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OTHER VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES
EDITED BY RUFUS M. JONES.
STUDIES IN MYSTICAL RELIGION (190%. By RUFUS
M. JONES. J
BOEHME AND OTHER MYSTICAL INFLUENCES.
By RUFUS M. JONES. [/« Preparation.
THE BEGINNINGS OF QUAKERISM. By WILLIAM
CHARLES BRAITHWAITE. [/« Press.
THE PERIOD OF QUIETISM. By JOAN M. FRY.
[/« Preparation.
THE QUAKERS
IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
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TORONTO
THE QUAKERS
IN THE
AMERICAN COLONIES
BY
RUFUS M. JONES, M.A., D.Lrrr.
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, HAVERFORB COLLEGE, U.S.A.
ASSISTED BY
ISAAC SHARPLESS, D.Sc.
PRESIDENT OF HAVERFORD COLLEGE
AND
AMELIA M. GUMMERE
AUTHOR OF 'THE QUAKER— A STUDY IN COSTUME*
o>|
*-,
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1911
PREFACE
THE story of the Quaker invasion of the Colonies in the
New World has often been told in fragmentary fashion,
but no adequate study of the entire Quaker movement
in colonial times has yet been made from original sources,
free from partisan or sectarian prejudice and in historical
perspective. By far the most important history of
American Quakerism covering our period is Bowden's
History of Friends in America (London, vol. i. 1850,
vol. ii. 1854), but it is plainly written from the Quaker
point of view and does not furnish a critical investigation
of Quakerism and its work in the New World. Thomas's
History of the Society of Friends in America (written
originally for the American Church History Series, and
published separately in 1895) is an excellent piece of
work, done in an impartial and historical spirit, though too
brief to allow of much detail. Weeks's Southern Quakers
and Slavery (Baltimore, 1896) is scholarly and judicial,
and is the best work in existence for the section covered.
There have been many accounts written from the
anti-Quaker point of view, but they are for the most
part one-sided and coloured by prejudice, and they are
obviously lacking in penetration into the inner meaning
of the type of religion which they undertake to present.
Bancroft has given considerable space to the Quakers
in his History of the United States. His account is
sympathetic, but it is largely an abstract treatment of their
religious principles rather than a truly historical picture.
vi QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
This volume is an attempt to study historically and
critically the religious movement inaugurated in the New
World by the Quakers, a movement important both for
the history of the development of religion and for the
history of the American Colonies, and to present it not
only in its external setting but also in the light of its
inner meaning. It has been written as a contribution
toward the completion of a plan to write a full history of
the Quaker movement on the two continents, conceived
by my beloved friend, John Wilhelm Rowntree, and
interrupted by his death. No one can now accomplish
precisely what he was conceiving —
Ah ! who shall lift the wand of magic-power
And the lost clew regain ?
But a group of his friends have resolved that, as far as
possible, his work shall go forward, and we hope that
eventually the projected series may be brought to
completion.
I have been assisted in the present volume by Isaac
Sharpless, who has written the section on Pennsylvania,
and by Amelia M. Gummere, who has written the section
on New Jersey. I have received valuable suggestions
and help from William Charles Braithwaite, of Banbury,
England ; Norman Penney, of London ; Augustine Jones,
of Newton Highlands, Massachusetts ; Professor Allen
C. Thomas, of Haverford, Pennsylvania ; and John Cox,
jun., of New York City. I have, with permission, made
use of the map in Weeks's Southern Quakers and Slavery
in locating some of the places on my map of the southern
colonies. My wife has read the proofs and prepared the
Index, and has in many other ways assisted in my work
on this volume.
HAVERFORD, PENNSYLVANIA,
March 191 1.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION . xiii
BOOK I
THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 3
CHAPTER II
THE QUAKERS AT THE GATES ..... 26
45
CHAPTER IV
THE MARTYRS . . . ...... -. . ... . 63
CHAPTER V
THE KING'S MISSIVE . . ; ... . . . 90
viii QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAPTER VI
LATER EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND
CHAPTER VII
A NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION. .. . . .136
CHAPTER VIII
NEW ENGLAND QUAKERS IN POLITICS . . . .171
BOOK II
QUAKERISM IN THE COLONY OF NEW YORK
CHAPTER I
THE PLANTING OF QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK . .215
CHAPTER II
NEW YORK QUAKERISM — ITS MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES 242
BOOK III
THE QUAKERS IN THE SOUTHERN COLONIES
CHAPTER I
THE PLANTING OF QUAKERISM IN THE SOUTHERN COLONIES 265
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER II
PAGE
THE GROUP LIFE AND WORK OF SOUTHERN FRIENDS . 302
CHAPTER III
SOUTHERN QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE . . . -329
CHAPTER I
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE JERSEYS 357
CHAPTER II
MEETINGS AND SOCIAL LIFE . . . . .372
CHAPTER III
JOHN WOOLMAN : THE NEGROES . . . . . 391
CHAPTER IV
JOHN WOOLMAN : THE INDIANS . . . . .401
BOOK V
THE QUAKERS IN PENNSYLVANIA
CHAPTER I
THE SETTLEMENT . . .^ . . . .417
x QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAPTER II
1 A..h
WILLIAM PENN IN PENNSYLVANIA . . ' . .423
CHAPTER III
EARLY DAYS — THE KEITH CONTROVERSY . . 437
CHAPTER IV
GOVERNMENT . ; . . . . 459
CHAPTER V
THE FRIENDS AS POLITICIANS . ... . .475
CHAPTER VI
FRIENDS AND THE INDIANS 495
CHAPTER VII
FRIENDS AND SLAVERY . 509
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 522
CHAPTER IX
THE FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION . . . . .556
INDEX . . -. • 581
MAPS
(At end of Volume)
I. MAP OF QUAKER LOCALITIES IN EASTERN NEW YORK.
II. A MAP OF QUAKER LOCALITIES IN THE SOUTHERN
COLONIES.
III. A MAP OF THE PHILADELPHIA YEARLY MEETING, 1838.
IV. A MAP OF THE YEARLY MEETING OF FRIENDS FOR NEW
ENGLAND, A.D. 1833.
"THE WORLD OF THE WORLD"
Be of good cheer, brave spirit ; steadfastly
Serve that low whisper thou hast served ; for know,
God hath a select family of sons
Now scattered wide thro' earth and each alone,
Who are thy spiritual kindred, and each one,
By constant service to that inward law,
Is weaving the sublime proportions
Of a true monarch's soul. Beauty and strength,
The riches of a spotless memory,
The eloquence of truth, the wisdom got
By searching of a clear and loving eye
That seeth as God seeth. These are their gifts,
And Time, who keeps God's word, brings on the day
To seal the marriage of these minds with thine,
Thine everlasting lovers. Ye shall be
The salt of all the elements, world of the world.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
xii
INTRODUCTION
AMERICAN Quakerism is closely bound up in origin and
history with the wider religious movement which had its
rise in the English Commonwealth, under the leadership
of George Fox.1 This type of religion, which took root
in the American Colonies in 1657, and which grew to be
a significant and far-reaching influence in at least ten
Colonies, had already for ten years been powerfully stirring
the middle classes, and had rapidly gathered numbers in
the English counties. When the volunteers went forth
for " the mighty work in the nations beyond the seas," as
they expressed their mission, they were the representatives
of an expanding body of believers at home, the executives
of a matured policy of spiritual conquest, and they went
forth to their " hardships and hazards " with an organised
financial support behind them.2 They felt, as their own
testimony plainly shows, that they were not solitary
adventurers, but that God was pushing them out to be
the bearers of a new and mighty word of Life which was
to remake the world, and that the whole group behind
1 The history of the rise of Quakerism has been written for this series by
William Charles Braithwaite in the volume The Beginnings of Quakerism.
3 At a great General Meeting held at Scalehouse, near Skipton, in England,
in 1658, an Epistle was issued which called for funds to push the work in the
Western world. The following extract indicates the spirit of the document :
" Having heard of the great things done by the mighty power of God in many
nations beyond the seas, whither He hath called forth many of our dear brethren
and sisters to preach the everlasting gospel . . . our bowels yearn for them
and our hearts are filled with tender love to those precious ones of God who so
freely have given up for the Seed's sake their friends, their near relations, their
country and worldly estates, yea and their lives also. We, therefore, with one
consent freely and liberally offer up our earthly substance, according as God
hath blessed every one — to be speedily sent up to London as a freewill offering
for the Seed's sake." (The MS. of this Epistle is in the Library at Devonshire
House, London, in Portfolio, 16-1.)
xiv QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
them was in some sense embodied in them. Throughout
all the years during which the campaign of spiritual
conquest was being pushed forward, the entire Society in
England was pledged to the task of carrying its " truth "
into the life of the New World, and even as early as 1 660
George Fox was planning for the founding of a Colony in
America, where Quakers could try their faith and work
out their ideals unmolested.1 A study of Fox's printed
Epistles will convince any one that the " Seed in America "
was always prominent in his thought and in his plans.2
In fact no other religious body in the Old World more
completely identified itself with the fortunes of its apostles
in the New World than did the Quakers, then in the youth
and vigour of their career.
Throughout the entire period covered by this history
— 1656 to 1780 — Quakerism was an expanding force in
the Colonies, and there were times within this period
when it seemed destined to become one of the foremost
religious factors in the life and development of America.
It is clearly evident from their own writings that at the
opening of the eighteenth century the Quaker leaders
expected to make their type of religion prevail on the
Western continent. They believed, in fact, that their
" Principle " was universally true and would make its way
through the race, and that their experiment was only the
beginning of a world - religion of the Spirit. The New
World seemed to them a providential field to be won for
their truth. It was in the New World alone that favour
able opportunities offered in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries for the application of Quaker ideals to public
life, and the opportunities were quickly seized. In Great
Britain there were insuperable bars which kept Quakers
out of public service to the state and forced them to
adopt a life apart from the main currents. One famous
Quaker, John Archdale, who took a prominent part in
the making of three American Colonies — Maine, North
Carolina and South Carolina — was elected to the English
1 Letter of Josiah Coale to George Fox from Maryland, January 1661.
A. R. Barclay CoL of MSS. in Devonshire House, No. 53.
a Fox's Epistles (first ed. 1698 ; American ed. 1831, 2 vols. ).
INTRODUCTION xv
Parliament in 1698, but his refusal to take an oath cost
him his seat, and ended all attempts on the part of
Quakers to enter the field of politics. In America the
situation was quite different. In the Puritan Colonies
of New England, Quakers were, of course, without the
privileges of franchise or office -holding, and in Episco
palian Colonies like Virginia, where uniformity was insisted
upon, the way to influence in the government was tightly
closed to them ; but in Rhode Island the only obstacle to
position in Government affairs which the Quakers met
was the difficulty of bearing responsibility for war-
preparation. In that Colony for more than a hundred
years Quakers were continually in office, and for thirty-
six terms the Governorship of the colony was occupied
by members of the Society. In Pennsylvania they had
one of the largest and most influential Colonies of the
New World in their own hands. They came into possession
of West Jersey in 1674, and five years later East Jersey
also passed into their hands, so that they had the govern
mental control of New Jersey until it became a royal
Colony.
Until 1701 they were the only organised religious
denomination in North Carolina, and the administration
of the Quaker, John Archdale, profoundly shaped the
history of both Carolinas. Naturally Quakers in the Old
World looked to the New as a land of promise, and no
pains were spared to spread the " Seed " in the favourable
regions along the Atlantic coast, so that by the middle
of the eighteenth century there were more Quakers in
the Western hemisphere than in Great Britain. They
formed half the population of Newport in 1700 and
for many years after, and down to the middle of the
eighteenth century they were a majority of the popula
tion of the South Narragansett shore of Rhode Island,
now Washington County. There were at this period
three thousand Quakers in the southern section of
Massachusetts, once the territory of the Pilgrim Fathers.
About one-third of the inhabitants in the Piscataqua
region of Maine and New Hampshire were Quakers.
xvi QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Lynn, Salem, Newbury, and Hampton had large Meetings,
and many of the inland rural districts of Massachusetts
and Rhode Island were predominantly Quaker. They
formed a large proportion of the Long Island towns
and the towns of Westchester County on the mainland,
and by the middle of the century they constituted an
influential body in New York City. There were not
less than twenty-five thousand Quakers in Pennsylvania
before the end of our period, and probably not far from
six thousand in New Jersey. There were by official
figures three thousand in Maryland, probably four or
five thousand in Virginia, and about the same number in
the Carolinas. They were thrifty, prosperous, and quiet
in their modes of life, but contributing their share of the
hard labour which turned the dense forests into flourishing
fields, and their share also of those subtler formative
forces which prepared the way in the wilderness for a
great national life, then hardly dreamed of. It is no
doubt a home-spun narrative, but history is no longer
aristocratic. It does not confine its purview to selected
heroes and purple-tinted events. It has become interested
in the common man and in plain every-day happenings,
and this story, though modest, is a contribution to the
real life of America.
The extent of the Quaker influence in the political
life of the Colonies has not been generally realised. The
" holy experiment " of Penn had striking and dramatic
features which have always impressed the imagination,
but the quieter work of New England and Carolina
Quakers has received much less notice and has waited
long for a historian. But while emphasising this neglected
field of Quaker activity, we must not lose our perspective
and balance. The Quakers' supreme passion was the
cultivation of inward religion and an outward life con
sistent with the vision of their souls. " Experiments in
government " whether successful or unsuccessful, whether
wise or unwise, were never their primary aim. Beneath
these ventures, there always existed a deeper purpose —
to make a fresh experiment in spiritual religion — as the
INTRODUCTION xvii
living pulse of all Quaker aspiration, and by this central
aim the movement must be finally estimated and judged.
These American Quakers of the period here studied
believed, with a white-hot intensity, that they had dis
covered, or rediscovered, a new spiritual Principle which
they thought was destined to revolutionise life, society,
civil government, and religion. The Principle (and they
always spelled it with a capital P) which they claimed to
have discovered was the presence of a Divine Light in
man, a radiance from the central Light of the spiritual
universe, penetrating the deeps of every soul, which if
responded to, obeyed, and accepted as a guiding star,
would lead into all truth and into all kinds of truth.
They thought that they had found a way to the direct
discovery of the Will of God and that they could thereby
put the Kingdom of God into actual operation here in
the world. The whole momentous issue of life, they
insisted, is settled by personal obedience or disobedience
to the inward Divine revelation. The wisdom of the
infinite God is within reach of the feeblest human spirit ;
the will of the Eternal is voiced in the soul of every
man ; it is life to hear and obey ; it is death to follow
other voices. This underlying conception forms the
spring and motive of all the distinctive activities of the
colonial Quakers. They risked everything they had on
the truth of this Principle, and they must be judged by
the way in which they worked out their experiment in
religion. They were champions of causes which seemed
new and dangerous to those who heard them, but behind
all their propaganda there was one live central faith
from which everything radiated — the faith that God
speaks directly to the human spirit, and that religion,
to be true and genuine, must be a reality of first-hand
experience.
There have been many individuals in the Christian
Church who have been exponents of this mystical idea
that God manifests Himself inwardly to the soul of man
and that His real presence can be directly, immediately,
experienced. The testimony of such mystics has pro-
xviii QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
foundly interested our generation and their experiences
have received searching psychological examination at the
hands of experts.1 The novel and interesting thing about
this Quaker experiment is that it furnishes an opportunity
to study inward mystical religion embodied in a group
and worked out through a long span of historical develop
ment. We shall here see the intense personal faith of one
or a few fusing an entire group and creating an atmo
sphere, a climate, into which children were born and
through which they formed their lives ; we shall be able
to study the effect of the cooling processes of time on
this faith so intense at its origin ; we shall discover how
this startlingly bold Principle met the slow siftings and
testings of history ; and we shall find out how any merely
inward and mystical facts must be supplemented and
corrected by the wider concrete and objective experience
of the race.
It is true, no doubt, that religion is in the last
analysis a personal matter, but it is also true that nobody
cut apart from social interests and isolated from the
purposes and strivings of a group of fellows could become
a person at all, or could exhibit what we mean by religion.
And, therefore, while we go to biography for our most
definite accounts of religious experience, it is through the
unfolding of history that we can trace out the full signi
ficance of a first-hand faith like the one here in question,
and only in the vast laboratory of history, where every
hypothesis must submit to a stern test, can it be fairly
verified or transcended. The following chapters as they
unfold will present the Quaker Principle in sufficient
detail, will exhibit it in sharp collision with other views,
and will show its points of strength and weakness ; but a
few clues indicated here in the Introduction will perhaps
help the reader to find his way more easily and more
intelligently.
1 James, Varieties of Religious Experience ; Coe, Spiritual Life ; Granger,
The Soul of a Christian; Pratt, The Psychology of Religious Belief; Ames,
The Psychology of Religious Experience ; Delacroix, Les Grands Mystiques.
Chretiens ; Inge, Christian Mysticism ; Von Hiigel, The Mystical Element in
Religion ; Evelyn Underbill, Mysticism ; Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion.
INTRODUCTION xix
i. One point which this volume will clearly settle is
the fact that there existed in the Colonies, before the
arrival of the Quaker missionaries, a large number of
persons, in some instances more or less defined groups of
persons, who were seeking after a freer and more inward
type of religion than that which prevailed in any of the
established Churches.
The period of the English Commonwealth witnessed
an extraordinary revival of faith in man's power to dis
cover the inward way to God, and mystical sects, some
of them wise and sane, some of them foolish and fanatical,
swarmed almost faster than they could be named. These
mystical sectaries had one idea in common : they believed
that God was in man and that revelation was not closed.
They were waiting for the dawn of a fresh Light from
heaven.1 Wherever English Colonists of this period
went these sectaries went too. They were a constant
annoyance to New England Puritans, to Dutch Calvinists,
and to Virginia Churchmen. They generally gathered
kindred spirits around them and quietly — or sometimes
noisily — propagated their mystical faith. They exalted
personal experience, direct intercourse with God, and so
put much less stress than their neighbours did upon the
forms and doctrines which had come to be regarded
as essential elements of a sound and stable faith. This
was the prepared soil in which Quakerism spread at its
first appearing, and without which the efforts of the
propagators, however valiant, would almost certainly
have been futile. The Quaker missionaries simply
gave positive direction to tendencies already powerfully
underway. They brought to clear focus ideas which
were before vague and indefinite, and they fused into
white heat spirits that were feeling after and dimly
seeking what they now heard in their own tongue.
The first " Quaker Churches " in America were formed
out of this sort of material ; and so too were many of
the Meetings which came into being at later periods of
expansion.
1 See chapters xiv. -xx. of my Studies in Mystical Religion.
xx QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
2. One of the first tasks which confronts the historian
who proposes to deal with the religious life of the
Colonies — especially of the New England Colonies — is
to understand and fairly estimate the collision between
the Puritans and the Quakers. In many respects they
were both the product of a common movement, the
spiritual offspring of the same epoch. They both
possessed a passion for righteousness — a moral earnestness
— that hardly has a historical parallel except in the
great Hebrew prophets. They both took a very pro
nounced stand against " natural pleasures," enjoyments of
" the world " and of " the flesh," in fact against actions
of any kind along the line of least resistance. They were
both opposed to fashions and customs which fostered, in
any way, looseness of life, or which ministered, in any
degree, to personal pride and selfishness. In short, they
were both " puritan," in the ancient sense of the word, in
their moral basis and in their conception of social
proprieties. They both hated tyranny with an intense
hatred, though they took very different ways of destroying
it ; and they both abhorred sacerdotalism in religion,
though they drew the line where sacerdotalism began at
very different points.
But if they were allied in spirit in some common
elemental aspects ; they were nevertheless exponents of
very antagonistic types of religion which, seen from the
different angles of vision and perspective, were absolutely
irreconcilable, and it was still the fashion then to count
it sin to be weak in infallibility. Our generation is so
open-minded and hospitable ; so weaned of the taste of
finality-doctrines, that we look almost with amazement at
these exponents of the fiery positive ; these tournaments
to settle which " infallible truth " really was infallible.
We must, however, always bear in mind that religious
indifference is a distinctly modern trait. The testimony
of the Rev. Mr. Ward of Ipswich, Massachusetts, in
1645, might be paralleled in almost any ecclesiastical
writing of that period : " It is said that men ought to
have liberty of conscience and that it is persecution to
INTRODUCTION xxi
debar them of it. I can rather stand amazed than reply
to this. It is an astonishment that the brains of a man
should be parboiled in such impious ignorance." John
Callender, writing of the freedom established in the little
Colony on the island of Rhode Island says with much
truth : " In reality the true Grounds of Liberty of
Conscience were not then [1637] known, or embraced
by any Sect or Party of Christians ; all parties seemed
to think that as they only were in possession of the
Truth, so they alone had a right to restrain and crush
all other opinions, which they respectively called Error
and Heresy, where they were the most numerous and
powerful." *
Here in the same field were two exponents of the
" fiery positive," both profoundly, sincerely conscious of
the infallible truth of their convictions, and with their
lives staked upon divergent and irreconcilable conceptions
of Divine revelation. For the Puritan, revelation was a
miraculous projection of God's Word and Will from the
supernatural world into this world. This " miraculous
projection " had been made only in a distinct " dispensa
tion," through a limited number of Divinely chosen,
specially prepared " instruments," who received and
transmitted the pure Word of God. When the "dis
pensation " ended, revelation came to a definite close.
No word more could be added, as also none could be
subtracted. All spiritual truth for the race for all ages
was now unveiled ; the only legitimate function which
the man of God could henceforth exercise was that of
interpretation. He could declare what the Word of God
meant and how it was to be applied to the complicated
affairs of human society. Only a specialist in theology
could, from the nature of the case, be a minister under
this system. The minister thus became invested with an
extraordinary dignity and possessed of an influence quite
sui generis.
For the Quaker, revelation was confined to no " dis
pensation " — it had never been closed. If any period
1 John Callender's Historical Discourse (Boston, 1739).
xxii QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
was peculiarly " the dispensation of the Holy Spirit," the
Quaker believed that it was the present in which he was
living. Instead of limiting the revelation of the Word
of God to a few miraculous " instruments," who had
lived in a remote " dispensation," he insisted that God
enlightens every soul that comes into the world, communes
by His Holy Spirit with all men everywhere, illuminates
the conscience with a clear sense of the right and the
wrong course in moral issues, and reveals His Will in
definite and concrete matters to those who are sensitive
recipients of it. The true minister, for the Quaker of
that period, was a prophet who spoke under a moving
and by a power beyond his human powers, and so was,
in fresh and living ways, a revealer of present truth,
and not a mere interpreter of a past revelation. The
Quaker " meeting " was, in theory at least, a continuation
of Pentecost — an occasion for the free blowing of the
Spirit of God on men. It was plainly impossible in the
seventeenth century for those two types of Christianity
to live peaceably side by side. A tragic collision was
inevitable.
3. There is another problem in Quaker history no
less urgent than the problem of collision with divergent
conceptions of truth, and that is the strange fact that a
movement so full of vitality and power at its origin
ceased to expand with the expanding life of America.
So long as the " tragic collisions " lasted, the Quakers
flourished and seemed sure of a significant future in the
unfolding spiritual life of America ; as soon as they were
free and unopposed there occurred a slowing-down and a
loss of dynamic impact on the world. No treatment
of colonial Quakerism can be adequate which fails to
face this somewhat depressing fact, for the historian who
presents the assets and achievements of a movement is
under obligation to deal squarely as well with its liabilities,
weaknesses, and failures.
The thing which above everything else doomed the
movement to a limited and subordinate r61e was the
early adoption of the ideal that Quakers were to form
INTRODUCTION xxiii
a "peculiar people." In the creative stage of the
movement the leaders were profoundly conscious that
they had discovered a universal truth which was to
permeate humanity, and form, by its inherent demonstra
tion and power, a World-Church — the Church of the
living God. It was in that faith and in the inspiration
of that great idea that the pioneer missionaries went
forth. Then gradually, at first unconsciously, in the face
of a very stubborn world that not only was not persuaded,
but further went positively to work to suppress the
alleged "fresh revelation," the movement underwent a
radical change of ideal. The aim slowly narrowed down
to the formation of a " spiritual remnant," set apart to
guard and preserve " the truth " in the midst of a crooked
and perverse generation that would not see and believe.
The world-vision faded out, and the attention focused on
" Quakerism " as an end-in-itself. The transformation
which occurred in this case has many striking parallels
in the history of other spiritual experiments. The
living idea organises a definite Society for the propaga
tion of it, and lo, the Society unconsciously smothers
the original idea and becomes absorbed in itself! It
is a very ancient tragedy, and that tragedy happened
again here in this movement. The transformation is
written large on the Records of the meetings and in
the Journals of the leaders. " Truth " soon came to be
a definite, static thing. No creed was made and no
declaration of faith was adopted, but a well-defined body
of Quaker conceptions soon came into shape, and came
also into habitual use. Not only did the ideas of the
Society crystallise into static concepts of truth, the form
of worship too became fixed and well-nigh unalterable.
There was no " programme " of service and no positive
prearrangement, but it was soon settled that silence was
the essential " form " for true worship, and that spiritual
ministry must be spontaneous, unpremeditated, and of
the " prophetic " type.
The primitive aim at simplicity and the desire to
escape from slavery to fashion underwent a corresponding
xxiv QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
change and dropped to the easy substitute of a fixed
form of dress and speech, which soon became itself a
kind of slavery. A definite attitude toward music and
art and " diversions " in general was adopted so that
individuals might be relieved of the difficulty, and
incidentally of the danger, of personal decision. Marriage
with " the world's people " was made as difficult as it
possibly could be made. In short, a Quaker became a
well-marked and definitely-labelled individual — quite as
rigidly set as any of the " religious orders " of Church
history and quite as bent on preserving the peculiar
type. Men spent their precious lives, not in propagating
the living principles of spiritual religion in the great
life of the world, but in perfecting and transmitting a
" system " within the circle of the Society, and the heart
burnings and tragedies which mark the lives of the
consecrated men and women who, in these days, bore
the ark, were too often concerned with the secondary
rather than with the primary things of spiritual warfare.
The martyrdoms for the world-cause were heroic, dramatic,
and of universal interest ; these later travails and tragedies
often seem petty, trivial, and unnecessary, and they make
a very limited appeal to human interest.
The movement was hampered from the start, and in
every stage of its history during the period of this volume
by the imperfect conception of the inward Light, and of
the whole relation between the Divine and the human,
which was consciously or unconsciously adopted. This
was perhaps inevitable, as every movement is necessarily
more or less bound up with the prevailing ideas, the
intellectual climate, of the age in which it takes its
rise. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries
a dualistic universe was taken for granted. There was a
sharp distinction, a wide chasm, between the " natural "
and the " supernatural." The urgent question with every
body was — not how the entire universe from material husk
to spiritual core could be unified and comprehended as an
organic whole, but how the chasm which sundered the
two worlds could be miraculously bridged. It is not our
INTRODUCTION xxv
problem to-day, but it was the one the Quaker was facing.
His opponents said that the chasm was bridged by a
miraculous communication of the Word of God in a
definite and finished Revelation. He said that it was
bridged by the communication of a supernatural Light
given to each soul. The trouble was that he never could
succeed in bringing into unity the two things assumed to
be sundered. On the one hand there was the " mere
man," whom he assumed, as everybody else did, to be, in
his natural condition, non-spiritual and incapable of doing
anything toward his own salvation ; and on the other a
Divine Light, or Seed of God, projected into this " natural
man " as the illuminating, saving, and revealing Principle
in him. The Light was distinctly conceived as something
supernatural and foreign to man as man — something
added to him as a gift.
With this basal conception for his working theory, the
Quaker naturally and logically looked upon the true
minister as a passive and oracular "instrument" of the
Holy Spirit. His message, in so far as it was " spiritual,"
was believed to come " through him and from beyond
him." He was not a teacher or an interpreter, he was a
" revealer " through whom Divine truth was " opened."
The direct result of such a view, of course, was that human
powers were lightly esteemed and quite distrusted. Instead
of having a principle which brought the finite being, with
all his potential powers, into organic union with the self-
revealing, co-operating God, thus producing a spiritual,
developing, autonomous personality, with an incentive to
expand all its capacities ; he had a fundamental con
ception which tended toward a distrust and suppression
of the native powers. Spiritual messages, instead of
being thought of as the contribution which a person
himself makes when he is raised to his highest and
best by co-operation with the Divine Spirit in whom his
finite life is rooted, were thought of as messages oracu
larly " given " to him — his part being simply that of a
transmitter.
The human element in man's spiritual activities was
xxvi QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
discounted and almost eliminated in order to heighten the
Divine aspect, as in an earlier theology the human element
in Christ had been suppressed to exalt His divinity.
That this unpsychological theory worked out badly in
practice there can be no question in the mind of anybody
who studies the movement historically ; but it only means
that they were unsuccessful and unhappy in their way of
formulating their theory of Divine and human intercourse.
What they wanted to say was that God and men were in
direct correspondence, and that man at his best could lay
hold of life and light and wisdom and truth which ordin
arily transcends his narrow finite self. Of such heightened
correspondence there is plenty of evidence. The only
pity is that their wrongly -formulated theory so often
stood in their way and hampered them and prevented
them from a normal use of all their capacities.
Their failure to appreciate the importance of the fullest
expansion of human personality by education is the
primary cause of their larger failure to win the command
ing place in American civilisation of which their early
history gave promise. Their central Principle, properly
understood, called for a fearless education, for there is no
safety in individualism, in personal responsibility, or in
democracy, whether in civil or religious matters, unless
every individual is given a chance to correct his narrow
individualism in the light of the experience of larger
groups of men. If a man is to be called upon to follow
" his Light," he must be helped to correct his subjective
seemings by the gathered objective wisdom of the race, as
expressed in scientific truth, in historical knowledge, in
established institutions, and in the sifted literature of the
world. The Quaker ideal of ministry, too, calls for a
broad and expansive education even more than does that
of any other religious body. If the particular sermon is
not to be definitely prepared, then the person who is to
minister must himself be prepared. If he is to avoid the
repetition of his own petty notions and commonplace
thoughts he must form a richer and more comprehensive
experience from which to draw,
INTRODUCTION xxvii
For every fiery prophet in old times,
And all the sacred madness of the bard,
When God made music thro' him, could but speak
His music by the framework and the chord.1
George Fox had moments of insight into the import
ance of this objective element, and in a great sentence he
urged the founding of educational institutions for teaching
" everything civil and useful in creation " ; but institutions
of such scope unfortunately did not get founded. If there
could have been established, in the northern, central, and
southern sections of the Atlantic coast line, institutions
adapted to the right education of Quaker youth, as Har
vard and Yale were to the education of the Puritan youth,
there would be quite another story to tell. As the problem
was worked out, no adequate education for Quaker youth
was available. They soon found themselves largely cut
off from the great currents of culture, and they thus missed
the personal enlargement which comes when one is forced
to make his own ideals fit into larger systems of thought,
and is compelled to reshape them in the light of facts.
The absence of constructive leaders, the later tendency to
withdraw from civic tasks, the relaxing of the idea of
reshaping the world, which this history reveals, were due,
in the main, to the lack of expansive education. The
beautiful old-fashioned home passed on to the child who
came into it the stock of truth and the definite ideals which
were alive in it ; it fed the growing mind with the litera
ture which its people had produced, and the Meetings
furnished a spiritual climate that was sweet and whole
some to breathe, but there was nothing to lift the youth
up to a sight of new horizons. He was more or less
doomed to the level of the past. The denominations that
were training the fittest of their sons to become thinkers
and leaders were sure sooner or later to win the birthright
and to take away the blessing from the Quakers.
With the Revolutionary War there came a great
awakening, which showed itself most definitely in a
determination to provide larger opportunities for Quaker
1 Tennyson's " Holy Grail."
xxviii QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
education. Steps were taken in each section of the
country to provide for the education of the new genera
tion. It was a fortunate awakening and it has led to great
results, but it came too late to enable the Quakers to
achieve the place in the civilisation of the Western world
which their early history prognosticated. They were
already being left behind, and were already accepting
the view that they were to be a small and isolated
sect — " a remnant " of God's people. The fateful years
which were selecting the dominating religious forces of
America were the years of colonial development, and
during those eventful years the Quakers were not awake
to the chance that was going by. Then, too, when the
awakening did come, there was still a long period during
which contracted ideals of education prevailed. Nobody
seemed able to get beyond the narrow plan of " guarded
education," which is not, in the true sense of the word,
education at all. It is still only the transmission of
certain well-defined and " safe " ideas and tends to pro
duce uncreative and unconstructive minds. It is a well-
meant plan for the propagation of an existing body of
ideas, but it does not and cannot make large and force
ful leaders and creators of fresh ideals.1 The whole
trend of the century before had been toward the pre
servation of a definite type and had fostered the timid
attitude. It was not to be expected, when the awakening
came, that there would be men ready for the bold ex
periment of a broad and fearless education which set
the youth free, with open mind, to study " everything
civil iand useful in creation," and which left him to make
his own selection of what was to be truth for him. The
Quaker has slowly found the road to that genuine type
of education, but he has come to it late. Whether he
now has recovering power enough to repair the damages
of the past and can still realise the destiny which seemed
his in the last half of the seventeenth century, is not
a question to be answered here, but it is a fact that his
1 "Guarded" is often used in another sense, namely, that young and tender
children, while being educated, are to be shielded from immoral influences, which
is, of course, highly commendable.
INTRODUCTION xxix
failure to provide for an adequate education during the
formative years lies at the base of his larger failure to
arrived
4. In one particular respect the colonial Quakers
made a very important contribution to religion — they
produced saints, and these saints were and remain Ihe
finest and most fragrant bloom of American Quakerism.
Sainte-Beuve has given, in his Port Royal, a penetrat
ing account of persons who have been transformed into
saintly life through the reception of Divine grace. " Such
souls," he says, " arrive at a certain fixed and invincible
state, a state which is genuinely heroic, and from out
of which the greatest deeds are performed. . . . They
have an inner state which before all things is one of
love and humility, of infinite confidence in God, and of
severity to themselves, accompanied with tenderness for
others." This is an accurate account of the colonial
Quaker saint — invincibly fixed in purpose, genuinely
heroic, ready for great deeds, possessed of infinite con
fidence in God, and withal tender in love and humility.
I am not sure that our busy and commercial age would
call these saints " efficient " — they were not trained and
equipped as modern social workers are — but they were
triumphantly beautiful spirits, and the world still needs
beautiful lives as much as it needs " efficient " ones, and
the beautiful life in the long run is dynamic and does
inherit the earth.2
These rare and beautiful souls, like great artistic
creations of beauty, are not capable of explanation in
utilitarian terms, nor can their origin be traced in terms
of cause and effect, but it can safely be said that they
never come except among people consecrated to the
Invisible Church. It requires a pure and fervid devotion
to the Pattern in the mount, a loyalty to the holy
Jerusalem — the Urbs Sion mystica — to fashion a Christian
1 It must not be concluded because Quakerism did not flourish under these
conditions and limitations that therefore its spiritual ideal has broken down. On
the contrary, it has hardly yet been given an adequate trial.
2 John Woolman is the consummate flower of the type I have in mind. It
was a saying of his that ' ' some glances of real beauty may be seen in their faces
who dwell in true meekness."
xxx QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
saint, whether Catholic or Quaker. No one can be
wholly absorbed in the affairs of an actual earthly church
without being marred by the politics of it, and without
becoming small and narrow and provincial by reason of
the limitations of locality and temporal climate. The
saint belongs to an actual church, to be sure, loves it
and serves it, but he keeps his soul set on the vision of
the Church Invisible in which the saints of all ages are
members with him, and in that vision he lives.
There must also be a loosening of the hold on " the
world " to prepare a saint of this type. There must at
least be no rivalry to disturb the concentration of soul
on eternal Realities. The very rigour of renunciation, the
stern demands of a religion which cuts its adherents off
from primrose paths of life, seem almost essential to the
creation of this kind of saintliness. It is only by strict
parallelism with celestial currents, only by drawing on
invisible and inexhaustible resources of Grace, only by
the cultivation of a finer spiritual perception than most
possess that inward grace and central calm are achieved ;
only by stillness and communion that spiritual poise and
power are won. There were, in the days of which I am
writing, many Friends who had found the secret inner
way into a real Holy of Holies. They had learned how
to live from within outward, how to be refreshed with
inward bubblings, how to walk their hard straight path
with shining faces, though they wist not their faces did
shine. The Quakers have no " calendar," no bead roll,
and they have always been shy and cautious even of the
word "saint," but almost every Meeting from Maine to
South Carolina had during the period under review some
persons who through help from Above refined and sub
limated their nature and all unconsciously grew sweet
and fragrant with the odour of saintly life.
5. One other positive contribution which they made
to genuine spiritual religion remains to be catalogued —
their contribution to the spread of lay-religion, by which
I mean a form of religion dissociated from ecclesiasticism,
and penetrating the life and activities of ordinary men.
INTRODUCTION xxxi
The real power of Quakerism lay in the quality of life
produced in the rank and file of the membership. This
history is weak, no doubt, in biographies of luminous
leaders who rose far above the group and stood out as
distinct peaks. Colonial Quakerism would have proved
a barren field for a Carlyle, who assumed that history is
the biography of heroes, raised by their genius head and
shoulders above the level of their contemporaries. The
real glory of this movement was the " levelling up " of
an entire people. Farmers, with hands made rough by
the plough-handle, in hundreds of rural localities not only
preached messages of spiritual power on meeting -days,
but, what is more to the point, lived daily lives of radiant
goodness in simple neighbourhood service. Women who
had slight chances for culture, and who had to do the
hard work of pioneer housewifery, by some subtle
spiritual alchemy, were transformed into a virile saint
hood which made its power felt both in the Sunday
gathering and in the unordained care of souls through
out the community. It was a real experiment in the
" priesthood of believers," and it was an incipient stage
of what has become one of the most powerful spiritualis
ing forces in our country — the unordained lay ministry
of a vast multitude of men and women who have attacked
every form of entrenched evil, and who, in city and
country, are taking up the " cure of souls " with insight
and efficiency.
It will be obvious to the reader that this book is not
written from the point of view of the antiquarian. The
historical facts have been carefully gathered, sifted, and
verified, and they are as accurate as research could make
them, but the central interest from first to last has been
to discover how a group of men and women wrought
out their souls' faith in an earlier century. They were
persons who believed that within the deeps of themselves
they touched the Infinite, that within their own spirits
they could hear the living word of the Eternal. They
believed this mighty thing, and they tried to make their
belief real in life and word and deed. It is worth while
xxxii QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
perhaps even in this busy age to stop amid the din of
commercial activity to see how plain people, raised to
a kind of grandeur by their faith, tried to bring to the
world once again a religion of life, and endeavoured to
show that God is, as of old, an Immanuel God — with us
and in us, the Life of our lives.
BOOK I
THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND
B
CHAPTER I
A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT
THE beginnings of our American colonies are, for the
most part, inextricably bound up with the history of the
differentiation and development of great religious move
ments in England and on the continent of Europe. The
tiny commonwealths, brought hither in sailing vessels of
the seventeenth century, were begotten in religious faith,
and were formed and shaped by zealous men to whom
some peculiar type of religion was dearer than country,
more precious even than life itself. The story of colonial
America can no more be told with religion left out than
it could be told with the economic aspects of soil and
forests and food-stuffs omitted, or with the fact of Indian
neighbours neglected. As it was religion that was in
most cases the creative spring which pushed these
colonists to sea in their venturous ships, so too it was
for many years religion which shaped the policies, supplied
the controlling ideas, and furnished the fundamental
interests of these forefathers of our national life.
I am not here undertaking the large task of studying
the religious development of colonial America, but I
shall be quite satisfied if I can well perform the simpler
task of telling the story — surely complex and intricate
enough — of one single religious movement which pro
foundly influenced the course of American history, and
powerfully affected the personal lives of the citizens in
nearly all the original colonies, — I mean the coming of
the Quakers.
The first Quakers to land on American soil were two
3
4 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
women, named Mary Fisher and Ann Austin,1 who came
from England by way of Barbadoes, and who landed in the
city of Boston on the I ith of July 1656, to the consterna
tion of the magistrates of this Puritan town, then twenty-six
years old. George Bishop's statement, addressed to the
magistrates in 1 660, is hardly an exaggeration : " Two
poor women arriving in your harbour, so shook ye, to
the everlasting shame of you, and of your established
peace and order, as if a formidable army had invaded
your borders." 2
To understand why the arrival of these " two poor
women " of the Quaker faith produced such consternation
in the peaceful town, we must go back and pass in review
a very famous and important religious movement in
Massachusetts history. It is important here for two
reasons : first because it illustrates admirably the way in
which the Puritan colonists dealt with persons who laid
claim to a present revelation, an immediate experience
of Divine communications ; and secondly, because it was
a direct preparation for the spread and propagation of
Quakerism. I refer to the story of Anne Hutchinson
and her " party " — often called, though unfairly, the
" Antinomian controversy." This controversy, as all our
primary authorities admit, came near disrupting the
colony even while it was in its swaddling clothes, and
it seriously threatened to frustrate the plans of the
founders. It was the most dangerous storm the nascent
Puritan commonwealth weathered, for Pequots and
Narragansetts never brought the Colony to such a close
strait as did this woman's tongue and wit.
The whole controversy arose over the nature and
extent of the Divine influence on the human soul. Anne
Hutchinson, the chief actor in this somewhat tragic
drama, was born about 1590, being the daughter of
Francis Marbury, a well-known London preacher. She
was married to William Hutchinson about 1612, and
1 Elizabeth Harris came to Maryland the same year, but apparently slightly
later. See chapter on "The Planting of Quakerism in the Southern Colonies."
8 Bishop's New England Judged (edition of 1703), p. 7. The first edition
was published in 1661, but this is extremely rare.
CH. i A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 5
passed the next twenty years of her married life quietly
at Alford in Lincolnshire, where she listened, as occasion
offered, with great satisfaction and admiration to the
preaching of John Cotton, minister of St Botolph's
church in English Boston. He migrated to Boston in
New England in 1633, and William Hutchinson and his
wife followed him to the New World in the autumn of
the next year, their oldest son, Edward, having already
accompanied John Cotton.
John Winthrop tells us that Mrs. Hutchinson was " a
woman of a ready wit and bold spirit." l John Wheel
wright, her brother-in-law and fellow-sufferer, says : " As
for Mrs. Hutchinson, she was a woman of good wit, and
not only so, but naturally of good judgment too, as
appeared in her civil occasions. In spirituals, indeed,
she gave her understanding over into the power of
[inward] suggestion and immediate dictates."2 Cotton
Mather, imitating an earlier account, sets her down as
possessing " an haughty carriage, busie spirit, competent
wit, and a voluble tongue " — " a non-such among the
people."3 Thomas Welde, her most unrelenting and
ingenious foe, informs us that she had " a haughty and
fierce carriage, a nimble wit and active spirit, and was
more bold than a man, the breeder and nourisher of all
distempers," and he does not neglect to mention her
" voluble tongue " and he thinks that her " understanding
and judgment " were " inferior to those of many women." 4
Johnson declares that she was "the masterpiece of
women's wit ! " 5
There is also a like consensus of opinion upon her
social helpfulness and sympathetic spirit. She was a
gifted nurse and peculiarly skilful in dealing with
"ailments peculiar to her sex." She was the person
1 Winthrop's History of New England from i6jo to 1649, edited by James
Savage (Boston, 1853), vol. i. p. 239.
2 Mercurius Americanus, printed in Bell's John Wheelwright, Prince Soc.
Pub. (Boston, 1876), p. 197.
3 Mather's Magnalia (Hartford, 1853), vol. ii. pp. 516 and 517. Mather is
here following Welde.
4 Welde's Rise, Reign, and Ruin of Antinomians, etc., ist ed. 1644, p. 31.
6 Johnson's Wonder-working Providence, lib. i. c. 42.
6 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
instinctively sent for at times of childbirth, and she
knew how to penetrate into the mysteries of morbid states
and mental and spiritual troubles which abounded under
the new and hard conditions of frontier life. Even
Welde, for whom she is " the American Jezebel," admits
that she was " a woman very helpful in time of child
birth and other occasions of bodily disease, and well
furnished with means for those purposes."1 She had
thus a natural entree to women's hearts, and possessed
as she was of sympathy, kindliness, manifold interests,
and withal of that indescribable trait which we name
" magnetism," she was destined to play an important
rdle in the new settlement.2
This gentlewoman, admitted by all authorities to have
possessed a brilliant mind and kindly nature, and as
certainly possessed of a genuine passion for a religion
of vital reality and inward power, hit upon the plan of
holding a "women's meeting" at her house each week,
for the primary purpose of presenting the substance of
the previous Sunday sermon to the women of the com
munity who had been prevented from attending the
original service. This meeting opened to her exactly the
career for which her talents and gifts fitted her, and she
very quickly became " a burning and a shining light " in
this little circle of women. We can hardly imagine,
with our crowded, complex lives, how monotonous and
limited were the lives of the women in those primitive
days. The absorbing interests for them were the neigh
bourhood " news," and the affairs of the Church, even
down to the details of the " headings " of the last Sunday
sermon, or the last Thursday " lecture " !
There is little ground for assuming, as so many
writers have done, that Anne Hutchinson was insatiably
"ambitious" and "light-headed." She simply had the
wit to start a movement which struck a line of native
interest in the community and which peculiarly suited
her own gifts and genius, and the natural results followed.
1 Welde, op. cit. p. 31.
2 See. for a sketch of her character, G. E. Ellis's Puritan Age in Massachusetts,
pp. 307 seq.
CH. i A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 7
The " women's meeting " proved to be as popular as the
modern fads which sweep like a contagion through our
present-day social circles, and, almost before she knew it,
she found herself a person to be reckoned with throughout
the little commonwealth, and the leading influence in the
town of Boston.1 The Hutchinson " meeting," by an
almost unconscious propulsion, soon passed beyond its
original scope, which was to review and comment upon
the sermon of the preceding Sunday. The leader began
to compare sermons, and to mark off one type of
religious teaching which they heard from the Rev. John
Cotton as higher than another type which they heard from
the Rev. John Wilson ; and little by little she herself
became the prophet and expounder of the " higher
type," with the imminent danger of brewing ecclesiastical
jealousies.
The important point now is to get before us a clear
conception of these two types of religion upon which
the community was cleaving into two parties. Most
modern writers give up the distinction as hopeless, and
tell us that the whole controversy was a notorious instance
of " confused theological jargon," out of which nobody,
either then or now, could, or can, make any clear sense.
It is true that Winthrop's account is full of confusion,
and that he himself says : " No man could tell (except
some few, who knew the bottom of the matter) where any
difference was." 2 And yet as soon as we go for light to
the actual words of the main actors themselves, we find
that those of the Hutchinson party were champions of a
type of religion sharply differentiated from that expounded
and exhibited by the clergymen of the Colony, excepting
only John Cotton, with whom Anne Hutchinson was well
pleased, and John Wheelwright, her brother-in-law.
The two types were named respectively " a covenant
of Grace," and "a covenant of Works." The foremost
exponents of the former type were Anne Hutchinson
herself; her brother-in-law the Rev. John Wheelwright,
1 Winthrop says : " All the congregation of Boston, except four or five, closed
with [her] opinions. " Op. cit. vol. i. p. 252.
3 Op. cit. vol. i. p. 255-
8 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
pastor of the little congregation at Mount Wollaston (now
Braintree) ; Sir Harry Vane, then Governor of the Colony ;
and the Rev. John Cotton, the most shining intellectual
light at that time on the American continent. He, how
ever, drew back when the movement reached the perilous
edge, and took his place, whether honourably or dishonour
ably, among the opposers of the " new opinions." There
were many prominent persons, besides the " exponents,"
who were warm sympathisers with the " new opinions,"
and who shared the opprobrium and penalties which were
meted out to those who dared to think for themselves
and to diverge from the beaten track of the prevailing
theology. The most noted of these sympathisers were
William Coddington, John Coggeshall, William Aspinwall,
Nicholas Easton, Mary Dyer, and Captain John Underhill
(a somewhat serio-comic actor in the drama), some of
whom, with many more here unnamed, will reappear in
the Quaker ranks. The leaders of the opposition forces
were John Winthrop, the loftiest figure in that colonial
commonwealth, though for the moment superseded in the
governorship ; Rev. John Wilson, pastor of Boston ; Rev.
Hugh Peters, pastor of Salem, and later prominent in
the greater drama of the Civil War in England ; John
Endicott, and Thomas Dudley, both of large fame in the
governorship ; Rev. Thomas Welde, the ungentle historian
of the controversy, and all the other ministers of the
Colony.
The real issue, as I see it in the fragments that are
preserved, was an issue between what we nowadays call
" religion of the first-hand type," and " religion of the
second-hand type," that is to say, a religion on the one
hand which insists on " knowledge of acquaintance "
through immediate experience, and a religion on the
other hand which magnifies the importance and sufficiency
of " knowledge about." Anne Hutchinson precipitated
the controversy by an assertion — under the existing
circumstances as certain to produce a furious controversy
as a flaming firebrand in dry prairie grass is sure to
produce a conflagration — that John Cotton preached a
CH. i A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 9
covenant of Grace, and that the other ministers of the
Colony preached a covenant of Works.1
This latter phrase, which was a coinage of the Reform
ation, had come to mean a legal system of religion, or
what St. Paul branded as " a religion of the letter " —
a thing of " beggarly elements." Those who used the
phrase intended it to characterise a form of religion which
consisted essentially in a system of correct views, in the
acceptance of a set of Divine commandments and sacred
ceremonies, and the aim to live a life of strict obedience
to this elaborate, divinely communicated system. Worship
under this system is based on the commands of the
covenant ; it is not something springing out of the inward
disposition of the worshipper. It was one of the central
features of this " system " that the relation between God
and man was a relation of covenant. By the " fall," the
direct fellowship-relation with God had been broken and
annulled. God was no longer Friend but just Judge.
This Judge, instead of destroying the sinful race, made
a covenant, in which He showed His mercy and opened
the way of escape for man. This covenant, set forth in
the Holy Scriptures, contains a full, complete, and final
expression of God's will and requirements — all that
pertains to life and salvation. Man's part is, not to
question why, not to pry into the inscrutable will, but to
comply strictly with the terms of the covenant. Under this
covenant the " minister," by whatever name he may be
called, is an exalted personage, quite in a class apart.
He is the official interpreter of the terms and the meaning
of the covenant. He is the mouthpiece of the covenant-
maker, the highest spokesman of the will revealed in the
covenant. The simple point for us is this, that Anne
Hutchinson did not like that type of religion — it was
to her mind only " legalism," mere " letter," and it left
the inward life unchanged and untransformed, however
1 The proceedings of the " Examination of Mrs. Hutchinson " are given in an
Appendix to Hutchinson's Massachusetts Bay, ii. 482-520. My statement is
founded on Hugh Peters's testimony (p. 491). Mrs. Hutchinson claimed that
Peters did not report her fairly. But the evidence is clear that she did make
these two classes : those in the covenant of Grace and those in the covenant
of Works.
io QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
correct the outward conformity might be ; and she boldly
announced this type of religion to be actually existing
in the Colony, and to be supported by all the ministers
except John Wheelwright, her brother-in-law, and John
Cotton, " teacher " in the Boston church.
Against this legalistic religion of rules and command
ments, with its remote, absentee God, she set what she
called the " covenant of Grace." By this she meant, and
so did her contemporaries, a religion grounded in a direct
experience of God's grace and redeeming love, a religion
not of pious performances, of solemn fasts and sombre
faces, of painful search after the exact requirements of
the law, but a religion which began and ended in
triumphant certainty of Divine forgiveness, Divine fellow
ship, and present Divine illumination.
Winthrop tells us that " Mrs. Hutchinson brought over
with her two dangerous errors: (i) That the Person of
the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person. (2) That
no sanctification can help to evidence our justification." I
I admit that this second " error " sounds like " theological
jargon," but it is only a seventeenth - century way of
saying that no deeds however holy, no acts however
saintly, are in themselves a sufficient evidence of a restored
and vital relation with God ; or as John Wheelwright put
it in his famous fast - day sermon : " There is nothing
under heaven may justify any but the revelation of the
Lord Jesus Christ [in him]."
Out of these " errors," Winthrop says, there sprang
the view that the Christian — the true Christian — is united
with the Holy Ghost, and of himself becomes dead and
" hath no gifts and graces, nor other sanctification, but
the Holy Ghost Himself." 2
These " errors " sound at this distance remarkably like
some of St. Paul's " truths " ; for example : " I am crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live ; yet not I, Christ liveth
in me." " Christ is made unto us sanctification." " Ye
are builded together for a habitation of God through the
1 Winthrop, op. cit. vol. i. p. 239.
a Op. cit. vol. i. p. 239.
CH. i A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 1 1
Spirit" l John Cotton had, even before his coming to
America, been a fervent expounder of this inward
religion, and he undoubtedly held the essential principles
of Mrs. Hutchinson's teaching. William Coddington,
writing to the magistrates of the Colony in 1672 to
protest against the persecution of the Quakers, calls upon
those in authority to " turn to the Light within you, even
Christ in you," and then he (having himself been one of
the Boston founders who sailed on the Arbella) adds :
" This [teaching of inward Light] was declared unto you
by the servant of the Lord, John Cotton, on his lecture
day, when the ships were ready to depart for England.
He stated the difference ; it was about Grace. He
magnified the Grace in us ; the priests [i.e. the other
ministers] the Grace without or upon them. All the
difference in the country was about Grace, but the
difference was as great, he said, as between light and
darkness, heaven and hell, life and death." 2 Cotton did
not, however, go as far as the other expounders of " the
covenant of Grace " did. He held for the " indwelling of
the Holy Ghost" but not for a personal union of the
believer with the Holy Ghost.3 Governor Vane went to
the far extreme, and held the view that there is a personal
union between the believer and the Holy Ghost, so that
a divine life is actually begotten in the soul.4
But the most important document in the controversy
for an understanding of the " covenant of Grace " is,
beyond question, Wheelwright's " Fast - day sermon."
John Wheelwright was born in the Fen country of
Lincolnshire, probably in 1592. He matriculated at
Cambridge University at about the age of eighteen,
receiving his B.A. degree in 1614 and his M.A. in 1618.
He was intimately associated with Oliver Cromwell, and
the Protector once made the remark : " I remember the
time when I was more afraid of meeting Wheelwright
1 Gal. ii. 20 ; i Cor. i. 30 ; Eph. ii. 22.
2 William Coddington's A Demonstration of True Love (1674), p. 17. Com
pare Winthrop's account of this sermon, vol. i. p. 254.
* Winthrop, op, cit. vol. i. p. 240.
4 Winthrop, op. cit. voL i. p. 246.
12 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
at football, than I have been since of meeting an army
in the field, for I was infallibly sure of being tripped
up."1
He had a successful career as vicar of Bilsby, where
" he was instrumental in the conversion of many souls,
and was highly esteemed among serious Christians." z
He was, however, " silenced " for nonconformity, and his
vicarage was treated " as though vacant " and his successor
appointed in 1633, ten years from the time of his installa
tion.3 He landed in Boston in May 1636, being now
married to his second wife, Mary, the daughter of Edward
Hutchinson, a sister of William Hutchinson, husband of
Anne. There was a strong movement made to appoint
Wheelwright a "teacher" in the church of Boston, but
this plan was blocked by the vigorous opposition of
Winthrop, who questioned his " soundness," asserting that
he [Wheelwright] held the views that : ( I ) " a believer
was more than a creature," i.e. partook of God in such
a way as to be more than "a mere creature," and (2)
" that the Person of the Holy Ghost and a believer were
united." 4 He was, therefore, settled at Mount Wollaston.
On the 2 Qth of January 1636, Wheelwright was invited
to preach the fast-day sermon in the Boston church,
which sermon led to his banishment from the colony.5
His text was taken from Matt. ix. 1 5, " Can the children
of the bridechamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is
with them?" He first points out that the reason for
fasting is always the absence of Christ, since the real
ground for joy and rejoicing is the presence of Christ
It is, he claims, not enough to have the gifts of the Spirit,
we must have the Lord Himself; not enough to seek
from the Lord " fruits and effects," but we must " see
Him with a direct eye of faith and seek His Face." " If
we part with Christ we part with our life, for Christ is
1 Bell's John Wheelwright, p. 2.
8 Brooks's Lives of the Puritans, p. 472.
* Winthrop calls him " a silenced minister, " vol. i. p. 239.
4 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 241. Wheelwright himself denied holding the views as
attributed to him by Winthrop, op. cit. vol. i. p. 242.
8 Winthrop, vol. i. pp. 256-257. The sermon is printed in full in Bell's
John Wheelwright.
CH. i A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 13
our life " — not merely " the author of our lives," but the
very root of our being, the very Life of our life.1
It is not enough to be under a covenant of Works,
we must have Christ Himself — His very presence. The
true Gospel is the revelation of Jesus Christ as our
wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification and redemp
tion. We can attain to nothing truly spiritual until He
comes into us with His righteousness, and becomes Him
self our redemption. He is the Well of life of which
the wells in the Old Testament were types. If the
Philistines fill the Well with earth — the earth of their
own inventions — the servants of the Lord must open the
Well again ! 2
He is the Light that lighteth every one that cometh
into the world, and if we expect to keep Christ, we must
hold forth this Light. There is nothing under heaven
can justify any one but the revelation of the Lord Jesus
Christ within him, and when He converts any soul to
Himself He reveals, not some Work, but Himself. To
look for salvation by anything short of Christ Himself
is a covenant of Works, for under the covenant of Grace
nothing is revealed for our righteousness but Christ
Himself. This experience enables the soul to know that
it is justified, for the faith of assurance hath Christ for
its object. He gives a new heart through His working
in us. This is the covenant of Grace.3
He admits that those under the covenant of Grace,
i.e. those who have the inward, mystical experience, are
few in number, " a little flock," while those under the
covenant of Works are strong in numbers, but one in
the life shall chase a thousand.4 He admits also that
those under a covenant of Works — the legalists, or letter
Christians — are in appearance " a wondrous holy people,"
but the more " holy " they appear the more dangerous
1 Bell, John Wheelwright, pp. 158-159.
2 Ibid, pp. 161-163.
3 Ibid. pp. 164-167.
4 It is interesting to find that Wm. Dewsbury, who came to see the Wood-
house sail for America in 1657 with its load of Quaker apostles, said : " Before
one of you that is in the Resurrection and Life in Christ, shall a thousand flee
. . . for you in the life are the host of Heaven." — Dewsbury's Works, p. 171.
14 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES UK. i
they are, for when Christ, who is our real sanctification,
comes to the soul He makes " the creature nothing."
He admits further that this spiritual doctrine will
" cause combustion in the Church," but did not Christ
come to cast fire upon the earth ! Peace and quietness
are not the things to be most sought — but the truth of
God. " To fight courageously for the Lord and to be
meek are not opposites, but stand very well together."
If the call for it comes, we must be willing to lay down
our lives to make the truth prevail.1
Those who wish to enjoy the presence of Christ must
(i) be faithful in life and word; (2) be full of love; and
(3) "live pure and blameless lives and give no occasion for
others to say that we are libertines or Antinomians \ " The
greatest " friends " of the Church and of the common
wealth are those who hold forth Christ Himself, and
who labour and endeavour to bring Him to the hearts
of the people. The supreme sin is opposition to the
Light and persecution of those who bring the Light.
Those who have the real presence are in happy estate.
If they lose their houses, and lands, and wives, and
friends, or even lose religious ordinances, yet they cannot
lose the Lord Jesus Christ — this is their great comfort.
Though they should lose all they have, yet being made
one with Christ and He dwelling in their hearts, they
cannot be separated from Him.8
This sermon should leave no doubt in anybody's mind
as to what the issue was. It was the old yet ever new
issue between a religion of the past and a religion of the
present, a religion based on historical facts and promises
and a religion based on inward personal experience.
At the General Court, which convened on the ipth of
March, attended by all the ministers in the Colony,
Wheelwright was summoned, proceeded against, and
1 Bell, John Wheelwright, pp. 167-171.
z No occasion did appear, except possibly in the case of Captain Underbill,
and yet the slanderous epithet of ' ' Antinomianism " was fixed upon the movement.
Cotton Mather admits that the " opinionists, " as he calls them, "appeared
wondrous holy, humble, self-denying, and spiritual." — Magnolia (Hartford, 1853),
vol. ii. p. 509.
* Bell, John Wheelwright, pp. 175-179.
CH. i A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 1 5
condemned for having incited sedition and having shown
contempt in his fast- day sermon. The action against
Wheelwright aroused the citizens of Boston, and they
presented a remonstrance signed by " above three score "
leading persons in the town, in which petition they
respectfully declared that the doctrine by "our brother
Wheelwright is no other but the expressions of the Holy
Ghost Himself," and they claim that the effect of his
sermon has not been to incite sedition, " for wee have not
drawn the sword as sometime Peter did rashly, neither
have wee rescued our innocent brother as sometime the
Israelites did Jonathan, and yet they did not seditiously.
The covenant of Grace held forth by our brother hath
taught us rather to become humble suppliants to your
worships, and if wee should not prevaile, wee should rather
with patience give our cheeks to the smiter." l
Sentence against Wheelwright was deferred to the
next General Court. The case, however, hung on for
months, was thoroughly canvassed in a Synod, and
finally in November 1637 the Court pronounced sentence
of banishment, giving the victim fourteen days " to settle
his affairs " and " depart the Patent." 2 Alone and hardly
knowing whither he went, the exile made his difficult
way to Exeter, New Hampshire, in a weather so intense
that, as he humorously writes, " the very extract-spirits of
sedition and contempt," had they been in him, " would
have been frozen up and indisposed for action." 3
We must go back now to the case of Anne Hutchin-
son, for her views come more clearly to light through the
proceedings against her, which accompanied and followed
those against her brother-in-law. A Synod of all the
ministers in the Colony — the first ever held in America —
met at Cambridge, beginning the Qth of September 1637,
and lasting twenty-four days, to thresh out the theological
differences. All the " opinions " at issue were gone over
in minute detail. The result was that "eighty-two
opinions " were discovered and declared to be " some
blasphemous, others erroneous, and all unsafe," besides
1 Bell, p. 21. 2 Mercurius Americanus, Bell, p. 228. s Ibid. p. 228.
16 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
" nine unwholesome expressions," and " the Scriptures
abused." Mrs. Hutchinson's " meetings," being of a
" prophetical way," were voted to be a nuisance and
" without rule."
The further definite results were the sentence against
Wheelwright at the following General Court, as we have
seen, and the trial at the same Court of Anne Hutchin-
son. This Court met, also at Cambridge, on the 1 2th of
November 1637. Before it, with John Winthrop pre
siding, and with only three sympathisers in the company
of men composing it — John Coggeshall, Thomas Leverett,
and William Coddington — Anne Hutchinson appeared to
defend herself. The charges brought against her were :
(i) "Of having troubled the peace of the commonwealth
and churches." (2) " Of having divulged and promoted
opinions that cause trouble." (3) "Of having joined in
affinity and affection to those upon whom the Court has
passed censure " [Wheelwright and others]. (4) " Of
having spoken divers things prejudicial to the honour of
the Churches and the ministers." (5) "Of having main
tained a meeting in your house, not comely in the sight
of God, nor fitting your sex."
She was further charged, absurdly, with having
" broken the law against dishonouring parents " ; the
" parents " in this case being the " fathers of the common
wealth." She was also charged with " seducing many
honest persons " — " simple souls " — by " opinions known
to be different from the Word of God," and with leading
such persons to " neglect their families " and to " spend
\i,e. waste] much time." To these points, marshalled
by Governor Winthrop, the Deputy -Governor Thomas
Dudley added other charges which are really " echoes "
of Winthrop's. That " all was peace until you came " ;
that " by venting strange opinions you have made parties,
and now have a potent party in the country " ; and " that
you have disparaged our ministers," which was really the
sore spot.
On all these points Mrs. Hutchinson, calm, clear
headed, and straightforward, was more than a match for
CH. i A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 17
her accusers, and soon forced the issue deeper. The
Court next took up the real matter at issue — the question
of the two types of religion — the covenant of Works and
the covenant of Grace. Deputy-governor Dudley raised
this point and declared that he could prove that Mrs.
Hutchinson had said that " the Gospel in the letter and
in words is only a covenant of Works," and that she had
claimed that those not holding as she herself did — to
inward experience — were in this lower stage or covenant.1
Whereupon Hugh Peters, the main witness to prove this
point, came forward with the testimony, based on a private
conference which the ministers had held with Anne
Hutchinson, that she had said that Mr. Cotton alone
preached the covenant of Grace, and that all the other
ministers preached the covenant of Works, " knowing no
more than the apostles did before the resurrection " [i.e.
before enduement with the Holy Spirit] and that they
did not have " the seal of Christ." Other ministers
corroborated this testimony, and Deputy-governor Dudley
pushed the charge a little further by insisting that she
affirmed that " the Scriptures in the letter held forth only
a covenant of Works," or as we should say to-day, are a
part of externals, and not the primary matter of religion.
She admitted having said so, and supported her point by
quoting 2 Cor. iii. 6 : " The letter killeth, but the Spirit
giveth life."2
It came out, in a speech of Hugh Peters, at the open
ing of the Court on the second day of the proceedings,
that " the main thing against her is that she charged us
with not being able ministers of the Gospel, and of being
preachers of a covenant of Works." 3 A little later he
insists again, that she said that " we ministers are not
sealed with the spirit of Grace, that we preach in
judgment, but not in experience? " She spoke out plump
that we were not sealed."4
John Cotton, who was naturally in a most delicate
and trying position, bore his testimony with much dignity,
1 Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, ii. 489. a Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 495-496.
3 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 501. 4 Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 505-506.
C
i8 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
insight, and boldness. He said that Mrs. Hutchinson
had not made such positive statements as were now being
charged against her, that the brethren at the time of the
conference had not taken her words " so ill as now," and
that there was an actual difference between a religion of
works, or letter, and one of the Spirit, pointing out that
even the Apostles were for a time in the lower stage,
without the witness of the Spirit, and in that stage they
had been unable to preach the covenant of Grace — a
religion of experience. He called to mind that Mrs.
Hutchinson had said, " You can preach no more than you
know." And he declared that by " the seal of the Spirit "
she meant " the full assurance of Divine favour, witnessed
by the presence of the Holy Spirit." l
Anne Hutchinson herself, in a moment of rashness,
now gave her enemies the key to her inner sanctuary,
and lost her case by what Hugh Peters would call a
" plump confession " that she sometimes received " revela
tions," had "openings," and "was given to see spiritual
situations." " I bless the Lord," she exclaimed, " that
He has let me see which was clear ministry and which
was wrong. He hath let me distinguish between the
voice of my Beloved and the voice of Moses." " Now,"
she continued solemnly, "if you do condemn me for
speaking what in my conscience I know to be the truth, I
must commit myself unto the Lord." This confession
led to the following conversation :
Mr. Nowel. — How do you know that that (which was re
vealed to you) was of the Spirit ?
Mrs. H. — How did Abraham know that it was God that
bid him offer his son ?
Dep.-Gov. — By an immediate voice.
Mrs. H. — So to me by an immediate revelation.
Dep.-Gov. — How ! an immediate revelation ?
Mrs. H. — By the voice of His own Spirit in my soul.2
Here in this discussion we find the real nerve of the
issue. Here was " a mere woman " who claimed direct
connection with the fount of Life and Light, who insisted
1 Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, vol. ii. pp. 504, 505, 509.
2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 508.
CH. i A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 19
that revelation is not closed, but that she herself has
immediate openings like those given to Abraham. To
those listening to her the claim sounded, as the wisest of
them, Governor Winthrop, said, like the " most desperate
enthusiasm in the world." To him, to them all, her
" confession " seemed " a marvellous providence of God,"
a clear " mercy of God " vouchsafed to them. On her
own testimony she had showed herself to be " under a
devilish delusion," near kin to the worst enthusiasts of
history — the Anabaptists.1 It was now a plain and
easy matter to move straight toward her condemnation
and sentence.
Before sentence was pronounced, however, one valiant
voice was raised in her behalf. William Coddington,
seeing that judgment was about to be pronounced,
defended her with what, under the circumstances, was
rare boldness. He pointed out that the Court was acting
unfairly in the double capacity of judge and accuser, and
that the original charges against her had not been proven.
He then took up the " special providence " of her own
confession : " And now for that other thing which hath
fallen from her occasionally by the Spirit of God ; you
know that the Spirit of God witnesseth with spirits, and
there is no truth in Scripture but God bears witness to
it by His Spirit, therefore I would intreat you to consider
whether those things alleged against her deserve censure." 2
" But," insisted Peters, conscious all the time of the
real sore spot, " I was much grieved that she should say
that our ministry was legal."
" What wrong was there," asked Coddington, " to say
that you were not able ministers of the New Testament
or that you were like the apostles — methinks the com
parison was very good."3
But Coddington was risking himself in vain ; her fate
was already sealed, and Governor Winthrop proceeded to
pronounce sentence. " If it be the mind of the Court
that Mrs. Hutchinson is unfit for our society, and if it
1 Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, vol. ii. p. 514.
2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 516. 3 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 510.
20 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
be the mind of the Court that she shall be banished out
of our liberties and imprisoned until she shall be sent
forth, let them hold up their hands."1 All but three
voted in the affirmative.
The victim was now separated from her family and
condemned to a semi-imprisonment in the house of the
Rev. Thomas Welde at Roxbury, where she was hard
beset with clerical inquisition, and where she underwent
a good deal of mental depression.2 It is a matter of no
importance that under this unbearable strain her clerical
inquisitors drew from her certain " errors and heresies."
In the spring of 1637 — 2 5th March — the Church of
Boston proceeded to " excommunicate " her. All her
powerful friends were silenced now. Governor Vane
had gone back to England, glad to be out of the theo
logical tempest. Wheelwright was eating the hard bread
of exile in New Hampshire. Coddington and his
sympathisers had been forced out of the government
and out of the colony. John Cotton must have passed
many silent hours of inward anguish as he halted between
the two issues, but he finally deserted his friend, who had
singled him out as the one minister in the colony who
clearly preached the covenant of Grace, and he swung
over, clear over, to the safe side, with the other ministers,
and bitterly lamented that he had been " abused and made
a stalking-horse of."3 He was selected to pronounce
" admonition " against her, which he did, " with much
detestation of her errors," though the awful sentence of
excommunication was read by the pastor, Mr. Wilson :
" In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the name
of the Church, I do not only pronounce you worthy to
be cast out, but I do cast you out ; and in the name of
Christ I do deliver you up to Satan. I do account
you from this time forth to be a heathen and a publican.
I command you in the name of Jesus Christ and of this
Church as a leper to withdraw yourself out of this
congregation." As the outcast slowly found her way
1 Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, vol. ii. p. 520.
* It is important to note her physical condition — she was soon to give birth
to a child. 3 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 304.
CH. i A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 21
down the aisle, to go out for ever into exile, Mary Dyer
stepped forth from her seat, took her place by Anne
Hutchinson's side and went out with her — one day to
come back again !
Mrs. Hutchinson now found her way to the new colony
which her friends had gone on ahead to found in the
island of " Aquiday " — Aquidneck — now called the island
of Rhode Island. This island was destined to be the
shelter and safe nursery of Quakerism in the days of its
early stress in the New World, and we must now briefly
study the new, strange colony which owed its birth to
the " Antinomian " turmoil in Massachusetts Bay.1 The
new colony was founded by persons who were either
banished for taking a sympathetic part in the Hutchin
son controversy, or who revolted against the heavy hand
of authority in Massachusetts Bay.2 Winthrop says :
" At this time the good providence of God so disposed
that divers of the congregation, being the chief men of
the Antinomian party, were gone to Narragansett to
seek out a new place for plantation." 3 The fact was
that the Court which banished Wheelwright and con
demned Anne Hutchinson, also dealt vigorously with
the citizens of Boston who had signed the petition in
1 There were doubtless many things involved in this famous controversy.
The subtle political issues between the party of Winthrop and the party of Vane
I have not touched upon. The lukewarmness of the citizens of Boston, when
the colony was girding itself for the Pequot war, was supposed by Winthrop and
others to be due to the prevalence of the " new opinions " in religion. But it is
clear, nevertheless, that the central trouble lay in these two points : The leaders of
the new party had boldly criticised the ministers of the colony for being legal
and not spiritual ; and secondly, they had insisted on the fact of present revelation
as against the view that God's Word is found only in a Book. It was for these
heresies that Wheelwright was forced to wander through the snow to Exeter,
and it was for these heresies that Anne Hutchinson was flung out of the colony as
a leper. These exiles had thus already struck the central issues which the
Quakers forced to the front a score of years later.
2 The Rhode Island Colony must be carefully distinguished from the
Providence Colony, founded by Roger Williams, also an exile from the
Massachusetts Colony. Roger Williams has the honour of being one of
the brave path-breakers toward the light, and he was undoubtedly the first in
the New World to annunciate clearly the doctrine of soul-liberty. I have no
desire to detract from the fame which properly belongs to him, but it is a plain
fact that the island colony in the southern end of Narragansett quickly out
stripped in importance the one founded at Providence, and it was here on this
island of Aquidneck that the principle of spiritual freedom got its most impressive
exhibition in the primitive stage of American history.
3 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 311.
22 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. r
favour of Wheelwright. Twenty of the signers in fear
" acknowledged their fault " and were forgiven ; the rest
were " disarmed," in which list were a number of the
founders of the little colony on Aquidneck — the persons
" disposed by the providence of God to seek out a new
place for plantation." 1 The little party sent John Clarke,
with two companions, on ahead to locate the place of
settlement and, with the advice and assistance of Roger
Williams, with whom they took counsel, they decided
upon Pocasset (now Portsmouth), on the island then called
"Aquiday," now called "Rhode Island."2 On the
7th of March 1638, nineteen members of the new
colony signed in Providence a civil compact for the
incorporation of their new " Body Politick," and they
proceeded to elect William Coddington, clearly the leader
and foremost person in the little group, their Judge.
The simple form of government, which was here initiated,
was slightly modified in January 1639, when a plan was
drafted which provided for " three elders " to assist the
Judge, and they were to report their acts every quarter
to the assembled freemen with this curious arrangement
for veto : " If by the Body [of freemen] or any of them,
the Lord shall be pleased to dispense light to the
contrary of what by the Judge and Elders hath been
determined formerly, that then and there it shall be
repealed as the act of the Body." 3
In April 1639 tne little colonial hive at Pocasset
" swarmed " and formed a new town, which was named
Newport, on the other edge of the island.4 At first it
was an independent settlement under a separate govern
ment, with Coddington for "Judge," Nicholas Easton,
John Coggeshall, and William Brenton as " Elders,"
while the settlement at Pocasset chose William Hutchin-
1 Of the "founders" William Aspinwall was banished, John Coggeshall was
disarmed and disfranchised, William Coddington and nine others were given leave
to depart within three months, and were afterwards hurried off.
8 See John Clarke's " 111 Newes from New England," printed in 4 Mass. Hist.
Soc. Col. ii. The name was changed from Aquidneck to Rhode Island
1 3th March 1644.
3 Rhode Island Colony Records, i. p. 63.
4 Nicholas Easton built the first house in Newport. (See Narr. Hist. Reg.
vol. viii. p. 240. )
CH. i A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 23
son, husband of Anne, for Judge. The two settlements
were united under one government in March 1640 with
William Coddington of Newport as Governor, and
William Brenton of Pocasset (at this time changed to
Portsmouth) as Deputy-governor. A year later, namely
in May 1641, the assembled citizens unanimously declared
that " this Body Politick is a Democracie ; that is to say,
it is in the Power of the Body of Freemen, orderly
assembled, or the major part of them, to make Just
Lawes by which they will be regulated." l Under the
same date this memorable act was passed : " It is ordered
that none bee accounted a delinqtient for doctrine'' z In
November of the same year it was decreed that the
" Law of the last Court, made concerning Libertie of
Conscience in Point of Doctrine be perpetuated." 3 And
this colony, in the face of severe tests and difficulties,
maintained this principle in practice.4
In 1641 the persons who composed the Newport
settlement seem to have arranged themselves into two
religious groups. One party, with Coddington, Cogges-
hall, and Nicholas Easton as leaders, formulated views
which seem extraordinarily akin to those later held by
the Society of Friends ; while the other group, led by
John Clarke, formed a Baptist Church.
It is extremely difficult now to get the facts on these
important points. Winthrop says, under date of 1641 :
" Mrs. Hutchinson and those of Aquiday Island broached new
heresies every year. Divers of them turned professed Ana
baptist,3 and would not wear any arms,6 and denied all
1 Rhode Island Colony Records, i. 112.
2 Ibid. p. 113. 3 Ibid. p. 118.
4 Cotton Mather gives this account of freedom of faith in the Rhode Island
Colony : "I believe there never was held such a variety of religions together on
as small a spot of ground as have been in that colony. " " If a man had lost
his religion he might find it at the general muster of the opinionists. " ' ' Rhode
Island hath usually been the Gerizzim of New England." — Magnalia, ii.
520-521.
* The term "Anabaptist," used in such an account, hardly means more than
that the person was a dissenter from the established faith and held strongly for
inward experience in religion. See my Studies in Mystical Religion, chapter on
" The Anabaptists " (London, 1909).
6 Nicholas Easton was fined five shillings in 1639, for coming to meeting
without his weapons. — Rhode Island Colony Records, i. 95.
24 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
magistracy among Christians, and maintained that there were
no churches since those founded by the apostles and evangelists,
nor could any be, nor any pastors ordained, nor seals adminis
tered, but by such, and that the church was to want these all
the time she continued in the wilderness, as yet she was." 1
It is not probable from what we know that any of the
persons prominent in this " spiritual circle " denied
magistracy or were opposed to settled social order. It
is probable that they did insist that religion must be an
affair of experience and that a true church could not be
established or maintained by persons who were "out of
the life " and only externally religious. The real situation
comes out somewhat clearer in another passage in
Winthrop :
" Other troubles arose in the island of Aquiday by reason
of one Nicholas Easton, a tanner, a man very bold, though
ignorant.2 He using to teach [i.e. taking upon himself to teach]
where Mr. Coddington their Governor lived, maintained that
man hath no power or will in himself, but as he is acted [upon]
by God, and that a Christian is united to the essence of God."3
Winthrop undertakes to show, by inference, that this
view of Easton's makes God the author of sin, and has
blasphemous consequences. But Easton did not push
his view to dangerous lengths and apparently held,
exactly what Friends later held, that there is something
of God in man, and that man becomes a truly " spiritual
being" by reason of this Divine connection. Winthrop
further says that Mr. Coddington, Mr. Coggeshall, and some
others joined with Nicholas Easton, " while Mr. Clark
[John Clarke], Mr. Lenthall and some others dissented,
and publicly opposed, whereby it grew to such heat of
contention that it made a schism." 4 There was, it plainly
appears, thus differentiated here in Newport, fifteen years
1 Winthrop, ii. 46. Winthrop is here giving a description of what is
known as the " Seeker" attitude (see Studies in Mystical Religion). It is likely
that some of the group in Newport insisted that only spiritual persons can perform
spiritual exercises. There is no evidence that they went further than this.
2 This is an instance of Winthrop's unfairness through prejudice. Easton
was a man of high standing and excellent mental parts. He was three times
President of the Colony, six times Deputy-Governor, and three times Governor.
8 Winthrop, ii. 48. 4 Winthrop, ii. 49.
CH. i A PRE-QUAKER MOVEMENT 25
before the coming of the Quakers, a group of persons
who were Quakers in everything but name.1
Even more striking, if anything, was the situation in
Portsmouth. Letchford, who resided in New England
"almost the space of four years" prior to 1641, and who
spent some time in the Colony on Rhode Island, says,
after commenting on the state of religion at Newport :
" At the other end of the Island there is another town called
Portsmouth, but no church [i.e. no established church] ; there is
a meeting of some men who there teach one another and call
it prophesie." 2
This looks as though a meeting was being held in Ports
mouth at this date in which the members spoke as they
felt " moved " (for that is what " in the way of prophesie "
means), exactly as the Quaker meeting was held a little
later.3
1 It should be remembered that this was at least six years before George Fox
began his religious activity in England.
2 Letchford's Plaine Dealing (Boston reprint, 1868), p. 94.
8 We shall see in later chapters that there were other pre-Quaker circles in the
colonies all ready to be merged into the wider Quaker movement as soon as it
made itself felt on these shores. The "circles" at Salem and at Sandwich,
Mass., were the most important ones. Mrs. Hutchinson did not live long
enough to hear of the Quaker movement, for the spread of which she did much to
prepare the way. Her husband, William Hutchinson, died in 1642, and soon
after she moved with her family into the territory of the Dutch, settling near
Hell Gate in West Chester Co. , New York. Here in the autumn of 1643 she was
murdered by Indians, who "slew her, and her family, her daughter and her
daughter's husband, and all their children," except a little girl who was carried
into captivity. This calamity was hailed in the Puritan Colony as a " Divine
Judgment." (See Welde's Rise, Reign, and Ruin, and Mather's Afagnalia.)
