, which position he held until his death in 1828. He was the organizer of this important branch of Governmental work. Other beautiful buildings in Washington still stand to testify to his taste, and untaught architectural genius.
In his later years, he bought a large farm outside of Washington. Amid the exactions and controversies of his public life, he seems to have departed from some of the principles of Friends. When our English cousins burned the Capitol and White House in the War of 1 8 12, he was an officer of militia endeavoring to stop them. Then, too, he was fond of race-horses, and on his Maryland farm maintained a considerable race-track ; and finally, among his papers is the bill of sale for two negroes bought of John C. Calhoun for £200 Maryland currency. But in his will he made provision for his slaves.
When Dr. Thornton died, among the assets of his estate, which amounted to $69,330.00, is included :
\ interest in a sugar plantation in Tortola containing
120 slaves, with buildings, stock capable of making 100 hogs.
of sugar with rum, etc., worth £6,000, but say £3,000 annually
or even £1,000 annually, half due to me.
This was the Pleasant Valley estate, one half of which belonged at this time to William R. Isaacs. This was presumably the old Thornton home and it would seem likely that Isaacs had acquired the one-half interest of Thornton's brother. An illustration of Pleasant Valley will be found on page 26 in A Visit to the West Indies, drawn on the spot by George Truman. Isaacs bought Dr. Thornton's one-half interest and Joseph John Gurney and George Truman and his fellow travellers when in Tortola (see chapter XI) visited there and held religious meetings among the slaves.
While in Tortola, Dr. Thornton, using his skill as an artist, made the drawing of Dr. Lettsom's birthplace,1 which has already
1 Published in Gentleman's Magazine, 1815, p. 577. Also in Pettigrew's Memoirs of Lettsom, vol. ii. p. 549, and in Caribbeana, vol. iii. p. 305.
62 TORTOLA
been shown. He also brought with him a complete contemporary copy of the minutes of the Monthly Meeting at Tortola, which are deposited among his papers in the Congressional Library at Washington.
Next to John Pickering in activity in the Meeting and faithful- ness in his obligations to it, was Thomas Humphreys. His wedding is the first recorded matter of business when the Monthly Meeting was established, and his name appears in the last formal letter addressed to London. In 1754, he made a visit to the American Colonies for his health, but returned the next year to the Island.1 His two sons, Richard and Thomas, were sent to Pennsylvania as boys and apprenticed, one as a goldsmith2 and the other as a tanner. They married and lived in Philadelphia. Richard acquired considerable means and on his death in 1832, he left $10,000, more than a tithe of his estate, to Trustees to found an institution for " instructing the descendants of the African Race in school learning, in the various branches of the mechanic arts and trades, and in agriculture," to prepare them to act as teachers. The outgrowth of this bequest, the Institute for Colored Youth, was founded in 1837, and has had a long career of usefulness, reaching a maximum attendance of 350 pupils. In 1902, it was moved from Philadelphia to Cheyney, Pa., some twenty miles out of the city, and its scope and activities enlarged to make it a Normal School. In 1921, it was taken over by the State. Its endowments, greatly augmented, have been retained by the Trustees, who must be members of Philadelphia Yearly
1 Certificate from Flushing Monthly Meeting, N.Y., dated 10th Month 2nd, 1754.
2 " Richard Humphreys, Goldsmith, having taken the house in which Philip Syng lately dwelt, hereby informs his friends and the public that he now carries on the Goldsmith's Business in all its branches, at the aforesaid place, a few doors below the Coffee House, where he has for sale a Neat and General Assortment of Gold and Silver Ware."
" Richard Humphreys. The subscriber having lately removed into Upper Merion township, hereby informs his friends and former customers, that they may be supplied as usual at his late dwelling, by the above named Richard Humphreys, whom he hereby recommends to* them as a person qualified to serve them on the best terms, and whose fidelity in the above business will engage their future confidence and regard. Philip Syng." Quoted from the Pennsylvania Packet, August 24, 1772, in a Special Silver Catalogue of The Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin, June, 1921, in which appear illustrations of the silverware of Syng and Humphreys.
THORNTON AND HUMPHREYS 63
Meeting, held at 4th and Arch Streets. These are now called the Humphreys Foundation, in memory of its founder, Richard Humphreys, of Tortola. It will be noted that of three important Friends who had been in Tortola under the shadow of slavery — Lettsom, Thornton and Humphreys, all turned their philanthropies toward the amelioration of the colored people.1
1 Thornton wrote to Lettsom, Boston, May 20, 1787 : " When I was in England I thought the sugar sweet, but saw not the bitter tears that moistened the ground on which it grew, but when I had been awhile in my native country and viewed the situation of the blacks, I regretted often that I was born a slave-holder."
CHAPTER XI
Battt QOieitote
30SEPH JOHN GURNEY spent three years in the Western continent, traveling in the United States and in the West Indies, and studying the effect of freedom, then newly granted, upon the slaves in the West Indian colonies.1
In the closing days of 1839, m the course of his travels, he visited Tortola, sailing from New York, and first sighting the conical, rocky peaks of Virgin Gorda as they approached the West Indies. He reached Tortola from St. Thomas, after an uncom- fortable voyage. He could not but feel an intense interest in making his first visit to a British island, peopled with emancipated negroes, for the freeing of which he and his circle had labored so effectively. He spent several days on the Island, visiting different estates by boat and by horseback. The ancient prosperity of the planters had departed, and the firm of Reid, Irving & Co., of London, were owners by mortgage tenure of a large part of the Island. The temporary condition of the planters was, at the time of his visit, unfavorable, owing to a succession of droughts. The chief industry was still sugar growing.
He visited Long Look, the ancient home of the Nottinghams, and Fat Hog Bay, coming in contact with the descendants of the slaves whom they had freed. They still retained the letter of Christian advice which the Nottinghams had sent them, regarding it in the nature of a deed to their property, which they occupied as tenants in common. Their land was on the brow of the mountain and a considerable part of it was under cultivation. He held a religious meeting with them in one of the largest of their cottages, and went away satisfied with their respectable appear- ance and orderly behavior.
1 See A Winter in the West Indies, described in Familiar Letters to Henry Clay of Kentucky, by Joseph John Gurney, London, 1840.
LATER VISITORS 6$
At Road Town, on the First-day of the week, a Friends' meeting was held in the Methodist church, the large congrega- tion sitting in solemn silence for a considerable period before the sermon.
In the year 1840, closely following upon Gurney's visit, three Pennsylvania Friends, George Truman, John Jackson and Thomas B. Longstreth, made a similar journey to investigate the effects of emancipation in the West Indies.1 They, too, first sighted the Virgin Islands in the hills of Virgin Gorda. Like Joseph John Gurney, they had an unhappy voyage from St. Thomas to Tortola, amid the swift currents and tides of the encompassing islets, and were all day in making the few leagues. They landed in Road Town on the 25th of December and spent a week on the Island, visiting prominent planters and holding meetings nearly every day of their week's visit. They spent one day in looking particularly for traces of the Friends who once were so relatively important in the Island.
It was toward the end of their visit that they took a boat to visit Fat Hog Bay. Finding a little girl at the bay side for a guide, they set off through a. dense thicket to Long Look, the ancient home of the Nottinghams. Here again, the Nottingham letter to their slaves was produced soon after their arrival at the cottage of Jasper Rabset, one of the oldest members of the little community. It seemed to the visitors that the freedom these colored folk had enjoyed had given them a more dignified manner than appeared in those of their neighbors but recently released from slavery. While many of the plantations in that part of Tortola had long been abandoned and overgrown, this estate of the Nottinghams was still producing a comfortable subsistence to a happy community, which numbered at the time eighty persons, divided into sixteen families. The Island had been visited in 1837 by one of the terrific hurricanes, and their homes, with many of their crops, had all been destroyed. From this severe loss they had hardly recovered. Some of the oldest of the Long Look negroes retained an affectionate recollection of Friends, one aged blind man telling the visitors that he had frequently attended Quaker meetings in Philadelphia and New York.
1 A Visit to the West Indies in 1840 and 1841, by George Truman,. John Jackson and Thomas B. Longstreth, Philadelphia, 1844.
66 TORTOLA
The visitors held a religious meeting with the negroes, after which they were conducted by some of the young men to the site of the meeting-house. Only its stone foundation remained. Near it were five graves built, according to the ancient custom of the Island, of brick, about three feet above the ground and covered with mortar. They were not marked and there was no way of telling in which were the remains of Thomas Chalkley, John Estaugh and John Cadwallader. The ravages of time and neglect were apparent everywhere. The prickly acacia spread its branches over the tombs, making an almost impenetrable thicket, while, nearby, a century plant was luxuriantly blooming, symbolical of the one hundred years since the meeting-house had been built, and the itinerant ministers had so hopefully come to give the light, and had so willingly laid down their lives in the service of Truth.
To George Truman's pencil we are indebted for two views of the Island. The next day these Friends concluded their labors and quitted the Island.
So far as has been ascertained, this was the last visit of Friends, until some seventy years later, in 1913, when the writer and his son, A. Sidney Jenkins, journeyed to Tortola to see if there might be any traces of the little Meeting. Taking the comfortable steamer from New York, in five days we landed at St. Thomas. Selecting the little motor boat, The Rest, belonging to a Moravian missionary, and with an ancient colored man for pilot, of whom the captain's first eager inquiry was, as he came on board, " Is Tobey drunk or sober ? " we slipped out of St. Thomas in the darkness at 3 a.m., to take advantage of the tides. Tobey proved to be a competent pilot, steering by the stars and the dark headlines of the little islands. We had hoped to reach Road Town by breakfast-time, but head winds and a heavy sea compelled us to put in at Frenchman's Bay, on the southwest tip of the Island. All travelers who have mentioned it speak of the dis- comfort of this short but strenuous trip in the swift currents that sweep through the Virgins.
We landed at Sopers Hole, which is said to have been the unhealthful site of the original settlement in Tortola. In company with numerous natives bringing their produce from nearby islands, we waited until nearly eight for the arrival of the customs officer, Mr. Smith, so that we might pay the sevenpence admission
LATER VISITORS 67
tax. The customs officer had, as buttons on his waistcoat, old Tortola silver pieces, which used to pass as sixpences, being two shilling Spanish coins cut in quarters. Road Town was ten miles away, over a rough and winding road, so procuring two horses we started for the capital, piloted by two young colored men named Hodge. The road skirted the shore, then climbed over two moun- tain ranges with magnificent views. As we jogged along, the Island seemed almost uncultivated. Here and there a colored farmer was working his cotton, and one with whom we chatted over his tumbledown fence showed us the cotton bolls ready for picking, but stained and spoiled by a red spider that was dis- coloring it. It was a hard, hot ride over a rocky, difficult road. Our two boys took off their shoes, so that the rough going over the sharp stones would not scuffle them, their feet being tougher than their Sunday shoes. They took turns in carrying the heavy bag on their heads. A great thirst consumed us, but we were afraid to drink of the wayside wells, so one of the boys shinned up a cocoanut tree, detached a dozen cocoanuts, and cracked them open with his big knife, that we might drink the milk.
There were numerous ruined sugar mills along the road and everywhere were evidences of a bygone prosperity. Nearing Road Town, the boys stopped to put on their shoes, to present a credit- able appearance as we came into the town.
Our first duty was to call on the Commissioner, Leslie Jarvis,1 and as we entered his office in the Custom House and were announced, he walked over to his outgoing mail box, took out an official letter and handed it to us. Some months before I had written for some information, and the Commissioner, being a little slow in replying, was able to deliver his answer in person, and thus save some postage. He received us very cordially, said he knew nothing about Quakers in the Island, and as there were no hotels or boarding-houses in Road Town, he found rooms for us with Captain Tittley, the commander of the Tortolan navy — the Lady Constance, the thirty-ton mail schooner and supply boat. We called on the Island's doctor, T. L. E. Clarke, drank tea with him, visited the Agricultural Experiment Station, where they are trying hard to reintroduce some of the early agricultural activities. But Tortola had sadly fallen from her days of prosperity and plenty.
1 Soon after appointed to the Presidency of Montserrat, where he shortly after died.
68 TORTOLA
Only thirty-three whites were living on the Island, with about 4,200 black and colored, and in the whole Virgins but a total of 5,562*. On Jost Van Dykes there was but a single white.
W. C. Fishlock, of the Experiment Station, was doing his best to revive cotton growing by planting Sea Island cotton. He was encouraging the planting of limes, cocoaruts and pineapples. But Tortola's commerce today is practically nil, the islanders growing enough for their own use and not much more. To bring in some outside money, Mrs. Jarvis, the Commissioner's wife, had started lace making among the women and had aroused some interest in the work.
Everywhere were ruined stone houses, unroofed by some former hurricane, broken arches of one-time big estates tumbled by earthquakes, and evidences on all sides, of a departed prosperity. The inhabitants were living in small frame or thatch cottages, many with the corrugated iron roof so common in the tropics.
The next morning we were wakened by the cooing of the turtle-doves on the hillside, which rose sharply back of the house. We had planned an expedition to Fat Hog Bay, and sailing seemed the better way after the experience of the day before with the island roads. So Mrs. Tittley packed our lunch and we started on what proved a rough and uncomfortable sail on the current- tossed Virgin's Gangway. To add to the discomfort of the trip, the younger of two colored brothers was the captain and his older brother the crew. As every time we tacked against the strong trade wind the crew had to go down in the hold in his bare feet and shift the cobble stone ballast, he objected unpleasantly. For comfort in sailing the rights of primogeniture should not prevail on the high seas. We approached the bay with an increasing interest. The boat could not go in to land, so the captain and crew carried us ashore on their backs.
The first effort was to find the ruins of the meeting-house, and the graves we were after. But, apparently, none of the nearby white people had ever heard of them or of the Quakers who once loomed so large at Fat Hog Bay. We finally found a colored family who knew where they were and Rosanna, a dusky Amazon,
1 The population in the islands, April, 1921, consists of thirty-five whites in Tortola and one in Sornbrero, a total of thirty-six in the British Virgin Islands. There are 3,952 blacks and colored in Tortola and 1,094 in the other islands of the group.
LATER VISITORS 69
offered to pilot us. Through the dense underbush and over- growing trees, we followed a crooked cow path, and at last came to the hallowed spot.
The foundation of the meeting-house was plainly outlined by a line of stones and nearby were the ruins of two. tombs. Alas, the others had practically disappeared. They had been built of brick, with a plaster coating, and as all natives need brick to build their fireplaces, they had helped themselves from time to time, so that some of them were level with the ground and the others crumbling with decay. Nor was it possible absolutely to determine which grave was which. Originally the names had been placed on the brickwork in brass letters, but these had long before been carried off by the natives to make the names for their sailing boats, and it is possible that some of the brass lettered names we saw at Road Town were made from the names of Chalkley, Cadwallader and Estaugh. So dense was the prickly pear and other thorny undergrowth that it was difficult to get around, and it was not possible, on account of the shade, to take a satisfactory picture. Ruin and desolation were everywhere, with rough Nature struggling as only she can, in the tropics, to reclaim her own. Taking one more brick from the tomb supposedly Chalkley's, as a memento, we sought a nearby house to eat our lunch. This proved to be the home of Aeneas Pickering, who welcomed us, placed his living ro^m at our disposal, and was genuinely glad to see us and talk to us ~s we pulled our tough chicken to pieces and ate our lukewarm melon. He knew who and what Quakers were. He did not know who were his ancestors, but from his name and location, he undoubtedly was descended from one of John Pickering's slaves.
The prospect of a return voyage to Road Town in the sloop of discord and over the rough waters of Sir Francis Drake's Channel was so painful, that we divided forces, and Dr. Clarke, who had kindly accompanied us, and I, secured horses from Aeneas Picker- ing and rode back home. The rough trail led over the hills seven miles to Road Town, and was the same over which Governor Pickering had sent his men, with the newly made forms on their heads, to accommodate the great meetings at The Road in Thomas Chalkley's time. On the outskirts of Road Town, the Doctor discovered a poor leprous woman who had stolen in against explicit orders, for a glimpse of the village life. She sat by the
70 T0RT0LA
roadside with her ancient and infirm father, an object of pity as the Doctor ordered her to go back to her home.
We dined with the Commissioner on our return. He was much interested in the details of our trip, and when he understood that these deserted graves and this ruined meeting-house were in a way historic landmarks of Tortola's greatness, he agreed to have the place put in order, a neat fence built around the spot and an effort made to stop the advance of the thorny jungle. But I fear this has never been done, knowing as I do, the difficulties of doing it . Commissioner Jarvis was much interested in the account of Joseph John Gurney's and George Truman's visits, which served us as guide books. Mrs. Jarvis had, with true hospitality and traditional information that Americans must have plenty of iced water to drink, sent the Lady Constance twenty-five miles back to St. Thomas for some ice. Head winds made it a slow journey, and as we left our courteous hosts we encountered in the dark two colored men with boxes of ice on their heads. As we were ready to blow out our candles for the night, there was a knock at the door, and the messengers had arrived with a generous lump of ice in a cracker box, to help assuage our thirst.
Early next morning we boarded a little sloop, cleared from the Customs House, said " Good-by " to the genial Dr. Clarke, who had arisen early to see us off, and started back to St. Thomas. Sailing out of Road Town, a heavy shower swept over us, leaving behind as it cleared away, a rainbow with its arch over the little town nestling under the hillside of the turtle-doves.
Since our visit in 1913, considerable improvement is reported from Tortola. Delapidated ruins are renovated and many new dwelling houses are erected. A market place has been laid out in Road Town. Much improved roads throughout Tortola. Street lamps have been erected in the main road in Road Town. A cricket ground and race-course have been laid out on a five-acre Recreation Ground, affording much recreation for the young folk. A band-stand is also erected at the grounds. A bonded warehouse has been erected and the matter of enlarging this building, compatible with increased trade, is now under consideration. A small hospital is now in course of erection. A library consist- ing of some 200 or more up-to-date novels has been established. A Peasants' Agricultural Bank has also been established. This
LATER VISITORS 71
has proved itself a great blessing to the peasant inhabitants. Money is loaned at reasonable rates on good securities. A motor- boat service has been established. A thirteen-ton launch capable of carrying thirty or more passengers with five tons of cargo carries the mails to and from St. Thomas. The journey to and from St. Thomas by sailing sloop is thus made less tedious.1
1 Recent information as to present conditions is contained in a letter from H. Peebles, commissioner for Tortola, to the author, 28th January, 1922. See Appendix xi.
dElppenbice*
Q$trf00, (tttamagee, and ©ea$0
FROM THE MINUTES AND RECORDS OF THE MONTHLY MEETING OF FRIENDS OF TORTOLA
Balneives, Alexander,1 and Mary Bishop, daughter of Townsend Bishop, m. 1748.
Balneives, Jerusha, d. Sixth Month 14th, 1747, buried Friends' Burying Ground, Fat Hog Bay.
Balneives, Mary, daughter of Alexander and Jerusha, b. Eighth Month 25th, 1746, d. Eleventh Month 27th, 1748/9, buried at The Road.
Bishop, Mary, daughter of Townsend Bishop, m. Alexander Balneives, 1748.
Bishop, Rebecca, wife of Townsend Bishop, d. Sixth Month 18th, 1743, buried at The Road.
Bishop, Rebecca, daughter of Townsend Bishop, m. Thomas Humphreys, Ninth Month 29th, 1741.
Bishop, Townsend, m. Mary Reynolds, 1746/7. He died Seventh Month 22nd, 1747, buried Friends' Burying Ground at The Road.
Brown, James, and Elizabeth.
Children : James, b. Fourth Month 9th, 1748.
Ann Elizabeth, b. Eleventh Month 6th, 1754. James Thomas, b. Fifth Month 23rd, 1759.
Clandaniel, John, m. Rebecca Daniel, 1749. Children : John, b. Third Month 18th, 1750. William, b. Sixth Month 2nd, 1751. Abraham, b. Twelfth Month 2nd, 1753. Isaac, b. Tenth Month 14th, 1755.
1 " There is a very worthy man joined us in Tortola, his name is Alexander Balneives, a Scotchman by birth. He was in Tortola ye Collector of the Customs, a member of the Council and a Justice of the Peace, all of which he laid down for Christ's sake." — Extract from a lettei from James Birkett, dated Antigua, 6th mo. 8th, 1745. In D.
73
74 APPENDICES
Clandaniel, William, m. Susannah McGumery (?), 1743. Children : John, b. Seventh Month 4th, 1745.
William, b. Twelfth Month 4th, 1746.
Mary, b. Sixth Month 30th, 1748.
Hester, b. Fifth Month 28th, 1750.
Ann, b. Sixth Month 19th, 1753, d. Third Month 15th, 1759.
Hugh Montgomery, b. Seventh Month 19th, 1755, d. Third
Month 15th, 1759. Elizabeth, b. Sixth Month 19th, 1758. Hugh Montgomery, b. Fifth Month 25th, 1760.
Daniel, Rebecca, m. John Clandaniel, 1749.
Downing, John, m. Frances Rawley (Raleigh), widow of (James) [Rawley, Fifth Month 4th, 1742, at the home of John Pickering. Frances Downing d. Twelfth Month 1st, i748,iburiedj]at ,The Road. Children : Samuel, b. Fourth Month 5th, 1743.
Peter, b. Twelfth Month 21st, 1744/5. Frances, b. Twelfth Month 28th, 1746.
Everett, Abraham, and Mary.
Children : Mary, b. Eighth Month 15th, 1742. John, b. Eighth Month 9th, 1744.
Everett, Mehitable, m. John Williams, 1746.
Everett, Rebecca, m. George Pow (Powe), 1749.
George, William, and Catharine.
Catharine George d. Ninth Month 23rd, 1760. Children : Catharine, b. Seventh Month 7th, 1743. Elizabeth, b. Eleventh Month 19th, 1746. Eleanor, b. Sixth Month 25th, 1750.
Humphreys, Thomas, m. Rebecca Bishop, daughter of Townsend Bishop, Ninth Month 29th, 1741. She died First Month 13th, 1743, buried at The Road. He married, second, Sarah Lake, 1744. Children : Hannah, b. Ninth Month 4th, 1745. Sarah, b. 10th Month 6th, 1746. Thomas, b. Eleventh Month 5th, 1748 /9.1 Richard, b. Second Month 13th, 1750.* Sarah, b. Third Month 19th, 1753.
Hunt, Mary, widow of Capt. John Hunt, m. Samuel Nottingham, 1749-
1 Thomas Humphreys, of Northern Liberties, tanner, son of Thomas and Sarah, late of the Island of Tortola, deceased, and Sarah Clark, daughter of William and Beulah, Eleventh Month 24th, 1774. (Marriages, Phila. Mo. Mtg. Recorded Book B, p. 257.) Thomas Humphreys died in Philadelphia, Second Month nth, 1800, aged 52 years. Sarah, wife of Thomas Humphreys, died Sixth Month 25th, 1795. (Records of Phila- delphia Monthly Meeting.)
aRichard Humphreys, of the Borough of Wilmington, Delaware, gold- smith, son of Thomas and Sarah, late of the Island of Tortola, deceased, and Hannah Elliott, daughter of John and Annabella, of Philadelphia. She died Second Month 17th, 1773. (Recorded Book B, p. 192.)
Richard Humphreys, of Philadelphia, goldsmith, son of Thomas and Sarah, late of the Island of Tortola, deceased, and Ann Morris, daughter of Daniel, of Upper Dublin. (Recorded Book B, p. 272. Marriages, Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, Sixth Month 16th, 1774.)
APPENDICES 75
Lake, Jonas, and Elizabeth.
Children : Ann, b. Ninth Month 21st, ,1745. Miriam, b. Fifth Month 8th j 1749. Lake, Sarah, m. Thomas Humphreys, 1744.
Lettsom, John, and Margery.
Children : Benjamin, b. Sixth Month 14th, 1742. Mary, b. Third Month 12th, 1744. John, b. Ninth Month 19th, 1746.
Nottingham, Samuel, m. Mary Hunt, widow of Capt. John Hunt, 1749.
Parke, James, and Bytha (Tabitha ? ).
Children : John, b. Tenth Month 19th, 1741, d. July 9th, 1742.
Dorcas, b. Fifth Month 3rd, 1744 (about six o'clock in the morning).
Parke, James (widower), of " Guanah Island," m. Mary Vanterpool (widow), "of the Island Camanders," Eighth Month 1st, 1754.
Percival, Patience, m. William Strong, of the Island of Antigua, Ninth Month 1st, 1756.
Pickering, John, and Dorcas.
Children : Dorcas, b. April 18th, 1742, d. November nth, 1742.
Zacharia, b. September 5th, 1743, d. February 12th, 1747. Dorcas Pickering, wife of John, d. Second Month 14th, 1747, " of
the measles, the ninth day after it appeared." John Pickering, married, second, " Seventeenth day of Eighth Month, called October, 1748," Rebecca Zeagers, Junr., daughter of Absalom and Rebecca Zeagers, of the Island of Tortola. Children : Dorcas, b. Fifth Month 28th, 1749, d. Sixth Month 14th, 1 75 1, and " buried beside her brother, Zacharias, on the right hand." Rebecca, b. Twelfth Month 15th, 1753. Isaac, b. Eleventh Month 27th, 1755. Josiah, b. 1759^ Pickering, John, Junr., and Sarah Hodge. Children : Sarah, b. Fifth Month 19th, 1756. John, 3d, b. 1759 (?).
Pow (Powe), George, m. Rebecca Everett, 1749.
Rawleigh, James, and Elizabeth.
Child : James, b. Third Month 2nd, 1753.
Rawley, Frances, widow of James, m. John Downing at the home of John Pickering, Fifth Month 4th, 1742.
Reynolds, Mary, m. Townsend Bishop, 1746/7.
Richardson, Sarah; m. Peter Smith, 1748.
Ryan, Andrew, and Frances.
Children : Susannah, b. Sixth Month 18th, 1742. Mary, b. Third Month 10th, 1746.
Ryan, Joseph, " of the Island of Joesvandinks," m. Rebecca Timber- man, Eleventh Month 2nd, 1743. Rebecca Timberman was from the same island. Children : Eunice, b. Eleventh Month 10th, 1744. Isaac, b.^ Tenth Month 8th, 1746.
76 APPENDICES
Smith, Peter, ra. Sarah Richardson, 1748.
Smith, Thomas, and Ann.
Child : Benjamin, b. March 5th, 1742.
Strong, William, of the Island of Antigua, "batchelor," m. Patience Percival, of Tortola, widow, Ninth Month 1st, 1756, at Fat Hog Bay Meeting.
Thomas, William, d. Ninth Month 26th, 1757.
Thornton, William, of the Island of Tortola, m. Dorcas Zeagers, daughter of Absalom and Rebecca Zeagers, of Tortola, August 1st, 1757.
Timberman, Rebecca, m. Joseph Ryan, 1743.
Vanterpool, Mary, m. James Parke, 1754.
Vascraging, John, and Mary.
Children : Elizabeth, b. Sixth Month 26th, 1752. Catharine, b. Third Month 5th, 1756. Zacharius, b. Sixth Month 14th, 1758.
Williams, John, m. Mehitable Everett, 1746.
Zeagers, Dorcas, m. William Thornton, August 1st, 1757.
Zeagers, Rebecca, m. John Pickering, October 17th, 1748.
II
B\*t of &b\xtt (memBer*
OF TORTOLA MONTHLY MEETING MENTIONED IN THE MINUTES AND RECORDS The dates indicate the first and last references. Babston, Samuel, 1 743-1 760. Admonished, 1760.