Anne Hutchinson's sister, Catharine Scott, and her family, formed the nucleus of
the original group of Friends in Providence.
CHAPTER II
THE QUAKERS AT THE GATES
THE Quaker message had first been heralded in London
by women, and the first attempt to win over the Uni
versities of England to the " truth," as the early Quakers
persistently called their Gospel, was made by women. So
too, the first Quakers to reach the American hemisphere
were women, who in deep seriousness regarded themselves
as apostolic messengers under divine call and direction.
They were Mary Fisher and Ann Austin. Their first
place of landing and of missionary activity was the
island of Barbadoes, where they arrived near the end of
the year 1655. The island of Barbadoes was, during
the seventeenth century, the great port of entry to the
colonies in the western world, and it was during the last
half of that century, a veritable "hive" of Quakerism.
Friends wishing to reach any part of the American coast,
sailed most frequently for Barbadoes and then reshipped
for their definite locality. They generally spent some
weeks, or months even, propagating their doctrines in
" the island " and ordinarily paying visits to Jamaica and
often to Antigua, Nevis, and Bermuda. Large Friends'
meetings rapidly sprang up on all these islands. Barbadoes
had been first occupied by the English in 1605, and had
submitted to the authority of the commonwealth in 1652.
Sugar-making had, as early as 1640, become its great
industry, being carried on by negro slaves who had been
brought from Africa, and the island enjoyed unrestricted
trade. It was just now at the height of its prosperity
and large fortunes were being made there. It is estimated
26
27
that there were 25,000 inhabitants, and not less than
10,000 slaves. Of the inhabitants Clarendon said they
were principally men " who had retired thither only to be
quiet and to be free from noise and oppressions in
England." Among these quiet, comfortable, prosperous
people, the two " publishers of the truth " as we have
seen, came in 1655, and they spent about six months
here publishing their message.
Mary Fisher was, at the time of her visit, a young,
unmarried woman of about twenty-two years of age,
adorned with somewhat uncommon " intellectual faculties "
and marked by " gravity of deportment."
She had been a servant in the home of the Tomlinsons
of Selby in Yorkshire, and had been " convinced " of the
truth of the Quaker message in the early years of Fox's
ministry, and went forth as a minister herself in 1652.
The first two years of her ministry were mostly spent
in York Castle, where she endured two terms of im
prisonment, one of sixteen months and one of six.
Between these two imprisonments, Mary Fisher, with a
woman companion, undertook the hazardous mission of
carrying the Quaker message to the students of Cambridge
University. The students jeered and derided, "with
froth and levity." The mayor of the city ordered the
women to be stripped to the waist and " whipped at the
market cross till the blood ran down their bodies," a
sentence which was cruelly executed, while the women
prayed the Lord to forgive their persecutors.1 Little is
known of the life of Ann Austin, previous to her
American visit, except that she was already "stricken in
years," the mother of five children, apparently a resident
of London, and plainly enough valiant and ready for the
perils of her dangerous calling. Their work in Barbadoes
seems to have been successful. As they were leaving
the island for their hazardous venture in New England,
Mary Fisher wrote to her friends in England : " Here is
many convinced and many desire to know the way."
On their return, after they had been flung out of Boston,
1 Besse, Sufferings of the Quakers (London 1753), vol. i. p. 85.
28 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
they continued the work in Barbadoes, and had their
faith and zeal well rewarded. Lieutenant-Colonel Rous,
a wealthy sugar-planter, and his son John were the first
to identify themselves with Friends and to join the
movement. They were in fact the first persons in the
West Indies to become Quakers. The son, John Rous,
came forward almost immediately in the ministry, and
before the year was out had issued a characteristic Quaker
tract : " A Warning to the inhabitants who live in pride,
drunkenness, etc., also something to the Rulers, that they
rule rightly and do justice on the wicked." *
In the month of July 1656, Master Simon Kempthorn,
in his ship Swallow, sailing from Barbadoes, brought
those two women into Boston harbour. Governor
Endicott was at that moment absent from the city, and
Deputy-governor Richard Bellingham found himself con
fronted with an " extraordinary occasion." He seems to
have been equal to it. He ordered the women to be kept
on the ship while their boxes were searched for books
containing " corrupt, heretical, and blasphemous doctrines."
One hundred such books were found in their possession.
These were seized and burned in the market-place by
the common hangman.2 This being done the women
were brought to land and committed to prison on the
sole charge of being " Quakers," deprived of light, and of
all writing materials, though as yet no law had made it a
punishable offence to be a Quaker. A fine of five pounds
was laid upon any one who should speak with them, and,
to make assurance doubly sure, their prison window was
closely boarded up. They were furthermore " stripped
stark naked," and searched for "tokens" of witchcraft
upon their bodies.8 There was one bright spot in the
dark experience. One man (who was evidently Nicholas
Upsall) came to the prison and offered gladly to pay
1 Letter to Margaret Fell. — Swarthmore Collection, in Devonshire House,
London, i. 66.
2 Snow, in his History of Boston (1825), says that Nicholas Upsall, a citizen
of Boston, endeavoured to buy these Quaker books. — Snow, op. cit. p. 196.
8 See Bishop's Mew England Judged (London, 1703), p. 12. Henry Fell,
in a letter to M. Fell, gives an account of the searching of these women as
suspected witches. — Swarthmore Collection, i. 66.
CH. ii THE QUAKERS AT THE GATES 29
the fine of five pounds if he might be allowed to have
conversation with the Quaker prisoners.1
After they had been kept five weeks in confinement
under these extraordinary conditions, the master of the
vessel which brought them was put under a bond of one
hundred pounds, to see that they were transported to
Barbadoes, and he apparently was compelled to pay the
costs of their transportation.2 The Boston jailer had to
content himself with their bedding and their Bibles for
his prison fees. Governor Endicott, on his return,
remarked that if he had been at home they would not
have got away without a whipping.
George Bishop, whose book is the main source of our
information on the details of the New England " invasion "
asks of the magistrates the pertinent question : " Why
was it that the coming of two women so shook ye, as
if a formidable army had invaded your borders."8 The
answer, given at the time, was a string of vague charges
and hysterical epithets. A clearer answer can perhaps
be given at this distance and from the perspective of
historical review.
It must be said in the first place that the judgment of
the officials, and particularly of the ministers, in the
Massachusetts Colony had been seriously prejudiced by
rumours and accounts that had preceded the arrival of
the two women. Anti-Quaker pamphlets had already
come from the press in great numbers, and they were
unsparing in their accounts of the new " heresy." Some
of these pamphlets were written by ministers who, either
before or after the publication of their attack, were
settled in New England and were in high repute there.
Francis Higginson, the author of A Brief Relation of the
Irreligion of the Northern Quaker s> published in 1653,
and one of the earliest polemics against Friends, was a
New Englander. Thomas Welde, who had been a
1 See Henry Fell's letter to M. Fell. — Swarthmore Collection, i. 66.
a The master of the vessel which took them to Barbadoes was put under a
bond of one hundred pounds to land them there and not to suffer any persons i»
the Colony to speak with them in the harbour before they sailed.
3 New England Judged, p. 7.
30 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
minister in high favour in Massachusetts, and who had
taken a very prominent part in the heresy trials and
expulsion of Anne Hutchinson and her friends, was the
principal author of two violent anti-Quaker Tracts, The
Perfect Pharisee under Monkish Holinesse, and A further
Discovery of that Generation of Men called Quakers, issued
in 1653 and 1654. Samuel Eaton, author of The
Quakers confuted, published in 1654, was brother of
Theophilus Eaton, a governor of New Haven, and had
been a preacher in New England. Christopher Marshall
of Woodkirk, who had been James Nayler's pastor, and
who poured forth a torrent of abuse upon George Fox and
the Quakers, had intimate associations with Boston, where
he had been a member of John Cotton's Church, and
had been trained in the ministry by that famous teacher.1
The writings of trusted leaders such as these had made
Quakerism an accursed thing before any Quaker crossed
the Atlantic. The Quakers were already catalogued as
a new type of religious Enthusiasts, like the sect which
for a hundred years had made the name of Miinster
a word of terror.2 In fact one of the Massachusetts
" Declarations " against the Quakers traces their pedigree
directly to these fanatics of the century before :
" The prudence of this Court was exercised in making provision
to secure Peace and Order against their Attempts, whose design
(we were well-assured by our own experience as well as by the
example of their Predecessors in Miinster) was to undermine and
ruin the same."3
The allusion to Miinster comes out also in a Petition
sent in 1658 to the General Court for severe laws against
the Quakers. The petitioners say :
"Their [the Quakers] incorrigibleness, after so much means
used both for their conviction and for preserving this place
1 See Transactions of the Cong. Hist. Soc., March 1903, p. 224. For
Marshall's attacks on Fox, see Journal, i. 107.
8 A fanatical band of Anabaptists captured the city of Miinster in 1534, and
disturbed the world with their strange " Kingdom."
3 New England Judged, p. 3.
CH. ii THE QUAKERS AT THE GATES 31
from contagion, being such, as by reason of their malignant
obduratices [sic], daily increaseth rather than abateth our fear of
the spirit of Muncer [Miinster], or John of Leyden revived." l
Nearly all the Massachusetts enactments against the
Quakers refer not only to their " horrid opinions " and
" diabolical doctrines," but also to their dangerous leaven
of " mutiny, sedition and rebellion," their subtle designs
to " overthrow the order established in Church and
commonwealth." This was, as we in this calm genera
tion know, a pure figment of the imagination, but it
was, nevertheless, a live and propulsive idea then in
the minds of the ministers and magistrates, and must
be reckoned with in judging their treatment of the
Quakers.2
There was always hanging over the Puritan colonists,
another terror, to us very pale and remote, to them very
real and imminent — the terror of witchcraft ; the awful
power of Satan to transform a human person into a
tool of malice and mischief. Bellingham's own sister-in-
law had been executed as a witch only a few months
before the arrival of these two Quaker women, and the
eager search of their naked bodies for " tokens " was
very significant ; and if a mark or blemish had been
found on their bodies, something besides books might
have burned in the market-place.
There can be no doubt that these " phobias," these
unreasoned and morbid delusions, were potent factors in
predisposing the authorities to a sternly hostile attitude
toward these harmless women missionaries. But there
was a deeper and solider ground for their hostile attitude
than these "obsessing ideas" furnish. These women
were the bearers of a type of religion sharply at variance,
and in fact irreconcilable with that already established
in Massachusetts. Feeble as they were, they were the
1 Massachusetts Archives, vol. x. p. 246.
* This hysterical fear of " designs to overthrow the established order " was a
prominent element in the treatment of the Hutchinson party, though there was
not the slightest ground for it. Cotton Mather, even after overwhelming evidence
that the Quakers had no designs against established order, still in his day called
them "dangerous villains." — Magnolia, vol. ii. p. 256.
32 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
vanguard of an army, and they represented a new spiritual
empire in array against the spiritual empire which the
Puritan in stern consecration was building. There was
no delusion in the statement of the Court that " the
tenetts and practices of the Quakers are opposite to
the orthodoxe received opinions and practices of the
godly" i.e. of the Massachusetts ministers.1 We must
try to see fairly and honestly what these " tenetts and
practices " were.
The central truth on which the Quaker of that period
staked his faith and to which he pledged his life, was
the presence of a Divine Light in the soul. It is an
important historical fact that every Quaker in 1656 held
this inward Light in the Soul to be the essential truth of
religion.2 God, they said, has placed a Divine principle —
something of Himself — in every man. This Light within
condemns every step toward sin and evil, it approves
every act of rectitude and every movement in the
direction of righteousness. It is, in fact, a continuation
now in many lives of that Christ, that Word of God and
Light of the World and incorruptible Seed of God that
was incarnate in One Life in Galilee and Judea.3 As
fast and as far, they said, as any one obeys this Light
it leads him into all truth and into perfection of life,
" sets him atop of the devil and all his works." " In this
Eternal Life and Power," they said, "you continually
grow up in the Life of God — the life that never dies." 4
Salvation was, thus, for them not a transaction but a
transformation : not a forensic escape from the penalty
due for their sins, but an actual deliverance from sin
1 Proceedings of the General Court held in Boston igth of October 1658.
3 Cotton Mather says with much revulsion : ' ' They call men to attend to
the mystical dispensation of a Light within, as having the whole of religion
contained therein." — Magnalia, vol. ii. p. 523.
Neal in similar vein says : "The Light within they affirmed to be sufficient
to salvation without anything else." — Hist, of New England, vol. i. p. 322.
3 ' ' This Seed and Birth of God in us is a living Principle ; yea, it is a
measure of the same Life and Spirit of Jesus Christ." — From George Keith's
Immediate Revelation, p. 248.
"The Quakers believe both in a Christ without and a Christ within, but
not as two Christs, but one and the same without as within." — John Whiting,
The Sword of the Lord Drawn, p. 5.
4 Edward Burrough, Works (1672) p. 75.
CH. ii THE QUAKERS AT THE GATES 33
itself. " To witness [i.e. experience] God within you,
the Immanuel, the Saviour, God-with-you, is the whole
salvation, there is no other to be expected than this. To
witness that God dwells in us and walks in us is to be
begotten by the Word of God, to be born of the
Immortal Seed and to be a New Creature." x Not only
did they insist that they possessed within themselves a
Principle of moral illumination, a Power at war with sin
in them, an Immanuel-God working in them to free
them from all sin and to raise them to immortal life, but
they claimed still further that they were the recipients of
direct revelations.
" I have had," said Fox, " a word from the Lord as
the prophets and apostles had." They were simple,
humble men and women, quite devoid of cheap ambitions,
and singularly free from vain desire to gain mastery over
their fellows by bold assumptions ; but they believed, with
a conviction which no torture could shake, that the
infinite God revealed His will in their souls. They held
it for certain that they moved under orders from above,
and that even in matters of seemingly slight importance
they were guided as by a heavenly vision. One of the
men who was called to pass through the martyr-baptism
on Boston Common has left this simple, straightforward
account of his " call " :
"In the beginning of the year 1655, I was at the plough in
the east part of Yorkshire in Old England, near the place where
my outward being began, and as I walked after the plough, I
was filled with the Love and the presence of the Living God
which did ravish my heart when I felt it ; for it did increase and
abound in me like a living stream, and the Love and Life of
God ran through me like precious ointment giving a pleasant
smell, which made me stand still ; and as I stood a little still,
with my heart and mind stayed on the Lord, the Word of the
Lord came to me in a still small voice, which I did hear
perfectly, saying to me, in the secret of my heart and conscience,
' I have ordained thee a prophet unto the Nations.' " 2
1 Burrough, A General Epistle to the Saints.
2 From a letter of Marmaduke Stephenson written from Boston Prison. — New
England Judged, pp. 131-133.
D
34 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Similar accounts of experiences, believed to be " open
ings " of call and guidance, could be given from almost
every Quaker pamphlet of that period, and there can
be no question that the leading Friends of that date felt
themselves to belong to the order of prophets and
apostles.1 This faith and expectation created the peculiar
type of meeting, known as " the meeting for worship,"
which was one of the most unique features of the
Quakerism that was now knocking for admission at
the port of Boston. The members sat down in silence,
with no ordained minister, with no prearrangements, no
preparation for vocal service of any sort. They believed
that sensitive souls could become aware of celestial
currents, and that no words should be spoken in prayer
or ministry until the lips were divinely moved. It was a
bold experiment, an attempt to realise the prophetic ideal
of Jeremiah that there should be a new Israel, with God's
law in their inward parts, and with His will written in
their hearts.2 It meant nothing less than the claim that
revelation is continuous, and that by the work of the
Divine Spirit there is a true apostolic succession.
Another bold feature of this new religion was the
absence of all sacraments. The sacraments are " shadows,"
they said ; Christ came to bring men to realities, and they
were satisfied that they had found the realities. " The
Spirit of God changes the ground {i.e. nature] of the
soul, and transmutes it into His own nature, while all
those things which men strive so much about are but
shadows." 3 " There is," says another of their leaders,
" a spiritual communion which reaches beyond all
1 The inference which their opponents drew was that they denied, or even
discarded the Holy Scriptures, and they were almost invariably ' ' examined " on
this point. As a matter of fact, they never denied or discarded the Scriptures ;
they simply denied that they were the only Rule of faith and practice ; since,
they insisted, the Light of Christ in the heart in conjunction with the Scriptures
is most certainly a guide and rule. They were also supposed to be very unsound
on the doctrine of the Trinity, and they were frequently ' ' tested " on this
article of faith. They generally gave this discreet if somewhat inconclusive answer :
"The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we own [i.e. believe in], but a Trinity of
Persons the Scriptures speak not of ! " See Humphrey Norton's Ensign, p. 8.
2 Jer. xxxi. 33-34.
3 Francis Howgil, Works (1676), p. 53.
CH. n THE QUAKERS AT THE GATES 35
visibles and is above all mortal and fading things."
" The Lord," is the mighty claim of still another, " hath
brought me into a life which I live by the springing up
of life within me."
It was, thus, a religion of first-hand experience, based
primarily not on historical happenings but on inward
events. Its messengers declared that they had found the
perennial springs of Life, and they claimed that these
springs were bubbling within their own souls. In the
power and joy of this " inward bubbling," the Quaker felt
a certainty of his election which the Puritan did not have.
" As I was walking in the fields," says Fox, " the Lord
said unto me, ' Thy name is written in the Lamb's book
of life,' and as the Lord spoke it I believed." l " The
Lord said unto me," writes William Robinson just before
his execution in Boston, " ' thy soul shall rest in ever
lasting peace and thy life shall enter into rest.' " 2 This
note of certainty rings through all the writings of the
first Friends. " We are raised from the dead, we are
born of the Immortal Seed, and we have entered into
God's Eternal Life — the Life that never dies," is the
constantly recurring testimony. John Fiske, who more
than any other historian of Colonial America has
succeeded in understanding the Quaker position, very
truly says :
" The ideal of the Quakers was flatly antagonistic to that
of the settlers of Massachusetts. The Christianity of the
former was freed from Judaism as far as was possible ; the
Christianity of the latter was heavily encumbered with Judaism.
The Quaker aimed at complete separation between Church and
State; the government of Massachusetts was patterned after
the ancient Jewish theocracy in which church and state were
identified. The Quaker was tolerant of differences in doctrine ;
the Calvinist regarded such tolerance as a deadly sin. For
these reasons the arrival of a few Quakers in Boston in 1656
was considered an act of invasion and treated as such." 3
Even more obnoxious to the Puritan, certainly to the
1 Journal, voL i. p. 35.
2 Letter fromWm. Robinson written in Boston Prison igthof 8th month 1659.
3 Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies, vol. ii. p. 112.
36 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Puritan divines, than their ideals or than their theology
was the Quakers' estimate of official ministers. They
could be as tender as a woman toward any types of men
who were low down, hard pressed and sore bestead, but
they were relentless against what they called " hireling
ministry." They used very vivid phrases to describe
it, and they were as intolerant of it as the writer of
Deuteronomy had been of the idolatry of his day. They
hewed at it as fiercely as Samuel had hewed Agag.
Quakerism was, one sees, a type of religion at every
point in sharp contrast with that which the Puritans
had established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They
were, as has been said, two different spiritual empires.
The leaders were incapable of understanding each other,
and there was foredoomed to be a clash with tragic
consequences. We shall dwell as little as possible on
the tragedy, and we shall endeavour to understand the
attitude of the persecutors as well as undertake to bring
to clear light in these pages the mission of the Quakers
in the New World and the type of their religion.
Two days after Ann Austin and Mary Fisher,
without bedding and without Bibles, sailed out of Boston
harbour, that is, August 7th, 1656, a ship carrying eight
Quakers — " pretty hearts, the blessing of the Lord with
them and His dread going before them " l — sailed in.
They were Christopher Holder, a valiant apostle of New
England Quakerism, John Copeland, Thomas Thurston,
William Brend, Mary Prince, Sarah Gibbons, Mary
Wetherhead, and Dorothy Waugh. With them also
came from Long Island a man by the name of Richard
Smith, of whom we shall hear later. Officers of the
Commonwealth were sent on board the ship to search
their boxes for " erroneous books and hellish pamphlets," 2
1 Letter of Francis Howgil in Caton Collection of MSS.
2 Humphrey Norton's New England's Ensign, p. 8. The title-page of New
England s Ensign reads : It being the account of Cruelty, the professor's pride
and the articles of their faith signified in characters written in blood, etc. This
being an account of the sufferings sustained by us in New England (with the
Dutch) the most part of it in these two last years 1657, 1658. Written at sea
by us whom the wicked in scorn call Quakers in the second month of the year
1659. London, 1659.
CH. ii THE QUAKERS AT THE GATES 37
and the Friends, after the examination of their views on
the Divine Nature and the Scriptures, were lodged in the
prison vacated two days before — a prison which, Bishop
says, addressing the magistrates in 1660, "ye have
supplied with the bodies of the saints and servants of
Jesus, for the most part ever since : scarce one taken out,
but some one or other put into his room." l
The examination above referred to gave the prisoners
their one chance of delivering the message for which they
had come, though the soil on which the seed fell was not
likely to be of a very receptive sort. One of the Boston
ministers (Humphrey Norton says it was John Norton)
during the examination quoted the passage from 2 Peter,
" we have a more sure word of prophecy," 2 to prove that
the Scriptures are the only rule of faith and sole guide of
life. This was the Quaker's master-text and the prisoners
at once accepted the challenge. They forced the minister
to admit that the passage referred to the Word of God
manifested within the soul when the spiritual day dawn
has come and the Day Star has risen in the heart.
" Where is the ' dark place ' of which the text speaks ? "
John Norton asked William Brend. " It is under my
hand," answered the old Friend, with his hand on his
breast. The Friends then turned questioners and asked
John Norton whether the Eternal Word was a suffi
cient rule and guide or not. He said " Yea." He was
then asked whether it was his rule and guide. He
replied that it was when he was rightly guided. The
magistrates then cried out to know what was the
difference between him and the Quakers ! As the
examination came to an end Governor Endicott, now
home from his journey, made the significant remark :
" Take care that you do not break our ecclesiastical laws,
for then you are sure to stretch by a halter." 8
They were kept for eleven weeks in close confinement,
deprived of all material comforts, and frequently examined
by the ministers of the Colony. At the end of this period
1 New England Judged, p. 41. 8 2 Peter i. 19.
8 Ensign, p. 9; New England Judged, p. 10.
38 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
the master of their vessel, though somewhat recalcitrant,
and citing his rights as a citizen to convey freeborn
Englishmen whithersoever he would, was compelled under
a bond of £500 to transport the eight Quakers back to
the mother country. One of the most interesting episodes
of their imprisonment was the correspondence carried on
between them and Samuel Gorton of Warwick, Rhode
Island. He himself had endeavoured to expound a
mystical religion, and had suffered much for his
doctrines. He had been banished from Massachusetts
and had founded a tiny colony at Warwick, under the
patronage of the Earl of Warwick, where he and his
followers found peace, and he seems to have conceived
the idea of opening his colony as a base of activity for
the Quakers. His first letter is dated i6th September
1656, and is addressed "To the Strangers and out-casts,
with respect to carnall Israel, now in prison at Boston,
for the name of Christ." He writes :
"The report of your demeanour .... as also the errand
you come upon hath much taken my heart, so that I cannot
withhold my hand from expressing its desires after you. That
present habitation of yours ourselves have had a proof of from
like grounds and reasons that have possessed you thereof, unto
which in some measure we still remain in point of banishment
under pain of death, out of these parts. . . . No doubt but
the bolts will fly back in the best season, both in regard of your
selves and us."
Then after some odd and peculiar advice to them, and
comments upon his own buried condition " in a corner of
the earth grudged even as burying-place," he adds :
" But our God may please to send some of his Saints unto us
to speak words which the dead hearing them shall live. I may
not trouble you further at this time, onely if we knew that you
have a mind to stay in these parts after your enlargement (for
we hear that you are to be sent back to England) and what
time the ship would saile, or could have hope the Master would
deliver you, we would endeavour to have a Vessell in readinesse,
when the Ship goeth out of harbour, to take you in, and set you
where you may enjoy your liberty." . . . "In Spirit cleave unto
CH. ii THE QUAKERS AT THE GATES 39
Him (as being in you) who is ever the same all sufficient: In
whom I am yours, Samuel Gorton."1
The Friends wrote a long and appreciative answer to
this friendly letter, beginning with the salutation : " In
that Measure [of Light] which we have received, which is
eternall, we see thee and behold thee and have onenesse
with thee." They then declare that their minds are set
to stay in Massachusetts — "we are unwilling to go out
of these parts, if here we could be suffered to stay, but
we are willing to mind the Lord, and," they add, " if He
in His wisdome shall raise thee up, and others for that end,
we shall be willing to accept it."2 They were, however,
prevented from accepting his offer because the captain
was under bond to take them to England, and to land
them nowhere else. Richard Smith, a little later, was
sent home to Long Island by sea, lest by any chance he
might spread the contagion of his heresy, if he were
allowed to go by land.
But in spite of all these precautions to keep the
commonwealth immune, there were positive signs of
infection. There was living at this time in Boston
an honest, independent -minded man, already well ad
vanced in years, named Nicholas Upsall. He was, in
the language of the time, " sober, and of unblameable
conversation," and, though diligent, his inward longings
for the refreshment of his soul were unsatisfied. He
heard, with the rest, of the arrival of the two Quaker
women, and he tried to save the hundred books which
were doomed to go up in smoke, but the report of their
doctrines interested and impressed him rather than dis
turbed him. He heard that the women were being
starved in the prison, and he resolved that they should be
fed. By the payment of five shillings a week, he induced
the jailer to let him feed them and throughout their
imprisonment they ate his provisions. As events pro-
1 Gorton's Antidote Against the Common Plague of the World. Printed in
Rhode Island Historical Collection, vol. ii.
2 Their letter is also printed in the Antidote. Gorton also wrote a second
letter in which he notes that ' ' God hath frustrated our desired design we doubt
not but for the best."
40 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
gressed he was carried on with them farther than he had
expected. While the eight Quakers were in prison, the
General Court of Massachusetts, with the sanction of the
" Commissioners of the United Provinces," passed their
first law against the Quakers — " a cursed sect of heretics
who take upon themselves to be immediately sent of
God, and infallibly assisted by the Spirit." l The law
enacted a fine of .£100 upon any master of a sailing craft
who should bring a Quaker to the Colony, and a fine of
£5 upon any one who should bring into the jurisdiction
any Quaker book, or conceal one in his house.2 It was
further enacted that if by any means a Quaker should
make his way into the Colony, he should be arrested,
whipped, committed to the house of correction, kept con
stantly at work, and prevented from having conversation
with any one until he was once more out of the jurisdiction.
While this law was being proclaimed through the
streets of Boston, preceded by beat of drum, the old man
Nicholas Upsall, standing in front of his own door,
raised his voice in protest. He was brought before the
court, and here, " in tenderness and love," he solemnly
warned the magistrates against the course they were
pursuing. He was fined £20 and banished from
the Colony, spending the winter of 1656 in Sandwich
in the Plymouth Colony, and making his way in the
spring to that haven of rest for persecuted Christians, the
island of Rhode Island, where he received a kindly
welcome from the citizens of the Aquidneck Colony.8 His
tale of hardship won the hearts of the Indians, who were
unsophisticated in theology. One of the chiefs called
him " friend," and offered to build him a comfortable
house, if he could accept his hospitality, commenting with
instinctive insight on the old man's persecutors : " What a
God have the English who deal so with one another over
the worship of their God." 4
1 Colony Records of Massachusetts, vol. iv. part i. p. 277.
a Ibid. p. 308.
* The Order fining Nicholas Upsall "for reproaching the honoured magis
trates, and speaking against the law made and published against the Quakers,"
is in Colony Records of Massachusetts, vol. iv. part i. p. 279.
4 The Ensign, p. 14.
CH. ii THE QUAKERS AT THE GATES 41
Nicholas Upsall became fully convinced, and accepted
the truth which the Quakers taught. He is thus the first
fruit of the planting in New England, the first citizen of
Massachusetts to join his lot with the Quakers.
The knocking at the gates had thus begun ; the next
year, 1657, was to witness something like an incipient
" invasion."
We must now return for a brief examination of the
progress of the work in the West Indies ; for the de
velopment of Quakerism there is bound up essentially
with the spread of the new faith on the American
continent. George Rofe, an important Quaker traveller,
writing from Barbadoes as early as 1661 calls this island
" the nursery of the truth." l So in fact it was, for it
sent a small army of missionaries, strange as it sounds
to-day, to Massachusetts, and one of the Boston martyrs,
William Leddra, came from this "nursery of truth."
Besse gives a list of two hundred and sixty Friends who
suffered persecution in Barbadoes.2
Henry Fell, of Furness, reached Barbadoes in October
1656, and he gives a graphic account of the situation as
he found it " Truly Mary Fisher is a precious heart,
and hath been very serviceable here, so likewise hath
John Rous and Peter Head, and the Lord hath given a
blessing to their labours, for the fruits thereof appear, for
here is a pretty many people convinced of the truth,
among whom the Lord is placing His name. They meet
together in silence in three several places in the island."
Fell at once threw himself into the service, and crossed
controversial swords with Joseph Salmon,8 a leading
Ranter, already known to George Fox. Fell says that
he had never met any one who had the form of truth in
words so well as Salmon : he got away with the great
people who protected him whenever the Quaker began
questioning him, and many were so bewitched with
him that they would hear nothing against him. The
1 Letter in the Stephen Crisp Collection, Devonshire House, No. 102.
2 Besse's Sufferings, vol. ii. pp. 278-351.
3 For Salmon, see my Studies in Mystical Religion, pp. 472, 475-477.
42 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Governor, a great friend of Lieutenant-Colonel Rous, was
moderate towards Friends. He took no offence at John
Rous's " warning," or at Henry Fell's hat or " thouing "
of him ; as for Friends' lives, he said they were inoffensive
and unblameable, but their judging of others he could not
bear. William Dewsbury, one of the foremost of the
builders of Quakerism in England, wrote letters both to
the Governor and to the Lieutenant-Colonel, a circum
stance which shows the close interest with which the
growth of a Quaker community in Barbadoes was followed
in the mother-country. Fell found the morals of the
island poor, the people often " filthy," and some of the
ministers notorious drunkards. He tried again and again
to speak in the churches, but they were so guarded by
the " rude multitude," that he always found himself
ejected from the building before he had uttered more
than a few words. Many were convinced and came to
meetings, but it was hard to persuade them to take up
the cross and avow themselves Friends. Four or five
meetings a week were attended by Fell and Rous, and
convincement followed.1
Henry Fell, after trying in vain to get passage to New
England, for the master of the ship refused to carry him,
returned to England in the autumn of 1657, reaching
London after capture by the Spaniards, and a journey
through France to Rochelle, but only to return a little
later to promote the work in Barbadoes. John Rous was
the only ministering Friend left in Barbadoes, and he was
eager to get passage for New England. He writes, how
ever, " here are some precious Friends, which, I know, if
there were none in the ministry with them, will stand
witnesses for God against the world here." 2 But a few
months later, Peter Evans of Barbadoes reported that, in
the absence of ministers, coldness had got in and there was
need for some who could declare the testimony of truth
with authority.3 A number of Friends, including Henry
1 These particulars are taken from an important series of Henry Fell's letters
in the Swarthmore Collection.
2 To Margaret Fell, 2nd July 1657, Swarthmore Collection, i. 80.
3 To George Fox, 28th April 1658, Swarthmore Collection, iii. no.
CH. ii THE QUAKERS AT THE GATES 43
Fell, were in the island the following year, and we hear
of growing meetings and many convincements.
Work was begun in several other of the West Indian
plantations though we have few details. Early in the
year 1656 Mary Fisher, John Rous, and Peter Head had
paid a visit to the island of Nevis and planted the seed
there. John Bowron, of Cotherstone in Durham, after
carrying the Quaker message to the Orkneys, embarked
there for the West Indies, and in the years 1657 and
1658 visited Surinam, then an English plantation under
Lord Willoughby. There he travelled for several hundreds
of miles among the natives, who were mostly naked, and
he was listened to with respect as " a good man come
from far to preach the white man's God."
" He went to their sort of worship, which was performed by
beating upon holly-trees, and making a great noise with skins,
like a sort of drums, and he declared the word of the Lord
among them by an interpreter . . . and spake to their kings,
who were arrayed with fish-shells hung about their necks and
arms, and they spake to him in their language and confessed
he was a good man come from far to preach the white man's
God." i
This was the earliest piece of what we should now
call Foreign Missionary work. Two Friends visited
Jamaica, which had been captured from the Spaniards in
May 1655 by Admiral Pen n, the father of William Penn.
As an English plantation it was just making headway
against disease and the Spaniards when its capable Acting-
Governor, Colonel Edward D'Oyley, asked advice of
Secretary Thurloe as to the correct treatment of Quakers.
The letter is a charming revelation of the fair-minded
but perplexed official who finds the real Quaker very
different from the portrait drawn in malicious public
prints.
"There are some people," he writes,2 "lately come hither
called Quakers, who have brought letters of credit and do
disperse books amongst us. Now my education and judgment
1 Piety Promoted, vol. i. p. 234.
2 28th Feb. 1657/8, Thurloe State Papers, vol. vi. p. 834.
44 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
prompting me to an owning of all that pretend any way to
godliness and righteousness — whereof these people have a very
great appearance — and the prints telling me that the heads of
the people are contriving against the Government, and accounted
conspirators against His Highness (so the book calls them), hath
put me to some stand how to carry myself towards them, and
numbly to seek your honour's directions, that my carriage in
being tender to them, who are people of an unblameable life,
and to whose acting I am a stranger, may not procure blame
from him in whose service I am — being desirous to steer my
course to the interest I serve and to appear very heartily and
clearly His Highness's faithful subject."
In 1660 Richard Finder, of Ravenstonedale near
Sedbergh, and George Rofe, of Halstead, carried the
Quaker message to the Bermudas. They were received
by many whose expectation was towards God,1 and were
soon holding three or four meetings a week to the great
torment of the priests. A public dispute with the
ministers of the main island was arranged by the Governor,
after which they were freely tolerated and meetings
increased greatly in several places. Several settled
meetings were begun, " at which many knew where to
wait to receive the Lord's secret strength."
The growth of Quaker communities in the West
Indian plantations, especially in Barbadoes, was followed
with keen interest by English Friends. It shows the
moral alertness of Fox's mind that as early as the year
1657 he addressed an epistle " to Friends beyond sea that
have Blacks and Indian Slaves." In this he points out
that God hath made all nations of one blood and that the
gospel is preached to every creature under heaven, " which
is the power that giveth liberty and freedom and is glad
tidings to every captivated creature under the whole
heavens." And so, he says, " ye are to have the mind of
Christ and to be merciful, as your heavenly Father is
merciful."2 In such language as this we find the germs
of the testimony which in after years the Society of
Friends bore on the subject of slavery.
1 See Swarthmore Collection, iv. 39, containing documents from Finder, 1710
August 1660, and from George Rofe somewhat earlier.
2 Fox, Epistle No. 153.
CHAPTER III
THE FOUNDERS OF NEW ENGLAND QUAKERISM
MANY famous ships have had their names imperishably
woven into the story of the American colonies, and the
coming of the precious human freight on the Mayflower,
the Arbella, and the Welcome has profoundly shaped the
current of western civilisation. But of all the ships
which brought pioneer founders to these shores none ever
brought passengers more bravely consecrated to the ideals
for which they sailed, and none has left a stranger narrative
of Divine guidance, than the ship Woodhouse, which
brought the original " apostles " of Quakerism to New
England. The captain's " log " is declared to be —
" A true relation of the voyage undertaken by me Robert
Fowler, with my small vessel called the Woodhouse, but performed
by the Lord, like as He did Noah's Ark, wherein He shut up a few
righteous persons and landed them safe, even at the hill
Ararat." l
The action of the Massachusetts authorities against
Quakers had made shipmasters wary of that kind of
passengers.2 They were very unprofitable cargo. It
was evident that they must have a ship of their own
if they were to carry out their designs in the New World.
1 There is a manuscript of this extraordinary ship's log, endorsed by George
Fox, in the Devonshire House Library in London, A. R.B. MSS. i.
1 Soon after the banishment of the eight ministers, recorded in the last
chapter, a ship brought Mary Dyer and Ann Burden to Boston, both of whom
had become convinced of Quakerism in England. Mary Dyer's story will be
told later. Ann Burden had come over to settle up the estate of her deceased
husband, who had been a citizen of Boston. She, however, was not allowed
to remain to collect her debts, and the master of the ship was compelled to carry
her back. He was given the privilege of seizing a sufficient quantity of her
goods to cover his charges, but he nobly declined to accept such an offer.
45
46 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES «K. i
Go they must ; for, as one of them wrote, " the Lord's
word was as a fire and a hammer in me, though in the
outward appearance there was no likelihood of getting
passage." l At this juncture of affairs, Robert Fowler of
Bridlington, a Quaker convert of four years' standing,
who had been " one of the first fruits unto God in the
east parts of Yorkshire," felt it laid upon him to build
a ship " in the cause of truth," and as he was building
it, " New England was presented " before him. He was
a member of Holderness Monthly Meeting, and the
ancient minute book of that meeting quaintly says that
" the power of the Lord wrought mightily in Robert
Fowler, and others who gladly received the word of life,"
and it continues " the Lord anointed them with his Spirit,
and that led them into truth and righteousness, and some
were fitted to labour in his vineyard." The boat which
he felt himself called to build was only a small craft, far
too small for ocean service, but the builder was deeply
impressed that the God of the waters could guide it, as
He did Noah's Ark, and he brought it up to London
and offered it for the hazardous voyage.2 Eleven Friends,
"firmly persuaded of the Lord's call" to New England,
were eagerly waiting for a means of passage, and they
thankfully accepted what seemed to them a " providential
ship." Six of them were of the former party, already
expelled from Boston.3 These were Christopher Holder,
John Copeland, William Brend, Sarah Gibbons, Mary
Wetherhead, and Dorothy Waugh. Christopher Holder
at the time was a resident of Winterbourne in Gloucester-
1 Letter of Henry Fell to Margaret Fell, igth of February 1657, in the
Swarthmore Collection i. 68.
2 There is a manuscript in the Swarthmore Collection (i. 397) which contains
the following items of " Monies Disbursed for the Service of Truth."
"To New England " —
For Provisions for voyage
Paid to the Master for part of his freight
For bedding and other things
In money ....
To Wm. Brend
,, M. Wetherhead .
, , Sarah Gibbons
30 o o
12 8 o
35 4 4
i 10 8
200
4 10
8 Thomas Thurston, who was of the former party, took another way of
reaching Boston, as we shall see ; Mary Prince found another field of service,
no less romantic and no less hazardous, in the East.
CH. in THE FOUNDERS 47
shire, "a well-educated man of good estate," who had
already been well tested in suffering for his faith, having
passed a term of imprisonment in "ye gayle in Ilchester."
John Copeland was also well educated, and, like Holder,
in the early prime of life. He was a native of Holderness
in Yorkshire. William Brend was, in the language of
the time, " an ancient and venerable man," " known to
many as one who feared God in his generation." He
had come to manhood in the days of Queen Elizabeth,
but was still of an iron constitution and an indomitable
spirit. Sarah Gibbons was a young woman whose early
history is obscure, and whose years of service were cut
short by the untimely sinking of a canoe in which she
was making a landing at Providence in 1659 — "but,"
writes one of her friends, " she was kept faithful to the
end." Mary Wetherhead was a young woman from
Bristol, who, after her short period of dangerous service
in New England, was shipwrecked and drowned with two
of her companions, Richard Doudney and Mary Clark.
Dorothy Waugh had been a serving-maid in the family
of John Camm of Preston Patrick, where she was " con
vinced and called to the work of ministry." l During the
intervening period before her voyage in the Woodhouse, she
had been in many jails in various parts of England. She
was not as well equipped intellectually as her companions
were, and she was apparently not over judicious,2 but she
had an intensity of zeal and considerable power in ministry.
The new volunteers were William Robinson, Humphrey
Norton, Richard Doudney, Robert Hodgson, and Mary
Clark. William Robinson was a London merchant, a
young man of education, successful in his affairs, and
possessed of a fine and lofty spirit, ready to endure to
the death for his soul's vision of truth. Humphrey
Norton first comes into notice in 1655. He had, before
sailing in the Woodhouse, performed an extensive service
in Ireland, where he had learned how to suffer severe
persecution. He had, too, shown his fearless spirit in
1 See First Publishers of Truth, p. 255.
2 Mary Prince writes to George Fox, " I was ensnared by D. Waugh, but I
am out through the love of God." — Swarthmore Collection, iv. 58.
48 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
the proffer of himself as a substitute prisoner to take
the place of George Fox who was lying in Launceston.
In April 1656 he wrote to Fox: "The want of thy
showing forth unto Israel lies now upon me," and he
declares that he is ready to lay down his life for his
imprisoned friend, and that he is going to Cromwell to
offer himself body for body.1 He wrote, with the help
of two other Friends, the earliest account we have of the
first publishing of Quakerism in New England.2
Richard Doudney's life is unknown previous to his
American visit, and there are no biographical details
available. His friends describe him as " an innocent
man who served the Lord in sincerity." Robert Hodgson
is likewise an obscure character. The most impressive
event of his life known to us is told in the chapter on
the Planting of Quakerism in New York. There are
hints in existing letters that he was not always wise in
propagating the truth, and there are rumours that he
" headed a rent in Rhode Island," but these mutterings
of criticism and jealousy in the little band must not be
taken too seriously, for they are too commonly the sins
of the saints to create surprise here.
Mary Clark was the wife of John Clark, a London
tradesman, and had come into fellowship with Friends
about the time of their rise in London. She had already
endured much for her faith, and much was still reserved
for her in America.
William Dewsbury boarded the Woodhouse off the
Downs, 3rd June 1657, and gave the band a word of
encouragement. He wrote two days later to Margaret
Fell:
" They were bold in the power of the Lord and the life did
arise in them .... many dear children shall come forth in
the power of God in those countries where they desire to go."3
On the way to London from Holderness two of the
sailors of the Woodhouse had been " impressed " for naval
1 Journal, i. 318. The letter is given in full in the Cambridge Journal,
2 H. Norton's New England's Ensign, 1659.
3 Letter in the Caton Collection of MSS. in Bowden, vol. i. p. 68.
CH. in THE FOUNDERS 49
service, and Robert Fowler was left with only two men
and three boys to man his ship for the voyage. At
Portsmouth, however, he succeeded in completing his
crew, though the old sea-captains there remarked that
they would not go to sea in such a small vessel if Fowler
would give it to them. Fowler's " log " tells us in curious
metaphorical language that while they were waiting at
Portsmouth, " some of the ministers of Christ went on
shore and gathered sticks, and kindled a fire and left
it burning," which means that they made converts and
started a meeting there. " At South Yarmouth again
we went ashore and in some measure did the like," i.e.
left more sticks burning. An interesting letter from
William Robinson to Margaret Fell sent from Portsmouth,
refers to the kindling of this fire, and indicates that two
more Friends were expected for the voyage. They were
probably Joseph Nicholson and his wife who reached
New England later.1 The letter says :
"I thought it meet to let thee know that ye ship that
carries friends to new ingland, is now riding in Portsmouth
harbour : we only stay for a faire winde : ye two friends : ye
man and wife, which thou tould me off when I was at Swarthmore,
I heare nothing of their cominge to London as yet.
" Robert Hotchin is with me at this place for we came heather
this afternoon to have a meeting at this place seinge ye wind is
at present contrary, but we intend if the Lord permitt to returne
back again to ye ship to-morrow." 2
Finally, about the middle of June, " leaving all hope
of help as to the outward," the little vessel struck out
on its course. " The Lord caused us to meet together
every day," the quaint narrative says, " and He Himself
met with us, and manifested Himself largely unto us, so
that by storms we were not prevented [from meeting]
above three times in all our voyage," and in these
meetings they believed that they had definite " openings "
as to how to steer the ship.
On one occasion, as they " were taking counsel of the
1 There is an entry in the Kendal accounts in June 1657 of expenses "for
Joseph Nicholson and his wife for New England."
2 Swarthmore Collection, iv. 126.
50 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Lord, the word from Him was, 'Cut through and steer
your straightest course and mind nothing but me.' " At
another time when they believed themselves beset by men
of war, Humphrey Norton, who seems to have been the
" oracle " of the party, had a revelation in the morning
that " they were nigh unto us that sought our lives " but
with it came the assurance :
'"Thus saith the Lord, ye shall be carried away as in a mist.' . . .
Presently we espied a great ship making toward us, but in the
very interim, the Lord God fulfilled his promise wonderfully to
our refreshment." "Thus it was all the voyage," the log
continues. "The faithful were carried far above storms and
tempests, and we saw the Lord leading our vessel as it were a man
leading a horse by the head,1 we regarding neither latitude nor
longitude [stc], but kept to our Line [i.e. our Light] which was
and is our Leader, Guide, and Rule."
Two openings of great comfort were granted to the
little group which assured them that they were being
guided toward the land they sought. The first inward
sight came, as the narrative puts it :
"When we had been five weeks at sea, when the powers of
darkness appeared in the greatest strength against us, having
sailed but about three hundred leagues, Humphrey Norton,
falling into communion with God, told me that he had received
a comfortable answer, and that about such a day we should land
in America, which was even so fulfilled."
The other opening came a little before land was sighted :
" Our drawing had been all the passage," the account says,
"to keep to the southward, until the evening before we made
land, and then the word was, ' Let them steer northwards until
the day following,' and soon after the middle of the day there
was a drawing to meet together before our usual time and it
was said to us that we should look abroad in the evening ; and
as we sat waiting before the Lord, they discovered land."
They found that they were " in the ' creek ' which led
between the Dutch Plantations and Long Island, whither
the movings of some Friends called them."
1 This was a common figure to express complete Divine guidance. William
Edmundson says that he was brought to a place where he was needed, ' ' by the
good hand of God, as a horse is led by the bridle."
CH. in THE FOUNDERS 51
" The power of the Lord fell much upon us and an irresistible
word came unto us, ' That the seed in America shall be as the
sand of the sea.' It was published in the ears of the brethren,
which caused tears to break forth with fulness of joy."
Robert Hodgson, Richard Doudney, Sarah Gibbons,
Mary Wetherhead, and Dorothy Waugh, were put on
shore at New Amsterdam (now New York City),
" whither they had movings," and the rest of the party
passed on towards Newport, meeting their closest danger
in the passage through Hell-gate — a danger which, the
" log " says, was revealed in a vision both to the master
of the vessel and to Robert Hodgson, several days before.
The little band of " apostles " finally arrived safely at
Newport, the 3rd of August.
It is evident that these spiritual Argonauts took
themselves very seriously. The Lord "led their ship,
as a man leads a horse by the head," and He steered
their vessel " as He did Noah's Ark to the hill Ararat"
Every danger was "opened" to them in advance, and
they were landed where they wished to be. One sees
at once that we are dealing here with " enthusiasts " and
not with every-day matter-of-fact voyagers. They had
no question that they were " sent," that they were "guided,"
that they were the Lord's prophets, and in this faith we
shall see them meet their dangers and carry through their
commission. This Fowler document, like many another
writing of the Friends in this earliest period, contains
many occurrences of a semi-miraculous sort. They are
carried away from their enemies in a mist, and they are
told how to steer even when they know little or nothing
of latitude and longitude. Religious literature furnishes
many illustrations of the way in which a group of persons
living on the verge of ecstasy, and exalted by enthusiastic
faith, read the miraculous into ordinary happenings, and
are unaware of actions which they themselves perform
in a kind of subconscious state. There is no necessary
reason to conclude that this " log " is consciously improved
by the writer of it ; it is almost certainly a naive but
honest account written by an enthusiast, who is so sure
52 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
of the Lord's leading that he unconsciously belittles his
own knowledge of nautical affairs.
Humphrey Norton's account of his own "conversion
experience " gives us a pretty good glimpse of the type of
persons we have before us. He says, speaking of his
" convincement and call " :
" In my distress — when gross darkness covered me — I heard
a cry that Light was broken forth and that there was a measure
of it given to every man, but so dark was I and so grossly blind,
that what this Light was I knew not ; nor amongst all professors,
priests nor others, had I ever heard it spoken of, nor preached
for salvation. Then called I to question all that ever I had read
or heard, to the last tittle of my old belief. . . . My desire to
live justly and to enjoy God, set me to inquire after this new Light
and what effect it had amongst such as did believe in it. I heard
that it did convince of sin ; and, being believed in, obeyed and
followed, led out of all manner of uncleanness. Then said I
in my heart, if so, it should not want following, for I was weary
of my sin, yea I loathed my life." "And believing in this
Light ... I have obtained mercy, peace with God, redemption
from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, have been made an heir
to His kingdom, a member of His body, a minister of His Spirit,
and an inheritor of His Eternal rest, blessed forever." l
Rhode Island was the most favourable and receptive
spot in North America for them to light upon. It had
been preparing, as we have seen, through a score of years
for exactly the seed that was now to be sown. Here at
last was a little corner of the earth consecrated to
freedom of belief and worship, where one could follow his
inward Light without fear of dungeon or gibbet. A
letter from Rhode Island was sent in 1658 to John
Clarke, the Agent of the Colony, to secure a charter from
the English Government, urging him to plead " that we
may not be compelled to exercise any civil power over men's
consciences, so long as human orders in point of civilisation
are not corrupted and violated." The letter continues :
" We have now a new occasion . . . because a sort of people
called by the name of Quakers have come amongst us, and have
raised up divers who seeme at present to be of their spirit. . . . Wee
have found noe just cause, to charge them with the breach of
1 The Ensign, pp. 2-3.
CH. in THE FOUNDERS 53
the civill peace, only they are constantly goeinge forth amongst
them about us and vex and trouble them in poynt of religion
and spirituall state, though they returne with many a fowle scarr
in their bodies for the same." l
Anne Hutchinson herself was dead, but those who
had shared her views and had gone into exile with her
were admirable material for a Quaker meeting. Mary
Dyer, Anne Hutchinson's closest friend in her hour of
hard trial, had just returned from England to her home
in Rhode Island, having had her first taste of Boston
jail on her landing. While in England she had become
" convinced " of the truth of the Quaker message, had
thrown in her lot with the new Society, and had already
been recognised as a minister of that faith. She was
thus a dynamic Quaker nucleus to begin with. Some of
the foremost families among the founders of the Rhode
Island Colony — William Coddington, Joshua Coggeshall,
son of John, Nicholas Easton and his son John, and
Walter Clarke, son of Jeremiah Clarke, an original
founder, appear to have accepted the Quaker faith as
soon as they heard it, and at once became pillars in the
first Quaker meeting in the New World. With them
came over to Quakerism, it would seem, a large number
of the inhabitants of the island, and the pilgrims from the
Woodhouse must have thought that their dream of a
" seed like the sand of the sea-shore " was well on its
way to be realised ! 2 Only four years from the time of
1 Colony Records of Rhode Island, vol. i. pp. 396-397.
2 Callender in his Historical Discourse says : "In 1657 some of the people
called Quakers came to this Colony and Island ; and being persecuted and
abused in the other Colonies, that together with the opinions and circumstances
of the people here, gave them a large harvest ; many, and some of the Baptist
Church [of which Callender was a member] embraced their doctrines and
particular opinions, to which many of their posterity, and others, still
adhere." — p. 118.
John Rous, 7th Nov. 1657, writing from Rhode Island, challenged Governor
Endicott to arrange for a meeting with the Massachusetts officials for a free
discussion of the Quaker faith, and he asks Endicott to send his answer to
Nicholas Easton who was thus already a convinced Friend. — Ensign, p. 59.
Peterson says, in his History of Rhode Island, under date of 1656 (it should be
1657): "This year some of the people called Quakers came to this Colony,
being persecuted and abused in the other Colonies, and many of the principal
inhabitants embraced their doctrines, among whom were William Coddington,
Nicholas Easton and his two sons, Philip Shearman, Adam Mott, and many
others (p. 36).
54 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
the landing of these " Argonauts " at Newport, an annual
meeting was established on the island, to which the
Friends, springing up in scattered parts of New England,
largely through their labours, came year after year — a
meeting which, under the name of " The Yearly Meeting
for Friends in New England," has had a continuous
history to the present day.1
The cordial reception which the settlers on Rhode
Island gave the Quakers, and the formation here of a
base of operations and a quiet retreat from the storms of
persecution, at once aroused the Puritan colonies. They
had formerly refused to admit Rhode Island as a member
of the Union of New England colonies, but now they
showed themselves eager for co-operation in the face of
common danger which menaced their peace, if not their
spiritual empire. On the I2th of September 1657
the Commissioners of the United Colonies, " being in
formed that divers Quakers are arrived this summer at
Rhode Island which may prove dangerous to the
Colonies," " thought meet to manifest their minds " in a
letter to those in authority in Rhode Island.
" We suppose," they wrote, " you have understood that
last year a companie of Quakers arrived in Boston upon
noe other account than to disperse theire pernicious
opinions," and then they recount how by " prudent care "
they have seen to it that " all Quakers, Ranters, and such
notorious heretiques might be prohibited coming among
1 There seems no uncertainty about the year in which this meeting was
established. George Bishop says: "About that time [i.e. 1661] the General
Meeting at Rhode Island, about sixty miles from Boston, was set up and
you [the inhabitants of Boston], made an Alarm that the Quakers were
gathering together to kill the people and fire the town of Boston ! " — New
England Judged, p. 351. John Burnyeat also gives valuable testimony in his
Journal. He writes : "I took shipping for Rhode Island, and was there at their
Yearly Meeting in 1671 which begins the ninth of the Fourth month (June, new
style) every year and continues much of a week, and is a General Meeting once a
year for all Friends in New England." — Burnyeat's Journal (Barclay's reprint),
p. 196. George Rofe appears to have been the "beginner" of this Yearly
Meeting. He was in New England in the summer of 1661 and he writes from
Barbadoes of that visit : " We came in [i.e. landed] at Rhode Island, and we
appointed a General Meeting for all Friends in those parts, which was a very
great meeting and very precious, and continued four days together and the Lord
was with His people and blessed them. There is a good seed and the seed
will arise." — George Rofe to Richard Hubberthorne, A.R.B. Collection, No. 62
(Devonshire House, London).
CH. in THE FOUNDERS 55
us " and that " such as arise from amongst ourselves "
shall be " removed." " But," they continue, " it is by
experience found that meanes will fall short without
further care by reason of your admission and receiving
of such, from whence they may have opportunity to
creep in amongst us, or meanes to infuse and spread
their accursed tenates to the great trouble of the
colonies, if not to the subversion of the lawes professed
in them." " To preserve us," this is their appeal, " from
such a pest, the contagion of which within your colony
were dangerous, we request that you take such order
herein that your neighbors may be freed from that
danger, that you remove those Quakers that have been
receaved, and for the future prohibite their cominge
amongst you." l
The Rhode Island answer, signed by Benedict Arnold,
President of the Colony, I3th October 1657,15 a dignified
refusal to swerve from the settled policy of toleration.
"Our desires are," they say, "in all things possible, to
pursue after and keepe fayre and loveing correspondence and
entercourse with all the colonys," and they add that they will
return all persons that " fly from justice in matters of crime " —
" but as concerning these which are now among us, we have no
law among us whereby to punish any for only declaring by words,
their mindes and understandings concerning the things and ways of
God, as to salvation and an eternal condition." . . . "And as to
the dammage that may in likelyhood accrue to the neighbor
collonys by theire being here entertained, we conceive it will
not prove so dangerous as the course taken by you to send
them away out of the country as they come among you." 2
This letter, above quoted, was sent by the " Court of
Trials." Five months later the General Assembly of the
colony sent a Letter to Governor Endicott of Massachusetts
to be imparted to the Commissioners of the United
Colonies in which the principle of freedom is again as
stoutly asserted : " Freedom of conscience we still prize
as the greatest hapines that man can posess in this
world." Quakers, they say, as all other people who
1 Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, \. 374-376.
2 Ibid. i. 376-378.
56 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
come to Rhode Island, must be subject to all civil duties
and preserve peace and justice, and if the aforesaid
Quakers fail in these respects " to the corruptings of
good manners and disturbinge the common peace and
sosieties " —
" We shall present the matter unto the supream authority of
England, humbly craveing their advice and order, how to carry
ourselves in any further respect towards these people soe that
therewithall theire may be noe damadge or infringement of that
chiefe principle in our charter concerninge freedom of consciences,
and we alsoe are soe much the more encouraged to make our
addresses unto the Lord Protector, for that we understand there
are or have beene many of the foresayed people suffered to live
in England ; yea even in the heart of the nation." l
It was thus settled from the start that the Quakers
were to be absolutely safe in Rhode Island, if nothing
could be urged against them except peculiarity of
religious opinions, and the time was not far distant when
they were to become the actual rulers of the Colony, as
we shall see. But, as the Letter from the " Court of
Trial " of Rhode Island says, the Quakers were not
satisfied to stay where there was no opposition.2
This was, however, not because they liked opposition
and enjoyed a fight, but because they believed that they
had come over to America under a commission from the
Most High to sow their seed of truth in the soil of
Massachusetts. They rejoiced in the spread of truth on
the safe island in the Narragansett, and they were glad
to see the " seed " spring up there, but they were
especially thankful for a safe base of operations for the
more strenuous campaign for which they had come over ;
and it was just because this " campaign " was proving
effective that that Letter from the Commissioners of the
United Colonies was written.
A Letter of John Copeland's, written a week after the
Woodhouse came into Newport, says :
1 Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, i. 378-380.
2 ' ' We finde that in those places where these people aforesaid, in this Colony
are most of all suffered to declare themselves freely, and are only opposed by
arguments in discourse, there they least of all desire to come." — Op. cit. p. 377.
CH. in THE FOUNDERS 57
" Christopher Holder and I are going to Martha's Vineyard
in obedience to the will of our God, whose will is our joy.
Humphrey Norton is at present in Rhode Island, Mary Clark
is waiting to go toward Boston ; William Brend is towards
Providence. The Lord God of Hosts is with us, the shout of a
King is amongst us ; the people fear our God ! " x
Mary Clark had come over under a " special moving "
to bear her testimony in Boston. She was, as Bishop
tells us, "the mother of children, having a husband in
England whom she left, being moved to come unto you." 2
She delivered her message, but it was answered by twenty
stripes of a three-corded whip, " laid on with fury," then
with twelve weeks of prison silence, and then she was
sent out of the jurisdiction in winter season, probably
back to Rhode Island.3 A little later she went to her
death by shipwreck.
Holder and Copeland were to have more visible fruit for
their labour. They went, as planned, to Martha's Vineyard
where they met only stern rebuff from the white settlers,
though the Indians were kind to them, took them in, saying,
" you are strangers and the Lord has taught us to love
strangers," 4 and finally carried them in their canoes to the
mainland of Massachusetts. The travellers started now
directly on foot through the woods for Sandwich, which,
like Newport, was receptive soil for their truth, partly
owing, perhaps, to the quiet work of Nicholas Upsall
who had spent the preceding winter there in exile.6
1 Quoted from 'Bov/deristfistory of Friends in America, vol. i. p. 67. William
Robinson was apparently labouring in Rhode Island though he is not mentioned.
2 New England Judged, p. 50. See also Besse's Sufferings, vol. ii. p. 181.
8 Mary Clark was the first Quaker woman in America to suffer whipping for
her religious views. She had many followers, however.
4 Norton's Ensign, p. 22.
8 A magistrate of Plymouth Colony calles Nicholas Upsall ' ' the instigator
of all this [Quaker] mischief."' — History of Bamstable County, p. 169. I am
convinced that there were a number of centres in the Plymouth Colony where
there were "seekers" and where there was no loyal support for the existing
system. There is in existence a Letter from the Governor and Magistrates of
Massachusetts which supports this view. It is dated 2nd Sept. 1656, and was
written to the Commissioners of the United Colonies, telling of the arrival of Quakers
who are " fitt Instruments to propogate the Kingdome of Sathan," and urging the
"beloved Brethren and Naighbors of the collonie of Plymouth" to make
preparation for guarding against "such pests." The Letter says that there is a
great lack in Plymouth Colony of " a due acknowledgement of and encouragement
to the Minnesters of the Gosspell." There has been apparently "a crying downe
58 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
" Their arrival," Bowden says, " was hailed with feelings
of satisfaction by many who were sincere seekers after
heavenly riches, but who had long been burdened with a
lifeless ministry and dead forms of religion." l Sandwich
was a town of Plymouth Colony and if it had its " sincere
seekers," it also had its proportion of persons who stood
for the status quo. Humphrey Norton has given us a
lively account of the commotion :
" Great was the stir and noise of the tumultuous town, yea,
all in an uproar, hearing that we, who were called by such a
name as Quakers, were come into those parts. A great fire was
kindled and the hearts of many did burn within them, so that in
the heat thereof some said one thing and some said another ;
but the most part knew not what was the matter." 2
The two Quaker missionaries, after two trips to the
town of Plymouth, one of them a forced trip, and after
being " conveyed six miles " toward Rhode Island by a
constable who hoped in vain that they would not come
back — were finally arrested " as extravagant persons and
vagabonds," and conveyed fifty miles in the direction of
Rhode Island, with a threat of being whipped, if they ever
returned, which thing they were pretty certain to do !
They had made only a short visit in the town of Sandwich,
but the results of it were great. A number of the
leading townspeople were convinced by this first visit
and were henceforth ready to risk goods and lives for
their new views of truth, a risk they were very soon
called to face. One of the magistrates of the town
writing the year following — December 1658 — says that
the Quakers " have many meetings and many adherents,
almost the whole town of Sandwich is adhering towards
them."8 The records show that seventy- five persons
were presented in court during that year for attending
" meeting," and this in spite of the fact that there was a
fine of forty shillings placed upon every person who
of minnestry and rainnesters" and the Letter declares that the way to meet this
"new engine of Sathan " is to "reinstate a pious orthodox minnestry" —
Plymouth Records, vol. ii. p. 156.
1 Of. cit. i. 71. 2 Ensign, p. 22.
8 Letter of Justice James Cudworth, printed in Besse, ii. p. 191, and in New
England Judged, p. 168.
CH. in THE FOUNDERS 59
allowed a Quaker meeting in his house and a fine of ten
shillings for every " hearer " who attended, " yea and if
nothing be spoken at the meeting, as it sometimes falls
out ! " x
The extent of the " convincement " comes to light
in a passage from Cotton Mather's Life of Rev.
Samuel Newman : " How many straits he underwent in
that dark day when he was almost the only minister
whose invincible patience held out under the scandalous
1 See Cudworth's Letter. The first law against the Quakers in the Plymouth
Colony was passed in 1657 and is an interesting "relic." It is as follows:
"Whereas there hath severall psons come into this Govrment comonly called
Quakers whose doctrines and practises manifestly tends to the subversion of the
foundamentals of Christian Religion, Church Order and Civill peace of this
Govrment as appeers by the Testimonies given in sundry depositions and
otherwise. It is therefore enacted by the Court and the Authority thereof that
noe Quaker or pson comonly soe called bee entertained by any pson or psons
within this Govrment under the penaltie of five pounds for every such default or
bee whipt ; It is also enacted by this Court and the Authority therof that if any
Rantor or Quaker or pson comonly soe called shall come into any towne
within this Govrment, and by any pson or psons bee knowne or suspected to bee
such the pson so knowing or suspecting him shall forthwith acquaint the
Constable or his deputie of them on paine of Presentment and soe liable to
cencure in Court whoe [i.e. the magistrate] forthwith on such notice of them or
any other Intelligence hee shall have of them shall dilligently endeavor to
apprehend him or them and bring them before some one of the majestrates whoe
shall cause him or them to bee comitted to Goale, there to be kept close
prisoners with such victualls onely as the Court aloweth untill he or they shall
defray the charge both of theire Imprisonment and theire Transportation away ;
Together with an engagement to returne into this Gov'ment noe more or else to
be continewed in close durance till further orders from the Court. And forasmuch
as the meetings of such psons whether strangers or others proveth disturbing to
the peace of this Govrment. It is therefore enacted by the Court and the
Authority thereof that henceforth noe such meetings bee assembled or kept by
any pson in any place within this Govrment under the penaltie of forty shillings a
time for every speaker and ten shillings a time for every hearer that are heads of
families and forty shillings a time for the owner of the place that pmits them soe
to meet together ; and if they meet together att theire silent meetings soe called
then every pson soe meeting together shall pay ten shillings a time and the owner
of the place forty shillings a time." — Plymouth Records, vol. xi. pp. 100-101. In
1658, it was decreed : " Noe Quaker or Rantor or any such corrupt pson shall
be admitted to be a freeman." "All such as refuse to take the oath of
fidelitie as quakers shall have noe voat or shall be imployed in any place of
trust" (ibid. p. 100). In 1659 it was declared " that many persons in Plymouth
Colony are being corrupted by reading Quaker books, writings and Epislles
which are widely distributed, " it was therefore decreed that all such books shall
be seized (ibid. p. 121). In 1660, it is noted that the Quakers "have bine
furnished with horses and thereby they have made speedy passage from place to
place poisoning the Inhabitants with their cursed tennetts," it is therefore decreed
that " if any one shall furnish them with a horse or horse kind, the same shall be
seized on for the use of the government" (ibid. p. 126). In June 1661 it was
decreed that " Quakers and such like vagabonds" shall "bee whipt with rodds
soe it exceed not fifteen stripes " and made to depart the government " (ibid.
pp. 129-130).
60 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
neglect and contempt of the ministry which for a while
the whole country of Plymouth was bewitched into ! "
It appears from Justice Cudworth's Letter that the
Court had just imposed fines amounting to one hundred
and fifty pounds on the new Quaker disciples, and yet they
steadily increased in number. A poor man, himself lame,
father of seven or eight children, had his two cows taken
from him for attending meeting. " What are you going
to do now ? " the marshal! asked, as he drove away the
cows. " God who has given me these will still provide
for us," was the poor man's answer, and he stood by his
faith.
One of the most dramatic incidents of the period was
the convincement of Isaac Robinson and his influence in
the formation of a Quaker centre in Falmouth. He was
a son of the famous " Separatist " pastor, John Robinson.
In 1659 the General Court of Plymouth sent Isaac
Robinson and three others to attend Quaker meetings
in order to endeavour to " reduce them from the error
of their ways." 1 Instead of convincing the Quakers
of error, he himself became convinced of their truth,
embraced their doctrines and was dismissed from civil
employment in the Colony. He was faithful to his
father's advice to "expect the breaking out of more
light ! " Finding life now uncomfortable in his old home
he, with thirteen others, sailed around the cape to the
Succoneset shore, where he built the first house in
Falmouth and became a leader of the Quaker group in
this town.
The beginning was thus made. Almost simultaneously
two Quaker meetings sprang into being, one in Newport
and the other in Sandwich, and when Christopher Holder
and John Copeland returned to Newport they had the
satisfaction of feeling that there were at least two live
centres in the new land. Holder and Copeland had
hardly left the Plymouth Colony when another Woodhouse
passenger, Humphrey Norton, appeared there and carried
1 Records of Plymouth Colony, xi. p. 124. It is an interesting fact that one
of John Winthrop's sons, Samuel, joined Friends.
CH. in THE FOUNDERS 61
forward the work the other two had begun. He, too, was
soon in the hands of the authorities, and was charged
with holding the doctrine of a Light within sufficient for
salvation. His answer was that the Scriptures say that
" the Grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared
unto all men," and they also say that this " Grace is
sufficient." " This little grain," the Ensign says, " stopped
the lion's mouth." Norton was thereupon conveyed fifty
miles toward Rhode Island, and as he went out of the
Colony, William Brend came in, to continue the work.
The latter, together with John Copeland and Sarah
Gibbons, who joined him, soon formed a very live Quaker
circle in the town of Scituate. They won to their cause
a noble-minded magistrate named Timothy Hatherly, but
notwithstanding his friendship they were given a cruel
scourging before they got away from the Colony.1
After an unusually terrible experience in New Haven,
where he was flogged and branded with an H, Humphrey
Norton went once more into Plymouth Colony.2 Before
going forth on this second expedition to the country of
the Pilgrims, Norton passed through a profound inward
experience of God's " call " to Plymouth, attended with
an overwhelming sense that sufferings were awaiting him
there. John Rous, who had recently arrived from
Barbadoes,3 was his companion on this perilous journey.
They reached Plymouth the first of June 1658, and were
immediately arrested and imprisoned. The examination
of their doctrines failed to show them to be "heretics,"
though Governor Prince called them " Papists and Jesuits
and inordinate fellows," but they were finally brought
1 It is a persistent tradition that the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony did not
persecute other Christians who differed from them in faith. If they had not been
powerfully urged to take extreme measures to guard their heritage perhaps they
would have given the freedom which they came to seek. But any one who believes
that they did not persecute would soon have that idea expelled by reading either
Norton's Ensign or Bishop's New England Judged. One is sorry to discover
that John Alden was one of the magistrates who took part in the harrying of the
Quakers in Plymouth Colony.
a He tells us that, during this New Haven ordeal when the spectators thought
he was being killed, he so felt the Presence of the Lord that ' ' he was as if covered
with balm." — Ensign, p. 51.
1 John Rous, William Leddra, and Thomas Harris came together to New
England from Barbadoes near the end of 1657.
62 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
under sentence for refusing to take an oath — a very
common trap for catching a Quaker when no criminal
charge could be established. For this fault they were
scourged, though the people thronged about them to
shake their hands and as usual they advanced their cause
by their sufferings for it. " This persecution," writes John
Rous, " did prove much for the advantage of truth ; for
Friends did with much boldness own us openly in it, and
it did work deeply with many." It must have done so,
for the whole southern part of Massachusetts was, as we
shall see, honeycombed with Quakerism by the year 1660.
CHAPTER IV
THE MARTYRS
NEARLY simultaneously with the invasion of Plymouth
Colony and of Newport by the Quaker missionaries,
William Brend, the veteran missionary of the Woodhouse
party, had been proclaiming his Truth in the city of
Providence and the surrounding regions. Roger Williams,
though heroically devoted to liberty of thought and
speech, was by mental constitution and temperament
impervious to the message of the Friends. He was by
natural bent of mind unmystical, and he had no sympathy
with the idea of inward personal revelations. He was as
ready as any of the great theologians of Massachusetts to
give his reasons for the hope that was in him, and he stood
possessed of a very definite set of doctrines and practices,
which were to his mind essential to a right conception of
Christianity, but, like Gamaliel and unlike most of his
contemporaries, he was willing to allow others to try their
faith undisturbed.
There were others in the Providence community,
however, who were already predisposed to the Quaker
Truth. The most important person in the prepared circle
at Providence was Catherine Scott, a sister of Anne
Hutchinson. She was the wife of Richard Scott, a man
of considerable standing and influence in the colony at
the head of Narragansett Bay. The Quaker missionaries
always seem guided by an unerring instinct to prepared
families like this one of Richard Scott's, and here in this
home the first conquests to the new faith in Providence
were made. We shall hear later of the heroic mettle of
the women of this household.
63
64 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
The next locality to be selected for missionary effort
was the town of Salem. Like Newport and Sandwich
this historic town already had a little company of
spiritually-minded people who were dissatisfied with a
" covenant of Works," and who longed for the day-dawn
and for the arising of the Day Star in their hearts. There
is a remarkable passage in a letter written in 1657 from
Barbadoes by Henry Fell to Margaret Fell of Swarthmore
Hall, in which he mentions Plymouth Colony and Salem
as two places where a spiritual " seed " can easily be
cultivated.
"In Plimouth patent," he says, "there is a people not soe
ridged as the others at Boston and there are great desires among
them after the Truth. Some there are, as I hear, convinced
who meet in silence at a place called Salem. Oh truly great is
the desire of my soule towards them and the love that flows out
after them dayly, for I see in the Eternal Light the Lord hath a
great worke to do in that nation." l
There is an interesting passage bearing on this Salem
group, in Cotton Mather's Magnalia :
" I can tell the world that the first Quakers that ever were in
the world were certain fanaticks here in our town of Salem, who
held forth almost all the fancies and whimsies which a few years
after [Mather thinks Quakerism began in England in 1652] were
broached by them that were so called in England, with whom yet
none of ours had the least communication" *
There had been influences at work in Salem for a
score of years which tended to form such a group as
that here revealed. Roger Williams, though only a lay-
preacher, had been chosen minister of the Salem Church
in 1 63 1, and, after a period of similar service in Plymouth
Colony, had been invited back to Salem as minister in
1634. Though not a mystic and not encouraging faith
in inward guidance, yet he was a powerful advocate
of " independency " in religion — the absolute separation
of religion from State control — and he insisted that every
act of religion should be a personal matter, belonging
1 Letter in Swarthmore Collection, i. 66.
2 Magnalia (Hartford ed. of 1853), ii. 523.
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 65
within the private domain of the worshipper himself. He
was utterly opposed to tithes or to any forced support of
religion. That he had many supporters in Salem is
beyond question, and there can be no doubt that his
powerful personality and his vigorous exposition carried
many members of the Church out of the ruts of orthodoxy.
There were, too, many immigrants in Lynn and Salem
who were of the " Seeker " type, others who held the
position of the Anabaptists, persons who had come thither
expecting to find freedom for their " seeking " and for
their independent views. One of the most prominent
persons of this type was Lady Deborah Moody, who was
forced to migrate to Long Island, where we shall again
meet her.1 Many of her sympathisers went with her,
but many also remained behind and quietly cultivated
their freer and more liberal form of religion. In such
ways and under such influences there had developed in
this stronghold of orthodoxy a fellowship of persons who
were in positive dissent from the established form of faith
and practice, and who were ready to follow the lead of the
Quaker messengers.
It is a mystery how the news of this " spiritual circle "
in Salem got to Barbadoes in 1657, for no Friends had
yet been there, but it is probable that Mary Fisher and
Ann Austin heard of it while they were in Boston and
carried the report back with them. In any case, it was
true ; and as soon as Christopher Holder and John
Copeland had accomplished their first piece of work in
Plymouth Colony — "where there were desires after the
truth" — they started out from Rhode Island (which Henry
Fell, in the above-mentioned letter, says the Puritans called
" the island of error ") for the more hazardous enterprise
in Salem, where the little group of "convinced wor
shipers" were waiting for encouragement. They seem
to have sought out in secret the persons who were favour
ably inclined to their message before they made their
risky appeal to the Salem public. Humphrey Norton says
that they told their little group of listeners "the things
1 Book II. chap. i.
F
66 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
which they had seen and heard and their hands had handled
of the word of life" — which means that they did what all
true religious leaders do, they endeavoured to transmit an
experience rather than to discourse on abstract doctrines,
and he tells us further that " the Word was soon ingrafted
in their hearers," so that in a short time they, too, became
" possessors of the same experience and fellow-sufferers
with their teachers ! " -1
But they were not content to do their work in a corner.
They hoped, somewhat vainly as the sequel showed, that
they could carry conviction in a public address.
Christopher Holder, " moved of the Lord," as Bishop tells
us, rose on Sunday morning, in Salem Meeting (2ist Sep
tember 1657) "after the priest had done," to speak a few-
words in the line of the latter's " message." Speaking in
public after the minister had finished was a common
practice and a recognised privilege in Puritan times,
but it was a bold proceeding for a Quaker to under
take in the home town of Endicott ! He had hardly
started when he was seized by the hair and " his mouth
violently stopped with a glove and handkerchief thrust
thereinto with much fury by one of the church members,
a commissioner." 2
The two visitors were taken to Boston on Monday and
there received thirty stripes apiece with a three-cord
knotted whip, which cut their flesh so cruelly that a woman
spectator (for such things were done in public) fell in a
faint. They were then put in a bare cell, with no bedding,
and kept three days and nights without food or drink,
and in addition were imprisoned nine weeks, in New
England winter weather, with no fire. And by a special
order of the Governor and Deputy-Governor, though there
was no existing law to give warrant for it, the prisoners
were severely whipped twice each week, the first punish
ment consisting of fifteen lashes and each successive one
being increased by three lashes.3 As this order was issued
1 Norton's Ensign, p. 60. a New England Judged, p. 50.
s The law of I4th October 1656 provided that Quakers coming into the
jurisdiction of Massachusetts should be committed to the house of correction and
at their entrance should be severely whipped.
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 67
when two weeks of the imprisonment had passed, the
total number of lashes endured by these long -suffering
men at this time would be three hundred and fifty-seven !
When the glove and handkerchief were being thrust
into Holder's mouth, Samuel Shattuck, apparently one of
the " dissenting circle," pulled away the hand of the
commissioner to keep Holder from being choked. He
was at once arrested as a " friend of Quakers," taken to
Boston, and put under bond not to go to any meetings of
the Quakers and to answer at the next Court. It was
soon found that the Quaker visitors had been entertained
in the home of Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, who
were evidently the leaders of this little " circle " in Salem.
They, too, were taken to Boston. The husband was
turned over to the authorities of his Church to be dealt
with, but Cassandra was imprisoned seven weeks and
then fined forty shillings for having in her possession a
" paper on Truth and the Scriptures " which her guests
had written. This " paper " was almost certainly " a
Declaration of Faith and Exhortation to obedience,"
issued by Christopher Holder and John Copeland, and
signed also by Richard Doudney, who had meantime
found his way into Massachusetts and had been arrested
because " his speech betrayed him " and made his hearer
judge him a Quaker disciple. He was thus joined again
with his fellow-travellers Holder and Copeland, and was a
signer of the " Declaration on Truth and the Scriptures."
This is the earliest formal Declaration of Faith issued
by any of the Quaker messengers either in the Old or the
New World. It is a strikingly orthodox document, and
approaches as nearly as possible to the theological views
then in vogue in the Churches.
"We do believe," it declares, "in the only true and living
God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . who at sundry
times and in divers manners, spake in time past to our fathers
by the prophets, but in these last days hath spoken unto us by
His Son . . . the which Son is that Jesus Christ that was born
of the Virgin ; who suffered for our offenses, is risen again for
our justification, and is ascended into the highest heavens and
sitteth at the right hand of God the Father : Even in Him do
68 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
we believe, who is the only begotten Son of the Father, full of
grace and truth. And in Him do we trust alone for salvation ;
by whose blood we are washed from sin. [We believe in] the
Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth that proceedeth from the Father
and the Son, by which we are sealed and adopted sons and
heirs of the Kingdom of heaven, by which Spirit the Scriptures
of Truth were given forth. . . . The Scriptures we own to be
a true declaration of the Father, Son and Spirit, in which is
declared what was from the beginning, what was present and
was to come."
The writers of this document were evidently en
deavouring to disarm their theological opponents by
showing that they were " sound " on the fundamental
tenets of universal Christian belief, and they shrewdly put
these points of agreement in the foreground of their
Declaration, and only at the end of the paper touched
upon their own peculiar doctrine of " the Light which
showeth you the secrets of your hearts and the deeds
that are not good." " While you have the Light," they
say in conclusion, " believe in the Light that you may be
children of the Light, for, as you love it and obey it, it
will lead you to repentance, bring you to know Him in
Whom is remission of sins. . . . This is the desire of our
souls for all that have the least breathing after God, that
they may come to know Him in deed and truth and find
His power in them and with them." *
If this Declaration was prepared, as appears, to be a
conciliatory document and to quiet the opposition, it was
a complete failure. Another paper, written " against the
persecuting spirit, with a warning against those who
indulge in it" — a paper no longer extant — was issued
about the same time by the three Friends, and was
peculiarly resented by the ministers of the Colony. In
fact it was the discovery of that paper which brought the
extra lashes, before mentioned, on the prisoners in the
Boston jail. But even the possession of the conciliatory
document proved a criminal offence in the case of
Cassandra Southwick, for, as we have seen, she was kept
1 This Declaration was first brought to light by Goold Brown the grammarian,
and is printed in full in Bowden i. 91-92.
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 69
seven weeks a prisoner and was fined forty shillings " for
having and owning to the truth of the Paper the strangers
had written."