Bacon, Elizabeth, Married James Brown, 1742.
Baker, Elizabeth, Mentioned, 1742.
Balneives, Alexander, 1744-1748.
Balneives, Mary, Admonished, 1762.
Birkett, James, 1743- Brought certificate from Lancaster
Monthly Meeting, England, Second Month 24th, 1755.
Bishop, Mary, Married Alexander Balneives, 1748.
Bishop, Townsend, 1746. Appointed Overseer for Road Town,
1 74 1. Died, 1747.
Block, Bashia, Dealt with, 1759.
Blunder, Elizabeth, Committee, 1748.
Brabston, Rebecca, Committee, 1749. Admonished, 1760.
Brabston, William, 1746.
Bradley, David, 1743-
APPENDICES
77
Britt, Rebecca, Britt, Thomas, Brown, Elizabeth, Brown, James, Callwood, William,
Aided, 1757.
Made a member, 1746.
Committee, 1748.
1742.
1746-1754.
Committee, 1753.
Chalwill, George, "of The Road," Admonished, 1741. Clandaniel, Eleanor, Mentioned, 1742. Committee, 1746, 1747.
1 743-1 761.
Committee, 1760.
1 743-1 756.
Mentioned, 1742, 1746, 1747.
1749.
Married John Clandaniel, 1749.
Clandaniel, John, Clandaniel, Rebecca, Clandaniel, William, Conne (?), Jemima, Crulle, George, Daniel, Rebecca,
Downing, Christopher, " of The Road," Admonished, 1741.
Downing, Frances, Downing, John,
Everett, Mehitable, Everett, Rebecca, Fleming, Eleanor, George, Catharine,
George, William,
Graves, Thomas, Grim, Anthonv, Haddin, Joseph, Harris, Elizabeth, Harris, Elizabeth, Junr. Harris, John, Hornbe, Thomas, Humphreys, Sarah, Humphreys, Thomas,
Hunt, Mary,
Johnson, Benjamin, Lake, Elizabeth, Lake, Jonas,
Lake, John,
Mentioned, 1742. Committee, 1748.
1742-1750. Appointed Overseer for Road, 1747. Disowned, 1750, " Having resolved to take his pleasures while he lives."
Married John Williams, 1746.
Married George Powe, 1749.
Committee, 1754.
Overseer for White Bay Meeting, 1742. Committee, 1760.
1741-1758. Appointed Overseer for Jost Van Dykes, 1741.
1753-
1743-
1743.
Mentioned, 1745.
Mentioned, 1745.
1 743-1 746. " his great age," 1745.
1743-
Committee, 1 746-1 748.
1 741 -1 763. Appointed Overseer for Fat Hog Bay, 1741. Visited North America for his health, 1754. Returned, 1755.
Overseer, 1746, 1747. Committee, 1749. Married Samuel Nottingham, 1749.
Signed Certificate, 1757.
Committee, 1748, 1757. Dealt with, 1759.
1 743-1 760. Appointed Treasurer, 1749.
Taken from him, 1757. Disowned, 1760.
1 743-1 747. About to be disowned, but " He is since dead, so ends."
78
APPENDICES
Lake, Sarah, Received as member, 1744. Married Thomas
Humphreys, 1744. Lake, William, Mentioned, 1744.
Lane, Mary (formerly Widow of Edward Lettsom), Lawrence, John Scott,
Disowned,
Lettsom, Edward, Lettsom, John, Lettsom, Mary, Martin, Jeremiah, Mattis (Maddix), Tabitha,
Mulloon, John, Nash, James, Nottingham, Mary,
Nottingham, Samuel, Parke, James,1
Parke, Mary, Percival, Patience, Pickering, Dorcas, Pickering, John, Pickering, John, Junr.,
Pickering, Rebecca, Pickering, William, Powe, Rebecca, Powe, (Pow ?) George, Powell, Dorcas, Rapsot, Lucas, Rawleigh, James, Reynolds, Mary,
Richardson, Sarah, Ryan, Joseph,
1749. Admonished, 1759.
Mary Nottingham. Clerk of Meeting, 1744. Dealt with,
1759- 1 754-1 757. (Captain.) Lived in a house belonging to Samuel Nottingham, near the meeting-house.
1743-1754. I743-I747- Committee,
I743-I750- Sister of
Women's
1759. 1743- Mentioned, 1743.
Committee, 1753. Returned certificate, 1757. Committee, 1759- 1762.
1750-1763-
Lived on Guana Island, 1 743-1 759. Resigned
as Treasurer, 1749. Dealt with for his
daughter marrying out, 1760.
Committee, 1756.
Married William Strong, 1756.
Overseer for Fat Hog Bay, 1741.
1741-1763.
1752. Dealt with for marrying out, 1760. Certificate to England, 1760. Brought certificate from England, 1761. Removed to New York, 1762.
Committee,
Mentioned, Disowned,
I750-I753- Disowned,
1743- I753-I763-
. I754-I757*
1754- 1753-
Disowned, 1744.
1759.
1753-
Admonished, 1752.
Married Townsend
Made a member, 1746 Bishop, 1746/7.
Married Peter Smith, 1748
1743-1750.
1 James Parke visited England in 1751.
" Robert Lawson from Lancaster, and James Park from Tortola, came and I spent evening with them at post office." Diary of James Backhouse, 1 75 1, Seventh Month 28th, Journal Friends Historical Society, vol. xv. (1918), p. 23.
APPENDICES
79
Ryan, Rebecca, Shute, Thomas, Smith, Ann,
Smith, Peter,
Smith, Thomas, "of Jost
Strong, William,
Thomas, Dorothy,
Committee, 1748.
1763.
Overseer for Eastern Meeting, Jost Van
Dykes, 1742. 1 743- 1 749. Disowned, 1760. Van Dykes," 1743. Disowned, 1746.
1752-1761. Appointed clerk, 1753. Appointed Treasurer, 1757.
Overseer for Road Town, 1741. Committees, 1753-1759. " She was the first on the Island that was raised up to preach the everlasting gospel " (Dorcas Lillie's Life, in Friends' Miscellany, vol. iii).
1 743- 1 756. Moved from The Road to Fat Hog Bay, 1748.
1754. Brought certificate Monthly Meeting of Lancaster, Fifth Month 27th, 1753. Neglected to attend Meeting, 1759. Made acknowledgment, Sixth Month 27th, 1757. Disowned, 1760.
Married Joseph Ryan, 1743.
Brought certificate from Westbury, L.I., Eleventh Month 31st, 1759.
Married James Parke, 1754.
1756.
Brought certificate from Kendal Monthly Meeting, dated 1760. Young unmarried man.
1 754-1 763. Brought certificate Monthly Meeting of Phila. Fifth Month 27th, 1753. Requested certificate to North America,- 1757. Certificate for England with John Pickering, Junr., 1760.
1 754 -1 763. Brought a certificate from Newton, Cheshire, England, dated First Month 7th, 1753. Received Tenth Month 29th, 1753. Requested certificate to North America, 1757.
Married William Thornton, 1757.
Married John Pickering, 1748.
I" Thomas Woolrich, Esq., for twenty years a merchant in the West Indies, but in the interim was twice in America, was one of the witnesses examined by the House of Commons in favor of the abolition of the slave trade." (Clarkson's Abolition of the Slave Trade.)
" Thomas Woolrich, Esq., was in the West Indies from 1753 to 1773 ; but in the interim took three trips to England, and two to America; he was in the mercantile line, chiefly at Tortola. He was also occasionally at Barbadoes, Antigua and St. Kitts." (From an Abstract of the Evidence Delivered before the House of Commons, in the years 1790 and 1791. London.)
Thomas, William, Thornton, William,
TlMBERMAN, REBECCA,
Underhill, Joseph,
Vanterpool, Mary, Vascraging, John, Walker, Edward,
Wily (Wyly), Samuel,
Woolrich, Thomas,
Zeagers, Dorcas, Zeagers, Rebecca,
80 APPENDICES
ill
Qtlinutee <xnb Qfccorde of Zottota Qtton^fp (ttleettng
These papers and records appear to have been brought, to Philadelphia from Tortola by Daniel Offley, Junr., on his return from a religious visit to the West Indies in company with Samuel Emlen. In the course of this trip, he visited Barbados, Antigua, St. Croix, and Tortola.
" Monthly Meeting for Sufferings [Philadelphia], 19th of Fourth Month, 1787 : Daniel Offley returned from visit to Barbadoes. Affairs there referred to a Committee, who are desired also to inspect some manuscripts brought by our said Friend from Tortola."
No report seems to have been made and the bundle apparently remained undisturbed until Gilbert Cope repaired and mounted the loose documents in 1887. They are contained in a box in the fire proof at 304 Arch Street, under care of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. They have not been indexed. They are as follows :
(1) A book, bound in raw hide with the hair still on, 7 J inches wide by 12 inches high, containing 62 pages much mutilated, but repaired, and covering the minutes of Women's Monthly Meeting, from 7th of Twelfth Month, 1741/2, to 25th of Seventh Month, 1762.
(2) A little paper bound book, 7$ inches wide, by 8J inches high, much worn and mutilated, containing the minutes of Men's Monthly Meeting from 28th of Third Month, 1750, to 30th of Seventh Month, 1753. Sixteen pages of the book are filled, twenty-two are blank. The minutes are not signed and it is not disclosed who was the Clerk.
(3) A little paper bound book, 7 J inches by 12^ inches, of minutes of Men's Monthly Meeting from 27th of 8th Month, 1759, to 25th of Seventh Month, 1762. The Clerk had prepared the heading for the Meeting, the 29th of Eighth Month, 1762, but it was never used.1
(4) A record book entitled " A Book to Register all Births, Burials and Marriages of the Friends in the Island of Tortola." The records begin with Thomas Chalkley's arrival on the Island, and continue until Ninth Month, 1760, covering nineteen pages. These are at the front. The book, reversed, contains copies of certificates, epistles received and sent, and acknowledgments, covering eight pages. There are thirty blank leaves in the centre. The book is 7| inches by 12$ inches, bound in raw hide with the hair still attached.
1 A copy of the above records was made by Mary M. Cowperthwaite for Charles F. Jenkins, and is substantially complete, with the exception of reference, to some moral offences, which have been omitted. This copy, contained in three quarto books, has been presented to D by C. F. Jenkins and is now at Devonshire House.
In the Library of Congress at Washington, D.C., there is an almost complete copy of the minutes of the Men's Monthly Meeting of Tortola which is said to be in the handwriting of Dr. William Thornton. This copy commences 1 ix. 1741 and ends 28 ii. 1762, thus filling the lacunae in the original minutes in Philadelphia, but lacking a copy of the minutes 28 iii. to 29 viii. 1762.
A photostat of the Thornton copy has been presented to D by C. F. Jenkins.
APPENDICES 81
(5) A bundle of miscellaneous, loose papers, repaired and mounted by Gilbert Cope in 1887, as follows :
Epistles from Tortola to London Yearly Meeting : Copy of that of 28th of Tenth Month, 1754. „ 31st of Fifth Month, 1756.
1757- 29th of Fifth Month, 1758. ,, 30th of Seventh Month, 1759.
,, 29th of Sixth Month, 1760.
,, 25th of Sixth Month, 1761.
Copies of two without date or direction.
Epistles from London Yearly Meeting to Friends in Tortola :
Copy 1746. From the Meeting for Sufferings Signed by twenty- two
Friends. Original 1753. Signed by thirty-five Friends. ,, 1756. Signed by John Fry.
,, 1757. Signed by John Freeth, " Clerk to the Meeting this Year." Addressed to John Pickering, Merchant at Tortola. ,, 1758. From the Meeting for Sufferings. Signed by thirty-four Friends. 1759. Signed by Jeremiah Waring, "Clerk to the Meeting this Year." „ 1760. Signed by John Gurney, " Clerk to the Meeting this Year." Addressed to John Pickering, " Merch't In Tortola." ,, 1 761. Signed by William Fry, " Clerk to the Meeting this Year."
Certificates of Membership :
From Kendal Monthly Meeting, in Westmorland, dated 8th of Eleventh Month, 1760, for Edward Walker, signed by fourteen Friends.
From Monthly Meeting of " Frandley held at Newton in Cheshire," 7th of First Month, 1753, signed by thirteen Friends, for Thomas Woolrich, " a young man of orderly conversation, intending to settle in Tortola."
From Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, 24th of Second Month, 1758, signed by forty-five Friends, for Thomas Woolrich, " who is intend- ing to return to the Island."
From " Westbury Monthly Meeting in Queens County, on Nassau Island, in the Province of New York," dated 31st of First Month, i759» signed by seventeen Friends, for Joseph Underhill, " who intends to remove and settle among you."
Certificates for Traveling Ministers and Members :
Copy. From Tortola to " Friends in the Province of New England and Elsewhere," dated 25th of Second Month, 1760, for Samuel Nottingham.
Copy. From Tortola to " Friends and Bretheren in England," dated 29th of Sixth Month, 1760, for John Pickering, Junr.
Original. From the Monthly Meeting of Friends held in Nantucket, dated 29th of Sixth Month, 1761, signed by twenty-six Friends, expressing appreciation of Samuel Nottingham's visit.
82 APPENDICES
Copy of Certificate of unity for Thomas Gawthrop " To the several
Monthly Meetings in the Island of Barbadoes," dated 29th of Third
Month, 1756. Original. From the Monthly Meeting of Portsmouth on Rhode Island,
dated 25th of Eighth Month, 1761, signed by twenty-five Friends,
satisfaction with visit of Samuel Nottingham.
Original. From Westbury (L.I.) Quarterly Meeting, 29th of Eighth Month, 1 761, signed by forty-four Friends, unity with Samuel Nottingham.
Original and copy. From the Monthly Meeting of Flushing on Long Island, dated 4th of Fifth Month, 1758, signed by seventeen Friends, expres- sing unity with Samuel Nottingham, " during his residence amongst us."
Copy. From Flushing Monthly Meeting, dated 3rd of Ninth Month, 1757, for Mary Nottingham, " who expects to return to Tortola in company with her husband."
Letters :
Letter from William George, Jost Van Dykes, 7th of Eighth Month,
I759» to William Strong, Tortola. Letter from Friends in Jost Van Dykes, 7th of Eighth Month, 1759. to Tortola Monthly Meeting.
Letter from John Pickering, Senr., 25th of Second Month, 1760, to Tortola Monthly Meeting.
Copy of a letter from William Strong to William George, 3rd of
Fourth Month, 1760. Letter of acknowledgment from John Lake, Fifth Month, 1744. Application for membership from John Vascraging, no date. Letter of acknowledgment of William Thornton to the Monthly
Meeting, dated 25th of Sixth Month, 1757.
Miscellaneous :
Printed copy of Samuel Fothergill's letter " To Friends of the Island of Tortola," dated Warrington, the 17th of Third Month, 1760.
Minute from Hartshaw Monthly Meeting in Lancashire, dated 20th of First Month, 1761, signed by Gilbert Thompson, Clerk, acknow- ledging the receipt of John Pickering, Junr.'s certificate and offering to be of assistance to any others who might come over.
Original marriage certificate of Joseph Ryan and Rebecca Timberman,
2nd of Eleventh Month, 1743, signed by fifteen Friends, including
John Gardner and Suz (?) Ryan, " Relations." Sample of a blank printed marriage certificate with marriage of John
Pickering and Rebecca Zeagers noted. List of thirteen queries to be answered quarterly, also some advices. List of fourteen queries, no date. These had been forwarded to
James Birkett, Merchant, in Antigua, by the Ruby, Capt.
Nicholson. Ten pages of sample minutes to " Serve as helps to the Clerk of the
Meeting." Six pages in possibly Thomas Chalkley's hand writing
and four by some one else.
APPENDICES
83
Receipted bill, William Strong to Christopher Fleming, 18th of May, 1 761, " for work done about the Meeting house gate."
Receipted bill, William Strong bought of Pickering, Woolrich and Rawleigh, " hooks and hinges for use of the meeting." May 14th, 1761.
Receipt of "Pickering, Son and Thornton" from William Strong, Treasurer, for rent of a house, dated May 7th, 1758.
Two loose pages of the minutes of the Monthly Meeting, covering 3rd of Fifth Month, and 7th of Sixth Month, 1743.
Copy of a Testimony concerning Mary Neale by her husband, Samuel Neale, 30th of Third Month, 1757.
Copy of a Memorial of Mt. Melick Monthly Meeting, in the Kingdom of Ireland, concerning Mary Neale, 1st of Fifth Month, 1757.
Account of Friends' money taken out of Jonas Lake's hands by William Strong, 29th of Third Month, 1757.
Receipted bill for rent of store house, John Pickering and Thomas Humphreys to Samuel Nottingham, January 13th, 1758. Receipted by Mary Nottingham.
IV
(parftaf B,\*t of QTtanuecripte anb (£Ucor&e in ©eroneljire Jgoue*, Bonbon
Extract of a letter from James Birkett to John Dilworth, 1740, Epistles Received, vol. iii. p. 52.
Extract of a letter from John Pickering of Tortola, 1741, to David Barclay, Junr., Epistles Received, vol. iii. p. 54.
Account of Thomas Chalkley's Visit to Tortola, sent by John Pickering, 1741. Epistles Received, vol. iii. p. 92.
Epistles (copy) from Tortola Monthly Meeting, to London Yearly Meeting, 1 74 1, Epistles Received, vol. iii. p. 90
|
1743, |
, |
u |
p. IOO |
|
1743, |
, |
„ |
p. IO7 |
|
1746, |
, |
„ |
p. I48 |
|
1746, |
, |
,, |
P- 152 |
|
1746, |
, |
„ |
p. I76 |
|
1748, |
, |
n |
p. 208 |
|
1749, |
, |
»» |
p. 242 |
|
1750. |
, |
„ |
p. 27O |
|
1752, |
, |
11 |
p. 308 |
|
1753. |
• |
n |
P. 328 |
|
1755. |
» |
,, |
P- 374 |
|
1756, |
, |
11 |
p. 409 |
|
1757, |
, |
„ |
p. 422 |
|
1758, |
, |
„ |
P- 453 |
|
1759, |
, |
vol. |
iv.-p. 27 |
|
1761, „ |
, |
„ |
P- 5i |
|
1762, „ |
„ |
„ |
p. 67 |
|
1763, |
• |
11 |
p. 114 |
84 APPENDICES
Copies of Two Letters from Thomas Chalkley to his Wife :
Tortola, 16th of Eighth Month, 1741.
Tortola, 28th of Eighth Month, 1741.
[Copies of these letters are also in possession of Haverford College, Penna.]
Copy of a Letter from John Pickering to Friends in Philadelphia, June 1 8th, 1 741.
Copy of a Letter from the Governor of Antigua to John Pickering, June 7th, 1742.
Zfyoma* tyatMty'* Bttttx* to %\* 3»ife
Tortola, y 16th 8th Mo. 1741.
My Dear
By this know I am well & safely arrived here at Governour John Pickering's, who with his spouse are very Loving & Christianlike kind, & Received me with Hearts full of Tender Love. Yesterday, we had a Large & satisfactory Meeting at Friend Pickering's House, where were many People, & Divers not of our Profesion, & I hope I may say, that the Good hand of the Lord was with us1. John's Wife, & sister, the Wife of one Hunt ; appeared1 in this Meeting, and as my poor self, so many were much Affected & broken into tenderness and I felt some Reward in my Bosom or heart in undertaking this Religious Visit. Here was at this Meeting a Dear Young Creature, whose Father had turned her out of Doors for coming to Jfriends Meetings, Saying, had he been at all that Charge to buy her fine Cloaths, & taught her to Sing, & Dance, & all for nothing.
I have no Sight of any Return as yet, but as soon as I have, and have an opportunity, I shall let thee know it. This I wrote against a Conveyance, to be Ready when one offerd.
We had a Rough passage, the wind being very high and Contrary, with much rain for about a Week. We were from Land to Land 18 days, which was no bad Passage, considering the bad Weather. We Saw nine sail of vessel in our passage but spoke with None. I have no Occasion to boast, but was & am thankful that all fear but the fear of the Lord was taken from me. We left the Capes of Delaware the 23d 7th M° & arrived here the 10th, 8th Mo., was one Day turning to Windward among the Islands.
Thus, I tenderly salute thee, with all our Children and Relations, as if named & all dear Friends everywhere. Let my friends know that I think my self to be in the way of my Duty.
I am thy Loving Husband,
Thomas Chalkley
1 That is, spoke.
APPENDICES 85
I have my health now better than I have had it for Several years, which I take to be a great favour from "him in whom we Live, Move (if we live & move well) & have our being.
The Governour, his Wife & her Sister are dear Tender hearted Friends, & He Seems to be better Satisfied as to Defence since I came than he was before : I understand from the Governour, That the General hath sent for the Warlike Arms here, Saying If the People were Quakers they would have no need of them, that He should want them at Antigua, That a good Quaker stood fairer for .Heaven than a bad Churchman ; but he liked his own Religion Best, If they could trust Providence with their Interest, they had a Right to do what they would with their own : And he has still Continued Friend Pickering, Governour of the Island, to the mortification of all the great swordsmen.
Things are yet Young & Tender here, But we hope for a Growth as above in the best things. The great Name of the most high be praised for his merciful visitations ; so be it, saith my Soul.
I have a little more which I can't well omit, and this is for those who wear Hoops among us. The Governour's Wife, her two Sisters, Capt. Hunt's Wife, and the young Woman whose Father turn'd her out of Doors, wore Hoops before they were Convinced of the principles of our Friends, being thoroughly convinced they could wear them no longer and Divers fine young people have left them off since, tho they have the same excuse here all the year, as our girls have in summer.
The Great Lord of all Gird our Youth with the Girdle of Truth, and then they will not need those monstrous preposterous Girdles of hoops. I call it monstrous because, if Almighty God should make a Woman in the same shape her hoop makes her, Everybody would say she was a monster in Nature, and they would say Truly, so according to this Real Truth, they make themselves Monsters by Art.
The Governour and his kind Loving spouse with two Friends came out of the Country to See me this Morning, they desired their kind Love to be remembered to thee, my Dear, & to my Daughter, and I know their Love is to Friends.
This is an Island of as great Plenty of the Country Produce as any in these parts, and in times of want it has supply 'd divers other adjacent Islands of which there are many.
One of these Dear friends who came to see me, In a very scarce time & corn 6 / per Bushel, the usual price being 3 /. He would take no more, Saying he would not Raise the Price Since he had plenty, and it is very observable that he always has so, which the People take to be a Blessing on him, because of his Charity. He is a good Friend, and is now since I came, about building a Meeting house ; He tells me, he believes it will be money well laid out. The Governour intends to build another, these are good Examples.
Tortola, ye 28th 8th Mo. 1741 My Dear
To-day here being Opportunity for Antigua, I gladly make up of it to Inform thee of my health and welfare. I have been here upwards of two Weeks on this Island, and my heart hath been much opened, as also my mouth to the People, and here hath been an open Door to Receive the Doctrine of the Gospel of Christ and divers added to our little Society. Such Openness, Love and Increase, I think I never met with, Except in the Isle of Nantucket. I have been Informed that about 30 Persons have been so Convinced, that they Resolve to keep to Meetings, & Joyn with jfriends,
86 APPENDICES
Since my Coming here : A Friend gave me this information last night and yet notwithstanding all this, and a great deal more, which might be truly written of what service this visit has been, I have nothing to boast of, it being the Lord's Doings (as I believe) and therefore marvelous in mine & many others Eyes.
This Island is much more Populous that I Expected.
Next Week we purpose a Monthly Meeting, here being three little Meetings to make it up, and here is a marriage to be presented at it. Things are but young, But as Governour Pickering wrote us, that there was a Daily Growth & Increase, so here is. A Young Innocent lad hath spoke Several times publickly, Since I came, Some are affected & some disturbed at it. Perhaps it may be thought that all this is too hot and too Quick to hold. If those Reached to and friends keep their Places, I would hope it would hold & also grow : However this good Effect the visit hath had, that Divers of them who were prejudiced against friends are better Satisfied, and as to me they Lovingly Receive & Invite to their houses : One who wrote against us and another who Exceedingly disliked our Principles, Both great men in this Island, at whose houses I have been Kindly Treated.
As my Coming here will be pretty much talked of with you, by Reason of my age, the Wars, and this Place being so near the Spaniards, and not likely to come home the five or Six months, if ever, for these Reasons, I did not care if this Letter was Spread among Friends.
Thus brokenly & abruptly I am obliged to Conclude with Love unfeigned to thee, my Dear, and to my only Daughter Rebecca, and all thy Children, who, I Love, and wish well, as I do all who Sincerely Love our Lord Jesus Christ.
I am thy faithful Loving Husband,
Tho. Chalklev.1 P.S. — I do not Expect to be at home these five or Six months, if ever.
Note
Thomas Chalkley, by his will dated Second Month 19th, 1741, made a bequest as follows :
" Having spent most of my days and strength in the work and service of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and having been joined as a member of the Monthly Meeting of Philadelphia for above these forty years, to them, as a token of my love, I give my small Library of books."2
In 1 742, a transcript of the clause of his will was presented to the Monthly Meeting of Philadelphia. The number of volumes included in this bequest was one hundred and eleven. Soon after, Anthony Benezet was appointed Librarian, and the books were deposited in his house, where they remained until about 1765, when they were removed"" to a room provided for the purpose in a new meeting-house which had just then been erected at Fourth and Chestnut Streets.
1 The above are copied from a copy of the originals which is in the possession of Haverford College, Penna. A copy is also preserved at Devonshire House, London. They have been printed on various occasions but apparently never complete. See The Friend (Philadelphia), vol. lxxvi. (1903), p. 249.
a This was the beginning of the Friends' Library of Philadelphia, now located on North Sixteenth Street.
APPENDICES 87
VI
Citnee of jE>of&tng (Nlontfjfy Qtteeftng in ^otrfofa
Monthly Meeting was held the first 1st day of every month, Beginning 1st of Ninth Month, 1741, at Fat Hog Bay, alternating with The Road until 6th of Tenth Month, 1743, when it was to be held at Fat Hog Bay regularly " for the convenience of Jos Vandikes Friends. "-
4th of Twelth Month, 1748. Monthly Meeting was altered from the first 1st day to the last 1st day in the month.
30th of Seventh Month, 1750. Decided to alternate with The Road, "To be held in the forenoon for worship and the next day for business at Fat Hog Bay."
25th of Second Month, 1760. " It was agreed that the business meeting be held at the closing up of the foregoing Firstday evening meeting for worship which will begin to sett at 3 o'clock', as our business is but little and several friends having long journeys to perform."
VII
jjoumaf of 3(o($n (§vin$vix*t
John Bringhurst (1691-1750), a merchant of Philadelphia, accompanied Thomas Lancaster and Peter Fearon on their visit to Tortola and Barbados.
From his Journal the following information was taken :
" 8m° 31st, 1740. Robert Jordan applied to our Monthly Meeting for a Certificate to Friends at Barbados, he having a concern to visit it & some other islands where there is no Settled meetings of Frds which was given him 28th 9m0 following. But no companion offering to go with him, my son John1 showed a Desir to it, which increasing I did not find freedom to forbid, finding it agreeable to Rob1, Consented the 2d iom° when all was to Provide for his Voyage, Rob* having Taken his Passage & to sail in a Week. However we got things in pretty good order by the time, but the Vessel was full, so gave my Son a Purs of Gould to bear his expence and laid in a good Sea Store.