The Southwicks, " a grave and aged couple," together
with some of their friends, revolting from this spirit of
persecution, now withdrew entirely from the Church
services in Salem, and met on " First-days " in each others'
houses for " quiet waiting on the Lord." l The Southwicks
were apprehended, catechised on "the sufficiency of the
Light within," which they admitted, and were put in the
House of Correction. They were thereafter constantly
harried and fined to the verge of poverty, and finally
banished from the Colony. After their banishment two
of their children, Daniel and Provided, having no estates
to cover their fines, were ordered to be sold into slavery,
though no shipmaster could be found to execute the order.2
The Christian spirit of these Salem Quakers comes
out beautifully in a Letter which they wrote from their
prison in Boston :
" For our part, we have true peace and rest in the Lord in
all our sufferings, and are made willing in the Power and Strength
of God, freely to offer up our lives, in this cause of God for
which we suffer, yea, and we do find, through Grace, the
enlargement of God in our imprisoned estate, to Whom alone we
commit ourselves and families, for the disposing of us according
to His infinite wisdom and pleasure, in whose Love is our Rest
and Life."*
It is evident that the converts to Quakerism in the New
1 Besides the Southwicks and Samuel Shattuck, Joshua Buffum and wife and
son Joseph, John Small, John Burton, Edward Harnet, Nicholas Phelps (whose
home was in Ipswich), Edward Wharton, Samuel Gaskin, John Daniels, Joseph
Pope and wife, Anthony Needham and wife, George Gardner, Thomas Bracket,
Henry Trask and wife belonged to this Salem circle (see Annals of Salem ii.
399 and New England Judged, pp. 56-64). Besse also speaks of twelve persons,
unnamed, who were fined for not attending Church and presumably joining with
Friends. — Besse ii. 188.
2 The details of the attempted sale of the two Southwick children are given in
Besse ii. 197 and in New England Judged, pp. 107-112. Whittier has told
the incident in his "Cassandra Southwick." The order to sell Daniel and
Provided Southwick " to any of the English nation at Virginia or Barbadoes" is
in the Records of Massachusetts Colony, vol. iv. part i. p. 366.
3 There is ground for a suspicion that Cassandra Soutbwick and some others
of the Salem group were inclined to adopt extreme ascetic views regarding the
marriage relation. She seems to have held the opinion that to have children
after the flesh was to fall from the higher life in the Spirit. See Joseph
70 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
World immediately rose to the heroic spirit and the complete
confidence in God and their Cause which characterized
the Quaker " apostles " who came among them. After
the arrest of Holder, Copeland, Shattuck, and the South-
wicks in September 1657, a new law against Quakers
was passed, I4th October 1657, defining the punishment
which was to be meted out to the persons who are
called " the cursed sect of Quakers." x It inflicted a
fine of one hundred pounds on any one who should bring
a Quaker into the Colony ; forty shillings for every hour
that any one should entertain or conceal a Quaker, and it
provided that any Quaker returning after having once
suffered should, if a man, have an ear cropped ; for a
second offence the other ear, and for a third have his
tongue bored with a hot iron ; if the offender was a
woman she was to be severely whipped and on the third
offence to have her tongue bored.
By May of 1658, the eleven who came over in the
Woodhouse, and in addition John Rous, William Leddra,
and Thomas Harris of Barbadoes, and Mary Dyer of
Rhode Island, were all at work in New England.2 Thomas
Harris made his way to Boston, where he was arrested,
flogged, and imprisoned. William Brend and William
Leddra pushed on to Salem, where they held a meeting
in the woods, but were surprised and carried off. William
Brend, though the oldest of the band of missionaries, was
called to pass through the most cruel sufferings that were
meted out in Boston to any prisoner. The tale is too
awful to tell in detail, but the inhumanity can be judged
from the fact that one incident in his round of torture
consisted of one hundred and seventeen blows on his bare
back with a tarred rope. He was found dying — " his
body having turned cold " and " his flesh having rotted "
Nicholson's Letters to Margaret Fell. — Swarthmore Collection, iv. 107-108.
Major Hawthorne of Salem reported that he had heard "Consander Southteck"
say that she was greater than Moses, for Moses had seen God but twice, and
then only His back parts, but that she had seen Him three times face to face ! —
Massachusetts Archives, vol. x. p. 264.
1 Records of Massachusetts Colony, vol. iv. part i. p. 398.
2 In August six of the missionaries left New England for Barbadoes. They
were William Leddra, Thomas Harris, William Brend, Robert Hodgson, Sarah
Gibbons, and Dorothy Waugh.
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 71
— and a physician was hurried in to treat his mangled
body and implored to save his life, for the magistrates
were now thoroughly frightened by the impression which
their brutality was making on the citizens of Boston.
John Norton, however, was still stout in his remorseless
attitude, saying of William Brend : " He endeavoured to
beat the gospel ordinances black and blue, and it was but
just to beat him black and blue."1^ When John Rous
and Humphrey Norton heard what their aged friend was
passing through they felt impelled to go to Boston. Upon
their arrival they went to hear John Norton's sermon.
One could hardly expect them to appreciate it. Here is
John Rous' account of the visit to the Church :
" Humphrey Norton and I were moved to go into the great
meeting-house at Boston upon one of their lecture days, where
we found John Norton their teacher set up, who, like a babbling
Pharisee, ran over a vain repetition near an hour long. When
his glass was out he began his sermon, wherein, among many
lifeless expressions, he spake much of the danger of those called
Quakers, a flood of gall and vinegar instead of the cup of cold
and refreshing water ! How often hungry souls have been
deceived by him I leave to that of God in their consciences to
judge." 2
Humphrey Norton adds to the reader : " Thou mayest see
the husks on which the New England priests feed their
flocks ! " They were almost immediately arrested,
imprisoned, and flogged. Rous has left an account of one
week's tale of suffering :
" On the Second-day (Monday) they whipped six Friends
[Salem colonists who had attended the meeting] ; on the Third-day
1 The Ensign, p. 78.
8 Ensign p. 55. The Magistrates had enjoined Rev. Mr. John Norton to
prepare a document ' ' to manifest the evill of theire [the Quaker] tenets and the
dainger of theire practices," and to answer their writings by which "divers of
weak capacities are deceived. " — Records of Massachusetts Colony, vol. iv. part i.
p. 348. Norton's "Declaration" was published in 1659 under the title "The
Heart of New England Rent at the Blasphemies of the present Generation." He
tries to prove that the Quakers are offspring of the Miinster fanatics, and he says :
"The Wolf which ventures over the wide sea, out of a ravening desire to prey
upon the sheep ; when landed, discovered, and taken hath no cause to complain,
though for the security of the flock he be penned up, with that door opening into
the fold fast shut, but having another door purposely left open, whereby he may
depart at his pleasure, either returning from whence he came, or otherwise
quitting the place."
72 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
of the week the gaoler laid William Brend .... neck and heels,
as they call it, in irons, as he confessed, for sixteen hours ; and
on the Fourth-day the gaoler gave W. B. 117 strokes with a
pitched rope : on the Fifth-day they imprisoned us, and on the
Seventh-day we suffered. The beating of W. B. did much work
in the town, and for a time much liberty was granted, for several
people came to us in the prison, but the enemy, seeing the forward
ness and love in the people towards us, plotted, and a warrant
was given forth that if we would not work we should be whipped
once in every three days, and the first time have fifteen stripes and
the second time eighteen, and the third time twenty-one. So
on the Second-day was a se'ennight after our first whipping, four
of us received fifteen stripes apiece, the which did so work
with the people that on the Fourth-day after we were released, so
we returned to Rhode Island."
In his letter already quoted, which he dates " from
the Lion's den called Boston prison," 3rd September
1658, John Rous gives a graphic review of the work which
had so far been accomplished in the face of a most
vigorous and relentless persecution : —
" Truth is spread here above two hundred miles, and many
in the land are in fine conditions, and very sensible of the power
of God, and walk honestly in their measures. And some of the
inhabitants of the land, who are Friends, have been forth in the
service, and they do more grieve the enemy than we, for they
have hope to be rid of us, but they have no hope to be rid of
them. We keep the burden of the service off from them at
present, for no sooner is there need in a place, but straightway
some or other of us step to it, but, when it is the will of the
Father to clear us of this land, then will the burden fall on them.
The Seed in Boston and Plymouth Patents is ripe, and the weight
very much lies on this town, the which being brought into sub
jection to the Truth, the others will not stand out long. The
Seed in Connecticut and Newhaven Patents is not as yet ripe,
but there is a hopeful appearance, the gathering of which in its
time will much redound to the glory of God. We have two
strong places in this land, the one at Newport in Rhode Island,
and the other at Sandwich, which the enemy will never get
dominion over, and at Salem there are several pretty Friends in
their measures. . . . There are Friends, few or more, almost
from one end of the land to the other that is inhabited by the
English." i
1 Letter of John Rous to Margaret Fell, 3rd September 1658. — Swarthmore
Collection.
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 73
Sarah Gibbons and Dorothy Waugh had, in the early
spring of this same year, accomplished an almost im
possible journey. They travelled on foot from Newport
" in great storms and tempests of frost and snow " —
what we should call March blizzards — all the way to
Salem. " They lodged in the wilderness day and night —
through which they cheerfully passed to accomplish the
will and work of God to their appointed place, where
their message was gladly received." l They had two weeks
of undisturbed labour among those who " gladly received
their message," and then they "felt moved" to try
Boston, where they received the usual barbaric whipping
which " tore their flesh," and they then were allowed to
go away again to Rhode Island, which to the Friends of
that period was the "habitation of the hunted-Christ,
where we ever found a place of rest when weary we
have been." 2
A still more astonishing journey was made in the
summer of 1658 by Josiah Coale and Thomas Thurston,
the latter of whom had been in the party of eight that
landed in Boston in 1656. They came over from
England to Virginia, where they published their message,
and then travelled all the way on foot from Virginia to New
England " through uncouth passages, vast wildernesses,
uninhabited countries, deemed impassable for any but the
Indians." " For outward sustenance," writes Josiah
Coale " we knew not how to supply ourselves, but without
questioning or doubting, we gave up freely to the Lord,
knowing assuredly that His presence was with us ; and
according to our faith so it was, for His presence and love
we found with us daily."3 They touched the hearts of
the wild Susquehanna Indians, who not only gave them
" courteous entertainment " but also accompanied them to
the Dutch Settlement in New Amsterdam and nursed
Thomas Thurston through a dangerous illness. 4 Through
such hardships they came, because they too felt " the fire
and the hammer " in their souls. Josiah Coale was one of
1 The Ensign, p. 15. 2 The Ensign, p. 69.
8 Josiah Coale's Letter to George Bishop. — Bowden, i. 123.
4 New England Judged, p. 29 ; and Besse ii. 196.
74 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
the finest spirits among the entire band of " publishers of
Truth" in the colonies. He was born about 1633, "of a
highly respectable family," near Bristol, and, like so many
of his generation, he passed through a deep travail of soul
before he found peace. He had revolted in his youth from
formal religion, and he nowhere could find anything which
answered to his heart's need. " How to come into the
way of life," he says, " I was still a stranger." At length,
under the ministry of John Audland and John Camm in
Bristol in 1654, he found " the way of life," and gave him
self up into God's service, to follow whithersoever he might
lead. " He baulked no danger," wrote William Penn of
him, " and he counted nothing too dear for the service of
his Lord." He possessed a rare and unusual gift in ministry,
and at his best he powerfully carried conviction. When
the occasion called for it his speech was " like an ax, a
hammer, or a sharp piercing sword," and then again it
became " soft and pleasant, like streams of immortal life
running through him." In prayer he was favoured with
surpassing grace and power, and often seemed transported
as he pleaded for the Light to break upon souls who were
in the dark. l During his brief period of labour in New
England he devoted himself especially to the Indians in
Martha's Vineyard and in Plymouth Colony. He had
lived much among the Indians on his long journey, and
he had in a peculiar way the key to the Indians' hearts.
They loved him, trusted him, and " had true breathings to
know his God." As soon as he turned from the Indians
" to sound the day of the Lord " among the colonists he
met a different reception. He was dragged from a
Friend's house in Sandwich and was committed to prison,
where he appears to have remained until his departure
from the Colony.
Christopher Holder, John Copeland, and John Rous
were the first to suffer under the law of October 1657.
After his release from the terrible imprisonment recorded
above, Christopher Holder took passage for the West
1 See William Penn's "Testimony Concerning Josiah Coale," Introduction to
Coale's Works (1671).
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 75
Indies ; where he probably spent the winter,1 but he
continually felt " the fire and the hammer " within him,
and was eager to be back where his friends were risking
their lives and where he knew he was needed. In
February 1658, he sailed from Barbadoes by way of
Bermuda for Rhode Island, and after a period of labour in
this safe field he put out again with his old-time com
panion, John Copeland, to face the dangers of the stern
Massachusetts law. They were arrested in August 1658
in the town of Dedham and brought before Governor
Endicott in Boston, who said, " You can be sure that your
ears will be cut off." John Rous, who meantime had
been labouring in Rhode Island, and had returned to the
field of danger, was seized about the same time and was
brought to trial with the other two. " There was a great
lamenting for me by many when I came again," he says,
" but they were not minded by me. I was much tempted
to say I came to the town to take shipping to go to
Barbadoes, but I could not deny Him who moved me to
come hither, nor His service, to avoid sufferings." After
a frivolous examination in theology, they were sentenced
to lose an ear apiece.
Among those who came to be spectators of the
execution of this barbaric sentence was Catherine Scott
of Providence — " a grave and sober ancient woman of
good breeding, education and circumstances, of unblame-
able conversation." 2 She was, as we have seen, a sister of
Anne Hutchinson,3 and had been the first to become a
Friend in Providence, and she had come to Boston to
show her sympathy with the sufferers. She was the
mother of many children, all of whom became Friends,
for as John Rous beautifully expressed it, " the power of
God took place in all her children." Her daughter Mary
was later to become the wife of Christopher Holder.
Because Catherine Scott made too free critical comments
on the execution of the ear-cropping, she was given ten
stripes and was told, in words heavy with sinister meaning,
1 A letter from Peter Evans mentions service by Holder in St. Christopher
and Nevis during the winter of 1658. — Swarthmore Collection, iii. no.
2 New England Judged, p. 94. 3 See Winthrop i. 352.
76 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
that " if she came hither again there was likely to be a
law to hang her." Her brave answer was : " If God calls
us, woe to us if we come not. I have no question that
He whom we love will make us not count our lives dear
unto ourselves for His name's sake." " We shall be as
ready to take away your lives as you will be to lay them
down," was the ominous reply of Endicott.1
At the General Court of Massachusetts, held the I pth
of October 1658, the final step was taken to end, if
possible, the " inroads " of " this pernicious sect." Whip
pings, fines, ear-croppings, and imprisonment had proved
utterly futile. Still the Quakers came just as though
they were wanted. When John Rous and Humphrey
Norton heard of William Brend's terrible sufferings, they
started at once for Boston, as we have seen, because they
could not eat or sleep for their desire " to bear their part
with the prisoners of hope, for a testimony of Jesus." 2
What could be done with such men ? Neal was right
when he said : " Such was the enthusiastic fire of the
Quakers that nothing could quench it." 8
The only thing left to be tried was the penalty of last
resort — death. The clergy of the Colony, especially John
Norton, must be held primarily responsible for this
extreme law of i658.4 It was passed with much
difficulty, and was carried in the House of Deputies by a
majority of only one, and was from the first unpopular in
general with the lay citizens.5 The law, largely composed
of railing and abuse against the Quakers, contained this
clause : " And the said person, being convicted to be of
the sect of the Quakers, shall be sentenced to banishment,
upon pain of death" 6 It was now to be settled whether
anything could " quench their enthusiastic fire."
1 New England Judged, p. 95. 2 Ensign, p. 79.
8 Neal, History of New England, i. 306. 4 See New England Judged, p. 86.
5 A few citizens were in favour of stern measures. See Petition in Massa
chusetts Archives, x. 246.
6 This law is to be found in full in Records of Massachusetts Colony, vol. iv.
part i. p. 345. The first official recommendation of the death penalty was made
at the meeting of the Federal Commissioners of the United Colonies, held in
Boston in the autumn of 1658, with Endicott presiding. A resolution was passed
denouncing the Quakers as blasphemers, and recommending the several colonies,
which they represented, to pass laws making it a capital offence for banished
Quakers to return.
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 77
The native leaders of the Salem group were the first
to receive sentence under the capital law. After two
years of almost constant persecution, the chief members
of the new society were banished from the jurisdiction of
Massachusetts by Order of the General Court held the
nth of May 1659.*
Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick found their way
to Shelter Island, near the eastern end of Long Island,
which was a safe refuge for persecuted Friends, for it was
owned and governed by Nathaniel Sylvester, a Friend.
Here they peacefully lived in their new-found faith for
a brief period, and quietly finished their earthly course.
Joshua Buffum, another of the group, moved to Rhode
Island, while Samuel Shattuck, Nicholas Phelps, and
Josiah Southwick made their way to England through
Barbadoes. They appear to have landed in Bristol in
February 1660, where they found themselves once more
in a storm centre of persecution. William Dewsbury has
given us a vivid picture of the scene. On the 7th of
February a meeting was held at the house of Edward
Pyott in Bristol while a great mob filled the streets
around, storming to break up the meeting which, in spite
of the noise and fury, was " precious in the life of the
Lord who filled His tabernacle with His glory in which
Friends parted with joy in the Lord." In the evening
the mob attacked the house in which the banished
Friends were staying, and where William Dewsbury was
spending the evening with them. The news had just
arrived of the martyrdom of William Robinson and
Marmaduke Stephenson (soon to be recounted), and the
little group of Friends were sitting bowed with grief
while the mob raged outside. Dewsbury says :
" We were bowed down before our God, and prayer was made
unto Him, when they knocked at the door. It came upon my
spirit it were the rude people, and the Life of God did mightily
arise, and they had no power to come in till we were clear before
our God. Then they came in setting the house about with
muskets and lighted matches, so after a season of time they
1 Records of Massachusetts Colony, voL iv. part i. p. 367. See also ibid. p. 349.
78 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
came into the room where I was, and Amor Stoddard with me :
I looked upon them when they came into the room [and] they
cried as fast as they could well speak, ' we will be civil, we will
be civil.' I spake these words, ' see that you be so.' They run
forth of the room and came no more into it but run up and
down in the house with their weapons in their hands, and the
Lord God, who is the God of His seed . . . caused their hearts
to fail and they pass[ed] away, and not any harm done to any
of us."1
The next day the Friends visited George Bishop,
whose home was in Bristol, making their way through the
mob who were " struck at their hearts by the majesty of
God and stood gazing upon us." One can easily imagine
the author of New England Judged seizing this opportunity
to get at first hand the details of the sufferings of which
he was to be the historian.
For a brief time there was a solemn pause before the
Massachusetts law was put to a supreme test, but there were
heroic spirits quite ready for the worst the law could do.
Every Friend in the ministry in America had undoubtedly
read and had been moved by George Fox's remarkable
Epistle written from Launceston Prison, an Epistle which
shows in the writer the highest marks of spiritual leader
ship :
" Let all nations hear the sound by word or writing. Spare no
place, spare no tongue nor pen, but be obedient to the Lord God ;
go through the work : be valiant for the truth upon earth ; and
tread and trample upon all that is contrary. . . . The ministers
of the Spirit must minister to the spirit that is in prison, which
hath been in captivity in every one, that with the Spirit of Christ
people may be led out of captivity up to God, the Father of
spirits, [may] do service to him, and have unity with him, with
the scriptures and one with another. ... Be patterns, be
examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you
come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of
people, and to them ; then you will come to walk cheerfully over
the world, answering that of God in every one." 2
The unconquerable spirit of the leader had infused itself
1 Letter of Dewsbury to Margaret Fell (Swarthmore Collection, iv. 134) ; and
Letter of A. Parker to Margaret Fell (Swarthmore Collection, i. 169). The date
of Dewsbury's letter is fixed by internal evidence.
2 Journal, i. 315.
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 79
into the entire band of " publishers," and they were sure in
the end to defeat the law makers. In September 1659
William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson, Mary Dyer,
and a little girl of eleven years, named Patience Scott,
daughter of Richard and Catherine Scott of Providence,
were apprehended as Quakers. This child of eleven had
come on foot from Providence, under a definite " moving
of the Lord," as she believed, " to bear her testimony
against the persecuting spirit." William Robinson was a
Woodhouse voyager. Marmaduke Stephenson was a
Yorkshire farmer who was on a religious mission in
Barbadoes when he heard of " the law to put the servants
of the living God to death," and he heard within himself
" the word of the Lord, saying ' Go to Boston.' " l He
was one of a party of eight Friends who at this crisis
formed a second apostolic expedition to the American
colonies.2 Mary Dyer was the wife of William Dyer of
Newport, and a type of person whose fire was not likely
to be quenched by the terror of statutes ! Nicholas Davis
of Plymouth Colony had come to Boston on business
about the same time and, being a Quaker, was caught in
the same drag-net. The little girl from Providence proved
mighty in her childish wisdom, and " confounded the
lawyers and doctors," but she was declared to have " an
unclean spirit " and was turned over to her family as too
young to come under the law. The other four were
banished "on pain of death the I2th of September
1659." Nicholas Davis returned home, and so, too, for
the moment did Mary Dyer. The other two started
directly for Salem and went about the work to which
they felt called, travelling as far as New Hampshire.
The same day Christopher Holder was seized in Boston,
1 Letter from Boston prison, in New England Judged, p. 133.
2 See letters of Henry Fell, Peter Pearson, Robert Malins, Peter Cowsnocke,
and Philip Rose in the Swarthmore Collection. Peter Cowsnocke was from the
Isle of Man, and with Philip Rose and Edward Teddes, both Warwickshire
Friends, seems to have been lost at sea on the passage from Barbadoes to Rhode
Island. (Henry Fell to Fox, Swarthmore Collection, iv. 182 ; Nicholson to
Margaret Fell, 3rd April 1660, Swarthmore Collection, iv. 107 : and record
cited in William White's Friends in Warwickshire, p. 23). Henry Fell, Robert
Malins from Bandon, Ireland, Ann Cleaton, Marmaduke Stephenson, and Peter
Pearson, another Yorkshireman, were the other five of the party.
8o QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
when on his way to England, was kept in prison two
months, and then banished " on pain of death." l
While he was still in prison, Mary Dyer came to
Boston in company with Mary Scott and Hope Clifton
of Providence, and five days later William Robinson and
Marmaduke Stephenson, having returned from their
eastern journey, were apprehended. With these men
there were a number of other Friends who had been
" convinced," and who came up with them to Boston,
" moved of the Lord," as the old account has it, " to look
your bloody laws in the face and to accompany those
who should suffer by them."2
In this strange group of volunteers were Daniel Gould
of Newport, Robert Harper of Sandwich, William King,
Hannah Phelps, Mary Trask, Provided Southwick, and
Margaret Smith of " the first fruits " of Salem, and Alice
Cowland, who brought linen with her to wrap the dead
bodies of those who were to be martyred ! 8
It is easy for us, at this comfortable distance, in an
ordered society in which one believes what he wants to
believe — or peradventure believes nothing at all — to say
that these Friends walked of their own accord into the
lion's den, that they knew the teeth of this new law would
bite, and that they should have remained in safe territory.
That is undoubtedly true, but it indicates a superficial
acquaintance with the spirit of these Quakers. There are
persons, or at least there once were, who find all their
life-values altered and all their utilitarian calculations
shifted by an inner impulsion which says irresistibly,
" thou must ! " These Friends loved their lives and their
homes as much as others did — they would have preferred
1 The death sentence is to be executed ' ' in case he be found within this
jurisdiction three daies after the next shipp now bound thence to England be
departed from this harbor." — Records of Massachusetts Colony, vol. iv. part i.
P- 39i-
2 New England Judged, p. 119. William Robinson in a letter to George
Fox says : " The Lord did lay it upon me to try their law."
* These Friends were confined for two months and were then sentenced to
receive the following punishments : Daniel Gould thirty lashes ; Robert Harper
and William King fifteen each ; Margaret Smith, Mary Trask, and Provided
Southwick ten each. Alice Cowland, Hannah Phelps, Mary Scott, and Hope
Clifton were ' ' delivered over to the Governor to be admonished. ' '
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 81
the life of comfort to the hard prison and the gallows
rope if they could have taken the line of least resistance
with inward peace, but that was impossible to them.
They were as sensitive to the call of duty as the musician
is to the power of harmony ; they could no more ignore
what seemed to them " the movings of the Lord " than a
creator of beauty can ignore the laws of his art. They
were not gifted with psychological analysis, and they did
not raise the question whether these " calls " and " mov
ings " were due to "auto-suggestion," or were actually
from the mouth of God. They had learned to obey the
visions which they believed were heavenly, and they had
grown accustomed to go straight ahead where the Voice,
which they believed to be Divine, called them.
They were commissioned to plant the truth in Massa
chusetts, and they " could not do otherwise " in this crisis
than go up and " look the law in the face." Their course,
I admit, was not " rational," in the narrow sense of
rational, but the great life of loyalty and sacrifice never
runs in any narrow groove of " pure " rationality. It
cannot be explained and plumbed by utilitarian formulae,
for life is always richer than any crystallised rules and
concepts about it ; but it turns out in the sweeps of
history that to die for a truth, to be loyal to vision even
on the gallows, is as rational a course as that of the
compromiser who saves his neck and puts up with half a
truth !
In any case there can be no question that these
banished Quakers who came back believed that they were
" moved " to do so, and were convinced in their minds
that the God who led them into danger would use their
deaths to advance the truth more than their lives could
advance it. It was plainly in this faith that they came.
Here is William Robinson's testimony :
"On the 8th day of the 8th Month, 1659, in the after part
of the day, in Travelling betwixt Newport in Rhode Island and
Daniel Gould's house, with my dear Brother, Christopher Holder,
the Word of the Lord came expressly to me, which did fill me
immediately with Life and Power, and heavenly Love, by which
G
82 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
he constrained me, and commanded me to pass to the Town of
Boston, to lay down my life, in his Will, for the Accomplishing
of His Service, which He had to be performed at the Day
appointed. To which heavenly voice I presently yielded
Obedience, not questioning the Lord how He would bring
the Thing to pass, since I was a Child, and Obedience was
Demanded of me by the Lord, who filled me with living
Strength and Power from His heavenly Presence, which at that
time did mightily Overshadow me, and my Life at that time did
say Amen to what the Lord required of me, and had Commanded
me to do, and willingly was I given up from that time, to this
Day, to do and perform the Will of the Lord, whatever became
of my Body; for the Lord had said unto me, 'thy Soul shall
rest in Everlasting Peace, and thy Life shall enter into Rest, for
being Obedient to the God of thy life.' I was a Child, and
durst not question the Lord in the least, but rather was willing
to lay down my Life, than to bring Dishonour to the Lord ; and
as the Lord made me willing, dealing Gently and Kindly with
me, as a Tender Father by a Faithful Child, whom he dearly
Loves, so the Lord did deal with me in Ministering his Life
unto me, which gave and gives me Strength to perform what the
Lord required of me ; and still as I did and do stand in need,
he Ministered and Ministreth more Strength, and Virtue, and
heavenly Power and Wisdom, whereby I was and am made
strong in God, not fearing what Man shall be suffered to do
unto me." l
Marmaduke Stephenson's testimony is of like import
and is withal a beautiful account of a simple, guileless
man's call to stern duty :
"In the beginning of the year 1655, I was at the Plough in
the east parts of Yorkshire in Old England, near the place
where my outward Being was, and as I walked after the Plough,
I was filled with the Love and the Presence of the Living God
which did Ravish my Heart when I felt it ; for it did increase
and abound in me like a Living Stream, so did the Love and
Life of God run through me like precious Ointment, giving a
pleasant Smell, which made me stand still ; and as I stood a little
still, with my Heart and Mind stayed on the Lord, the Word of
the Lord came to me in a still small Voice, which I did hear
perfectly, saying to me, in the Secret of my Heart and Conscience,
'I have Ordained Thee a prophet unto the Nations.' And at
1 Written in Boston Gaol, igth of 8th month, 1659, in Bishop's New England
Judged, pp. 127-129.
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 83
the hearing of the Word of the Lord I was put to a stand, being
that I was but a Child for a Weighty Matter. So at the time
appointed, Barbadoes was set before me, unto which I was
required of the Lord to go, and leave my dear and loving Wife
and tender Children ; For the Lord said unto me immediately
by his Spirit, That he would be a Husband to my Wife, and as
a Father to my Children, and they should not want in my
Absence, for he would provide for them when I was gone. And
I believed that the Lord would perform what he had spoken,
because I was made willing to give up myself to his Work and
Service (with my dear Brother), under the Shadow of His Wings,
who hath made us willing to lay down our Lives for His own
name Sake. So, in Obedience to the Living God, I made
preparation to pass to Barbadoes in the 4th month, 1658. So,
after some time, I had been on the said Island in the Service
of God, I heard that New England had made a Law to put the
Servants of the Living God to death, if they returned after they
were sentenced away, which did come near to me at that time ;
and as I considered the Thing, and pondered it in my Heart,
immediately came the Word of the Lord unto me, saying, Thou
knowest not but that thou mayst go thither. But I kept this
Word in my Heart, and did not declare it to any until the time
Appointed. So, after that, a Vessel was made ready for Rhode
Island, which I passed in. So, after a little time that I had
been there, visiting the Seed which the Lord hath Blessed, the
Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Go to Boston, with
thy Brother, William Robinson. And at His Command I was
Obedient, and gave up myself to do His Will, that so His Work
and Service may be accomplished; For, he had said to me,
That he had a great Work for me to do; which is now come
to pass : And for yielding Obedience to, and obeying the Voice
and Command of the Everlasting God, which created Heaven
and Earth, and the Fountains of Waters, Do I, with my dear
Brother, suffer outward Bonds near unto Death. And this is
given forth to be upon Record, that all people may know, who
hear it, That we came not in our own Wills, but in the Will of God.
Given forth by me, who am known to Men by the name of
MARMADUKE STEPHENSON,
But who have a new Name given me, which
the World knows not of, written in the
book of Life.1
Written in Boston-prison
in the 8th Month, 1659."
1 New England Judged, pp. 131-133.
84 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Mary Dyer wrote in a similar strain :
" I am by many charged with the guiltiness of my own blood,
in my coming to Boston. But I am therein clear and justified
by the Lord in whose will I came. ... I have no self -ends, the
Lord knoweth, for if my life were freely granted by you, it would
not avail me, so long as I should daily hear or see the sufferings
of these people, my dear brethren and seed, with whom my life
is bound up, as I have done these two years. ... It is not my
own life I seek (for I choose rather to suffer with the people of
God than to enjoy the pleasures of Egypt) but the Life of the
seed which I know the Lord hath blessed. . . . Do you think
you can restrain those whom you call ' cursed Quakers ' from
coming among you, by anything you can do to them ! God
hath a Seed here among you for whom we have suffered and yet
suffer and the Lord of the harvest will send more laborers
to gather this seed. In love and in the spirit of meekness,
MARY DYER." l
These three were brought before the General Court on
the 1 9th of October and asked why they had come.
" In obedience to the call of the Lord," was their answer.
Governor Endicott was plainly embarrassed, and, hesitat
ing to take the final step, he sent the prisoners back to
the jail. The next day after the morning sermon which
had called loudly for extreme measures with this " cursed
sect," 2 the prisoners were called and given this sentence :
" Hearken, you shall be led back to the place from whence
you came and from thence to the place of execution, to
be hanged on the gallows till you are dead." " The will
of the Lord be done," was Mary Dyer's response. " Take
her away, Marshall," called the Governor. " Yea, joyfully
shall I go," answered the unmoved woman.8
The execution was set for the 27th. As the time
approached the thoughtful people, those who loved free
dom and had suffered in Old England for their own bold
views, began to revolt in spirit against the violence and
cruelty about to be enacted. Many were " amazed and
1 New England Judged, pp. 288-291. a Ibid. p. 120.
8 The death sentence of these three Friends is given in Records of Massachusetts
Colony, vol. iv. part i. p. 383. The court ordered ' ' That the Rev. Mr. Zackery
Simes and Mr. John Norton repair to the prison and tender their endeavours to
make the prisoners sensible of their approaching danger and prepare them for
their approaching end." — Ibid. p. 383.
CH.-IV THE MARTYRS 85
wondered," in the quaint language of the day, " the thing
struck among them." A multitude of citizens flocked
about the prison on the morning of the execution, and
" William Robinson put his head out of his window
and spoke to the people concerning the things of God,"
and they listened with serious attention.1 An officer
endeavoured to disperse the crowd, but finding that he
was unable to do it, he rushed to the prison " in a fret
and heat, furiously hurling some of us down stairs, and
shut us up in a low dark 'cub' where we could not see
the people." 2 Then there breaks out this fine account of
the last moments together, written by one who was in
the company :
" Shut up in this dark and solitary place we sat waiting upon
the Lord. It was a time of Love, for though the world hated us
and despitefully used us, yet the Lord was pleased in a wonder
ful manner to manifest His supporting Love and kindness to us
in our innocent suffering. And especially the two Worthies
[Robinson and Stephenson] who had near finished their course
'bore themselves with a heavenly cheerfulness and they spake
many sweet and heavenly sayings of comfort." 3
Lest the victims might speak and stir up the people
again, drums were beat as they marched to the gallows.
They did try to speak, but the drums made such a din
that the people heard only the words, " This is the day of
your visitation." But their faces spoke in spite of the
drums, for " glorious signs of heavenly joy and gladness
were beheld in their countenances." They walked hand
in hand, with Mary Dyer in the middle. " Are you not
ashamed to walk thus between two young men ? " asked
the coarse official. " No," replied the exalted woman,
" this is to me the hour of the greatest joy I ever had in
this world. No ear can hear, nor tongue can utter and
no heart can understand the sweet incomes and the
refreshings of the Spirit of the Lord which I now feel." 4
The doomed men, on the steps of the gallows, gave their
last brief call to the people to follow the Light of Christ,
1 " Daniel Gould's Narrative" in New England Judged, p. 476. Gould was
a fellow- prisoner. 2 Ibid. p. 476.
8 Gould's Narrative, ibid. pp. 476-477. * New England Judged, p. 134.
86 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
and the two men sealed their faith with their lives. At
the last moment Mary Dyer, her arms and legs already
bound and her face covered with a handkerchief, loaned
for the purpose by her old pastor of the Boston Church,
the Rev. Mr. Wilson, was " reprieved." The sudden
" reprieve " of Mary Dyer was in reality a piece of acting :
there had been no intention of actually hanging her.
John Winthrop, Jr., Governor of Connecticut, had pleaded
with the magistrates of Boston, " as on his bare knees,"
not to hang the Quakers ; Governor Temple of Acadia
and Nova Scotia had offered to take them away from
Massachusetts and to provide for them at his own
expense ; finally Mary Dyer's son, William Dyer, had
begged for his mother's life.
Under these circumstances the Court decided not to
hang the condemned woman. The Colonial Records for
1 8th October 1659 contain this order:
" It is ordered that the said Mary Dyer shall have liberty for
forty-eight hours to depart out of this Jurisdiction, after which
time, being found therein, she is to be forthwith executed And
it is further ordered that she shall be carried to the place of execution
and there to stand upon the Gallows with a rope about her neck
until the Rest be executed ; and then to return to the prison and
remain as aforesaid." x
She stubbornly refused to accept her life, if the law
was still to remain against "the suffering seed." She
was, however, set on horseback and carried away toward
Rhode Island. After a short stay at home, she went on
a religious visit to Shelter Island in Long Island Sound.
We get one glimpse of her from John Taylor, who was
labouring in Shelter Island at the time of this visit. He
says :
"One who came to Shelter Island was Mary Dyer. She
was a comly woman and a grave matron and even shined in the
Image of God. We had several brave meetings there together
and the Lord's power and presence was with us gloriously." 2
But " the fire and hammer " were in her soul and she
1 Records of Massachusetts Colony, iv. part i. p. 384.
2 Memoir of John Taylor, p. 21.
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 87
could not stay away from " the bloody town of her sad
and heavy experience."
" She said," John Taylor tells us, " that she must go
and desire the repeal of that wicked law against God's
people and offer up her life there." She arrived in
Boston the 2 1st of May 1660. "Are you the same
Mary Dyer that was here before ? " asked Endicott. " I
am the same." " You will own yourself a Quaker, will
you not ? " " I own myself to be reproachfully so called."
Then followed the expected sentence.1 " This is no more
than what thou saidst before." " But now," said the
Governor, " it is to be executed." " I came," she said
solemnly, " in obedience to the will of God at your last
General Court, desiring you to repeal your unrighteous
laws of banishment on pain of death ; and that same is
my word now, and earnest request, although I told you
that if you refused to repeal them, the Lord would send
others of His servants to witness against them."
Her husband, one of the foremost citizens of Rhode
Island and a founder of the Aquidneck Colony, pleaded for
his wife's life.2 She was offered her life, as she stood on
the ladder of the gallows, if she would return home. " Nay
I cannot," was her firm answer. "In obedience to the
will of the Lord God I came and in His will I abide
faithful to death," She was asked if she would like one
of the Elders to pray for her, and she answered in the
simplicity of her spirit, " Nay, first a child, then a young
man, then a strong man before an Elder," and then with
words about her " eternal happiness " she went to meet
the Saviour " in whose image she shined " even here
below. 3
The only other capital execution was that of William
Leddra of Barbadoes 4 — a strange place, we should think
to-day, to furnish to the city of Boston a martyr for
1 The sentence is given in Records of Massachusetts Colony, vol. iv. part i. p. 419.
a See William Dyer's letter to Governor Endicott in Roger's Mary Dyer, pp.
94-97-
* John Taylor's testimony is : " She has gone into Eternal life and glory
forever." — Op. cit. p. 22.
4 He was a native of Cornwall, England, but had for some time made his
home in Barbadoes, where he had been an " approved minister."
88 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
spiritual religion. He had already, like his aged friend
William Brend, suffered almost unspeakable torture from
whippings and hard prison experiences — " in the bloody
den," as Bishop calls it — and had been banished on
pain of death. He returned and was re-imprisoned in
December 1660. He was chained to a log of wood and
kept all winter in " the miserable cold " of an unheated
prison. The charges against him were sympathy with
those who had been executed, refusal to remove his hat,
his use of thee and thou — in fact, the crime of being a
Quaker. When he saw that he was to be sentenced under
the Act of October 1658, he appealed as an English subject
for a trial under the laws of England, but his appeal was
refused. He was then urged to recant, and was promised his
life if he would " conform." " What," he answered, " act so
that every man who meets me would say, 'this is the man
that has forsaken the God of his salvation ! ' ' Remaining
unshaken, he was sentenced to death, the date set for the
execution being the I4th of March.1
He died in the same triumphant spirit which
characterised his companions in martyrdom.
" I testify," he wrote shortly before his death, " in the fear of
the Lord and witness with a trembling pen, that the noise of the
whip on my back, all the imprisonments, and banishments on
pain of death, and the loud threatenings of a halter did no more
affright me, through the strength and power of God, than if they
had threatened to bind a spider's web to my finger. ... I desire,
as far as the Lord draws me, to follow my forefathers and brethren
in suffering and in joy. My spirit waits and worships at the
feet of Immanuel."2
On the day before he went to death, he wrote a
beautiful and tender letter to " the Little Flock of Christ,"
in which he said :
"The sweet influences of the Morning Star, like a flood,
distilling into my habitation [a dark cold room, "little larger
than a saw-pit," where he was still chained to a log] have so
filled me with the joy of the Lord in the beauty of holiness
that my spirit is as if it did not inhabit a tabernacle of clay, but
1 New England Judged, p. 317. a Ibid. pp. 296-297.
CH. iv THE MARTYRS 89
is wholly swallowed up in the bosom of eternity from whence it
had its beginning. ... As the flowing of the ocean doth fill
every creek and branch and then retires again toward its own
being and fulness, leaving a savour behind, so doth the Life and
Power of God flow into our hearts making us partakers of His
Divine Nature, therefore let this Life alone be your joy and
consolation." x
He died as a martyr should, in calm faith, with noble
bearing. The spectators bore witness that " the Lord did
mightily appear in the man." 2
As Mary Dyer's lifeless body hung from the gallows
and swung in the wind Humphrey Atherton of Boston
pointed to it and said in jest — "She hangs there as a flag ! "
Like many things said in jest on historic occasions, the
word was literally true. She did hang as a flag — she was
a sign and a symbol of a deathless loyalty — and it was a
sign which the wayfaring man could read. Her death
showed, as did also the deaths of the other martyrs, that,
whether right or wrong in their fundamental beliefs, a
people had come to these shores who were not to be turned
aside by any dangers or terrors which mortal man could
devise, who were pledged to loyalty to the voice of God
in their souls and ready to follow it, even though it took
them to the hardest suffering and death. Every martyr
was, thus, in truth a flag.
1 An " Epistle to the Society of the Little Flock of Christ," in New England
Judged, pp. 299-302.
8 From a letter written by Thomas Wilkie of Barbadoes. — Bowden's History,
i- 3i5-
Joseph and Jane Nicholson of Cumberland, England, fell under the provisions
of the capital law and they were in prison in irons when Mary Dyer was hung, but
for some reason — for fear that their execution would excite the common people of
Boston, Joseph Nicholson says — they were allowed to go free. Joseph Nicholson
wrote The Standard of the Lord lifted up in New England, London, 1660.
Edward Wharton of Salem was fellow-prisoner with William Leddra through
all his last imprisonment and barely escaped with his life. For saying that Robinson
and Stephenson were wickedly killed and that the guilt of their blood was greater
than he could bear, he was whipped with twenty lashes and fined twenty pounds.
Early in the year 1660 he was arrested in his house for being a Quaker and brought
before Governor Endicott. He was kept nearly a year in prison, through the
winter, being in the same ' ' cub " with William Leddra, and at the Court which
sentenced Leddra to death, Wharton was banished on pain of death, and given
ten days to leave the jurisdiction. He stayed in Boston and attended his friend to
the gallows and caught his lifeless body as it fell from the scaffold, and with three
other brave Friends he gave the body burial. He then went quietly to his home
and wrote to the authorities of Boston that he was there and expected to stay
there ! — New England Judged, pp. 315-325 and p. 342. Besse, ii. 220-221.
CHAPTER V
THE KING'S MISSIVE
WHILE these Friends were thus joyously dedicating their
lives to purchase freedom to worship God, and to win the
privilege of holding the faith which to their souls seemed
true and spiritual, their fellow-believers in England were
putting forth every exertion in their power to stop " the
vein of innocent blood " which was flowing in Boston.
George Fox, an extraordinarily sensitive, sympathetic,
and even telepathic person, had been deeply moved by the
sufferings of those who were in some measure his disciples.
He says :
"When those were put to death (in New England) I was in
prison at Lancaster, and I had a perfect sense of their sufferings
as though it had been myself, and as though the halter had been
put about my own neck, though we had not at that time heard
of if."1
Christopher Holder and his companions, John Copeland
and John Rous, were now in England, visible " witnesses,"
with their cropped ears, of the way the bearers of the
gospel of inward Light were treated in the Puritan
Colony. Samuel Shattuck, Josiah Southwick, and
Nicholas Phelps of Salem, banished from their home for
espousing the cause of the Quakers, were also in England
bearing their testimony. In 1659 Humphrey Norton
told his powerful story of suffering and wrongs.2 This
was followed in 1660 by The Standard of the Lord
1 Fox's Journal, i. 507. Fox is probably incorrect here in regard to the date
of his experience. News of the martyrdom of Robinson and Stephenson reached
England in February 1660 (see Dewsbury's account and A. Parker's letter to
Margaret Fell, Swarthmore Collection, i. 169), while Fox was not imprisoned in
Lancaster until May 1660. * The New England Ensign.
90
CH. v THE KING'S MISSIVE 91
lifted up in New England, written by Joseph Nicholson,
who with his wife had extensively laboured and greatly
suffered in New England ; and the next year came the
first edition of George Bishop's book, packed with an
array of atrocious persecutions — his New England Judged,
a copy of which King Charles II. read. It is said that
the King was reading in Bishop's book the account of a
Friend's appeal from the cruel course of the Colony to
the privileges of the laws of England, and came upon
Major-General Denison's slighting remark on authority
and procedure in England. Denison, it seems, had met
the Quakers' claim of a right to appeal to the English
government for justice with the scoffing remark that it
would do no good if they did. " This year," he said,
"you will go and complain to Parliament, and the next
year they will send out to see how it is, and the third
year the government will be changed ! " J i.e. nothing will
be done. The King was deeply impressed by this
passage, and noted the difference between this language
and the humble tone of the address from New England
on the occasion of his accession. He called his courtiers
and read the passage to them, and added : " Lo, these
are my good subjects of New England, but I will put a
stop to them ! " 2 In addition came a very concrete list
of sufferings which was presented to the King in the form
of a Petition signed by the men who had been banished
from Massachusetts. The list contained the following
items :
1. Two honest and innocent women stripped stark naked
and searched in an inhuman manner.
2. Twelve strangers in that country, but freeborn of this
nation, received twenty-three whippings, most of them with a
whip of three cords with knots at the ends.
3. Eighteen inhabitants of the country, being freeborn
English, received twenty-three whippings.
4. Sixty-four imprisonments " of the Lord's people," amount
ing to five hundred and nineteen weeks.
5. Two beaten with pitched ropes, the blows amounting to
an hundred and thirty-nine.
1 New England Judged, p. 82. 2 Sewel's History, i. 492.
92 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
6. An innocent old man banished from his wife and children,
and for returning put in prison for above a year.
7. Twenty-five banished upon penalties of being whipped, or
having their ears cut, or a hand branded.
8. Fines, amounting to a thousand pounds, laid upon the
inhabitants for meeting together.
9. Five kept fifteen days without food.
10. One laid neck and heels in irons for sixteen hours.
11. One very deeply burnt in the right hand with an H after
he had been beaten with thirty stripes.
12. One chained to a log of wood for the most part of twenty
days in winter time.
13. Five appeals to England denied.
14. Three had their right ears cropped off.
15. One inhabitant of Salem, since banished on pain of
death, had one-half of his house and land seized.
1 6. Two ordered sold as bond-servants.
1 7. Eighteen of the people of God banished on pain of
death.
1 8. Three of the servants of God put to death.1
19. Since the executions four more banished on pain of
death and twenty-four heavily fined for meeting to worship God.2
To offset these vivid portrayals of wrongs endured,
the authorities in Massachusetts presented their side of
the case. They had sent a Petition to King Charles,
soon after his accession, expressing their loyalty to his
government and hope of his favour to their Colony.
" May it please your Majesty," they wrote, " in the day
you happily know that you are king over your Brittish
Israel to cast a favourable eye upon your poore
Mehibboseth," i.e. Massachusetts Colony. In this address
they took occasion to defend themselves for their treat
ment of the Quakers, by making the latter out to be a
type of persons not fit to live on the earth. " They are
open blasphemers," the address says, "open seducers
from the glorious Trinity, the Lord's Christ, the blessed
gospel, and from the Holy Scriptures as the rule of life.
They are open enemies to the government itself as
established in the hand of any but men of their own
principles. They are malignant promoters of doctrines
1 William Leddra was executed after this was written.
2 Besse's Sufferings, \. pp. xxx. -xxxi.
CH. v THE KING'S MISSIVE 93
directly tending to subvert both our church and state." 1
In addition to this Petition to the King the Court of
Massachusetts sent an address to Parliament and instruc
tions to its London Agent, Leverett, to do his utmost to
prevent an action which would tie the hands of the
colonial authorities from acting in their own way with the
Quakers.2 Richard Bellingham also wrote a pamphlet
setting forth the necessity of suppressing the Quakers.
" There is more danger," he declared, " in this People to-
trouble and overcome England than in the King of the
Scotts and the Popish Princes of Germany." 8
After serious consultation among Friends in England
it was decided to lay the Quaker sufferings before the
Privy Council, and it was arranged for Edward Burrough
to prepare an Address to the King — " Some Considera
tions," it is modestly called — presenting the true situation
and urging him to use his power to stop the persecution
now going on in his Colony. He refutes point by point
the charges in the " Petition and Address of the General
Court " of Massachusetts. He denies that Quakers have
ever been " impetuous or turbulent," that they have ever
" lifted up a hand or made a turbulent gesture " against
any authority either in Church or State, or that they have
ever been " found with a carnal weapon about them," or
that they had committed any crime, " saving, that they
warned sinners to repent." Those who have gone to
death in the Colony have been " martyred for the name
of Christ," solely for a " difference in judgment and
practice concerning spiritual things." He insists that these
sufferers went to New England because they were " moved
of the Holy Spirit" to go, and that those who have died
there have died " for a good conscience " — which was the
simple truth.
When the news of William Leddra's execution reached
1 Printed in Records of Massachusetts Colony, vol. iv. part i. pp. 450-453.
Quoted also in Edward Burrough's ' ' Some Considerations Presented unto the King
of England Being an Answer unto a Petition and Address of the General Court of
Boston in New England." Works of Edward Burrough (London, 1672) pp.
756-763.
2 Hutchinson Collection, p. 329.
8 Quoted in Howgil's Popish Inquisition, Works, p. 259.
94 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
the Friends in England, Edward Burrough sought an
interview in person with the King. He said to the
King, " There is a vein of innocent blood opened in thy
dominions which will run over all, if it is not stopped."
To which the King at once replied, " but I will stop that
vein." " Then stop it speedily," said Burrough, " for we
know not how many may soon be put to death." " As
speedily as ye will. Call the Secretary and I will do it
presently."1 The secretary came and a mandamus was
prepared on the spot. Edward Burrough pressed that it
be despatched with haste. " But I have no occasion at
present to send a ship thither," answered the King. " If
you care to send one you may do it," and he gave Burrough
the privilege of naming the messenger to carry the man
damus. Burrough at once named Samuel Shattuck, the
Salem Quaker who had been banished from the Colony
on pain of death ! and the King appointed him as his
royal messenger.
The Friends then chartered a ship of Ralph Goldsmith,
himself a Quaker, and agreed with him for three hundred
pounds to sail in ten days for Boston with the King's
messenger and missive.2
The colonists were warned in advance by the colonial
agent, Leverett, that the Quakers had brought their
grievances to the notice of the King, and there was an
ominous impression in the minds of many that they had
much to fear from the new sovereign, who was known to
have no sympathy with the theological or political ideals
which were the very pillars of the New England common
wealth. It seemed wisest to bow somewhat to the
threatening storm, and so an order was issued by the
colonial authorities, permitting all Quakers then in prison
" to depart and go for England." 3 This order released
twenty-seven Quakers who were at the time in Boston
prison, most of whom were " convinced " colonists, though
the list included some newly arrived Quaker " publishers " :
Elizabeth Hooton, Joan Brocksoppe, Mary Mallins,
1 See Sewel's History, i. 473.
2 This account is taken from Fox's Journal, i. 507-509.
8 Records of Massachusetts Colony, vol. iv. part i. p. 433.
CH. v THE KING'S MISSIVE 95
Catherine Chattam, and John Burstow and Peter Pearson,
who had already done extensive missionary work in the
Colonies.
Meantime another Friend was being doomed to death
and was in imminent danger of execution. This was
Wenlock Christison. His origin and antecedent history
are unknown. He suddenly appears in New England
leaving no clear trail behind him. He always claims to
be a British subject and he once directly implies that
he has come from England. Harrison, in his valuable
monograph,! thinks that Christison was of Scottish descent
and that the blood of the Covenanters flowed in his veins.
At any rate he was possessed of martyr-fibre. He first
comes to public notice as one among many Friends who
were thrown into prison in Boston, I3th December 1660.
He had just come from Salem and was evidently moving
about from place to place, as the way opened for him to
perform religious service. He was arrested, and banished
on pain of death. After his release he visited Plymouth
Colony, where he was imprisoned fourteen weeks, in cold
winter weather, "tied neck and heels together," flogged
" with twenty-seven cruel stripes on his naked body," and
deprived of his Bible and clothes — " waistcoat, two other
coats, hat and bag of linen " — to the value of four pounds
for prison fees. This was for "coming into one Colony
when he was banished from another."
Being at length released, he returned to Boston and
suddenly appeared before the Court, precisely as they
were pronouncing sentence of death on William Leddra !
The magistrates were " struck with a great damp " when
they saw another man " unconcerned for his life come to
trample under the law of Death." " For a little space of
time, there was silence in the Court, but recovering from
the swoon, one of the Court cried out, ' Here is another,
fetch him to the bar.' " 2
Then followed this dialogue : " Is your name Wenlock
Christison ? "
1 Harrison's Wenlock Christison and the Friends in Talbot County, Maryland
(Baltimore, 1878), p. 16.
2 New England Judged, p. 319.
96 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
" Yes."
" Wast not thou banished on pain of death ? "
" Yes, I was."
" What dost thou here then ? "
" I am come to warn you, that you shed no more
blood."
It was hoped that Leddra's death would awe him into
submission, and on the day of that Friend's execution
Christison was given an opportunity to renounce his views
and so save his life. " Nay," was his reply, " I shall not
change my religion, nor seek to save my life. I do not
intend to deny my Master, and if I lose my life for
Christ's sake I shall save it."
His brave manner and saintly bearing made a profound
impression on some of the magistrates, and Governor
Endicott had difficulty in securing a capital sentence.
For two weeks there was a stern division in the Court,
and " a spirit of confusion." A determined minority stood
out against " the bloody course," and urged a change of
policy. Governor Endicott was so incensed by the
opposition that he struck his fist on the table and
declared, " I could find it in my heart to go back home "
\i.e. to England]. " Record those who will not consent — I
thank God I am not afraid to give judgment." He then
pronounced the sentence of death to be executed on I3th
June 1 66 1.1 Then the calm, unmoved victim spoke
these solemn words : " The will of the Lord be done.
In the will of God I came amongst you, and in His
counsel I stand, feeling His eternal power, that will uphold
me to the last gasp. Be it known unto you all, that if
you have power to take my life from me, my soul will
enter into everlasting rest and peace with God ; and if
you have power to take my life from me, the which I
question, I believe, you will never more take Quakers'
lives from them. Note my words : Do not think to
1 Richard Russell was one of the magistrates who refused to give his consent
to the prisoner's death, and the whole Court was much moved by the receipt at
this very time of Edward Wharton's letter saying that though banished on pain
of death he was at his home in Salem and intended to remain there, about his
occupation. See Besse, ii. 223, and Sewel, i. 488-490.
CH. v THE KING'S MISSIVE 97
weary out the living God by taking away the lives of His
servants. What do you gain by it? For the last man
you put to death) here are five come in his room} And if
you have power to take my life from me God can raise up
the same principle of life in ten of His servants and send
them among you in my room"
He was not called upon, however, to suffer his penalty,
and he lived to see his predictions fulfilled. Just before
the time appointed for his hanging an order was granted
for his release and for the liberation of a large number
of Friends as related above. The release was due to the
desire to propitiate those who were using the Quaker
persecution as a ground for royal interference, for the
magistrates realised that only by most delicate diplomacy
could they preserve satisfactory relations with the mother-
country, though they hardly suspected the humiliation
which Goldsmith's ship was bringing them.2
Ralph Goldsmith, though buffeted in the early part of
his voyage with heavy storms, brought his ship across
in six weeks and anchored in the harbour on a " First-
day." The people of the city flocked on board to ask
for letters but were told that no letters would be delivered
on " First-day " ! They reported on shore that the ship
was loaded with Quakers, some of them persons banished
on pain of death.
Samuel Shattuck tells it in his own quaint way as
follows :
"When wee came into Boston harbour many came on ship
board for Newes and Letters ; But were somewhat struck in
Amaze when they saw what wee were. When wee came on
shoar," Shattuck continues, " wee found all very still and a very
great calme ; the moderate sort (as I met them) Rejoiced to see
me and some of the violent wee met as men chained and
bowed down and could not look us in the face."3
1 The five newly arrived " publishers of truth."
2 There is an entry in the Massachusetts Colonial Records which appears
to be a letter from Wenlock Christison signifying his willingness to depart from
that jurisdiction if he is granted his freedom, adding, " I know not yt ever I
shall com into it any more." (Massachusetts Archives, x. 273). He did,
however, continue to labour within that jurisdiction and was various times after
wards arrested and punished. (See New England Judged, pp. 433, 440, 457,
and 467). s Aspinwall Papers, part i. p. 160.
H
98 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BR. i
So they passed on to the home of the Governor and
asked for admission to his presence. As they insisted
that they could deliver their message only to the Governor
himself, they were ushered into his presence, Samuel
Shattuck wearing his hat. Endicott in anger ordered
the hat taken off, which was done by a servant. Where
upon Shattuck produced his credentials as a royal messenger
and showed the mandamus. The Governor at once
uncovered and ordered the Quaker's hat to be given back
to him, and then he read the mandamus which was as
follows :
" CHARLES R.
" Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. Having been
informed that several of our subjects among you, called Quakers,
have been and are imprisoned by you, whereof some have been
executed, and others (as hath been represented unto us) are
in danger to undergo the like ; we have thought fit to signify
our pleasure in that behalf for the future, and do hereby require,
that if there be any of those people called Quakers amongst
you, now already condemned to suffer death or other corporal
punishment ; or that are imprisoned, and obnoxious to the like
condemnation, you are to forbear to proceed any further therein ;
but that you forthwith send the said persons (whether condemned
or imprisoned) over into their own kingdom of England, together
with their respective crimes or offences laid to their charge ; to
the end such course may be taken with them here as shall
be agreeable to our laws and their demerits. And for so doing,
these our letters shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge.
" Given at our Court, at Whitehall, the 9th day of September
1 66 1, in the i3th year of our reign.
"To our trusty and well-beloved John Endicott, Esq., and
to all and every other governor or governors of our plantations
of New England, and of all the colonies thereunto belonging,
that now are, or hereafter shall be ; and to all and every the
ministers and officers of our plantations and colonies whatsoever,
within the continent of New England.
" By his Majesty's command,
" WILLIAM MORRIS." l
1 This incident is happily and beautifully told by Whittier in ' ' The King's
Missive." Whittier's poem provoked severe criticism from the Rev. Dr. George
E. Ellis, on the ground that the poem was historically inaccurate, and consider
able discussion ensued. The substance of the discussion is given in Pickard's
John Greenleaf Whittier, pp. 775-785.
CH. v THE KING'S MISSIVE 99
It was an extremely trying order and a humiliating
situation. To send the prisoners to England was plainly
out of the question, and the order was imperative that
they should " proceed no further," either with death
sentences or with " other corporal punishment." " We
shall obey his Majesty's commands," was the Governor's
laconic decision as he turned to Samuel Shattuck, and
this order was issued :
" To William Salter, keeper of the prison at Boston, you are
requested, by authority and order of the General Court, to release
and discharge the Quakers who at present are in your custody.
See that you do not neglect this. By order of the Court.
" EDWARD RAWSON, Secretary." 1
As a result of this order a large release of prisoners was
made, among them the venerable Nicholas Upsall who
had lain in the prison of his own city for two years.
John Chamberlein, who had been convinced of the Quaker
truth at the gallows, when Robinson and Stephenson were
executed, was also among those who were liberated, and
the Friends gathered at his house for their meeting of
rejoicing, Chamberlein's house being at this period the
regular meeting-place of the Friends in Boston. Shattuck's
letter, already quoted from, gives a fresh impression of
the joy and triumph which the new turn of affairs brought
to the long-suffering band :
" The coming of our ship is of very wonderfull service, for the
Bowells of the moderate sort are greatly refreshed throughout the
Country, and many mouths are now opened, which were before
shutt and some of them now say, Its the welcomest ship that
ever came into this Land."
The authorities of the Colony had, as we have seen,
anticipated royal interposition and had already changed
their policy of dealing with the Quakers, but none the
less this " missive " from the King marks an epoch in the
history of colonial Puritans. They might congratulate
Charles the Second and ask him to " cast favourable eyes
on poore Mehibboseth," but in their hearts they knew
that a dangerous turn of the tide had set in, and that the
1 Eesse, ii. 226. Sewel, i. 492-496.
zoo QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
enemy of their faith and of their ideals was now their
sovereign. They no longer had behind them the great
moral and spiritual England of the Commonwealth, and
they were never again to have an entirely free hand in
working out their lofty vision of a New England, which
in their dreams was to be a New Jerusalem — a Republic
of the saints of God. They had fought their Armageddon
and it was a drawn battle. It was now unmistakably
evident that the Colony must henceforth be shared with
these unwelcome Quaker guests. The founders of it
had used their extreme measures to keep the Colony
immune and they had failed. Their own people were in
revolt against their system of expulsion and extermination,
they saw ten Quakers coming for every one who was
killed, and now one of these same Quakers, banished on
pain of death, had come boldly in as the inviolable
messenger of an anti-Puritan king. " Give Mr. Shattuck
his hat ! " " The King's command shall be obeyed ! "
were two sentences which must have cost brave old
Endicott profound pain.
There was a momentary lull in the storm of persecu
tion, but it was only a temporary relief and no surrender,
for so long as John Norton remained the guardian of
orthodoxy, and so long as John Endicott was left as the
representative embodiment of the Puritan ideal, there
could be little peace for the Quaker, with his claim
of an inward Light, even though there were a danger
that King Charles might occasionally be stirred to call
a halt, and to show that he meant what he said in the
Declaration of Breda.1
On the constitutional point of transferring their
prisoners to England to be tried the colonists did not
yield an iota, and in the weighty deliberations which
followed upon their duties to the King they showed
a good measure of the spirit which swept through New
England again more than a hundred years later. They
declared that their "patent" was the foundation of the
1 ' ' We do declare liberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be dis
quieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion."
CH. v THE KING'S MISSIVE 101
rights of the Colony, and they asserted that "any im
position prejudicial to the country, contrary to any just
laws of ours not repugnant to the laws of England, is an
infringment of our right " ; and they further declared that,
" it may well stand with the loyalty and obedience of
subjects to plead with their princes against all such as
shall endeavour the violation of their privileges."1 But
from this time forward frequent interferences occurred
on the part of the King. It is true that he informed
the Massachusetts officials, through their agents, that
Parliament had made sharp laws against the Quakers,
and "we are content you should do the like,"2 but in
the same letter the King insists that all public officers in
the Colony shall be chosen without reference to their
religious opinions and profession, and royal commissions
after this date more than once called a halt on Quaker
persecution, as we shall see. It is with some humiliation
that we are compelled to thank Charles II. for the first stay
of persecution, since interferences by a royal prerogative
later endangered the colonial charters and attempted to
thwart the democratic experiment of the colonists in every
way possible, but the harried Quaker took his temporary
relief without much compunction ! For the moment,
however, the relief was slight.
The old law inflicting banishment on pain of death
had already been altered, before the King's " missive "
came, and a new law had been drawn up designed to be
more effective and at the same time not so obnoxious to
the Home Government, or so revolting to the people.
This new law, passed the 22nd of May 1661, was the
atrocious " Cart and Whip Act." It began with the
statement that the Court was " desirous to try all means,
with as much lenity as may consist with our safety, to
prevent the intrusion of the Quakers," followed with the
usual amount of vigorous description of the persons so
named. It was then enacted that any person " not giving
civil respect by the usual gestures, or by any other means
1 Records of Massachusetts Colony, vol. iv. part ii. p. 35.
a Colonial Papers, a8th June 1662.
102 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
manifesting himself to be a Quaker, shall ... be stripped
naked from the middle upwards and be tied to a cart's
tail and whipped through the town, and from thence
immediately conveyed to the constable of the next town,
towards the borders of our jurisdictions, and so from
constable to constable till they be conveyed through any
of the outwardmost towns of our jurisdiction." If " such
vagabond Quaker " returns, he is to be whipped out again,
and so on for three times. The fourth time he is to be
branded on the left shoulder with the letter R and
whipped out of the Colony. Then, if finally the said
Quaker proves to be "an incorrigible rogue and enemy
of the common peace," he is to suffer, if there is anything
left of him, under the old law of I658.1 Some of the
Friends who were liberated from prison when the change
of policy was initiated, were punished under this new law.
Peter Pearson and Judith Brown were selected, among
the prisoners in custody when the Act was passed, to be
the first examples of its cruelty. They had both been
banished and had returned " to look the law in the face,"
and probably for this reason they were chosen to suffer
at the cart-tail. They received twenty stripes on their
naked backs as they went through Boston on their way
out of the " jurisdiction." All the other Friends set free
at this great " delivery " were ordered to be driven out of
the territory by a guard of soldiers. John Chamberlein
was whipped nine times at the cart's tail " because he
suffered a meeting at his house," 2 and was liberated a
second time by the King's missive. George Wilson, also
a native citizen, was whipped with Chamberlein through
three towns, the executioner using for the purpose an
ingeniously cruel whip which tore the flesh in barbarous
fashion.3 Josiah Southwick and Nicholas Phelps had
returned from their banishment in the autumn of 1661.
Phelps, whose constitution had been undermined by what
he had undergone, died soon after his arrival. Southwick,
with almost excessive Quaker frankness, appeared before
1 Records of Massachusetts Colony, vol. iv. part ii. p. 2.
8 Aspinwall Papers, part i. p. 161. * Besse, ii. 324.
CH. v THE KING'S MISSIVE 103
the authorities and announced his return to his country.
He was apprehended and whipped through Boston,
Roxbury, and Dedham, and then carried fifteen miles
and left in the wilderness. The next morning he
fearlessly returned to his home in Salem, having told
his torturers that he " cared no more for what they could
do to him than for a feather blown in the air." l
The terrible " Cart and Whip Act " was re-enacted,
in slightly modified form, the 8th of October 1662, and
under this law some of the most harrowing tortures were
inflicted.2 Two instances, both of which are historically
too important to be omitted, will suffice, and many of
the details can be spared. The first instance is the case
of Alice Ambrose, Mary Tomkins, and Ann Coleman.
These three Friends, about whose earlier history little
is known, had come from England, probably in the summer
of 1662, with a sense of a call to pioneer service in the
Colonies. Their chief interest to us lies in the fact that
they were " the first publishers " of the Quaker message
in what later came to be a great Quaker centre, namely,
the Piscataqua region — particularly the country about
Dover and Portsmouth, New Hampshire — and also in the
region which they call " the Province of Mayn." 8
Edward Wharton, of Salem, one of the foremost of
the native Quaker ministers of the early period, and
George Preston, also of Salem, with two of the English
women, Alice Ambrose and Mary Tomkins, made their
way to Dover, and took up their headquarters in an inn
there, where they received many inquirers, made many
convincements, and solidly established their truth in the
minds of a group of the Dover people, though they came
into violent collision with the ministers of the town,
especially with one whom they call " priest Rayner."
They found here in Dover a prepared group ready for
their views, much like the groups which had existed in
1 New England Judged, p. 356.
2 Records of Massachusetts Colony, vol. iv. part ii. p. 59.
3 These women were not actually the first Quaker missionaries to reach the
Piscataqua region, as William Robinson and Marmaduke Stephenson had already
been there in 1659 (see Bishop, p. 117), though we have no details of their work.
104 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Newport, Sandwich, and Salem. There had come to the
Piscataqua region, at an earlier time, some who were
unwelcome in Massachusetts because of their too free
religious views. There were survivors of the great
Hutchinson controversy still living in the region, and
the ministry of the famous Hansard Knollys, the third
minister to come to the Dover church, had led many in
the direction of Anabaptist ideas. The result was that
the little band of " publishers " left behind, as they pushed
farther eastward, a goodly number of believers in their
way of life. From Dover they crossed over the Piscataqua
river into the Province of Maine, by invitation of Major
Shapleigh, a magistrate and leading citizen in the town
ship of Kittery, evidently in the part since set off as the
township of Eliot. " He was an enquiring man," Bishop
tells us,1 a seeker, and he " kept a priest in his house " and
had a room set apart for public worship. Under the
ministry of his new guests he and his wife were " con
vinced of truth," and became " obedient " to their new
light, and " truth got great dominion in the hearts of the
people there," which means that a Quaker meeting was
begun in the Province of Maine. After a thorough
canvas of that region the four Friends returned to
Massachusetts.
Later in the year, as winter was approaching, the two
women, with Ann Coleman as companion, decided to
revisit those who had " received the truth in Piscataqua
river." They had not been long in Dover before the
magistrates were stirred up by one of the ministers — the
" priest Rayner," who had disputed with them on the
former visit — to apply the " Cart and Whip Act " to the
visitors. The following order was issued by a deputy-
magistrate named Walden :
" To the constables of Dover, Hampton, Salisbury, Newbury,
Rawley, Ipswich, Wenham, Lynn, Boston, Roxbury, Dedham ;
and until these vagabond Quakers are carried out of this jurisdic
tion. You and every of you are required, in the King's
Majesty's name, to take these vagabond Quakers, Ann Coleman,
1 New England Judged, p. 363.
CH. v THE KING'S MISSIVE 105
Mary Tomkins, Alice Ambrose, and make them fast to the cart's
tail, and driving the cart through your several towns, to whip
them upon their backs, not exceeding ten stripes apiece on
each of them, in each town, and so convey them from constable
to constable till they come out of the jurisdiction."1
It was in the heart of a northern winter when these
women were stripped to the waist and tied to the cart to
trudge under the lash through these eleven towns, the snow
lying " half-leg-deep," as they passed through Hampton ;
but we are told that "the presence of the Lord was so
with them, in the extremity of their sufferings, that they
sang in the midst of them to the astonishment of their
enemies."2 Deliverance came unexpectedly in Salisbury,
for Walter Barefoot asked to be made deputy-constable,
and taking the matter into his own hands fearlessly set
the women free.3
The women went straight back toward Piscataqua
river, revisited Major Shapleigh on the way, and then
came into Dover, where they again endured treatment
too cruel and barbarous to be told in detail.4
The other extraordinary application of " the Cart and
Whip Act" is the case of Elizabeth Hooton. She was
the first woman " convinced " by Fox's preaching in
England, and she was the first woman to manifest a gift
for public ministry. She went through many dreadful
persecutions in England, and finally laid down her life in
the island of Jamaica.5 She was at the time of her New
England suffering advanced in years, and had made her
1 This is dated at Dover, 22nd December 1662, and is signed by Richard
Walden, though Bishop says that ' ' priest Rayner " drew it up. When Alice
Ambrose was asked her name she said, "My name is written in the Lamb's
book of Life." "Nobody here knows that book," answered Walden. — New
England Judged, p. 366.
2 New England Judged, p. 367.
3 Bishop says that John Wheelwright, "an old priest," advised the constable
to go on with the whipping, p. 368.
4 Besse, ii. 228. New England Judged, pp. 370-374.
8 In Devonshire House Portfolio, No. 3, there are many papers by Elizabeth
Hooton, to the priests about 1651, to Cromwell, to the Mayor of London, and a
number to the King. Portfolio 3, 27 gives her sufferings in New England ; 3, 35
is a lamentation for Boston in New England ; 3, 36 a lamentation for Boston and
Cambridge in New England ; 3, 39 a threatening letter to the rulers of Boston ;
3, 40 lays open cruelty in New England at Boston, Cambridge, Salem, etc.; also
3, 42 and 3, 43 ; 3, 45 gives passages on New England.
io6 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
way to Virginia from Barbadoes, and had travelled all the
way from Virginia through incredible hardships to Boston,
where she was at once thrust into prison. Being released
from prison she was conveyed to the limit of the Colony
and left in the wilderness, making her way as best she
could to Rhode Island. She went from there to Barbadoes
and took ship again for Boston ! Here she was taken by
the constable and put on ship for Virginia, and after
suffering for the faith there, she returned to England, but
only for the purpose of carrying out her original plan —
to preach in New England !
She now procured from the King a special license to
permit her to build a house in America, and with the
King's document sailed for Boston. Here she applied
for liberty to build a house for herself to live in and for
Friends to meet in. The privilege was stoutly refused,
and this unwearied woman next started for the Piscataqua
region.
At Hampton she was imprisoned. At Dover she was
put in the stocks and kept four days in prison. Then she
made her way back to Cambridge, where she was locked
up in " a close, foul dungeon," and kept two days and
nights without food or drink. A Friend, for there were
by this time convinced Friends in almost all the New
England towns, hearing of her sufferings, brought her
some milk for which he was fined five pounds. An order
was next issued for whipping this poor woman out of the
jurisdiction, though she showed the King's document
granting her the privilege of owning a house wherever
she would in the Colony. She was tied to a post in
Cambridge and given ten lashes with a three corded
knotted whip. Then she was taken to Watertown, where
she received ten lashes more. On a cold, frosty morning
she was brought into Dedham, where, tied to a cart, the
tortured body had ten lashes more. Torn and bleeding
after a long day's journey she was left at night in the
woods, and by what seemed to her friends a miraculous
preservation she arrived next day at the town of Rehoboth
(now the town of Seekonk) and made her way to Newport.
CH. v THE KING'S MISSIVE 107
Notwithstanding this usage, to us seemingly unendur
able, Elizabeth Hooton returned to Cambridge, where, after
being " abused by a wicked crew of Cambridge scholars,"
she was whipped again, first in the town of Cambridge,
and then from constable to constable through three
towns toward Rhode Island. Again she went back to
Boston and endeavoured to give her message. She was
this time taken to the House of Correction and given ten
stripes, and then whipped at a cart's tail through Roxbury,
Dedham, and Medfield, and left, at the end of her whipping,
in the woods. She got to a town where there were
Friends who refreshed her, and, with indomitable per
sistence, she went back to Boston ! She was again
whipped out of the town and threatened with death if she
returned. We are told that " her inward consolations did
so abound that she was able to bear all her afflictions in
holy triumph, and in humble meekness she declared that
she was willing, for the love she bore the souls of men,
to suffer all and more for the seed's sake." l
Whether this sort of insistent importunity be judged
holy boldness or fanaticism will depend largely, I suppose,
upon the point of view — "the psychological climate" —
of the person judging. This woman, it is plain, was
" possessed " with a conviction of duty, and she believed
that the way to break down the odious laws and the
system of enforcing conformity was to impress the public
with the inhuman character of the system, and to show
the magistrates the utter futility of the laws for accom
plishing their purpose, and she put the law and the
system to this extreme test. The entire story of what
was suffered on the tender bodies of men and women in
the effort to break down the system of intolerance and to
secure free worship cannot be told here in detail. I have
made a complete list of all the sufferers and what they
underwent, but it is too bulky to print here.
1 Besse, ii. 228-231; New England Judged, pp. 410-418. Elizabeth Hooton
had still further sufferings in Boston, Salem, and Braintree, and on one occasion
travelled on foot seventy miles to reach Rhode Island. She was in Boston at
the time of Governor Endicott's death and attended his funeral, where she
probably tried to speak (see Bowden i. 259). She died in the island of Jamaica
in 1671.
ro8 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
The strain was in some instances too great for human
nerves to bear, and a few persons — to us, with our know
ledge of hysteria, suggestion, and auto-suggestion, sur
prisingly few — lost their mental balance and did things
which belong properly to the list of fanatical acts. In
1663 Thomas Newhouse entered a church, and broke
two empty bottles, crying out as he did so that thus
those who persecuted Friends should be dashed in pieces.
Thomas Newhouse appears to have been mentally un
settled. He became " lost to truth " and was disowned
from the Society of Friends.1
In 1 66 1, Catherine Chattam, another victim of harsh
persecution, appeared in Boston clothed in sackcloth and
ashes as a sign of troubles which the Lord would bring
upon that persecuting city. 2
There are two pitiful cases of women who were driven
over the verge of sanity by the fury of the persecution
which their families endured. The first of these was
Lydia Wardel of Hampton. She was " a chaste and
tender woman of exemplary modesty," but, harrowed by
the treatment which was inflicted on her husband, and
still more by the stripping and scourging of women which
she had seen, she felt driven to appear unclothed in the
congregation at Newbury. She yielded to the obsession
and appeared as " a naked sign." The poor woman should
have received wise medical treatment. Instead, both she
and her husband were outrageously whipped. 8
The other case was that of Deborah Wilson, wife of
Robert Wilson of Salem and sister of Joshua Buffum and
1 See William Edmundson's Journal, p. 61. Dr. Ellis in his Massachusetts
and its Early History, p. 114, has related how two Quaker women, Sarah Gibbons
and Dorothy Waugh, entered John Norton's church in Boston in 1658, and broke
two bottles " as a sign of his emptiness. " This incident is probably apocryphal.
The two women did enter the church and "speak a few words," whereupon they
were arrested and kept three days in jail without food. (New England Judged,
p. 58. ) None of the early authorities mention the bottles. See interesting note
in Hallowell's Pioneer Quakers, p. 73.
8 It must be remembered that both the Puritans and the Friends were diligent
readers of the Hebrew prophets, and they, especially the Friends, made much of
these "signs," which the prophets often felt called upon to "act" in person.
Catherine Chattam was unmercifully whipped for this "acted sign," and passed
through a severe illness from the strain, but she appears to have wholly recovered.
She afterwards became the wife of John Chamberlein of Boston.
8 New England Judged, pp. 376-377
CH. v THE KING'S MISSIVE 109
Margaret Smith. She, overwrought by the sufferings of
her family, had a similar obsession, and felt constrained
to walk through the town of Salem as " a naked sign." As
a punishment she was tied to a cart by the side of her
mother and her sister Margaret Smith, and the three were
whipped through the town, while her husband, " himself
not altogether of her way, followed after, clapping his hat
sometimes between the whip and her back." l
Margaret Brewster, in 1677, was, as she claimed,
" raised up as one from the dead, and came from a sick
bed " " to bear a testimony and be as a sign to warn the
bloody town of Boston to end its cruel laws." With
her hair about her shoulders, ashes on her head, her face
coloured black, and sackcloth on her upper garments, she
came, attended by two other women, on Sunday morning
into the Rev. Mr. Thatcher's meeting-house.
" She came and stood in the Old South Church,
A wonder and a sign,
With a look the old-time sibyls wore
Half-crazed and half-divine." 2
It was a misguided act, no doubt, but no modern reader
who studies the case in full can fail to conclude that her
persecutors, who insisted that she " took on the shape of
the devil," and who whipped her at the cart's tail from
the Old South Church through the town of Boston, were
at least as " misguided." 8
Sad enough these instances of hysterical tendencies
undoubtedly are, but no modern historian would think
seriously of citing them as proof that the Quakers were
lawless, immodest, or fanatical. That they could stand
such inhuman treatment for ten years — a veritable reign
of terror — and keep calm and unmoved, and have only
these few instances of hysteria and misleading impressions,
speaks well for the character of their sanity and restraint.
There is, so far as I know, no instance, in the list of
sufferings, of any Quaker who " recanted," or who even
1 New England Judged, pp. 383-384.
2 Whittier's " In the Old South Church," which deals with this episode.
8 For Margaret Brewster's trial see Besse, ii. 261-265.
no QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
gave up his practice of the unimportant Quaker
" testimonies," such as wearing the hat and saying " thou,"
in order to win his freedom or to spare himself torture.
Not only is the story unsullied by lapses of cowardice, it
is further an unbroken record of noble bearing toward the
instigators and inflicters of their torment. They did
undoubtedly believe that the judgments of Heaven were
to fall on their persecutors, and it is possible that they
enjoyed the prospect — they were human ; but in any case
they reviled not, they did not murmur, they raised no
hand or threat. They forgave and even prayed for their
torturers, and literally fulfilled the words of their Master
— " Love your enemies." l
1 Governor Endicott died in March 1665, and in May of that same year the
royal commissioners commanded the General Court of Massachusetts to allow
Quakers to attend to their secular business without molestation. In 1675,
however, a law was passed prohibiting Quaker meetings in the Colony, and in 1677
constables were ordered to make diligent search for such meetings and to ' ' break
open any door where peaceable entrance is denied them." This second brief
period of persecution marks the end of the persecution of Quakers as such in
New England, Margaret Brewster being the last woman to suffer whipping.
CHAPTER VI
LATER EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND
IN the early 'seventies of the seventeenth century there
came in New England a new period of Quaker expansion
— the greatest since the first "invasion" in 1657. This
expansion was due primarily to the visit of George Fox,
the founder of the Society. He sailed from England in
the ship Industry the I 2th of August 1671, in company
with William Edmundson, Thomas Briggs, John Rous,
John Stubbs, Solomon Eccles, James Lancaster, John
Cartwright, Robert Widders, George Pattison, John Hull,
Elizabeth Hooton, l and Elizabeth Miars, and he landed in
Barbadoes the 3rd of October after a perilous voyage. At
the time of his arrival Fox was in broken health, too
ill and weak to walk for any distance. During his three
months of heavy labour in the island he steadily gained
in physical power and in conquering spirit. Convince-
ments were made, meetings were settled, and those in
authority in the island were impressed with the message
and the spiritual ideals of the Friends. Fox wrote at
this time his famous Letter to the Governor of Barbadoes,
in which he endeavoured to clear the Quakers " from
scandalous lies and slanders," and to show that they held
the essential doctrines of orthodox Christianity. This
Letter has frequently been cited as a Declaration of Quaker
faith. It is not that, however, for it deals only slightly
1 Elizabeth Hooton wrote in 1670 to Margaret Fox, who was then in prison :
" I have a great desire to see thee, if thou could but come to thy husband before
he go : so the Lord give thee some liberty that thou may see him. . . I know
nothing but I may go with him ; it hath been much on me to go a great while,
and to do the best that is required for him. "
H2 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
and feebly with the distinctive truth of the Quaker message ;
it is rather what it claims to be — a document written to
clear Friends of slander and heresy on points of catholic,
i.e. universal, Christianity.1
From Barbadoes the party of publishers crossed
over to Jamaica, where, during seven weeks of strenuous
labour, a great convincement of people was made. Here
Elizabeth Hooton, who had come to care for Fox on
his journey, suddenly, almost without a warning illness,
passed away in peace. From Jamaica Fox sailed, in
the teeth of a tempestuous storm, to the shore of Mary
land, and after a period of labour there, which will be
reviewed in a later chapter, he made his way overland
to New England, arriving at Newport the 3Oth of May
1672. On arrival, he writes, "We had two very good
meetings, and many justices, with the governor [Nicholas
Easton], the deputy-governor and captaine, and all was
satisfyed, and som of them said they did not think there
had been such a man in the world." 2 Fox was enter
tained by the governor, Nicholas Easton, who travelled
with him extensively during his stay in the Colony. The
Yearly Meeting of 1672 was a memorable time. Not
only was Fox there, but also John Burnyeat, John
Cartwright, George Pattison, John Stubbs, James Lancaster,
and Robert Widders — all eminent ministers from abroad
— were in attendance. The governor and the deputy-
governor sat in the sessions, and the people flocked in from
all parts of the island and the country round about, and
Friends were " so knit and united " that it required two
days for leave-taking when the meetings were over.