" They sailed from Chester about 4 in the afternoon, the 10th, & got out the Capes the 11th iom°. I received a Letter by the Pilot, from the Cape Hinlopen, of his being Sea Sick in the Bay. Recd a letter from Tho5 Collins of his haveing been Blowen off of our Coast the 14th 9m0 after Springing his Mast & Splitting his sails, & was got to Antigua & Refitting.
"8-21 Tho* Chalkley went to Tortola.
" 10-14 Capt" Bowers arrived from Antigua brought a letter to me from John Pickering, Governor of Tortola, & one from Thos Chalkley to his wife. Reported Thos Chalkley was dead at Tortola.
" 11- Capt" Stamper arrived from Antigua & brought a letter from John Pickering, Confirming the News of Thos Chalkley's decease at his hous in Tortola.
" 12- Writ to Doc1- Clark & Walter Rodman inclosed Pickering's letter of Thos Chalkley's Decease and one of John Bell's printed Epistle to Jos. Clark.
1 Born Philadelphia 1722, died there, unmarried, 1789.
88 APPENDICES
" 1742 4m0 25 William Thomas, with John Pickering's son John & Christopher Fleming, came by Land from New York to my hous.
" John Cadwalader & John Estaugh went to visit iras of Tortola. Left this 13th 8m°, 1744, when they both ended their days in their Master's service the iom° following.
" William Thomas Left my hous 2d m° 2d & New Cassel the 3d to Return to Tortola by way of Antigua.
" John Oxley arrived 3m0 9th & was brought to my hous in a poor State of helth, his Servant Sebina came with him and Peter Fern [Fearon]. He Continued to grow weaker & weaker, & departed this Life the 23d. Was bore to Meeting the 24th & interred.
" John Gurley in the Nonparel from Tortola arrived 6-3 Sailed from hence the 14th nm° 1743.
" 9-20-1744 My Son John Sailed in Sloop Sea Ranger, Thos Fowle, Master, to Barbadoes on account helth & Trade."
VIII
tejctxcLtt from JlufoBiograpflg of ©r. JSetfeom
In the cluster of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies, Tortola is the largest ; of the small ones, my father, Edward Lettsom, was in possession of three when I was born on the 22nd of November, 1744 ; these were Little Vandyke, Green Island, and Sandy Island ; besides which he owned a sugar plantation in Cane Garden Bay, Tortola, an island, although only 24 miles long and not exceeding four or five in breadth, appeared like a continent in contrast to the smaller islands or keys scattered around it. My father's favourite residence was on Little Vandyke where he cultivated cotton, with the aid of about 50 slaves, whose humble cottages were situated on a declivity near his little mansion.
When any merchant ships arrived at Tortola it was usual with the Commanders or Captains to hire small vessels called shallops to trade with the smaller islands, from whence cotton and some little other produce were collected and conveyed to the harbour where the ships were stationed. The whole product of these islands, including Tortola, which raised and exported sugar, was at this time inconsiderable ; and the consignments were then chiefly to Lancaster and Liverpool. At the former resided two brothers, Abraham and Hutton Rawlinson, who maintained an exten- sive connection with these islands.
At this time one of these vessels was commanded by William Lindo, who formed an intimacy with my parents. It was proposed to take me to Europe for education when I was about five years of age. I well remember that a tenderness impressed their minds so forcibly on the prospect of separa- tion, as to induce them to postpone the present scheme to the subsequent year, when I was placed under the protection of the captain, with whom I arrived at Lancaster, where I was received by the Rawlinsons, to whose care I was consigned by my parents, the first I believe in these islands who possessed the fortitude and good sense to make a sacrifice to private feeling to promote the advantages of an infant.
At this period of my departure from the West Indies, not one equipage was kept in any of the Virgin Islands. In our passage we made Dublin in Ireland, and here no object attracted my admiration more forcibly than the view of the carriages and the velocity and the ease with which they were moved.
APPENDICES 89
I had a distant relation in Tortola, named John Pickering, whose two youngest sons, Isaac and Josiah, by his last wife, were sent to the care of Samuel Fothergill, who placed them at Penceth school, but on its dissolution they were removed to a school at Shelborne.
My removal to Liverpool must have taken place about the conclusion of my 14th year. The death of my Father had been recently communicated to me ; and soon afterwards I heard of the second marriage of my mother to Samuel Taine ; that my Father's executor had neglected my property, and had disposed of the Sugar plantation in Cane Garden Bay. * * * John Pickering of Tortola, already mentioned, had, by his first wife, a son named after himself who, on his return, married the daughter of Bezaliel Hodge of the same Island. John Pickering, Junr., visited England for curiosity and improvement.
From MS. Autobiography of Dr. J. C. Lettsom in the possession of T. C. Colyer-Fergusson, typed by William Porteous Colyer-Fergusson.
IX
©r. anb Qtlre* Q#i££tam Zfyotnton
Notes of an address by Allen C. Clark, of Washington, D.C., read before the Columbia Historical Society, May 19th, 1914. Portrait by Gilbert Stuart.
William Thornton born May 27th, 1761, Tortola.
Mrs. Thornton thought Dr. Thornton's father's name was William too, and she knew his mother's name was Dorcas Downing Zeagers. At an early age William was sent to England and in Lancaster received rudimentary education. He lived there with his grandmother and Miss Jane and Miss Mary Thornton, his aunts, on the family estate, " Green Air." * * * William went down to London and' lodged at Mr. Dicks, 7 King Street, Cheapside, London, and for a time at 15 Norfolk Street, Strand, with the honorable Thomas Thomasson, his step-father. He was a student at the College of Edinburgh, entered perhaps in 1761. He was a pupil in St. Bartholomew's Hospital for six months from the 1st day of October, 1783. [His degree is among the Thornton, papers in the J. Healey Smith Collection, Library of Congress.] Dr. Thornton continued his studies in Paris. Dr. Thornton was in Tortola, June 25th, 1786, and that year came to the States. In 1787, he was in New York, then he lived in Wilmington, Del. To his dear father and mother, he writes, April 14th, 1788 : " I applied to Governor Dickinson for permission to address his daughter, but he thinks her too young by several years and knows no objection whatever to me."
Dr. William Thornton, writing to John Coakley Lettsom, from New York, November 18th, 1786:
" I find myself entitled to between seventy and eighty negroes, and half the landed estate that we possess in Tortola. Many of these negroes would be improper companions in my future intended settlement ; there- fore, I would leave such behind. * * * If it be considered, I sacrifice eight or ten thousand pounds besides my practice." [If he went with the free blacks to Africa.]
In another letter from Boston : "I know of no other person who will make the same sacrifice of family, friends, fortune and an expensive education with the most precious years in the prime of life, to live with the rejected and despised part of mankind. I mean to give my lands in Tortola to my mother. My estate in England, I have given the rents to
90 APPENDICES
my aged grandmother and aunts for their kind and affectionate care of my brother and myself during our infancy."
Again: " My parents wish me again in the West Indies. Africa is very little hotter."
" I have procured the Nankin cotton, the staple of which is of a yellow colour. I sent some to my estate in. Tortola, desiring it should not be planted near other cotton, lest it should be impregnated thereby and spoil its colour."
" Phila., November 15, 1788. I must return early in the spring to the West Indies, where I shall practice physics and be more exposed than in Africa, to the inclemencies of climate. My father has written me to return to Tortola that my mother's estate may be divided, half of which, by her marriage settlement, falls to my share. * * * Though I love not my country, it is so debased, it gives me a secret pleasure that thou art my countryman."
" Philadelphia, April 26, 1789.
" I thank thee for thy kind advice thou hast so urgently given me respecting the African scheme, to go to the West Indies and endeavour to increase my fortune and make myself independent of my property in Tortola."
The erroneous report of Lettsom's death filled Thornton with profound grief. He writes : " Philadelphia, November 13, 1789. I meant to prepare a pillar of marble and erect it in the very spot which received tfiy first breath. I intend to depart hence for Tortola soon to stay there."
" December 22, 1794.
" My wife and I are settled in Georgetown in consequence of an appoint- ment which the President of the United States has conferred upon me. I am made one of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia."
He sent Lettsom a drawing of the house in which he, Lettsom, was born, with description.
Dr. William Thornton's brother died November, 1781.
April 14th, 1788. Plans to return to Tortola and entering as extensively as he could into practice. Prepares a letter to his servants.
He wrote to both Houses of the Legislature from Tortola, February 22nd, 1 79 1, petitioning them for permission to free his negroes and transport them to Sierra Leone.
June 17th, 1795. Buys two slaves, Joseph and John, from John C. Calhoun for 200 pounds Maryland currency.
Dr. Thornton's diary, consisting of six little books 4x6 inches, beginning at Ulverston, May 10th, 1777, speaks of going to Swarthmore Meeting, the visits of various ministers and other friendly references, mostly, however, about the weather and medical matters. The narrative continues to June 5th, 1782, covering his apprenticeship at Ulverston and his medical college experiences at Edinburgh.
He made his first visit to Washington, D.C., with a letter of introduc- tion from the President. The prize for the plan was $500 and a lot to the value of 100 pounds. It is understood the drawings were made in Tortola.
The Thornton scheme forms the nucleus of the present structure. (See Glenn Brown's History of the United States Capitol.)
While in Tortola, I>r. Thornton had written a book, Cadmus, or a Treatise on the Elements of Written Language, published in Philadelphia, 1793.
When Tobias Lear resigned, Thornton applied for the position of private secretary to Washington, but the office had already been filled by the appointment of Dandridge.
He was appointed a Commissioner for the District of Columbia, September 2nd, 1794.
APPENDICES 91
Dr. Thornton acquired a county seat on either side of the Fredericktown Road. General Washington sent him three shagbark hickories. He maintained a race course. He died Friday, March 28th, 1828. (From Records of the Columbia Historical Society, vol. 18, 1915.)
Notes from, the Manuscript, Thornton Collection, in the Congressional Library, Washington, D.C.
1786 to 1790, the Doctor lived with Mrs. House on 5th Street, corner of Market.
Franklin invited him to dinner, Tuesday, 17th of February, 1789. Thornton, a member of Library of Philadelphia. The foundations laid August 31st, 1789, for the plans which he furnished. He received a share of stock valued at $40.00.
Dr. William Thornton and Anna Maria, daughter of Mrs. Brodeau, were married October 13th, 1790. The groom was 29, the bride 15, They sailed for Tortola on their wedding trip, October 16th, 1790.
Brother apparently living. Mother-in-law addressed letter to him in Tortola, May 4th, 1791. Again one dated October 2nd, 1791.
Dr. and Mrs. Thornton returned two weeks before November 16th, 1792.
The Commissioners of the Federal City, March 14th, 1792, advertised for competing plans for the Capitol and President's House.
Dr. Thornton wrote from Tortola, October, 1792, for permission to submit drawings. December 4th, 1792, the Commissioners spoke well of the plan.
Washington wrote to the Commissioners, March 3rd, 1793, as follows : " Grandeur, Simplicity and Convenience appear to be so well combined in the plan of Dr. Thornton's."
Public Competition. Jefferson prepared an advertisement inserted in Philadelphia and other papers. Fourteen competitors. Competition closed July 5th, 1792. None of them selected ; all poor. In October, 1792, Dr. Thornton wrote from Tortola asking permission to submit plans. November 15th, the Commission wrote saying they had employed an architect to prepare plans and if he wanted to submit a design he must hurry up.
Jefferson said : " Thornton's plan has captivated the eyes and judg- ment of all. It is simple, noble, beautiful, excellently arranged."
April 5th, 1793. Commission wrote Thornton his plans were accepted. Thornton prepared his drawing in the West Indies.
May, 1802. Thornton made Superintendent of Patents, which position he held until his death, having been the organizer of this important branch of Government work.
Jnformafton from Q#if£ of QSidJarfc jgumpffrepe
(Will Book 10, p. 245, etc.)
He resided at the time of his death on the south side of Sansom Street, between 7th and 8th, and was advanced in years at the time of making his will.
He gave his house and lot and all household goods to his beloved wife, Ann Humphreys. The second bequest is of $10,000.00 for the purpose of founding an institution for the education of the descendants of the African race.
92 APPENDICES
He left small legacies to a shelter for 6olored orphans and to three city dispensaries.
After the death of his wife, Ann, who was to enjoy the income of the estate during her life, he left the income of $2,000.00 to Elizabeth M. Baker late Elizabeth M. Morris : " My wife's neice whom I brought up, now the wife of Jacob Baker." At her death principal to go to her children, if no children then to her brothers, Thomas M. Morris, of Rochester. N.Y., and Samuel Morris, of Harrisburg.
A legacy of $400.00 to Catharine Oldham who lived with them.
After decease of his wife the estate is to be divided into eight parts, one each to go to
(1) Granddaughter, Ann H. Valentine, wife of Benj. E. Valentine, and
daughter of James Cresson and " My late daughter, Hannah, his wife."
(2) Granddaughter, Tacy Cresson, daughter of James Cresson.
(3) Granddaughter, Hannah H. Cresson, daughter of James Cresson.
(4) Grandson, James Cresson, Jr.
(5) Granddaughter, Martha Warner Cresson.
(6) Richard H. George, son of Richard George and my late daughter,
Tacy, his wife.
(7) Grandson, Richard Humphreys, Jr. (son of my late son, Thomas
Humphreys).
(8) Elizabeth Dayton (wife of Dayton), and daughter of my late
son, Thomas Humphreys.
The inventory of his estate discloses that it amounted to $90,222.90 in obligations and recoverances including several large blocks of Turnpike stock, stock in Philadelphia Bank, etc.
And household effects (including 107 ozs. of silver plate) amounting to $824.62. Making a total of $91,047.52.
His son-in-law, James Cresson, and his wife, Ann, with three others were made trustees and executors.
XI
(progreae anb ©cpefopmenf of tfyt (prcei&encp, 1919 to 1921
The Presidency during the last three years has made rapid progress and advancement. From being faced with a deficit at the end of the financial year 19 18-19 the Presidency can boast today of an estimated surplus of £13,000 and no debt outstanding.
Trade : — The progress of trade during the period under review has been considerable. The figures are as follows : —
1919 1920 1921
Imports 416,362 £43.413 £41.392
Exports £i?.364 £24,102 £24,344
Total £27.726 £67.515 £65.736
At present the bulk of the trade is with the United States, but it is hoped that with the inception of a Steamship line running between this Presidency and Canada the greater volume of trade would be with the British Empire.
APPENDICES 93
The profits made by the shopkeepers and merchants have undoubtedly- been large and should continue so with the Prohibition laws in the neigh- boring Islands of St. Thomas and St. John, V.I./U.S.A., and a greater circulation of money.
Agriculture: — Considerable progress has been made in bringing the land under cultivation. Large areas of pasture and bush lands are now brought into cultivation owing to high prices obtainable for products. The planting of minor crops is keenly encouraged. Two new estates are opened up by English settlers. There is still opportunity in these wonder- fully productive islands for fresh settlers.
General : — Considerable improvement is to be noted in Tortola, delapi- dated ruins are renovated and many new dwelling houses are erected. A market place has been laid out in Road Town. Much improved roads throughout Tortola. Street lamps have been erected in the main road in Road Town. A cricket ground and race course have been laid out on a five-acre recreation ground, affording much recreation for the young folk. A bandstand is also erected at the grounds. A bonded warehouse has been erected and the matter of enlargening this building, compatible with increased trade, is now under consideration. A small hospital is now in course of erection. A library consisting of some 200 or more up-to-date novels has been established. A Peasants' Agricultural Bank has also been established. This has proved itself a great blessing to the peasant inhabitants. Money is loaned at reasonable rates on good securities. A motor boat service has been established. A 13-ton launch, capable of carry- ing thirty or more passengers with five tons of cargo, carries the mails to and from St. Thomas. The journey to and from St. Thomas by sailing sloop is thus made less tedious.
Vital Statistics : — The Health of the Presidency is very satisfactory. Sanitary conditions are very much improved.
The following statement shows the estimated population at the Census of April, 192 1.
|
Islands |
White |
Black |
Colored |
Males |
Females |
Total |
|
Tortola |
35 |
3,343 |
609 |
1,838 |
2,149 |
3,987 |
|
Virgin G. |
— |
181 |
200 |
172 |
209 |
381 |
|
Anegada |
— |
62 |
296 |
158 |
200 |
358 |
|
Jost Van Dykes |
— |
263 |
3 |
124 |
142 |
266 |
|
Salt Island |
— |
13 |
24 |
17 |
20 |
37 |
|
Peter Island . . |
— |
23 |
17 |
19 |
21 |
40 |
|
Cooper Island |
— |
2 |
6 |
5 |
3 |
8 |
|
Sombrero |
1 |
1 |
3 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
|
Total |
36 |
3,888 |
1,158 |
2,335 |
2,747 |
5,082 |
Legislation : — An Ordinance to repeal the Customs Tariff Ordinance and to make other provisions in lieu thereof has been passed. This is to carry in effect the Agreement concluded between the Representatives -of the various West Indian Administration at Ottawa in June, 1920.
Information supplied by
H. Peebles,
Commissioner for Tortola. January 28th, 1922.
94 APPENDICES
XII
(ttlieceffcmeous
Hurricanes.
Anonymous writer mentions the hurricane of September 21st, 1819, in Tortola. " Not a negro hut or a single cane of sugar was left on the estate of the Eyrie. Worst in the recollection of the oldest inhabitant."
Joseph John Gurney speaks of a terrific hurricane which visited the Virgin Islands, Eighth Month, 1837.
John Jackson speaks particularly of those of i8'i and 1837, in which most of the buildings in Road Town were devastated.
September, 18 19, Clergyman and wife killed.
The custom long prevailed in the neighboring Danish islands of observ- ing June 25th and October 25th as days of prayer. These were the beginning and ending of the hurricane season. (Westergaard's Danish West Indies, p. 6.)
The anonymous author of the West India Sketch Book speaks of the great hurricanes of 1819.
The hurricane of August 31st, 1772, was described by an eye witness as the most, dreadful known in the memory of man.
Health.
Dr. William Thornton, writing to Dr. Lettsom, 1786, says : " I attribute the deaths of many who have visited the West Indies to intemperance and want of attention in avoiding the heat of the sun."
Referring to Dr. Lettsom, Dr. Hingston Fox writes :
" In Tortola he entered into medical practice for which he showed much aptitude. ' He would prescribe for fifty or hundred patients before break- fast ' " (Dr. John Fothergill, p. 10O.
Scenery.
" We pursued our course through scenery of uncommon beauty — in parts almost of a Swiss character."
" There are no roads for carriages, only rocky and precipitous mountain paths for journeys on horseback or foot."
" We visited the President, E. H. Drummond Hay, and a long ride by rocky paths over steep mountains brought us to Road Town.
" Across an arm of the sea from Kingston, some five miles away by road, was a settlement of several hundred Africans, taken out of captured slave ships and located here t>v the British Government. About three hundred attended a meeting for worship under the shade of a large tamarind tree."
(J. J. Gurney, A WinU r in the West Indies, 1840, pp. 30-38.)
Population.
" Out of a population of nearly five thousand, there are scarcely more than two hundred white persons " (ibid. p. 31).
Episcopal.
" The Episcopal Church was erected about fifteen years since " (about 1825-30). (Letters from Virgin Islands.)
Governors.
William Matthew was governor of the Leeward Islands, which include the Virgin Islands, from October 30th, 1733, until his death, August 14th, 1752, when he was succeeded by Gilbert Fleming, as acting governor, who
APPENDICES 95
served until July 2nd, 1753. George Thomas was made governor on that date and served until June 1st, 1766, when James Verchild came into office. He served until April 10th, 1768.
During the same periods the lieutenant governors of Tortola were : — John Pickering; Capt. John Hunt (died prior to 1751) ; James Purcell, died July 8th, 1759 (Court of Ordinary, Antigua Records. He was buried in graveyard at Lewisham, County Kent) and was succeeded by his brother, John Purcell, who died in 1771.
Governor William Matthew, writing to the Lords of Plantations, March 8th, 1750/51, in regard to the illicit trade of St. Thomas and St. Croix in sugar through the connivance of the collectors at Tortola, Spanishtown and Anguilla, says :
" We make no great quantity of sugar in the Virgin Islands, but chiefly cotton." He proposed that the deputy governors who are most responsible " clear out all vessels from Tortola, etc., as was done formerly."
Vol. 15, Board of Trade Papers, P.H.S.
Civil Government.
July nth, 1751, John Purcell, lieutenant-governor of Tortola, wrote the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, requesting the setting up of a civil government in the Virgin Islands. This was considered at various meetings of the Board until March 4th, 1753, when it was ordered that a draft of a Representation to His Majesty's Government was ordered pre- pared, setting forth the expediency of setting up some form of civil government in these Islands. The Legislature was not established until 1773. See Minutes, March 4th, 1753.
On April 15th, 1776, a letter was read from Captain Purcell, deputy governor of Virgin Islands, dated at St. Thomas, January 10th, 1756, transmitting a list of the Inhabitants of His Majesty's Virgin Islands, taken January 1st, 1756, with the number of whites and negroes, also the quantity of cannon and small arms with the several fortifications and batteries.
Affirmation.
Legislature for Leeward Islands, meeting at Nevis, passed an Act making the Act of Parliament in regard to affirmations of Quakers, apply to Leeward Islands, 4th June, 1705.
Statistics.
A computation of the value of Trade, prepared by Robert Dinwiddie, Esq., submitted to the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. (P.H.S. Vol. 12, April 29th, 1740.)
The natural and improved annual produce of Tortola in Sugar, Molasses, Rum, Cotton, Lime Juice, Ginger, Indigo, Coffee, Aloes, Pimentos, Turtle Shell, Mahogany, timber and plank . . . . . . . . £30,000
For Virgin Gofda . . . . . . . . . . £15,000
£45,000 In the same year the number of Fighting Men was as follows : Anguilla . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Virgin Gorda (Spanishtown) . . . . . . . . 150
Tortola . . . . . . . . . . .... 2po
The same year the number of Slaves is given as follows :
Anguilla . . . . . . . . . . . . 800
Virgin Gorda . . ..... . . . . . . 800
Tortola .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1,500
96 APPENDICES
From Epistle of London Yearly Meeting, 1742.
The Epistle from the Yearly-Meeting, Held in London by Adjournment, from the 7th of the Fourth Month, 1742, to the 12th of the same, inclusive.
To the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings of Friends and Brethren, in Great Britain, Ireland and elsewhere.
Dear Friends and Brethren !
The Accounts, received this Year, from the Quarterly Meetings in England and Wales, and the Epistles from North Britain, Ireland, Holland, Pensiivania, Long Island, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Barbadoes, give us comfortable Relations of a Christian Care remaining in the Minds of Friends for the Promotion of Truth and its Testimony ; that there is a great Openness in Many to receive the Doctrine of the Gospel ; and that divers have been added to the Church since last Year. We have also to acquaint you, that it has pleased the Lord, by the Inshinings of the divine Light, to visit the Inhabitants of some Islands, where no setled Meetings of Friends have formerly been, to the bowing and tendering some of their Hearts, as in the first breaking forth and Morning of our Day ; and to incline them to assemble together, and silently to wait in Spirit and in Truth upon the Lord, their Redeemer, the holy One of Israel, the unerring Teacher, who teacheth his People to profit, and leadeth them by the Way that they should go. May they continue under His holy Guidance and Direction, and walking answerably to the Convictions of Grace received, become firmly rooted and established in the Truth which they profess.
Signed in and on Behalf of the said Yearly-Meeting,
By Joseph Huntley, Clerk to the Meeting this Year.
(§Mio$tapfy
Lawson, Thomas, The Mite into the Treasury, London, 1680. Estaugh, John, A Call to the Unfaithful Professors of Truth,
Philadelphia, 1744. Includes an epistle to Friends in Tortola. Chalkley, Thomas, Collection of Works, including Journal,
Philadelphia, 1749. Bownas, Samuel, Life and Travels, London, 1756. Edwards, Bryan, History of the West Indies, 1756. Stanton, Daniel, Life and Travels, Philadelphia, 1772. The Present State of the West Indies, London, 1778. Pages
72-74 relate to the Virgin Islands, including Tortola..
Suckling, George, Historical Account of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies, London, 1780. Mainly an account of the legal difficulties of the writer, sometime chief -justice of the island of Tortola, but with some description of life in Tortola.
Lettsom, John Coakley, Memoirs of John Fothergill, M.D., London, 1786.
Collection of Memorials concerning Deceased Ministers, Phila- delphia, 1787.
Gough, John, History of the People called Quakers, Dublin, 1790, 4 vols. Vol. iv., pp. 445-457, devoted to an account of Friends in Tortola with particular reference to the visits of Thomas Chalkley, John Estaugh and John Cadwallader.
West, Hans, Bildrag til Beskriveke over Ste. Croix med en Kort
Udrigt over St. Thomas, St. Jean, Tortola, Spanishtown of
Crabenerland, Copenhagen, 1793. Clarkson, Thomas, History of the Rise, Progress, and Abolition
of the African Slave Trade, London, 1808, 2 vols. Nichols, John, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,
London, 1812-1815, Vols, ii., iii., iv.
The Gentleman's Magazine, London, 1815. Page 577 has a drawing of Dr. Lettsom's birthplace.
Nichols, John, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1817-1831. Vol. ii., p. 657.
98 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pettigrew, Thomas Joseph, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late John Coakley Lettsom, with a Selection of his Correspondence, London, 1817, 3 vols. The first volume contains numerous references to Dr. Lettsom 's connection with Tortola, including his account of John Pickering, copied in a note from Lettsom's " Memoirs of John FothergiU, M.D." In the second volume are fifteen letters from William Thornton, at one time resident of Tortola, later one of the commissioners to lay out the city of Washington. He sends to Dr. Lettsom a drawing of Edward Lettsom's home on the island of Little Jost Van Dykes.
Comly, John and Isaac, Friends' Miscellany, Philadelphia, 1831-39, 12 vols. References to Tortola are to be found in vol. iii. (1833), pp. 20iff, 375, vol. xi. (1838), p. 391.
The West India Sketch Book, London, 1834, 2 vols. Vol. 1 contains a chatty account of a visit to Tortola, with special interest in natural history studies.
History of the West Indies, comprising Jamaica, Honduras, Trinidad, and the Virgin Islands, London, 1836, 2 vols. Vol. i., pp. 288-312, Virgin Islands, especially Tortola, by Robert Montgomery Martin.
Smith, James, of Sing Sing, N.Y., The Winter of 1840 at St. Croix, with an Excursion to Tortola and St. Thomas, New York. Printed for the author, 1840.
Gurney, Joseph John, A Winter in the West Indies, second edition, London, 1840.
Letters from the Virgin Islands, Illustrating Life and Manners in the West Indies, London, 1843. A series of letters mainly from Tortola. Rather light and frivolous, but contains numerous descriptions of Tortolan life and scenery, with excursions to the nearby islands. A few references to Friends.
The Friend, Philadelphia, vol. 17 (1844), p. 310. An account of Dorcas Lillie, the first clerk of Women's Monthly Meeting in Tortola, and her spiritual experiences, also her establishing Meetings on the island of St. Croix.
Truman, George, and John Jackson, and Thomas B. Long- streth, Narrative of a Visit to the West Indies in 1840 and 1841, Philadelphia, 1844. Contains an account of visit to Tortola, pp. 23-43, with two interesting illustrations showing the foundations of the meeting-house at Fat Hog Bay and tombs of the Quaker worthies.