" And then," Fox says, " being mightily filled with the
presence and power of the Lord they went away with
joyful hearts to their various habitations in the several
1 The Letter is printed in the Journal, ii. 155-158. This visit of Fox and
his companions resulted in a very large increase of Quakerism in Barbadoes and
in the other West Indies. Some impression of the size of the Society in
Barbadoes can be gained from the fact that the Quaker fines between the years
1658 and 1695 amounted to ^11,000. There were at the high water period of
Quakerism in the island five meeting-houses there. See Journal of Friends
Historical Society, v. 43.
a I am quoting from a MS. Journal of Fox's American travelsr now in the
Bodleinn Library (MS. Bodleian Addition A 95, f. 16).
CH. vi EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 113
colonies where they lived." l There are many indications,
in Friends' journals and in other contemporary documents,
that Ranters abounded in many parts of the Colonies
during the seventeenth century. Fox found them in
considerable numbers in Rhode Island, and he laboured to
make them see that he had no sympathy with their
moral and spiritual chaos. " I had a great travell," the
MS. Journal says, "on my spirit concerning the ranters,
for they had been rude at a ffriends' meeting where I
was not at, and I apoynted a meeting amongst them,
and I knew that the Lord would give me power over them,
and He did!"
During his stay in Newport, Fox wrote a letter to
the magistrates and officers of the Colony which shows
the practical bent of his mind and the breadth of his
social and civic interests. He declares that there is a
law of God which voices itself in every man and reveals
the principle of conduct toward others. He then
recommends the Legislature to pass " a law against
drunkenness and against them that sell liquors to make
people drunk,"2 and "a law against fighting [probably
duelling] and swearing." He urges them to " look into all
your ancient liberties and privileges — your divine liberty,
your national liberty, and all your outward liberties which
belong to your commons, your town, and your island
Colony." He recommends " that you have a market once
a week in your town and a house built for that purpose ; "
" that some one be selected in every town and place in all
your Colony to receive and record all your births,
marriages, and them that die." " Mind that which is for
the good of your Colony and the commonwealth of all
people — stand for the good of your people which is the
good of yourselves." " Stand up for the glory of God, that
it may shine over your Colony ; take off all oppression in
your Colony, and set up justice over all in your Colony,"
1 Journal, ii. 169. The Colonies represented would be Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Province of Maine and New York especially
Long Island.
2 This is one of the first suggestions ever made in America to prohibit the
sale of intoxicants by legal enactment
I
H4 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
" and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made
you free, in life, glory, and power." l
It was at this time that Quakerism was planted on the
western shore of the bay, in Narragansett. Fox writes : —
" We went to Narragansett, about twenty miles from Rhode
Island, and the Governor, Nicholas Easton, went with us. We
had a meeting at a Justice's house, where Friends had never had
any before. 2 It was very large, for the country generally came
in j and people came also from Connecticut and other parts
round about, among whom were four Justices of the Peace.3
Most of the people had never heard Friends before ; but they
were mightily affected with the meeting, and there is a great
desire amongst them after the Truth."4
This seed became a great tree, for this western shore of
Narragansett Bay proved good soil for the message of
the Inward Light, and produced many powerful ministers
and intellectual leaders of the Society.
Another interesting episode of this period was the
theological collision with Roger Williams, the founder of
Providence. Fox and the governor with a retinue of
Friends went up by water from Newport to Providence,
where, according to Fox, " God's blessed seed was exalted
and set above all." The account of the Providence visit,
as given in the MS. Journal, is very quaint : " I had a
lardge meeting and a great travell." " The people here
were above the priests in high notions," but they " went
away mightyly satisfyed, and said they had never heard the
like before." 6 His second meeting was held in " a greate
barne which was soe full of people, yt I was extremely
soaked with sweat, but all was well."
These two meetings and the fame of Fox's preaching
powerfully stirred Roger Williams. He was now an old
1 This letter is in the archives of the Rhode Island Historical Society, at
Providence. It is printed in The Friend ( Phila. ), vii. 55 (1833).
8 This was almost certainly Jireh Bull's house. See Hazard's College Tom,
p. 9.
3 Jireh Bull, Samuel Wilson, and William Heferman were the justices of
Narragansett (ibid. p. 9).
4 Journal, ii. 171. The MS. Journal says that this meeting was the i3th
of July.
5 He mentions that there came to the meeting ' ' a woman who was bad and
skoffed, but she went away and was struck sick."
CH. vi EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 115
man, but the fire of his youthful days rekindled in him
when he heard how the Quakers were spreading their
doctrines among the people, and how the multitudes were
flocking after the apostle of Inward Light.1 He had
attended the Yearly Meeting at Newport in 1671, where
he endeavoured to have some public discourse with Friends,
but he was " stopt," he tells us, " by the sudden praying of
the governor's wife," and when he stood up again he was
" stopt by John Burnett's [Burnyeat who was in Newport
in 1671] sudden falling to prayer and dismissing the
assembly."2 He kept away from Fox, when the latter
was holding his great meetings in Providence, for " having
once tried to get public speech in the Assemblies of
Friends," he was resolved " to try another way and to offer
a fair and full Dispute."
Thereupon he drew up fourteen propositions which he
sent to the deputy-governor, John Cranston, for him to
deliver to George Fox. The Deputy Governor, however,
for some unknown reason, kept them in his possession
until the 26th of July, when it was found that George Fox
had left Newport. Roger Williams claimed that this
delay was made by a collusion with Fox : " in the Junto
of the Foxians at Newport it was concluded for Infallible
Reasons that his Holiness G. Fox should withdraw."
" He knew that I was furnished with artillery out of his
own Writings. He saw what consequences would roll
down the mountaines upon him. . . . and therefore this old
Fox thought it best to run for it and leave the work to his
Journeymen and Chaplains to perform in his absence." 3
Any one who knows the traits and character of George
Fox knows that whatever else happened he did not " run
away " " for fear of the consequences which would roll
down upon him ! " He himself 'declares, in the New
England Firebrand Quenched — the " Firebrand " being
George Fox's name for this " apostle of soul liberty " —
1 Williams says (in his George Fox Digged Out of his Burrowes') that he had
" long heard of the great name of George Fox" and had " already read his book
in folio " ( The Great Mystery of the Great Whore).
8 George Fox Digged Out of his Burrowes, edited by J. Lewis Diman (pub
lications of the Narragansett Club), vol. v. p. 19.
3 George Fox Digged Out of his Burrowes.
n6 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. r
" I neither saw nor ever heard of any propositions from
Roger Williams, nor did I go away in fear of him or them."
Fox, having spent two months in Rhode Island, had
started on his return journey south before Roger Williams'
challenge was delivered to him. His friends — "the
Foxian Junto," as Roger Williams calls them — went
forward to arrange for the great debate. John Stubbs,
John Burnyeat, "and six or seven others," went to the
home of Williams in Providence to arrange the pre
liminaries. " Their salutations," Roger Williams quaintly
says, " were in silence when they came and when they de
parted — drink being offered and accepted by some."1
The date fixed upon for the opening of the " debate " was
August 9, 1672, and the place chosen was "the Meeting
House of the Quakers" in Newport, though to satisfy
some who objected to having the " discussion carried away
from the home town," it was arranged to have seven pro
positions debated in Newport and seven in Providence.
The champion against the Quakers, now more than three
score and ten, rowed by boat thirty miles to meet his
opponents. " God graciously helped me," he says, " in
rowing all day with my old bones so that I got to
Newport toward the midnight before the morning
appointed." Meantime, to supply the place left by the
departure of Fox, William Edmundson opportunely arrived
in Newport, an apostle of Quakerism from Ireland, and one
of the foremost of the early Quaker missionaries who came
to colonial America. There were now three Quaker
debaters against the doughty old man who, however, felt
himself quite equal to the battle.2 Governor Nicholas
Easton attended the debate, and " maintained the civill
peace ! " The fourteen propositions, as drawn up by
Roger Williams, were a"s follows :
1 George Fox Digged Out, p. 35.
8 This is Roger Williams' characterisation of his opponents : "John Stubbs,
learned in the Hebrew and Greek, I found him so" ; " John Burnet [BurnyeatJ
of a moderate spirit and an able speaker" ; and W. Edmundson, ' ' who proved to
be the chief speaker, a man not so able nor so moderate as the other two " — " a
stout, portly man of a great voice, he would often vapour and preach long, and
when I had patiently waited till the gust was over, and began to speak, he would
stop my mouth with a very unhansome clout of a grevious interruption," "a
pragmatical and insulting soul. " See George Fox Digged Out, p. 38.
CH. vi EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 117
" I. The People called Quakers are not true Quakers accord
ing to the Holy Scriptures.
II. The Jesus Christ they profess is not the true Jesus
Christ.
III. The spirit by which they are acted is not the Spirit of
-God.
IV. They doe not own the Holy Scriptures.
V. Their Principles and Professions are full of contradictions
.and hypocrises.
VI. Their Religion is not only an Heresy in matters of wor
ship, but also in the Doctrines of Repentance, Faith, etc.
VII. Their Religion is but a confused mixture of Popery,
Armineanisme, Socineanisme, Judaisme, etc.
VIII. The People called Quakers (in effect) hold no God, no
Christ, no Spirit, no Angel, no Devil, no Resurrection, no
Judgment , no Heaven, no Hell, but what is in man.
IX. All that their Religion requires (externall and internall)
to make converts and proselites, amounts to no more than what
a Reprobate may easily attain unto and perform.
X. The Popes of Rome doe not swell with and exercise a
greater Pride than the Quaker spirit hath expresst and doth aspire
unto, although many truly humble souls may be captivated
amongst them, as may be in other religions.
XI. The Quakers' Religion is more obstructive and destruc
tive to the conversion and Salvation of the Souls of People than
most of the religions this day extant in the world.
XII. The sufferings of the Quakers are no true evidence of
the Truth of their religion.
XIII. Their many Books and writings are extremely Poor,
Lame, Naked, and sweld up with high Titles and words of
Boasting and Vapour.
XIV. The Spirit of their Religion tends mainly (i) to reduce
Persons from Civility to Barbarisme. (2) To an arbitrary Govern
ment and the Dictates and Decrees of that sudden spirit that
acts them. (3) To a sudden cutting off of People, yea of Kings
and Princes opposing them. (4) To as fiery Persecutions for
matters of Religion and Conscience as hath been or can be
practiced by any Hunters or Persecutors in the world. " l
The debate naturally attracted great crowds, and was
as popular and interesting to the people of that period as
a great athletic contest would be now. It seems to have
won many new adherents to the Quaker faith — it certainly
was felt to be a triumph by those already of the Quaker
1 Fox Digged Out of his Burrowes, pp. 4, 5.
n8 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
faith, but, looked at calmly and critically from the point
of view of our century, it appears a tilting against
windmills on both sides. The two books l which record
the " spiritual battle " are full of antiquarian interest, but
they are a melancholy monument to the bitterness of
these seventeenth century theological wars, and there is
pitifully little in them — and apparently as little in the
debate — which raises into permanent view the grace of
saintliness, the beauty of holiness, or the persuasive sweet
ness of the divine Light in men. 2
Two of these " debaters " were instrumental in carry
ing Quakerism into many new fields in New England,
and in more firmly establishing it where it was already
planted — John Burnyeat and William Edmundson. John
Burnyeat, a gentle spirit and a powerful preacher, had
1 George Fox Digged Out of his Burrowes (Boston, 1676), and A New England
Firebrand Quenched, by G. F. and John Burnyeat (London, 1678).
2 William Edmundson's account of the debate gives an interesting though
thoroughly prejudiced glimpse of the affair (Journal, pp. 65-66) : —
" After some Days Travel by Narragansett and those Parts, I came to Rhode
Island, where I met with John Burnyeat, John Stubbs, and John Cartwright, where
one Roger Williams an old Priest and an Enemy of Truth, had put forth
Fourteen Propositions (as he called them) which he would maintain against any
of the Quakers that came from Old England, and challenged a Dispute of seven
of them at Newport in Rhode Island and the other seven at Providence.
' ' I join'd with Friends in answering this Challenge, at the Time and Place
appointed for the Dispute, which was to be in Friends Meeting-House at Newport ;
thither a great Concourse of People of all Sorts gather'd. When those Propositions
(as he called them) came to be discoursed of, they were all but Slanders and
Accusations against the Quakers ; the bitter old man could make nothing out, but
on the contrary they were turn'd back upon himself : he was bafled and the People
saw his Weakness, Folly and Envy against the Truth and the Friends.
' ' There were many prejudic'd Baptists would fain have help'd the Old Priest
against Friends ; but they durst not undertake his Charge against us for they saw
it was false and weak. So the Testimony of Truth in the Power of God was set
over all his false Charges, to the great Satisfaction of the People.
" When this Meeting was ended, which lasted three Days, John Stubbs and I
went to Providence, accompanied with many Friends, to hear the other seven
Propositions, which lasted one Day. John Burnyeat and John Cartwright going
another way in Truth's Service. Now at Providence there was a very great
Gathering of People, both Presbyterians, Baptists and Ranters. Roger Williams
being there, I stood up and told him in Public, We had spent so many Days at
Newport, where he could make nothing out agreeable to his Challenge ; but on
the contrary manifested his Clamour, rash and false Accusations, which he could
not prove against us, that I was not willing to spend much time in hearing his
Clamour and false Accusations, having other service for the Lord, therefore
would only spend that Day. So he went on, as he had done at Newport at Rhode
Island. We answered to all his Charges against Friends and disprov'd them."
As further illustration of the lack of " grace and sweetness " in this debate I quote
Roger Williams' estimate of Edmundson : "A flash of wit, a face of Brass, and a
Tongue set on fire from the Hell of Lyes and Fury ! "
CH. vi EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 119
been brought into the Society of Friends in 1653 through
the ministry of George Fox.
"This blessed man, George Fox," Burnyeat writes, "directed
me unto the light and appearance of Jesus Christ my Saviour in
my heart, so that I came to know Him and the glory of the
Father through Him. Notwithstanding all my high professions,
from my youth, of an imputed righteousness, by which the guilt
of my sin would not be charged upon me, but imputed to Christ
and His righteousness imputed to me, I now came to see that
there was need of a Saviour to save from sin as well as of the
blood of a sacrificed Christ to blot out sin. All my pretence
and hopes of justification through an invented notional faith were
now seen to be but a Babel Tower or an Adam's fig-leaf apron,
and as I learned to know Christ's voice and to follow Him, He
gave me eternal life and manifested His grace in my heart." *
He first visited New England in 1666, where he
had extended service, visiting all the meetings in the
Colonies, as far north as " Piscataway," 2 which included
the meetings both in New Hampshire and Maine. He
covered the same field of service again in 1671,
having once more had " blessed service in Piscataway,"
and having also attended the Yearly Meeting in Newport
that year. He was back a third time in 1672, having
travelled on horseback with George Fox all the way
from Tredhaven Creek in Maryland. Fox says affection
ately : — " He travelled with me from Maryland through
the wilderness, and through many rivers and desperate
bogs, where they said never Englishman nor horse had
travelled before ; where we lay out at nights, and some
times in Indian houses, and many times were very hard
put to it for provisions, but the Lord by His Eternal arm
did support us and carry us through all dangers."8
Before the great debate with Roger Williams, Burnyeat
had "debates" with "the Elders of the Church" at
Scituate, Mass., where " an abundance of people " met in
an orchard, and again in Boston, where " several of note "
1 Condensed from Burnyeat's account in his Journal (reprint of ' ' Truth
Exalted"), pp. 149-158.
2 Journal, pp. 189, 190.
3 Burnyeat's Journal, p. 144.
120 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
came to the meeting, and he " had a blessed season to
open things to the people."
With two other English Friends, George Pattison and
John Cartwright, he went on to " Piscataway," where the
Quaker Society was greatly expanded and more solidly
established — " all things were settled in sweet unity."
On his way back he found an incipient schism in Salem,
but " in dread power of the Lord," he powerfully
exhorted the meeting to follow the mind of the Spirit and
keep in unity. On his return to Rhode Island, Burnyeat
broke new ground in Warwick, Rhode Island, " where no
Friends had been before," and " several were convinced
and did own the truth." Here he " had to do with one
Gorton and his company," who, he says, " called them
selves Generalists, for they were of the opinion that all
should be saved. But they were in reality Ranters."
Burnyeat is here somewhat colouring his judgment with
prejudice, and he does not do Samuel Gorton justice,
though some of the Gortonians may have been, as he says,
" filthy, unclean spirits." Gorton was a man of real vision,
and, with all his peculiarities, was dedicated to the truth.
Dr. Ezra Stiles has recorded the following enthusiastic
testimony of Gorton's last disciple, John Angell :
" The Friends had come out of the world in some ways, but
still were in darkness or twilight ; Gorton was far beyond them, he
said, on the highway up to the dispensation of light. The Quakers
were in no wise to be compared with him ; nor any man else can
[be compared with him] since the primitive times of the Church,
especially since they came out of Popish darkness. He said
Gorton was a holy man ; wept day and night for the sins of blind
ness of the world ; his eyes were a fountain of tears, and always
full of tears — a man full of thought and study. He had a long
walk cut through the trees or woods by his house, where he
constantly walked morning and evening, and even in the depths
of the night, alone by himself, for contemplation and the enjoy
ment of the dispensation of light. He was universally beloved
by all his neighbours, and the Indians who esteemed him, not
only as a friend, but one high in communion with God in
heaven." 1
1 Collection Rhode Island Historical Society, ii. 19.
<CH. vi EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 121
In any case a large number of the Gortonians soon
after became Friends and " were very loving." l Burnyeat
next undertook the task, in which many before him and
many after him failed, to plant Quakerism in Hartford
and other towns of the Connecticut Colony. * There
were no prepared groups here with which to make a
beginning, and, though John Winthrop of Connecticut
was personally very kindly disposed to Friends, and was
intimate with William Coddington, the Colony as a whole
was impervious to the Quaker message.
William Edmundson arrived in New England on his
first missionary visit just in time to lead the great debate
with Roger Williams, and he tells us that it proved " a
seasonable opportunity to open many things to the people
appertaining to the Kingdom of God and Way of
Eternal Life and Salvation. The meeting [debate in
Providence] concluded in prayer to Almighty God, and
the people went away satisfied and loving."8
He next went on and extended the spiritual conquests
in Warwick among Gorton's people, already begun by
Burnyeat — " the Lord's power was largely manifested, and
the people were very loving, like Friends." He had
" refreshing times " in Newport, Narragansett, Scituate,
Sandwich, and Boston, and then sailed for Ireland. He
came back for a more extended missionary work in 1675,
coming from Barbadoes in a yacht, with " a good
comfortable passage " of three weeks. It was " the
perilous time " of King Philip's War, and " Indians
lying hid in bushes shot men down as they travelled."4
Whether connected with the terrible uprising led by King
Philip or not, a fierce Indian war broke out in the north
eastern section of New England, and the years 1675 and
1 Burnyeat, p. 211.
2 For an account of this undertaking see his Journal, pp. 212-216.
3 Edrmmdson's/oarwa/, p. 67. William Edmundson was born in Westmorland
in 1627, and had fought under Cromwell in the Parliamentary army. In 1652 he
settled in Ireland for purposes of trade, but on a business trip to England the next
year he heard George Fox and James Nayler preach, and was ' ' convinced " and
' ' seized upon by the Lord's power. " He became from that time one of the
foremost exponents of the new faith in Ireland, and, as we shall see, was one of the
leading publishers of Quakerism in Virginia and North Carolina.
4 Ibid. p. 77.
122 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
1676 were crowded with tragic events for this region —
the Piscataqua country being one of the centres of
hostility. William Edmundson, at the very height of the
trouble, struck out for the country " eastward, towards
Piscattaway," where " by reason of the war it was danger
ous travelling." " However," he says, " I committed my
life to God who gave it, and took my journey " — going
by way of Sandwich, Boston, and Salem. After holding
meetings on the New Hampshire side of the Piscataqua —
which he calls " Piscattaway " — he crossed over by boat
into Maine, where he had " large and precious meetings,"
and " much ground was broken " in the southern end of the
Province of Maine. While he was staying in the home
of " Nicholas Shapley " [Major Shapleigh] — " a man of
note in that country," a pioneer Quaker of the Piscataqua
region — " fourteen lusty Indians, with their heads trimmed
and faces painted," came to the house. William Edmundson
" discoursed with them " and discovered that they "intended
mischief in their hearts, but the Lord calmed them down,
and they went away without doing any harm." 1
As he came back through the Massachusetts towns,
" travelling with his life in his hands," many were
convinced by his preaching, especially in Marblehead and
Reading. Most of the people, wherever he came in those
parts, were, he tells us, " in Garrisons for fear of the
Indians, except Friends." He held an extraordinary
meeting in a garrison house in Reading, where, he says,
"my lieart being full of the Power and Spirit of the Lord, the
Love of God ran through me to the people ! " His listeners
were broken into tears by the demonstration of the Spirit
which awakened their consciences, and an old man rising
up took the speaker in his arms, and thanked God that
the message had found him. The people asked with
naivete", what the difference was between their ministers
and their visitors. Edmundson's answer, which sounds like
Anne Hutchinson's charge, was : " Your ministers are satis
fied with talk about Christ and the Scriptures ; we are not
satisfied without the sure, inward experience of God and
1 Journal, p. 79.
CH. vi EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 123
Christ, and the enjoyment of the comforts which the
Scriptures promise and which believers in primitive times
enjoyed." After many successful meetings in Massa
chusetts, where people were " tender and loving " as he
told his message, he sailed from Boston to Newport, and
soon followed up John Burnyeat in another unsuccessful
attempt to spread Quakerism in Connecticut.1
One of the most important events in what I have been
calling " the second expansion " of Quakerism in New
England, was the planting of it in the island of Nantucket.
The first settlers of the island were in close sympathy
with Friends and were, at heart, in intimate accord with
their message, though they had not become actual
members of the Society. The real pioneer of the little
island-colony was Thomas Macy, who embarked from
Salisbury, Mass., in a small boat in 1659, in company
with Edward Starbuck, Isaac Coleman, and probably
James Coffin, and sailed round the Cape to Nantucket.
Macy had been a man of influence in Salisbury. He was
a Baptist of the seeker-type and frequently " exhorted "
in public. He came into collision with the authorities
for preaching without ordination, and again for entertain
ing Quakers in violation of the law of i657.2 The
reason assigned for his migration was his desire to follow
his conscience, and to get free from " the tyranny of the
clergy and those in authority." Tristram Coffin, father
of the James mentioned above, soon joined the settlers on
the island, and became their first chief magistrate. The
settlement was composed of persons of liberal spirit and it
grew rapidly. In 1673 Richard Gardiner and his wife,
being persecuted in Salem "for attending Quaker
meeting," moved to Nantucket Stephen Hussey, son of
Christopher, who was one of the original purchasers of
the island, became a " convinced Quaker " during a sojourn
in Barbadoes, and John Swain appears also to have been
a Quaker before there was a meeting on the island.8 But
1 See Journal, pp. 83-93.
8 Pike's The New Puritan (1879) pp. 35 and 54 seq. See also Coffin's
History of Newbury. Whittier has told Macy's story in his poem " The Exiles."
* See Thomas Story's Journal (1747), p. 353.
124 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
the real creation of the Quaker Society in Nantucket was
due to the ministry of three noted men — Thomas Chalkley,
John Richardson, and Thomas Story — between the years
1698 and 1704.
Thomas Chalkley,1 then a young man and on his first
visit to America, came by sloop to the " Isle of Nantucket "
in 1698. He spent "several days" on the island, where
" people did generally acknowledge the truth and were
tender-hearted." Two hundred came to hear him, though
" it was never known before that so many were together
on the island." He made a deep impression on his hearers,
and had the satisfaction of seeing Nathaniel Starbuck, an
important citizen, " convinced." 2 John Richardson, a
native of Yorkshire and a man of very interesting character,
soon followed after, and carried the spiritual work, begun
by Thomas Chalkley, much farther on. He came by
sloop with Peleg Slocum from Newport, and the Nantucket
settlers crowded to the shore, " possessed with great fear "
that the sloop was French, loaded with arms and men,
come to take their island, for war was raging between
England and France. They were greatly relieved to
hear that their visitors " came in the love of God to hold
meetings among them." The visitors went directly, by a
kind of homing instinct, to the house of Nathaniel Starbuck,
who was " in some degree convinced of the truth." Here
they found " Mother Mary Starbuck whom the islanders
esteemed as a judge among them, and little of moment
was done without her." The "prophet" in Richardson
came immediately into play, and he saw that here was
the pillar for the building of a new Church. " At the
sight of her," he writes, " it sprang into my heart, To this
woman is the everlasting love of God." It was soon
arranged that the proposed meetings should be in her
house.8
1 Thomas Chalkley was born in Southwark, London, in 1675. He moved to
Philadelphia in 1701, and from that time to the end of his life in 1741 he was
closely identified with Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. He was a great traveller, a
powerful minister, and his Journal is important for this period of American history.
8 Thomas Chalkley' s /0*r»<z/ (1751), pp. 19, ao.
8 She was the wife of Nathaniel Starbuck, sen., her maiden name being
Mary Coffin.
CH. vr EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 125
The first meeting was held in a " large and bright
rubbed room, with suitable seats or chairs, the glass
windows being taken out of their frames and many chairs
placed without very conveniently." Before the meeting
began, John Richardson had been walking up and down
in the woods " under a very great load in spirit" When
it gathered, "the mighty power of the Lord began to
work," and as John Richardson records, "the Lord's
heavenly power raised me and set me on my feet as if
one had lifted me up " ; whereupon he proceeded to
" open and deliver things." " For most of an hour," he
continues, "the great woman [Mary Starbuck] fought and
strove against the message, sometimes looking up into
my face with a pale and then a more ruddy complexion ;
but the strength of the truth increased, and the Lord's
mighty power began to shake the people . . . and when
she could no longer contain she submitted to the power
of truth and lifted up her voice and wept" Not only
was " the great woman " won, but " the inhabitants of the
island were shaken and most of the people convinced of
the truth." And when the meeting came to a close,
"they sat weeping universally," and could not disperse.
" After some time Mary Starbuck stood up, held out her
hand, spoke tremblingly, and said, ' All that ever we have
been building, and all that ever we have done, is pulled
down this day ; and this that we have heard is the
everlasting truth.' " " She, and as many as could be seen,
were wet with tears, and the floor was as though there
had been a shower of rain upon it" *
Nobody can read John Richardson's account of his
visit on Nantucket without feeling that there was a power
attending his speaking of a very novel and unusual sort,
and his presence and his words seem to have had an
extraordinary transforming effect upon the people. He,
however, did not take any steps toward the organization
of a " society " out of those who were " convinced." That
step was taken by Thomas Story in the summer of 1704.
Story was one of the most remarkable publishers of
1 An Account of the Life of John Richardson (1783), pp. 84-94.
126 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Quakerism in the first half of the eighteenth century, a
powerful debater, always ready to accept the challenge of
any Quaker opponent, a moving minister when the Spirit
opened a message within him, and a too voluminous
writer, whose style at rare intervals is clear, vivid, and
marked with beauty. He visited again and again all the
settlements of Friends in the American Colonies, and he
took a large part in the eighteenth century expansion of
Quakerism. On his extended travels through New
England he found his way to Nantucket He at once
saw, as John Richardson had done, the peculiar gifts and
graces of Mary Starbuck, and he realised the power for
service which lay in her. She was, he says, " A wise,
discreet woman, well read in the Scriptures, in great
reputation throughout the island for her knowledge in
matters of religion, and an oracle among them on that
account, insomuch that they would not do anything
without her advice and consent" l
After holding a number of meetings on the island
Thomas Story had a powerful " concern of mind," which
took away his sleep, that a permanent meeting ought to
be established in Nantucket, and his thoughts turned to
Mary Starbuck as " the chief instrument " for maintaining
it She received the suggestion with " great gravity, and
it became her concern," and the meeting was accordingly
started in the home of Mary Starbuck, where the neigh
bours of the island met, week by week, " to wait on the
Lord." z The meeting thus begun had a steady growth,
and by the opening of the nineteenth century Nantucket
was one of the great centres of Quakerism in America.
Edmund Peckover, of England, visited Nantucket on his
travels through New England in 1743. He found on
the island " a brave, weighty, solid people, living pretty
much in love and unity together." He reports three
hundred families there, and estimates that two hundred
and fifty of them are frequenters of the Quaker meeting.
He says that the meeting-house holds fifteen hundred
1 Journal, p. 350.
s Nantucket Monthly Meeting was established the 26th of May 1708.
CH. vi EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 127
persons, " and it was very full when we were there."
" They have seven or eight Public Friends." l Samuel
Fothergill, who was on Nantucket in 1755, says that
more than fifteen hundred attended the meeting which
he held there — most of them professors of truth. He
adds that "the richest part of the inhabitants [of the
island] embraced the principles of truth from conviction ;
the others thought the expense of maintaining a priest
would be too heavy for them and have turned Quaker to
save money ! " 2
It is not possible, within the space at command, to
speak of the other contributors, of whom there were
many,3 to the spread of Quakerism in the New England
Colonies in the eighteenth century. Something, however,
must be said, though briefly, of the extraordinary work
and influence of the Fothergills — father and son — and of
two or three other " publishers " of special historical
importance. The two Fothergills, John and Samuel,
were highly endowed, broad in their intellectual outlook,
refined and gentle in breeding, possessed of the best
culture of their time, and withal delicately responsive to
celestial currents, so that through them the New England
Friends and their neighbours became partakers of the
maturest fruits of the spiritual life of that period. John
Fothergill came from his English home three times — in
1706, 1722, and 1737 — traversing each time the entire
circle of Quaker communities from Newport to the
Piscataqua region. In 1722 he reports two thousand
persons at the Newport Yearly Meeting at which there
was " a demonstration of the Eternal power of God and
a confirmation of many souls." 4 His final visit occurred
when " the Great Awakening " in New England was in its
1 Journal of Edmund Peckover, printed in Journal of Friends' Historical
Society (London), i. 95-109. He says that the inhabitants of Nantucket cleared
20,000 pounds sterling from their catch of " Sperma Ceeti whales" during
their last fishing season (p. 106).
2 Fothergill's Memoirs, p. 107. H. B. Worth, in his Quakerism on Nantucket
(1896), estimates that in 1794 half the population of the island, then amounting to
5600 inhabitants, attended the Friends' meeting.
8 No less than 576 " public Friends" visited Nantucket meeting for the pur
pose of ministering, between the years 1701 and 1780.
4 Life and Travels of John Fothergill (1753), P- ISI-
128 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
first stages. His son Samuel came after the " Awakening "
had run its full course, and he was admirably, almost
perfectly, fitted by nature and grace to " speak to the
condition " of the serious, seeking souls who had been
first highly wrought up by the revival, and then left
somewhat stranded by the back ebb which succeeded the
high tide of religious emotion.
One of the primary ideas which the Leaders of " the
Great Awakening," especially Jonathan Edwards, had
insisted on was the fact of the immediate contact of the
Holy Spirit with the human soul, and the necessity of
a change wrought thus directly upon the soul by this
influence. The soul must be touched by the Holy Spirit,
Edwards had urged, or it cannot be saved. The energising
will of God must act upon it and move it to a passionate
desire for salvation. Under the powerful preaching of
Edwards and Whitefield there were many evidences of
immediate divine influence, but involved with the move
ment there was such intense emotion, such high-wrought
enthusiasm, such vivid appeals to the imagination, that
many distressing phenomena, of the sort usually occurring
at times of high nervous tension, broke out, and, as
intimated above, when the long revival period had run its
course, there came a serious spiritual ebb and a positive
reaction.1
It was at this critical moment that the distinguished
English minister, Samuel Fothergill, arrived in Newport,
where fifteen years before George Whitefield had begun
his wonderful tour of the New England towns. Fother-
1 While the work of Whitefield was at its height, the Friends of Rhode
Island received a most peculiar challenge to try their religion with Moses Bartlett,
who styled himself ' ' a real Christian. " His letter was as follows : "To the
Quaker Ministers in this town and Colony : There is a wonderful Reformation in
Connecticut Colony among the Presbyterians, where the everlasting gospel is
preached ; but I have heard some of you blaspheme against it abominably ; but
I desire you to Dispute me in order to vindicate your Orders, which you call
Friends Orders, for they are antiscriptural, and so consequently of the Devil ; You
shall have the liberty to pick out as many able men as you please, if it be as many
as there was Prophets of Baal ; only I will have the same measure of time as
you ; and we will have it all written. It may be you will ask what People I
am of? To which I answer, you may call me a Presbyterian if you please,
but I call myself a real Christian." Printed in Arnold's History of Rhode
Island, ii. 138.
CH. vi EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 129
gill's coming — the result of ten years of deep travail of
spirit — was a happy event for the religious life of New
England. He, too, believed with all his profound being,
that the Holy Spirit of God was in immediate relation
with the lives of men. He believed, no less definitely
than Edwards did, that the important changes in human
lives are due to the work of God within, but he insisted
that the energising will of God worked in all men and
not alone in an elected few, and that the choice which
brings salvation is a human choice. With him this great
truth that the soul has immediate contact with God had
passed from the stage of intense enthusiasm, which always
goes with its discovery, to a stage of calm and dignified
power due to the penetration of his personality with this
inward light and grace. He was a glowing exhibition, as
he stood before the great throngs that came to hear him,
and as he moved quietly among men in his daily walk, of
a type of life which demonstrates beyond all arguments
the incoming of the divine into the human.
The divine favour which attended his ministry in
Rhode Island "brought the deepest reverence upon my
soul," he writes, " and tears of joy and comfort " from the
people, and " the Great Name spread itself afresh." l He
visited all the Quaker centres, and broke new ground in
the Province of Maine, going as far as Casco Bay. He
writes of this eastern visit, " Truth has opened my way
in several places where no Friends lived, and my heart
has been bowed with reverence to observe and feel the
openness and visitation of love and life. The people
flock into meetings in crowds and behave with great
solidity." The effect of his preaching and the impression
he made is well shown in his modest account of his great
public meeting in Boston, held almost exactly a hundred
years from the time of the arrival of those first unwelcome
Quakers :
1 He says that the number of people at New England Yearly Meeting at the
time of his visit was very great, it being in attendance the largest Yearly Meeting
in the world. Memoirs, p. 188. Edmund Peckover says that the attendance in
1743 was not less than 5000. "I never was at so large a meeting before — a
most solemn, weighty, awful time. People from 150 miles to the eastward came
toil." — Journal Friends Historical Society, i. 102.
K
130 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
" znd of 8//fc Month. — I dropped my pen yesterday under a
weighty concern to appoint an evening meeting in this place,
and upon its being mentioned to the magistrates, they cheerfully
offered either one of their own places of worship, or the Town-
hall, saying that our own house was too small to accommodate
the people who inclined to come in. I found more freedom to
accept their offer of the hall, and had a very large meeting in
the evening, at which were present about two thousand people,
and amongst them nearly all the magistracy of the place, several
of their ministers and principal people : it was a time, I believe,
never to be forgotten ; the power and the wisdom of Truth was a
canopy over the meeting, and I believe the Truth itself gained great
ground ; let every part of the gain, glory, and profit be ascribed
to that excellent Name in and from which all wisdom and
strength proceed. One of their ancient professors said pretty
loud, at the close of the meeting, 'I thank God that I have
once heard the Gospel of life and peace preached in its purity
as it hath been this day.' "
Samuel Fothergill's visit to the meetings of the Friends
in the Province of Maine marks an epoch in the develop
ment of Quakerism in that section of the country. There
had been a few scattered Friends in the Province since
the visit of Alice Ambrose and Mary Tomkins to Kittery
in 1662, when a meeting was formed in the Eliot section
of this township. The town records of Scarboro, Maine,
state that Stephen Collins and Sarah Mills were fined in
1665 for refusing to support the minister of the town,
and in 1671 Moses Collins and Sarah Mills were whipped
for being Quakers1 — the only instance of whipping a
Quaker in the Province of Maine.
A meeting was begun in Falmouth, now Portland,
the Casco Bay of Fothergill's account, about 1 740. The
Rev. Mr. Smith, Congregational minister in the church
at Falmouth, records in his diary, 3Oth July 1740, this
memorable fact : " The Church kept a day of fasting and
prayer on account of the spread of Quakerism " ; and 22nd
July 1745, he records that there are "many strange [i.e.
foreign] Quakers in town." 2 This group of Friends at
Falmouth was visited in 1743 by the English minister,
1 Collection of Maine Historical Society, iii. 71 and 154.
2 Ibid., vii. 221.
CH. vi EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 131
Edmund Peckover and his companions. " We went," he
writes, " about seventy miles farther [from Dover, New
Hampshire] by the seaside to a place called Gascoe Bay
[should be Casco Bay] where a few Friends are settled.
They have got a meeting both First days and Week-days.
I believe there are not fewer than thirty who come pretty
constantly to meetings and, I think, have three or four
who appear in public testimony." *
A third meeting within the Province of Maine owed
its origin to a remarkable visit of the Pennsylvania Quaker,
John Churchman. He made a tour of New England in
1742, and went as far east as Kittery, where he found a
" tender people," probably the group composing the Eliot
meeting. As he lay in bed at a Friend's house he felt a
" call " to a new field. In his own quaint language he
tells the story :
"On third day morning, as I lay in bed, I felt my mind
drawn towards the north-west, which was an exercise to me;
for I had before thought myself at liberty to return towards
Boston. I arose about sun-rise, and asked the friend where I
lodged whether any Friends lived at a distance on that quarter,
for that I had a draft that way ? He answered, No, and asked
how far I thought to go. I told him it did not seem to me to
be more than ten miles. He said there was a people about
eight miles distant, which he supposed was the place to which I
felt the draft. I desired him to send a lad with a few lines to
some person that he knew, to inform them that a stranger would
be glad to have a meeting among them at the eleventh hour of
that day, if they were free to grant it ; which he did, and with
his wife went with me : so that we got to the place near the
time proposed, and found a considerable gathering of people,
that I wondered how it could be in so short a time, not more
than three hours' warning. They were preparing seats, by laying
boards on blocks in a pretty large new house, and soon sat down
in an orderly manner. I went in great fear and inward weak
ness ; and at the sight of such a gathering of people, and none
of our profession among them, except the friend and his wife
who accompanied me, and two others who joined us in the way,
my spirit was greatly bowed, and my heart filled with secret cries
to the Lord, that He would be pleased to magnify His own power ;
1 Journal Friends Historical Society, L 103.
132 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
and, blessed for ever be His holy name ! He heard my cry, and
furnished me with wisdom and strength to declare His word to
the people, among whom there were some very tender seekers
after the true knowledge of God ; and the doctrine of truth
flowed freely towards them, the universality of the love of God
being set forth, in opposition to the common predestinarian
notion of election and reprobation. When the meeting was
over I felt an uncommon freedom to leave them, for they began
to show their satisfaction with the opportunity in many words.
So speaking to the friend that went with me, we withdrew and
went to our horses ; and I immediately mounting, beheld the
man of the house where the meeting was held running to me,
who, taking hold of the bridle, told me I must not go away
without dining with them. I looked steadfast on him, and told
him that I did believe this was a visitation for their good, but I
was fearful that they, by talking too freely and too much, would
be in danger of losing the benefit thereof, and miss of the good
that the Lord intended for them ; and my going away was in
order to example them to go home to their own houses, and
turn inward, and retire to that of God in their own hearts, which
was the only way to grow in religion. So I left him and returned
with my friend Joseph Eastes and his wife." l
This was apparently the beginning of Quakerism in
the township of Berwick. The fourth group was formed
in the town of North Yarmouth (now Harpswell) in 1751,
and from this settlement it spread out into new regions
north and west. In Historical Collections of Maine is
preserved this interesting petition to Governor Shirley in
1756, from the citizens of Merryconege Neck, in the
Province of Maine : 2
" The Inhabitants of the Neck, Being desirous of the good
Welfare and Increase of this Place, most humbly beg, etc. The
Parish is But a New Settlement and there are many Opinionists
[a footnote explains that they are Quakers] settled among us
which is a Great Damage to ye Parish ; and we have been at very
Great charges of late respecting some Public Affairs, and those
Opinionists will not in the least Strive for the Promotion of Sd
Parish or in ye least Pay Precinct Charges." 3
1 Gospel Labours of John Churchman, p. 73.
8 The upper part of Merryconege Neck adjoined the township of Brunswick,
and the lower part joined North Yarmouth.
* Collection of Maine Historical Society, xiiL 42.
CH. vi EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 133
These new groups were visited in 1757 by William
Reckitt, an English travelling friend. He says :
" We went to Barwick and had several meetings there ; travelled
through the woods to Casco, where we had an opportunity with
Friends and such as attend their meetings. We crossed the
Bay to Small Point, and in our return had a meeting upon a
Neck of land called Meryconeague." 1
About 1771 most of the Friends who formed the
little society in Harpswell moved to the Plantation pf
Royaltown, which afterwards became the township of
Durham, and a Quaker centre of great future promise
sprang up here. Another group was formed during the
'sixties of that century in the town of Windham.
The great expansion of Quakerism in Maine was,
however, due to the work of David Sands, a minister
from the Colony of New York. He was, like most of the
missionaries who have figured in this history, a man of
rare sensitiveness to inward impressions, loyally obedient
to intimations of duty, quick to feel what ought to be
done with a given situation, and withal possessed of much
of that indefinable influence which we call spiritual power.
To him more than to any other one individual we must
attribute the spread of Quakerism through the great
county of Kennebec, in the south-central part of Maine,
where it has since flourished.
He spent two years and six months on his first tour,
starting in the spring of 1777. Much of the time he was
travelling in wilderness country, carrying his axe to clear
his way as he went, going frequently on foot and "endur
ing great hardships."2 Like most of these itinerant
ministers who were the real creators of New England
Quakerism, he went first to the well-organised centres,
such as Newport and Nantucket, where he visited not
only meetings but every family of Friends. Then he
pushed on to the newer, less organised centres at
Falmouth and Windham, and finally he struck out on
foot into wilderness regions, making for the scattered
1 Reckitt's Life and Labours (London, 1776), p. 113.
2 See Journal of David Sands (1848), p. n.
134 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
settlements which were being formed in the beautiful and
fertile Province of Maine. " We had many meetings," he
says, " while passing through a wilderness country and
found many seeking minds."
"I have spent part of the fall and most of the winter," he
writes his wife in 1779, "amongst a people not of our profession,
many of whom received me very kindly and also my message,
which made them feel near to me, and their hearts and houses
are open to receive Friends. I have an untrodden path to tread
where no Friends before have travelled in the work of ministry.
I have passed through many towns where there are no religious
meetings of any sort. The Lord has led me through the wilder
ness land ; He has preserved me through the cold ; in sickness
and health and through every trial, of which I have had many.
In that love which time or distance cannot change I salute
thee." ]
As a result of these patient labours of David Sands
and his powerful ministry, often strikingly appropriate to
the situation, there was formed a chain of new meetings
in the belt of the country fringing the Kennebec River,
and the close of the Revolutionary War, that is to say
the close of the Colonial Era, thus marks the high-water
point of Quaker expansion in New England.
These visiting, itinerant ministers or missionaries have
been spoken of as "the real creators of New England
Quakerism." So, in a sense, they were. But the
statement is only partially true. The true source of its
strength and power lay, from the very beginning, in the
character of the native material out of which the meetings
1 Journal, p. 25. The following letter from Joseph Wing, a companion to
David Sands on a later visit, gives a good idea of their difficulties : " Sometimes
traveld from 12 to 17 miles between houses and had the advantage of a foot
parth with marked trees to Gide us. Sometimes got but two meals a Day and
them were Corse tu ; There were Walks Not very pleasant to the Natural part,
but so it is, and it is Not best that we should have Smooth things all the time :
we had once to lay in the bottom of a Small bote and coverd us with our Sales,
once laid on the beach by the side of a Fier and had our Saddle bags to lay our
heads on and our Great Coats and Misketers to Cover us, and once Expected to
have laid in the woods without the advantage of Fier or victuals and had Come
to a Conclusion in what manner it should take place, but Jest before Daylight left
us we saw a lite which proved to be a hous to our great joy and Satisfaction — So
the Great Master is pleased at times to try us with the Site of Danger and then
from time to time doth preserve us from it : in this Dessolate Wilderness there
was many kinds of Wild Varmants which had been known to pray upon people."
— Bulletin of Friends Historical Society, Philadelphia, vol i. No. 3, p. 113.
CH. vi EXPANSIONS IN NEW ENGLAND 135
were builded. Those who were attracted by the message
of the itinerant preachers were already prepared in advance
for a spiritual type of religion. They were, as so many
of these Journals intimate, already dissatisfied with form
and ceremony, out of sympathy with the legal aspect of
religion and " seekers " after a life inwardly fed and
vitalised.
Mary Starbuck, " the great woman," who seemed to
John Richardson and Thomas Story divinely prepared to
be the " pillar " of a Quaker Meeting in Nantucket, was no
solitary example. Wherever Quakerism took root and
grew there were persons of this prepared type already
there, and they formed the nucleus of the local " Society."
David Sands found in the Maine woods at Vassalborough
a man named Remington Hobby, who was a person of
strong native traits and capacities, solid in judgment,
inclined to a religion of inward reality, and waiting for a
spark to kindle him to the fusing-point. He, under the
personal influence and message of David Sands, became
the " live centre " of the new Society in that region.
Something like that occurred in each locality where the
message became an organising force. But the one
dynamic person, important enough to be named as the
" live centre," was only one among many of like traits and
character. The reason that these " little societies " in the
new world were novel and extraordinary was that they were
composed of remarkable persons, prepared by years of
experience for a type of religion which called in an
unusual degree for individual responsibility and personal
initiative, and which dispensed with adventitious helps
and brought each member into the apostolic succession.
There were no doubt many who were commonplace in
endowments and power, and whose religion was in the main
perfunctory, but there was at the centre of all the
meetings which I have closely studied a group of persons
who had a live religion, and who knew how to share their
spiritual gains with the group to which they belonged.
They, as much as their distinguished visitors, were the
creators of New England Quakerism.
CHAPTER VII
A NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION
THE Quakers were, as the preceding chapters have
shown, a mystical people, holding as a primary article of
their faith that the Divine Spirit, or Eternal Christ, is an
actual Presence in the human soul, at first appearing as
a judging or condemning Principle, and later, through
the conformity and obedience of the individual, as an
illuminating, inspiring, and guiding inward Spirit. This
mystical principle sounded to the ears of their opponents
like a dangerous leaven of wild disorder, a seed of
Ranterism which, when grown, would topple down the
pillars of Church and State. It seemed to mean that
individual caprice and subjective whim were to be crowned
and mitred, and that moral chaos was to come again.
Something very different, however, actually happened —
something quite worth study. The most interesting
contribution of the Quakers is their success in constructing
and maintaining a type of social religion in which the
claim of a divine Light, lighting the individual soul from
within, was united with a thoroughly ordered and practical
group-life quite unique in the history of Christianity.
From the very first the central feature of their religion
in the New England Colonies was " the meeting " — the
meeting for worship. This was a peculiarly august
gathering. The people composing it were plain ordinary
men and women, who yoked their own oxen, ploughed
their own fields, wove their own cloth, and washed their
own dishes. Many of them drove in their wagons several
miles to attend it, and through the early period they
136
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 137
risked arrest and heavy fines in many parts of the Colony
whenever they gathered with their neighbours for this
purpose.
In the early stage of the movement the meetings of
every sort were held in dwelling-houses, and we have here
an interesting repetition of the custom which prevailed in
the early apostolic Church. Recent scholars have shown
that wherever Christians went they had " house churches,"
for which purpose some well-to-do member furnished his
house.1 So, too, did the early New England Friends, and
the gatherings were invariably held in the large living
room of some prosperous colonist, for instance in the home
of William Coddington in Newport, of John Nowland in
Sandwich, of Edward Wanton in Scituate, and of John
Chamberlein in Boston.2
But, however plain and marked with toil these Friends
might be, and however imminent the danger of persecution
might be, in " the meeting " on First day morning they
felt themselves in heavenly places. They were moved
and animated, quickened and possessed with a common
faith that God was with them in their meeting, and that
they were admitted behind the veil into the holy of holies.
The silence was intense, for it was living and dynamic,
and they believed that there in the hush, in their humble
group, the great God of the Universe was preparing a
mouthpiece for His word, and that when the seal of
silence was broken and utterance should come, it would
be the prophetic word of the Lord. There were tears of
joy and rapture on many faces as they sat in stillness, and
a tremulous movement often swept over the company,
making the name of " Quaker " not altogether in
appropriate.3
1 Friends appear sometimes to have called their ' ' meetings " Churches. The
following minute is from the Records of Rhode Island Monthly Meeting for
6th July 1688 : "This Meeting thought fit to write to ye Chirch of Friends in
Plymouth, to remind them to bring in their sufferings to ye next Yearly Meeting."
8 The Yearly Meeting was held in William Coddington's house until his death,
and Quarterly Meeting was held for years in Edward Wanton's house. Meeting
houses were built in Newport and in Sandwich as early as 1672 and 1673, DUt
they were small structures, and larger meetings were still for some years held in
private houses.
8 I am drawing for my account on the early Journals of Friends.
138 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
The speaking, when it came, was somewhat rhythmical
and rapturous, loaded with emotion. It was closely
interwoven with a tissue of Scripture texts and phrases,
bearing mainly on the central idea that God had now
come to visit His people, to give them the Day Star
experience in their hearts, and to be a present Guest in
their midst. Suddenly the voice would drop, the cadence
disappear, and the speaker would give, in genuine simplicity,
some personal experience which had been granted to him.
There might be many such " exercises " from the group,
all bearing a common tinge and as though forged in a
common experience. If a minister "from abroad" were
present, as often was the case in these early days, the
" word " would be more likely to come as a discourse of
interpretation, instruction, and edification from him, and
the listeners, believing implicitly that the visitor was sent,
would be deeply attentive to what he opened to them
and powerfully impressed by it. As some one knelt to
pray all hats were removed, for they were generally worn
at other times ; all stood, and the person on his knees,
with trembling frame and tremulous voice, uttered what
seemed to him the common need of the meeting as in the
stillness it had surged up into his responsive soul. " The
meeting" was thus not a place for venting individual
whim and personal caprice. It was the time when
many individuals were merged and baptized into a
living group, with a common consciousness of a divine
Presence, and the utterances which were given were
expected to be " in the common life," and it was an
occasion of profound feeling, of lofty joy, and of real
refreshing.
Each locality produced its little school of " prophets,"
doubtless often of crude and commonplace intelligence,
but with some evidence of anointing and able to utter the
" word " for the group. It was a bold experiment to
dispense utterly and completely with the ordained priest,
the professional minister, and to assume that all men were
potentially near enough to God to be their own priests,
but these Friends actually tried it. It gave those who
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 139
formed the group an extraordinary sense of spiritual
dignity and a no less important consciousness of responsi
bility. A person was no longer an atom, a mere individual,
to be " lost " or " saved " by a system ; he was bound in,
vitally and organically, into the life above and the life
below — a branch of God's true Vine and a member of a
spiritual society of persons, each co-operating for the
good of all, and each a possible channel of grace for
the rest.
The most important feature of " the meeting " was the
powerful sense of reality which pervaded it — the peculiar
conviction which possessed the members of the group that
they had found God. They were no longer hearing about
Him and about His covenants and dispensations in past
ages ; their own hearts were burning as they partook of
the bread which He broke for them and as they drank at
what seemed to them the wells of eternal life. It was
this assurance of reality, this exalting experience, which
more than anything else propagated primitive Quakerism.
The arguments " about " the Inward Light were much on
a level with arguments " about " covenants — both moved
in the realm of " conceptions," but the man who had felt
his soul fed in such a meeting was "convinced," with a
permanent conviction.
Another influence which powerfully tended to foster
common ideals, and to unify the group in spirit and aim,
was the unbroken stream of itinerant ministry from the
mother Society and from the Societies in the other
Colonies. The minutes of the meetings show an amazing
list of these visitors. When one remembers the difficulties
of travel, the expense in time and money, the primitive
sort of entertainment which was possible at this period,
the element of sacrifice looms very large in this story of
travel which must for ever remain unwritten. But the
point of importance at the present moment is the formative
influence of these unique travellers. They believed, and
their listeners believed, that they were " divinely sent
messengers." They came into the homes of the native
Friends and supplied them -with the facts, the news, the
140 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
personal drama, of the wider Society of which they formed
a fragment. By word of mouth those of all sections
heard of the progress of events, the issues before the
Society, the spread of " Truth " as they called it,1 and they
learned to know, in their isolated spot, the main problems
of the whole movement, which they thus in some measure
shared. These travellers visited every region, however
remote, and they were thus the bearers of ideas and ideals
which formed a common stock of thought and aspiration,
and without knowing it the native ministers shaped their
message and formed their manner of delivering it under
the unconscious suggestions supplied by their visitors, so
that the Quaker in Dover and the Quaker in Sandwich
were almost as alike in inward tissue as they were out
wardly in cut of coat !
But the greatest socialising influence, and next to the
meeting for worship the most creative feature of the
Quaker organisation, was " the meeting for business." In
the earliest stage " the business meetings " were not
clearly differentiated, as they later came to be, into
Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Meetings. At first, and
for some years, all meetings under these various names
were primarily enlarged meetings for worship and
ministry — a sort of " general meeting " drawing attenders
from a wider territory than the local " First day Meeting."
The " business " was at first rather meagre, and consisted
mainly of accounts of sufferings endured and reports of
what was being done to spread the " Truth." 2 The novel
feature of all these meetings, from lowest to highest, was
the group-spirit which prevailed in them. Each individual
Quaker believed in divine illumination and spiritual
guidance — the Light of Christ within him was the
beginning and end of his faith. But it was plain to
them all that individuals sometimes erred and missed the
1 Even the horse which carried the ministers from place to place was called
' ' Truth's horse. "
8 I find a minute of Duxbury Monthly Meeting as late as 1698 to this effect :
' ' We have agreed that the Monthly Meeting which is held at the house of Robert
Barker in Duxbury shall be a meeting for business as it is elsewhere among
Friends." Evidently before this it had been a general meeting for worship and
extension. This was later called Pembroke Monthly Meeting.
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 141
Guide, or, as an ancient minute says, " ran out of their
measure and brought death instead of life ! " It would
not do — all the sound Quaker leaders knew this — to call
men to follow their inward Light, and then to treat them
as atoms and leave them to go their individual way
according to the suggestion of inward impulse, which
might be from above and might also be from below.
They went to work with fine insight and with wise
instinct to mass their guidance and to make their
spiritual wisdom a corporate affair. Every religious meet
ing they held was supposed to be held in the Light of
Christ, and the exercises of it were supposed to move
in response to the will of the Spirit, and each member
found his own particular part and place by being organic
with the whole. So, too, with the " business " of monthly,
quarterly, and yearly meetings. Each decision was reached
by taking the "sense" or "judgment" of the whole
meeting, and each such conclusion was supposed to be
under divine guidance, and was arrived at only in the
unity of the body. From first to last the group was
the unit> and the individual found his life and his
leading in the Life and Light of the formative spiritual
group.
Loosely organised local meetings for business were
held as early as 1658 in Sandwich and Newport, a little
later in Scituate, Duxbury,1 Salem, and Lynn, with
others following soon after, but no meeting records
survive for a date earlier than 167 3.* The Quarterly
1 There is on record an order of the court held in Duxbury in 1660 : ' ' Whereas
there is a constant monthly meeting of Quakers from divers places in great number,
which is very offensive and may prove very prejudicial to the government, and as
the most constant place for such meetings is Duxburrow, they have ordered
Constant Southworth and William Paybody to repair to such meetings, together
with the marshall or constable of the town, and use their best endeavours by
discourse and argument to convince or hinder them. " — Records of Plymouth Colony,
vol. xi. p. 130.
2 The Records of American meetings were undoubtedly begun at the suggestion
of George Fox. This is the first entry in the Sandwich Book of Records : " At a
man's Meeting kept at Will. Allen's house ye 25th day of ye 4th mo. [June,
by our modern calendar] 1673. At wch. Meeting it is concluded yt. for ye
future a man's Meeting be kept ye first sixth day of ye week in every month,
and for Friends to come together about ye eleventh hour." The Rhode Island
Records begin in 1676. The following Monthly Meetings were established in
New England in the Colonial period :
142 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Meeting, as its name implies, was held four times in the
year, and in the earliest period it was a distinctly religious
meeting.1
It massed together in a definite community the
Quaker forces spread over a large area of country, and it
was held mainly for the purpose of propagating the
Quaker message — "the Truth," as they insisted. There
was often a distinguished visitor or visitors present, and
those who came were likely to hear the Friends' interpre
tation of Christianity powerfully presented. It was also
the custom to read on these occasions epistles containing
a message of Truth from other meetings, or from some
prominent Friend who had formerly visited them and had
" a concern for their advancement in the Truth." It was,
too, quite the custom to hold special meetings for
"youth," at which epistles, or passages from Friends'
writings were read and advice " in the way of life " given.2
These Quarterly Meetings gradually developed into
meetings for the transaction of business, and matters
concerning the wider life of the Church, too weighty to be
settled in a local monthly meeting, came up here for
consideration. The building of meeting-houses and the
raising of money for extensive relief would come before
Sandwich in 1658 : Records begin
1673.
Rhode Island in 1658 : Records
begin 1676.
Pembroke before 1660 : Records
from 1676.
Salem, date of origin unknown :
Records begin 1677.
Dartmouth, 1699.
East Greenwich, 1699.
Hampton (later Amesbury), 1701.
Dover, 1701.
Nan tucket, 1708.
Providence and Smithfield, 1718.
Swanzea, 1732.
South Kingstown, 1743.
Yarmouth, Maine, 1761.
Westport, 1766.
1 After the Quarterly Meeting differentiated into a distinct business meeting,
there were three Quarterly Meetings in the colonial period, as follows: (i)
Sandwich Quarterly Meeting, which began at least as early as 1680 and originally
was composed of Sandwich and Pembroke Monthly Meetings. (2) Rhode
Island Quarterly Meeting, which was established in 1699, and was originally
composed of Rhode Island, Dartmouth, and Kingstown Monthly Meetings. (3)
Salem Quarterly Meeting, which was established in 1705 and was originally
composed of Salem, Hampton, and Dover Monthly Meetings.
2 I find on the Monthly Meeting Records for Newport this minute under date of
izth mo. 14, 1692 : " It is agreed that all our public Meetings be at our Meeting
houses as formerly were held. Our Quarterly Meeting was for the reading of
Friends' epistles ; but there is now a Meeting once in six weeks for that service."
The Quarterly Meeting also prepared, "as way opened for it," epistles to be sent
to other Quarterly Meetings. I find distinct reference to this service in the
minutes.
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 143
the Quarterly Meeting.1 There is a record of an extra
ordinary Quarterly Meeting held in Sandwich, " in Wm.
Allen's house," in 1703, with representatives from meet
ings reaching all the way from Rhode Island to Dover,
New Hampshire.2
The reader who has imagination will easily see the
social importance of these gatherings. Friends from
these widely sundered regions, persons of different social
standing, of all stages of education and spiritual experience,
thus came together, generally for a two days' meeting-
were entertained at the homes in the locality where the
meeting was held, interchanged ideas, and formed, almost
without knowing it, a " group-consciousness " which played
a powerful r61e in the life of the Society. More
important than the " youths' meetings " in their formative
influence over the children were these social visits and
these Quarterly Meeting dinners, when the house was
filled to bursting with Friends from other sections of the
Colony.3
Still higher in its scope and more constructive in its
functions was the Yearly Meeting, and this again was still
more significant for its influence in the formation of
" group-consciousness " and of social ideals. As with
the other meetings, the Yearly Meeting was at first a
large General Meeting for worship and preaching, and for
an impressive massing of the Quaker forces. The first of
1 Where the need was extensive the case was brought up to the Yearly Meet
ing, as will be seen from the following minute of the Yearly Meeting of 1697 : "It
was proposed to this Meeting the necessity of poor Friends to the Eastward [New
Hampshire and Maine, I presume] for some relief : this Meeting did collect ye sum
pff ten pounds, and did order ye same by ye hands off Samuel Collings to Matthew
and Richard Estes to be distributed by ym.
" Itt is desired by this Meeting yt ye ffriends appointed to write to ffriends in
England doe also write to ffriends in Long Island, East and West Jersey, and to
Philadelphia, conserning ye necessytie off poor ffriends to ye Eastward, and desire
their assistance to help relieve them."
2 The following localities sent representatives :
Rhode Island Meeting.
Dartmouth
Salem and Lynn
Scituate
Sandwich Meeting.
Greenwich , ,
Hampton ,,
Dover
8 As late even as 1784 there were only three Quarterly Meetings for business
established. They were (i) Rhode Island, which was held in turn at Smithfield,
Dartmouth, Swansea, and Greenwich ; (2) Salem, held at Falmouth in Maine,
Dover, Hampton, Salem ; (3) Sandwich, held at Nantucket, Long Plain, Falmouth
in Massachusetts, and Sandwich.
144 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
these Yearly Meetings was held at Newport, Rhode Island,
in 1 66 1. It seems to have been called at the suggestion
of an English Quaker, named George Rofe, who was at
that time on a religious mission to this country. He
writes to his friend Richard Hubberthorne in 1661 :
"We came in at Rhode Island, and we appointed a General
Meeting for all Friends in those parts, which was a very great
meeting and very precious, and continued four days." l
This meeting was so large that, according to Bishop,
the Boston officials, " made an alarm that the Quakers
were gathering to kill the people and fire the town of
Boston ! " It steadily grew in importance and in numbers,
and soon came to be the great event in the Quaker year.
From far away Piscataqua at one extreme, and from Long
Island at the other, the Friends flocked to Newport, for
until 1695 the Quakers on Long Island came to Rhode
Island to Yearly Meeting.2 By 1743 it was attended by
five thousand Friends, and the attendance continued very
large throughout the century. Similar Yearly Meetings
were held for many years in different sections of New
England as well as at Newport, so that nearly all com
munities where Friends abounded had a large annual
visitation.8 But the Newport Yearly Meeting was " the
1 Letter of George Rofe to Richard Hubberthorne, i8th November 1661, in
the A. R. B. Collection, No. 62, Devonshire House Portfolio.
2 " It is also agreed yt ye Meeting at Long Island shall be from this time a
Yearly Meeting, and yt John Boune and John Rodman shall receive all such as
shall come to ye Yearly Meeting in Long Island, and correspond with ffriends
appointed in London." — Minute of New England Yearly Meeting for 1695.
3 I find the following Yearly Meetings in existence under date of 1693 :
" Duxberry Yearly Meeting of Worship begins ye furst 6th day in every 8th mo.
"Salem, ye generall Meeting of Worship begins ye first and second days of
every 7th month.
1 ' Piscattua ( Piscataqua) Yearly Generall Meeting of Worship begins ye 7th
ffirst day after Salem Meeting.
' ' Dartmouth Yearly Generall Meeting of Worship begins the 4th sixth day in
every 8th month.
"Warwick Yearly Generall Meeting of worship begins and is appointed ye
second ffirst day in every 3d moth.
' ' Providence Yearly Generall Meeting of Worship begins ye last ffirst day of the
5th moth.
" 4th mo. 14, 1695. — There shall be kept a Meeting at Lin [Lynn], ye third
day next after ye Yearly Meeting at Salem is over."
Samuel Bownas says : ' ' They [the Friends of New England] have in almost
every place once a year a General Meeting which they call a Yearly Meeting, and
by this popular abundance more people come together in expectation of something
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 145
child of promise " and soon outstripped and gradually
swallowed up the others.1
Definite arrangements were made in 1699 for Repre
sentatives to the Yearly Meeting from the Quarterly
Meetings, and from this time on the legislative and con
structive aspect of the Yearly Meeting became more
pronounced, and less emphasis was put upon it as an
occasion for worship and ministry.2
The Monthly Meeting, beginning as we have seen in
a very unassuming fashion, soon expanded in importance,
and came to have a profoundly formative social influence
over the life of the individual members, and it absorbed
into the corporate body of the meeting the functions of
" cure of souls " and guardian of morals — usually delegated
by the Churches to a priest or an ordained clergyman.
From the earliest period of the systematic Monthly
Meeting it was the custom to read, in a solemn way,
a set of " Advices," embodying the religious ideals of
the Quaker founders, and setting forth the type of " walk
and conversation " which befitted a Friend.3 To these
extraordinary to be met with." — Life and Travels of Samuel Bownas (London,
1761), p. 149.
1 I find a record of a Yearly Meeting at Sandwich as late as 1756, and this
curious minute arranging for the holding of Providence Yearly Meeting :
6th mo. ii, 1761. — " By epistle from Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, inform
ing us they have Providence Yearly Meeting altered to begin at Warwick the sixth
day before the fourth First day of ye 8th month, and at Providence the Seventh
day following, and at Smithfield on First day. For divers reasons offerde at this
Meeting it is agreed that said Meeting for the future be altered agreeable to
their request."
2 " Itt is agreed by order and consent of this Meeting, yt the second day of
the week be for the business and service of the Meeting for the future, according
to the antient order of Truth amongst us, and not for public worship, and yt two
ffriends from each Quarterly Meeting, and where no Quarterly Meeting two or
more from each Monthly Meeting, to attend ye service of ye Yearly Meeting till
business is ended, and as many other sober friends as hath freedom. " — Yearly
Meeting Minutes for 1699.
The meeting of the ministers, as a meeting apart, began in 1700 under the
following minute :
4th mo. 17, 1700. — " It is agreed upon by this Meeting yt ye sixth day morning
of ye Yearly Meeting before ye public Meeting for Worship begins be for ye future
for Friends of ye Ministry to meet together, and such other sober Friends as hath
freedom. "
3 The following minute of Sandwich Monthly Meeting for Eleventh month,
8th, 1680, indicates that the "Advices" were at this time read four times a year.
They are called "The testimonies of Truth's concern." At this Meeting it is
ordered ' ' yt the testimonies of Truth's concern are to be read four times in a year
at our Monthly Men and Women's Meeting."
L
146 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
" Advices " there was added, at least as early as the year
1700, a set of definite "Queries," the reading of which
was intended to furnish the members an occasion for
inward silent " confessional." 1 The " Queries " called for
an examination of the life from at least a dozen moral
and spiritual view-points, and tended to present a concrete
moral ideal for the daily life at home and in business
occupations. When the " Advices " and " Queries " were
read the Friends " of light and leading," especially visiting
Friends from abroad, used the opportunity for imparting
counsel and advice upon practical matters of life among
men. There can be no question that all this, presented
as it was with religious atmosphere and with all minds in
a peculiarly receptive attitude, worked with deep suggestive
power and tended to produce a common moral type.
But the Monthly Meeting did not stop with public
" Queries," and with its admirable method of " group
suggestion," it brought positive pressure to bear to mould
the lives of the individual into the moral fashion which
the group approved. For this purpose there were " Over
seers," who visited the homes and kept a careful watch
over the lives of the members.
There was, as we should expect, a tendency to make
conduct conform to rather stiff and rigid standards, for
the Friends to a large degree shared the Puritan ideals in
regard to " Christian manners in the world." Then, too,
in addition to their scrupulous guardianship over morals,
they were always as zealous to maintain certain " testi
monies " which were the badges of their " peculiarity " as
a people of the Lord. They were as keen and watchful
for deviations from these " testimonies " as the Puritan
elders were over deviations from sound theology, for that
larger liberty which leaves the individual entirely with
his own conscience — with his personal sense of what is
1 I find this minute in the Records of the Yearly Meeting for 1701 : " Twelve
Queries were made at the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings and sent to the
Yearly Meeting." Before this time a set of Queries prepared by George Fox had
been extensively used. I find this entry in the Sandwich minutes under date of
1673 : "I* was ordered that Jedediah Allen pay John Fowler 5 sh. for copying
G. ff. Queries. " The custom of preparing set answers to the ' ' Queries " began
in I7SS-
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 147
right for him — had not yet come. The " minutes " of all
types of meetings, from their origin, indicate a highly
developed moral sensitiveness, and, all interwoven with this,
there appears an excessive concern over things which
were in the class of the ceremonial, i.e. things which had
a function only as they helped form a " peculiar people." *
One of the matters which most profoundly concerned
these Friends was the guardianship of the marriage of
their members. They refused from the very beginning
to allow any member to be married by what they called
" a priest," for this seemed to them to be the very essence
of sacerdotalism. They adopted a simple ceremony by
which the bride and groom pledged themselves in marriage
" before the Lord and in the presence of Friends " ; and
after enduring many hardships they won from the courts
the decision that this form of marriage was legal. As
the idea developed that Friends were " a peculiar people
of the Lord," there naturally went with it a disapproval
of the marriage of a Friend with " a person of the world."
This soon became a fixed idea, and the monthly meeting
records contain a host of minutes which report " dealings "
with members who have deviated in this all -important
matter of marriage.
In regard to the prevailing " vices " of the times
Friends appear generally to have taken an advanced
position. When lotteries were looked upon by almost
all Christian people as at least tolerable institutions, and
1 I give two illustrations of the way meetings " watched up " their members on
matters of daily life : ' ' The overseers inform this Meeting that two Friends have
allowed fiddling, dancing, and playing at cards in their houses, for which they
decline to condemn the offence to Friends' satisfaction. Therefore this Meeting
doth appoint Joseph Gifford and Barzellai Tucker to labour with them and make
report to the next Monthly Meeting." "This Meeting having considered the
answers of the several Quarterly Meetings relating to the extravigant and
unnecessary Perry Wiggs, and a concern remaining on the minds of Friends for
preventing the same prevailing among us Do conclude, and it is the judgment
of this Meeting that all Friends who suppose that they have need of wiggs, ought
to take the advice and approbation of the visitors [i.e. overseers] of their respective
Meetings before they proceed to get one. And it is the tender advice, and
brotherly request of this Meeting that all be careful to observe the same, and not
in a careless or overly-minded cutt of their hair (which is given for a covering) to
putt on a wigg or indecent capp which has been observed of late years to be
a growing practice among too many of the young men in several parts, to the
troubel of many honest Friends, it plainly appearing (in some) for an imitation
and joyning with the spirit and fashion of the world."
148 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
were being used by churches and educational institutions
as a beneficial provision for raising funds for the work
of the Lord, New England Friends, " in the light of
Truth," saw that they were pernicious, and refused to
allow their members to profit by them. This minute from
Dartmouth Meeting shows the prevailing sentiment among
Friends as early as 1759.
" Whereas we understand that there has been a practice of
late amongst our younger set of people of making lotteries which
we think to be of very hurtful consequence, therefore, it is the
advice of this Meeting for all under our care to be careful not to
be in such practice, and that all Friends belonging to this
Meeting endeavour to suppress the same." l
At a time when the use of spirituous liquors was an
almost universal custom, Friends were nevertheless very
sensitive on the subject. They began, from the first of
their existence as a people, to insist on a clean, temperate
life for their members. The Minutes of all the monthly
meetings from 1673 down contain many items like
this : —
" A Friend of Richmond Meeting hath taken strong liquor
to excess, a committee is appointed to labour with him."
"A complaint was brought against a Friend for excessive
drinking, this meeting appoints two Friends to discourse with
said Friend."
" The overseers inform that a Friend hath suffered too much
liberty in his tavern which tends to bring a reproach on Truth,
wherefore Joseph Tucker and Abraham Tucker are appointed to
labour with him." 2
1 A little later horse-racing was included in the list of "vices" which could
not be tolerated as the following minute shows :
" 2/15/1762. — Whereas we understand that horse-racing is a prevailing practice
therefore the Meeting doth conclude to make a minute against all such practices.
And if Friends are found guilty of any such practice they are liable to be dealt
with as offenders."
2 I find in the Records of the Yearly Meeting for 1784 a minute on the
subject which seems to me a noble paper for the eighteenth century to have
produced. ' ' The excessive use of Spirituous liquors of all kinds has for a long
time been seen by our Society to be a practice tending to lead from calmness and
innocency to the many evils which are the consequences of intemperance, and
a concern having arisen for the spreading of this Testimony, not only to the
disuse of distilled spirituous liquors amongst us except as a medicine, but that
others also may by our example be encouraged to restrain its use within the
limits of Truth, we recommend to all Friends everywhere, carefully to look at
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 149
Fidelity to one's word of promise was held to be
a most sacred obligation, and every Friend was expected
to make righteousness in trade and dealing " an affair of
honour." Every book of Monthly Meeting Records has
many minutes similar in spirit to the following :
" There was a complaint brought up that a Friend refuses to
fulfil a promise he made two years ago respecting performing of
his proportion of work on the high ways, therefore, in con
sequence of said complaint we do appoint John Gifford,
Benjamin Tripp, and Peleg Huddestone to inspect into said
complaint, and if they find the Friend refuse to fulfil his promise
agreeable to said complaint, to labour with said Friend to fulfil
it, so that Truth and the professors thereof may not suffer on
that account any longer."
" There was brought a complaint to this Meeting against
a Friend for refusing to come to a settlement in a division of
a fence in the line between him and another Friend, therefore
we do appoint Nicholas Haviland and James Soule to labour
with said Friend to do what they shall think reasonable in the
case after they have informed themselves the circumstances
thereof."
" The overseers informed that there is a bad report concern
ing two members salting up beef, and exposing it for sale, which
was not merchantable ; and they have made some inquiry, and
do not find things clear, therefore this Meeting appoints a
committee to make inquiry."
Under no consideration or provocation might a Friend
take an oath, either as an " expletive " to relieve his
mind, or as a judicial sign that he was about to tell the
truth and nothing but the truth, for he was under a sacred
obligation to make his ordinary word as true as a bond.
In Rhode Island this was an easy matter, as the statutes
of that Colony always made provision for an affirmation
the motives of being concerned therewith not only for using, but distilling,
importing, trading, or handing out to others, who from habit may have acquired
a thirst, and inclination after it, tending to their hurt ; we tenderly advise all
such as are concerned therein, to centre down to the principle, leading to universal
righteousness, and as we apprehend a continuance in such practices, will in this
day of light weaken the hands not only of those individuals concerned to further
the reformation, but tend greatly to obstruct Society from holding up a standard
to this important Testimony, as becometh our holy profession. We entreat,
therefore, those who have begun well, and made advances in the way towards
their own peace, that as soon as may be, they forbear the said practices that a line
may in due time be drawn, and the standard be raised and spread to the nation.
ISO QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
instead of an oath, but this provision was not made in
Massachusetts until 1759.
Friends felt that it was even more important to keep
the Society absolutely clear of everything that belonged
to warfare, or which encouraged fighting with what were
known as " carnal weapons," for the Quaker had no
objection to any warfare which he could properly call
" spiritual " ! This " concern " ran up against a deep-
seated natural instinct, and it entailed, of course, a harvest
of difficulties, particularly in the early days of Indian
warfare.
During the French and Indian War of Queen Anne's
reign Friends were subjected to very severe sufferings,
and stringent measures were taken to force them at this
time to do military service.1
At the time of the Louisburg Expedition in the campaign
of 1758-59 the Quakers in Massachusetts were forced to
hire men to go as substitutes ; and when they refused to
pay for substitutes, as they generally did, their property
was distrained to cover the amount. Moses Farnum of
Uxbridge, Massachusetts, in 1759 headed a petition to
the Legislature setting forth that the sums assessed
against the Quakers were greatly in excess of the actual
amounts paid for their substitutes. On investigation this
was found to be true, and large sums were returned to the
Friends who had suffered.2 The difficulty of being a
" consistent Friend " in the critical period of the Revolu
tionary War was, of course, even greater, for now the
Quaker testimony came into violent collision with the
1 The following minute of the Yearly Meeting for 1712 gives a glimpse of the
situation :- —
"4/12/1712. — At our Generall Yearly Meeting held at Portsmouth. Peter
Varney and John Kenny were imprisoned ye 8th day of 5th month 1711 to go
in ye expidition to Canada, and remained under confinment until ye 8th month
1711 being under ye command of Sydrach Walton who suffered them not to be
abused during the time of their voyage as per account brought into this meeting.
' ' John Terry and Moses Tucker were likewise imprisoned to go on ye said
expidition to Canada, and being in hopes of getting discharged went to Boston, and
after much labour thereabouts were nevertheless sent as prisoners to the castle at
Boston, and from thence conveyed by force on board Transport under ye command
of Major Roberton, whose hard usage was such that one of ye above Ffriends (John
Terry) died within twenty-four hours after their return to Boston, as may be seen
by a particular account thereof presented to this Meeting."
8 See Provincial Laws of Massachusetts, xvi. 488 and 521.
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 151
fundamental instinct of patriotism. There was, however,
no parley on the part of the Meetings — principle was
principle — and no man could remain a Friend if he
participated " in the spirit of war." Even so blue-blooded
a Friend as Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island — a patriot
of the patriots — had his name expunged from the list of
members for the offence of " taking arms." It was when
the colonies were face to face with this war with the
mother country in 1775 that New England Friends first
organised a meeting distinctly called " The Meeting for
Sufferings," composed of delegates from all sections and
designed to deal with the difficulties likely to arise from
the approaching catastrophe of war.1
The work of oversight was not confined to moral and
spiritual matters. It touched the whole of life. The
most important aspect of it from a social point of view
was the care bestowed upon those who were in trouble or
in financial straits. It belonged to the sacred " honour of
Truth " that no Friend should be allowed to suffer want,
or should be compelled to receive support from the town
ship. The amount of time which some of these capable
and practical Friends must have spent in looking after
the needs of poor members gives one a very wholesome
respect for the sincerity of their Christianity.2 In times
of general calamity, widespread suffering, or the havoc of
war, the Meetings which were less exposed raised large
sums of money for the relief of suffering Friends and for
others. This outreaching relief work was carried on
throughout the entire period of this history ; but it finds its
best illustration in the effort of Friends to relieve the
sufferings which resulted from the siege of Boston during
1 This Meeting for Sufferings eventually took on a great variety of functions,
and managed the important public affairs of the Society in the interim between
Yearly Meetings.
2 This Minute will illustrate what was happening in every Quaker community :
' ' And whereas there has been a great charge arisen upon a man Friend by reason
of his lameness, and Doctor's charges, we think it our duty to see into the affair,
and order Abram Tucker, Isaac Smith, and Peleg Russell to see what ye charge
is, and what way he is to pay it."
• ' We cannot find that the man Friend can do anything valuable towards pay
ing the Doctor for curing his leg. The charge is ^15, 143. lawful money which
this Meeting hath concluded to pay."
152 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
the Revolutionary War. An appeal was made to Friends
in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to join in these extensive
relief measures, and the extraordinary sum of nineteen
hundred and sixty-eight pounds sterling was expended
under the care of a committee of the Meeting for Suffer
ings. This committee visited General Washington and
General Howe, explaining that their mission was visiting
the fatherless and widows, feeding the hungry, clothing
the naked, without distinction of sects or parties. The
Generals would not allow the Friends to pass through the
lines into the city of Boston, but arrangements were made
for them to send in their funds to be distributed by
Friends who were shut up in the besieged city. The
members of the committee then took up in person the
laborious task of relieving the distress — as a kind of
eighteenth century Red Cross Society — in the towns
about the city, where multitudes of people " were in want
of victuals, wood, and clothing." In Salem, for instance,
the Friends, in company with the Selectmen of the town,
went from house to house and distributed their relief
through the very streets along which Quakers had been
whipped a hundred years before. There stands on the
Records of the town of Salem for 1775, and again in
1776, a "vote of thanks" to the Friends for their
generous relief in this time of need.1 The towns which
were visited and relieved in like manner, were Lynn,
Marblehead, Charleston, Medfield, Bolton, Lancaster,
Marlborough, Sudbury, Weston, Woburn, Reading,
Sherbdrn, Holliston, Northbury, and Waltham, and
through these towns — many of them towns through
which Quakers had been whipped — working in company
with the Selectmen, the Friends, with personal painstaking
care, dispensed their gifts of love.2
One of the most stubborn fights in the spiritual war
fare of the New England Quakers was for freedom to
worship God as their own hearts dictated, a privilege
now common to all Anglo-Saxon peoples, and also for
1 See Annals of Salem, ii. 399.
a The full accounts of this work are given in the Records of ' ' The Meeting for
Sufferings."