Child, L. Maria, The Youthful Emigrant, New York, 1846. Relates the story of the immigration of Elizabeth Haddon and her marriage with John Estaugh.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 99
Sands, David, Journal, London and New York, 1848. Contains a notice of Samuel Nottingham.
Bowden James, History of the Society of Friends in America, London, 1850-1854, 2 vols.
Westerly, G. W., Hand-book of the Hurricane Season, Intended for Use in the Windward, Leeward and Virgin -Islands of the West Indies, London, 1853. From 1666 to 1848, twelve severe hurricanes, besides many gales, visited the Windward Islands.
Crosfield, George, Memoirs of the Life of Samuel Fothergill, London, 1857.
Janney, Samuel M., History of the Religious Society of Friends, Philadelphia, 1867, 4 vols. Vol. iii, pp. 267-270, devoted to the convincements in Tortola and accounts of Thomas Chalkley, John Estaugh, and John Cadwallader.
Longfellow, Henry W., Tales of a Wayside Inn, 1873.
Smith, Josiah B., Robert Smith Genealogy, Newton, Pa., 1885.
The Friend, Philadelphia, vol. 62 (1889), p. 250. Article by Ge'orge Vaux giving quotations from Gough's " History of Friends," from Monthly Meeting Records, etc.
Friends' Intelligencer, Philadelphia, vol. 48 (1891), p. 260. " The Society of Friends in the Island of Tortola," by Charles F. Jenkins.
The Friend, Philadelphia, vol. 65 (1892), p. 371. " The Society of Friends in Tortola," by Charles F. Jenkins.
Friends' Intelligencer, Philadelphia, vol. 51 (1894), p. 799. " Friends in the West Indies — Tortola," by Thaddeus S. Kenderdine.
Friends' Quarterly Examiner, London, vol. 28 (1894). Friends in the West Indies, by Charles Dickinson Sturge. Pp. 52-55 relate to Tortola.
Jenkins, Howard M., Historical Collections Relating to Gwynedd, second edition, Philadelphia, 1897.
Lancaster, Harry F., The Lancaster Family, Columbia City, Indiana, 1902.
Friends' Quarterly Examiner, London, vol. 32 (1903). Account of Thomas Gawthrop, pp. 237 ff.
Friends' Intelligencer, Philadelphia, vol. 60 (1903), p. 419. View of the graves at Fat Hog Bay.
The Journal of the Friends Historical Society, London, vols. i. (1903-4), ii. iii. iv. ix. x. xiii. xv.
7A
ioo BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Friend, Philadelphia, vol. 76 (1903), p. 249. Two letters from Thomas Chalkley to his wife, much abbreviated.
Thomas Chalkley, Friends' Ancient and Modern Series, London, 1904. Reproduction of sketch of graves at Fat Hog Bay.
The Friend, Philadelphia, vol. 79 (1906), p. 285. Contains "Observations on Friends in the Leeward Islands," with brief mention of Tortola.
Caribbeana : Being Miscellaneous Papers Relating to the History, Genealogy, Topography, and Antiquities of the British West Indies, edited by V. L. Oliver, F.S.A., M.R.C.S., London, 1910-1919, 6 vols. Vol. 3 (1914) contains references to Tortola and pedigrees of Lettsom, Hodge, Purcell and Georges families.
The Journal of George Fox, edited by Norman Penney, F.S.A., Cambridge, 19 11, 2 vols.
Fishlock, W. C, The Virgin Islands, B.W.I. : a Handbook of General Information, London, 1912, with map. An official pamphlet containing information and statistics relating almost entirely to Tortola.
Britton, N. L., Cactus Studies in the West Indies, in the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, vol. xiv. no. 161, p. 99. Brief references to a visit to Tortola in 1913. Mention is made of a small area of primeval forest at High Bush on Mt. Sage.
Clark, Allen C, Dr. and Mrs. Thornton. A paper read before the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C., May 19, 1914. Contains numerous references to Tortola.
Fox, R. Hingston, M.D., Dr. John F other gill and his Friends,
London, 1919. The Friend, London, 1922. P. 142, Note on William Thornton ;
p. 338, Note on C. F. Jenkins's lecture at Y.M., 1922 ; p. 425,
" Friends in Tortola, by J. W. Graham — Account of C. F.
Jenkins's lecture. Jenkins, Charles F., Tortola, a Quaker Experiment of Long
Ago in the Tropics, London, 1923.
3fnfc#
Figures in heavy-faced type denote principal references. Figures enclosed in parentheses denote anonymous references.
Alice, ship, 48.
Anegada, 93.
Anguilla, 3, 6, 7, 9, 95.
Antigua, 4, 18, 19, 24, 25, 56, 57,
73, 75, 76, 79, 80, 82, 84, 85, 87,
88. Antilles, Greater and Lesser, 1. Austin, Captain, 25. Austin, Anne, 4.
Babston, Samuel, 76.
Backhouse, James, 78.
Bacon, Elizabeth, aft., Brown, 76.
Baker, Elizabeth, 76.
Baker, Jacob, and Elizabeth M.,
92. Balneives, Alexander, 73, 76. Balneives, Jerusha, 73. Balneives, Mary, form. Bishop.
73, 76. Barbados, 4, 11, 20, 23-25, 28-30,
35, 36, 51, 56, 57, 79, 80, 82, 87,
96. Barclay, David, Junr., 7, 10, 83. Barclay, John, 23. Barclay, R., Apology, 7. Beef Island, 3. Bell, John, 31, 87. Benezet, Anthony, 51, 86. Birkett, James, 8, 9, 18, 23-25, 36,
73, 76, 82, 83. Birkett, Miles, 7. Bishop, Mary, aft. Balneives, 73,
76. JBishop, Rebecca, aft. Humphreys,
73- Bishop, Townsend, 10, 14-16, 18,
32, 57, 73, 75, 76, ill, 78 (85).
Blake, , 14 (86).
Block, Bashia, 76. Blunder, Elizabeth, 76. Bowers, Captain, 87. Brabston family, 33, 76. Bradley, David, 76. Bridgetown, 29.
Bringhurst, John, Senr., 28, 29, 3i, 87.
Bringhurst, John, Junr., 87.
Bristol, 51, 53.
Britt, Rebecca, 77.
Britt, Thomas, 77.
Brodeau, Anna Maria, aft. Thorn- ton, 59, 91.
Broken Jerusalem, 3.
Brown family, 73, 77.
Brown, Isaac, 18 ill.
Brown, James, 76, 77.
Burnyeat, John, 4.
Burrough, Edward, 50.
Cadmus, 59, 90.
Cadwallader, John, 2O-23, 66, 69,
88, 97, 99. Calendar, change of, 40. Calhoun, John C., 61, 90. Callwood, William, 77. " Camanders " Island, 75.
(? Camanoe Isle.) Can by, of Pa., 28. Cane Garden Bay, 47, 88, 89. Caribbees, The, 1, 15, 38, 97, 100. Carolinas, North and South, 6, 29,
96. Chalkley, Martha, 15-18, 24, 84. Chalkley, Rebecca, 17, 86. Ghalklev, Thomas, 11-18, 22-24,
55, 66, 69, 80, 82-84, 87, 97, 99- Chalwiil, George, 77. Chapman, Ann, 29. Charlotte Amelia, 1. Cheyney, Pa., 62. Christianstad, 56, 57. Clandaniel family, 73, 74, 77. Clandaniel, William, 32, 74, 77. Clark, Dr., 87.
Clark, Sarah, aft. Humphreys, 74. Clarke, Dr. T. L. E., 67, 69, 70. Clarkson, Thomas, 51, 52. Cockfield, Zechariah, 55. Collins, Thomas, 87.
102
INDEX
Colored Youth, Institution for,
62. Columbus, Christofer, 1, 3, 38. Conne (?), Jemima, 77. Cooper Island, 93. Cope, Gilbert, 80, 81. Cowperthwaite, Mary M., 80. Cresson family, 92. Cresson, James, 56, 92. Crulle, George, 77. Cuba, 1.
Dandridge, , 90.
Daniel, Rebecca, aft. Clandaniel,
_ 74, 77-
Dayton, Elizabeth, 92.
Dead Man's Chest, 3.
Demane, John, 27.
Devonshire House, 36, 80, 83, 86.
Dickinson, John, 59, 89.
Dilworth, John, 9, 83.
Dinwiddie, Robert, 95.
Downing family, 74, 75, 77.
Downing, John (32), 74, 75, 77.
Drake, Sir Francis, 2.
Drake, Sir Francis, Passage, 3, 69.
Dutchman's Cap, 3.
East End, 33.
Eastern Meeting, 79.
Eccles, Solomon, 4.
Edinburgh, 48, 58, 89, 90.
Edmondson, William, 4.
Elizabeth, Queen, 2.
Elliott, Hannah, aft. Humphreys,
74- Ely, Hugh, 28. Emlen, Samuel, 56, 80. Estaugh, Elizabeth, /orm. Haddon,
20-22, 98. Estaugh, John, 20, 23, 24, 66, 69,
88, 97-99- Evans, Mary, form. Nicholas, 28. Evans, Owen, 28. Everett family, 74. Everett, Mehitable, aft. Williams,
74. 77-
Everett, Rebecca, aft. Powe, 74,
75. 77-
Fat Hog Bay, 12, 15, 21, 25, 27, 29, 33, 34, 36, 44, 53, 57, 64-66, 68, 73, 76-79, 87, 98-100.
Fazakerley, Capt. James, 48.
Fearon, Peter, 24, 28, 29, 31, 87, 88.
Fell, Margaret, aft. Fox, 5.
Fell, Margaret, aft. Rous, 5. Fielding, Joshua, h-j. Fisher, Mary, 4. Fishlock, W. C, 68. Fleming, Christopher, 83, 88. Fleming, Eleanor, 77. Fleming, Gov. Gilbert, 94. FothergUl, Dr. John, 47-49, 53, 58. Fothergill, Samuel, 31, 43, 46-48,
54, 82, 89. Fox, George, 4, 50. Fox Lease, Hants, 26, 43. Frankford, 11, 18. Franklin, Benjamin, 59, 91. Freeth, Joseph, 81. Frenchman's Bay. 66. Fretwell, Ralph, 5. Friends, Society of :
Advices and Queries, 82.
affirmation, 95.
certificates, 81.
collections, 31, 33.
convincements, 7-10, 17, 37, 38, 41, 78, 81, 82, 85.
declension and disownments, 32,
37, 38, 77-79- Discipline, 9, chap, v., 54, 86, 87. dress, 16, 24, 37, 84, 85. drink, 32. epistles sent and received, 31,
32, 36-39, 41, 55, 81, 83, 96. establishment, 3, 7, literature, 7-10, 18, 40, 54, 59, 86. marriage, 33, 37, 73-8o. meetings for worship, 10, 54, 56,
85.
meeting-houses and burial- grounds, 15, 17, 18, 25, 32, 55-57, 66, 69, 73-75, 85.
members, list of, 76-79.
ministers, local, 8, 10, 13-17, 23, 29, 3°, 38, 84.
minutes of the Meeting, chap, iv., 57, 62, 80, 87.
numbers, 18, 32, 46.
Overseers, 33, 34, 76-79.
persecution, 13, 37, 39, 55.
poor, care of, 33. Fry, John, 81. Fry, William, 81.
Gardner, John, 76 ill., 82. Gawthrop, Thomas, 29, 40, 81. George III, 49. George family, 33, 74, 77. George, Catharine, 33, 74, 77. George, Richard H., 92.
INDEX
103
George, William, 35, 74, 77, 82. Georges family, 44, 100. Georges, Mrs., aft. Lettsom, 50. Georges, William Payne, 50. Georgetown, 90. Germantown, 51. Goldsmith, O., quoted, 45. Graves, Thomas, 77. Gravesend, 4. " Green Air," 89. Green Island, 47, 88. Grim, Anthony, 77. Guana Island, 27, 31, 33, 75, 78. Gurley, Jonn, 88. Gurney, John, 81. Gurney, Joseph John, 61, 64, 65, 7°, 94-
Haddin, Joseph, 76 ill., 77. Haddon, Elizabeth, aft. Estaugh,
20, 98. Haddonfield, N. J., 20, 22. Haiti, 1.
Hamilton, General, 7. Harris family, 77. Haverford College, 16, 84, 86. Hay, President E. D., 94. Hodge family, 44, 100.
Hodge, , 67.
Hodge, Arthur, 52.
Hodge, Bezaliel, 44, 89.
Hodge, Sarah, aft. Pickering, and
Purcell, 44, 75, 89. Holme, Benjamin, 31. Honduras, 98. Hooton, Elizabeth, 4, 5. Hornbe, Thomas, 77. House, Mrs., 91. Humphreys family, 74, 77. Humphreys, Ann, form. Morris,
74, 91, 92. Humphreys, Rebecca, form.
Bishop, 73, 74. Humphreys, Richard, 62, 74, 91. Humphreys, Richard, Junr., 92. Humphreys, Sarah,/orm. Clark, 74. Humphreys, Sarah, form. Lake,
74, 77- Humphreys, Thomas, 27, 62, 73-
78, 83, 92. Humphreys, Thomas, Junr., 54,
62, 74. Hunt, Capt. John, 16, 19, (23), 28,
(37), (39), 74. 75, 84, 85, 95. Hunt, Mary, form. , aft.
Nottingham, (13), 16, 19, 28, 34,
35, 74, 75, 77, 84, 85.
Industry, ship, 4.
Ireland, 9, 27, 31, 47, 88, 96.
Isaacs, William R., 61.
Jackson, John, 65, 94.
Jamaica, 4, 5, 57, 98.
Jarvis, Leslie, and Mrs., 67, 68, 70.
Jefferson, Thomas, 58, 60, 91.
Jenkins, A. Sidney, 66.
John, ship, 12.