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 153
freedom from supporting any system of worship which
their consciences did not approve. The privilege to
worship in their own way and in their own gatherings
was won at terrific cost, as we have seen, but it was
comparatively quickly won. It was discovered by an
overwhelming demonstration that the denial of the
privilege could be maintained only by the extermination
of the sect, and thus there was no rational alternative but
to yield. The other privilege, the privilege of exemption
from tithes for the support of the established ministry,
was won only by a long, hard fight, but when it was won
it was won for everybody.
From the first Friends refused to pay the Church
"tithes," which they called "priests' rates," for they
insisted that " spiritual ministry " must be without money
and without price. They were imprisoned for their
refusal, and they were furthermore subjected to a
capricious seizure of goods, roughly estimated by the
authorities to equal in value the amount of the tithes.
Cows, horses, pigs, farm produce, wearing apparel, house
hold silver, wagons, implements of all sorts were carried
away, while the poor family looked helplessly on and saw
themselves stripped to pay for a ministry which supported
itself by such methods ! l The Meetings, with their
splendid group spirit, made these losses a corporate
matter and all shared, as far as they could, the sufferings
of each. The Meetings rose to the crisis and year after
year raised great sums to cover the losses of Friends
both at home and in remote sections.2 But they did
not stop with passive resistance to the tithe system.
They laboured for three-quarters of a century by every
1 This minute from Dartmouth Monthly Meeting will illustrate the sort of
distraints which were endured :
' ' 4/2/1725. — The accounts of some sufferings of Peleg Slocum, and John Tucker
having their creatures taken away off their Islands (called Elizabeth Islands) by
distraint by John Mayhew, constable of Chilmark, was presented to the Meeting.
" Taken from Peleg Slocum eighty sheep for the Priests' rate and towards the
building of a Presbyterian Meeting house, ye said sheep were sold for ^34.
' ' And taken from John Tucker on ye'like occasion one horse sold for £10, IDS.
and one heifer sold for £2, ios., demand was for £7, 155. 4d."
2 I give three Minutes from the Yearly Meeting to illustrate this corporate
action :
" 4/11/1730. — The amount of sufferings brought up from the Quarterly Meet-
154 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
method known to their intelligence, or "revealed by
the mind of Truth " to get the tyranny abolished by
statute.1
In the year 1678, four prominent Friends, Edward
Wanton, Joseph Coleman, Nathaniel Fitsrandal and
William Allen, presented to the General Court of
Plymouth, "conscientiously and in all tenderness," their
reasons why they could not "give maintenance to the
established preachers." " We suppose," they say, " it's
well enough known that we have never been backward to
contribute our assistance in our estates and persons,
where we could act without scruple of conscience, nor in
the particular case of the country rate . . . until this late
contrivance of mixing your preachers' maintenance there
with," which, in short, they declare they cannot under
any circumstances pay. They thereupon undertake at
some length to prove from the New Testament that
" settled maintenance upon preachers " is contrary to the
gospel. Whether their exegesis carried weight with the
Court or not, their concluding remark must have occasioned
some serious reflection : " We request, for conclusion, you
will please to consider whether you may not prejudice
yourselves in your public interest with the King (you your
selves having your liberty but upon sufferance) if you
should compel any to conform in any respect to such a
church government or ministry as is repugnant to the
Church of England. We leave the whole to your serious
ing are as followeth : For Priests rates taken from Friends in Salem Quarterly
Meeting ,£118, us."
" 4/ 1 i/i 73 1 . — Friends Sufferings from Rochester, Massachusetts, for priests rates
£23, 175. Friends suffering from Salem for Priests rates ,£10, 175. 6d. "
"4/8/1732. — Friends sufferings from Priests rates in Kittery in the County of
York and Province of Maine £i$< IDS."
1 The work of petitioning the governing authorities at home and abroad went on
year after year with admirable persistence. Here is an interesting minute of the
year 1708 : "It being proposed under the consideration of this Meeting the
detriament yt may attend Friends by an act past in the Massachusetts Provence
in the year 1706 joining the Priests rate to the Province tax [making it extremely
difficult for Friends to escape paying it] this Meeting doth desire, or order,
Richard Borden and Thomas Cornell Jr. in behalf of said Meeting to inform the
Governor thereof by way of writing, requesting his relief therein, otherwise to
signify to him that they shall address the Queen [ Queen Anne] in that matter ;
and said Cornell to sign the same in behalf of the Meeting, being clerk thereof ;
and Joseph Wanton, and Richard Borden are appointed to do said writing to ye
Governor and speal [spell] the same. "
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 155
consideration." l The writers of this document evidently
remembered the " King's missive."
A half-century later, in 1724, the English King,
through his council, did finally declare himself in no
uncertain words on this matter of " maintenance of
ministers," and this second missive, this time from George
I., though not as dramatic as the famous one from
Charles II., hastened the end of persecution for refusal to
pay church rates. Appeal to the King had been made
in 1724 by Thomas Richardson and Richard Partridge
on behalf of Joseph Anthony, John Sisson, John Akin
and Philip Taber, Quaker assessors of Dartmouth and
Tiverton, who had been imprisoned in New Bristol jail for
refusing to collect taxes to support the ministry.
Their case was argued before the Privy Council and
the following significant decision was rendered at a Court
held at St. James', the 2nd day of June, 1724, and
attended by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, His
Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and thirteen other members of the Court. It
was as follows : " His Majesty in Council is graciously
pleased ... to remit the additional taxes of ;£ioo and
£72, us. which were to have been assessed on the towns
of Dartmouth and Tiverton [for the maintenance of Pres
byterian ministers who are not of their persuasion].2 And
His Majesty is hereby further pleased to order that the
said Joseph Anthony, John Sisson, John Akin, and Philip
Taber be immediately released from their imprisonment,
on account thereof, which the governor, lieutenant-
governor, or commander-in-chief for the time being of His
Majesty's said province of Massachusetts Bay, and all
others whom it may concern are to take notice of, and
yield obedience thereunto." 8
These persistent efforts, made year after year to secure
relief from these "rates," finally bore fruit, and the
1 The Hinckley Papers, pp. 18-20.
z This clause is in the report of the Privy Council which was approved by the
king.
3 The Petition and the decision of the Privy Council, with the King's message
are given in full in Cough's History of the Quakers (Dublin, 1790). iv. 218-226.
156 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
colonial government of Massachusetts passed a law in
1746 giving Friends temporary exemption from all
charges for the maintenance of ministers. The Yearly
Meeting appointed a committee in 1 747 to petition the
General Court of Massachusetts to make this law
perpetual. They succeeded for the moment in getting
only another temporary act of exemption, which, however,
very soon became a permanent law ; and from this time
on the subject disappears from the minutes, and the
Quaker enjoyed his own meeting in peace and kept his
cows and his silver spoons for his own use !
The next great contest into which the Friends threw
their energies was a more unselfish cause and one which
was grounded distinctly in humanitarian principles —
I mean the conflict against human slavery. The
Narragansett Bay country was the region where negro
slavery most " flourished " in New England. Ships sailed
from Newport to the coast of Guinea and brought back
live freight which was sold among the prosperous colonial
farmers along the fertile shores of the Bay.1 There were,
too, slaves in many other parts of the New England
colonies.
There was little or no moral sentiment in the colonies
against slavery in the seventeenth century, and Friends
fell in with the custom, as others did, with few apparent
scruples. They were, however, from the first awake to
the fact that black people were human, and deserved
proper treatment as human beings, though they evidently
did not see, before the middle of the eighteenth century,
that slavery per se must go.2
1 See Caroline Hazard's College Tom (Boston, 1893) p. 25.
2 These minutes from Sandwich Monthly Meeting are interesting as illustrating
the way the meeting dealt with inhumanity to slaves :
" S/S0/1?11- — Whereas a woman Friend hath given over to hardness of heart
to such a degree she hath been not only consenting but encouraging the unmerciful
whipping or beating of her negro man servant, he being stript naked, and hanged
up by the hands, in his master's house, and then beating him, or whipping him
so unmercifully that it is to be feared that it was in some measure the occasion of
his death that followed soon after, the which we do account is not only unchristian
but inhuman for which cause we find ourselves concerned to testify to the world
that we utterly disown all such actions, and perticularly the Friend above
mentioned."
" 10/17/1711. — A paper being presented to this Meeting from the Friend who
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 157
The enlightened members, even in the first quarter of
the eighteenth century, " felt a weighty concern " to have
the Society "cleared" of what seemed to them an evilr
and their influence was great enough to get the matter
well before the Yearly Meeting at Newport, and to get
this minute adopted in 1717:
"A weighty concern being on this Meeting concerning the
importing and keeping slaves. This Meeting therefore refers it
to the consideration of Friends everywhere to waite for ye wisdom
of God how to discharge themselves in that weighty affair, and
desires it may be brought up from our Monthly and Quarterly
Meetings to our next Yearly Meeting, and also yt merchants do
write their correspondents in the islands and elsewhere to dis
courage their sending any more [slaves] in order to be sold by
Friends here."
Again in 1727 the Yearly Meeting rose to a more
direct and positive position, indicating that the moral tide
had risen during the decade. The minute of this date
declares :
"It is the sense of this Meeting, that the importation of
Negroes from their native country and relations is not a com
mendable nor allowable practice and that practice is censured
by this Meeting."
Thomas Hazard of South Kingstown, Rhode Island.
generally called " College Tom," seems to have been one
of the first Friends to awake to the evil of slave-holding,
though he was brought up in the very atmosphere of it.
He was sent, while still in his youth, by his father to
Connecticut to buy cattle to stock the farm upon which
at his marriage he was to settle. While there he fell in
with a friend of his father's, a deacon of the Church,
who invited him to his home. The deacon in conversation
made the chance remark that " Quakers were not Christian
people." The young Quaker, fresh from college, was
ready for a hot argument, and was marshalling in his
mind the arguments of attack when all his heat was
was disowned for unmercifully beating her Negro, wherein she desires to come
into unity with Friends, and ye sense of this Meeting is that she should wait until
Friends have a sense that she is still to be accepted, and Eleazer Slocum and
William Soule are appointed to give her ye mind of the Meeting."
158 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
suddenly dampened by the deacon's reason for his bold
statement — " they are not Christians because they hold
their fellow-men in slavery ! " The Quaker youth had
no more to say ; but the stray shot took deep effect and
the son came back to his father with altered views on the
question.
" College Tom's" father was at this time — about 1730
— one of the largest slave-owners in New England, and
he vigorously objected to his son's new ideas, threatening
to disinherit him if he persisted in the view ; but the
conscientious son remained unmoved, and cultivated his
farm with free labour.1 He seems also to have quietly
propagated his ideas, for we learn that his intimate friend,
Jeremiah Austin, soon after this freed his one slave
inherited from his father.
Meantime the spirit of opposition to slavery was
steadily growing throughout the Quaker groups scattered
over the New England colonies, and Yearly Meeting
minutes of 1743 and 1744 indicate that the "inner eye"
was getting clearer in many a Quaker breast.
"4/9/1743. — It being represented by the Quarterly Meeting
of Rhode Island that the practice of keeping slaves is a matter
of uneasiness to many concerned Friends, and the minutes
formerly made by this Meeting being also considered. It is
agreed by this meeting that we request by our Epistles to the
Yearly Meeting of Friends in Pennsylvania an account of what
they have done in that matter."
"4/7/1744. — By the Epistle we have received from Phila
delphia concerning slaves, this Meeting is encouraged to revive,
and recommend to Friends the careful observation of the minute
of this Meeting made in 1717 concerning that matter, and that
they also refrain from buying them when imported, and to make
return by the epistles from the several Quarterly Meetings how
the same is observed."
1 See College Tom, chapter iii. A law was enacted in the Rhode Island
colony in 1729 allowing a master to manumit a slave provided said master should
give a security of j£ioo that the manumitted slave should not become a public
charge. Bishop Berkeley during his stay in Rhode Island became deeply interested
in the negro slaves and urged that they should be baptized, using these enlightened
words : ' ' Let me beseech you to consider them not merely as slaves, but as men
slaves and women slaves, who have the same frame and faculties as yourselves,
and have souls capable of being made happy, and reason and understanding to
receive instruction. " — Updike's History of Narragansttt Church, pp. 176, 177.
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 159
In 1747 New England was visited for the first time
by that saintly Quaker from Mount Holly, New Jersey,
John Woolman, whose sensitive soul was already burning
with love for his dark-skinned friends in slavery. He
visited " among Friends in the colony of Rhode Island "
and probably came into personal relation with Thomas
Hazard, as Updike calls the latter John Woolman's
friend. One of the earliest documents against slavery in
New England, and certainly one of the quaintest ever
written, is a letter of Richard Smith of Groton, Connecticut,
to South Kingstown Monthly Meeting of which he was a
member. He declares that " the Lord by his free Goodness
hath given me a clear sight of the cruelty of making a slave
of one that was by nature as free as my own children" and
to turn his " clear sight " into practice he concluded :
"I hereby declare that now that my Negro garl Jane hath
arived to eighteen years of age she shall go out free from
bondage as free as if Shee had been free born, and that my
Heirs, Executors or Administraters shall have no power over
her or her postirity no more than if she had been free born." 1
To his straightforward, downright Letter Richard
Smith added a curious postscript which contains another
item of his experience :
" Now my Friends to tell you plainly, some years befor this
my intent was to have bought Some Negro Slaves for to have
Done my work to have Saved my hiring of help. But when I
was about buying them I was forbiden by the same Power that
now Causes me to set this Garl at Liberty, for the matter was
Set befor me in a Clear manner more Clear than what mortal
man Could have Done and theirfore I belive it is not write for
me to Shrink or hide in a thing of So Create a Consarnment as
to Give my Consent to do to others Contrary to what we our
Selves would be willing to be don unto." 2
1 Records of Greenwich Monthly Meeting.
2 The Monthly Meeting entered this minute : ' ' This meeting received a paper
of Richard Smith as his testimony against keeping slaves and his intention to free
his negro girl, which paper he hath a mind to lay before the Quarterly Meeting,
all which is referred for further consideration." The matter did not receive
much attention at the time, and meeting after meeting passed without definite
action, but Richard Smith's "testimony" was good leaven, and soon the whole
lump was permeated with it.
160 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Three years after this testimony — in 1760 — came the
epoch-making second visit of John Woolman, now fully
alive to his Divine mission in behalf of the slave. He
writes :
"We had five meetings in Narragansett [the section covered
by Greenwich Monthly Meeting] and went thence to Newport
on Rhode Island. ... In several families in the country where
we lodged, I felt an engagement on my mind to have a conference
with them in private concerning their slaves ; and through Divine
aid I was favored to give up thereto. ... I do not repine
at having so unpleasant a task assigned me, but look with
awfulness to Him who appoints to His servants their respective
employments."1
The crisis of his visit came at the time of his return
to Newport for Yearly Meeting, after having completed
extensive travels over New England, reaching "eighty
miles beyond Boston eastward." His own quaint way of
telling the story is most impressive :
"Understanding that a large number of slaves had been
imported from Africa into that town, and were then on sale by
a member of our Society my appetite failed, and I grew out
wardly weak, and had a feeling of the condition of Habakkuk,
as thus expressed, ' When I heard, my belly trembled, my lips
quivered, 1 trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of
trouble.' I had many cogitations, and was sorely distressed. I
was desirous that Friends might petition the Legislature to use
their endeavours to discourage the future importation of slaves,
for I saw that this trade was a great evil, and tended to multiply
troubles, and to bring distresses on the people for whose welfare
my heart was deeply concerned. But I perceived several
difficulties in regard to petitioning, and such was the exercise of
my mind that I thought of endeavouring to get an opportunity
to speak a few words in the House of Assembly, then sitting in
town.
" This exercise came upon me in the afternoon on the second
day of the Yearly Meeting, and on going to bed I got no sleep
till my mind was wholly resigned thereto. In the morning I
inquired of a Friend how long the Assembly was likely to continue
sitting, who told me it was to be prorogued that day or the next.
As I was desirous to attend the business of the meeting, and
perceived the Assembly was likely to separate before the business
1 Journal, p. 161.
CH. viz NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 161
was over, after considerable exercise, humbly seeking to the
Lord for instruction, my mind settled to attend on the business
of the meeting ; on the last day of which I had prepared a short
essay of a petition to be presented to the Legislature, if way
opened. And being informed that there were some appointed
by that Yearly Meeting to speak with those in authority on cases
relating to the Society, I opened my mind to several of them,
and showed them the essay I had made, and afterwards I opened
the case in the meeting for business, in substance as follows :
" ' I have been under a concern for some time on account of
the great number of slaves which are imported into this colony.
I am aware that it is a tender point to speak to, but apprehend
I am not clear in the sight of Heaven without doing so. I have
prepared an essay of a petition to be presented to the Legislature,
if way open ; and what I have to propose to this meeting is that
some Friends may be named to withdraw and look over it, and
report whether they believe it suitable to be read in the meeting.
If they should think well of reading it, it will remain for the
meeting to consider whether to take any further notice of it, as a
meeting, or not.' After a short conference some Friends went
out, and, looking over it, expressed their willingness to have it
read, which being done, many expressed their unity with the
proposal, and some signified that to have the subjects of the
petition enlarged upon, and signed out of meeting by such as
were free, would be more suitable than to do it there. Though
I expected at first that if it was done it would be in that way,
yet such was the exercise of my mind that to move it in the
hearing of Friends when assembled appeared to me as a duty, for
my heart yearned towards the inhabitants of these parts, believing
that by this trade there had been an increase of inquietude
amongst them, and way had been made for the spreading of a
spirit opposite to that meekness and humility which is a sure
resting-place for the soul ; and that the continuance of this trade
would not only render their healing more difficult, but would
increase their malady. Having proceeded thus far, I felt easy
to leave the essay amongst Friends, for them to proceed in it
as they believed best
"The Yearly Meeting being over, there yet remained on my
mind a secret though heavy exercise, in regard to some leading
active members about Newport, who were in the practice of
keeping slaves. This I mentioned to two ancient Friends who
came out of the country, and proposed to them, if way opened,
to have some conversation with those members. One of them
and I, having consulted one of the most noted elders who had
slaves, he, in a respectful manner, encouraged me to proceed to
M
162 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
clear myself of what lay upon me. Near the beginning of the
Yearly Meeting, I had had a private conference with this said
elder and his wife, concerning their slaves, so that the way
seemed clear to me to advise with him about the manner of
proceeding. I told him I was free to have a conference with
them altogether in a private house ; or if he thought they would
take it unkind to be asked to come together, and to be spoken
with in the hearing of one another, I was free to spend some
time amongst them, and to visit them all in their own houses.
He expressed his liking to the first proposal, not doubting their
willingness to come together ; and, as I proposed a visit to only
ministers, elders, and overseers, he named some others whom he
desired might also be present. A careful messenger being
wanted to acquaint them in a proper manner, he offered to go
to all their houses, to open the matter to them — and did so.
About the eighth hour the next morning we met in the meeting
house chamber, the last mentioned country Friend, my companion,
and John Storer being with us. After a short time of retirement,
I acquainted them with the steps I had taken in procuring that
meeting, and opened the concern I was under, and we then
proceeded to a free conference upon the subject My exercise
was heavy, and I was deeply bowed in spirit before the Lord,
who was pleased to favour with the seasoning virtue of truth,
which wrought a tenderness amongst us ; and the subject was
mutually handled in a calm and peaceable spirit. At length,
feeling my mind released from the burden which I had been
under, I took my leave of them in a good degree of satisfaction ;
and by the tenderness they manifested in regard to the practice,
and the concern several of them expressed in relation to the
manner of disposing of their negroes after their decease, I
believed that a good exercise was spreading amongst them ; and
I am humbly thankful to God, who supported my mind and
preserved me in a good degree of resignation through these
trials." l
This tender soul, by his gentle spirit and his words
which seemed given him from above, moved many
Friends to a higher moral level. The advance is very
apparent in the minute of the Yearly Meeting adopted
this year :
" We fervently warn all in profession with us, that they be
careful to avoid being in any way concerned in reaping the
unrighteous profits of that iniquitous practice in dealing in
1 Journal, pp. 163-165 and 166-168.
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 163
negroes. We can do no less than, with the greatest earnestness,
impress it upon Friends everywhere, that they endeavour to keep
their hands clear of this unrighteous gain of oppression."
A clause was added to the Queries at this same Yearly
Meeting, asking if Friends who hold slaves " treat them
with tenderness, impress God's fear in their minds, promote
their attending places of religious worship, and give those
that are young, at least, so much learning that they may
be capable of reading," it being taken for granted that no
Friend was to buy any new slaves. From this date
onward the light spread rapidly, and the Society went to
work with zeal, doubtless sometimes exhibited in harsh
and narrow ways, to clear its skirts not only of traffic in
slaves, but of ownership of them as well.
Shortly after John Woolman's visit, Greenwich Monthly
Meeting brought its member, Samuel Rodman, " under
dealing " " on account of his buying a negro slave," and
passed judgment against his act. The advice of the
Quarterly and Yearly Meetings was asked in the matter,
and both these meetings confirmed the Monthly Meeting
in its " Sence and Judgment," which was " that there
ought to go out a publick Testimony and Denial of
Samuel Rodman " ; he was accordingly disowned.1
In 1769 Greenwich Monthly Meeting sent a request
to the Yearly Meeting, through the Quarterly Meeting,
that the " Query " of 1760 should be so changed as " not
to imply that the holding of slaves was allowable." As
is the custom with Friends, such a weighty proposal,
affecting the affairs of many members, would receive most
careful consideration, and a conclusion would be arrived
at only as " the way of Truth " opened. The first step
was to appoint at the Yearly Meeting in 1769 a com
mittee of eleven, made up of the leading men of the
Society, to collect information, and to visit all slave-holding
1 I find this minute on the Records of Newport Monthly Meeting for
7/29/1761 : "A Friend appeared in this meeting and condemned his conduct in
importing of Negroes, and selling some, and hopes he shall be more careful for
the future, and desires Friends to put it by, which is taken for satisfaction." The
famous case of continued dealing with Joshua Rathbun, beginning in 1765 and
covering eight years, is given at length in Caroline Hazard's Narragansett Friends'
Meetings, pp. 144-152.
164 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Friends in the territory of the Yearly Meeting to " dissuade
them from the practice of keeping slaves." The report of
this committee, given in 1771, is a valuable document,
and shows pretty clearly the prevailing state of mind. It
is as follows :
*r
" We have pretty generally visited the members belonging to
the Yearly Meeting who are possessed of negroes as slaves,
and have laboured with them respecting setting such at liberty
that are suitable for freedom. Our visits mostly seemed to be
kindly accepted, some Friends manifested a disposition to set
such at liberty as were suitable ; some others not having so clear
a sight of such an unreasonable servitude as could be desired,
were unwilling to comply with the advice ; a few others, whom
we have with sorrow to remark were mostly of the elder sort,
manifested a disposition to keep them still in a continued state
of bondage."
Two years later, in 1773, the Meeting faced the
question of the " Query " in this plain and straightforward
fashion :
" In regard to the Query from Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting
proposing the freeing of all slaves, it is our sense and judgment
that Truth not only requires the young of capacity and ability, but
likewise the aged and impotent, and all in a state of infancy and
nonage, among Friends to be discharged and set free from a state of
slavery that we do no more claim property in the human race as we
do in the brutes that perish"
Under this decision of the supreme legislative body
of New England Friends, the subordinate meetings now
went to work everywhere to carry out the spirit and
principle of 1773, and the records for the next ten years
contain numerous minutes of " dealing " with Quaker
slave-owners, showing in every case that the only way
for a Friend owning a slave to avoid disownment was to
" give the negro a manumission to Friends' satisfaction."
The most celebrated case of " dealing " in New England
was that of Stephen Hopkins, a member of Smithfield
Monthly Meeting. He had been governor of the colony
of Rhode Island for nine annual terms. He was easily
the foremost citizen of his colony, but he owned one slave
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 165
woman and would not set her free. This is what the
meeting did with the case :
"The matter concerning Stephen Hopkins holding a negro
woman as a slave was considered, and as he still refuses to set
her at liberty, though often requested, this meeting puts him from
under their care, and appoints Moses Farnum and George
Comstock to draw up a paper of denial against him, and bring
to next Monthly Meeting." 1
As soon as the machinery was well in motion for the
removal of every trace of human slavery from the Quaker
group, positive efforts were at once inaugurated to bring
influence to bear in shaping legislation in the direction of
abolition. In 1774 this minute was adopted at the
Yearly Meeting :
" This Meeting, manifesting a concern that the liberty of the
Africans might be fully restored, we appoint our Friends Thomas
Hazard, Ezekiel Comstock, Thomas Lapham, Jr., Stephen
Hoxie, Joseph Congdon, Isaac Lawton, and Moses Farnum,
a committee to use their influence at the Generall Assembly of
the Colony of Rhode Island, or with the members thereof, that
such laws may be made as will tend to the abolition of slavery,
and to get such laws repealed as in any way encourages it." 2
And in 1787 a powerful memorial was sent from the
Yearly Meeting to the General Court of Massachusetts,
urging that as that commonwealth had been " the first on
this continent to constitutionally abolish slavery " in its
domain, so it should now formulate legislation to prevent
its citizens from engaging in " the unrighteous traffic " in
slaves, " manifesting thereby," they say, " your endeavours
that the great revolution of this country, founded on a
declaration against invasion of civil liberty, may not be
tarnished by suffering your subjects to continue a traffic
which perpetuates slavery." A boy born in 1807, the
descendant of ancestors who had taken part in this slow
1 "Drawing up a paper of denial" is a euphemism for "disowning," i.e.
expulsion from membership. As Stephen Hopkins went out of the Quaker
Society his friend Moses Brown of Providence came in, and as a preparation to this
step freed all his slaves. See Augustine Jones' Moses Brown : A Sketch.
2 Rhode Island Legislature passed an Act that very year, 1774, by which the
enslaving of negroes was for ever prohibited. Stephen Hopkins was the author
of this famous Bill.
166 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Quaker uprising against the wicked custom of enslaving
men, was above all others to sound the trumpet against it
in the nineteenth century, and was to stand in the front of
the moral battle for freedom — John Green leaf Whittier.
Friends have always emphasized the importance of
education, and wherever Quakerism flourished the school-
house followed close after the " meeting-house," while in
some notable instances there has been one building for
both. The first minute on education which I have found
in New England is on the Records of Newport Monthly
Meeting under date of twelfth month 24th, 1684:
" Upon request and desire of Christian Loddwick to have the
use of the Meeting House in Newport for keeping of a school,
Friends, upon consideration and desire to do him good, do
grant it and are also willing to give him what encouragement
they can." l
The course taken by the Newport Friends was a very
usual one in any Quaker community. For the first
hundred years of their history the New England Friends
had only these local schools for the " guarded education "
of their children, but in the 'seventies of the eighteenth
century there appears to have been a powerful awakening
to the need of broader education and for a more adequate
educational system. A large committee of broad-minded
men was appointed at the Yearly Meeting of 1779, and
the Quarterly Meetings were asked to appoint co-operat
ing committees of " solid Friends," who after the usual
careful and weighty deliberation, carried on for three years,
recommended the establishment of a central school for
the entire Yearly Meeting, one of its functions being the
1 There are two further minutes which throw interesting light on the history of
this school : —
12/26/1711. — " The Friends appointed to lay out as much land as might be
thought suitable for to set a school-house on, made report that they have laid
out a certain piece of land adjoining to Sam. Easton's land containing sixty feet
fronting upon the lane and eighty feet deep. "
6/26/1718. — "The proprietors of the school-house in Newport have freely
surrendered and given up their rights in said School-house to the Monthly
Meeting to be continued by said Meeting for a school-house, and that said
Meeting pay to the several proprietors what they have advanced more than their
subscriptions within one year's time with reasonable interest. The money
advanced by the several proprietors which is to be paid by this meeting is
£56:4:8."
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 167
preparation of teachers for the local communities. It was
a difficult matter to fix upon a satisfactory location, but
finally Portsmouth, R.I., was selected as the favoured place.
The school was accordingly opened there in 1784, being
the first Yearly Meeting School established in America.
Isaac Lawton was selected to be the " master " of it, and
he accepted the position in the " trust that he will receive
seventy-five pounds per year to keep the school." l The
price of board was arranged to be four shillings per week
for children under fourteen, and " four and six for those
above." The hoped-for funds for this important venture
did not materialize, and in 1788 the school came to a
speedy close of its career.2
Friends came into collision at so many points with the
Churches of what they call the " Presbyterian system "
that there was little opportunity for them in colonial days
to co-operate with their Christian neighbours in New
England in moral and philanthropic undertakings. The
result was that they felt themselves forced to discover
their own peculiar moral activities and their own humani
tarian efforts. Quite naturally, at first they were specially
absorbed in the work of winning their own emancipation
from what appeared to them the tyranny of those who
made laws for them, but as fast as they won their freedom
they took up the fight on behalf of other peoples who were
oppressed and hampered, and they proved to be good
leaders of what seemed at the time " lost causes " and
" forlorn hopes." Their primary concern, as I have
already implied, was the formation of a " peculiar people."
This aim, to my mind, always hampered them, limited
their scope, and narrowed their field of public usefulness,
but as I am endeavouring to give a faithful historical picture,
I must dwell for a little, in concluding this chapter, upon
their zealous labours to construct their own " beloved Zion."
They were the bearers of a religious message which in
1 This extravagant fee was soon dropped to fifty pounds !
2 Through the persistent efforts of Moses Brown of Providence, one of the
main creators of this Portsmouth school, and by the assistance of his generous
gift, the school was revived in 1819, located at Providence, and has had a famous
history and has rendered great service to the cause of education.
1 68 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
essence and idea contained much that was permanent and
universal. They showed a real genius for feeling out the
great elemental truths of Christianity and for avoiding the
scholastic formulations which were doomed, sooner or
later, to have " mene " written on them. While others
were still speculating over the " decrees " and " schemes "
of a divine Sovereign, they were living in a joyous
consciousness of a divine Father who was, and is, and
will be the inward Spirit and Life and Light of all who
strive and aspire. They no doubt often talked about
their conception of God in narrow and somewhat for
bidding terminology, but wherever one comes upon their
great central idea, adequately expressed, in epistle, sermon,
or autobiographical journal, he finds a glimpse, at least,
of an ever new yet ever old truth, that God is immanent,
self-revealing, and eternally redeeming the race, and
working His Life into the lives of men.1 But the
moment one leaves this central doctrine and turns to the
efforts which were made to maintain peculiarities, the
" genius " appears lacking, and the movement seems to
be caught in a back-wash. There was, no doubt, a real
call in the middle decades of the seventeenth century for
a vigorous and uncompromising campaign against sham
and hollowness, and for a protest against fashions and
forms of etiquette which were a burden to the life, and
which buried the person under a rubbish of meaningless
mannerisms. The Quaker uttered that protest with a
commendable fearlessness, and he had a straightforward
way of calling things by their plain names and of bringing
the naked truth to the front. That was good service ;
and so, too, was his steady insistence on human equality
and the potential nobility of every man.
1 Here are two sample passages from epistles which were read in all their
meetings : "Be careful and labor in the peaceable gospel, to settle, stay, and
establish peoples' minds in the holy principle of Life and Light . . . and where
there is the least budding or breaking forth of Life let it be nourished and
encouraged." — London Epistle of 1672. "And now, dear friends, who profess
and possess that which is above all religions, ways, and worships in the world,
our desire is that you may outstrip and exceed the world in virtue, in purity, in
chastity, in godliness, and in holiness ; and in modesty, civility, and in righteous
ness and love, so that your sober life may appear to all and may answer that of
God in all. " — Epistle of George Fox to New England Friends in 1684.
CH. vii NEW TYPE OF SOCIAL RELIGION 169
But it is an unmistakable fact that the principle soon
fell to a subconscious level, and the " testimonies," which
probably had their origin in vitality, as a graphic method
of uttering human principle, became an end in themselves
and were finally cherished as the badges of a peculiar
people. The use of " thee " and " thou " was initiated
from a sincere desire to emphasize the equality of men,
for the plural " you " was used only in addressing persons
of dignity and standing ; but the use of " you " rapidly
became universal custom, and whatever principle may have
attached to "thou" disappeared, and the New England
Quaker of the eighteenth century could give no reason for
this peculiar language. The hat " testimony " came to be
even more devoid of significance and rationality. There
may have been some point once in keeping covered
because of a desire not " to give to men an honour which
belonged to God," but the custom of wearing the hat
before magistrates and in religious assemblies soon became
only a " custom." It ceased to have an inner meaning,
and it proclaimed no important truth, as one realises at
once when he reads the explanations which were given
for it. When we remember that almost nothing cost
so much in suffering as did this refusal to " uncover "
we can only wish the life had been staked on a greater
issue.1
The refusal to take an oath was in a higher region of
principle — the determination that there should be but one
standard of truth-telling. But the significance of even this
testimony was much blurred by the failure to exhibit its
living import and by the tendency to treat it as a " com
mand." It was, again, a great drop when the Quaker passed
from his primitive call to simplicity of life and freedom
from the yoke of fashion, and took the dangerously easy
method of adopting a garb, which soon came to be
1 It is evident that the Quaker converts in New England at once adopted this
badge. Humphrey Norton gives us this interesting passage about the case of
William Shattuck of Boston, who is here speaking for himself: "After I was
convinced by the Light of the Lord in me I was brought to their court, and
entering with my hat on, John Endicott looking on me with great disdain said,
Art thou come to this?" — Ensign, p. 65.
1 70 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
another peculiar badge and a mark of " spirituality." 1
These things have, no doubt, been often defended, and
they were pursued in unmistakable sincerity ; but they
plainly drew attention away from the real spiritual
message, they quickly became ends-in-themselves, and as
they rose in importance, the propagation of spiritual
religion as a way of living for all men as men declined.
One reads to-day with melancholy and a sense of sadness,
of the vast labour and pains which these good people
bestowed on these " fences," and one wishes that the same
zeal had been bestowed in expanding their central living
truth of an indwelling and Emmanuel God who is un-
weariedly at work making a divine kingdom out of men
like us ! But while we speak with regret of the excessive
activity directed to the cultivation of customs, in their
very nature bound to arrest spiritual development, we can
review with enthusiasm the persistent efforts which these
same people made to emancipate the minds and bodies of
their fellow-men in New England and elsewhere, and one
is profoundly impressed with the conviction, as he goes
through their journals and epistles, that they had dis
covered the supreme secret — how to find God and enjoy
Him in the pathway of this our earthly life.
1 The importance of these badges appears in very early documents. An
Epistle of 1697 says : " Friends everywhere, keep to plainness in speech, habit,
and dealing, and keep to our testimony in calling the months and days by
Scripture names and not by heathen."
CHAPTER VIII
NEW ENGLAND QUAKERS IN POLITICS
THE first opportunity for a Quaker experiment in govern
ment came to the Friends in Rhode Island, where for
more than a hundred years, with temporary fluctuations
of their influence, they had an important share in the
direction of the affairs of the colony.
The Colony of Rhode Island was founded, as we have
seen, by a group of men who came into sharp collision
with the religious system of the Puritan Colony of
Massachusetts. Some of them were compulsory exiles,
and some of them were voluntary exiles, from the mother
Colony of Massachusetts, because they were highly
resolved to be free themselves and to set other men's
souls free from all ecclesiastical tyranny.1 The leading
persons in the group — Coddington, Coggeshall, Easton,
the Clarkes, Hutchinsons, Dyers, and Bulls — had already
arrived at a type of religion in many respects like that
of the Quakers, and those who joined themselves to
that movement, just beyond the middle of the seven
teenth century, adopted the new name with hardly a
change of idea, ideal, or practice. Coddington (b. 1601,
d. 1678) was the foremost man of the group.2 He was
1 The history of this controversy is told in Chapter I.
2 In the Preface of his Demonstration of True Love, written ' ' To the Rulers of
the Colony of Massachusetts " in 1672, Coddington says : "I was entrusted in
the first settling [of the Massachusetts Bay Colony] and with the chiefest in all
public charges [i.e. affairs] even before Boston was named or any house therein.
I builded the first good house, in which the governor now dwells. I having
spent much of my estate and prime of my age in propagating Plantations, and
now come to the last period, the seventieth year of my age ; in discharge of my
conscience toward God and in tender love and due respect to all, I write, as I
have done, to warn you of your general calamity, upon which I parted from you,
that persecuting spirit let loose ; and I rest yours in love, W.C."
171
172 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
judge of the Portsmouth Colony until Newport was
founded, and then he was chosen judge of that Colony.
When the two Colonies of Portsmouth and Newport were
united under one government he was successively chosen
Governor from 1640 to 1647. When the four Colonies
of Providence, Newport, Portsmouth, and Warwick were
united in one government under the charter of 1647,
John Coggeshall was chosen first President. William
Coddington was, however, elected to this office in 1648,
but was afterwards suspended from office, apparently
because of his over-zealous efforts to bring the Colony into
the New England Confederacy, which he felt was the
necessary step for the fulfilment of the larger destiny of
the Colony on the Narragansett. Soon after this he went
to England with large designs in his mind. He was
nursing the dream of a great island Colony in Narragansett
Bay, and his two attempts — in 1644 and 1648 — to bring
the Colony into the New England Confederacy had been
with the aim to safeguard and strengthen the infant state.
These attempts had failed. He now embarked for
England with a still bolder dream in his mind, to make
the Narragansett islands play the r61e in America which
the British islands had played in the old world ! He
assiduously cultivated the friendship of Sir Harry Vane,
formerly his friend in the days of Vane's governorship,
dining frequently with him ; seeking also the assistance of
his old theological opponent Hugh Peters, now a man of
large influence. Finally, in spite of the opposition of
Edward Winslow of Plymouth, Coddington secured,
through the British Council of State and the Committee
of Admiralty, a patent, signed April 1651 by Lord
President Bradshaw, making him proprietor of the islands
" Aquidnet " [otherwise Rhode Island] and " Quinunagate "
[otherwise Conanicut] and Governor for life.
This act of Coddington's was, to say the least, a rash
act, a profound blunder, and the colonists of Rhode Island
and Providence Plantations denied his authority and sent
John Clarke, a man of great parts, a genuine apostle of
soul liberty and a wise diplomatist, to England to get the
CH. vin THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 173
Coddington charter annulled.1 In 1656 Coddington, in
honourable and manly fashion, retreated from his mis
taken course. He was never a traitor, as Turner assumes,2
and wrote a letter engaging to submit " with all his
heart " to the lawful authority in the Colony, he having
already in 1652 signed a paper surrendering all claim to
anything more than his own share of the island of
Aquidneck.8 From this time to his death he was
prominent in the affairs of the Colony, and, as we shall
see, steadily received the mark of public confidence, and
was raised to the highest office in the gift of the people.
Weeden, in his valuable volume,4 declares that Coddington
was " a man of substance materially and mentally. Judge
Durfee considers that the well-organised judiciary of the
island betokens the presence of some man having not
only a large legal and legislative capacity, but also a
commanding influence. It was probably Coddington.
It is more than doubtful whether Rhode Island could
have attained a stable government without Coddington's
effort."
Nicholas Easton (b. 1592, d. 1675) built the first
house in Newport. He was one of the nineteen signers
of the Aquidneck Colonial " Contract," and his is the
second name on the " Agreement " of the Newport
Colony. He and John Clarke were appointed in 1639
to correspond with Sir Harry Vane upon the state of
affairs in the new Colony. He was elected " Assistant "
from 1640 to 1644. He was President of the Colony
in 1650, 1651, and 1654, and he was thus prepared for
the larger services to which he was called in his distinctly
Quaker period.
Sometime between 1657 and 1660 — the evidence
seems to point to the former date as the time —
Coddington, Nicholas Easton, John Easton, Joshua
1 Roger Williams went with Clarke as representative of the mainland towns.
- See article by Henry E. Turner, hostile to Coddington, in Rhode Island
Tracts, No. 4.
8 See Colony Records of Rhode Island, \. 327. He was that year elected a
commissioner to the General Court, which would not have happened if the people
of Newport had not believed in his integrity.
4 Weeden's Early Rhode Island (N.Y., 1910), p. 64.
174 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Coggeshall (son of John who had died in office in 1647),
Walter Clarke, Caleb Carr, and many other leading
citizens of the island-colony, joined the Quaker movement
with their families, and at once gave the persecuted people
the support of their names and their influence. It is
interesting to note that their affiliation with the religious
movement, so unpopular everywhere else, had from the
first no detrimental effect upon the political career of the
men who joined the Quaker meeting at Newport.
Nicholas Easton and his son John Easton were both
elected commissioners to the General Court of Rhode
Island and Providence Plantations in 1660, and Nicholas
was chosen Moderator of the Court that year, and John was
made Attorney-General, a position to which he was many
times elected until 1674, when he was raised to a higher
office. The following year, 1661, Caleb Carr was elected
Treasurer- General of the Colony, and he likewise continued
to hold a prominent place in the affairs of the Colony
until he was finally chosen Governor in 1695.
Nicholas Easton was the first Quaker to be raised to
the governorship of the Colony, he having been already
five times Deputy-Governor, beginning with the year I666.1
His term of office as Governor extended from 1672 to
1674. It was his lot, as it was also that of the later
Quaker Governors, to come into public prominence at the
critical time of war. This period, from 1666 to 1674,
when Easton was almost continuously in public office,
was disturbed by two wars between England and Holland,
and the Colonies which were within easy reach of the
Dutch in New Amsterdam were continually harassed
with anxiety, even though not actually involved in
border warfare. The first Dutch war of Charles II.'s reign
began in 1664, and was ended by the Peace of Breda in
1667. The second war began in 1672 and was ter
minated in 1674, permanently settling New York as
English territory. The wars between the mother-country
and the continental nations were complicated by alliances
1 The Great Charter of Rhode Island, secured from King Charles the Second,
had gone into operation in 1663.
CH. viii THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 175
of Indian tribes against the English colonists, and the
Rhode Island Quaker officials must many times have had
their consciences severely tested in these periods when
preparation for war was forced upon them. Left to them
selves the Rhode Island colonists could have maintained
peace, for their Indian policy was wise, humane, and
enlightened, and gained for them the confidence and
love of their Indian neighbours.1 But they were a tiny
part of a larger political system. They could not live
unto themselves. They received their Charter from the
English Government, and they were of necessity involved
in the schemes and quarrels of the mother-country as
well as in the expanding movements of the Colonies
surrounding them, and, try as they might to keep their
domain in peace, they found themselves dragged into the
grinding millstones of war.
The Quaker officials in the Rhode Island Colony were
in every instance devoted to the maintenance of peace.
They exerted themselves to the utmost to keep the
Colony out of actual war ; but they seem to have settled
it as their policy to stay in office, when they were put
there by the people, even though they found themselves
compelled, by unavoidable conditions and circumstances,
to perform public acts of a warlike nature. When they
found that the great current of events could not be forced
to take the course which in their vision seemed the ideal
one, they faced the stubborn conditions that existed and
did the best they could with them. They discovered,
what all practical workers discover, that the achievement
of great ends and high ideals can be won only by slow
stages and by graceful bends around obstacles which are
for the moment immovable. There has always been in
the Society of Friends a group of persons pledged
unswervingly to the ideal. To those who form this inner
group compromise is under no circumstance allowable.
1 One of the significant acts of Nicholas Easton's administration as Governor
was the order that one-half of the jury which was to try an Indian for murder
should be composed of Indians, and that Indian testimony should be received
on the same basis as the testimony of Englishmen. See Arnold's History of Rhode
Island, i. 367.
1 76 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
If there comes a collision between allegiance to the ideal
and the holding of public office, then the office must be
deserted. If obedience to the soul's vision involves eye
or hand, houses or lands or life, they must be immediately
surrendered. But there has always been as well another
group who have held it to be equally imperative to work
out their principles of life in the complex affairs of the
community and the State, where to gain an end one
must yield something ; where to get on one must submit
to existing conditions ; and where to achieve ultimate
triumph one must risk his ideals to the tender mercies
of a world not yet ripe for them. John Woolman,
the consummate flower of American Quakerism in the
eighteenth century, is the shining type of the former
principle, and the Rhode Island governors are good types
of the other course.
Nicholas Easton was the first to face this hard issue
of war, and his policy, distinctly at variance with that
later pursued by the Pennsylvania Quakers, was followed
by all the Quaker governors of Rhode Island.
By act of the General Court the I3th of May 1667,
he was appointed chairman of a committee to make a
rate for the levying of ^150 for the defence of Newport
against a common enemy, and for " mounting the great
gun," " in order to prevent such mischiefs and miseries
as may happen for the want of the same." l It appears
from the Records that the Quaker Deputy-Governor did
not help to " mount the great gun," as it was mounted
by the military men of the Colony.2
Just before Nicholas Easton was raised to the governor
ship the Colony was believed to be in imminent danger
of aggressive attack, as the following record of the General
Court shows :
" August 31, 1671. — There being a great necessity to put the
Colony in a posture of defence att this time, wherein there are
soe apparent grounds to expect some treacherous designes and
1 Colony Records of Rhode Island, ii. 197. Daniel Gould, John Gould, and
Peter Easton, all Friends, were on this committee.
8 Ibid.
CH. vm THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 177
practices from the Indians, itt is therefore ordered, that the
Towne Councills and Councills of Warr, of each respective towne
on the Island, shall meete at Mr. Geo. Lawton's dwelling-house
in the bounds of Portsmouth, on Tuesday, the fifth day of
September, now next insueing, at nine of the clock in the fore
noon, then and there to consider of some wayes and means for
secureing the inhabitants and their estates in these times of
imminent danger." l
That was surely a difficult time for the infant state,
and it was a hard crisis for the beginning of a Quaker
administration. The new " administration " was, however,
prevailingly Quaker. Nicholas Easton was Governor,
John Cranston, Deputy-Governor,2 John Easton, son of
Nicholas, was Attorney-General, and Joshua Coggeshall,
John Easton, and Peter Easton were assistants. One of
the first acts of the Council under this Quaker administra
tion looked toward preparation for the military defence
of the Colony, though here again we have no way of
knowing what part, active or passive, the Quaker members
actually took. The Act reads :
" Whereas, wee have received speciall order from his Majestic
for the Proclamation of Warr against the Dutch, and the puttinge
this Collony into a posture of defence, this Councill doe recom
mend and doe order and empower the Magistrates, together with
the Captain, Lieutenant, and Ensigne of the respective townes,
or the major part of them, to take care, order, and putt the
inhabitants of each towne into the best posture of defence may
be, for the maintaininge the King's interest in this Collony ; and
to that end, to act and order to the best of their discretion, until
the Generall Assembly or Councill take further order; and
especially to take care for powder, shott, and ammunition, and
to inquire after and secure what may be found in the Collony." 8
At the election of 1673, when the war was at its
height, when the Colony was in feverish anxiety, and when
the coolest heads were needed in counsel, Easton was
again elected Governor, William Coddington was chosen
Deputy-Governor, and Walter Clarke, one of the foremost
1 Colony Records of Rhode Island, ii. 409.
2 John Cranston was not a Friend in membership though he attended the
Yearly Meeting in 1672. See Fox's Journal (edition 1901) ii. 168.
3 Colony Records of Rhode Island, ii. 463.
N
i;8 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
members of the Newport meeting, was added to the list
of assistants.
The Dutch succeeded in recapturing New York on
the 3<Dth of July 1673, and this caused much commotion
in Newport. A special session of the General Assembly
was called to provide for the defence of the Colony, and
many military measures were passed. The following Act
would certainly put a peace-loving Quaker in a hard
dilemma :
"Voted, forasmuch as there seemeth a present danger by
reason of the Dutch forces, whoe the 30th of July last tooke
New Yorke, and may unhappily assault and fall upon us, as a
ready provision and fittings against such said danger :
"It is enacted, that authority is given to the Governor, and
in his absence to the Deputy-Governor, and major part of the
assistants, for the time beinge (at any time when the Generall
Assembly is not sittinge), to nominate, appoint, and constitute
such and soe many commanders, and military officers as to them
shall seeme requisite for the leadinge, conductinge, and trayninge
up the inhabitants of the said Plantation in martiall affaires."
And it was further enacted :
"that the Governor or, in his absence, the Deputy-Governor,
[both Quakers] and all the Assistants on this Island, if the
Dutch or any other public enemy shall, in open hostility against
the King, assault it or fall upon his subjects here ; then all of
them, if able and in health, shall in all time of danger be with
or as neere as may be convenient to the eldest Captaine in
chiefe [John Cranston] to give to him speciall and perticular
directions as the danger shall then occasion, for the safety of the
whole ; and the Governor, or Deputy-Governor, and all the
Assistants on the Island that shall be able, shall with the first
information, allarm, or knowledge of the approach or invasion
of the said enemy come together and be ready in the most
convenient place to consult and agree how for the best safety
and best loyalty to answer any summons such said enemy may
send to them." l
The Assembly thereupon proceeded to draft a pension
law for the " reliefe of souldiers that lose their limbs and
the reliefe for the relations whose dependency was on
1 Colony Records of Rhode Island, ii. 489.
CH. vni THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 179
such as are slayne " — one of the earliest American pension
laws. In the next Act the hand of the Quakers is plainly
seen. They had been unable to stop the occasion of the
present war, and they were powerless to prevent the war
like preparations for the defence of those who believed
in the propriety of war, but they now made full provision
for the relief of tender consciences. This Act of exemp
tion from military duties for conscience' sake, passed the
1 3th of August 1673 — the first Act of the sort ever
passed in America, — is a very curious and quaint document
full of odd Scripture texts and allusions, but it is too long
to be given in full.
The Act declares that " the inhabitants of this colony
have a conscience " against requiring taking an oath,
" how much more," it adds, " ought such men forbear to
compel their equal neighbors against their consciences to
trayne to fight and to kill."
" Bee it therefore enacted, and hereby it is enacted by his
Majesty's authority, that noe person (within this Collony), that
is or hereafter shall be persuaded in his conscience that he
cannot or ought not to trayne, to learne to fight, nor to war, nor
kill any person or persons, shall at any time be compelled against
his judgment and conscience to trayne, arm, or fight, to kill any
person or persons by reason of or at the command of any officer
of this Collony, civil nor military, nor by reason of any by-law
here past or formerly enacted ; nor shall suffer any punishment,
fine, distraint, pennalty, nor imprisonment, who cannot in con
science traine, fight, nor kill any person nor persons for the
aforesaid reasons." :
At the next general election William Coddington was
chosen Governor, and John Easton Deputy -Governor,
while Peter Easton filled both offices of Attorney-General
and Colonial Treasurer. Shortly before his election to
the governorship Coddington had built himself a great
house in Marlborough Street. It was spacious and
adapted for the entertainment of many visitors. In the
great room of this house the Quaker meeting of Newport
was held for many years, and at the time of George Fox's
visit the Yearly Meeting was held there, and in this house
1 This Act is in the Rhode Island Colony Records, ii. 495-499.
i8o QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Coddington entertained the Governor of Massachusetts,
Richard Bellingham, on his memorable visit to Rhode
Island.1 Soon after the election which freed him from
the responsibility of public office, Nicholas Easton passed
away full of years and having achieved the highest honours
his Colony had to bestow. He had helped form the
infant settlement in Newbury, Massachusetts ; he had
built the first English house in Hampton ; he had bravely
followed his light in the trying days which parted the
Puritan colony into two religious groups, and he had been
in the front line of the pioneers of religious freedom on
Rhode Island. He had built the first house in Newport,
the first windmill on the island ; and he had been among
the first to throw in his lot with the new-born Quaker
Society. He had been the constant companion of George
Fox in his two months of labour in New England, and
he had finished the course of an eventful life by piloting
his Colony through two administrations complicated by
the problems of imminent war.
During Easton's period of public service the Colony
was swept by a cyclonic disturbance of internal contention.
The colonial records describe it as "an uncomfortable
difference of which there seemed to be no peaceable
composure " ; as " dangerous contests, distractions, and
divisions among our ancient, loving, and honoured neigh
bours, the freemen of the town of Providence, by which
the town is in an incapacity of transacting its own affairs,"
making " a breech in the whole." 2 This bitter quarrel
had broken out over William Harris' claim of ownership
to extensive lands stretching up the Pawtuxet River and
other streams. Harris was a strenuous man of affairs,
" pertinacious in temperament," and inclined to be a local
storm-centre. His opponents, in the pamphleteering
manner of the times, called him " a fire-brand," " a
salamander always delighting to live in ye fire of con-
1 ' ' Did I not entertain Richard Bellingham and his company nine or ten days
in my house on Rhode Island ? " — A Demonstration of True Love, p. 15. The
first Friends' Meeting- House in Newport was already built in 1672, but many of
the meetings were still held in Coddington's house. Stephen Gould, who saw
this house torn down, has left a very interesting sketch of its history.
8 Rhode Island Colony Records, ii. 289-293.
CH. vm THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 181
tention," " a raging sea casting forth mire and dirt ! " l
He, in turn, called them — the Roger Williams faction
and the Fenner party — " the makers of poysonous
plaisters against our rights in lands and laws." So fierce
was the storm that a special session of the General
Assembly was called, and two Newport Quakers, John
Easton and Joshua Coggeshall, were " chosen and author
ised " to call a Providence town meeting in the name of
the General Assembly, superintend the choice of officers,
and bring civil order out of the chaos — a delicate and
difficult task which was in the end successfully carried
through.2
As Coddington began his administration news came to
the Colony that peace was established between England
and Holland, and the strain and anxiety of war seemed
happily over. One disturbance disquieted the Colony.
There were visible signs that Rhode Island was to have
difficulty in establishing its rightful claim to the Narra-
gansett country on the west shore of the Bay — a region
for many years in hot dispute. One of the new Governor's
first acts was to proceed with his council to the district in
dispute and to establish there the township of Kingstown
(now called Kingston), which was incorporated by the
General Assembly as the seventh town of Rhode Island.
After one peaceful term of office William Coddington was
re-elected, but the days of peace and calm were over, and
his second term of office was destined to see the fiercest
storm of Indian war which the New England Colonies
ever experienced — the contest known in history as " King
Philip's War."
This war was the natural outcome of the irresistible
collision of two races, two civilisations, incompatible with
each other. The collision came at this particular crisis
because the Indian cause just then happened to be
embodied in a great natural leader of men in the person
of the Indian chief, King Philip, son of Massasoit. Philip
1 Rhode Island Historical Society Collection, x. 78.
3 Lott Strange and Joseph Torrey were added to the committee of two ' ' for
Counsel and Advice," Records, ii. 293. Harris himself became a Quaker after
George Fox's visit to the Colony.
1 82 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
believed that he had been greatly wronged by the
English, especially those of Plymouth Colony, and he saw
no hope of gaining the old time rights, privileges, and
conditions of Indian life, except by a master stroke at
the life of the English settlers.
It was always the Quaker way to endeavour to prevent
war by removing the occasion for it, and the Quakers in
authority at this crisis made a vigorous trial of their
method. As the sky was darkening with ominous clouds
of war, five men, with John Easton, the Deputy-Governor
of the Colony of Rhode Island, at their head, rowed up
to King Philip's headquarters at Mount Hope — a pro
montory jutting into Narragansett Bay — to try counsel
and persuasion with him in order to bring about, if
possible, an arbitration of the difficulties.
The five visitors all came to the council unarmed, and
Philip laid aside his weapons for the occasion, though his
warriors, about forty in number, were armed ; and Easton,
who wrote the only account of this famous conference,
says : " We sat veri friendly together. We told him our
bisness was to indever that they [the Indians] might not
receve or do rong." l " We told them," the narrative
continues, " that our desire was that the quarrel might be
rightly decided in the best way, not as dogs decide their
quarrels." The Indians "owned that fighting was the
worst way, but they inquired how right might take place
without fighting. We said by arbitration. They said
that by arbitration the English agreed against them, and
so by arbitration they had much rong." 2 " We said they
might chuse a Indian King and the English might chuse
the Governor of New Yorke, that neither had case to say
that either wear parties to the difference. They said they
had not heard of this way. We were persuaded that if
this way had been tendered they would have accepted."8
Philip then proceeded to spread before them a long
list of Indian grievances. Philip said : " Their King's
father [Massasoit], when the English first came, was a
1 Easton's Narrative (Hough edition), p. 7. This narrative is a marvellous
specimen of seventeenth-century spelling !
« Ibid. p. 8. 3 Ibid. p. 10.
CH. vm THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 183
great man and the English as a littill child. He con
strained the other Indians from ronging the English, and
gave them corn and shewed them how to plant it and was
free to do them ani good." " But their King's brother
[Alexander], when he was King came miserably to dy,
being forced to court, and as they judged poysoned."
" Another Greavance was, if 20 of their onest Indiands
testified that a Englishman had dun them rong it was
nothing, but if one of their worst Indians testified against
any Indian, or their King, when it pleased the English, it
was suficiant." Finally Philip complained that the
English were " eager to sell the Indians lickers [liquors]
that most Indians spent all in drynknes and then raved
upon the sober Indians ! " 1
The visitors pleaded all day for arbitration, but there
seemed no practical way of bringing it about, for the five
counsellors were incapable of convincing the Indians that
they could bring the other Colonies to their peaceful view,
and Easton concludes his Narrative, written while the
war was in progress, with the sectarian remark :
" I am persuaded of New England Frists [ministers] they are
so blinded by the spirit of Persecution and [so eager] to maintain
their hyer [hire] that they have been the case [cause] that the law
of Nations and the Law of Arems have been violated in this
War [war was begun without any formal declaration]. The war
would not have been if ther had not bine hyerlings." 2
Upon the very heels of this conference the storm
broke with fury upon the inhabitants who lived along the
shores of the bay.8 The Quakers of Rhode Island held
the view throughout the conflict that it was an unnecessary
war, and might have been avoided if the other Colonies
had shown Philip fair treatment, but in any case the
innocent were involved with those who were responsible
for the calamity, and the mainland of Rhode Island came
1 Easton's Narrative (Hough edition), pp. 12, 13. z Ibid. pp. 30, 31.
3 King Philip's war began 24th June 1675, the Easton Conference occurred
1 7th June. The Narragansett Indians were most kindly disposed toward the
Friends on the Island. The Indian chief Pessicus told the Newport magistrates
that his heart was affected and sorrowed for the English, but "he could not rule
[i.e. overrule] the young Indians nor persuade the other chiefs."
184 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES me. i
in for a heavy share of the suffering. It was the Quaker
policy to make the Island a safe city of refuge, and to
bring the outlying inhabitants thither.1 Providence and
Warwick sent urgent appeals for military assistance, and
the General Assembly of 1676 answered them through a
committee of six, of which the Quakers, Walter Clarke,
Joshua Coggeshall, and Caleb Carr were members, as
follows :
" After searious debate and well weighings of your hazardous
and present condition, wee declare that wee finde this Collony is
not of ability to maintaine sufficient garrisons for the security of
our out-Plantations. Therefore, we thinke and judge it most safe
for the inhabitants to repaire to this Island, which is the most
secureist. Newport and Portsmouth inhabitants have taken
such care that those of the Collony that come, and cannot
procure land to plant for themselves and families, reliefe may be
supplied with land by the townes ; and each family soe wantinge
a Hbertye, shall have a cow kept upon the commons ; butt if
any of you think yourselves of abillity to keepe your interest of
houses and cattell, and will adventure your lives [by staying
where you are] we shall not positively oppose you therein ; but
this the Assembly declares as their sense and reall beliefe con-
cerninge the premises, that those that soe doth make themselves
a prey, and what they have as goods, provisions, ammunition,
cattell, etc., will be a reliefe to the enemy at their pleasure,
except more than ordinary Providence prevent, therefore we
cannot but judge them wisest that take the safest course to
secure themselves, and take the occasion from the enemy." 2
There exists a very odd letter, signed by Walter
Clarke, written 28th January 1676, which further indicates
the Quaker policy. It is in answer to an appeal for
assistance from Providence. Clarke endeavours to
quiet " the discontent of spirit " which prevailed in
Providence toward the Newport authorities, " as if they
were not worthy to live," by explaining that " the weal of
the Colony " would have been attended to if the weather
1 Drake's Old Indian Chronicle says, "Rhode Island now became the
common /oar, or place of refuge for the distressed, " p. 224. A minute of the
executive council of New York of this date says that ' ' Great Numbers of the
people flock t to Rhode Island from their habitations destroyed, insomuch that
the inhabitants [of the island] are very much straitened by their numbers, and
will quickly want provisions. "
a Colony Records of Rhode Island, ii. 532-535.
CH. via THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 185
had not " obstructed " the execution of orders for defence.
He further offers the explanation, certainly not very
satisfactory to the sufferers, that if the " Administration "
had furnished soldiers to protect " the out-inhabitants " and
their property, the people would have been " damnified by
the charge for wages, ammunition, and diet ! " " The
island," he says, " has expended eight hundred pounds to
provide for the security and provision of those who are
there ; and all who cannot be secure where they are " had
best be transported hither," " for we are not of ability to
keep soldiers under pay." " Sorrows are to increase," he
thinks, and to have soldiers to pay and care for would
only add to the troubles of the already heavy times. He
warns them not to appeal for help to the other Colonies,
for they will in the end " make a prey of you " — there
was apparently no help left for the suffering "out-
inhabitants," but to wait for the salvation of the Lord !
This curious sentence was perhaps meant to be a comfort :
" I have done to the uttermost of my ability for your good
and shall do, yet we know the Lord's hand is against New
England [evidently Massachusetts and Plymouth] and no
weapon formed will prosper till the work be finished, and the
wheat [the Rhode Island saints !] must be pulled up with the
tears [tares] and the innocent suffer with the guilty ! " 1
On the 1 2th of April the same year, Walter Clarke
wrote again, in a somewhat more encouraging vein, with
less religious comment and with more practical direction :
" Only this for your present encouragement : we well approve
your advice and willingness to maintain a garrison, and have
agreed to bear the charge of ten men upon the Colony's account,
till the succeeding authority take further order,2 and that you
may take four of our men to strengthen you, or if it be wholly
by yourselves, we, as abovesaid, will bear the charge of ten of
them, and after the election, if those concerned see cause, and
the Colony be of ability to do it, I shall not obstruct, if it be
continued all the year. Be pleased to dispatch our ketch.3 I
1 Clarke's letter is printed in Staples' Annals, p. 167.
2 General election was about to occur, at which the writer of the letter,
Walter Clarke, was elected Governor.
8 A " ketch" was a strong two-masted vessel, generally carrying guns.
186 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
have no more to you but my kind love and desire of your peace
and safety as my own. WALTER CLARKE.1
A carefully planned attack was made on the Indians
by the colonial forces at South Kingston, near Tower Hill,
in the winter of 1675. It was a fierce engagement, 68 of
the English being killed and 150 wounded. The
wounded were brought across to the Island, where they
were kindly cared for. Drake's Old Indian Chronicle
says that " Governor William Coddington received the
wounded soldiers kindly, though some churlish Quakers
were not free to entertain them until compelled by the
Governor.2 Coddington at this time wrote a letter to the
Governor and Council of Massachusetts in a Postscript to
which he contrasts the way the Quakers have treated the
suffering soldiers of Massachusetts with the way the
people of Boston have treated, and are treating, the
Quakers there. The letter itself is very laconic :
"The Governor and Councell of ye Massachusetts and
Committee of ye United Colonies writing to us do give us
thanks for transporting their soldiers and Provisions, and that
sloops transported their wounded, and desired us to lett out
100 or 200 Souldiers, we answered you denying soe to do and
gave you our Grounds."
The Postscript, for which the letter was evidently
written, deals with a contemporary Boston proclamation
for a day of humiliation, in which proclamation was given
a list of Puritan " sins " that had brought this war upon
the nation as a judgment. The curious catalogue of sins
included : neglect to catechise the young, excess in
apparel, wearing of long hair, rudeness in worship, such
as, for example, the practice of leaving the church before
divine service had ended, and the recent neglect to suppress
the Quakers and their meetings. To show that the
proclamation was no empty call to repentance, a law was
simultaneously passed imposing a fine of five pounds
1 Staples' Annals, p. 167.
a Old Indian Chronicle (Boston edition, 1867), p. 211. These Quakers
believed the war thoroughly unjust, and desired to withhold from all acts which
might seem like taking part in the war, though in declining to nurse wounded
soldiers they were surely pushing their scruples too far.
CH. viii THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 187
upon every person who should attend a Quaker meeting,
with imprisonment at hard labour upon bread and water.1
Of this proclamation and law Governor Coddington,
with grim humour, writes in his Postscript :
" There is come to our Hands certain Lawes or Orders of ye
3rd November 1675 set forth by ye authority of your generall
Assembly of ye Massachusetts, your secretaries Hand being to
them, wherein you say you have apo stated from the Lord with a
great backsliding : To which I do consent ; so great [as] hardly
to be paralleled, all things considered. We were a people
prfessing ye Feare of ye Lord in England against Bishops and
Ceremonies in tender Love to all that prfessed Godliness, and
so departed from the land of our Nativity, declaring the Ground
of our Removall into N.E. viz. to seek out a Place for our
Brethren where we might enjoy the Liberty of our consciences
that ye sons of wickedness might vex us no more.
" How well this hath bin performed by you, let your printed
Lawes declare and this amongst the Rest : Our houses are
open to receive your wounded and all in distress, we have
prpared a Hospitall for yours, but you a House of Correction for
all that repaire to our Meetings. Your ministers with us have
not been molested, ours with you have been persecuted. Is
this a time for you to establish Iniquity by a Law — will not the
Lord be avenged on such a Nation as this that sets up Ministers
that are not made Ministers by ye power of an endless Life,
but of ye Letter that kills, and not ye spirit that gives Life, and
a Worship that is not in Spirit and Truth set [up] by Christ
above 1600 yeares agoe; we cannot come to you without
departing from ye Lord as you have done, therefore desiring
your return to ye Power that made you, ye true Light that is in
you. This is written by one who above 45 yeares past was one
of you and now is one that desires your true Good both Eternall
and temporall, as I did when I was with you and am yours in
Love.— W. C." 2
As a result of the great suffering occasioned through
out the Colony of Rhode Island by the progress of the
1 Colony Records of Massachusetts, v. 59.
2 Easton's Narrative, Appendix, pp. 132-135. A still more interesting piece
of Coddington correspondence is a letter under date of 22nd December 1675,
from Governor Andros of New York, charging the Governor of Rhode Island with
having seized powder and arms from a ship bound to the port of New York.
There is, unfortunately, no answer extant to this letter, which I give herewith :
" Hon. Sir, — This is by a sloop bound to yor parts not to omitt noe good oppor
tunity, though there bee nothing new, but that I heare that you stopped a vessel
bound to this place, on ace. of some Powder and Arnies in her, which (as re-
1 88 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
war — both Warwick and Providence were burned to the
ground — the General Assembly, at its meeting in April
1676, roused itself to military preparation in response to
the urgent calls of the non-insular inhabitants. It was
voted that " there appears absolute necessity for the
defence and safety of this Colony," and that " for the
orderly mannagings of the millitia this Assembly doe agree
to chose a major to be chiefe Captaine of all the Collony
forces." John Cranston was chosen to be the major,
with commission to use his " utmost endeavor to kill,
expulse, expell, take and destroy all and every the
enemies of this his majesty's collony," which commission
is signed by Governor Coddington.1 The Assembly
thereupon sent John Easton and George Lawton, both
Quakers, " with all convenient speed," to Providence with
full power " to determine whether a garrison or garrisons
shall be kept there at the charge of the Colony and the
place or places where they shall be kept and whether at
all." They decided on one garrison with seven men and
a commander.2
At the summer election of 1676, Walter Clarke, in
spite of his somewhat halting " Quaker war-policy," was
chosen Governor, though major John Cranston was
associated with him, as Deputy-Governor, to take charge
of military affairs.3 The Colony was in a sorry plight
when the new administration began. The war was
presented) would not only reflect on mee and the magistrates of this government
but on his Royall Highnesse and the King himself whose commissions I have.
I cannot give creditt to this report, not having heard from yorselfe or colony of
it, which I am confident I should, yet being told mee by sufficient men I pray I
may, etc. — E. ANDROSS." Easton's Narrative, pp. 130-131.
1 See Colony Records, ii. 537-539.
a Colony Records, ii. 545. The commander was Captain Fenner, and his
commission was signed by Walter Clarke, the next Quaker Governor.
3 William Edmundson, who visited Newport at this time, says : ' ' Great troubles
attended Friends by Reason of the war, which lay very heavy on places belong
ing to that Quarter without the Island, the Indians killing and burning all before
them ; and the People who were not Friends were outrageous to fight ; but the
Governor being a Friend (one Walter Clarke) could not give commissions to
kill and destroy men." — Edmundson's Journal (ed. 1715), p. 82. At the end of
the war the Magistrates of Plymouth wrote to the King their opinion of Quaker
Governors in war time : ' ' The truth is the authority of Rhode Island being
all the time of the warr in the hands of Quakers, they scarcely showed an English
spirit, either assisting us, their distressed neighbors, or relieving their own planta
tions upon the Mayne." — New England Papers, xxxiii. 5.
CH. viii THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 189
brought to an end by the mid-summer of 1676, when
Philip was hunted to his death in the swamps by
Mount Hope near the scene of Easton's arbitration
conference, but the non-insular towns of Rhode Island
were almost wiped off the map. Every house but one
between Providence and Stonington was destroyed, and
most of the territory outside the islands was like a desert.1
The new Governor was fortunately relieved from the
actual din of war, but he found himself loaded with many
problems which the war had left in its wake. One of the
problems was the treatment of the defeated Indians.
The other Colonies sold their captives as slaves. To
Rhode Island belongs the signal honour of having
inaugurated a more enlightened policy. An Act of the
Assembly was passed that " no Indian in this colony
be a slave." Some of the leaders who were captured
were brought to Newport, and tried by court-martial
and shot. Three Quakers, the Governor, John Easton,
and Joshua Coggeshall, were members of the court,
but apparently they did not attend the session, owing
to their conscientious scruples against capital punish
ment.2
Governor Clarke took the first opportunity of peace to
discharge the garrison at Providence, to which he had
consented only because of the overwhelming force of
popular demand. It was restored, however, by the
succeeding Governor, Benedict Arnold, who was a non-
Quaker. About this time a plague of some sort, a very
deadly epidemic, broke out and ravaged the Island.
William Edmundson, the Quaker traveller, has given us
our only account of it. He says :
1 Drake says that there was only one house left standing in Warwick, three
in Providence, and none in Pawtuxet (Old Indian Chronicle, p. 244). The
scholarly editor of Callender's Historical Discourse thinks that the sufferings of
the Colony and the lack of union in matters of defence ' ' were not owing only to
the religious principles of the gentlemen then at the head of our administration."
He points out that there are still in existence commissions signed and sealed by
the Quaker Governor and the Quaker Deputy-Governor directing Benedict Arnold,
jun. , "to go in an armed sloop to visit the garrisons at Providence. " The
Deputy-Governor gave solemn evidence that he was ' ' not against giving com
missions that are for the security of the King's interests in this colony." — Op. cit.
note, p. 134.
2 See Easton's Narrative, pp. 173-190.
190 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
" Whilst I staid at Rhode Island, the heat of the Indian war
abated, for King Philip, in that war of the Indians, was killed
and his party destroyed and subdued. Presently a sickness
came which proved mortal and took many away, few families
but lost some, in two or three days' sickness. Many Friends
died, yet I constantly visited sick families of Friends, although
the smell of the sickness was loathsome, and many times I could
feel all the parts of my body as it were loaden with it, so that
I would say to sick families, // was much I did not carry their
sickness away, I was so loaden therewith. After sometime it seized
upon me with such violence that I was forced to keep my bed
at Walter Newberry's in New-Port."1
In addition to the problems of restoring the devastated
province, now swept also by plague, and the problem of
the treatment of the Indians of the Colony, the Governor
had to face again the aggressions of Connecticut on the
Narragansett territory. Three Rhode Island citizens who
were engaged in restoring their desolate homesteads in
Narragansett were seized by Connecticut officers and
carried prisoners to Hartford. Appeal was made to
Governor Clarke, and he and his council wrote immediately,
demanding their release, and threatening reprisal if it was
refused.2 This affair, however, went over to the new
administration, for at the election of 1677 the Quakers
went out of office and the war-party triumphed. One of
the first acts of the new Assembly was a Militia Bill
which struck at the provision for Quaker exemption.
This Bill still insisted that there should be " free liberty
of conscience for the reall worship of God," but it
declared that
"Some under pretence of conscience hath taken liberty to
act contrary, and make voyde the power, strength, and authority
of the millitary soe necessary to be upheld and maintained, that
the civill power (in which the whole freedome and priviledges of
his Majesty's subjects are kept and preserved) cannot without
it be executed, and have soe far acted therein, that this his
Majesty's Collony at this time is in effect wholly destitute of the
millitary forces for the preservation thereof, and inhabitants
1 Edmundson's Journal, p. 82.
2 Arnold's History of Rhode Island, i. 425.
CH. vni THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 191
therein, and may thereby be made a prey unto the weakest and
meanest of his Majesty's enemys." l
The Act proceeds to provide for an efficient militia
into which all freemen are subject to draft :
"Provided, alwayes, and this Assembly doe hereby declare,
that it is their full and unanimous resolution to maintaine a full
liberty in religious concernments relateinge to the worship of
God, and that noe person in inhabitinge within this jurisdiction
shall bee in any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in
question for any differences of opinion in matters of religion,
whoe doe not actually disturbe the civill peace of the Collony." 2
Benedict Arnold, who had served the Colony twelve
times as Governor, and who was generally chosen when
the Quakers were not in office, died before his term of
office expired, and William Coddington, now an old man,
was selected to take the vacant place, but he did not live
to finish out the term, being on his deathbed when the
Assembly met, ist October 1678, and dying two days
later — " a good man, full of days," as Callender says,
" he died promoting the welfare and the prosperity of
the little commonwealth which he had in a manner
founded." 8
At the time of his death the Island colony, in which
he had been the chief figure, was five times as wealthy as
the other plantations in Rhode Island,4 and was forging
ahead with the promise of becoming one of the busiest
ports on the American coast, and one of the leading
centres of wealth and culture in the new world. The old
Governor had done much to make this development
possible, and Rhode Island owes him a large debt, even
though Judge Durfee's epigram upon him is in some
measure true : " He had in him a little too much of the
future for Massachusetts, and a little too much of the
past for Rhode Island." 5
At the next election, and for five years running,
Walter Clarke was chosen Deputy-Governor, and during
1 Colony Records, ii. 567. 2 Ibid. p. 571.
8 Historical Discourse, p. 52. 4 Weeden's Early Rhode Island, p. 97
5 Judge Durfee's Historical Discourse, p. 16.
192 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
this period John Easton, Caleb Carr, Peter Easton, and
Henry Bull, all of whom were Quakers, were almost
continuously in public service in one office or another.
William Coddington, son of the old Governor, filled the
governorship from 1683 until just before his death, which
occurred in 1685. This period, from the close of King
Philip's war to the coming of Andros — soon to be
described — was a time of fierce controversy for the
integrity of the Colony, as Connecticut, Plymouth, and
even New Hampshire were all laying claims to the
territory of the mainland of Rhode Island — a controversy
too long and complicated for this chapter.
When the junior Coddington found himself too ill
to accept office again — in 1685 — a fine old Quaker
gentleman, one of the original founders of Aquidneck,
Henry Bull, was elected Governor.1 It was plain to
everybody during this year that stormy times for the
Colony were coming on, and at the next May election
Walter Clarke, who had been continuously in office for
many years, was elected Governor, and three Quakers,
John Easton, Walter Newberry, and Edward Thurston,
were chosen assistants. Soon after election the storm
broke. The Assembly was informed in June of 1685, by
a writ of quo warranto z " from his gracious majesty King
James II., by the hand of Edward Randolph, Esq.,
secretary for the New England colonies," that the charter
of the Colony was " vacated," and that Rhode Island was
annexed to Massachusetts, " under his Majesty's laws and
government." Randolph's task in the Colonies had been
for some years to collect information which would furnish
adequate ground to annul the charters and bring the
whole of New England under the direct control of the
Crown, and upon his so-called " information " the King
now began to put into operation his large plans for an
extensive royal colony.
1 He was one of the sympathizers with Anne Hutchinson, and was " disarmed "
as a signer of " the petition." He married Nicholas Easton's widow Ann. He,
too, like Coddington, had a famous house in Newport in which meetings were
often held — a house which is still standing.
* It was one of the charges in the quo warranto that the Governor, Deputy-
Governor, assistants, deputies, and other officers were vnder no legal oaths.
CH. vni THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 193
The Rhode Island Assembly saw that resistance was
in vain, and " voted not to stand suit with his majesty,"
but they prepared " a humble address," asking that their
ancient privileges and liberties might be preserved.1 This
General Assembly, which was the last one to be held
until 1690, made provision for the separate towns of the
Colony to govern themselves, while the central colonial
administration was annuled. Each town was authorized
to hold an annual meeting of five days, or longer, and to
manage all matters pertaining to the life and prosperity
of the local civic community.2
In June 1686, Sir Edmund Andros, formerly Governor
of New York, was commissioned Governor of the united
Royal Colony, and almost upon entering upon his ad
ministration, Andros wrote, " in his Majesty's name,"
demanding the surrender of the charter of Rhode Island,
but Walter Clarke did not " feel way open," to send the
precious document of their liberties, and it remained in
his house. He and another prominent Friend, Walter
Newberry of Newport, were selected to be members of
Governor Andres's Council for New England,3 and they
attended the first meeting of the Council in Boston,
3Oth December 1686, when they took affirmation, refusing
to swear. Governor Andros at this time demanded the
delivery of the charter. The Rhode Island members
answered that, " 'Twas at the Governor's house in Newport,
and that it should be forthcoming when sent for, but in
1 Rhode Island Colony Records, iii. 190. The Friends sent a special address to
the King, in which they " humbly prostrated themselves before him," and begged
that their views in regard to oaths and war might be respected. Printed in
British State Paper Office (New England), vol. iv. p. 419.
2 Rhode Island Colony Records, iii. 191.
3 Randolph wrote to the authorities in England, 3151 March 1687 : " Our
council, consisting of twenty-six persons, has in it but three persons who are of
the Church of England. The rest are Quakers, Anabaptists, and either members
or followers of the congregational churches. You may from thence make your
estimate at what rate his Majestie's interest can be carried on." — Randolph
Correspondence (Prince Pub.), vi. 218. Walter Clarke was able to be of con
siderable service on the council to Friends, working particularly for the principle
of voluntary contribution for the support of ministry in place of compulsory rates.
See Randolph Papers, ii. 19. Randolph himself wrote a vigorous letter to
Governor Hinckley of Plymouth, calling him to sharp account for the "arbitrary,
illegal, and unheard of " methods of compelling Quakers to support the established
ministry. — Randolph Correspondence, iii. 267.
o
I94 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
regard to [i.e. on account of] the tediousness of the bad
weather it could not be brought ! " l
Each request for surrender was put off by temporising
methods, until finally Andros appeared in person with his
troops, returning from his fruitless charter " hunt " in
Connecticut, and demanded the Rhode Island charter then
and there. Walter Clarke, its custodian, was ready for
him since he had anticipated such a visit. The story is
well told in Theodore Foster's unpublished manuscript :
" In the month of November 1687 Sir Edmund Andros came
to Newport from Hartford attended by his suite and more than
sixty regular troups in order to possess himself of the charter.
Governor Clarke, who had it in possession, on hearing of his
arrival, sent it to his brother with orders to have it concealed in
some place in the knowledge of his secretary, with instructions
that the Governor himself should not be informed where it was.
Governor Clarke then went to wait on Sir E. Andros and invited
him to his house, and so contrived the business that though there
was a great parade of searching for it, it could not be found
while Sir Edmund remained in Newport. After his departure
it was returned to Gov. Clarke, who kept it, until the reorganisa
tion of the government in 1689 when he [Clarke] was again
elected to the office of Governor. His usual caution prevented
him from accepting the office, and induced him to refuse to
deliver up the charter until after the election of Henry Bull, and
on order of the sheriff to take him into custody and confine him
in prison — on which he sent the charter to Gov. Bull." 2
The " fall " of Andros came with the success of the
English Revolution, closing the Stuart regime and bringing
in William and Mary. When the news reached Newport
that the government of " usurpation " was at an end,
Walter Clarke wrote a letter to the freemen of the Colony,
informing them that the Government under which they
had been " subservient is now silenced and eclipsed," and
calling them to meet at Newport on the day designated
in the precious charter for elections, " there to consult and
agree on some suitable way in this present juncture." 3
1 Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, N.S. xiii. 242.
8 Foster Papers relative to the History of Rhode Island, i. 337, in the
Providence Historical Society.
3 This letter, in Walter Clarke's handwriting, is in vol. iv. of the Foster
Papers.
CH. vni THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 195
In accordance with this " call " the freemen of the colony
met at Newport ist May 1689, and adopted an address
indefinitely, " to the present supreme power in England,"
" being ignorant," they say, " of what titles should be given
and also not so rhetorical as becomes such personages." 1
Andros had reported that the " Quaker Grandees of
Rhode Island," who had royally entertained him when he
was Governor of New York, "had imbibed nothing of
Quakerism except its indifference to forms," and that they
cared nothing for the restoration of the old government.2
But the outburst of joy which was manifested at the fall
of Andros disproved his estimate. The Newport Assembly
declared their " gratitude to the good Providence of God
which had wonderfully supported their predecessors and
themselves through more than ordinary difficulties and
hardships," and they take it to be their duty " to lay hold
of our former gracious privileges, contained in our charter,"
and then by a unanimous vote the old officers were con
firmed. Walter Clarke, with excessive Quaker caution,
hesitated to return to the functions of his interrupted
office until he knew what the character of the new
English government was to be, and what colonial policy
it was to adopt.3
For ten months there was no central executive govern
ment, the meeting of the Assembly called for October by
Governor Clarke having been prevented by heavy storms.
At the Assembly in February 1690, Clarke still declined
to serve as chief magistrate. Christopher Almy was
elected and also declined. " It was then," as Bancroft
says, " that all eyes turned to one of the old Antinomian
exiles, the more than octogenarian, Henry Bull ; and the
fearless Quaker, true to the light within, employed the
last glimmerings of his life to restore the democratic
charter of Rhode Island." 4 Governor Bull was succeeded
in office at the end of one term by John Easton, son of
1 Rhode Island Colony Records, iii. 268. 2 Ibid. iii. 339.
3 Walter Clarke's course at this time is hard to fathom, though he seems to
have had a settled policy and the people appear to have been with him for he was
soon again the colonial leader.
4 History of United States, ii. 448.
196 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Governor Bull's old friend, Nicholas Easton. He, too, as
his father before him, had had an almost continuous career
in public office, and he was trained in all the intricacies of
colonial affairs. He had been among the leaders of the
colony in the dark days of King Philip's war, and he now
came to the highest office in his colony when another
serious war was devastating both continents — the French
and Indian War of William and Mary's reign. The
colonies were harried both on the coast and on their
inland borders. It was, oddly enough, during the
administration of this Quaker that the first naval victory
of Rhode Island was won. A fleet of seven French ships
descended on the Narraganset coast and did much
damage to the defenceless shore, when suddenly they were
met by two sloops manned with Rhode Island freemen
under command of Captain Thomas Paine, who furiously
attacked the enemy, killed or wounded half their force,
and drove them off to sea.
One of the fiercest contentions during Easton's term
of office was over the control of the militia. Massachusetts
and Plymouth had been united under a royal Governor,
Sir William Phipps, whose commission gave him the
command also of the militia of Rhode Island. This
commission was vigorously challenged by the authorities
at Newport on the ground that their precious colonial
charter gave them power over their own militia. During
the winter of 1693, Sir William came in person to Rhode
Island and read his commission to Governor Easton.
When the reading was over, the imperturbable Quaker
quietly replied that when the Assembly met, if it had
anything further to say, he would write. It was not easy
to overawe such colonial governors. The question of the
control of the militia was fought out at great length, the
colonists ably holding their position, until finally Queen
Mary " surrendered " and wrote to Governor Phipps
withdrawing his control of the Rhode Island militia.1 At
the same time the Queen asked Rhode Island to furnish
1 The documents of this controversy are printed in Rhode Island Colony
Records, iii. 285-300.
CH. vin THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 197
forty-eight men to aid in the defence and security of the
colony of New York.
The actual demand for these " men " came in a request
from the Governor of New York in the administration of
Caleb Carr — another Quaker politician of long experience
— who succeeded Governor Easton in 1695. Governor
Carr, like all the other Quaker Governors, disliked
extremely to get drawn into affairs beyond the home
field ; and he was, too, conscientiously opposed to adopting
any actual war measure. He urged that there were great
difficulties in the way of supplying the desired " men "
and asked of the Governor of New York that his colony
might furnish " some other reasonable assistance in com
putation of said forty-eight men." This request was
denied, and the " men " were demanded ; but again new
reason was found why they could not be sent just then !
Meantime Governor Carr died in office and the old
custodian of the charter, Walter Clarke, came back into
the governorship, with his old Quaker companion, Walter
Newberry, as an assistant. The ancient demand for troops
for New York came up again with increased urgency.
Governor Clarke replied that the colony had no " men " to
spare. " They had themselves," he wrote, " forty miles
of sea-coast, with three inlets and no forts, therefore all
the soldiers the colony possesses are too few for our
defence, and furthermore Massachusetts has ' detained '
several of our towns, further incapacitating the colony." l
The " men " never went to New York !
There is a letter in the British State Paper Office,
signed by W. Clarke, dated i/th September 1702, which
declares that the charter of Rhode Island " granted by
Charles II. of blessed memory placed the sole power of the
militia in us" and the letter significantly adds : " We
conceive it our duty to continue the militia as formerly
until we receive further order." 2
A new trouble now broke out upon the colony of Rhode
Island. There came at this time a radical change in the
1 Rhode Island Colony Records, iii. 316.
2 Record office, C.O. 5. 1302.
198 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
plan and method in the Home Office in London of
administering the British Colonies, and with the change
came also a thorough and searching investigation of the
internal affairs and procedure of the colonies. The
" investigation " was carried on under the oversight of
Edward Randolph, who had already become notorious in
the colonies as a collector of " information." The main
charges against the colony of Rhode Island were that its
officials were not under oath, that the laws of the colony
were not published and were badly kept, that the British
acts of trade and navigation were disregarded, and that
little or no effort was made to suppress piracy — at that
time a prevailing evil.1 It was even charged that Rhode
Island had become, through the leniency of the Quaker
rule, a nest for " pirates, smugglers, and sea-robbers," and
this condition was attributed to " the remissness or con
nivance of such as have been or are Governors." 2
Meantime Jahleel Brenton, who had gone to England
in the interest of colonial affairs, returned with a com
mission to administer to Governor Clarke an oath of
obedience to the acts of trade, and with a commission
also to establish in Rhode Island a court of Admiralty.
The Governor, as a Quaker, would not take any oath ;
and so he refused to take this oath, even though demanded
by his sovereign. But he went still further in his bold
ness. He positively refused to allow the court of
Admiralty to be established, because he held, in the spirit
of the colonists of '76, that it was an invasion of colonial
rights?
Edward Randolph gives this interesting glimpse into
the situation, reporting his visit to Newport. He writes
that he found all the colonists planting tobacco, and he
continues :
" As the governing power is in the hands of the Quakers and
Anabaptists, neither Judges, Jurys nor witnesses are under
1 This was the period of Captain Kidd.
2 Rhode Island Colony Records, iii. 326.
3 Walter Clarke, planting himself squarely on the rights of the charter and
refusing to allow royal interference, is one of the beginners of the movement
toward Independence.
CH. vin THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 199
any [sworn] obligation, so that all things are managed ace. to
their will and interest [!]. An attempt being made by Mr.
Brenton to erect a court of Admiralty under the commission from
England, Governor Walter Clarke would not allow it, telling the
assembly ', then in session, that it would utterly destroy their charter,
which empowered the colonists themselves to establish such a court
with the proper officers." * [The italics are mine.]
On this issue, actuated by the highest motives of
loyalty to the rights of the colony, Walter Clarke went
out of office, stubbornly refusing to yield an iota from
the rights of the charter which he had saved for the
colony.
Samuel Cranston, not a Quaker, but a nephew of
Walter Clarke, and in hearty sympathy with the Quaker
policy, was put in as Governor and served continuously
until his death in 1727, Walter Clarke being Deputy-
Governor with him continuously from 1700 to his death in
1 7 1 4-2 Randolph's " investigations " read very much like
the partisan newspaper investigations of the present day ;
and one can find here in 1698 partisan charges of "graft"
quite similar to those we read to-day. Randolph
declares that the Quaker political " machine " has for
a long time been growing rich and fat off its connivance
in piracy ! Two pirates, he says, were recently captured
in Newport and about £1500 in gold and silver taken
from them. They were put in prison :
" But about two days after they were admitted to bail, by the
Governor (I am informed), one of the Governor's uncles being
their security. By which means they have opportunity given
to escape, leaving their money to be shared by the Governor and
his two uncles, who have been very great gainers by the pirates who
have frequented Rhode Island. Walter Clarke, the late Governor
and his brother [Weston] now the Recorder of the place, have
countenanced pirates and have enriched themselves thereby [!]." 3
1 Randolph Papers (Prince Pub.), ii. 152.
2 Randolph informed the Home Office in 1700 that Cranston is the present
Governor but theQuakers have the sole administration of the government. A similar
report was made the year before : ' ' Mr. Cranston was one of the demi-Quakers
only put in to serve the Quakers." See Palfrey's History of New England, iv. 236.
3 To the Board of Trade, soth May 1698, Rhode Island Colony Records,
iii. 339-
200 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
He admits, in a postscript, that the two pirates are to
have a trial, but he says that he expects that they will be
acquitted. He adds that he learns that the people are
with Walter Clarke in his refusal to take orders sent from
England, inconsistent with their charter privileges, and he
understands that they are raising money to send Clarke
to England to represent the colonial case.1
Here, with the close of Walter Clarke's career in 1714,
ends the first period of Quaker influence in the colony.
Clarke had been four times elected governor, and twenty-
three times deputy-governor, dying in the office to which
he had been fifteen times successively elected. From the
beginning of the colonial government under the charter of
1663, Friends were continuously in office, of one sort or
another, occupying the governorship nineteen terms and
being a potent force in the Assembly. John Easton,
Caleb Carr, and Walter Clarke were among the foremost
spiritual leaders of the Quaker society during the period
of their political activity. Easton and Clarke were
ministers of the gospel and frequently went forth on
public religious service. They were constantly involved
in issues of the most complex and difficult sort, and they
seem through all the shifting currents to have kept true
to what they believed was the path of duty and at the
same time to have kept the confidence of the people.
They were perhaps not great statesmen, but they were
brave forerunners of the American idea that the colonists
should govern themselves, and they deserve to be drawn
out of the oblivion into which they have somewhat fallen,
if for nothing else, for their devotion to the principle
that gave birth to the American nation and on which its
political life rests to-day.
The second period of Quaker influence in Rhode
Island politics began with the rise of the Wanton family
in the early years of the eighteenth century and ended
with the disownment of Stephen Hopkins in 1774. It
1 Brigham, in his Rhode Island, p. 160, declares that "actual complicity
between the colony as a government and the pirates, as so often charged, was
never shown by any letter or report submitted to the English authorities."
CH. vin THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 201
was throughout most of this period more an individual
influence than a group influence. In 1 700 half the white
population of Newport were Quakers,1 but as the century
progressed other cities in the colony, especially Providence,
rapidly grew in population and influence so that the
Quakers no longer held their proportion to the whole
number of the inhabitants of the colony. They continued,
however, to produce men of light and leading ; and they
were yet for many years to have a large place in the
administration of the colony which they had done much to
foster in its formative period.
Edward Wanton was one of the foremost figures of the
New England Society of Friends in its early days. He
had been an officer of guard in Boston on the occasion of
the execution of the first Quaker martyrs, and he was
deeply moved by their innocence and heroic bearing. He
came home from the execution greatly changed, saying
as he unbuckled his sword : " Mother, we have been
murdering the Lord's people, and I will never put a sword
on again." 2
He thereupon took every opportunity which offered to
inform himself of the Quaker faith, and sometime before
1 66 1 he had openly avowed himself a Friend. He moved
to Scituate, in Plymouth colony, in 1661, and started a
very important venture in shipbuilding. He was from
the first the leading person in the Quaker group of
Scituate, and his house was the home of the meeting and
headquarters for all visiting Friends, he himself being the
foremost minister in that region. He died in 1716, as
the historian of his town remarks :
"With faculties unblurred, mind clear, piety fervent, faith
unwavering and active as he nearer approached its realisation,
from which he could often review his past life and with soul-
stirring eloquence and deep sympathy exhort all to stand fast in
the faith."
His oldest son, Joseph, moved to Tiverton, Rhode
Island, in 1688, and started there a branch of the ship-
1 Annals of Trinity Church, p. 10.
'* Deane's History of Scituate, Massachusetts, p. 372.
202 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
building business. He was much like his father in large
ness of view, in hospitality, and in his deep interest in
the Quaker Society. Both he and his wife (Sarah
Freeborn) were public ministers, and they entertained in
princely fashion, being also noted far and wide for their
benevolence and charity.
Two other sons, William (born in 1670) and John
(born in 1672), moved to Newport and established there
a branch of the shipbuilding industry about 1704.
They were men of large business capacity and rapidly
acquired great wealth for those times, and soon came to
have a very commanding part in the colonial government.
William was not a Friend during his public career, though
he evidently never lost his love for his father's faith,
to which he swung back toward the end of his life. He
broke away from the Society of Friends in his youth to
marry Ruth Bryant, whose parents were as much opposed
to Quakerism as William's family was to Presbyterianism,
the creed in which Ruth had been reared. There is a
tradition that William one day said : " Ruth, let us break
away from this unreasonable bondage. I will give up my
religion and thou shalt give up thine, and we will go to
the Church of England and to the devil together." •"
Both the brothers who came to Newport had a military
strain in their blood, and in the period of youth they
performed dashing naval exploits, chasing and capturing
pirates and privateers, and taking an active part in the
famous naval expedition of 1709 against the French in
Canada.2 Two of William's vessels were used for the
Canadian expedition, and he was on the committee to
select officers for the Rhode Island ships. He was almost
continuously in some public office between 1704 and his
death in the governorship in 1733, to which he was twice
elected, having previously been Speaker of the Assembly
for seven years. A short time before his death he
1 History of Scituate, p. 374.
2 There is a current story that the good Quaker father once said : "It would be
a great grief to my spirit to hear that you had fallen in a military enterprise, but
it would be a greater grief to hear that you were cowards." — History of Scituate,
P- 374-
CH. vm THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 203
solemnly remarked : " My father's God is my God and I
shall die in the faith of the Quakers." l The Wantons
were at the height of their financial and social position
when the famous philosopher, George Berkeley, came to
Newport with large plans for planting a great college in
the New World, and they frequently entertained him.
" The Quakers with their broad-brimmed hats, came and
stood in the aisles " to hear him preach on Sundays,2 and
after the Church service was over the philosopher was
accustomed to go home to dine with William Wanton.
John swung back to his father's faith much earlier
in life than his elder brother, and from about 1712 he
became a pronounced Friend in faith and practice. He
early developed a powerful gift in ministry, and devoted
much of his time to religious service, preaching both in his
home Meeting at Newport and travelling far and wide to
deliver his messages when he felt called to go forth. His
biographer says :
" He was a powerful and eloquent preacher. No eloquence
like his, it is said, had been heard in New England. Multitudes
flocked to his preaching wherever it was known he was to be
present. He travelled extensively in New England and southerly
as far as Pennsylvania in which missionary tours he gathered
multitudes to the Society of Friends."3
He was considered the wealthiest man in the colony ;
his manners were refined, and, though a minister of the
Society, he wore " a bright scarlet cloak lined with blue ; "
his mind was well cultivated ; his spirit was generous ; he
was very popular ; and he had great ability for public
service in colonial affairs. His political career began in
1712, the year of his positive affiliation with Friends.
He was elected that year a Deputy to the General
Assembly and successively until 1721 when he was chosen
Deputy-Governor. He was continuously Deputy-Governor
from 1729 to 1733 when he was elected Governor to fill
the place made vacant by his brother's death. He served
1 " History of the Wanton Family," by J. R. Bartlett, in Rhode Island Hist.
Tracts, No. 3, p. 33.
2 Annals of Trinity Church, p. 10.
3 Rhode Island Hist. Tracts, No. 3, p. 49.
204 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
the colony as Governor for seven successive terms, finally
dying in office as his brother had done.
Like many Quaker Governors before him he was called
upon to steer the colony through a serious war — this time
the war between Spain and the mother country in which
the colonies were deeply involved.1 An act was passed
by Rhode Island in 1 740 putting the colony in a state of
defence and providing for the enlistment of soldiers to
serve in the West Indies. Governor Wanton, now a
prominent Quaker minister, was put in a most delicate
and difficult situation. He was obliged as Governor to
issue military commissions and to perform many duties of
a warlike nature which looked like inconsistencies and
which brought him under a fire of criticism from the
authorities of the Quaker Meeting. He, however, took
the course which his predecessors in office had taken,
that as a public officer his first and clearest call was the
performance of those duties which the colony had laid
upon him, and on the performance of which the life and
welfare of the colony rested. He met the committee of
Friends unmoved, listened to their charge of inconsistency,
and replied that he clearly felt it right to fulfil his
obligations as the executive of the colony, one of those
same obligations being the protection of the inhabitants
of the colony. " I have endeavoured," he added, " on all
previous occasions, as on this, to do my whole duty to
God and to my fellow-men, without doing violence to the
law of my conscience, but in all concerns listening to the
still small voice of divine emanation and being obedient
to it." 2
The only other Quaker Governor from the Wanton
family was Gideon, son of Joseph of Tiverton and
grandson of Edward of Scituate. Gideon Wanton was
Treasurer of Rhode Island from 1732 to 1744, and he
was Governor of the colony at the time of the famous
expedition against Cape Breton in the war with France.
As Governor he was called upon to furnish troops for the
1 War between Great Britain and Spain was declared in 1739.
2 Rhode Island Hist. Tracts, No. 3, p. 55.
CH. vni THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 205
enterprise, and he complied with the call as his uncles had
done in similar straits.
Another interesting character, whose colonial services
stretched over a period of forty years, and whose influence
upon the destiny of the colony was at times greater than
that which a Governor could wield, was Richard Partridge,
foreign agent of the colony in London. He was the son
of William Partridge, who was for several years Governor
of New Hampshire, and was born in I683,1 probably in
the town of Newbury, where his father was a prominent
member of the Church. He moved to England in his
early manhood, joined the Society of Friends, and was for
fifty years an acceptable and edifying minister of the
Gospel, counting among his personal friends the leaders
in the Quaker Society on both sides of the Atlantic.2 He
was appointed foreign agent for Rhode Island in June
1715, "to transact," as his commission says, "for this
colony all its concerns beyond seas, to represent this
colony before the king and council or otherwise as the
affairs of the colony shall require, and he shall be allowed
for his salary £40 per annum." 3 He immediately proved
his fitness for the delicate diplomatic tasks entrusted to
him, for at the autumn session of 1715 the Assembly
voted him its thanks for " powerfully exerting himself and
using his utmost efforts for excepting the colony of Rhode
Island out of the Bill of the House of Commons for
regulating the charters of the American colonies." 4 He
was always called upon in times of war to arrange the
quotas and contributions which Rhode Island was to
furnish, and on a number of occasions he was asked to
act for other colonies than Rhode Island. His wisdom
and far-sighted judgment appear in all his diplomatic
undertakings. The way in which he handled the veto
question of 1731 is one interesting illustration. The
Governor of Rhode Island had vetoed an important Bill
and had thus aroused a stormy opposition. His right of
1 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xiii. 265.
2 Thomas Story calls him " my long acquainted friend Richard Partridge." —
Journal, p. 683.
3 Rhode Island Colony Records, iv. 187. 4 Ibid. iv. 200.
206 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
veto was challenged, and he decided to ask the officers of
the crown to pass upon the rights of veto granted to the
colonial governor by the charter. Partridge at once saw
that it would be dangerous for the colony to raise this
question and to call the attention of the crown to the
extensive privileges granted in the Rhode Island charter.
" Such a course," he wrote, " will prove of ill consequence to
the colony." l
Always on the watch for what would affect the rights
and privileges of his colony, he anticipated the danger
lurking in certain proposed measures regulating trade in
the West Indies. He wrote to the Governor of Rhode
Island :
" The West India gentlemen are not quiet ; they have begun to
work through a Bill for encouraging trade with the sugar colonies
which will be disadvantageous to the Northern Colonies." 2
This refers to the famous " Molasses Act," or " Sugar
Act." The neighbouring colonies were notified of the
impending danger, and were asked to join Rhode Island
in opposing the Act ; and the entire case for the northern
colonies that were especially affected was put in Partridge's
hands. He presented a vigorous Petition to the Board of
Trade, in which he claimed that the proposed Act involved
a violation of the rights of the colonists as Englishmen since
it imposed taxes on citizens who were not represented in
Parliament? This is a direct announcement of the
principle which was formulated in the Declaration of
Independence and which was fought out in the Revolu
tionary War. The opposition effort was not wholly
successful, but an unpublished letter from Partridge says :
" By my efforts the Bill has been made vastly different
from what it was originally drawn." 4
1 Letter in Foster Papers, ii. 147. There is also a valuable collection of
Partridge Letters in the John Carter Brown Library.
2 Ibid. ii. 149.
3 I have searched the British Record Office in vain for this Petition which is
referred to in Arnold's History of Rhode Island, ii. 124, but I have found a
letter from the Proprietors of Pennsylvania, undoubtedly transmitted by Partridge,
which declares that • ' the proposed ' Sugar Act ' takes from his Majesty's faithful
subjects in North America that liberty and freedom of commerce which is their
birthright yet unrestrained ! " — Public Record Office C.O. 5, No. 13.
4 This Letter is in the Rhode Island State Library.
CH. vin THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 207
In 1752 an order of the King was passed which
seemed to the Governor of Rhode Island to threaten the
liberties of the colony. He wrote to Richard Partridge :
" Use all your efforts to prevent anything being done to lessen our
charter privileges. You will understand how much uneasiness
the very thought of losing our liberties creates in the inhabitants
of this colony and how much dependence they must necessarily
have on you, who have been so long their agent and whom they
look upon by principle as well as interest so much a friend of
liberty. You will exert yourself to the uttermost." x
One of his difficult diplomatic tasks was that of
securing from Great Britain financial compensation for
the colony's expenses in connection with the expedition
against Cape Breton. He finally succeeded in getting an
appropriation of £6 332:12:10, which was precisely
the amount which the colony claimed. It was, however,
quite another matter to squeeze the actual money out of the
Treasury, but, to use his own phrase, he " left no stone
unturned." It was in appreciation of such unswerving
fidelity and painstaking effort that the colony wrote to
him officially in 1756 :
" The long experience the colony hath had of your diligence
and faithfulness in their service leaves no room to doubt of your
doing all in your power in this affair [the Crown Point Expedition]
for their interests, and as you have hitherto been generally
successful in your undertakings on their acct. so they hope you
will bring this business to a happy issue for you and them." 2
In 1759, Partridge was compelled by age and feeble
ness to resign his position as agent, and the same year
he died.3
No other Quaker in American history, with the excep
tion of William Penn, has achieved such a distinguished
political career or has contributed so much to the develop
ment of our national life as Stephen Hopkins of Rhode
1 Rhode Island Colony Records, v. 359.
2 Letter in Rhode Island Historical Manuscripts, vi. 23.
3 Richard Partridge was also employed by the London Meeting for Sufferings
as their parliamentary agent, for which service he received £40 annually and
expenses. (See Minutes of the Meeting for Sufferings, vol. xxx. pp. 83, 194, 320
and passim. )
208 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
Island. He was in a true sense one of the " makers " of
the American nation. He was born in Massapauge, now
known as South Providence, in March 1 707, though his
early years were passed in Chapsumscook now Scituate.
His mother, Ruth Wilkinson, was a birthright Friend, a
woman of large culture and of marked spiritual gifts,
daughter of Samuel Wilkinson who was noted for his
" erudition in divine and civil law, historical narrative,
natural and politic."1 In 1726 Stephen Hopkins married
Sarah Scott, great-granddaughter of Richard and
Catherine Scott, the first Quakers of Providence. His
bride was of unbroken Quaker ancestry, back to these " first
Quakers," but they were not " married in Meeting," as
Stephen Hopkins at this time was not a " member of the
Society." He, however, " joined Meeting" about 1755, near
the time of his second marriage, which occurred in Quaker
Meeting and was by Quaker ceremony.2 The Friends'
Meeting was frequently held in Stephen Hopkins' home,3
and it is the testimony of those who knew him that : " In
the simplicity of his demeanour, the hearty frankness and
calm dignity of manner which were characteristic of him,
he reflected no unworthy credit on the training of his
Quaker mother."4
Like most of the great leaders in the formation of the
nation, Stephen Hopkins had a long apprenticeship in local
affairs. He first " found " himself and his political
principles in the colonial Town-meeting, being chosen
" moderator " (i.e. presiding officer) of the Town-meeting
when he was twenty-four. He was continuously in township
service until he was called to higher colonial and federal
spheres of activity. He was still in his youth when he
became a citizen of Providence and in this larger Town-
1 Updike's Narragansett Church, i. 54. It has been pointed out that
in Ruth Wilkinson's home there was "a circulating library," containing the
best literature available at the time, one of the earliest circulating libraries in
Rhode Island and probably in the colonies. (See Rhode Island Hist. Tracts,
No. 19, pp. 46-47-)
2 See Historical Collection of the Essex Institute, ii. 120. The Quaker
marriage certificate is in the Roberts Collection at Haverford College.
3 See Letter of Moses Brown to Robert Wain (1828).
4 W. E. Foster's "Stephen Hopkins, a Rhode Island Statesman" (in Rhode
Island Hist. Tracts, No. 19), p. 58.
CH. vni THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 209
meeting he was again and again — often in great crises —
chosen moderator. He went to the General Assembly
when he was twenty-five, and was a member of this body
continuously for six years. He had also an important
judicial training and a distinguished career on the Bench,
rising to the highest judicial place in the gift of the
Colony. He was elected Governor in 1755, the year he
became a Friend, and between that date and 1768 he
served in the governorship nine terms, through one of the
stormiest political contests in the history of Rhode Island,
and he finally declined to accept further nomination as
Governor in order to end the political fight which had
lasted with much heat for ten years, since he saw the
importance of having the Colony united for the greater
conflict which was now coming into sight upon the
horizon. During these years of judicial and political
activity he had, with his lifelong friend Moses Brown,
been contributing his great powers to the commercial and
intellectual expansion of the city of Providence, for it was
at this period that Providence forged forward to its
prominent place among the colonial cities. " He was,"
as Chief-Justice Durfee has said, " a man of extraordinary
capacity, omnivorous of knowledge, which his energetic
mind rapidly converted into power ; and wherever we see
the colony or any parts of its people moving in ways
higher than the average, there we are sure to find
Stephen Hopkins prominent in the movement." x
He was first chosen for intercolonial service in 1746
during the second Spanish War, when he was selected
one of the commissioners from Rhode Island to meet
with those from the other Colonies to consult for the
defence and safety of the country. Again in 1754 —
during the " French and Indian War " — he was a delegate
to the famous colonial Congress held in Albany, at
which Franklin proposed a plan of union, and he was
commissioner in the colonial Congresses of 1755, 1757,
and 175^- He was one of the first to see clearly the
principle of the unconstitutionality of taxation without
1 Rhode Island Hist. Tracts, No. 19, p. 124.
210 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
representation. He had reached his insight of this
principle at least as early as 1756, as the following
passage, taken from a deposition of Job Almy in a
lawsuit between Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward,
plainly indicates :
" I dined," the deposer says, " at Mr. Jonathan Nicholas',
Innholder at Newport, March 1756, where were present Stephen
Hopkins, Esq., then Governor of this colony and President of
the said Court [the Superior Court], Wm. Richmond, Esq.,
another of the Justices of said Court, and Mr. John Aplin, with
some other gentleman. And as in conversation I was blaming
Mr. Aplin (who was my attorney) for not insisting on the late
Act of Parliament wherein it is expressly declared that no Bills
of public credit would be a legal tender for any money debt, the
said Stephen Hopkins with some warmth replied : ' What have
the King and parliament to do with making a law or laws to
govern us any more than the Mohawks have? And if the
Mohawks should make a law or laws to govern us we were as
much obliged to obey them as any law or laws the King and
parliament could make.' At the same time the said Stephen
Hopkins further said that as our forefathers came from Leyden
[i.e. the Pilgrims] and were no charge to England, the States of
Holland had as good a right to claim us [tax us ? ] as England
had." »
As soon as news reached America that Parliament
was considering a proposition to lay taxes on the
Colonies, Stephen Hopkins began a remarkable series of
articles in the Providence Gazette, of which he had been
one of the founders, on the Rights of the Colonists.
These articles of his went deeper into the foundation
principles of self-government and the true safeguards of
liberty than any documents which had up to that time
appeared in the colonies. The substance of these papers
was gathered up in an important pamphlet and laid
before the General Assembly of Rhode Island in 1764, a
year before the Stamp Act was passed, and this document
was put into general circulation, and was very widely read
throughout the Colonies, and became one of the creative
documents in shaping the course of American history.
1 The Law Reporter for 1859, vol. xxii. p. 338.
CH. viii THE QUAKERS IN POLITICS 211
Already, in this early paper, Stephen Hopkins taught the
colonists to think in terms of country.
As soon as news of the actual passage of these Acts of
colonial taxation reached Rhode Island, Governor Hopkins
called a special session of the General Assembly, and he
was the leader in the great Town-meeting of Providence
which formulated a draft of instructions to the General
Assembly.1 It even surpassed in boldness the resolutions
adopted by the House of Burgesses of Virginia under
the eloquence of Patrick Henry, and it ended with the
downright assertion :
"The inhabitants of this colony are not bound to yield
obedience to any law or ordinance designed to impose any
internal taxation whatever upon them other than the laws and
ordinances of the General Assembly." 2
Parliament, under the storm of opposition, repealed
the Stamp Act, but asserted its right to tax the Colonies,
and emphasized the right by the imposition of a tax on
certain imports. A Town-meeting was called in Provi
dence to propose a plan for avoiding this tax. A
committee, of which Stephen Hopkins was a member,
drew up a resolution that only home-produced articles
should be used while this tax was in force. These
resolutions are in the handwriting of Moses Brown.3 As
the storm of hostility against the mistaken course of the
mother-country grew in violence, Rhode Island, always a
liberty-loving Colony, became one of the most intense
storm centres of opposition. It was from the city of
Providence that the party of " patriots " headed by John
Brown, the brother of Moses Brown, sallied out and
burned the King's ship GaspJe, stationed in the Bay to
enforce the revenue acts ; and as the storm gathered still
darker, it was the Town-meeting of Providence, in which
Stephen Hopkins was the foremost person, that made the
first formal and official proposal for a Continental
Congress, and Rhode Island was the first Colony to elect
delegates to that congress, Stephen Hopkins being one of
1 Hopkins was chairman of the committee which formulated this document.
2 Staples' Annals of Providence, pp. 210-213. 3 Ibid. p. 217.
212 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. i
the delegates.1 In 1776, with trembling hand, trembling
not from fear but from advancing palsy, he signed the
Declaration of Independence, toward which he had been
for more than a decade steadily moving and leading the
people.2
This chapter of Quaker political history is far from a
complete account of the part which the Quakers took in
the colonial politics of Rhode Island. It has dealt only
with the leaders ; but the unnamed people behind the
leaders are always at least as important a factor as the
leaders themselves, and there was always a large group
of Quakers around each Quaker leader. This deeper
history of the people themselves cannot be written. This
chapter, furthermore, of necessity has treated the Quaker
factor quite too much in isolation. The Quakers were
not a class apart — a peculiar order of humanity. They
were simply men like other men, sometimes peculiarly
dressed and using somewhat odd speech, but a part of a
larger whole and owing much of their political success to
the non-Quaker element with which they worked. They
had then, as we have now, narrowness, greed, corruption,
and misrepresentation to face. Conditions were no more
angelic then than in the present year of grace, and these
adherents of the inward Light were throughout their
political career on the " perilous edge." Every issue had
its practical complications, its mean aspects. No claim is
here made that these " heroes " were always wise, or
always right, or always great, but they are a fair
illustration of our best common people, doing their duties
with fearless spirit, uniting religion with practical daily
life, exhibiting loyalty in the hard field of politics, and
never bartering for selfish ends " the priceless jewel of
their soul."
1 When the order came to arrest the "patriots" who burned the Gaspie
and send them to England for trial Stephen Hopkins, then Chief-Justice of the
colony, said : " I will neither apprehend any person by my own order, nor suffer
any executive officers in the colony to do it." — Weeden, Early Rhode Island,
P. 336-
* He was, however, at the time of signing the Declaration no longer a member
of Meeting for reasons given in the preceding chapter.
BOOK II
QUAKERISM IN THE COLONY OF
NEW YORK
2*3
CHAPTER I
THE PLANTING OF QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK
" NEW YORK " was a part of the Dutch Colony of New
Netherlands when the Quaker " invasion " of the Colonies
began. The Dutch had passed through their baptism of
fire in one of the most heroic struggles in history, and
had, at great cost, won their religious freedom. They
had before most peoples gained the tolerant attitude.
They had furnished, in their home-land, an asylum to the
harried English Separatists ; and they had long been
accustomed to the " lay-type " of Christianity, embodied
in the Mennonite Anabaptists, who had, before George
Fox, advanced many of the ideas and peculiarities of the
Quakers. The Proprietaries of New Netherlands had
expressly directed that all forms of religion should be
tolerated in the Colony.1 It would have been a natural
prediction, therefore, that Quakerism would flourish
undisturbed in the Dutch Colony, but on the contrary it
spread here, as in the Puritan Colonies, only in the face of
stern opposition.
Long Island, however, presented a prepared soil for
the new religious seed, something like that which we have
seen in Rhode Island, Sandwich, and on the island of
Nantucket. Though under the Dutch Government, many
of the towns on the island were settled by English
colonists, a large number of them being persons who had
left Massachusetts in order to secure greater religious
1 The settlers of Maspeth (Newtown) on Long Island, to cite a particular
instance, were induced to come to the Dutch territory on the promise of civil
and religious freedom. — Ecclesiastical Records of New York, i. 138.
215
216 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
freedom. We have seen how the religious teaching of
Anne Hutchinson prepared the way for the spread of
Quakerism on Rhode Island and at other places in New
England ; so, too, it was in large measure due to the
religious influence and leadership of another woman that
the towns of Long Island were prepared for the Quaker
message which came to them in 1657. This woman
was Lady Deborah Moody.
Her maiden name was Deborah Dunch, and she
belonged to a distinguished family, her father, Walter
Dunch, having rendered good service to his country in the
reign of Elizabeth. She married Sir Henry Moody of
Garesden in Wiltshire, but was left a widow in early life.
She showed, even in her English period, great independ
ence of mind and a determination to follow fearlessly
her own light. This independent spirit soon brought her
into collision with the Court of the Star-Chamber ; and
being an intimate friend of the Winthrops, she resolved to
migrate to Massachusetts to secure the freedom which
she despaired of gaining at home. She settled in Lynn
about 1640 and purchased an extensive estate called
" Swampscot," l but was hardly settled there on her
beautiful cliff farm before her liberal views brought her
into trouble with the Salem Church. The Court pro
ceedings, under date of December 1642, report that
" Lady Deborah Moody, Mrs. King, and the wife of John
Tillton were presented for houldinge that the baptising of
Infants is noe ordinance of God,"2 in other words a
group of Anabaptists was forming in Lynn with Lady
Moody as its spiritual leader. Winthrop gives an in
teresting glimpse of her " heresy " :
" The Lady Moodye, a wise and anciently religious woman,
being taken with the error of denying baptism to infants was
dealt with by many of the elders and others, but persisting still
and to avoid further trouble, etc., she removed to the Dutch
against the advice of all her friends. Many others, infected
1 Letchford, in 1641, says : " Lady Moody lives at Lynn but is of the Salem
Church. She is a good lady but almost undone by buying Master Humphries'
farm Swampscot."
2 Newhall's History of Lynn (Boston, 1865), p. 204.
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 217
with anabaptism, removed thither also. She was after ex
communicated." 1
As Winthrop intimates, she refused to accept the
offered theological direction, insisted upon her right to
live in the faith which seemed to her true, and once more
migrated to secure the privilege of freedom. She moved
to Long Island and purchased a large estate at Gravesend,
and with her migrated also a large number of the Lynn
settlers, " infected," as Winthrop says, " with Anabaptism."
A Petition to the General Court in 1645 refers to this
migration as follows :
" Those fewe able persons which were with and of us it's not
unknowne how many of them have deserted us, as my Lady
Moody."2
Three years before Lady Moody's pilgrimage to
Gravesend, forty families from Lynn had planted a Colony
on Long Island with large guarantees of freedom and
with the design to build up there a Church " gathered and
constituted according to the minde of Christ, for," they
say, " wee do ffreely lay down our power at the ffeete of
Christ," 3 and throughout this decade there were frequent
migrations from Lynn to the Long Island towns, so that
in Flushing, Gravesend, Jamaica, Hempstead, and Oyster
Bay there were many persons who had deserted Lynn to
find religious freedom, and who shared with Lady Moody
the advanced and liberal ideas which in that generation
were gathered up under the name of " Anabaptism." A
characteristic entry in the Massachusetts Records for
1643 says :
" Rev. Mr. Walton of Marblehead is for Long Island shortly,
there to set down with my lady Moody, from under civill and
church ward, among ye Dutch."
The ecclesiastical records of New Amsterdam make
the fact very plain that many of the English inhabitants
of these Long Island towns were not kindly disposed
toward the prevailing orthodox Calvinism, but on the
1 Winthrop's History of New England, ii. 148.
2 History of Lynn, p. 214. . 8 Ibid. p. 194.
218 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
contrary were either of the Anabaptist or of the Seeker
type. In 1653 the Director-General of the Colony com
plained that magistrates on Long Island were being
selected without regard to their religion, and especially,
he says, "the people of Gravesend who elect libertines
[free-thinkers] and anabaptists."1 Three years later
William Hallett was banished from the Province of New
Netherlands for allowing conventicles and gatherings
in his house at Flushing, and William Wickendam, a
cobbler by trade, was also banished for having taken the
leading part in these house meetings, which seem to have
been meetings for worship after the manner of the small
dissenting sects.2 In 1657, the year the Quakers arrived
on Long Island, two of the leading Dutch ministers in
the Colony, Joannes Megapolensis and Samuel Drisius,
both keen in the scent of heresy, wrote to the Classis of
Amsterdam a full account of the religious condition in
New Amsterdam. They reported the people at Gravesend
to be Anabaptists of the Mennonite type. " The majority
of them," they say, " reject the baptism of infants, the
observance of the Sabbath, the office of preacher, any
teachers of God's word. They say that thereby all sorts
of contentions have come into the world. Whenever
they meet, one or the other reads something to them."
" At Flushing," the report says, " many persons have
become imbued with divers opinions. They absented
themselves from the sermon and would not pay the
preacher [Francis Doughty] his salary.8 Last year a
troublesome fellow, a cobbler from Rhode Island came
there saying he had a commission from Christ " [evidently
William Wickendam]. At Middleburg, a part of Newtown,
the people are said to be mostly Independents who have
an unordained preacher " who does not serve the sacra
ments." At Hempstead "the people listen attentively
to the sermons of Richard Denton, a pious, godly, and
1 Colonial Documents of New York, xiv. 235.
2 Ecclesiastical Records of New York, i. 361-362.
8 The salary of Francis Doughty was to have been six hundred guilders, but it
was never paid ; and it was found, when the minister sued for his salary, that
Wm. Lawrence's wife had destroyed the contract by " putting it under a pye."
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 219
learned man," but when he began to baptize children,
" many persons rushed out of the church ! " 1 Such, then,
was the spiritual condition of the Long Island towns when
the first messengers of Quakerism came thither to make
convincements. There was already in existence here a
type of religion which was independent of ordained
ministers, which regarded the sacraments as unnecessary
and which welcomed the common man who came with a
direct commission. They were by the bent of their minds
open to the word of the preachers of the inward Light.
In fact, one Quaker seems to have been raised out of their
own group even before any messengers came. This was
Richard Smith. He had been to England on a visit in
1654, had apparently come under the influence of William
Dewsbury,2 and had returned a convinced Friend, so
that he was the first Quaker in the American colonies.
When the eight Friends came out from England in 1656
on their missionary journey to New England, they halted
either at New Amsterdam or on Long Island and picked
up this Richard Smith on their way and took him with
them on their bold venture. He was hurried back to
Long Island by ship that he might not contaminate or
infect any body by a land journey ! 3
" The spiritual Argonauts " who came in the ship
Woodhouse, with Captain Fowler in 1657, were the first
Quakers known to have landed in New Amsterdam, now
New York city. Five of the eleven, Robert Hodgson,
1 Ecclesiastical Records of New York, i. 393-399.
8 Francis Ellington's Tract, A True Discovery (London, 1655).
* This was Richard Smith of Southampton, Long Island, and not, as Bowden
(vol. i. p. 310) assumes, the famous trader of that name who in 1641 "erected
a house of trade and entertainment " in the Narragansett country. This latter
Richard Smith never became a Friend. He settled at Maspeth, on Long Island,
about 1645 and remained there a few years (see Riker's Annals of Newtown), but
he was back in Narragansett by 1649. The Records of Southampton for October
1656 furnish one piece of information about Richard Smith the Quaker : " It is
ordered by the General Court that Richard Smith, for his unreverend carriage
toward the magistrates contrary to the order, was adjudged to be banished out of
the town, and he is to have a week's liberty to prepare himself to depart ; and if
at any time he be found after this limited week within the bounds of the town he
shall forfeit twenty shillings. It is ordered by the General Court that Richard
Smith for his unreverend carriage to the magistrate was judged to pay the sum of
5 pounds to be levied immediately upon the goods and chattels of the said Richard
Smith." He is in the same Records called "an emissary of Sathan, a Quaker."
220 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
Richard Doudney, Mary Wetherhead, Dorothy Waugh,
and Sarah Gibbons, stopped in the Dutch Colony while
the rest went on to Rhode Island. Captain Fowler, before
the Woodhouse left the port of New Amsterdam, with
Robert Hodgson, paid a visit to Governor Stuyvesant and
found him " moderate both in words and actions." His
" moderation " was, however, soon changed. The next
day Mary Wetherhead and Dorothy Waugh preached to
the people in the streets of New Amsterdam, and the
effect of this novel sight upon the Dutch inhabitants was
instantaneous and pronounced. They had no desire to
see their womenfolk catch this odd custom of preaching
in the streets, and they soon had the two women in " a
noisome, filthy dungeon " — a more than usually vile jail
even for the seventeenth century ; and after eight days
they brought them out of the dark hole, and sent them
with their hands tied behind them to that " sewer of
heretics," Rhode Island, to join their companions.
The two ministers already quoted, Joannes Megapolensis
and Samuel Drisius, wrote to the authorities in Amsterdam
an interesting account, though considerably coloured, of
this invasion :
"On August 6th (or izth) a ship came from the sea to this
place, having no flag flying from the topmast, nor from any
other part of the ship. . . . They fired no salute before the fort.
When the master of the ship came on shore and appeared
before the Director-General, he rendered him no respect, but
stood with his hat firm on his head as if a goat (!). ... At last
information was gained that it was a ship with Quakers on board.
. . . We suppose they went to Rhode Island for that is the
receptacle of all sorts of riff-raff people and is nothing else than
the sewer of New England. They left behind two strong young
women. As soon as the ship had departed, these [women]
began to quake and go into a frenzy, and cry out loudly in the
middle of the street that men should repent, for the day of
judgment was at hand. Our people not knowing what was the
matter ran to and fro while one cried ' fire ' and another some
thing else. The Fiscal seized them both by the head and led
them to prison." x
1 Ecclesiastical Records of New York, i. 399.
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 221
The other three members of the party who remained
behind made a tour of Long Island, where they found
many hearts ready for their message, especially in the
towns of Gravesend, Jamaica, and Hempstead. Hodgson
concluded to stay in Hempstead for a larger service, while
his two companions went on through the island and across
to Rhode Island, and upon him fell a baptism of persecu
tion of a peculiarly furious sort. Hodgson had invited the
inhabitants of Hempstead to a meeting in an orchard on
a certain " First-day," and as he was pacing back and
forth in quiet meditation among the trees of the orchard
waiting for meeting to begin, he was " violently seized "
by a local magistrate named Richard Gildersleeve who
took him as a prisoner to his own house. The officer
left his prisoner and went to the morning religious service.
When he returned he found a company gathered and
Hodgson preaching to them ! He was thereupon moved
to the house of a magistrate and still the people came
" to hear truth." Word was now sent to Governor
Stuyvesant, who despatched a sheriff and jailer with a
guard of twelve musketeers to bring the prisoner to New
Amsterdam. They pinioned Hodgson and left him
closely bound for a whole day while they hunted out the
persons who had entertained him. Two women were
finally arrested on this charge, one of whom had two
small children — one a babe still on the breast. They
were placed in a cart, to the tail of which Hodgson was
tied, and thus they journeyed through an entire night
to Brooklyn ferry, and so across to New Amsterdam.1
The women were soon set free, but Robert Hodgson was
sentenced to a fine of a hundred guilders, or hard labour
at a wheelbarrow with a negro for two years, " in order to
suppress the evil in the beginning." As Friends always
did do, he refused to pay the fine. He was brought out
and chained to the wheelbarrow, but feeling himself
innocent of any violation of law, he refused to work.
1 There is a Dutch account of Hodgson's arrest and punishment preserved in
Ecclesiastical Records of New York, i. 410. This account gives the distance
Hodgson was carried as twenty-one English miles.
222 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
He was thereupon beaten almost to death with a tarred
rope, then chained to the barrow, and left in the hot sun
all day. The next day he was again brought out, chained
to the barrow, and ordered by the Governor in person to
work. Proving unyielding, he was next tied up by the
hands with a heavy log of wood hung on his ankles and
whipped on his bare back, and then thrust into a dungeon
" too bad for swine." As news of his sufferings got
abroad, a humane Englishwoman got into the prison to
see him, washed his stripes, and told her husband of his
desperate condition. The husband offered the officer in
charge one of his oxen if he would release the Quaker.
Others also came forward and offered to pay the fine.
Hodgson declined to accept liberation on this principle,
as he was innocent His sufferings, however, made such
a deep impression on the liberty-loving Dutch people
that powerful influences were brought to bear on the
Governor, who finally set him free without any payment at
all, and Hodgson passed on to join his friends in Rhode
Island.1
This brief and hampered presentation of Quakerism
on Long Island was remarkably effective, and resulted in
the rapid formation of Quaker groups. The people were
in an expectant state, with spirits prepared for the new
message and the new manner of life, and they accepted
the Quaker faith almost by whole communities. If we
may trust Gerard Croese, an inaccurate though con
temporary Dutch historian, Lady Moody almost at once
became a Friend. " There was at Gravesend," he says,
" a noble lady, the countess of Mordee who turned
Quaker." " She gave the people of this Society," he
continues, " the liberty of meeting in her house, but she
managed it with such prudence and observance of time
and place that she gave no offense to any stranger or
person of any other religion than her own, and so she
and her people remained free from all molestation and
1 The accounts of this episode are found in Bishop's New England Judged,
p. 213 ; Sewel's History, \. 398 ; Bowden's History, i. 312 ; Brodhead's History
of New York, i. 636.
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 223
disturbance." l The first convincements were made almost
entirely among her friends and sympathisers. The Tiltons,
the Townsends, the Farringtons, the Thornes, the Feakes,
and a number of other families had probably been her
associates in Lynn and had come to Long Island at the
time of her migration. As soon as persecution came
upon the new movement the first local heroes came out
of this prepared group. Governor Stuyvesant was the
instrument of this early persecution, but, as nearly all
the authorities imply, he was urged and almost pushed
to it by influence from Massachusetts. When once he
had undertaken the course of suppressing the invading
" heresy," he pursued it with the tenacity native to his
race and disposition. The first step against the move
ment was the proclamation of a law imposing a fine of
fifty pounds upon any colonist who entertained a Quaker
even for one night, and providing for the confiscation of
any ship which should import a Quaker into the Colony,2
and at the same time an old, somewhat dormant law
against conventicles was revived.
Henry Townsend of Flushing was the first person
to suffer under this new system of extermination which
the Governor had inaugurated. He was found guilty of
violation of the conventicle law and was heavily fined,
but he absolutely refused to pay his fine though he found
the prison into which he was thrown extremely " irksome."
His wife, however, " moved by the cries of her small
children," gave the authorities two young oxen and a
horse for her husband's release.3 The inhabitants of
Flushing were profoundly stirred by this invasion of their
liberties. They gathered in a public meeting, expressed
their disapproval of the acts of persecution, and drew up
a remonstrance which was signed by thirty-one men and
sent to the Governor, the signers of which included the
town clerk Edward Hart, who wrote the document, and
1 Croese, General History of the Quakers, translated (London, 1696), ii. 157.
*Lady Moody was intimate with Governor Stuyvesant, which fact no doubt pro
tected her meetings. She, however, died in 1663 soon after the movement began.
2 Laws and Ordinances of New Netherlands, i. 439.
8 Bishop, pp. 218-219.
224 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
the sheriff, Tobias Feake. The remonstrance declared
that the patent, or charter, of their town " grants liberty
of conscience without modification," and that the signers
intended to stand by their precious rights regardless of
what it might cost them in suffering. They say in
straightforward fashion :
" Right Honourable, you have been pleased to send up unto
us a certain command that wee should not receive or entertaine
any of those people called Quakers. . . . For our parte wee cannot
condemn them, neither can wee stretch out our hands against
them. . . . Wee desire in this case not to judge least wee be judged,
neither to condemn least wee be condemned, but rather let every
man stand or fall to his own. Maister, wee are bounde by the
Law to doe good unto all men, especially to those of the House
hold of faith ; and though for the present wee seem to be un-
sensible of the law and the Lawgiver; yet when death and
the law assault us, if wee have not our Advocate to seeke, who
shall plead for us in this case of conscience betwixt God and
our soules ? The powers of this world can neither attack us
nor excuse us ! " x
A number of these thirty-one signers had come from
Lynn to Long Island in pursuit of the precious privilege
of religious liberty ; others on the list were English
Separatists who, like the Pilgrim Fathers, had lived in
Holland to escape oppression and had migrated from
there to the New World under promises of freedom.2
They knew what freedom was worth and they were
resolved to have it, even " though death and the law
assault" them.
" I do not know," John Fiske says, " whether Flushing has
ever raised a fitting monument to their memory. If I could
have my way I would have the protest carved on a stately
obelisk with the name of Edward Hart, town clerk and the
thirty other Dutch and English names appended, and would
have it set up where all might read it for the glory of the town
which had such men for its founders." 3
The vengeance of the Governor fell with severity upon
1 The Remonstrance is given in full in Ecclesiastical Records of New York,
i. 412. 2 See Thompson's Long Island, ii. 69.
8 Dutch and Quaker Colonies, i. 235.
CH. r QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 225
the signers of the remonstrance, especially upon those who
held official positions, and the town of Flushing was
deprived by the Governor of its right to hold Town-
meetings, but the Governor's course did not crush the
spirit of these earnest men who insisted on " the excellent
order and custom of the Fatherland " ; it rather hastened
the formation of a Quaker society in the neighbourhood.1
A contemporary record says that " most of the inhabitants
of Flushing are Quakers, who rove about the country
from one village to another, corrupting the youth."
Domine Megapolensis and Drisius report in 1658 :
" The raving Quakers have not settled down, but continue
to disturb the people of this province. Although our govern
ment has issued orders against these fanatics, nevertheless they
do not fail to pour forth their venom. There is but one place
in New England where they are tolerated and that is Rhode
Island which is the sewer of New England. Thence they swarm
to and fro sowing their tares." 2
Among those who " swarmed " into Long Island in this
early period must be mentioned Thomas Thurston and
Josiah Coale who passed through Long Island on their
foot-journey from Virginia to New England. They were
" much refreshed " to find in the towns of Long Island
" some Friends in the Truth," 3 and there seems already
in 1658 to have been quite a nucleus of Quakers in
several towns.
The next year, 1659, a quaint and interesting Friend,
named John Taylor, from York, England, made a tour of
the island. He writes :
" It came into my heart to go and visit the people of Long
Island and to seek the lost. And it pleased the Lord so to order
my way, that I found in several towns and villages a pretty many
1 John Tilton and his wife Mary, the wife of Joseph Scott, and the wife of
Francis Weeks were among those who had to endure hard persecutions. Nine
Quakers were in the jail in New Amsterdam at one time. "Goody Tilton, wife
of John Tilton, was charged with the crime of having, like a sorceress, gone from
door to door to lure and seduce the people, even young girls, to join ' he Quakers. "
Her husband was charged with having ' ' permitted Quakers to quake at his house
in Gravesend." — Thompson's Long Island.
2 Eccleiiastical Records of New York, i. 433.
3 Letter of Josiah Coale to George Bishop, 1658. — Bowden, i. 18.
Q
226 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
fine, sober people that feared God and were convinced of the blessed
Truth. They did receive me and my testimony readily with
gladness. Many meetings of the people were settled under the
teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, our free Teacher, at
Gravesend, Seatancott,1 Oyster Bay, Hemsted, and other places,
sometimes in the woods and wilderness."2
Another island now comes into prominence in the
history of Quakerism, " Shelter Island," near the east end
of Long Island, between Gardiner's Bay and Peconis Bay.
It was originally named " Farret's Island," but was
purchased by three citizens of Barbadoes, Thomas Rous,
Constant and Nathaniel Sylvester, and an Englishman
named Thomas Middleton. They paid sixteen hundred
pounds of sugar for the island. The Sylvesters bought
out Rous' share in 1662, and by the payment of one
hundred and fifty pounds, " one half in beef and the other
half in pork," the owners got their island exempted
for ever from taxes and military duty.8 Nathaniel
Sylvester, who finally came into possession of the island,
was a Quaker, and he proceeded to make his island a real
" shelter " for harried Friends. John Taylor landed on this
island on his way out from England, and he spent some
time on it in 1659. He speaks as though there were
already many Friends on the island. Beside those
already there, " several Friends," he says, " came from
other parts in New England." " We had several brave
meetings there together, and the Lord's Power and
Presence was with us gloriously." 4
George Rofe, an Englishman, gives us our next
glimpse through Quaker eyes of the Dutch colony. He
sailed in 1 66 1 " in a small boat with only two Friends,"
from Maryland, and came into the port of New
Amsterdam. He writes :
1 "Seatancott" must mean Setauket, whose inhabitants in 1659 petitioned
the General Court of Hartford for jurisdiction, and many of them came later to
Matinecock as Quakers, for example, the Underbills, the Cocks, and others.
2 Memoir of John Taylor (London, 1710), p. 18.
3 Brodhead, op. tit. ii. 106.
* Memoir of John Taylor, p. 22. Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick came
to Shelter Island in 1659 to escape their unbearable persecutions in Salem.
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 227
" I had good service among both Dutch and English. I was
in the chief city of the Dutch, and gave a good sound, but they
forced me away ; and so we had meetings through the islands in
good service." l
The little society in Flushing soon found a yeoman
leader in one of its own members, John Bowne, " the
blameless Bowne," as Bancroft calls him. He had
immigrated from Derbyshire, first to Boston and then to
Long Island where in 1656 he married Hannah Field,
who became attached to the new Society in Flushing,
and took the risks of going to the meetings, which at
first were held in the woods to escape the notice of
those who were hostile. John Bowne out of curiosity
went with his wife to a meeting, was impressed with
the spiritual reality of the movement, and invited the
Friends to hold their meetings in his house — a fine
dwelling-house erected in 1661 in the eastern end of the
village near two magnificent oak trees. He soon allied
himself positively with the new venture and became a
member of the Society.
It was quickly reported that the Bowne house had
become a " conventicle " for Quakers, and the owner was
arrested, fined £25, and threatened with banishment on
non-payment. The threat, as usual, made no impression.
At the end of three months, during which Bowne had lain
in prison, an Order was passed in Council to transport
him, " if he continues obstinate and pervicacious," from
the province, " for the welfare of the community, and to
crush as far as it is possible that abominable sect who
treat with contempt both the political magistrates and the
ministers of God's holy Word, and endeavour to undermine
the police and religion." He did continue " pervicacious,"
and was transported by the ship Gilded Fox to Amsterdam.
Upon landing he laid his case before the Directors of the
West India Company, and as soon as their liberty-loving
spirits were wakened they gave him satisfaction — " they
spoke no word tending to the approval of what had been
clone against Quakers."
1 A.R.B. Collection (Devonshire House), No. 62.
228 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
They wrote a letter to Stuyvesant, not quite as
dramatic in its delivery as the " King's Missive " in
Massachusetts, but absolutely effective for its purpose.
The substance of the message was :
" It is our opinion that some connivance is useful, and that
the consciences of men ought to remain free and unshackled.
Let every one remain free as long as he is modest, moderate, and
his political conduct irreproachable." l
Soon after his return as a free man, John Bowne was
walking the street of Flushing and met the Governor.
The chief magistrate " seemed much abashed for what he
had done," but showed his manliness by saying, " I am
glad to see you safe home again." The straightforward
Quaker acknowledged his greeting and added, " I hope
thou wilt never harm any more Friends." 2 And he never
did. Bowne's victory had, as moral victories generally do
have, far-reaching consequences. He not only won his
personal freedom, but he called forth from the Directors
of the Colony a proclamation of the principle of complete
religious toleration, " The consciences of men ought to
remain free and unshackled." But that was not all. When
the next year the Colony was conquered by the English,
an article establishing " liberty of conscience in divine
worship and church discipline " for all Dutch subjects was
put in the articles of agreement surrendering the territory.
In 1664, the year the Colony passed into English control,
the " Duke's law " provided that " no person shall be
molested, fined, or imprisoned for differing in judgment
in matters of religion," and from that time on the
principle was recognised throughout the Colony as a
fundamental right, though in practice it was still occasion
ally violated.3
1 Ecclesiastical Records of New York, i. 530. Bowden's History (i. 324-325)
gives the correspondence in full.
2 Bishop, p. 423.
3 There were sporadic attempts to harry the Quakers throughout the seventeenth
century, always in the interests of the Established Church. I have found this
interesting letter from Richard Gildersleeve, constable, to Governor Andros of
New York :
' ' RIGHT HONORABLE — Whereas your honor was pleased to lay some command
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 229
The Colony became English territory by the terms of
surrender in 1664, and was organised as a British Colony
with a Governor from the mother country. It was re
conquered by the Dutch in 1673, but with the settlement
of peace in 1674 it was restored to the English. The
little groups of Friends in the Colony were in this
transition period much expanded, and entered upon a
new stage of their development, as a result of the visits
of important missionary Friends. The first of these
constructive visits was that of John Burnyeat, who makes
the first mention we have of a permanent organisation of
the Friends on Long Island. He writes :
"I arrived at New York the 2yth day of Second month
[April old style] 1671, and from New York I went to Long
Island, and visited Friends on the island and other places there
away [probably Shelter Island], and was with them at their half-
year's meeting at Oyster Bay." *
Burnyeat was back again for extended work at the
end of six months, when he visited all the meetings on
the island, and attended again the Half- Year's Meeting at
Oyster Bay.2
" The Lord's power broke in upon the meeting, and Friends'
hearts were broken, and there were great meltings among us.
Friends were comforted and the seed and life reigned over all." 3
upon mee for the prevention of Quaker Meettings within our towne of Hemstead,
which accordingly I have done to the best of my power by forewarning Captain
John Seman. Being sick and not able to go myself, I sent two overseers to fore
warn him that he should not entertain any such meeting att his house, yett nott
withstanding his answer was that he tooke no notice of the warning, and proceeded
to have and had a very great meeting the lastt Lordsday being the 28th of this
instant Hopping these few lines may find your honors favorable acceptance, and
render mee excusable, and thatt your Honor will be pleased to take it in to your
serious consideration for the ffuter pruention of the like : nott troubleing your
Honor any further I remain Your Honors Humble seruantt Richard Gildersleeve,
Hemstead, May 26, 1679." — Ecclesiastical Records of New York, i. 723.
1 Journal of John Burnyeat, p. 196. This Oyster Bay Half- Year's Meeting
was until 1695 a part of New England Yearly Meeting.
2 He found the Long Island Friends at this time somewhat divided, as a
result of the influence of a party in England opposed to George Fox and the
system of organisation which was being put into operation. The contention
was increased at this time because Burnyeat had brought with him a copy of
Fox's Book of Advice and Discipline, and the Ranters produced their "Book"
in opposition. — See Journal, pp. 197-198.
8 Journal, p. 198.
230 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
On his way south, Burnyeat held a meeting in New
York City, which is the first mention I have found of
a Quaker meeting held on Manhattan Island.
At the next gathering of the Oyster Bay Half- Year's
Meeting, in April of 1672, the great founder himself,
George Fox, was present, having travelled from Maryland
by forced marches — " earnestly pressed in spirit " — to get
to Long Island in time for it. Fox writes :
"The Half year's meeting began on First day of the week
and lasted four days. The first and second days we had public
meetings for worship, to which people of all sorts came. On
the third day were the men's and women's meetings wherein the
affairs of the church were taken care of." l
He found, as Burnyeat had the year before, some " con
tentious spirits " who were making trouble. He met
them face to face to consider their objections and com
plaints, and " the Lord's power broke forth gloriously, and
the Truth of God was exalted and set over all." 2
On his way back from New England Fox visited
Shelter Island. He had a famous meeting with the
Indians on the little island.
"I had a meeting," he writes, "with the Indians, at which
were their king, his council, and about a hundred Indians more.
They sat down like Friends and listened attentively. After
meeting they appeared very loving, and confessed that what was
said to them was Truth. Next First-day we had a great meeting
on the island, to which came many people who had never heard
Friends before. . . . They were much taken with the Truth."3
After a very stormy passage he got to Oyster Bay,
where he had " a very large meeting," and, in company
with Christopher Holder and James Lancaster, he went
across the Sound, " to the continent," as he calls it, and
held a meeting at Rye, at that time in " Winthrop's
territory " (i.e. in Connecticut) ; then to Flushing, " where
we had a very large meeting, many hundreds of people
being there, some of whom came about thirty miles to
1 Fox's Journal, ii. 167.
2 Ibid. ii. 168. There are evidences in all the Journals of the period that
there were many Ranters to be found in the Colonies as there were also in
England. * Ibid. ii. 172.
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 231
it. A glorious and heavenly meeting it was," and, finally,
" three precious meetings " at Gravesend.1
This work was immediately followed up and carried
farther by the great colonial missionary of Quakerism,
William Edmundson. His Journal for 1672 says :
" I took passage by sea [from Maryland] and about ten days
after landed at New York where no Friends lived. We lodged
at a Dutch woman's house who kept an inn. I was moved of
the Lord to get a meeting in that town, for there had not been
one there before.2 I spoke to the woman of the house to let
us have a meeting. She let us have a large dining-room and
furnished it with seats. We gave notice of it and had a brave,
large meeting! Some of the chief officers, magistrates, and
leading men of the Town were at it ; very attentive they were,
the Lord's power being over them all. Several of them appeared
very loving after the meeting. The woman of the house and
her daughter, both being widows, both wept when we went
away." 3
Edmundson followed the regular Quaker route through
Long Island eastward, finding " many honest, tender
Friends " in the towns, and having a memorable visit with
the Friends on Shelter Island, from whom he " parted in
the sweet love of God " for New England
On his return journey, having " set all the town [of
Hartford] a-talking of religion," he crossed to Long
Island. Here he found an outbreak of Ranterism :
" Friends were much troubled in their meetings with several
who had gone from Truth and turned Ranters. They would
come, both men and women, into Friends' meetings, singing and
dancing in a rude manner which was a great exercise [annoyance]
to Friends. We staid sometime and had large and precious
meetings, at several places. Many of the Ranters came to the
meetings and the Lord's power was over them and chained them
down. Some of them were reached and brought back to the
Truth."4
1 Fox's Journal, ii. 174.
2 Edmundson is wrong in this statement, as Burnyeat had held one in the
city before this.
3 Edmundson's Journal, p. 64.
4 Ibid. p. 92. These Ranters apparently did not stay ' ' chained, '' for
Thomas Chalkley, writing in 1698 of his visit to Long Island, says: " I met with
some of the people called Ranters who disturbed our meeting. I may say as
the apostle Paul did, that I fought with beasts there ! " — CbaXkley's Journal, p. 22.
232 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
As has already been said, there was, at least in all the
northern Colonies, in the seventeenth century a large and
dangerous sprinkling of Ranters. They did not originate
from the Quakers, as they ante-dated the latter by some
years. They were a part of a widespread, though some
what chaotic movement in England,1 and there was an
out-cropping of the same tendency in America. Among
the groups of Anabaptists, Seekers, and so-called
" Antinomians," wherever they appeared, there formed
a radical wing composed of those who were less stable
mentally, less organized morally, and less under the social
direction of the groups to which they belonged. The
Friends, with their lack of ecclesiastical authority, and
with their doctrine of the Light within, were almost certain
to suffer from the Ranter propagandism, and the move
ment did pick off some of the members who were
ill-balanced and easy subjects of fanaticism. The Quaker
leaders had powerfully proclaimed the possibility of
complete salvation from sin, and it was only to be
expected that some emotional Quakers, especially such
as had a strain of hysteria, would make extravagant
claims. One illustration of this Ranter tendency will
suffice, taken from the Annals of Newtown, Long Island.
"There resided at the English Hills in Newtown several
individuals holding the religious opinion of the Quakers.
Among them was Thomas Case, who assumed the office of
preacher, and at his house the faithful were wont to convene for
worship. He set up a new form of Quakerism, and labored with
great zeal to promulgate his views, not unfrequently continuing
his meetings many days in succession. Inspired with a fancied
holiness of his character and office he asserted that he was come
to perfection and could sin no more than Christ, and he maintained
that when he should die he would rise again the third day." 2
This " new sort of Quakerism," as this chronicler calls
it, ran into a wild fanaticism, and these " half-Quakers "
were dealt with vigorously in 1675 by the town authorities.
1 See my Studies in Mystical Religion, the chapter on ' ' Seekers and
Ranters."
a Annals of Newtown, pp. 93-95.
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 233
They were also vigorously dealt with by the Quaker
meeting itself, as the following minute of Westbury
Quarterly Meeting indicates :
"At a Quarterlie Meeting ye 3©th day of ye 6th mo. 1675,
We ye people of God, being weightily meett in ye feare and dread
of ye Lord, being much conserned in our Spirits considering a
people that is arisen in this day which calleth themselves by ye
name Friends. These people oppose and denye ye truth of our
Lord Jesus and speak evill of his way and people, wherefore we
ye people of God, being seriously meett together in ye name and
feare of ye Lord, felling ye out-running of those people to be as
a weight vpon vs, we, in obedience vnto god and his blessed
truth, doe vnanimusly signify6 our dislike of yt spirit they are
guided by and give forth our testimonies against it.
Whereas those people being risen in ye pretence of ye truth
in this western part of Long Island and some upon ye main, who
call themselues young Friends or new friends, the leading persons
of them being Thomas Case, Garsham Lockwood, Lydia fibster,
Elizabeth Cleave, with many others against whom we bear
testimony for their confused practices, and have openly denied
their Spirit of delusion by which they are led and guided, yet
the presisting in and by ye deluding spirit and dark power wch
opperates in them has bretrayed many into ye same snare wherein
they become the country's discourse, wherefore we are nessecitated
for ye baring of ye precious truth and for ye renouncing aspera-
tions yt may arise of us cleare from owning their way or evill
practices to be in or by ye Spirit or power of God, and do giue
forth our public testimonies to all yt may see ye same, yt we
utterly deny them and all yt joyned in those confused practices,
and ye spirit and power by wch they are led and guided." l
Two official reports of this period throw some light on
the place which the Quakers held in the estimation of
the Government. The first extract is from the Report of
1 Minutes of Westbury Quarterly Meeting. The following letter from
Edward Taylor to Increase Mather may possibly throw a glimpse of light upon
these " new Quakers," though it is more probable that the incident reported is a
fiction of the imagination of minds always on the watch for signs of witchcraft
and for signs that the Quakers were objects of divine disapproval. Edward
Taylor writes, January 22, 1683 : " At Mattatuck, about 16 miles S.W. from
Farmington, about 10 o'clock at night, there was seen by about 6 or 7 men a
black streake in the skie like a rainbow. . . . About the same time it was
credibly reported with us that the Quakers upon Long Island were on the Lord's
day to have a horse race, and the riders mounted for the race were dismounted
again by the All Righteous offended Judge striking them with tortuering pains
whereof they both &K&." —Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Part iv.
voL viii. p. 630.
234 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
Governor Andros on the religious condition of the Province
of New York in 1678, and the second extract is from a
similar Report made by Governor Donegan in 1687 :
" There are here Religions of all sorts, one church of England,
several Presbiterians and Independents, Quakers and Anabaptists
of several sects, some Jews, but Presbiterians and Independents
most numerous and substantial." l
"Here bee many of the Church of England; few Roman
Catholick ; abundance of Quaker Preachers^ men and women ;
especially Singing Quakers, Ranting Quakers." *
One of the most memorable and historically important
of the many missionary visits to Long Island for the
purpose of extending Quakerism was that of Samuel
Bownas of England, a young man of twenty-five at the
time of his visit in 1702. He appointed a meeting, soon
after his arrival, at Hempstead in a great barn and it was
attended by a crowd of people. At the instigation of
George Keith, formerly a leading exponent of Quakerism,
but at this time a bitter opponent of Friends,8 who had
followed Bownas from Philadelphia in order to block his
work, a warrant was sworn out, charging Bownas with
" speaking lies and reflections against the Church of
England " in his sermon at Hempstead. When the High
Sheriff, accompanied by a posse of men " armed with guns,
swords, pitchforks, clubs and halberts " came to arrest the
prisoner, the Half-year's Meeting was in session at Flushing
(29th November 1702), and Samuel Bownas was sitting
in the ministers' gallery. The Sheriff marched up the
aisle, pulled out his warrant, and said "You are my
prisoner." After some parley the Sheriff consented to
wait till meeting was over, and his men piled up their
motley arms at the door and all sat down in the Quaker
meeting. The " silence " at first astonished the officers of
the law, but as they were beginning to whisper that Bownas
1 Governor Andros1 Report on the Province of New York in 1678. — Doc. Hist.
New York, \. 92.
z Ibid. L 186, Governor Donegan's Report on the Province in 1687. The
"Singing Quakers" and "Ranting Quakers" naturally made an impression,
though they were certainly few in number.
* For an extended treatment of Keith, see Book V. Chapter II.
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 235
was frightened by the show of force, he felt " the Word
like a fire and stood up and had a very agreeable service."
At the close of the meeting the Sheriff gave him an
extension of liberty until the Half- Year's Meeting was
concluded, at the last gathering of which " near two
thousand people " were present.
At the hearing before the Justices, Bownas was asked
to give £2000 bail or be committed to the common
jail. His answer was, " If the bail were fixed at three
half-pence I would not give it" One of the Justices
thereupon took him to his own house for the night, and
the next day he was committed to jail for three months,
at the end of which time he was brought before the court
of Oyer and Terminer, Chief Justice John Bridges presiding.
The grand jury refused to bring a true bill against Bownas.
The judge was thereupon very angry with them and
endeavoured to compel them by threats of imprisonment
and fine, but one of the jurors boldly answered : " You may
hang us by the heels if you please, but if you do the
matter will be carried to Westminster Hall ; for juries,
whether grand or petty, are not to be menaced with
threats, but are to act freely." l The browbeating continued
over to the next day, but the men remained unmoved and
stood for the privilege of juries. Whereupon the judge
declared in wrath, " As justice cannot be come at here,
I will send the prisoner to London chained to the deck of
a man-of-war."
As Samuel Bownas was sitting alone, wondering what
the issue of his case would be, an old man named Thomas
Hicks, who had been chief-justice of the province, came
to see him, took him in his arms, and with tears in his
eyes said, " The Lord has used you as an instrument to
put a stop to arbitrary proceedings in our courts of justice.
There has never been so successful a stand made against
it as at this time. You need not fear ; they can no more
send you to England than they can send me."
The prisoner was, however, confined, by order of the
1 The judicial decision in the Bushnell case, which arose out of the trial of
Penn and Mead, had settled the law that no jury could be fined for its verdict.
236 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
judge, in a small room made of logs, where he was kept
until October 1703, and then set free because the jury
again refused to find a bill against him. He had supported
himself in prison by making shoes ; getting his bread, he
says, " with my own hands, as was agreeable with Paul's
practice." Having been held a close prisoner almost an
entire year, he received " a kind of triumph " on his
release, and "visited every corner of the island, and had
very large and open meetings." He had an odd dream
at Cowneck :
"I dreamed," he says, "that an honest Friend was fishing in
a large stone cistern, with a crooked pin for a hook, a small
switch stick for rod, and a piece of thread for line ; and George
Fox [who died twelve years before] came and told me that there
were three fishes in that place, and desired me to take the
tackling of the Friend since he lacked the skill to handle the
matter. Then, methought, the Friend gave me the rod, and the
first time I threw in I caught a fine fish. George Fox then bade
me try again, for there were two more in the place. I did and
took up another. He bade me cast once more. I did and took
the third. Now, said George, there are no more there ! "
The next day at meeting Bownas had forgotten the
dream as though it had not been. A Friend rose and
spoke for a little on universal grace. As soon as he
stopped, Bownas, with " his heart full of the matter," took
up the same subject and landed his fish : " We had a
blessed meeting and the dream came true ! " *
Thomas Story's Journal is a valuable source of in
formation on the condition and growth of Quakerism in
New York.2 He visited New York City for the first time
in 1 699, having " a small meeting " there. He gives us
the interesting information that he " fell in opportunely
with a Yearly Meeting at Westchester on the main,
about twenty miles from New York." s He found a good
many Ranters still in evidence on Long Island, one of
1 A meeting was soon after established there. The Bownas incidents are told
in his Life and Travels (London, 1761), pp. 61-95.
2 Journal of Thomas Story.
3 Ibid. p. 177. This was evidently not a Yearly Meeting for church affairs,
but a General Meeting for the purpose of ' ' expanding Quakerism. ' '
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 237
whom " hooted like an owl and made a ridiculous noise
as their manner is ! " l He had " glorious meetings " in
most of the Long Island towns ; he speaks of a " Quarterly
Meeting " at Westbury and one in New York City, and
he held a great meeting by appointment at Westchester,
" across the sound," to which " an abundance of people
came from as far as Horseneck." " The people," he says,
" were very still and affected with the testimony of
Truth."2
While they were at Newtown, a part of the present
city of Brooklyn, report reached him of the " pestilential
fever" which was then raging in Philadelphia. He and
his companion, Roger Gill, were eager to go to their
" distressed friends " in Philadelphia, but felt called before
leaving to hold a meeting in New York City, where " the
people seemed to have good understandings generally."
The meeting was appointed at the request of Thomas
Story, and was held in the house of Thomas Roberts, " a
convinced man in the heart of the city." " The room
was large, and all about the doors and windows were full
of people," but Thomas Story got no chance to speak.
" I had," he says, " a great weight and exercise on my
mind, but Roger Gill stept in between and took up most
of the seasonable time, till my spirit almost sunk under
the load ; and while it was working up the second time
after he sat down, Samuel Jenings stood up and took the
rest [of the time] ; and then I totally fell under it, and
was greatly oppressed in spirit, though I bore it un discerned
by any ! " 3 He came back from Philadelphia before the
end of the year (1699), and had another meeting in the
same house "... the concern having remained in secret,"
i.e. on his mind. This meeting was large and he delivered
himself of his " concern," and was " fully clear and easy." 4
In 1702 he had "a glorious meeting in the new meeting
house " at Westbury. " Many hundreds of Friends and
abundance of other people were there. The meeting
being over, there came over the Plains with us at least
1 Journal of Thomas Story, p. 220. 2 Ibid. p. 221.
3 Ibid, p. 222. * Ibid. p. 243.
238 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
100 horse to their several habitations." ] In 1703 he was
at a meeting in Westchester, " which was more open
than usual in that place." Toward the end of 1704 he
went to New York City, having heard that Lord Cornbury,
the Governor of the Colony, was going to arrest him if he
ever came into that jurisdiction again. " I was," he says,
" at the Sheriff's house several times, but the Lord preserved
me free to the service of the blessed Truth." 2
The Journal of James Dickinson gives a good picture
of conditions in 1698 :
"We crossed Amboy ferry in two canoes, which the water
men lashed together to carry our horses over. Next day we
went to Elizabeth-town [New Jersey], took boat for New York,
and were all night upon the water, being exposed to wind and
storm : it rained all night and we had no shelter, for the boat
was filled with wood and we sat upon it. About break of day
we got to New York where we staid a little ; then passed over
in a canoe to Long Island, and travelled up and down, laboring
in the work of the gospel ; and had good service for the Truth.
Several were convinced, particularly a captain in the army and a
justice of the peace, who were afterwards called before the
Governor of New York ; and because they could neither swear
nor fight any longer, they laid down their commissions, having
received the Truth in the love of it. In New York City many
hearts were deeply affected and tendered, both among the Dutch
and English, and the Lord's power was over all." s
Thomas Chalkley, the great Quaker traveller in the
first half of the eighteenth century, was one of the fore
most instruments in the expansion of New York
Quakerism. He had already visited Long Island near
the close of the seventeenth century — " fighting beasts "
there, — but his important visit came in 1704. He
travelled by horse and canoe from North Carolina,
having narrow escapes from rattlesnakes, and
" Lodging like good Jacob on his way to Padan Aram. Very
sweet was the love of God to my soul as I waked, and the dew
of the everlasting love refreshed me." 4
I Journal of Thomas Story, p. 256. z Ibid. p. 370.
II Journal of James Dickinson, in " Friends' Library," vol. xii. p. 393.
4 Journal of Thomas Chalkley, p. 38.
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 239
" So we travelled on to New York and Long Island, where we
had divers meetings, as at Flushing, Westbury, Jerusalem, Jerico,
Bethpage, Matinicook, and also at West Chester on the main" l
On his return journey Thomas Chalkley had large
and powerful meetings again through Long Island. A
still more constructive tour was made by Thomas
Chalkley through the New York meetings, especially on
Long Island, in 1724. Much new ground was broken,
and many " were convinced of the Principle of Truth."
He visited Westchester again, and held a meeting at
Newtown which was so large that the meeting-house
could not contain the people. He held a meeting with
" those few Friends at New York — the quietest meeting I
ever had there ! " 2
Edmund Peckover visited Long Island in 1743. He,
however, gives only one or two concrete pictures of the
actual state of things there then. He attended the
Yearly Meeting at Flushing that year, and he says that
" the Top Sort of people for many miles round about the
country were there." He reports but few Friends in New
York City, but the yellow fever was raging at the time of
Peckover's visit, and he did not see the city in its normal
conditions.8 William Reckitt visited the meetings
through this region in 1758, and his report indicates that
a decline had set in on Long Island. " Lukewarmness
and indifference much prevailed," he says. Again, he
makes the comment that " at Oister Bay there had been
a large meeting, but now it was much declined." *
The last account which I shall give of conditions
in the Colony in the eighteenth century shows that
crystallisation was settling down upon Quakerism, and
that the period of expansion was over. It is from the
Journal of John Griffith of England, who visited the New
York meetings in 1765 :
"Quarterly Meeting at Flushing (2 2nd of Fifth Month) was
small, and things, as to the life of religion, were felt to be very
1 Journal of Thomas Chalkley, p. 39. 2 Ibid. pp. 118-120.
3 For Peckover's Journal see Journal of Friends' Historical Society, vol. i. pp.
95-109. 4 William Reckitfs Life, pp. 120-121.
240 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. u
low, a painful gloominess having spread itself through a want of
living concern in many of the members . . . the vital part of
religion seemed to be much obstructed." 1
Griffith's Journal introduces us to a number of new
meetings, which had been established by migration and
expansion, like a chain of forts, running north from Long
Island Sound, parallel to the Hudson, between the river
and the Connecticut line, but he sees almost everywhere
the marks of deadness :
"We went to New Milford meeting [in the Edge of
Connecticut] on Firstday the 3rd of Eighth month. I had
nothing to offer in the way of ministry. After meeting we
ascended to the Oblong, and a long ascent it was, to the summit
of the hill, called Quaker Hill [on the New York side of the
line]. We had a very large meeting at a commodious house
built by Friends on that hill. They who attended were
generally professors of the truth, and mostly ' plain ' and becom
ing in their outward garb ; yet, alas ! when they came to be
viewed in the true light they appeared dry and formal, many, I
fear, having clothed corrupted nature with a form of religion,
and in a ' plain ' dress sit in their religious meetings like dead
images.