Johnson, Benjamin, 77.
Jolley, James, 47.
Jordan, Robert, 31, 87.
Jost Van Dykes, 14, 18, 21, 25, 31,
33-36, 47, 49, 68, 75, 77, 79, 82,
93. Jost Van Dykes, Little, 47, 50 *'//.,
88, 98.
Kendal, 79, 81. " keys," 1, 38, 47, 88. Kingston, Jamaica, 5. Kingston, Tortola, 94.
Lady Constance, ship, 67, 70.
Lake family, 33, 75, 77, 78.
Lake, Ann, 76 ill.
Lake, Elizabeth, 33, 76 ill., 77.
Lake, James, 31.
Lake, John, 76 ill., 77, 82.
Lake, Jonas, 27, 75, 77, 83.
Lake, Sarah, aft. Humphreys, 74,
75, 78. Lancaster, 7-9, 30, 43, 47, 58, 76,
78, 79, 88, 89. Lancaster, Mary, 29. Lancaster, Phebe, form. Wardell,
29. Lancaster, Thomas (3), 28, 29, 87. Lane, Mary, form. and Lett- som, 78, 89. Lane, Samuel, 36, 89. Latham, Dorcas, form. Powell, aft.
LiUie, 55. Latham, Rev. John (37), 55. Lawrence, John Scott, 78. Lawson, Robert, 78. Lawson, T., Mite into Treasury, 7. Lay, Benjamin, 51. Lear, Tobias, 90. Leeward Islands, 6, 19, 37, 94, 95,
99, 100. leprosy, 69. Lettsom family, 33, 44, chap, vii.,
75, 78, 100. Lettsom, Edward, 47, 78, 88, 98.
104
INDEX
Lettsom, Dr. J. C, chap, vii., 52,
53, 55* 57-59, 61, 63, 88, 90, 94,
97, 98. Lettsom, John, 75, 78. Lettsom, Margery, 75. Lettsom, Mary, aft. Lane, 35, 36,
76 *//., 78. Lettsom, Pickering, 50. Lillie, Dorcas, form. Powell and
Latham, 55, 98. Lillie, Thomas, 55, 57. Lime-trees, 26. Lindo, Capt. William, 47, 88. Liverpool, 48, 51, 88, 89. Livingston, Lord, 50. London, 7, 19, 51, 54-56, 89, 96. Long Island, 36, 53, 79, 82, 96. Long Look, 53, 64, 65. Longstreth, Thomas B., 65.
Maddix, Tabitha, 78.
Markes, Patience, 34.
Markes, Susanna, 34.
Martin, Jeremiah, 14, 17, 29, 30,
76 ill., 78 (86). Maryland, 29, 61, 96. Matthew, Gov. William, 19 (37),
(39), 84, ?85, 94, 95. Moravians, 66. Morris, Ann, aft. Humphreys, 74,
91, 92. Morris, Elizabeth M., 92. Morris, Lewis, 5. Morris, Samuel, 92. Morris, Thomas M., 92. Morton, Sir Mordaunt, 52. Mulloon, John, 78.
Nantucket, 16, 81, 85.
Nash, James, 78.
Neale, Ma.ry, form. Peisley, 83.
Neale, Samuel, 83.
Nevis, 4, 95.
New Bristol Hope, ship, 1 1 .
New England, 4, 59, 81.
New Jersey, 24.
New York, 64-66, 78, 81, 88, 89.
Newton, Cheshire, 79, 81.
Nicholas, Samuel, 28.
Nicholson, Captain, 82.
Nonparel, ship, 88.
Nottingham, Mary, form. Hunt, 28,
30, 35, 53, 74, 75, 77, 78, 82, 83. Nottingham, Samuel, 24, 25, 27,
28, 30, 35, 36, 53, 64, 65, 74,
75, 77, 78, 81-83, 99- Offley, Daniel, Junr., 56, 57, 80.
Oldham, Catharine, 92. Oxley, John, 29, 88. Oxley, Widow, 29.
Parke family, 75, 78.
Parke, James, 27, 31, 75, 78, 79.
Parke, Mary, form. Vanterpool, 75,
78, 79-
Parke [PTabitha], 27, 75. Parrish, John, 56. Peckover, Edmund, 5, 23, 29. Peebles, H., commissioner, 71, 93. Penketh School, 43, 48, 89. Penn, W., No Cross No Crown, 7. Pennsylvania, 3, 5, 28, 29, 54, 62,
96. Percival, Patience, aft. Strong, 75,
78. Peter Island, 93. Philadelphia, 5, 10, 11, 19, 20, 24,
25, 28-30, 55-60, 62, 65, 74,
79, 80, 86, 90.
Pickering, Abednego, 7-(io), 17. Pickering, ^Eneas, 69. Pickering, Dorcas, 12, 13, 15-17, 21, 23, 33, 34, 55, 75, 78, 84, 85. Pickering, Isaac (Fox Lease), 26,
43, 55, 89. Pickering, Isaac (Tortola), and
family, 26. Pickering, John : early life, 42. official position, 7, 10, 19,37,42,
46, 50. marriages, 75. convincement, 7, 10, 42. correspondence, 7, 10, 18, 19, 21,
30, 41, 82-84, 87. meetings at his house, 10, 15, 27,
74, 84. welcomed visitors, 12, 13, 21, 25,
84. peace principles, 8, 23, 46, 85. clerk of the Meeting, 32, 36. gifts to the Meeting, 17, 57, 69,
85.
slaves, 42, 51, 52, 69.
death (1768), 42, 43, 54.
mentioned, 26, 58, 62, 76 ill., 78, 81. Pickering, John, Junr., 28, 43, 44,
47, 75, 78, 79, 81-83, 88, 89. Pickering, Josiah, 43, 89. Pickering, Rebecca, form. Zeagers,
(58), 75, 78, 89. Pickering, Sarah, form. Hodge, aft.
Purcell, 44, 75, 89.
INDEX
105
Pickering, William, 78. Piggott, William, 5. Pleasant Valley, 61. Port Royal, 5. Porto Rico, 1, 9. Portsmouth, R.I., 82. Powe, George, 74-76 ill., 78. Powe, Rebecca, form. Everett, 34,
75, 78. Powell, Dorcas, form. , aft.
Latham and Lillie, 13, 16, 37,
55, 76 ill., 78 (84). Powell, Giles, 55. Prickly Pear, 3. privateering and piracy, 3, 4, 24,
38. Purcell family, 44, 100. Purcell, Captain, 7, 95. Purcell, James, 95. Purcell, John, 44, 95. Purcell, Sarah, form. Hodge and
Pickering, 44.
Rabset, Jasper, 65.
Rapsot, Lucas, 78.
Rawleigh, James, 74, 75, 78.
Rawlinson, Abraham, 47, 88.
Rawlinson, Hutton, 47, 88.
Reid, Irving & Co., 64.
Rest, The, motor-boat, 66.
Reynell, John, 5.
Reynolds, Mary, aft. Bishop, 75.
Richardson, Sarah, aft. Smith, 75.
Road Town (The Road), 2, 15, 18,
25-27, 32, 33, 39, 56, 65-67, 69,
70, 73, 74, 76, 77, 79, 87, 93, 94- Rodman, Walter, 87. Rosanna, 68. Rous, John, 5. Rous, Thomas, 5. Ruby, ship, 82. Rum Island, 3. Ryan family, 75, 78, 79. Ryan, Joseph, 27, 75, 76, ill., 78,
79, 82. Ryan, Rebecca, form. Timberman,
75, 79, 82. Ryan (?), Suz., 76 ill., 82.
Sage Mountain, 2, 100.
St. Christopher, 3.
St. Croix, 1, 26, 55-57, 80, 95, 97,
98. St. John, 1, 6, 93, 97,, St. Kitts, 79. St. Thomas, 1, 6, 12, 27, 53, 64-66,
70,7i,93,95,97»98.
St. Ursula, 1.
Salt Island, 93.
San Domingo, 1, 2.
Sandiford, Ralph, 51.
Sands, David, 24.
Sandy Island, 47, 88.
Sea Ranger, ship, 88.
Settle, 48.
Shelborne School, 43, 89.
Shute, Thomas, 79.
Sierra Leone, 58-60, 90.
Simpson, William, 4.
slavery, 7, 29, 31* 36» **> 42, 45,
46, 48, 50, chap, viii., 58-62, 63,
64, 65, 79, 89, 90, 91, 94, 95, 97- Smith family, 33, 76, 79.
Smith, , customs' officer, 66.
Smith, Ann, 33, 34, 76, 79. Smith, Benjamin, 34, 76. Smith, John, Diary, 28. Smith, Peter, 35, 75, 76, 79. Smith, Phoebe, form. Canby, aft.
Ely, 28. Smith, Robert, 28. Smith, Thomas, 34, 76, 79. Sombrero, 68, 93. Sopers Hole, 66. Spanishtown, 6, 95, 97. See Virgin
Gorda. Spikes, 24.
Stamper, Captain, 87. Stanton, Daniel, 24-28, 30. Stapleton, Colonel, 2. statistics, 6, 7, 46, 51, 52, 68, 93,
95- Stewart, Capt. Robert, 27. Story, Thomas, 5. Strong, William, 32, 35, 75, 76,
78, 79, 82, 83. Sutcliffe, Abraham, 48. Swarthmore, 90. Syng, Philip, 62.
Taine, Samuel, see Lane, Samuel. Thomas, Dorothy, 10, 33, 55, 76
ill., 79 (85). Thomas, Gov. George, 95. Thomas, William, 22, 25, 29, 30,
76, ill., 79, 88. Thomasson, Hon. Thomas, 89. Thompson, Gilbert, 41, 48, 82. Thornton family, 59, 89, 90. Thornton, Anna Maria, form.
Brodeau, 59, 91. Thornton, Dorcas, form. Zeagers,
(59), 76, 89. Thornton, Edward, 58.
io6
INDEX
Thornton, Jane and Mary, 89, 90. Thornton, William, 58, 59, 76, 79,
82, 83, 89. Thornton, Dr. William, 49, 50,
chap, x., 63, 80, 89, 94, 98, 100. Timberman, Rebecca, aft. Ryan,
75, 76, HI-, 79, 82. Tittley, Captain, and Mrs., 67, 68. Tortola :
civil government, 39, 42, 44, 94,
97-
climate and health, 32, 34, 45,
46, 59, 90, 93, 94- dimensions, 2, 88. drink-habit, 32, 46, 94. earthquakes, 45, 68. history, 2, 9, 38. hurricanes, 6, 45, 55, 56, 65, 68,
94, 99- Latham, Priest, arrival of (37),
55- name, 2. peace and war, 38, 39, 41, 85, 86,
95- population, 6, 46, 51, 68, 86, 93,
94. present condition, 70, 92, 93. resources and occupations, 16, 42, 45, 46, 53, 61, 64, 67, 68, 85, 88, 90, 95- scenery, 3, 67-69, 94. See slavery ; statistics. Trinidad, 98.
Truman, George, 61, 65, 70. Turnbull, Dr., 7, 9.
Ulverston, 58, 90. Underbill, Joseph, 79, 81.
Valentine, Benjamin E., and Ann
H., 92. Vanterpool, Mary, aft. Parke, 75,
76, 79- Vascraging family, 76, 79, 82. Verchild, Gov. James, 95. Virgin Gorda, 2, 6, 64, 65, 93, 95.
See Spanishtown. Virgin Islands, 1. 6, 12, 33, 39, 45,
60, 65, 66, 68, 88, 94, 95, 97-100. Virgin's Gangway, 3, 68. Virginia, 29, 60, 96.
Walker, Edward, 79, 81.
Walker, Simeon, 31.
Wardell, Phebe, aft. Lancaster, 29.
Waring, Jeremiah, 81.
Warrington, 48.
Washington, D.C., 60, 61, 90, 98.
Washington, George, 58, 60, 61, 90,
91. Westbury, L.I., 79, 81, 82. White Bay, 33, 77. Whittier, Abigail, 11. Whittier, John G., 11. Widders, Robert, 4. Williams, John, 74, 75. Wilmington, Del., 89. Windward Islands, 99. Woolman, John, 51. Woolrich, Thomas, 79, 81, 83. Wyley, Samuel, 11, 54, 55, 57» 79-
Zeagers, Dorcas, aft. Thornton
(58), 76, 79, 89. Zeagers, Rebecca, Junr., \aft.
Pickering (58), 75, 79, 82.
ffluetvationB
Map of Tortola and Surrounding Islands Frontispiece
From a " Survey of Virginia Islands," by George King, 1802.
Part of Road Town and Harbor - 2
From a modern photograph.
Letter from John Pickering to Isaac Brown - - 18 From the original in the collection of Lydia T. Morris, of Philadelphia.
Birthplace of Dr. Lettsom on Little Jost Van Dykes 50 From the Gentleman's Magazine Supplement, lxxxv. pt. ii. p.. 577.
East Front of the Capitol, Washington, D.C. - - 60
Fat Hog Bay -------- 66
Showing the graves of Thomas Chalkley, John Cadwallader, John Estaugh and Mary Hunt (marked with the figure 1). The foundations of the meeting- house show at the right. The figure 3 indicates Long Look, the home of Samuel and Mary Nottingham. This illustration is from a lithograph, which, in turn, was made from a drawing on the spot by George Truman, of Philadelphia, in 1840.
Street in Road Town ------ 70
With the Harbor in the distance. From a photograph taken in 19 12.
Wedding Certificate of Joseph Ryan and Rebecca
Timberman, 1743 76
From the original in the fireproof at 304 Arch Street, Philadelphia.
vii.
Note: In the original printing, the illustrations were placed facing the pages indicated above. In this reprint, they are placed after the Index.
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LETTER FROM JOHN PICKERING TO ISAAC BROWN
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WEDDING CERTIFICATE OF JOSEPH RYAN AND REBECCA TIMBERMAN, 1743
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