"We had a large meeting at the Nine Partners [East of
Poughkeepsie] and we had a painful afflicting meeting at
Oswego. On First day, the xoth of Eighth month, we were at the
Oblong meeting again ; my travail through the entire meeting
was in suffering silence. We had meetings [travelling south] at
Peach-Pond, North Castle, Purchase, Mamarineck, and West
Chester. On Firstday the i yth we were at two meetings in the
city of New York. I had a good deal of satisfaction among
Friends in this city, and I hope there is a growth in best things.""*
Our next chapter will show this Quakerism of New
York more from the inside, and we shall see what it
was as its own records reveal its activities. The material
for the present chapter has been drawn almost entirely
from outside sources, especially from Public Records and
the Journals of visiting ministers.
We have seen these little societies of Friends spring
up and grow in the towns of Long Island, in New York
1 Journal of John Griffith (London, 1779), p. 393.
8 Ibid. pp. 408-411.
CH. i QUAKERISM IN NEW YORK 241
City, and northward along the chain of hills back of the
Hudson. We have seen them confronted, first by the
fierce hostility of an established religion ; next by the
more subtle danger of Ranterism, which picked off the
fringe of less stable members ; and, finally, we have seen
these groups facing the subtlest of all enemies to religion,
the tendency to cool off, stagnate, and become the
crystallised reproduction of an ancestral faith. There was,
however, from the beginning to the end of the period a
real spring of vitality which will appear more clearly in
the next chapter. Their own estimate of their condition,
made in 1680, is on the whole sound and true :
"Through patience and quietness," the New York Friends
wrote to London Yearly Meeting, "we have overcome in and
through the Lamb, and we have found of a truth that the Lord
takes care of his people. Our testimonies go forth without any
hindrance and return unto us not wholly empty, but have their
fruitful workings both upon Dutch and English nations. In a
sense of this our hearts rejoice in the Lord for that His holy light
of life breaketh through the darkness as the dawning of the day."
There is nothing better in this world of ours than a
people living in and practising the faith that the holy
light of life is breaking through the darkness as the dawn
ing of the day !
CHAPTER II
NEW YORK QUAKERISM — ITS MEETINGS AND
ACTIVITIES
THE external husk of any religious movement is obvious
and describable, the inner core is indescribable, and is
missed by all except those who are initiated. The garb
and language, the external peculiarities, and the odd " testi
monies " of the Colonial Quakers struck most observers.
The novel experience, the fresh sense of God which had
come to them, was what the casual onlooker failed to
understand, and yet this was in reality the only thing
that mattered — it was the inner core.
The meeting for worship which was held for the very
purpose of cultivating this fresh sense of God was thus
the heart of the whole Quaker system. All religions
which move men profoundly and make them able to
endure the world's crucifixions have some method of
bringing God and man together in a face to face experi
ence. The Quaker method was extremely simple, but, at
its best, powerfully effective. It called for no material
apparatus and it made use of no sacred symbols. It
consisted alone of the hushing of the noise and din of the
outer activities of life. Its supreme and central axiom
was the faith that God is Spirit amd so as near the human
spirit as air is to the breathing lungs or sunlight to the
living plant. But as this spiritual relationship is a personal
matter it calls for a peculiar attitude of will, or, in the
language of an earlier time, a certain condition of heart.
God, the Quaker assumed, did not need to be brought
nearer ; man alone needed to be adjusted and made
242
CH. ii MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES 243
appreciative. He could no more find God when he was
full of himself and of the world, than one can enjoy
beautiful music with his mind crowded with the whirr
of factory wheels. He must be hushed and attuned.
Just this hushing and attuning was the service of the
meeting for worship. Those who formed the nucleus of
the Quaker group were thoroughly tired of theological
arguments and of sermons which began and ended on the
level of logic — or " knowledge about." They wanted a
new approach. They were eager for a direct " knowledge
of acquaintance " — an experience which made their hearts
burn with a sense of the Divine Presence, and they found
this in the meeting for worship.
We know to-day much more than they did of the
psychology of corporate silence, and there can be no
doubt that there is a " borderland " state of consciousness
produced by unbroken silence in which the deepest
strata of the self come into function in ways not usual
to the normal consciousness. If it is true, as I believe,
that the Divine and the human are conjunct, then it is
further true that the corporate silence is an admirable
preparation for spiritual correspondence. But, in any
case, it is beyond question that these meetings for
worship made those who participated in them feel sure
that they had been meeting and communing with God,
and they were, therefore, very dynamic occasions, and the
members believed that they had found, in the hard
surroundings of pioneer life, a real " upper room " religion.
In its earliest stage on Long Island, as everywhere
else in the colonies, Quakerism was primarily a method of
worship. Its organisation was very slight indeed. Those
who found a new life in the meetings for worship risked
reputation, goods, and life to go to them, and, in doing so,
they were thereby Quakers. Certain marked habits, which
had almost unconsciously formed in the Quaker groups,
would naturally be quickly taken up, such as the use of
"thou and thee" in speech, the refusal to conform to
fashion in dress, the scruple about oaths, and the care to
avoid everything that had to do with war. There formed,
244 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
too, gradually of course, a certain disposition, or mental
" atmosphere," which characterised a Quaker of the inner
circle as much as his dress or speech did. Its leading
feature was a bloom of joy which came into the life with
assurance of salvation and confidence in the love of God.
There were, no doubt, Quakers of hard faith and stern
face, but the tone of character which goes with conscious
ness of fellowship with God was the usual mark.
Little by little, here as in the other colonies, the
organisation took on shape and grew defined. The
influence of George Fox upon the formation of the
colonial meetings in the early period is everywhere clearly
evident, and the earliest Records generally open with an
epistle from him. The earliest minute in the New York
Records runs :
"At a men's Meet ye 23 day of 3d month 1671. It was
agreed yt ye first dayes Meetings be on one day at Oyster bay
and another day at Matinacock ; and ye weekly Meeting to begin
about ye first houre in ye afternoon. It was allso agreed ther
shall bee a Meeting keept at the wood edge [Westbury] the 25
of the 4th month and soe every 5th first Day of the week." l
This is the earliest extant minute of a Friends'
meeting in America and is probably the earliest one
written on the continent. John Burnyeat who attended
this meeting in 1671 brought with him a minute-book
which George Fox had sent to Long Island Friends by
his hand. The above minute is followed by a letter of
advice from George Fox which begins with his usual
salutation, " In the Truth of God which changes not
in whom is my love." He then reminds his distant
Friends that " there hath been [among them] a stoppage
of ye truth and power of God," and that they need to
be " searched to ye bottom " and so " come into ye
sanctified life" — and for this purpose he calls for a
careful examination of the persons who claim to be
Friends, and a winnowing of those who walk unworthily
1 This Book of Minutes was discovered in a garret at Flushing in 1868 and is
in the vault in the Meeting House at Rutherford Place, New York, John Cox,
junior, custodian.
CH. ii MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES 245
and are in " the rotten principle of ye ranters." He
urges further a careful collection of the list of sufferings
endured in "the plantation." From this time on, the
organisation, for purposes of order and for purposes of
relief, gradually progressed.1
There is an interesting link of connection between the
Long Island Friends and those in New England to be
found in an epistle of Advice from the latter to the former
in 1679 :
" Dear friends, ye know that the Lord God of heaven hath
appeared and manifested His mighty power which hath reached
unto thousands and hath redeemed many out of nations, tongues,
kindreds, and peoples to be a peculiar people, and hath taught us
by His holy Spirit to denie ye customs, fashions and words of ye
world. ... It lieth upon us, ye people of God assembled
together at ye Men and Women's Meeting in Road Island, to
stir up ye minds in one another that ye principles of ye blessed
truth be allwaise stood in and continued for that God over all
may be honoured and his people preserved in purity and good
order in ye truth that changeth not, that soe they may be
preachers of Righteousness unto ye world in their words and
actions."
The " Advice " which follows this salutation is an
interesting revelation of the things which seemed to the
early Friend of greatest moment No Friend is to " walk
disorderly in anything " ; nor to live in any way " not
according to Truth " ; " nor to oppress or defraud any
man in his dealings " ; no one is to " weare needless
attire " and all Friends are to " indever to bring up
their children to use plaine language and weare plaine
and deasent cloathing and demeane them in all things
according to ye truth which we make profession of." 2
At this earliest stage the records do not sharply mark
off one type of meeting from another — " a men's meeting "
1 John Bowne, John Tilton, Samuel Spicer, and Samuel Andrews, who were in
the list of Friends addressed in the Epistle, were the leaders in the group of Long
Island Quakers. John Feake, Hugh Cowperthwait and Anthonie Wright may
also be mentioned among those of largest influence.
2 "Given forth at a Generall Man and Women's Meeting at William
Coddington's at Road Island ye I2th of ye 4lh mo. 1679." — First Book of
Records of Flushing Monthly Meeting.
246 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
may be a " monthly meeting," or a " quarterly meeting," or
a " half-years meeting." Little by little, however, two
types did differentiate, and there were formed Flushing
Monthly Meeting and Westbury Quarterly Meeting which
in the spring and autumn sessions was frequently called,
though not officially, " Oysterbay Half Years Meeting " —
all of which " belonged " to New England Yearly Meeting
until 1696, when New York Yearly Meeting was estab
lished as an independent body.1
The two Monthly Meetings composing Westbury
Quarterly Meeting appear to have been established, and
regularly held by the year 1682, as the following minutes
of the Quarterly Meeting held in 6th month 1682
indicate :
" Ffriends of ye Monthly Meeting of New York and Gravesend
[Flushing Monthly Meeting] doe agree yt ye Monthly Meeting is
to be keept at Yorke two months following & ye jd at Gravesend,
the first Meeting at Gravesend to be YE FIRST FOURTH day in
the 6th mo. & soe sucksesifly."
" Friends at this Meeting hath left unto ye consideration of
1 It was set off from New England Yearly Meeting by the following minute :
" At a Generall Yearly Meeting at ye house of Walter Newberry's in Road Island
ye i4th daye of ye 4th mo. 1695. ... It is Agreed yt [that] ye Meeting at Long
Island Shall Bee from this time a Yearly Meeting and yt John Bowne and John
Rodman shall take care to Receive such papers as shall come to ye Yearly
Meeting in Long Island and Corespond with Friends Appoynted in London. ..."
The first session was on 3rd month [May] 29, 1696, and it has met every year
since in the latter part of the same month.
"At the Yearly Meeting at our Meeting house in flushing ye 3oth ye 3d mo.
1696 Henry Willis and Hen Coperthwaite are by this Meeting desired to get a
release for ye title of our Meeting house and Land belonging and bring it to our
next Meeting."
This was the first session of what is now called New York Yearly Meeting.
It was then generally called the Yearly Meeting held at Flushing.
By the following minutes of the Yearly Meeting it appears that Westbury
Quarterly Meeting was held three times in the year and that the Yearly Meeting
took its place in the fourth quarter.
' ' Whereas this Meeting is now Concluded to be a Yearly Meeting and not a
Quarterly one it is Thought Proper that the order of the state of Meetings or
anything else from the Monthly Meetings of Flushing and Westbury be first
carryed into the Quarterly Meeting at Westbury in the Twelfth Month and from
thence Recommended unto this Meeting until Friends see cause to order it
otherways. "
Westbury Quarterly Meeting was composed of two Monthly Meetings :
Flushing Monthly Meeting (later called New York), and Westbury Monthly
Meeting, established in 1682 and held at Oyster Bay, Matinecock, Hempstead, and
Jericho.
CH. ii MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES 247
Friends at ye Monthly Meeting at Oyster bay ye sattling of ye
Meeting of Friends at ye farms & at woodedg whether it be
conventient or not for them to be in two settled Meetings or not."
The " farms " was the early name of Jericho and
" Wood edge " was Westbury.
The following Minute settles still more definitely the
jurisdiction of Flushing Monthly Meeting :
"The 2oth day of ye 3d mo. 1684 : Then agreed by Friends
at this Meeting yt ffriends at Yorke, Gravesend, and Flushing
and Westchester, ye Kills, and Newton doe all belong unto one
Monthly Meeting to remain at Gravesend at ye 4th mo.
Quarterly Meeting and soe to continue by their own appointing
wt place they see convenient after."
It was always held at Flushing from 1695 till 8 mo.
6, 1742 then Flushing and Newtown until 6 mo. 1st,
1768 then Flushing, Newtown, and New York until
II mo. i, 1780, after which it was not held at Newtown.
The name was changed to the Monthly Meeting of Friends
of New York 7 mo. I, 1795.
The plan for the holding of the Quarterly Meeting was
marked out as follows in 1686 :
" At our Quarterly Meeting at Jericho on Long Island this
27th day of ye 12 mo. 1685-6 : By Joynt Consent of said men
and women's Meeting for regulating our Quarterly Meeting for
most Conveniency it is thought fitt and Vnanimously Agreed for
the futur ye said Meetings shall be at such times and places as
here Vnder Nominated.
" Vizt : Att Flushing a Quarterly Meeeting the last first day
of the third month. Att Oyster Bay the last 7th and ist day of
the Sixth month. Att Flushing the last 7th and ist day of the
ninth month. Att Jericho the last 7th and ist day of ye 12
mo. Att Westchester a Yearly Meeting for worship the last first
day in ye 4 mo. Att ye Kills the last first day of the 5 mo.
Att Jameca ye last first day of ye 7 mo." l
The important " business " of all these meetings in
their primitive period was (i) dealing with persons who
got entangled in " the ranting spirit " which swept Long
Island in the 'seventies and to the end of the century ;
1 Quarterly Meeting Records.
248 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. u
(2) guarding the high moral standard which the Friends
had set themselves to maintain, and (3) preserving the
peculiar Quaker " testimonies."
A specimen minute under each of these heads will
indicate how these internal problems were met. The first
is a minute concerning a certain Thomas Phillips who
had developed " a ranting spirit " :
"And now, dear friends, this may let you understand yt a
few months since there arrived at this island one Thomas
Phillips who as he sd was formerly a liver at Oyster Bay, he
being a hatter by trade, who when he was here in sum small
time sought to thrust himself amongst Friends, he being as we
afterwards perceived in need of money. But some of ye Friends
wth whome he first came acquainted not liking his discourse, he
setting up ye Ranting Spirit and its followers who goe vnder ye
name of new friends, a Friend now living in this Island (by name
John Brown who formerly was banished to some of those parts
and had some knowledge of those people) did desire to speak
with him believing that he was one of them in their spirit wch.
he in five words persaued soe, and warned him to come out of
it. But he still frequented our Meetings and growing more
subtil and crafty, did frequently in company of some weak
Friends, as their manner is, beguile them."
He was finally induced to " give forth a paper," con
demning his errors, " but it was much too short in several
respects," and so did not satisfy the Monthly Meeting,
which proceeded to give its testimony against all " dis
orderly ways " of life, and a call to its members to " walk
in the everlasting way of holiness — the King's highway —
and to be kept by the Lord alwaise of sound judgment
and right understanding in things that are of greatest
weight and concernment." *
The way Friends followed up the doings of their
members and scrutinised their reputations is well illustrated
by this Minute sent from Westbury Quarterly Meeting to
Friends in the Island of Jamaica :
" ffrom our Quarterly Meeting at Flushing ye 3oth day of ye
6th mo. 1678: We having been informed at this Meeting by
1 First Book of Records under date 5th mo. 29, 1680.
CH. ii MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES 249
our friend Rob. Story yt one John Inyon, a marchant in New
York, exclaimed against Friends after this manner : saying the
greatest cheats in the world goe under the name of Quakers.
His reason being demanded he said he consigned a vessell to
one William Shattlewood and to another man in Jemica which
he called Quakers, and he saith they will give him no account
of his concerns [consignments]. These are to desire Friends to
examine ye matter and write to us, if any Friends have received
anythings we would have them give an account how disposed of,
that we may have something to answer him. These with our
deare love." l
Dorothy Farrington's " case " is an illustration of the
third type of " business " :
"The 8th of ye loth mo. 1676: At a men and women
Meeting in ye house of Matthew Prior at Killingworth [later
called Matinecock] it was agreed on in ye Meeting that such
as could find anything upon them shall go vnto Dorety
ffarington of flushing and speake unto her in love and in ye
meekness to know whether she will owne judgment for her
walking and acting contrary unto ye truth in taking a husband
of ye world and not in unity of Friends." 2
There is a very fine early minute explaining to the
Governor of the Colony why Friends cannot help build
the fort in New York harbour, and this minute well
presents the way in which the Friends put their testi
monies before those in authority :
"To ye Gouernor of New Yorke.
" Whereas it was desired of ye country that all who would
willingly contribute towards repairing ye fort of New Yorke
1 First Book of Records under date 6th mo. 30, 1678.
2 First Book of Records. A bill concerning marriages was passed by the
Legislature in 1684 which provided that "nothing in this Act Shall be Con
strued or intended to prejudice the Custome and manner of marriages amongst
the Quakers, but their manner and forme of marriages shall be judged Lawful ; pro
vided they Admitt of none to marry that are restrained by the law of God contained
in the five books of Moses."
Here is a humble apology from Daniel Lawrence which is quite of the
common type: " To the Monthly Meeting at Flushing ye 3rd 5th mo. 1716.
Friends in as much as I have made profession of ye Blessed truth with you which
would preserued and kept me out of the many Euils that are in the world but I
must say that with sorrow of hart I haue giuen way to An ary Spirit and too much
joyning myself in fellowship with men of libertine spirits and alsoe in that insuit-
able frame of minde made sute upon account of marriage with one that was not
a Friend or Friend's child the which actions I doe with censerity condemn and
hoop for time to come to be more carefull and sircumspect so 1 shall subscribe
myself your friend who desires to doe well and hue in vnity with friends for time
to come. DANIEL LAWRENCK."
250 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
would give in their names and summes ; and we whose names
are under written not being found on the list. It was since
desired by ye High Sheriff yt we would giue our reasons unto
ye Gouernor how willing and ready we have been to pay our
customs as County raytes and needful towne charges and how
we haue behaued our Selues Peaceibly and quietly Amongst our
Neighbours ; and are ready to be seruisable in anything which
doth not Infringe upon our tender consciences but being in
measure Redeemed of warres and stripes we cannot for conscience'
sake be concerned in vpholding things of yt nature as you your
selves well know. It hath not not been our practice in Old
England since we were a people ; and this in meekness we
declare. In behalfe of ourselves and our ffriends, loue and good
will vnto thee and all men.
JOHN TILTON. SAML. ANDREWS.
JOHN BOWNE. MATT. PRYER.
SAML. SPICER. JOHN VNDERHILL.
JOHN RICHARDSON. JOHN FEKE.
"Slushing ye 3oth of ye loth month 1672."
Westbury Quarterly Meeting was the only quarterly
meeting in the colony until the year 1745, when Purchase
Quarterly Meeting (often called " Oblong Quarterly
Meeting " and sometimes " the Quarterly Meeting on the
Main ") was established. It was the only quarterly
meeting " on the main " within the period of this
history.1 It was composed of Purchase Monthly
Meeting and Oblong Monthly Meeting. Purchase
Monthly Meeting was established June 9, 1725, and
was the first monthly meeting " on the main " — the third
in the Province — and was in its early period generally
called the " Monthly Meeting for Westchester." 2 Oblong
1 Nine Partners Quarterly Meeting was established nth month, i3th, 1783.
2 The opening Minute reads as follows : —
"Whereas our last Yearly Meeting at Flushing did consent and appoint a
Mounthly Meeting to be held at Westchester for this county of Westchester,
accordingly we are met to hold our Mounthly Meeting this gth day, 4th month,
1725. Being present the most part of Friends of Westchester, of Mamreneck
and Rye. "
It would seem to have been generally held at the Meeting-house at Westchester
till 7th month 12, 1728, then "at the house of Josiah Quinby" at Mamaroneck
till roth month n, 1739, when the meeting-house was built in Mamaroneck.
It was held for the first time at Purchase in 3rd month 1742, and thereafter
for some years twice at Mamaroneck and once at Purchase, preceding each
Quarterly Meeting, and later was held every other time at Chappaqua till that
was set off as a separate Monthly Meeting in 1785.
CH. ii MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES 251
Monthly Meeting was set off from Purchase Monthly
Meeting, and was established in 1744. In 1769 a
monthly meeting was set off from Oblong and established
as "Nine Partners Monthly Meeting," and in 1778
Saratoga Monthly Meeting (later called Easton) was
established, which brings us to the end of the period
covered in this volume." l
1 For exhibiting to the reader the localities in which Quakerism took root I add
a list of the local, or " Preparative," meetings established up to the year 1780 : —
FLUSHING MEETING dates from 1657, though it was perhaps not a regular
congregational meeting until 1662.
WESTBURY MEETING (first called the Meeting at Woodedge) goes back into
the 'sixties though the first official mention is 4th month 25, 1671.
MATINECOCK MEETING was probably a regular congregational meeting in
the 'sixties, though the first mention on the Records is 1671.
JERICHO MEETING (in the earliest accounts called the "Farms Meeting")
dates also from the 'sixties.
Cow NECK MEETING also has a long period without official Records, but is
first officially named in 1702.
NEW YORK CITY MEETING cannot be definitely dated, but is first officially
settled in 1681.
NEWTOWN MEETING (sometimes called " the Kills," and sometimes Maspeth)
has a long unrecorded period, but is first officially named in 1682.
WESTCHESTER MEETING goes back to 1684, but was officially established
as a Preparative Meeting in 1716.
MAMARONECK MEETING established as a meeting for worship 1711, as a
Preparative Meeting in 1728.
PURCHASE MEETING, originally part of Westchester Meeting, but made an
independent Preparative Meeting in 1742.
OBLONG PREPARATIVE MEETING established 1742.
CHAPPAQUA MEETING was allowed in 1745, and a few years later was made
a Preparative Meeting.
NINE PARTNERS MEETING (Meeting for worship first called "Crumelbow"
in 1742) established a Preparative Meeting in 1744.
NEW MILFORD MEETING (a meeting for worship probably as early as 1733)
established as Preparative Meeting in 1777.
OSWEGO PREPARATIVE MEETING established 1758.
PEACH POND MEETING (a meeting for worship as early as 1760) established
a Preparative Meeting in 1779.
POUGHQUAIG (sometimes spelled " Appoughquage " and sometimes " Poquage"
was a meeting for worship in 1771) established a Preparative Meeting 1773.
EAST HOOSAC MEETING (in Western Massachusetts) was begun as a meeting
for worship in 1774. and became a part of Saratoga Monthly Meeting about
1775. It was established a Monthly Meeting in 1778.
AMAWALK MEETING established a Preparative Meeting to be held once a
quarter in 1774 — a meeting for worship some years earlier, probably in 1766.
CREEK MEETING established as a Preparative Meeting of NINE PARTNERS
Monthly Meeting in 1776 — a meeting for worship in the house of Jonathan Hoag
in 1771.
SARATOGA MEETING, a meeting for worship in 1774, a Preparative Meeting
in 1776.
CORNWALL MEETING, a meeting for worship in 1773 — a Preparative Meeting
in 1777.
MARLBOROUGH MEETING, a meeting for worship in 1776, a Preparative
Meeting in 1783.
252 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
The most illuminating glimpse we get into the actual
life of Quakerism in this Colony in its early period is
offered us in an Epistle which these Friends sent to
London Yearly Meeting in 1701. There is no " doctrine "
in it, and no attempt is made to analyze the religious
condition of the Colony but a brief extract will show that
there did prevail at this date a fairly live type of
Christianity in the Quaker group. It reads :
"Dear Friends in our Lord Jesus Christ: In that Love
which comes from God and in which we are united, we dearly
salute you in true brotherly kindness. We signify unto you the
prosperity of Truth amongst us to the Joy of our Souls. The
Lord is giving an increase daily to Friends and many are added
to the number of the Lord's people, and the people round about
where Friends dwell increase in love to Friends and frequently
come to Friends meetings — especially when the Lord sends His
servants [in the ministry] to visit us. We pray our gracious and
merciful God that we may walk worthy of his Love and that the
Lord may continue his tender regard to us in sending His
servants filled with His power and wisdom. The government is
kind to Friends and we enjoy our liberty." 1
These " servants of God filled with power and wisdom "
did continue to come, as the writers of this Epistle prayed,
and there is an amazing list of such itinerant ministers on
the records of the various meetings. In fact the one
weakness which comes out clearly in this Epistle is the
indication of the poverty of the native ministry and the
dependence for ministry on visitors from abroad. There
was no effort whatever made to develop ministry within
BEDFORD MEETING, "allowed" in 1777 by PURCHASE MONTHLY MEETING
" for Friends who live remote from Amawalk. "
There were also "house" meetings "allowed" at the following places: An
"allowed meeting" at Hempstead every five weeks beginning in 1765; at
Huntington, allowed by WESTBURY MONTHLY MEETING in 1732 ; at Rockaway
allowed by WESTBURY MONTHLY MEETING in 1739 ; at Setauket allowed by
WESTBURY MONTHLY MEETING in 1762.
3/3/1744. — "The Monthly Meeting of the Oblong desired the approba
tion of this Meeting in settling a Visitation. Meeting at Salisbury to be kept at
Joshua White's twice in a year, one on the 3d day of the week before ye
Monthly Meeting at ye Nine Partners in the 3d month, and the other on the
3d day of the week before said Monthly Meeting in the 7th month, which this
Meeting having had under consideration doth approve of." (Minutes of
Purchase Quarterly Meeting. )
1 Yearly Meeting Records for 1701.
CH. ii MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES 253
the body. It was looked upon as something wholly in
the inscrutable will of God, who conferred or withheld
His gifts as He would. This ignoring of the human
element was one of the most costly blunders which
Friends made, not only in New York but everywhere else,
and there is no question that the sporadic character of the
ministry was a forbidding aspect to most persons outside
the membership. An attempt was made in a feeble way
in 1 704 to meet this condition of weakness.
It was decided by action of the Westbury Quarterly
Meeting, November 25, 1704, that a meeting should be
held every three months for " all who minister in public
speaking in meetings for worship " and that " faithful
Friends out of each meeting be joined with them." This
came to be called " the meeting for ministering Friends,"
and was primarily designed for the " encouragement " of
the development of gifts. If some plan had here been
matured for the cultivation and development of " spiritual
gifts" the story of Quakerism would have been very
different. But the policy of timidity prevailed, and the
meeting of ministers gradually and somewhat uncon
sciously became the guardian of " soundness " and the
defender of ancient standards, rather than the nursery of
vital ministry. It was composed naturally of those who
were far past middle life, who had travelled away from
the enthusiasm and creative power of youth, and who
could not think or act in fresh and constructive ways.
The result was that " the meeting of ministering Friends "
became a solid force for the status quo, and did little or
nothing for a genuine development of fresh and vital
ministry. Such ministry did arise occasionally out of the
meetings themselves, as we shall see, and sometimes a
powerful voice appeared, but the development of a " gift "
was not because of the preparation made for its develop
ment, but rather notwithstanding the obstacles which
existed.1 There were, it is true, special meetings held for
1 I find considerable evidence that " the meeting of ministering Friends " was
occupied largely with checking rather than encouraging. There are many
minutes like the following :
" At a Meeting of Ministering ffriends at ye house of Samuel Bowne in
254 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
" youth," but they were " youth's meetings " only in name,
for all the members attended them, and the point of
difference between them and ordinary meetings seems
to have been that the youth were urged to " be faithful."
Gifts did, however, appear and develop in spite of the
neglect of methods to cultivate them. In 1745 a boy
was born at Cow Neck on Long Island and named David
Sands. He educated himself, studying often by firelight,
and grew up a diligent, eager-minded, spiritually-inclined
youth. As he was entering early manhood he attended
a Friends' Meeting at which Samuel Nottingham, an
English minister, spoke, and the message reached his
spirit and powerfully impressed him. He became an
attender of the Quaker Meetings on the Island and later
in New York City, and found in them what his spirit
was seriously seeking — a religion which seemed to him
real. He soon moved to the country and joined in
membership in the meeting at Nine Partners, where he
often broke the silence with simple messages. His words
were felt by the little group of Friends with whom he
belonged to be full of life, and little by little, as he obeyed
his Light, his power to interpret the spiritual meaning of
life enlarged. By the time he had reached his thirtieth
year he was recorded a minister, and almost immediately
began his remarkable travels through New England,
expanding the sphere of Quakerism wherever he went.
Later he travelled extensively in Great Britain and on the
(flushing z8th 9 mo. 1712, ffriends at this meeting, having wayed ye inconvenience
of some coming amonge us from other parts without certificates and appearing in
publick to preach, hath appointed John Rider and Robert Heald out of (flushing
Meeting, and William Willis and Henry Cock out of Westbury Monthly Meeting,
to inquire of all such for a certificate as they shall think need may Require."
" At a meeting of Ministering ffriends held at ye house of ye Widdow Willis'es
at Jereco, Robert Heald Declared at this meeting that he was sorry and Troubled
for his accompanying his sister Charety Willet in going home with her to her
new Dwelling She being married the day before out of ye unity of ffriends ; ye
said Robert declaring his sense of it was not well, with wch ye Meeting was
satisfied."
' ' firom our Meeting of Ministering ffriends and Elders ye 2510 of ye 3 mo.
1728 at the Meeting house in fflushing, this Meeting having considered this
complaint that hath been made from Westchester County of Richard Rogers
appearing in publick preaching in their said Publick Meetings to their Grief.
This Meeting hath advised him by this present Instrument to forbear for the time
to com so to appeare in Publick until ffriends have unity."
CH. ii MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES 255
Continent of Europe, speaking under diverse and often
difficult circumstances with much penetration and insight,
and exhibiting a very simple and genuine life of real
religious experience. The few glimpses that are given in
his Memoirs of his interpretation of inward religion show
that he had a sure grasp of the seed-principle of the
founders of Quakerism. He says that though we live
far separated in time from the miracles of the apostolic
period, we lack in no sense a convincing evidence of the
divine character of Christianity, since there is an internal
testimony to the Gospel of Christ in the heart of every one
that receives it — the Spirit of God witnesseth with our
Spirits, the changed heart becomes the house of God,
revelation proves to be a present and continuous fact, and
the soul has its own altar within.1
This case of the normal and effective spiritual develop
ment of David Sands is by no means an isolated case ;
such instances of the blowing of the Spirit as it listed are
fairly frequent, but the fact remains that David Sands
himself was, throughout his life, hampered by the way in
which his human development was neglected, and by the
lack of adequate method ior the cultivation of what in his
case was a very remarkable gift.
If the Friends did not always handle their internal
affairs with what seems to us at this far date to have
been "wisdom," they had, at any rate, a sure insight
when they attacked moral issues. The most massive
moral problem, here, as in the other colonies, was slavery,
and as soon as the evils of the system impressed the
consciousness of Friends they grappled manfully with the
issue — first clearing their own skirts and then endeavour
ing to cleanse the country itself. The awakening to a
consciousness of the evil did not come until after the
middle of the eighteenth century.2 The " awakening "
was almost certainly due to the visit of John Woolman —
a " beloved disciple " of liberty whose conscience was as
1 Memoirs of David Sands (1745-1818), London, 1848.
2 The Half Year's Meeting on Long Island, I4th October 1684, appointed
John Bowne and Wm. Richardf/on to raise money "on cheap terms" to supply
to John Adams ' ' part payment for a Negro man that he hath lately bought. "
256 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. a
sensitive to social evils as mercury is to temperature.
He travelled among the Friends of New York Colony in
1 760, and there came a powerful moral uprising against
the evil of slave-holding almost directly after that date.
The sentiment was at least well developed by the middle
of that decade. Flushing Monthly Meeting dealt in
1765 with Samuel Underbill for the "misconduct of
being concerned in importing negroes." He made the
following apology which was accepted :
"Whereas I have sometime past contrary to Friends Principles
been concerned in the importation of Negroes from Africa,
which has caused some uneasiness in my mind, I think I can
now say I am sorry I ever had any concern in that Trade, and
hope for the future I shall conduct myself more agreeable to
Friends principles in any such matters ; I am your friend, etc. —
SAML. UNDERBILL."
A similar apology came from a Friend in New York
City two years later, the record of which is as follows :
"At a Monthly Meeting held at Flushing the yth of ye 5th
mo. 1767. A few lines was read in this Meeting from Thomas
Burling, son of James Burling deceased, acknowledging he had
taken a Negro boy in the West Indies for a bad debt and therein
did condemn the practice of trading in negroes and was sorry
for the breach of unity made thereby which this Meeting
accepts." J
The country Friends were travelling rather faster than
the Friends who were living in the environment of the
city, and the next step in advance was taken by the
meetings in Dutchess county. Friends were, by this
time, pretty generally agreed that it was wrong to buy or
import slaves, but in 1767 Oblong Monthly Meeting
raised the question whether it was "consistent with a
Christian spirit" to hold a person in slavery at all. This
question impressed the members as being in the life, and
it was carried up to the Quarterly Meeting for maturer
judgment. It was thoroughly, or, as Friends say,
"weightily" considered at Purchase Quarterly Meeting,
1 Both these incidents are taken from the Records of Flushing Monthly
Meeting.
CH. ii MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES 257
held in the Oblong, May 2, 1767, and this Minute was
adopted :
" In this meeting the practice of trading in Negroes, or other
slaves, and its inconsistancy with our religious principles was
revived, and the inconsiderable difference between buying slaves
or keeping them in slavery we are already possessed of, was
briefly hinted at in a short Query from one of our Monthly
Meetings, which is recommended to the consideration of
Quarterly Meeting, viz. If it is not consistant with Christianity to
buy and sell our fellow-men for Slaves during their lives, and their
posterity after them, whether it is consistant with a Christian Spirit
to keep these in Slavery that we have already in possession, by
purchase, gift, or other ways"
This " Query " from the Quarterly Meeting came up
for consideration in the Yearly Meeting, May 3Oth of the
same year, and was " left for consideration on the minds
of Friends until next Yearly Meeting." At the next
Yearly Meeting (May 28, 1768) a committee, consisting
of John Burling, Thomas Seaman, John Cock, Isaac Doty,
Matthew Franklin, Thomas Franklin, Samuel Bowne, Jr.,
Thomas Dobson, and Daniel Bowne, was appointed to
formulate an answer. These men were not yet quite
ready for the speed at which the country Friends were
travelling, and they produced a conservative, but at the
same time a very clear-sighted, report, which was adopted.
It was as follows :
"We are of the mind that it is not convenient (considering
the circumstances amongst us) to give an answer to this Querie,
at least at this time, as the answering of it in direct terms
manifestly tends to cause divisions, and may introduce heart
burnings and strife amongst us which ought to be avoided, and
charity exercised, and persuasive methods persued, and that
which makes for peace. We are, however, fully of the mind
that Negroes as rational creatures are by Nature born free ; and
when the way opens liberty ought to be extended to them ; and
they not held in bondage for self ends. But to turn them out
at large indiscriminately (which seems to be the tendency of the
Querie) will, we apprehend, be attended with great inconveniency
as some are too young and some too old to procure a liveli
hood." *
1 Minutes of New York Yearly Meeting for 1768.
258 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
It was the unvarying custom of Friends in the
colonial days not to take any new step which could not be
taken in unity. That involved fairly slow progress, but
it also meant that the corporate body was behind a
movement when it was positively launched. In 1771
the Yearly Meeting decided that Friends who owned
slaves should not sell them as property, except with the
consent of their Monthly Meetings, and a solid committee
was appointed to visit all persons in the Society who held
slaves, to see if the freedom of these slaves could be
secured. This method of investigation was speedily
adopted by the subordinate meetings as well, so that by
1776 all the monthly meetings in the colony were
investigating the individual cases of slave-holding, and
were labouring to eliminate it absolutely. It was decided
further at the Yearly Meeting that year (1776) that
meetings should not receive services nor accept
financial contributions from any Friends holding slaves,
and from that time on the Monthly Meetings adopted
the practice of disowning from membership those belated
Friends who had not yet got their consciences awake to
the evil of owning' persons.
From the outbreak of the Revolution Friends began
to concentrate their efforts to secure better conditions for
those who had been slaves, and to work first for the
limitation and then for the abolition of the slave trade in
the country at large. The part which Friends took in
the great struggle for emancipation does not concern us
here, but it is a fact of historical importance that when the
separation of the colonies from the mother country was
finally accomplished, Friends themselves were free and
clear of slave-holding.1
1 The Meeting for Sufferings of New York sent this following Petition to the
Governor, Senate, and Assembly of the State in 1784 :
' ' The Petition of the Meeting for Sufferings representing the People called
Quakers of the same State :
" Respectfully sheweth
' ' That our minds being impressed with an ardent concern for the general good
of our fellow-creatures, and that all may enjoy their natural and unalienable rights
without distinction, we believe it to be our duty to address you on behalf of the
poor Negroes, who have long been a people under great oppression, many of
them originally torn from the land of their nativity ; and brought into this and
CH. ii MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES 259
Here as everywhere else in the American colonies the
Revolutionary War brought Friends face to face with
issues which profoundly tested their principles of peace
and which necessarily somewhat sifted the Society.
The Meeting for Sufferings in this Province was established
in 1758 and this Meeting dealt with many difficult
questions, rising out of the war. The tendency of the
Society in New York seems to have been one of sympathy
with the old order of things, though every possible effort
was made to keep the meetings from being implicated on
either side. In 1775 the Committee of Safety for the
Colony of New York requested a complete list of male
Quakers between sixteen and sixty. Friends " felt
uneasy " to make the list, and the Meeting for Sufferings
refused the request. The Minute reads :
"We are of the mind that we cannot comply, consistent with
our religious principles. We hope you will not consider such
refusal as the effect of an obstinate disposition, but as it really
is a truly conscientious scruple."
"In the trying situation of outward affairs," when all
occupations were interrupted, the Meeting for Sufferings
recommended that a "stock for relief" be raised and set
apart for helping Friends who were in distress and straits.
In '76 a requisition was made by the military officers of
the colonial forces that Friends should give a bond of
security to endeavour to keep their cattle from falling into
other parts of America, and sold into slavery. Numbers of whom, with many of
their offspring, are yet continued in a state of bondage. And as there is a Law
subsisting which operates to the discouragement of many of the conscientious
and well-disposed inhabitants of this state, against liberating their slaves, and no
Legislative provision yet made for those who have been set at liberty from
Religious motives. We therefore with submission intreat that ye may afford
them such relief as you in wisdom may see meet, believing the entire abolition
of Slavery a matter worthy of the most serious attention of the Legislative Body.
And tho' we think it needless to use arguments to gain the assents of your minds
to this great truth that all mankind without distinction have equally a natural
right to freedom, yet we would take the liberty in this case to call your attention
as fellow believers in Christ, to that excellent rule laid down by him, ' that what
soever ye would that men should do unto you do ye even so unto them. '
"With due respect we subscribe ourselves
"Your real friends
" Signed by order, and on behalf of said Meeting held in New York i4th i2th
mo. 1784,
"EDMD. PRIOR, clerk."
260 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
the hands of the English troops. The advice of the
Meeting for Sufferings was " that Friends do not comply
with this requisition."
In 1777 Governor Tryon informed the Meeting for
Sufferings that some Quakers had incurred the displeasure
of the authorities by being " too busy and active in the
present commotions," and to offset this activity he proposed
that the Society of Friends should raise a sum of money
to provide the troops with stockings and other necessities.
The answer of the Meeting is calm and dignified but
very positive. It is as follows :
" We may inform the Governor that it is with sorrow we may
acknowledge the deviation that hath appeared in some under
our name, notwithstanding a care which hath been extended in
our collective capacity to caution and advise our Members in
these respects. But apprehending that the proposed contribution
is manifestly contrary to our religious Testimony against war &
fightings which as a Religious body we have uniformly maintained
ever since we were first distinguished as such. We are therefore
under a necessity of declining a compliance therewith, Very
sincerely acknowledging our obligation to the Governor for his
friendly disposition heretofore manifested toward us we can at
the same time assure him that our motives in thus declining his
proposal are purely conscientious."
In 1781 certain Friends were appointed by the
Yearly Meeting to visit the meetings on Long Island, and
were " stopped by military men," at the order of General
Washington. A committee was appointed thereupon to
visit General Washington in person and explain to him
the peaceful nature of the " concern," but he still refused
to let them pass. During the hard closing months of
the New York campaign, Friends once more issued a
document to the membership, " affectionately recom
mending the members of the Society that they be careful
to cherish in themselves and in one another their tender
scruples against contributing to or in any wise giving
countenance to the spirit of war, and that they preserve a
conduct uniformly consistent with our peaceable principles
and profession."
CH. ii MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES 261
When the war was over and the new order established,
Friends loyally accepted it, but they were themselves
deeply affected by the fires through which they had
passed. Those who had believed that it was right to
fight in a great emergency had been sifted out of the
Society, and those who were left were furnace-tested
peace men and pledged henceforth to maintain "con
sistency to the profession." The Revolution was an
epoch period for the Society not only in issues of peace
and war, but for the reformation of ideas in all matters of
vital policy. The purging of slavery was, no doubt, the
beginning of the new moral awakening among Friends.
The hard crisis and the stern siftings of the Revolution
further touched the moral quick, and from this epoch the
leaders of the Society were consecrated with a new zeal to
the business of preparing a people of the Lord. The
Revolution was followed by a decided expansion of the
territory of Quakerism in the state of New York, and by
a revival of education within the Society. During the
'eighties there arose a demand for schools from every
section, and from this time dates the birth of the Quaker
ideal for a carefully educated membership. All local
meetings were recommended "to use their exertions in
endeavouring to promote schools for the education of the
rising generation." The definite plan for a school in
New York City was formulated in 1781, and was sent to
London in the hope of securing from England a Friend
competent to teach the proposed school. The plan is an
interesting revelation of educational conditions at that
time. It is as follows :
" Our Yearly Meeting for this Province held at Westbury on
Long Island taking into consideration the expediency of our
Youth being properly instructed in the use of learning under the
tuition of a sober discreet Friend recommended the same
through the Quarter to the Monthly Meeting. And we being
impressed with a like concern, well knowing the importance of a
suitable Education to Society as well as to individuals, take the
liberty to request the aid & assistance of your Meeting to furnish
us as soon as may be convenient with a young man, unmarried,
a member of our Society, of exemplary life and conversation, a
262 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. n
very good writer, well versed in Arithmetic, and a competent
Knowledge of English Grammar. To such a one this Meeting
will engage to give annually the sum of £200 currency or
;£i 1 2, i os. od. sterling, and we will allow him ^£42 sterling for his
passage to this city where he will reside. A school house will
be found him at our expense, but his board and all other
expenses he must meet himself. We apprehend the board may
at present cost him about ^100 currency or ^58, 55. od. sterling
not more. The number of scholars probably about forty. We
would not wish to debar him from keeping an evening school
which if he inclines to, the money from thence arising will be a
perquesite to himself. But the money arising from the scholars
taught in the day time will go toward defraying the above
expenses." l
Great things not only for Friends but for the education
of New York City sprang from these feeble beginnings,
for the school thus organised became in time the first
public school in New York City, and is now the Friends'
Seminary in that City. The period just beyond the
Revolution was one of worldly prosperity for Friends,
and they were to the front in commercial undertakings
in the growing metropolis, but they did not win their
success by compromise. At the close of our period
there were probably about a thousand Friends in the
City,2 and they were an eminently respectable group of
people, with strict requirements of moral behaviour and
with lofty ideals of spiritual religion.
1 From the Minutes of New York Monthly Meeting 7/11/1781. In 1787, the
teacher had every alternate seventh day off, but had to furnish the ink and
firewood 1
2 There were by actual count 1826 Friends in New York City in 1830.
BOOK III
THE QUAKERS IN THE SOUTHERN
COLONIES
263
CHAPTER I
IN New England the Quaker societies were formed
mainly out of persons who were already profoundly
religious, but dissatisfied with the rigid theology which
prevailed about them ; and the persecution which rained
like fire on the apostles and adherents of the inward light
came from the men who were consecrated to the task of
building in the New World a Puritan City of God, with
the Bible for its Magna Charta. In New York the
nucleus of each Quaker group was, as it had been in New
England, a company of persons already in revolt from
the religious system about them, but earnestly seeking
real Bread for their souls. The persecution, here, too,
fierce indeed, but not motived to the same extent as in
Massachusetts by the conviction that utter extirpation of
the heresy was the only hope for the colony, came from
the Dutch magistrates and was administered in the
interests of civil order rather than for the protection of an
established church. In the southern colonies, to a very
much greater extent than in the North, Quakerism,
especially in the Carolinas, drew its material from the
unchurched classes and gathered in persons of no definite
religious affiliation. The persecution which was meted
out in these colonies was, with a few exceptions in
Virginia, comparatively mild and was inflicted in the
interests of the established [English] Church.
The first attempt to propagate the Quaker message in
the southern colonies, so far as our records and Journals
265
266 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
furnish information, was made by Elizabeth Harris of
London, who came out on this hazardous mission in 1656,
about simultaneously with the arrival of Mary Fisher and
Ann Austin in Boston.1 It has generally been supposed
that her religious labours were in Virginia, and that the
first persons won to Quakerism in the South were residents
of this colony, but it seems practically certain, from the
evidence at hand, that Elizabeth Harris' " convincements,"
at least those of which we have definite information, were
made in the colony of Maryland, though she may have
performed some labour of which we have no accounts in
Virginia as well.
Gerard Roberts, writing to George Fox in July 1657,
says :
"The Friend who went to Virginia [evidently Elizabeth
Harris] is returned in a pretty condition. There she was gladly
received by many who met together, and the Governor is
convinced." 2
The person here called "the Governor who is con
vinced " is perhaps Robert Clarkson. Thomas Hart of
London, referring to Robert Clarkson in a letter to
Thomas Willan and George Taylor in 1658, says, "I
suppose this man is the governor of that place," i.e. the
place visited by E. Harris.8 Now Robert Clarkson was
beyond any question a citizen of Maryland. He was
never " governor " of the colony, but he was a member of
the General Assembly, or House of Burgesses, from Ann
Arundel County,4 and the correspondents have probably
used the word " governor " in a loose and untechnical
1 There occurs an interesting reference to Elizabeth Harris in John Stubbs'
letter to George Fox in connection with the Battledore : ' ' Here is [in London]
Elizabeth Harris who sometimes goes forth to steeple-houses in sackcloth and she
hath much peace in this service ; there was some seemed rather to be against it,
which troubled her a little. She spoke to me with many tears about it several
weeks ago, and I said I thought I might write to thee about it, and she desired I
might. After she had been at Cambridge, it came to her she must go to
Manchester the sixth month. And so she would be glad to have a line or two
from thee about it before she go, as soon as can be, the time draws near of her
passing." — Crosfield MSS. (1660) Devonshire House.
8 Swarthmore Collection, iii. 127.
8 Swarthmore Collection, iv. 197.
4 Archives of Maryland, i. 382.
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 267
sense. They have also been vague and hazy in their
colonial geography, and have probably used the word
" Virginia " for this general section of the great, more or
less unknown, New World.
The most concrete information which we possess
about the success of Elizabeth Harris' labours and the
locality reached by her is a Letter written by this "con
vinced governor," Robert Clarkson. His letter is written
from Severn under date of January 14, 1658 [Old Style,
Eleventh Mo. 1657], and reads as follows:
" Elizabeth Harris, Dear Heart, I salute thee in the tender
love of the Father, which moved thee toward us and I do own
thee to have been a minister by the will of God to bear the
outward testimony to the inward word of truth in me and others.
Of which word of life God hath made my wife a partaker with
me and hath established our hearts in His fear, and likewise Ann
Dorsey in a more large measure ; her husband I hope abides
faithful; likewise John Baldwin and Henry Caplin; Charles
Balye abides convinced and several in those parts where he
dwells.1 Elizabeth Beasley abides as she was when thou was
here [apparently " convinced "]. Thomas Cole and William Cole
have both made open confession of the truth ; likewise Henry
Woolchurch, and many others suffer with us the reproachful
name [of Quaker]. William Fuller abides convinced. I know
not but William Durand doth the like.2 Nicholas Wayte abides
convinced. Glory be to God who is the living fountain and
fills all that abide in Him.
" The two messengers thou spoke of in thy letters have not
yet come to this place ; we heard of two come to Virginia in
the fore part of the winter,3 but we heard that they were soon
put in prison, and not suffered to pass. We heard further that
they desired liberty to pass to this place, but it was denied them,
whereupon one of them answered, that though they might not
be suffered, yet he must come another time. We have heard
that they are to be kept in prison till the ship that brought them
be ready to depart the country again, and then to be sent out of
1 The Charles Bayly mentioned here helped John Perrot in 1661 to secure
release from his confinement in Rome and became one of his extreme followers in
the schism which is discussed farther on in this chapter.
2 William Durand was one of Cromwell's Commissioners for the government
of Maryland and was Secretary of the Commission. He may possibly have been
the person referred to as " governor."
8 Probably Thomas Thurston and Josiah Coale.
268 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
the country. We have disposed of the most part of the books
which were sent, so that all parts where there are Friends are
furnished and every one that desires it may have benefit of them ;
at Herring Creek, Rhoad River, South River, all about Severn,
the Brand Neck, and thereabouts the Seven Mountains and
Kent. . . . With my dear love I salute thy husband and the rest
of Friends ; and rest with thee in the Eternal Word which abideth
forever. Farewell, ROBERT CLARKSON." *
It is evident that the writer of this letter was not in
Virginia. He has heard of the arrival of two Friends in
Virginia, but he says, " they have not come to this place,"
and he adds that " they desired liberty from their prison
in Virginia to pass to this place." Robert Clarkson was,
as has been shown above, an inhabitant of the colony of
Maryland. In 1662 he was arrested and brought before
the court of Ann Arundel County for having violated the
military act of that colony and was fined five hundred
pounds of cask-tobacco.2 He had thus at that date
plainly become a Quaker. William Durand was also a
citizen of Maryland. Thomas and William Cole and
Henry Woolchurch, mentioned in the above letter, were
also Maryland Friends. Severn is a well-known Maryland
region, and all the places named where the books were
distributed are familiar localities not far remote from the
present city of Annapolis. Therefore, in spite of the fact
that Bowden and Janney3 and most other writers on
Quaker history have located Elizabeth Harris' " convince-
ments" in Virginia, between the Rappahannock and
York Rivers, I am forced to the conclusion that we are
here dealing with the origin of Quakerism in the colony
of Maryland.4
Sometime in 1657, Josiah Coale, of Bristol, and Thomas
Thurston,a Quaker preacher, from Gloucestershire, England,
already known to us for their labours in the Northern
Colonies, landed in Virginia, having come, as one of them
1 The original, which I have somewhat shortened, is in Swarthmore Collection
iii. 7.
a Besse, ii. 381.
8 Janney's History of the Friends, (1860) i. 431.
4 For a similar view see M'lllwaine's The Struggle of Protestant Dissenters for
Religious Toleration in Virginia (Johns Hopkins Studies, vol. xii.), p. 20.
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 269
writes, because they " were made sensible of the groaning
of the oppressed seed in that place." l So far as we know
they were the first to plant the Quaker " seed " in this
great southern colony. They seem to have spent six
months or more in Virginia — some of this period perhaps
being wasted in prison 2 — and they were evidently very
successful in reaching the people, since there are many
evidences from this time forward of the widespread
prevalence of Quakers in several parts of the colony.
We have seen already that the incipient movement was
somewhat interrupted by the arrest and imprisonment of
the visitors. We must now examine briefly the methods
which were contrived in Virginia for suppressing the tide
of new religious thought which was sweeping — as it proved,
irresistibly — into this Episcopalian colony. As little as
in Massachusetts had there formed in the minds of the
Virginia colonists any adequate idea that religious tolera
tion was a virtue. The early laws of Virginia insist with
much iteration on uniformity. The earliest danger to
uniformity in the colony came from the immigration of
adventurous Roman Catholics, and the first anti-tolera
tion laws were therefore framed against these. In 1642 it
was decreed that " no popish recusants shall at any time
hereafter exercise the place or places of secret counsellors,
register or comiss : surveyors, sheriffs, or any other publique
place, but be utterly disabled" 3 The Act further provides
that any one holding office and refusing to take " the oath
of allegiance and supremacy " shall be dismissed from said
office, and fined 1000 pounds of tobacco. The following
year it was enacted that " all ministers whatsoever which
shall reside in the collony are to be conformable to the
orders and constitutions of the Church of England, and
not otherwise to be permitted to teach or preach publickly
or privately. And the Governor and Counsil do take care
that all nonconformists, upon notice of them, shall be
compelled to depart the collony with all convenience." 4
1 Letter of Josiah Coale to Margaret Fell. — Bowden, i. 342.
3 We learn this fact from Robert Clarkson's letter.
1 Hening's Statutes at Large of Virginia, i. 268-269.
4 Hening, i. 277.
270 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. u,
When the Quakers first disturbed the religious
uniformity of the colony these laws — grown innocuous
with time — were revived and set into operation to meet
the novel situation, but they were soon found to be
inadequate for the trouble in hand, and the lawmakers
grappled anew with the emergency.1 In the spring of
1660 a definite Act was passed against Quakers as such,
and the wording of the Act implies that the objection to
Quakers was not primarily based on doctrine, but on the
supposition that they were a menace to the stability of
social life and civil government. The Act is entitled " An
Act for Suppressing Quakers," and reads :
"Whereas there is an unreasonable and turbulent sort of people,
commonly called Quakers, who, contrary to the law, do dayly
gather together unto them unlawfull Assemblies and congregations
of people teaching and publishing lies, miracles, false visions,
prophecies, and doctrines, which have influence upon the com
munities of men, both ecclesiastical and civill, endeavoring and
attempting thereby to destroy religion, lawes, communities, and
all bonds of civil socitie, leaving it arbitrarie to every vaine and
vitious person whether men shall be safe, laws established,
offenders punished, and Governors rule, hereby disturbing the
publique peace and just interest : to prevent and restraine which
mischiefe: it is enacted that no master or commander of any
shippe or other vessel do bring into this collonie any person or
persons called Quakers, under penalty of ;£ioo to be levied
upon him and his estate, etc. That all Quakers as have beene
questioned or shall hereafter arrive shall be apprehended where
soever they shall be found, and they be imprisoned without
baile or mainprize till they do adjure this country or put in
security with all speed to depart the collonie and not to return
again. And if any should dare to presume to returne hither
after such departure to be proceeded against as contemner of
the lawes and magistracy and punished accordingly, and caused
again to depart the country. And if they should the third time
be so audacious and impudent as to returne hither to be
proceeded against as ffelons. That noe person shall entertain
any of the Quakers, . . . nor permit in or near his house any
Assemblies of Quakers in the like penalty of ;£ioo.
1 It should, however, be stated that this earliest attempt to frustrate the work
of Quaker missionaries was in the Commonwealth period, when the Puritan
influence was strongest.
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 271
" And that no person do presume on their peril to dispose or
publish their books, pamphlets, or libells, bearing the title of
their tenets and opinions." l
In 1662, under an Act to prevent the profaning of
Sunday, new measures were levelled against them. The
Act provides that :
" Quakers who, out of nonconformity to the Church, totally
absent themselves, are liable to a fine of £20 for every month's
absence from Church. And all Quakers, for assembling in
unlawful assemblies and conventicles, shall be fined and pay,
each of them, there taken, 200 pounds of tobacco for each time." 2
In the same year it was decreed that as there are in
the colony " many persons who, out of aversenesse to the
orthodox established religion, or out of new fangled
conceits of their owne heretical inventions, refuse to have
their children baptized," they shall be fined 2000 pounds
of tobacco for every refusal — half to go to the informer.8
These laws, however, though they were vigorously
applied, proved utterly ineffectual. Quaker ministers
continued to come as though they were wanted, and the
people were " convinced " as though it were the popular
course. The fact of the increase of Quakerism is proved
not from partisan Journals, but from Colonial Records.
In March 1662 it is declared that " persons called Quakers
do assemble themselves in greate numbers in several parts
of this colony," and they are charged with " maintayning
a secret and strict correspondency among themselves,"
and of holding " dangerous opinions and tenets." It is
thereupon enacted, evidently in imitation of the English
Conventicle Act, that for separating from the Established
worship, and for assembling to the number of five or more
in religious worship not authorised by the laws of Virginia,
a fine of 200 pounds of tobacco shall be imposed on each
person, with banishment from the colony for the third
offence. A fine of 5000 pounds of tobacco was imposed
1 Hening, i. 532-533. 2 Hening, ii. 48.
8 Hening, ii. 165. This statute implies that there were Anabaptists in the
colony as well as Quakers, for the latter not only objected to the baptism of infants,
but of adults as well.
272 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
" for entertaining Quakers to teach or preach in their
houses." All fines were to be remitted if the Quaker
would give security that he would " forbeare to meete "
in such assemblies in the future.1
The most objectionable feature of this anti-Quaker
legislation was the provision that a proportion of the fine
— in some cases a half of it — should go to the informer,
and this mean incentive was offered to induce neighbours
to spy on each other, and to report violations of uniformity.
The colonial records show that there was considerable
suffering under these laws, and Besse has preserved the
story of one case of brutal persecution, namely, the
imprisonment at Jamestown of George Wilson of England,
and his companion, William Cole of Maryland. They
were thrown into an intolerable dungeon — "a nasty,
stinking prison " where Wilson " laid down his life " — and
the story of the sufferings in this prison is so dreadful that
it is hardly printable in detail, but the spirit of love and
forgiveness and the triumphant note which breathe
through their communications are most impressive. " For
all their cruelty," writes Wilson, " I can truly say, ' Father,
forgive them, they know not what they do,'"2 and the
biographer of William Cole says : " Through his ministry
many were established in the truth, and though he was
much decayed in his body by his cruel imprisonment, and
never recovered from it, he felt the living presence of the
Lord with him." 8
This persecution was imposed and these anti-Quaker
laws passed in spite of royal instructions in favour of
religious liberty. Charles II. wrote to Governor Berkeley
in 1662 :
" Because wee are willing to give all possible encouragement
to persons of different persuasion in matters of Religion to
transport themselves thither with their stocks; you are not to
suffer any man to be molested or disquieted in the exercise of his
Religion^ so he be content with a quiet and peaceable enjoying
it, not giving therein offense or scandall to the Government" 4
1 Hening, ii. 181-183. 2 Besse, ii. 381 ; Bishop, p. 351.
8 Piety Promoted, \. 80-8 1. * Neill's Virginia. Carolorum, p. 392.
CH.I QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 273
"But notwithstanding enactments against the Quakers,"
writes Neill, " their travelling preachers persisted in going to out
of the way places, without money and asking for none, yet
preaching a gospel of peace and good will, as far as they under
stood the teaching of Christ. Their cheerful endurance of
hardship, with their plain teaching, attracted the attention and
aroused the consciences of rude frontiersmen, who, hitherto, had
no one to care for their souls, and Quaker meetings multiplied." l
The first Quaker missionaries in Virginia were, as we
have seen, Josiah Coale and Thomas Thurston. They
travelled northward, labouring as they went, especially in
Maryland, and so on, by an almost unimaginable wilder
ness journey, to New England, where they took their
share of the vials of the Puritan medicine for Quakers.
Thurston, however, was soon back in Virginia, where he
had another period of imprisonment. On his release he
appears to have carried many colonists into the Quaker
movement, for Josiah Coale, writing from New England
to Margaret Fell, tells her that Thomas Thurston is in
Virginia, and says : " The living power of the Lord goes
along with him, and there is like to be a great gathering."2
Three of the Woodhouse voyagers, William Robinson,
Christopher Holder, and Robert Hodgson, did missionary
work in Virginia in 1658 — probably Humphrey Norton
was there in 1659 — and as happened wherever these
enthusiastic souls went, there were marked results of their
preaching and personal labour. William Robinson says
in an extant Letter : " There are many people convinced,
and some in several parts are brought into the sense and
feeling of truth." 8 Josiah Coale was back in the colony
in 1660, and wrote of his visit to George Fox in these
encouraging words : " I left Friends in Virginia generally
very well and fresh in the truth. I believe I shall be in
Virginia again."4
George Rofe, an English Quaker who had a long list
of imprisonments behind him, contributed in 1661 to the
1 Neill's Virginia Carolorum, p. 296.
z Letter in Bowden, i. 343.
8 Letter of William Robinson, 1659, quoted by Bowden, i. 346
4 Coale's Letter in A.R.B. Collection, No. 44.
274 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
spread of Quakerism in Virginia. Our only account of
his visit is in a letter of his to Stephen Crisp :
" God hath prospered my soul according to my desire and
hath blessed His work in my hands; and hath made me an
instrument of good to many through these countries. . . . The
truth prevaileth through the most of all these parts [Barbadoes],
and many settled meetings there are in Maryland and Virginia
and New England . . . through all which places I have travelled
in the power of the Spirit and in the great dominion of the
truth, having a great and weighty service for the Lord." 1
There was a large convincement to Quakerism in
Lower Norfolk County, and the County records show that
the Friends of this region had much to suffer. Under
date of June 27, 1663, Governor Berkeley appointed a
commission to see that " the abominate seede of ye
Quakers spread not," and he urges the gentlemen named
on the commission to have " an exact care of this pestilent
sect of ye Quakers." z
But already before this urging came from the Governor
the desire for a share of the fines was pushing the sheriffs
to activity. There are many entries like the following :
"June 10, 1 66 1. Whereas Mr. John Hill, high-sheriff, hath
given information and presented Benjamin Forby for admitting
and suffering Quakers at his house being contrary to ye lawes of
this country, ye said Forby is taken into custody to be tried for
breaking the lawes against such people." 8
"December 20, 1662. The High Shreive of the County did
take divers persons who were at an unlawful meetinge with those
commonly called Quakers — They were fined 200 pounds of
tobacco each person, of whom there were twenty." 4
"May 3, 1663. Twelve persons were arrested at the house
of Richard Russell, and Russell was fined ;£ioo for entertaining
and permitting the meeting, half of which went to the informer,
William Hill, 'High Shreive.' The i2th of November, twenty-
two ' persons called Quakers ' were arrested at Richard Russell's
house where John Porter, junior, was ' speaking.' The preachers
1 Crisp Collection of MSS. No. 102. There were many other labourers in
this field of whose work we possess few or no details. Mention should be made
of Elizabeth Hooton, Joan Brocksoppe, Joseph Nicholson, John Liddal, and
Jane Millard.
* Lower Norfolk County Antiquary, iii. 78.
* Ibid. iii. 105. 4 Ibid. iii. p. 141.
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 275
were fined 500 pounds of tobacco, the 'entertainer' of the
meeting 5000 pounds, and each attender 200 pounds." l
"November 20, 1663. Nine 'people commonly called
Quakers were seized for holding an unlawful assembly aboard ye
Shipp Blissinge, riding at anchor in the southern branch of the
Elizabeth River.' John Porter, junior, was speaking. They
were all fined 200 pounds of tobacco."2
Some of the prominent Friends of this Elizabeth River
region had been the actors in a strange lawsuit a few
years before they became Friends. In 1659 Ann Godby
— a person often arrested in the 'sixties as a Quaker — was
charged with " casting slander and scandall on the good
name and creditt of Nicholas Robinson's wife, terming her
a witch." Ann was proved guilty of the charge, and her
husband was fined 300 pounds of tobacco for the freedom
of his wife's tongue. John Porter, junior, was one of the
Justices in the suit. Three years later Ann Godby was a
staunch Quaker, and John Porter, junior, was the foremost
Quaker " minister " in the county. Whether Nicholas
Robinson's wife came into the new Society or not I
cannot prove, though I find that many Robinson women
did.8
It seems impossible, in this world of conflicting views,
to have any movement for the illumination and spiritual
enlargement of men which is not more or less blocked and
hampered by the blunders, the littleness, and the selfish
ness of persons who are one-sided, and who push some one
aspect of the " truth " out of balance until it turns out to
be misleading " error." Every apostolic undertaking is
more or less marred by some misguided Hymenaeus or
Philetus " whose word eats like a gangrene." * John
Perrot, originally " a man of great natural parts," and who
was inspired in 1660 with the conviction that he was
divinely sent to Rome for the conversion of the Pope,
became the instrument of confusion and schism in Virginia,
and nearly wrecked the work so well begun in the colony.
There was evidently a strain of insanity in him, but even
1 Lower Norfolk County Antiquary, iii. pp. 79-110. 2 Ibid. iii. p. 109,
8 Ibid. iii. p. 36. « a Tim. ii. 17.
276 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
his very unusual psychic traits only made him more
captivating and influential with the simple-minded people
who were impressed that he exhibited "greater spirituality"
than did the other exponents of Quakerism. He pushed
the testimony against form and ceremony to the absurd
extreme of " nihilism " — there were to be no forms, not
even the " form " of holding meetings for worship !
Details of his visit in Virginia are lacking, but the corre
spondence and Journals of travelling Friends bear witness
to what they call " the leaven of his unclean spirit." " He
has done much hurt," write in 1663 Mary Tomkins and
Alice Ambrose, two persecution-tried missionaries, who
visited Virginia in 1662, "and he has made our travels
hard and our labours [in Virginia] sore. What we have
borne and suffered concerning him has been more and
harder than all we have received from our enemies." *
It has been shown that the first " convincement " to
Quakerism in the South was in Maryland under the
ministry of Elizabeth Harris, who gathered a large group
of Friends about Severn and Kent. This beginning was
soon followed up by the work of Josiah Coale and
Thomas Thurston, who visited many sections of this
colony on their travels to New England in 1658. They
appear to have found considerable response to their
message, and there were many colonists who were ready
to hazard everything for what powerfully appealed to
them as the truth.2
The Records of the Governor and Council of Mary
land furnish our main clues to the success of their under
taking, and to the suffering which it involved.3 The
1 Letter of Mary Tomkins and Alice Ambrose to George Fox (Swarthmore
Collection, iv. 239) What they actually received from their "enemies" — the
authorities of Virginia — was the infliction of thirty-two lashes apiece from a nine-
corded whip, they being pilloried " in an uncivil manner," with seizure of all
their goods and expulsion from the colony. — New England Judged, p. 439.
2 They were entertained in Maryland by Richard Preston and William Berry,
both of whom were prominent men in the colony. Berry's home was at Chop-
tank, and he became a leading man and a preacher among the Friends.
8 The Provincial Assembly of Maryland had adopted an Ordinance of
Toleration in 1649. It was, however, not effective in practice. This change of
attitude in the matter of toleration was largely due to the influence of the new
Governor of the colony, Governor Fendall.
CH.I QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 277
first entry about Quakers in the Colonial Records of
Maryland is under date of July 8, 1658. It is in a
minute of the proceedings of the Council, or Upper
House, held at Patuxent, and it reports the " alarm "
felt by " the increase of the Quakers." 1
Under the same date (July 8, 1658) appears this
entry : " Upon information that Thomas Thurston and
Josiah Coale had refused to subscribe the engagement by
the Articles of 24th March [involving an oath] a warrant
was issued to the Sheriffs to bring them to Court." 2
July 1 6, 1658: "Upon information that Thomas
Thurston was in prison and Josiah Coale was at Anne
Arundel seducing the people and dissuading the people
from taking the engagement [on account of the oath]
ordered the Sheriff of Anne Arundel to take the body
of Josiah Coale and Thomas Thurston." The warrant
states that " all who are of their Church or Judgment do
refuse to subscribe the engagement." 8
July 22, 1658: It is recorded that William Burges
and Thomas Meares refused to take the oath as com
missioners and justices of the peace, " pretending that it
was in no case lawful to swear."4 As they had both
formerly taken the oath without any compunctions, it
is evident that they had come under Quaker influence.
When the case of these justices came up for action,
Michael Brookes of Calvert County joined them in the
refusal to swear, and the three were fined.5 Thomas
Meares appears later in the colonial records as a full-
fledged Quaker.6
July 23, 1658: The Council took into consideration
" the insolent behaviour of some people called Quakers,"
who " stood covered " in presence of the Court, " refused
to subscribe the engagement," and exhibited principles
which " tended to the destruction of the government."
They were given their choice of subscribing the engage
ment by the 2oth of August, or to " depart the Province
on paine due to rebels and traitors." 7
1 Archives of Maryland, iii. 347. a Ibid. iii. 347. ' Ibid. iii. 348.
4 Ibid. iii. 351. 6 Ibid. iii. 358. * Ibid. iii. 394. 7 Ibid. iii. 352.
278 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
On his return from New England, Thomas Thurston
engaged again in religious work in Maryland, and again
came into collision with the authorities. Under date of
July 23, 1659, this record appears :
"It is well known in this province that there have bin
several vagabonds and persons known by the name of Quakers
that have presumed to come into this province, as well dissuad
ing the people from complying with the military discipline in
this time of danger [there was at the time an armed contest
between the ' Baltimore faction ' and the ' Clayborne faction '],
as also from giving testimony [under oath] or being [sworn]
Jurors or bearing any office in the province."
Such persons are ordered whipped from constable to
constable until they reach the bounds of the province.1
Eleven days later (August 3, 1659), Thurston was "for
ever banished this province," on pain of being whipped
thirty-eight lashes, and then sent out of the province. It
was decreed the same date that " any person presuming
to receive, harbour, or conceal the said Thomas Thurston "
should be fined 500 pounds of tobacco.2
Besse furnishes a long list of persons — presumably
persons " convinced " of Quaker principles — who suffered
under the Maryland government in 1658 for refusing to
fight, or to take an oath, or for entertaining Quakers.
This list contains thirty names, which probably indicates
the number of adult males who had become Friends in
the colony in i658.3 The fine for entertaining a Quaker
missionary was £3, 153.
This colony was also visited, as Virginia was, by
William Robinson, Christopher Holder, and Robert
Hodgson in 1659, and as happened everywhere "a large
convincement " resulted from their labours. Josiah Coale
came through Maryland a second time, for a visit of ten
weeks, in 1660, and, under the influence of the Restora
tion in England, he found "the spirit of persecution
chained down for a season." He reports "precious
meetings " and " the Lord's precious presence and love
1 Archives of Maryland, iii. 362. 2 Ibid. iii. 364.
8 Besse, ii. 378-380.
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 279
amongst us in our assemblies." l The " chaining " of
the spirit of persecution did not last long, for Coale
was apprehended and banished soon after this letter was
written, and prosecutions for refusal to swear and fight
are frequent.2 An important letter from Coale, written
from Virginia, Feb. 3, 1661, says: "As concerning
Friends in the Province of Maryland, I left them generally
very well and fresh in the truth, though I found them not
so ; for through judging one another and clashing amongst
themselves they were even become as dry branches and
there was little savour of life amongst them." 8
George Rofe soon followed on after Josiah Coale,
and he reports, under date of 1661, finding "many
settled meetings in Maryland," and he says that he
"travelled in the power of the Spirit and in great
dominion of the truth, having a great and weighty service
for the Lord." 4 We have too few data to enable us to
present in any impressive way the actual internal life of
the new society at this early stage of its career, but it
is evident that Friends in this region at this period were
in constant jeopardy in body and goods,5 though there
is abundant evidence that they were valiant in spirit,
and ready to suffer to any limit for their loyalty to their
light It should, however, be noted that the persecution
which came upon them in Maryland at this early stage
of their history, was motived, not by intolerance of their
religious teachings or sectarian bigotry on the part of the
authorities, but by the sincere though mistaken concep
tion that the Quakers were hostile to government, and
were inculcating views that were incompatible with a
1 MS. Letter of Josiah Coale to George Fox, 1660. — A.R.B. Collection,
No. 53.
8 There is a curious case of the prosecution of John Everitt who ' ' ran from
his colors when prest to goe to the Susquehanna Fort, pleading that he could
not bear arms for conscience's sake." He is to be " kept in chaynes and bake
his own bread " until the jury is impanelled. — Archives of Maryland, iii. 435.
8 Josiah Coale to Margaret Fell, Crosfield MSS. in Devonshire House.
4 Crisp Collection of MS. No. 102.
5 One case, that of Peter Sharpe, a physician who owned an island in the
Choptank River, will suffice. He held a note against Adam Staples for 1700
pounds of tobacco. Because Sharpe refused to take the oath of engagement,
Staples petitioned the Court to annul the Note, which the Court did. — Besse, ii. 380.
280 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
well-ordered civil regime. They were supposed to be
disrespectful to magistrates, revolutionary in design,
aiming to annul courts and undermine all means of
forceful defence.
As soon as the solid people of the colony discovered
the real nature of the new religion which was getting a
foothold in Maryland, there came to be a general attitude
of respect toward it. This change of attitude was largely
due to the coming of three great leaders of the movement
— the men who were the real " founders " of Quakerism
in the Southern colonies — John Burnyeat, George Fox,
and William Edmundson. Burnyeat was the first of the
three in the field. He arrived in Maryland in April
1665, coming from Barbadoes, the "nursery" of Western
Quakerism, and he spent the entire summer in the
province of Maryland, travelling and labouring in the
ministry, holding " large meetings in the Lord's power " —
" Friends were greatly comforted and several were con
vinced." l At the end of the summer he went down into
Virginia, where he found much havoc wrought in the
little Society by the " bewitchment " of John Perrot, who
with his quietistic notions had led Friends to " forsake
their meetings " and to become " loose and careless."
Burnyeat appears to have turned the tide and saved the
day : " Friends were revived and refreshed, and raised
up into a service of life through the Lord's goodness
and renewed visitation."2 He was back in Virginia in
1671, with Daniel Gould of Rhode Island for his com
panion, and he now "found a freshness of life among
them. They had grown up to a degree of their former
zeal and tenderness. I found a great openness in the
country and had several blessed meetings. I advised
them to have a men's meeting [for Church business] to
settle things in good order and to keep things sweet."3
1 Burnyeat's Journal, p. 187. The sad episode — "sore exercise," he calls it —
of his visit in Maryland was the "fall" and defection of Thomas Thurston, who
had been a valiant pioneer in the early planting of Quakerism in all the colonies.
He was, in an evil moment, caught and carried away by the spurious ' ' spiritu
ality " of Perrot's teaching, and became " lost to the truth " and " a vagabond as
to his spiritual condition."
2 Ibid. pp. 188-189. * MM- P- T99-
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 281
He spent the spring of 1672 in Maryland, doing the
same kind of constructive work as he had done so
successfully in Virginia. In April he appointed a meeting
at West River, Maryland, for all Friends in the province
— the birth-date of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, the second
to be organised in America — and it was " a very large
meeting which continued for several days." Meetings for
men and for women were organised for the transaction
of business and " for the blessed ordering of the Gospel." l
" Through the good Providence of the Lord," George
Fox landed in the Patuxent (West) River just in time to
attend this General Meeting. He had spent six weeks
in the passage from Jamaica to Maryland — a voyage so
boisterous and full of hazard that they all " admired the
Providence of God who preserved them." Fox notes
with much satisfaction that " many people of considerable
quality in the world's account " were at the great Mary
land Meeting. " There were five or six Justices of the
Peace, the Speaker of their parliament or Assembly, one
of the Council, and divers others of note." z This marks
the turning-point, and from that time on Quakerism
was considered an eminently respectable religion in Lord
Baltimore's province. Fox held another large meeting
at the Cliffs — north of the Patuxent.8 He arrived there
soaked with water, his boat having capsized when he
was in a great perspiration, having " come very hot out
of a meeting before," but "the Lord's power preserved
[him] from taking hurt," and " many people came to
the meeting and received the truth with reverence." Fox,
with a large band of helpers, including John Burnyeat,
" went over by boat to the Eastern shore " of the
Chesapeake, where they had "a large and heavenly
meeting," with " several persons of quality and two Justices
of the Peace " at it He held an extraordinary meeting
with the " Indian Emperor, his kings and their cocka-
rooses," telling them that "God was raising up his
tabernacle of witness in their wilderness country."
1 Journal, pp. 199-200.
* Fox's Journal, ii. 161-163. * Ibid. p. 165.
282 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
On his return journey from New England — a journey
crowded with toil and peril and dramatic happenings —
Fox arrived in Maryland again toward the end of
September 1672 wet and weary, and "dirtied with getting
through bogs," and held a large meeting near St Michael's,
where there were already many Friends. Here a judge's
wife came to the meeting and declared : " She had rather
hear us once than a priest a thousand times ! " In
October a great General Meeting " for all Maryland " was
held at Tredhaven Creek on the eastern shore. The
meeting lasted five days — the first three days being for
worship and preaching and then two for church business.
" Several magistrates with their wives, many Protestants
of divers sorts, and some Papists and persons of chief
account in the country," were at the meeting. "It was
thought there were a thousand people, and there were so
many boats passing on the river that it was almost like
the Thames ! One of the Justices said he never saw so
many people together in that country before. It was a
very heavenly meeting, the presence of the Lord was
gloriously manifested, Friends sweetly refreshed, people
generally satisfied, and many convinced." l For a month
following, Fox was pushing on from meeting to meeting,
almost living in a boat, often " wet and weary with
rowing," but having " good service," " very large meetings,"
giving " a thundering testimony to the truth," convincing
" Justices and other persons of quality," and " seeing the
truth reach into the hearts of the people beyond words." z
The 5th of November, with Robert Widders, James
Lancaster, and George Pattison, he sailed away for
Virginia, having won to his cause a very large number of
persons of "upper rank," as he calls them. He landed
at a " place called Nancemond, about two hundred miles
from Maryland." The region of Fox's activity in Virginia
1 Fox's Journal, ii. 179.
8 Ibid. pp. 180-183. Among the places now visited by Fox was Severn (now
Annapolis) where there was such a crowd that " no building would hold them."
Three Friends, William Cole, William Richards, and John Gary, writing in 1674
for the meeting to Friends in Bristol, England, say : " Much people there be in
our country that come to hear the truth declared . . . and many by it are
convinced." — Bowden, vol. i. 381.
CH.I QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 283
was the strip of country lying between the James River
and the North Carolina border. He found isolated
Friends scattered through the district. " Officers and
magistrates " came to his meetings which were " precious."
Men's and women's meetings for business were established.
A large meeting, too greatly attended for any house to
contain the people, was held at Pagan Creek, and " the
sound of truth was spread." He went on south, through
a "plashy" country, "full of great bogs and swamps,"
" wet to the knees, lying abroad at night in the woods."
At Somerton he found a woman who " had a sense of
God upon her," and who arranged for the little party to
sleep on mats before her fire. Proceeding on they struck
Bennett's Creek (which he calls " Bonner's ") and paddled
into the Chowan River (then called the Macocomocock),
and down this river by canoe into the regions bordering
on Albemarle Sound.
Fox's own account of this journey is quaintly told in
the manuscript Journal of the American visit.
"We passed in a canoe downe the creek to Mattocomake
River and came to Hugh Smithick's [Smith's] house and people
of the world came to see us (for there were no Friends in these
parts). Wee went to Nathaniell Batts house ; he was formerly
Governor of Roanoke and is most commonly known by the
name of Captaine Batts ; he is a rude, desperate man who has
great command over yt countrie, especially over ye Indians."
But as Fox had been preceded in this country by
William Edmundson, and as the latter was the real pioneer
in the Carolinas, I shall turn aside to describe Edmundson's
path-breaking visit. He was with Fox at the Patuxent
General Meeting in 1671, and when the latter travelled
north, Edmundson turned south, visited Virginia, holding
" powerful meetings," " settling men's minds in the truth,"
establishing "a men's meeting for discipline," and then
started off south with two Friends as companions.
" It was," he writes, " all wilderness and no English inhabitants
or padways, only some marked trees to guide people ; the first
day's journey we did pretty well, and lay that night in the woods,
as we often used to do in those Parts. The next Day being wet
284 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
Weather we were sorely soyled in Swamps and Rivers, and one
of the two that were with me for a Guide, was at a stand to
know which way the Place lay we were to go unto : I perceiving
he was at a Loss, turn'd my Mind to the Lord, and as He led
me, I led the Way. So we travel'd in many Difficulties until
about Sun-set ; then they told me, They could travel no further ;
for they both fainted, being weak-spirited Men : I bid them stay
there, and kindle a Fire, and I would ride a little farther, for I
saw a bright Horrizon appear through the Woods which Travellers
take as a Mark of some Plantation ; so rode on to it, and found it
was only tall Timber Trees without Underwood : But I perceived
a small Path, which I follow'd till it was very dark, and rain'd
violently ; then I alighted and set my back to a Tree, till the
Rain abated : but it being dark, and the Woods thick, I walked
all Night between the Trees: and though very weary, I durst
not lie down on the Ground, for my Cloaths were wet to my
Skin. I had eaten little or nothing that Day, neither had I
anything to refresh me but the Lord. In the morning I return'd
to seek my two Companions, and found them lying by a great
Fire of Wood : I told them how I had far'd ; he that should
have been the Guide would have perswaded me that we were
gone past the Place where we intended ; but my Mind drew to
the Path which I had found the Night before : So I led the way,
and that Path brought us to the Place where we intended,
viz. Henry Phillip's House by Albemarle River.
" He and his wife had been convinc'd of the Truth in New
England, and came there to live, who having not seen a Friend
for seven Years before, they wept for Joy to see us : yet it being
on a First Day Morning when we got there, although I was
weary and faint, and my Cloaths all wet, I desired them to send
to the People there-away to come to a Meeting about the middle
of the Day, and I would lie down upon a Bed, and if I slept too
long that they should awake me. Now about the Hour
appointed many People came, but they had little or no Religion,
for they came and sate down in the Meeting smoking their
Pipes ; but in a little time the Lord's Testimony arose in the
Authority of His Power, and their Hearts being reach'd with it,
several of them were tender'd and received the Testimony.
After Meeting they desir'd me to stay with them, and let them
have more Meetings." 1
The colonists in this region, with the exception of
Henry Phillips and his wife, were not Friends, and appar
ently, Edmundson says, "had little or no religion," *>.
1 Edmundson's Journal, pp. 58-59.
CH.I QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 285
they had no organised religion, no church, no ministry,
though " their hearts were open " and they were eventually
gathered in in large numbers into the Society of Friends.
A Justice of the Peace named Francis Toms, who lived
three miles from Phillips' house, " received the truth with
gladness," and, at a meeting in his house, several more
" had a sense of the power of God, received the truth and
abode in it"1
On his return to Virginia — a return journey more
full of peril and difficulty than one ordinarily finds
even in these biographies of the Quaker pioneers, every
where crowded with incidents of extraordinary endurance
— Edmundson continued his work of organising and
strengthening the meetings for discipline throughout the
sections of Virginia where there were Friends. He visited
the Governor, Sir William Berkeley, but he found him
" pevish and brittle." z He, however, succeeded better with
some of the other officials of the colony. Justice Taverner
and " several other persons of note " came to his meetings.
Major-General Bennett and Colonel Dewes were " reached
by the witness of God." This major-general, who had
" a great estate," desired to contribute to the expenses of
the Society, and finally became a member of it — " He
was a brave, solid, wise man. He received the truth and
died in it."8
When Fox arrived in the Albemarle country of North
Carolina in 1672 he found a little Quaker nucleus there
as the result of William Edmundson's work. The little
band of Quaker missionaries, led by Fox, found a man on
their travels, living on the banks of the Chowan river, who
was named Hugh Smith, to whose house " people of other
professions " came to see and hear the travellers. Farther
down the river they found a " captain," who was " very
loving," and who lent them his boat, as they were very
1 Edmundson's Journal, p. 60.
2 When Edmundson related to Major-General Bennett that the Governor was
"brittle and pevish," the General asked, "Did he call you dog or rogue!"
When Edmundson answered that he did not, the General said, "Then you took
him in his best humor ! "
3 Edmundson's Journal, p. 63.
286 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
wet by the water " splashing " into the little canoe. With
the captain's boat they started off for the Governor's house
at Edenton, but they found the water so shallow that " the
boat would not swim." " We were fain to put off our
shoes and stockings and wade through the water some
distance. The Governor, with his wife, received us
lovingly." l A doctor at the Governor's house " would
needs dispute," and he denied that " the light and Spirit
of God " was in every one, declaring that it was not in
Indians. " Whereupon," says Fox, " I called an Indian
and asked him whether or not when he lied or did wrong
to any, there was not something in him that reproved him
for it. He said that there was such a thing in him that
did so reprove him and make him ashamed. So we
shamed the doctor before the Governor and people." 2
The Governor kept them all night, and treated them very
" courteously." The party from here went by Sound,
about thirty miles, to the house of Joseph Scott, who was
" a representative of the country." The people in these
parts were " tender and much desired meetings." Four
miles farther on another meeting was held, to which the
Governor's Secretary came, " the chief Secretary of the
Province," who was already " convinced." On their way
back they visited the house of the Secretary of the colony,
had an illustration of " the great power of God who carried
them safely twenty-four miles in a rotten boat, the water
being rough, and the winds high," and held a precious
meeting at Hugh Smith's. They were eighteen days in
North Carolina, and Fox felt that they had " made an
entrance of truth upon the people " there.3 They arrived
on the nineteenth day of their travel, "exceedingly wet
and dirty," at Somerton in Virginia, and lay that night in
their clothes by the fire at the home of the woman who
" had a sense of God upon her," and on the morrow they
had a " good meeting " with the people about Somerton
who " had a great desire to hear." 4
The territory covered by this early missionary activity
1 Fox's Journal, ii. 185. a Ibid. ii. 185.
» Ibid. ii. 1 86. * Ibid. ii. 187.
CH.I QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 287
of Edmundson and Fox in North Carolina comprises
the three present counties of Chowan, Perquimans, and
Pasquotank. The increase from these " beginnings " was
evidently rapid, for Governor Henderson Walker, writing
to the Bishop of London in 1703, says : " George Fox . . .
did infuse the Quaker principles into some small number
of the people, which did and hath continued to grow ever
since very numerous," l and William Gordon, writing to
the secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in 1709, says: "There are few or no dissenters
in this Government but Quakers. . . . Some of the most
ancient inhabitants, after George Fox went over, did turn
Quakers." 2 This missionary effort along the Albemarle
was the first organised effort of any kind to carry the
religion of Christ into North Carolina. No Episcopal
minister had yet come to the colony, and no dissenting
ministers appeared in this field before Fox and Edmundson.
They were, therefore, in more senses than one, " path-
breakers," as they pushed through the southern wilderness
and answered the " great desire " of the people.8
George Fox spent a short time in Virginia, having
" many large and precious meetings, to which a great
many magistrates, officers, and other high people came."
" The people were wonderfully affected," " the power of
the Lord was gloriously seen and felt," and " a victory
was got over the bad spirit which was in some " — evidently
the remaining leaven of the Perrot movement which died
hard.4 Having finished " the service that lay upon him "
in Virginia, Fox set sail in " an open sloop " for Maryland.
The voyage was unusually tempestuous ; they were a
good deal of the time " completely wet " and almost frozen
with cold, for it was in January. Part of the time Fox
himself sat at the helm and steered the sloop, but as soon
as they reached the Patuxent the " precious meetings "
1 Colonial Records of North Carolina, i. 571.
2 Ibid. pp. 708-710.
8 For further evidence that the Quakers brought the first message of Christianity
to North Carolina see Dr. Weeks's Religious Development of North Carolina,
Baltimore, 1892.
4 Journal, ii. 187-188.
288 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. ni
began again, and the people were " convinced." This
third visit of Fox to Maryland (covering the period from the
3rd of January to the 2ist of May 1673) was probably the
most effective and constructive work of his entire American
tour. He was at the very height of his efficiency as a
preacher and organiser. His physical endurance seemed
unlimited. He was almost continuously in a boat when
not holding a meeting, often rowing himself. He held
meetings in barns, in tobacco houses, in Friends' houses,
and in the wigwams of the Indians — the weather being
mostly too cold for out-door meetings. He had as usual
an eye for public officials and "high people," and the
meetings of this period saw the convincement of "a
great many people of account in the world " — justices,
magistrates, majors, captains, and " divers others of
considerable account in the government." Just before
sailing for England he attended another great General
Meeting for the whole of Maryland, at which " many
things were opened for edification and comfort," and the
organisation was put into permanent working condition.
" Parting in great tenderness, in the sense of the heavenly
life," Fox sailed away for Bristol, leaving behind a strong
group of Friends stretching, with some breaks, from the
coast of New Hampshire to Albemarle Sound in the
Carolinas, and having accomplished a piece of colonial
missionary labour which, so far as I know, no visitor to
America in colonial times paralleled.1 From a letter
written in 1674 by three Virginia Friends to Bristol
Monthly Meeting in England, we learn that George Fox's
labours had borne great fruit. " Our meetings are at this
time more than doubled, and a large convincement is
upon many who as yet stand off" \i,e. do not join in
membership].2
In 1676-77 the Southern colonies received another
extensive visit from William Edmundson, whose wilderness
travels on this visit reach about the climax of hardship
1 In the MS. Journal of Fox's American journey he estimates that he travelled
16,149 miles.
2 Bowden, i. 356.
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 289
and difficulty. One sample of the sort of thing he went
through will perhaps be sufficient :
" It was very cold, foul weather [on the Patuxent river], sleet
and snow, and we were all day and most of the night before we
got to the place intended. When we got to shore I could neither
go nor stand, except as two bore me up, one by each arm, I had
such pains and weakness in my back and groins with piercing
cold. . . . We were forced to stay three nights on a small island, the
weather being foul and stormy. We had no shelter but the open
skies, the wet ground to lie on. This augmented my cold and
pain, but the Lord bore up my spirit, and enabled me to bear it." 1
He found the " affairs of truth " a good deal out of
order in Virginia — " there were many unruly spirits to
deal with, but I had good service and success." It was
the period of the Bacon Rebellion, and the " country was
in great trouble," but " Friends kept clear."
Then follows in the Journal a notable passage that
reveals the spirit in which these Quaker missionaries did
their work :
" Now I was moved of the Lord to go to Carolina, and it was
perilous travelling, for the Indians were not yet subdued, but did
mischief, and murdered several. The place they haunted much
was in that wilderness betwixt Virginia and Carolina ; scarce any
durst travel that way unarmed. Friends endeavoured to dissuade
me from going, ... so I delayed some time. In the meantime I
appointed a meeting on the north side of the James River, where
none had been, and there came several Friends a great way in
boats. There came also the widow Holland's eldest son, with
whom I walked near two miles the night before the meeting,
advising him about some disorders in the family, and so we
parted ; . . . but before morning a messenger came to tell me that
the young man was dead. Then the word of the Lord came to
me, saying : ' All lives are in my hand, and if thou goest not to
Carolina, thy life is as this young man's; but if thou goest, I
will give thee thy life for a prey.' . . . The next day I made ready
for my journey, but none durst venture with me, save one ancient
man, a Friend." 2
He had "many precious meetings" along the Albemarle,
revisited his old Friends who were convinced on the former
visit, saw "several turned to the Lord," and found the
1 Journal, pp. 97-98. * Ibid. pp. 99-100.
U
290 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
people generally " tender and loving." " There was no
room," he writes, "for priests [i.e. paid ministers], for
Friends were finely settled, and I left things well amongst
them " — and the old soldier in both kinds of warfare
turned his face homeward, never again to help " settle
truth's affairs " in the colonies where he had laboured so
faithfully to plant Quakerism.
There was another period of Quaker suffering in
Virginia between 1675 and the accession in 1680 of
Lord Culpepper to the Governorship, who was inclined to
spare the Quakers. Under date of I $th June 1675, the
record states that " The Hon'ble Governor being informed
that there are several conventicles [of the Quakers] in
Nansemond county, it is ordered by this court that they
be proceeded against according to the laws of England
and this country," and the Justices of the lower counties
of Virginia were instructed to make strict inquiry, and to
proceed against any person who meets in a conventicle.
There are, too, definite entries of fines against persons
who have refused to have their children baptized, or who
have " suffered meetings of Quakers at their houses," or
who have been " living as man and wife without legal
marriage," i.e. who have married according to Friends
rules.1 The Friends in Maryland endeavoured to assist
their suffering brethren in Virginia during this period,
and under direction of the Meeting at Tredhaven, in
December 1690, William Berry and Stephen Keddy
undertook the service of relieving the sad state and
condition of the Church in Virginia.2
For a hundred years after the first planting of Quaker
ism in Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas — that is,
from the middle of the seventeenth to the middle of the
eighteenth century — it continued to grow and expand
with some eddies and backwashes. There was here, as in
New England, an almost unbroken succession of itinerant
preachers who year after year visited all the Quaker
centres in their rounds and often broke new ground and
1 Weeks, Southern Quakerism and Slavery, pp. 43-45.
2 Janney, History of Friends , ii. 359.
CH.I QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 291
so formed new centres. Whenever a prominent Friend
migrated to a pioneer locality he carried his Quakerism
with him as he did his household stuff, and his house was
likely to become the centre of a new Quaker church.
The itinerant ministers in their travels found their way to
the homes of these isolated Friends, and on their arrival a
meeting was sure to be appointed for the neighbourhood,
and if " convincements " were made, as generally happened,
the " circle " would increase and become a " meeting."
The Journals of these itinerant workers show the steady
increase of the Quaker Society during the century, as I
have indicated. The most important of these Journals
for tracing the growth and life of the Society are those of
Thomas Story, Thomas Chalkley, Samuel Bownas, John
Fothergill, and John Richardson. A few illustrations from
Thomas Story's Journal will be sufficient to show the
type of work done by these travellers at the close of the
seventeenth century, the date of the following itinerant
service being 1698. Thomas Story and his companion
Roger Gill sailed up the York River, Virginia, the
nth of February, and held their first meeting at the
house of Edward Thomas — " a Friend who was zealous
for Truth " — at Bangor House on Queen Creek : " Several
who were not Friends were tendered, and this was the
first fruit of our ministry in this country." On the I5th,
a meeting was held sixteen miles from Bangor House, at
Daniel Akehurst's on Warwick River — " a good meeting." 1
Next day they were at Martin's Hundred at the house of
Robert Perkins. On the 2ist, a meeting was held at
Scimmins [spelled many ways in the Journals'} in York
county, " where no meeting had been before," and " John
Bates and his wife were convinced of Truth" — a very
important " convincement." The next day Story was
back at Bangor House where William Clayborn, captain
of the militia, grandson of the famous Colonel Clayborn,
was won to the Quaker cause. " At the foot of Queen's
Creek," Thomas Gary and Miles Gary and their families
" were comforted, having been lately convinced." Across
1 We shall hear of this Daniel Akehurst later as a man of note.
292 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
the James River at Chuckatuck, Thomas Story visited the
old Massachusetts hero of persecution, " our ancient Friend
John Copeland, the first of those who had their ears cut
in New England for the testimony of Truth." " At my
request," Story says, " he showed us his right ear ! " The
Friends of the neighbourhood came in and they had
together "a tender season of God's love." Meetings
followed at Derasconeck, Western Branch [of James
River], " where several confessed Truth"; Southern Branch,
" where the Grace of God was plentiful, the people were
tendered, and the meeting was in the dominion of Truth " ;
and at Barbican, "the last meeting in Virginia toward
Carolina." In this town was a "priest \i.e. established
minister] who, being taken with an infirmity in his tongue
and limbs, had not preached much for five years, and the
people, being just to their own interest, paid him only
as often as he exercised his faculty ! They gave him a
hogshead of tobacco for every sermon, but no sermon no
tobacco."
From here the travellers (Nathan Newby of Virginia
going as companion) passed down into North Carolina,
"through a wilderness, there being no house in all that
way ; we ate bread and cheese and drank of the brook."
At the head of Perquimans Creek they came to the house
of Francis Toms, " who was one of the Provincial Council "
— evidently William Edmundson's convert. They had a
large meeting, " several persons of note " attending, after
which they were entertained by the lieutenant-governor
of the colony. Prominent Friends mentioned in this
region are Thomas Simons, Henry White, Gabriel Newby,
Stephen Scott, and Anne Wilson.
On his northward passage through Virginia, Thomas
Story had very successful meetings in the old centres and
in some new ones, and we get a good glimpse of the wide
extent of Quaker influence. " At Pagan Creek," he writes,
" we had a large assembly, most of whom were not Friends,
and the power of the Lord was gloriously with us." The
visitors were in most places " treated with beer and wine,"
or " had a little cyder " or " punch made of drams, sugar
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 293
and nutmeg in horn cups," nobody yet having any
scruple about such things. The places mentioned where
meetings were held are Chuckatuck, Elizabeth River,
Elizabeth Town, Southern Branch, Levy Neck, Lion's
Creek, Burleigh (where James John was the leading Friend),
Curies, Black Creek, Mattapany River, Powmunky Neck
(where Captain Clayborn had his plantation, " in a wilder
ness region every way " and where " several were tendered ").
At Hickory Neck, where no meeting had ever been before,
a large gathering was held — " some people were tendered
though a few persons were airy ! " At York City they
held " the first meeting of Friends that had been there "
— "the people were rude and senseless of good." At
Pocoson, " where there had never been a meeting before,"
there was a " divine shining of the Light." At Kickatan,
" things of great moment were opened," and " the daughter
of that unhappy apostate, George Keith " was brought to
" gentle tears " and hope was raised " that she might be
restored to the Truth." At a great meeting at Remuncock
" many persons of note in those parts " attended, among
them Major Palmer, Captain Clayborn, and Dr. Walker,
" all of whom were sedate and some broken."
His travels in Maryland were not so extensive as in
the colonies farther south, since he had the opportunity
of attending the Yearly Meeting for Maryland where he
met most of the Friends of that Colony.
It was held on the Western Shore, and was " very full "
and for two days " peaceable," " the good presence of the
Lord in it," but on the third day there occurred a furious
discussion with two " priests," and all the issues between
the established church and the Quakers were threshed
over. Naturally Thomas Story felt that " the invisible
Truth came over their lofty and self-confident heads," and
he reports with satisfaction that "several Justices who
were present expressed their sentiments altogether in our
favour." l We learn from Story's Journal that the " only
1 A good illustration of the popular interest which was aroused by such dis
cussions appears in Story's account of his next visit to the Western Shore a year
later. A ' ' priest " came to the meeting for a discussion. He was on horseback ;
Thomas Story stood on a bench outside the meeting-house, a large company
294 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
ministering Friend at that time in all those parts " [the
Western Shore of Maryland] was Anne Galloway, who
was " an honest, innocent, lively, and honourable Friend
in the Truth who was everywhere acceptable in her
service." l
Samuel Bownas gives one or two interesting glimpses
of Southern Quakerism in the eighteenth century, the
date of his visit being 1726.
" The Yearly Meeting in Maryland," he says, "is held four days,
three for worship and one for business. Many people resort to
it and transact a deal of trade one with another, so that it is a
kind of market or change, where captains of ships or planters
meet and settle their affairs; and this draws abundance of
people of the best rank to it ! " 2
He gives a valuable passage for the light it throws on
colonial travel :
" I met a Friend from London, his name was Joshua Fielding,
who had visited Virginia and South Carolina, and had travelled
by land about five hundred miles in three weeks, mostly alone,
a difficult and hazardous attempt, but he got through safe though
he had no provision but what he carried with him, and met
with but about four or five houses or plantations in all the five
hundred miles travel [from South Carolina to Virginia] which
obliged him to lodge in the woods frequently. Having a small
pocket-compass it was his guide, when sun and stars were hid
from him."8
It was through just such faith and pluck and tireless
effort that Quakerism was planted in this long stretch of
coast from the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake to
Charleston, South Carolina.
Edmund Peckover, who travelled extensively through
the Southern Colonies in 1742, gives many interesting
glimpses of life and religious conditions as they were at
this time. He is on the whole impressed with tendencies
gathered round, when to the discomfiture of the priest a woman shouted : "You
refused to baptize my five children, unless I would give a hogshead of tobacco
for each one of them. Now I don't care one farthing for your baptism." The
service " ended in divine peace and consolation." — Story, p. 229.
1 I have drawn my information from pp. 153-176 of Thomas Story's
Journal, edition of 1747.
2 Bownas's Journal, p. 140. * Ibid. p. 139.
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 295
toward decline in spiritual life and power of Quakerism in
Maryland. He laments that many worthy Friends in the
Choptank region of Maryland have recently died and
that " many of their offspring come very far short of them "
— few even keep up " the outward appearances " ; but he
prophesies that " a good visitation hangs over their head."
Spiritual affairs are, he thinks, " at a low ebb " in the
other parts of Maryland — the offspring of the "antient
worthies " are as " gaudy and fine in their apparel as any
who go under our name either at London or Bristol!"
He finds a much more encouraging state of affairs in
Virginia — "a good visitation has been extended to the
inhabitants of those parts " ; Friends " are growing in the
Best Sense and have several ministers among them." l
He was, too, favourably impressed with North Carolina.
He found five meeting-houses in the compass of thirty
miles with large meetings and " many solid, weighty, good
Friends." " Six or seven hundred persons attend these
meetings, and there are nine or ten persons gifted in
ministry, with more developing." 2
During the last half-century of the colonial period —
roughly from 1725 to 1775 — there occurred a large and
very influential migration of Friends from Pennsylvania
and colonies farther north, especially from Nantucket in
New England, to the Southern Colonies. It is difficult to
discover the reasons for this extensive shifting of popula
tion in a country not at all thickly settled, but it was
probably due in the last analysis to economic reasons.
In any case it was this migration of solid Quaker families,
building a chain of flourishing meetings across Maryland
and Virginia and down into North Carolina, that began a
new epoch for Quakerism in these colonies, and prepared
the way for the powerful migration of Quakers to the
west during the next century.
The movement began with the migration of a group of
1 The places visited in Virginia by Peckover were Caroline, Cedar Creek,
Swamp Meeting, Black Creek, Wain Oak, Surry, Pagan Creek, West Branch,
Nansemond, Chuckatuck, Blackwater, Notaway, Burleigh, Warwick, Curies,
and Genitee.
8 Journal of Friends Historical Society, \. 96-99.
296 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
Friends from Salem, New Jersey, and another group from
Nottingham, Pennsylvania, to the country along the
Monocacy River, a tributary of the Potomac, in Mary
land. Sometime before 1730 a meeting, called " Mono-
quesy," was formed in this region, near the present village
of Buckeystown. This was the first migration of Friends
toward the west and away from the navigable waters, a
movement which has ever since continued. In 1732
a migration southward was undertaken by Alexander
Ross and a company of Pennsylvania and Maryland
Friends, who secured from the Governor and Council of
Virginia one hundred thousand acres of land for a colony
on Opequan Creek, another tributary to the Potomac.
This led to the formation of two meetings, Opequan and
Providence, which were formed into Hopewell Monthly
Meeting in I735.1 In 1745 Fairfax Monthly Meeting
was established in what was then Fairfax County, but
now Loudoun County.2 From this beginning the move
ment spread southward, frequently increased by large
migration from Pennsylvania, until there were twenty
meetings for worship, five monthly meetings, and one
quarterly meeting in this section of Virginia. A south
ward movement continued, and from the middle of the
century onward meetings sprang up in the south-central
counties of Virginia. One of the most interesting episodes
of this Quaker expansion in Virginia during the middle
years of the eighteenth century, was the formation of a
Quaker centre at Lynchburg, due to the pioneer work of
Charles Lynch and his wife (Ann Terrell) of Cedar Creek
Meeting. They were married in 1755, and pushed out
from home to settle a large tract of unoccupied land in
the beautiful region about the present city of Lynchburg.
The Indians broke up the little meeting which Lynch
and his wife started ; but, undaunted, the devoted pioneers
took the meeting to their own house, and went bravely
and tactfully to work to change the attitude of the
1 This was for some years called Opequan Monthly Meeting.
2 All the Meetings mentioned above belonged, until 1789, to Chester Quarterly
Meeting in Pennsylvania.
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 297
Indians from one of hostility to one of peace and
fellowship.
The same current of migration pushed farther on, and
brought fresh streams of Quakerism into North Carolina.
It was this influx of families from the north that builded
the Quaker meetings in Alamance, Chatham, Guilford,
Randolph, and Surry counties, and gave Quakerism in
the south and west future promise and increased spiritual
power. One of the most important Quaker settlements
which this migration brought about was that at New
Garden in Guilford County. It was begun about 1750,
and the monthly meeting of that name was established
in 1754. Between 1754 and 1770, eighty-six Friends
became members of this monthly meeting by migration to
this section of North Carolina. Of these, forty-five came
from Pennsylvania, thirty-five from Virginia, one from
Maryland, and four from north-eastern North Carolina.1
The migrations from Nantucket were of later date,
and were even more numerous. The first date in the
minutes of New Garden Monthly Meeting for the latter is
1771. After that time the records abound in names ever
since then familiar in the annals of North Carolina Yearly
Meeting, and also in those Yearly Meetings of the West
which were largely composed of Friends, who, during the
anti-slavery agitation and the distressing period just
before the Civil War, emigrated to the free soil beyond the
Ohio River. Within a period of five years there were no
less than forty-one certificates from Nantucket in New
Garden Monthly Meeting alone, and other Friends settled
within the limits of Cane Creek Monthly Meeting. Many
of these were young unmarried men, who were seeking to
improve their fortunes. The island of Nantucket was
crowded, two-thirds of its population being Friends — and
its hardy sons were ready for adventure and pioneer life.
In many instances they secured the latter without a
corresponding increase in estate, and moved on into
1 Weeks's Southern Quakerism and Slavery, p. 105. For further details of
this migration see Weeks, op. cit. pp. 96-108 ; Janney's History of Friends, iii.
248-249 ; and Life and Labours of William Reckitt.
298 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
South Carolina and Georgia to found settlements and
meetings which have entirely vanished. The minutes
abound in declarations of intentions of marriage, and
these Nantucket men were soon united with daughters of
Pennsylvania, and from these two sources in the main is
the birthright membership of North Carolina Yearly
Meeting derived. There was also some admixture of Welsh
and German blood. This migration came simultane
ously with what is known as the Scotch- Irish migration.
Through this channel the strong Presbyterian element
which has since existed in Central Carolina was introduced.
These two influences, in many respects diverse, were
thus simultaneously established on Southern soil. They
continued to exist side by side with little friction until the
outbreak of the Civil War. At that time the question of
slavery forced an antagonism which the War of the
Revolution did not engender. The Scotch- Irish were
ready to fight. The Friends maintained their principle
of peace, and abstained from participation in politics,
contenting themselves with the rigorous insistence upon
the rules of discipline, educational and business affairs,
leaving the others pretty much in political authority.
There is little definite light available on the early
settlement of Quakerism in South Carolina. The first
public document referring to the coming of the Quakers
to the Southern Colony is a letter written by Lord
Shaftesbury, June 9, 1675, to Andrew Percivall on the
Ashley River. The letter is as follows :
" There is coming in my Dogger [small ship], Jacob Waite
and too or three other familys of those who are called Quakers.
These are but Harbengers of a great number that intend to
follow. Tis their purpose to take up a whole colony for them
selves and theire Friends. I have writ to the Governor and
Councell about them and directed them to set them out 12,000
acres. I would have you be very kind to them and give them
all the assistance you can in a choice of place or anything else
that may conduce to theire convenient settlement. For they
are people I have great regard to and am obliged to care of. I
am your affectionate friend, SHAFTESBURY." l
1 Collections of Historical Society of South Carolina, v. 464.
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 299
Some letters from John Jennings of Barbadoes to
Edward Mayo and Jonathan Fitts of South Carolina,
written 1679, have recently come to light, showing that
the Barbadoes Quaker had sent five slaves to the Carolina
Quakers. He asks his correspondents to return one of
the " negromen," and to sell the rest for " Porke or
Tobacco or bills of exchange," though he says, " if I had
been sensible of what I now am [sensible of] I should not
a sent them to that place." l
In 1 68 1 George Fox, by epistle, endeavoured to bring
the Friends in South Carolina into organic relation with
the North Carolina Friends. He wrote :
"If you of Ashley River [S.C.] and you of Albemarle [N.C.]
had once a year, or once a half-year, a meeting together some
where in the middle of the country, it might be well." 2
But the distance between the two settlements and the
difficulties of travel made a union of forces impossible.
We get a slight glimpse of these Charleston Friends in
1713 from Thomas Chalkley's Journal :
" After a month at sea " [in passage from Philadelphia] he
writes, " it pleased God that we arrived at Charleston in South
Carolina. We had a meeting there and divers others afterwards.
There were but few Friends in this province, yet I had several
meetings in the country. The people were generally loving,
and received me kindly. . . . The longer I staid the larger our
meetings were."3
He visited the Governor, who said that he " deserved
encouragement" in his mission.
As the country grew in population Friends about
Albemarle Sound gradually pushed south, and a chain of
meetings was formed down the coast of North Carolina.
Core Monthly Meeting was established in 1733 in
Carteret County, and Falling Creek Monthly Meeting
was set up in what is now Lenoir County in 1748.
Weeks says that by the middle of the eighteenth century
there were probably Quaker Meetings for worship in
1 Journal of Friends Historical Society, vii. 65-66.
2 Bowden, L 413. 3 Journal, p. 80.
300 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
Hyde, Beaufort, Craven, Carteret, Jones, Bladen, and
Lenoir counties,1 so that the great gap between the
Quaker settlements in the two Carolinas was fast closing
up. But Quakerism never flourished in the great Southern
Colony. Mary Peasley (afterwards Mary Neale) and
Catherine Peyton (afterwards Philips) visited Charleston
in 1753, and found a group of Friends there "who walk
in the sight of their own eyes and the imagination of
their own hearts, without being accountable to any for
their conduct." 2
Samuel Fothergill was at Charleston in 1755, and
he writes : " I am here amongst a poor handful of
professors, and I believe I must visit all their families." 3
But there was one Quaker in South Carolina who did
not " walk in the sight of her own eyes, nor in the light
of her own imagination," and she was no mere " professor."
This was Sophia Hume, a native of the Province, a grand
daughter of Mary Fisher of Boston fame, a person of some
refinement and culture, and a woman of very unusual
religious experience, who, in 1747, issued An Exhortation
to the Inhabitants of South Carolina* The book was
written under a powerful sense of compulsion — " I would
not have you imagine that any consideration less than the
Favour of God could have prevailed on me to appear in
print " — and she believed unmistakably that she was utter
ing a divinely-given word, and not " the productions of
an enthusiastick brain." I shall give her message in a few
words to show what the best Friends of this period held
to be essential.
" There is one truth," she says, " on which all I have
to say to you greatly depends, namely, that all mankind
have within them a measure and manifestation of the
1 Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 87.
- Memoir of Catherine Philips (1797), pp. 63-101.
3 Memoirs of Samuel Fothergill, p. 173. Friends were even less successful in
spreading their truth in Georgia. Samuel Fothergill went into Georgia, and be
remarks that George Whitefield hurried to get there ahead of him to ' ' save the
flock," but there was little permanent result from Fothergill's visit. A Quaker
settlement was, however, made in the Colony in 1758 near Augusta, and another
settlement was made in what is now M'Duffie county in 1770. For details see
Weeks's Southern Quakers and Slavery, pp. 117-124.
4 First edition printed in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin in 1748.
CH. i QUAKERS IN SOUTHERN COLONIES 301
Light, Spirit, or Grace of God, so that salvation is a
matter of personal obedience."1 Then comes her own
testimony : " I myself have through the Grace of God
and the obedience of faith witnessed the Peace of God
myself, and am greatly concerned for the inhabitants of
my native country to have this same Peace."2 She
declares her belief that it is possible by strict obedience
to the inward Guest and Guide of the soul to walk in the
light, and she wisely says that the true test of guidance is
the discovery that our actions promote peace, goodwill,
charity, and benevolence in the neighbourhood, " for such
actions proceed from no other than God."3 She says
" the first day's work of the new creation in my soul was
that happy season when God opened my eyes, and
appeared in the Beauty of Holiness to my soul."4 She
insists rightly that the reason the heavenly Jerusalem
does not come in our age is that Christians are no longer
sensible of the presence of God, no longer have the Gospel-
Power, do not live in the Eternal Spirit, and substitute
words and outward services for Spirit and Life.5 And
she drives home to her " friends and neighbours " — in fact
she says that she has come back from England under
"the constraint of the Almighty" to tell them — that
" Religion is a heart-work, the battle is an inward one,
nothing counts but victory over sin, nothing but the
inward possession of the Love of God. God visits you,
the Voice of the Spirit calls you. Obedience will bring
the Light and Truth into your inward parts, and you
may be the Redeemed of the Lord." 6
It is a simple little book, with some chaff, but with
some real wheat in it, and it gives a clear idea of the type
of preaching which was heard in all the meetings of the
South as the itinerant messengers came among them.
1 Substance of pp. 5-7. a P. 10. * P. 17.
4 Condensed, pp. 22-23. 8 ^P- 140-141. • P. 156 seqf
CHAPTER II
THE GROUP LIFE AND WORK OF SOUTHERN FRIENDS
THE little groups of Friends which began to form in
Maryland in 1656, in Virginia in 1658, and in North
Carolina in 1671, gradually developed here as elsewhere
into organised meetings for worship and for "truth's
affairs." At first the meeting for worship, where the
little local group gathered in the living faith that God
was a real presence among them, was almost the whole
of Quakerism. Those who were newly " convinced "
quietly marked their change by a severer simplicity of
outward life, by the unvarying use of " thou " and " thee,"
instead of " you " for a single person, by refusal to remove
the hat as a mark of etiquette or honour, by the absolute
omission of every kind of oath, and by attendance of the
meeting for worship twice each week at the home of some
leading Friend in the Community.
For the first dozen years in Maryland and Virginia
the organisation of the Society was a very slender affair.1
No central meeting was held in either Colony prior to
1672, and the local meetings for business were irregularly
held, and dealt with but few matters, such as the suffer
ings of members subjected to persecution, the marriage of
members, the needs of poor families, the times and places
of holding meetings, and exercised perhaps some general
oversight over the " walk and conversation " of those who
constituted the " meeting."
1 For example, Burnyeat found in 1665 that under the influence of John Perrot
Friends in Virginia had ' ' quite forsaken their meetings, and did not meet together
once in a year." — Burnyeat's Journal, p. 188.
302
CH. ii GROUP LIFE AND WORK 303
The earliest attempts at organisation of the Society in
these colonies were made by Josiah Coale and George
Rofe, both of whom were men of the constructive type ;
but the work of systematic organisation was finally carried
through by John Burnyeat, George Fox, and William
Edmundson. Burnyeat began his constructive work in
the two colonies in 1665, but he carried it much farther
in 1671-72. He travelled through the Virginia towns
where there were Friends in the autumn of 1671, and
advised them to hold a men's meeting for business
affairs. In the following spring he performed the same
service in Maryland, and arranged a General Meeting for
the Colony at West River to be held in April, which George
Fox, opportunely landing from Jamaica, attended. In
the summer of 1672 William Edmundson found affairs
unsettled and out of order in Virginia, and he appointed
" a men's meeting for settling Friends in the Way of
Truth's Discipline," and, upon his return from North
Carolina a few weeks later, this appointed men's meeting
was held for settling the affairs of the Society.
Edmundson writes :
" The Lord's Power was with us in the Men's Meeting, and
Friends received Truth's Discipline in the Love of it, as formerly
they had received the Doctrine of Truth. Before I left those
Parts Friends desired another Men's Meeting ; so we appointed
another." l
This proved to be a very large meeting, and was
occupied with " the affairs of the Church " : " to provide
for poor widows and fatherless children : to take care that
no disorders were committed in the Society, and to see
that all lived orderly according to what they professed." 2
These accounts show plainly enough that previous to
this time the organisation was of the loosest character,
business meetings being held only at the call of some
travelling Friend with a constructive turn of mind.
George Fox continued this organising work, " wonderfully
opening " to the people the use and value of meetings for
Church affairs ; and when he sailed for England he could
1 Journal, p. 60. a Ibid. p. 62.
304 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
honestly say that " Friends in those parts are well
established in the Truth."
The earliest official document from Friends in Mary
land is an epistle from the General Meeting for the
colony held at West River, June 6, 1674, and addressed
"to the Men's Meeting of Friends in Bristol," England.
The epistle is largely occupied with homily, but there are
a few living passages in it which reveal the condition of
these people who have formed themselves into a Society.
" We truly desire," they say, " to tread and walk in the
blessed truth." " Much people there be in our country,"
the epistle states, " that comes to hear truth declared,
which in its eternal authority is over all and many there
be that by it are convicted." *
No minutes of any Quaker meeting in Maryland are
extant for a date earlier than 1677, the first surviving
minute being that of a Men's Meeting held at the house
of Wenlock Christison on the Eastern Shore of the
Chesapeake, March 24, 1677. Christison is the old
hero who had braved the dangers of missionary activity in
Massachusetts and had been condemned to die on the
Boston gallows, but was finally released and given his
life. He settled, not long after his " escape," at Tredhaven
in Talbot County, and became one of the leading person
alities and one of the foremost influences in the Maryland
Society ; but his heroism and his distinction as an apostle
who had suffered much did not raise him above the
judgment of his fellow-members. He had been valiant for
the truth in Boston, and had steered his course straight
on through all the wiles of the enemy, but evidently he
had succumbed to the attraction of some woman " not of
the Society." The Men's Meeting in July held at his own
house " took him under dealing " :
" Att our Mans Meeting at Wenlock Christison's house ye i4th
of 5th mo. [July] 1677, Wenlock Christison declared in ye
meeting that if ye world or any particular person should speak
evilly of ye Truth or reproach Friends concerning his proceedings
1 The original copy is on the Bristol Minutes. It is printed in Bowdeii, i.
379-
CH. ii GROUP LIFE AND WORK 305
in taking his wife, that then he would give further satisfaction
and clear ye Truth and Friends by giving forth a paper to
condemn his hasty and forward proceedings in ye matter, and
he said that were ye thing to do again he would not proceed so
hasty, nor without consent of Friends."
For many years the General Meeting for the Colony,
consisting both of " a Men's Meeting " and " a Women's
Meeting," were held alternately at half-year periods on
the Western Shore and the Eastern Shore. Monthly
Meetings were also held dating probably from the time
of Fox's visit, at the localities where there were large
numbers of Friends. The Minutes of the Men's Meeting
for 1679 held on the Western Shore received reports
from several local meetings of the Monthly type, as
follows : Severn, South River, West River, " The Cliffs,"
Herring Creek, Patuxent, Muddy Creek, Accomack,
Anamessicks, Munny, Choptank, Tuckahoe, Betties
Cove, Bay Side, and Chester River. Quarterly Meet
ings began in Maryland, as far as the records indicate,
in 1679. One was organised that year for the Western
Shore "to be kept at Aun Chew's house at Herring
Creek for the easing of the Monthly Meeting and Half
Years Meeting, so that they may not be so much con
cerned with outward matters." l Another Quarterly
Meeting was established on the Eastern Shore, probably
the same year, as the first official reference to it occurs
under date of 1/j.th November 1679.
The earliest minutes contain interesting information of
the way the meeting funds were raised and expended.
All the funds of these meetings in the primitive days
were in terms of tobacco. In 1677 the Friends of the
Eastern Shore " thought it fitt and meet " to gather a
" stock " or general fund, " for the service of Truth,"
"every Friend being left to his freedom what to give,"
and for the care of the poor, for which purpose the
members contributed 8650 pounds of tobacco. A similar
fund was raised for the Western Shore and "kept at
John Gary's for the service of Truth." Eighteen hundred
1 Minutes of Men's Meetings, 4th July 1679.
X
306 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
pounds of tobacco out of this latter fund were used to
purchase " a shallop for Friends' service," as a boat
furnished the readiest method of travel to and from
meetings along the shores of the Chesapeake. All the
meetings of every type were held in the homes of members
during the first twenty years of the history of the Society.
The first meeting-house built in the Colony was at Betties
Cove on the Eastern Shore, and by the minutes of a
Men's Meeting held at Wenlock Christison's in 1678 it
appears that this house was at that time still unfinished,
for it was then decided to " loft it," and to " partition it
with falling windows hung on hinges," but for a long time
even after this Friends continued to hold "house-
meetings " in most localities of Maryland.
In Virginia there were no regular, settled meetings
" for the affairs of Truth " before the visits of Fox and
Edmundson. The General Meeting for the entire Colony
was begun at the suggestion of George Fox in 1673.
Fox's letter to the scattered Friends of the Colony is a
brief and lucid expression of the true idea of a Quaker
meeting :
" Meet to geather in the power and wisdom of God and keep
a mans meeting and see that all who proffeseth the Lord and
Glorious Gospel of Christ Jesus may walk in it and stand by
Righteousness and holiness as becomes the house of God, and stand
for Gods glory and his name, so that all that doe proffes his Name
may nott dishonor it nor cause his name to be blasphemed, nor his
gracious truth to be evill spoken off, and see that nothing be lacking
amongst ffriends meetings; and see that you all be as one famyly
together in the house of God." l
The earliest monthly meetings in the Colony go back
to about the same date as the central General Meeting —
1673, though no official accounts appear from this
primitive stage. Chuckatuck Monthly Meeting was
certainly in existence in 1683, and Curies (later called
Henrico) was established in 1698. White Oak Swamp
Monthly Meeting was established in 1 700 and Nansemond,
1 Minutes of Lower Virginia Meeting.
CH. ii GROUP LIFE AND WORK 307
Pagan Creek, Surry, Wain Oak, and Warwick have
records dating from I7O2.1
The first Quarterly Meeting in the Colony was Lower
Virginia Quarterly Meeting which was established at
least as early as 1696. It was known, as most of these
Virginia Meetings were known, under many variant
names. Upper Virginia Quarterly Meeting dates from
1700, and in 1706 the Lower Quarterly Meeting was
divided, forming a new one occupying the middle section
of the Quaker region under the name of Chuckatuck.
North Carolina Yearly Meeting was organised in
1698, as appears from a minute of the Quarterly Meeting
held at the house of Henry White the 4th of June 1698 :
" It was unanimous agreed by friends . . . that on the last
seventh-day of the 7th month in Every yere to be the yerely
meeting for this Cuntree at the house of ffrancis tooms [Toms]
the Elder, and the second day of the weke following to be seat
apart for business."
The Quarterly Meeting at which this action was taken
was Eastern Quarterly Meeting which was established
probably in 1681 for Friends in Pasquotank, Perquimans,
and Northampton Counties. The earliest monthly meeting
record for this Colony is that of one held at the house of
Francis Toms in 1 680, though according to the usual
custom of Friends there were probably meetings " for the
affairs of Truth" much earlier than this. By the year
1 I give as complete a list of Virginia Monthly Meetings as I have been able
to make out :
Black Water Established 1757
Caroline (sometimes called Cedar Creek) . ,, 1739
Chuckatuck . . . Known to be in existence as early as 1683
Curies (later called Henrico) .... Established 1698
Denby ........ ,, 1716
Fairfax . ,, 1744
Hopewell .
Isle of Wight
Nansemond
Pagan Creek
South River
Surry
Wainoak .
Warwick .
Records under this name begin 1767
,, 1702
i, ,. ,, 1702
Established 1757
„ 1702
,, 1702
1702
White Oak Swamp (probably a variant name for some other
Monthly Meeting) Dates from about 1700
308 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
1700 there seem to have been three monthly meetings
in this Colony : one at the house of Francis Toms in
Ferquimans County ; one at the house of Jonathan Phelps,
also in Perquimans ; and one in Pasquotank. l
The most impressive feature of these various meetings,
stretching in a long chain of Quaker settlements from
the Chesapeake on the North to Charleston on the South,
was their watchful care over the outer and inner life of
the membership — what the Friends of that time called
" the walk and conversation." The paternalism of this
early Quakerism would with difficulty be endured to-day,
but it fitted the needs of that period well ; and it produced
results in social morality and in individual character
which could hardly have been surpassed under any freer
methods. The quiet ministry to the necessities of the
poor members, as it was managed by the Quaker Meeting,
cannot be too highly praised. Every effort was made to
assist the needy to help themselves and, where this was
manifestly impossible, the administration of charity was
handled in a most private and unobtrusive way. " Great
care and serious weighing" was bestowed upon the
estates, condition, and education of orphans committed to
the oversight of Friends. By a minute of Maryland
Yearly Meeting for 1678, provision was made that one
person in every local meeting should be chosen to see
that no orphan is abused, nor his estate wasted, and that
proper opportunities for his education are supplied. The
Women Friends, always alive to formative influences,
1 I give the following list of the other Colonial Monthly Meetings in the
Carolinas, compiled from the appendix of Weeks' Southern Quakers and Slavery :
Bush River . . . Founded 1770
Cane Creek, N.C.
Cane Creek, S.C.
Carver's Creelc
Centre
Contentnea .
Core Sound .
Deep River .
Dunn's Creek
Falling Creek
Fredericksburg (later called Water e)
New Garden
Rich Square
Wells
175*
1773
1746
1772
1743
*733
1778
1746
1748
175°
1754
1760
1764
CH. ii GROUP LIFE AND WORK 309
took up the subject of education at their Half Year's
Meeting in Maryland in 1679, and adopted this quaint
minute which probably bore some fruit :
" We takeing it into serious Consideration Consuming our
Childrens going to Scolle hath thought meett in ye wisdoum of
god to giue ocation to all ffriends that those that are scoole
masters may be Exhorted to teach their Children in ye practice
boath in words, ways and actions wh beComes ye Blessed truth,
and that we cannott, neither will, allow them to practice any of
ye worlds liberty in any manner of practice wch ye truth alowes
not, and alsoe its desired that ffriends be diligent to provide
ffriends and scripture Boocks, and if possible to have a ffriend
to be scool Master or Mistress.
" This being presented to our brethren of ye Mens Meeting at
ye time aforesaid they had Unity with it."1
A similar " serious Consideration Consuming Childrens
going to Scolle " appeared in all the other Quaker sections,
and led to the establishment of a great many small
schools for the " guarded " education — within rather severe
limits — of the children of the membership.
The meetings followed up their distant members, and
exercised a paternal care over those who moved into
towns where there was no meeting for them to attend.
If a member was going on a journey far from home,
he was supplied with an indorsed document from his
meeting, which introduced him to Friends in the places to
which he was going, and prepared the way for him as he
travelled. A few concrete minutes will illustrate the
manner in which these matters were handled. The first
one is the case of a Friend who had moved from Mary
land to Virginia, and had consulted his meeting for advice
whether he should stay or return. The Minute reads :
"William Kuton very honestly applies to this Meeting for
advice in order to his staying or removing from Rapahanock
[Va.] Inasmuch as there is no ffriends meeting there but
himself, he signifyeth that he finds something stirring in his
heart with love of god to the people, and by himself hath not
freedom to remove. He desires that if the Meeting do judge
1 Minutes of Women's Half Year's Meeting for 1679.
310 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
it meet he should stay, they would take care that he may be
visited on all opportunities that present, and that ffriends
would acquaint travelling ffriends of that same, that so if
possible the desire of his heart may be answered concerning
that people. The Meeting approveth of what ye ffriend hath
proposed, and doe advise that his request may be answered by
ffriends on both shores as opportunity offereth."
The following minute — from the year 1686 — is a good
illustration of the care taken for journeying members :
" Humphry Emerton laid before this Meeting his intention of
a voyage for England about his outward concerns. This Meeting
desires first to know the willingness of his wife, and in order
thereto hath appointed Richard Harrison to discourse with her,"
and forthwith a document suitable to introduce him was
prepared.
When a Friend went out on a religious visit " a
minute of unity" like the following was given to open
the way for his message and service :
"Our well beloved Friend and sister Anne Galloway laid
before this Meeting, that she finding some drawings in the love
of God to visit Friends in some parts of Pennsylvania, desired
some lines by way of certificate of their unity with her. And
whereas our beloved Friend Samuel Galloway hath informed
this Meeting that he hath an intention of accompanying his
wife in her intended journey (if extraordinary occasion prevents
not) desires that he may have a few lines by way of certificate of
Friends unity with him."
Even as early as 1705, Friends in Maryland began
to be disturbed by the excessive use of tobacco and
spirituous liquors, and there are frequent minutes about
this " concern of Truth." The earliest minute which I
have found on the subject, under date of 1705, will
indicate the way they dealt with the difficulty :
"This Meeting having a weighty sense upon their minds
concerning the immoderate use of Tobacco, does advise that all
may forbear the abuse of the same, and that those friends that
are appointed to give accompt of the state of the Meeting they
belong to may forbear the excess of smoking themselves, and
also caution and advise all friends against the immoderate use of
CH. ii GROUP LIFE AND WORK 311
the same, and that they give accompt to the Monthly Meeting
what progress they have made therein." l
The Friends in Maryland were troubled for many years
by the sale of liquors in the near neighbourhood of the
meeting-house at the time of their Yearly Meeting. The
occasion was seized upon by " the world's people " as a
good time to "transact trades," and, to the scandal of
Friends, the meeting-place was made " a kind of market or
change where the captains of ships and the planters met
and settled their affairs." The Friends were pleased to
have " the abundance of people from the country round
about " flock in, but they were also determined to " prevent
ye buying of drink at the time of Yearly Meeting," and
thereupon they addressed the government of Maryland
"for ye prevention and suppressing of the evil practice
with the evil consequences attending it."2 Their appeal
was in due time effective, for an Act was passed in 1725,
preventing the sale of liquors in booths within one mile
of the Quaker meeting-house in Talbot County, or within
two miles of the meeting-house near West River in Ann
Arundel County.3
Virginia Friends took the position, as Friends else
where did in the early stage of moral awakening on these
matters, that liquor-drinking must be done, if at all, in
moderation. The Yearly Meeting of 1704 expressed in a
minute the advice that members of the Society " do
keep out of unnecessary providing of strong drink, and
do keep in Christian moderation at times of births,
burials, or marriages." 4 One of the most amusing minutes
1 Minutes of the Yearly Meeting for 1705.
2 Minutes of Yearly Meeting for 1711.
3 Bacon's Laws 1725, chapter 6.
4 It was not until 1782 that Virginia Yearly Meeting took action prohibiting
the distillation of liquor by their members :
' ' The Meeting being deeply concerned at this time to endeavour to remove
from amongst us such things as appear to be an evil tendency, and as the
distilling spirits from grain is believed to be wrong, Friends are therefore hereby
prohibited using grain of any sort in that manner ; and if any should continue so
to do, such ought to be treated with as disregarding the unity of the body. And
as trading in spirituous liquors, and frequent, and unnecessary use thereof hath
also appeared to have many bad effects ; Friends are therefore advised against
these practices. "
312 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
on the subject of moderation came from North Carolina,
where Friends were urged to " use tobacco with great
moderation as a medison and not as a delightsome
companion ! " l
There was, however, a strange mingling of the large
and the little, the important and the petty, in the paternal
care which these meetings exercised. The moral and the
merely ceremonial ran blurringly together. Dress, speech,
and marriage with a companion " of the world" early
came to be questions of first importance. In 1700 the
Women's General Meeting for Maryland decided " under
waity consideration, in the wisdom of God " to hold three
times a year " a private meeting of the solidest women
Friends to wait upon the Lord and to inspect into the
most waitiest affairs of Truth " — these " waitiest affairs of
Truth " being mainly matters of dress and marriage. A
minute of this " private meeting," dated 1708, declares :
" It Lies very Waityly uppon us to Desir all friends Profesing
truth to be very Carefull to keep out of all Imytations of
Fashghons which the world Runs into : Butt to keep to Plain
ness of Speach and Plainness in Dress in our Selves, and our
Children ; Labouring in our Selves and with them to be clothed
with ye meak spirit of Jesus as such as are waighting for his
coming."
Similar minutes come from every section of Quakerdom
throughout the entire colonial period from the time when
meetings for business affairs were organised. The follow
ing specimen minute from the North Carolina Records has
a peculiarly nai've flavour :
"Friends are advised against wearing coats and other
garments made after the new and superfluous fashions of the
times, and no Friend is to wear a wig, but such as apply to the
monthly meeting giving their reasons for so doing."
But the subject of overwhelming importance was that
of marriage, for it had early become a fixed idea with
Friends that there should be no mixed marriages, i.e.
marriages with persons " not of the Society." We have
1 Quoted from Weeks's Southern Quakerism, p. 128.
CH. ii GROUP LIFE AND WORK 313
already seen how the Meeting on the Eastern Shore of
the Chesapeake compelled its foremost member, Wenlock
Christison, to apologise for his " hasty marriage," and it
allowed no one to deviate " from good order " in this
matter. As an illustration of the care taken even when
both bride and groom were Friends, the following minute
is of interest :
" Att a Halfe Years Womens Meeting at the house of John
Pitt ye 3rd of ye 5 mt. 1678.
" Obadiah Judkins Lay'd a matter of maradge before us with
Obedience Jenner and wee taking itt into Consideration, she
Coming lately from England, thought it Requisite that they
should stay till a Certificate can be secured, and in ye meantime
they should dwell asunder."
There are many such entries as this of the year 1687:
"We are informed of a yong ffriendly woman dwelling at
Choptank [Maryland] that is married to one of ye world and
after ye manner of ye world ; ye care and consurn of which is
referred to ye womens meeting on ye Eastern Shore."
The women Friends of Maryland made a most drastic
proposal in 1691 to force the children of the meeting to
live up " to the testimony of Truth."
" Itts the Sence of this Meeting that when Parents that have
Children that Marries against and Contrary to their Parents
mind, and shall give them any part of their outward Estates it is
encouragement for others to take the like disobedient Course and
it is of bad Consequence, and this Meeting Advice is that all
Friends that may be Concerned in like Case doe Refrain from
giving such Rebellious Children any part of their outward Estates
that soe such like Spiritts in Friends children may be discouraged
and not encouraged." *
By means of an extensive epistolary correspondence,
beginning from the earliest organisation of the Society in
America, the Friends, withdrawn from the rest of the
" world," kept in constant rapport with each other. So
long as George Fox lived, he wrote frequently to the
1 This attitude toward "rebellious children" was adopted by the Men's
Meeting both in Maryland and in Virginia.
314 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
meetings in the colonies, and after his death his wife
continued the correspondence.
A minute of the Yearly Womens' Meeting at West
River in 1 699 reports :
"An Apistle from our Dear friend Margaret fox from the
Quarterly Meetting att Lancaster, In Old England was read in
our Meeting and ffriends haueing True Unity with ye same and
Desireing wee may Eye the great Love of Oure God in this and
all things agreeable to his blessed truth to ye end of our Dayes,
Doth appoint Eliz. Talbott, and Ann Galloway to Write and
answer to the aboue Said Apistle and to send itt by the first
opportunity In behalf of Said Meetting."
The Yearly Meetings, both for men and for women,,
all over the world sent Epistles to each other, and it was
quite usual for the lower or subordinate meetings to send
similar Epistles if special occasions called for such action,
or " if something rose freshly in the minds of any as a
living message." One of the most amusing incidents in
this widespread intercourse of love and fellowship was
the sending of two hogsheads of tobacco from the women
Friends of Maryland to the women of London in 1678.
The minute of this " concern " says :
" We hauing Reseaved many Episels from our dear friends in
London and of late a Prcell of Boocks as a token of true love to
our women's Meetting here in Maryland, it is agreed upon at
this our generall Meetting to wright a Lettr. from ye womens
Meetting hear in Maryland to ye Womens Meetting in London
and to send it with two hhd. of tobacco, and it is agreed upon
that Eliz. Larance and Alice Gary doe take Care to prouide one
hhd. for ye Western Shore, and Madgdelin Stevens and Sarah
Thomas to privd one hhd. for ye Eastern Shore, and if possible
they be sent together, and Margarett Berry is desired to wright
ye Letter to ye womens Meetting in London."
By the opening of the eighteenth century the Friends
were one people throughout the world, though there was
absolutely no bond but love and fellowship. There was
no visible head to the Society, no official creed, no-
ecclesiastical body which held sway and authority. But
instead of being an aggregation of separate units the
CH. ii GROUP LIFE AND WORK 315
Society was in an extraordinary measure a living group.
Friends had suffered together and they were baptized
into one spirit. Wherever any Friend was in trouble the
world over, all Friends, however remote, were concerned,
and were ready to help share the trouble if it could be
shared. The way in which Friends bore each other's
burdens is well illustrated by a passage in an epistle to
George Fox from the Half Year's Meeting in Maryland
in 1683 :
" There are many Friends in this province who find a concern
laid upon them to visit the seed of God in Carolina, for we
understand that the spoiler makes havoc of the flock there : so
here are many weighty Friends intending to go down there on
that service."1
Every meeting took care of its own poor, and had a
permanent poor-fund always ready. There is no unifier
like love, and nothing creates the group-spirit as does the
fellowship-interest. Nowhere except in the primitive
Church has there been a more amazing interchange of
fellowship, a more spontaneous itinerancy, than among the
Friends. Harnack says :
" At a time when Christianity was still a homeless religion,
the occasional travels of brethren were frequently the means of
bringing churches together, which otherwise would have had no
common tie." 2
A living interest in the collective Church of Christ, he
points out, throbbed with intensity through each particular
Church, and the men of spiritual vision and leadership
contributed themselves to the whole Church. So it was,
too, in the formative period of Quakerism. The greatest
and the best of the entire Society made their way from
meeting to meeting, and from house to house — even into
the cabin of the settler on the frontier — and they wove
an invisible bond, stronger than the infallible decrees of
Councils, which held the whole body together as an
integral unit. Hospitality with the Quaker was not a
virtue, it was an unconscious habit. His house was wide
1 Quoted from Bowden, i. 385.
2 The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, i. 179.
316 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
open to every Friend who passed that way, and, especially
on great meeting-days, there were practically no limits to
the hospitality of board or bed.
" Differences," disputes, and controversies between
Friends were not taken into court, but were settled in
meeting by the family method. However complex and
complicated the affairs at issue might be, the meeting
grappled with them, and brought order out of chaos.
For example, two Friends in Virginia in 1749 had a
financial difference, which the Monthly Meeting considered
would, if continued, have " pernishous consequences to the
trooth and its prosperity." The meeting took up the case,
and induced the contenders to refer their controversy to
the judgment of three Friends. It was thus settled
satisfactorily, " brotherhood between them was preserved,
and scandal was prevented." l There are hundreds of
similar arbitrations on the various minute books, and
generally, if not always, the meetings proved able to
settle the affair in dispute, and preserve brotherhood.
The simplicity and artlessness of these colonial
Friends appear in almost all their methods as a few
samples will show. In 1702 Virginia Friends had "a
deep and weighty sense" that the affairs of the Church
could be improved, " if but one person should speak at a
time," and the Yearly Meeting gave " wholesum counsil "
to meetings everywhere to practise this plan of procedure,
" which will be," the minute of advice says, " a sweet
savour, we doubt not ! " 2
In 1724 Thomas Pleasants asked to be released from
the duties of clerk to his monthly meeting, "since it hath
pleased the Lord to give him a few words to speak in the
assemblies of God's people." A touchingly simple effort
to advance " the truth " appears in a letter from two rural
Friends in Henrico county, Virginia, in 1701.
" Friends, wee thought to acquaint you that we are willing to
have a First<lay Meeting at our house, hoping it would be for
the glory of the Lord, and the prosperity of his blessed Truth."
1 Minutes of White Oak Swamp Monthly Meeting, 1749.
2 Minutes of Virginia Yearly Meeting for 1702.
CH. ii GROUP LIFE AND WORK 317
One of the earliest corporate activities of Friends in
the Southern colonies was directed toward the achievement
of religious freedom, because their very chance of survival
as a religious people hung upon the attainment of such
freedom. The system of Church uniformity weighed most
severely in Virginia. Nowhere except in Massachusetts
was the pressure so heavy, and, in the form of distraints
for tithes, it was continued long after the New England
Quakers were living in peace. The kind of persecution
to which all Friends in Virginia were subjected in the
eighteenth century may be seen in the laconic report of
Thomas Jordan to his Monthly Meeting in 1700 on his
sufferings :
"Six weeks Imprisonment for being Taken Att A Meeting in my
own house and Released by the Kings Proclamation ; again taken
at a meeting at Robert Lawrence, and bound ouer to the Court
of Nansemond, and, for refusing to swear according to their will
and against the Command of Christ, was sent up to Jamestown
a Prisoner upwards of ten months. Presently After John Blake
tooke away my 3 servants And left my wife in a Distressed
Condition with A young Child sucking at her Breasts that to
help her selfe the Child did hurt Itt selfe with Crying, wch.
servants were kept about nine weeks and then returned again
by the Governors order. Taken by Distress by Jno. Blake, bed
Sheriff of Nansemond County : Two feather bedes and three
feather Boalsters and furniture to them with other goodes wch.
did amount to 3967 Pounds of Tobbacco, also a servant man
that had 3 years to serve. Taken by distress by Thomas Godwin
Sherieff : Ten head of Cattells and delivered to Wm. Stinton of
James Towne."
Robert Jordan has left his own account of his sufferings,
which will touch the reader with sympathy for this defender
of the American idea that religion and religious contribu
tions are matters for the individual conscience to settle :
" Being committed to prison, I was first placed in the debtor's
apartment, but in a few days was removed into the common side,
where condemned persons are kept, and for some time had not
the privilege of seeing anybody, except a negro who once a day
brought water to the prisoners ; this place was so dark that I
could not see to read even at noon, without creeping to small
holes in the door ; being also very noisome, the infectious air
318 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
brought on me the flux, so that, had not the Lord been pleased
to sustain me by his invisible hand, I had there lost my life ; the
governor was made acquainted with my condition, and I believe
used his endeavors for my liberty ; the commissary visited me
more than once under a show of friendship, but with a view to
ensnare me, and I was very weary of him. I wrote again to the
governor, to acquaint him with my situation, and so, after a
confinement of three weeks, I was discharged, without any
acknowledgment of compliance, and this brought me into an
acquaintance and ready admittance to the Governor, who said
I was a meek man." l
" Destraints for priest's wages," as Friends called these
forced contributions, lasted in Virginia until the adoption
of the Bill of Rights at the opening of the Revolutionary
War.
The sixteenth section of this famous Bill, which was
drafted by Patrick Henry, embodied this noble principle
for which the Quakers had wrought and fought for a
hundred years, and for which they suffered imprisonment
and annual loss of goods :
" Religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the
manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and
conviction, not by force and violence, and therefore all men are
equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the
dictates of conscience ; and it is the mutual duty of all to practice
Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other." 2
This principle was put into practical effect in October
of the same year by the definite enactment that all laws
prescribing punishment " for maintaining any opinions in
matters of religion, forbearing to repair to Church, or the
exercising of any mode of worship whatever" should be
repealed, and a universal exemption is made from all
levies, taxes, and impositions for the support of the
church or its ministers.8
The struggle to secure relief from military exactions
was not so soon over, and it was in all the Southern
1 Memorials (Philadelphia, 1787) quoted from Weeks, p. 151.
2 Hening, ix. 112.
* Hening, ix. 164, 312, 387, 496. The Church, however, was not dis
established in Virginia until 1799, though more than two-thirds of the inhabitants
of the Colony were dissenters when the Bill of Rights was adopted.
CH.II GROUP LIFE AND WORK 319
colonies a prolific source of suffering. In an enactment
of the Virginia legislature in the year 1666 it is noted
that " divers refractory persons refuse to appeare upon the
dayes of exercise [of the militia] and other times when
required to attend upon the publique service," and a fine
of one hundred pounds of tobacco is imposed for such
neglect.1
A minute of Henrico Monthly Meeting under date of
5th July 1729 shows what happened when the fine was
not paid, and also what Friends considered was " for the
honour of Truth."
" Our Friend Tarlton Woodson having related to this Meeting
his case of having had a horse wrongfully seazed by the sheriff
for a Melishey fine, for not bearing arms according as the Law
directs, and desires of this Meeting advice whather he may sew
[sue] the sd. auficer for not acting according to Law. This
Meeting after deliberate concideration think it may redound
more to the honour of Truth to suffer wrong patiently than to
take a remedy at Law."
By an act of 1738 Friends were exempted from
military service, but were required to furnish a substitute,
which, for their conscientious ideas, was no relief at all,
and the records for the next quarter of a century are full
of accounts of distraints for military fines,2 and the period
of the French and Indian war was a time of very great
suffering on the part of Friends in Virginia as well as
everywhere else. Under the law of 1756, providing that
every twentieth man should be drafted for the war, seven
young Friends were carried to the frontier. They appear
to have remained faithful to " the Truth " in their hard
trial, and the Virginia Epistle to London in 1757 reports
that the young men are now released from imprisonment.
1 Hening, ii. 246.
2 Minutes of this type can be found in every Record Book :
For not bearing arms Thomas Pleasants 500 Ibs. tobacco,
ti » , , Ephrim Gartrite 500 ,, ,,
ii ii .1 John Crew, for 300 ,, ,,
a mare worth .... £(> o o
11 i> ,, John Lead, a bedd and pair of sheets
worth . . . j£6 o o
i, I* ii Thomas Ellyson, for 500 Ibs. tobacco
a man (i.e. slave) worth . -^900
320 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
A law which furnished some relief was passed in 1766.
This exempted Friends from "exercising" at musters,
and they were released from the general requirement to
provide a set of arms. The militia officer of each county
was required to prepare a list of all male Quakers of a
military age, and no person was exempted unless he could
prove that he was a bona fide Quaker. In time of actual
war, however, the Quaker was still liable to be drafted,
though he could furnish a substitute or pay a fine of ten
pounds sterling.1
The meeting records show many entries like the
following :
" At our monthly meeting held at the Western Branch in Isle
of Wight County in Virginia the 27th of the 6 month 1757 :
" The overseers of each meeting are desired to collect the
names of each of their members that are liable by a late act of
assembly to be enlisted in the militia against our next monthly
meeting, that a list may be given to the Colonel or chief
commanding officer of each county as by Act of assembly
directed ; and have the indulgence granted by the same." z
At the beginning of its colonial history North Carolina
possessed a very large measure of religious freedom. In
the earliest charter granted by King Charles II. to eight
of his favourites in 1663, and extended in 1665, toleration
of dissenters was provided for, though it was assumed
that the Church of England would be the Church in the
Carolinas. The terms offered to the settlers at Cape
Fear in 1665 show an unusual breadth of toleration for
that century :
"No person . . . shall be any ways molested, punished,
disquieted, or called in question for any differences in opinion or
practice in matters of religious concernment, but every person
shall have and enjoy his conscience in matters of religion
throughout all the province."8
1 Hening, viii. 241.
s The difficulties on account of military requirements were by no means at an
end in 1767. The Friends had much to suffer during the Revolution, and fines
for refusal to train in the militia were imposed for many years after the Colony
was a state.
3 Colony Records of North Carolina, i. 80-8 1.
CH. ii GROUP LIFE AND WORK 321
Locke's Fundamental Constitution for the Carolinas
provided that any seven persons agreeing in any religion
should be constituted " a Church or profession to which
they shall give some name to distinguish it from others,"
and this Fundamental Constitution provided that no
person of one faith should disturb or molest the religious
assemblies of others, nor persecute them for opinions in
religion or for their ways of worship.1 Everything possible
was done by the proprietors to invite dissenters to come
to the new colony, and Friends were not slow to take
advantage of the open door. The Established Church
did absolutely nothing in the colony and had no minister
there before 1 700. For a quarter of a century Quakerism
was the only organised form of Christianity in the colony,
and, as Weeks says :
" When the eighteenth century dawned, the Quakers, by their
thorough organization and by their earnest preaching, by their
simple and devoted lives, by their faithfulness and love, had
gathered into their fold many men and women who primarily
belonged to other denominations. They became Friends and
remained faithful to their new-found form of belief." 2
During this period of freedom, Quakerism had, as the
next chapter will show, a large and influential share in
shaping the political development of the Colony, and the
story of the struggle for freedom from tithes and from
bearing arms during the eighteenth century will be told
in that chapter.
Most of the travelling Friends who visited the Southern
colonies in the eighteenth century — and even earlier —
felt a strong concern against the ownership of slaves,
though it was not until 1760 that this subj'ect really
gripped the consciences of the Friends who lived in these
colonies.3 It seems to us now somewhat amazing that a
1 This Fundamental Constitution drawn up by John Locke is printed in the
Colony Records of North Carolina, i. pp. 187-207.
2 Religious Development in North Carolina, p. 32.
3 A Minute of Maryland Half Year's Meeting of Women Friends for 1678
shows that even at this early period the Quaker women were sensitive in the
matter of a true and kindly treatment of the children of the negro race, and that
they considered it important to have their own children trained in courtesy toward
and reverence for others. The minute is dated June 18, 1678, and reads :
' ' We are informed of a ffriend's Children that belonged to West River Meetting
y
322 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
man so enlightened and so sensitively conscientious as
Wenlock Christison — a man who was ready to die for his
faith — could have bought and sold slaves, but such is the
fact. He owned a number of white slaves, evidently
immigrants sold for debt, but there is also evidence that
he bought and owned negroes ; for a minute of Tred-
haven Monthly Meeting, under date of September 27,
1 68 1, informs that "one Diggs" has sued the executors
of Wenlock Christison, concerning some negroes sent by
Wenlock Christison out of Barbadoes to this country,"
and three years later William Dixon, who married
Wenlock Christison's widow, asks the advice of the
Monthly Meeting about " selling a negro his freedom."
This attitude toward the existence of slavery seems to
have gone on pretty much unchanged until the time of
the visit of Samuel Fothergill of England (1754) and
John Woolman's second visit (1757) — both well-beloved
disciples of liberty. Fothergill, who was deeply stirred
on the subject, wrote : " The price of blood is upon that
province [Maryland] — I mean their purchasing and
keeping negroes in slavery." Of North Carolina he
writes, " Friends have been a lively people here, but
Negro-purchasing comes more and more in use among
them." 1 Woolman's first journey through Maryland and
Virginia was in 1746, of which he writes, with his usual
sensitiveness :
" Two things were remarkable to me in this journey : first, in
regard to my entertainment. When I ate, drank, and lodged
free-cost with people who lived in ease on the hard labour of
their slaves I felt uneasy ; and as my mind was inward toward
the Lord, I found this uneasiness return upon me, at times,
through the whole visit. Where the masters bore a good share
that they are very badly and Corruptly Educated concerning the importance of
strict justice being duly attended to on account of the Affricans and their Posterity
formerly in Slavery, in regard to Christian instruction, Education, and Treatment
towards the Youth of that race, as well as the circumstances of those more
advanced in years, which it is desired may have place amongst us, and the weight
of the subject rests on the mind of friends, now assembled, that when we return to
our several Meetings we may be enabled to impress on the minds of our Brethren
and Sisters a close consideration of what may be called for at our hands in regard
to this People, in consequence of our high profession of Justice and Equity."
1 Memoirs, pp. 282 and 283.
CH. n GROUP LIFE AND WORK 323
of the burden, and lived frugally, so that their servants were well
provided for, and their labour moderate, I felt more easy ; but
where they lived in a costly way, and laid heavy burdens on
their slaves, my exercise was often great, and I frequently had
conversation with them in private concerning it. Secondly, this
trade of importing slaves from their native country being much
encouraged amongst them, and the white people and their
children so generally living without much labour, was frequently
the subject of my serious thoughts. I saw in these southern
provinces so many vices and corruptions, increased by this trade
and this way of life, that it appeared to me as a dark gloominess
hanging over the land ; and though now many willingly run into
it, yet in future the consequences will be grievous to posterity.
I express it as it hath appeared to me, not once, nor twice, but
as a matter fixed on my mind."
At the time of his visit in 1757 he found himself
constrained by his conscience not to accept free entertain
ment in Friends' homes where there were slaves, and on
leaving such homes he put money in the hands of his
host, asking him to distribute it among the negroes. He
took great pains to make Friends see the evil effects —
spiritually, morally, socially, and economically — from slave
labour, prophesying, with clear insight, that if Friends
" prefer their outward prospects of gain to all other
consideration, and do not act conscientiously toward their
fellow-creatures, I believe the burden will grow heavier
and heavier.1 He urged more care in the education of
negroes and greater endeavours to guide them in moral
and religious matters, " as souls for whom Christ died,"
and at Virginia Yearly Meeting he was deeply disturbed
in spirit to note that, in adopting the Query of Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting, " Are there any concerned in the im
portation of negroes, or in buying them after they are
imported ? " they had changed it to read : " Are any
concerned in the importation of negroes or buying them
to trade in ? '* He spoke strongly against this change.
He wrote a beautiful epistle to the new Meetings in what
he calls " the back settlements of North Carolina " — New
Garden and Cane Creek — in which he says : " To rational
1 Journal, p. 104.
324 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
creatures bondage is uneasy, and in tender and most
affectionate love I beseech you to keep clear from
purchasing any." l
From this time on there are frequent minutes dealing
with the care of slaves, gradually advising against the
purchase of them, and finally making it " a disownable
offense " to purchase a slave. Maryland Friends at their
Yearly Meeting in 1760 had a weighty consideration " of
their duty in the matter of holding slaves," and there was
" some uneasiness felt about the propriety of buying
negroes." The Meeting for that year limited itself to an
advice against " importing." The year following (1761),
however, it adopted this minute :
" At a Yearly Meeting held at West River last Spring relating
to Negroes a weighty exercise revived in this Meeting, and a
solid conference was held thereon, and wholesome exhortation
to attend to the mind of Truth, after which this Meeting con
cludes that Friends should not in any wise encourage their
importation by buying or selling those imported, or other slaves,
and that those that have them by inheritance or otherwise should
be careful to train them up in the principles of the Christian
religion." 2
From the time of this awakening the feeling gradually
grew among Friends that it was inherently wrong to hold
slaves at all. Maryland Yearly Meeting of 1772 adopted
a minute " discouraging the iniquitous practice of holding
slaves " and advised that Monthly Meetings do extend
their care and assistance to those who remain possessed
of these people, in brotherly affection and Christian tender
ness, labouring in the ability that may be afforded for
their relief."
1 The account of this important visit of Woolman through the South occupies
chapter iv. of the Journal.
3 There had been an official care shown in North Carolina as early as 1740,
when the Yearly Meeting recommends to those holding slaves ' ' to use them as
fellow-creatures and not to make too rigorous an exaction of labour from them."
Even as early as 1722, Virginia Yearly Meeting asked the Query: "Are all
Friends clear of being concerned in the importation of slaves, or purchasing them
for sale ? Do they use those well they are possessed of, and do they endeavour
to restrain from vice, and to instruct them in the principles of the Christian
religion ? " — Weeks, p. 201.
CH. ii GROUP LIFE AND WORK 325
Five years later the Friends of Maryland came to this
vigorous conclusion, that :
" should any of the members of our Religious Society remain so
regardless of the advices of this Meeting from time to time
communicated, as to continue to hold mankind in a state of
slavery the subscription of such for the use of the Society ought not in
future to be received, and in order that Truth's testimony may be
clearly maintained against this oppressive practice, our several
Quarterly and Monthly Meetings are earnestly enjoined to
extend their help and assistance to such in profession with us,
as have hitherto neglected to do justice to that oppressed people,
and if any should continue so far to justify their conduct as to
refuse or reject the tender advice of their brethren, it is the
solid sense and judgment of this Meeting that their continuing
in this oppressive practice is become so burdensome, that such
persons must be discontinued from our Religious Society." 1
Similar minutes appear in the records of Virginia and
North Carolina with a very similar ripening of anti-
slavery sentiment. In 1767 Western Branch Monthly
Meeting in Virginia took this tentative position :
" It is the Judgment of this meeting that no Friends for the
future doe purchase any slaves without first applying and have
the consent of the Monthly Meeting, except it be for securing
of such debts as cannot otherwise be got."
Sentiment developed so rapidly that the Yearly Meet
ing of 1768 adopted this conclusion :
" The subject of negroes, being brought before the Meeting,
and duly and weightily considered, it appears to be the sense of
the Meeting, and accordingly is agreed to, that in order to
prevent an increase of them in our Society, none of our members
far the time to come shall be permitted to purchase a negroe, or any
other slave, without being guilty of a breach of our Discipline, and
accountable for the same to their Monthly Meeting."
This strenuous action produced considerable opposition,
and the subject came up again in the Yearly Meeting of
1772, with much the same result :
" The sense of this Meeting being requested upon the minute
of 1768, prohibiting the purchase of Negroes, whether or not
1 Minute of Baltimore Yearly Meeting for 1777.
326 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
the Monthly Meetings ought to disown such as do purchase
[Negroes] which matter having been duly and weightily con
sidered, it is the unanimous sense of this Meeting, that if any
professing themselves members of our Society, shall purchase a
Negro, or other slave, with no other view but tJieir own benefit or
convenience^ and knowing it to be contrary to the rules of our
Discipline, the Monthly Meeting to which they belong ought to
testify their disunion with such persons, until they condemn their
conduct to the satisfaction of the Meeting." 1
One of the most prominent opponents of slave-holding
that America produced in the eighteenth century was
Warner Mifflin, who was born in Accomack county,
Virginia, in 1745. He determined in his youth never
to be a slave-holder, but he became possessed of slaves
through his wife, Elizabeth Johns, and he also received
some from his father. He, however, soon returned to the
conviction of his youth, and by the year 1775 he had
unconditionally emancipated all the slaves who belonged
to him. From that time until his death in 1798 he
assiduously laboured to promote emancipation ; but as
he had in early life moved into Delaware, the story of
his splendid efforts toward freedom does not belong to
this chapter.2
In North Carolina a minute was adopted in 1772
advising Friends not to buy negroes except of Friends,
or to prevent the separation of husband and wife, or
parent and child, or with the approval of the Monthly
Meeting, and in 1776 the Yearly Meeting earnestly and
affectionately advised Friends to " cleanse their hands of
slaves as soon as they /possibly can," and further, " any
member of this meeting who may hereafter buy, sell, or
clandestinely assign for hire any slave in such manner
as may perpetuate or prolong their slavery" was to be
disowned.3
From the period of the war of the Revolution it was
1 Owing to the fact that it was against the law of the Colony to manumit a
slave Friends in Virginia found it difficult to free the slaves they owned, and they
endeavoured in vain in 1770 to get this law repealed.
8 See Life and Ancestry of Warner Mijflin, compiled by Hilda Justice
(Phila., 1905).
* Weeks, p. 208.
CH. ii GROUP LIFE AND WORK 327
clearly settled in all the Southern Colonies that no Friend
was to buy a slave, and that as fast as possible those
negroes owned by members of the Society should be
given their freedom and provided for. From this time,
too, a feeling of responsibility for the education of the
negroes grew upon Friends, and there are many minutes
in the Records of the last quarter of the eighteenth
century providing for the enlightenment of the coloured
people.
This chapter has dealt only slightly with the deeper
aspect of the religion of these Quakers in the South — the
essence and heart of their religion, their personal experience
of life with Christ. They did not, during the period we
have been studying, produce many great interpreters of
the fundamental Quaker idea, they added very little to
the prophetic literature of the movement, and they have,
therefore, left scant material for the formation of an
estimate of their inward power. The voluminous Records
of their meetings and the Journals of their visitors, how
ever, leave the impression with the reader that they
formed, in their various localities, live centres of an
efficient spiritual religion. There was considerable re
iteration of their central doctrine of the inward Light too
often presented, perhaps, in rather dull fashion, with too
little psychological insight of its meaning and too little
of the warm and tender message of the Light revealed in
the concrete Person of Galilee and Jerusalem. There was,
it is certain, too much of the scribal concern over dress,
speech, and " testimonies " grown sacred with age. But
there was, nevertheless, something very real and vital in
these Quaker groups. They kept alive a true democracy
in which all persons were spiritually equal, they exhibited
a congregation governing itself and uttering itself through
the members themselves, even the simplest. They showed,
too, in their meetings for worship an overwhelming sense
of the real presence — a hush and awe of spirit before the
God of the outer and inner universe.
Almost all the Journals of the itinerant ministers
inform us that they found in their travels among the
328 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
people at large religion at a low ebb, but there was kept
alive in these Quaker centres a type of religion which was
in some sense quickened with streams from the living
Fountain, and which produced real flower and fruit in
spiritually ordered lives — what Fothergill calls, "a lively
remnant in this land," " purified hearts in which the word
of the Lord God grows." * They were more sensitive, I
think, than their neighbours to the meaning of social
evils, and they were more intensely concerned to be in
harmony with the will of God. They failed, where so
many others have failed, by building little tabernacles
over their mounts of vision, by trying to keep for them
selves a Light meant for the race, and by failing to grasp,
intelligently, their principle of religion, which became to
them a kind of fetish, untranslatable to the world about
them ; but they did bless the world by producing here
and there, now and then, specimens of personal lives,
penetrated by the Spirit of Christ, radiant with His Light,
taking upon themselves the burdens of the world and
living in a busy and material world as though they knew
that their main business here was to help to bring in the
kingdom of peace and love and brotherhood. In so far
as they did that, they succeeded.
1 Samuel Fothergill's Memoirs, p. 166.
CHAPTER III
SOUTHERN QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE
WHEREVER the Quakers, in the early colonial period,
found avenues open for political activity they entered
them by a sort of natural instinct. There were in this
creative stage of Quakerism, no scruples against a political
career. On the contrary, the foremost Friends felt a
profound responsibility laid upon them to work out their
principles of the Light within, in the fields of political
life. Rhode Island and Pennsylvania furnish the most
massive illustration of this statement, for these colonies
offered the best conditions, but the same tendency appears
everywhere where the Quakers were numerous — the
tendency to put their ideas into actual operation. In fact,
John Archdale, Governor-General of the Carolinas, is one
of the most interesting figures in the entire list of public
Quakers, and for a brief period this great colony of the
Restoration seemed likely to have its career and destiny
shaped by Quaker statesmen.
Maryland and Virginia presented but slender oppor
tunities for Quaker activity in public life, and the story
of political activity in these two colonies is soon told.
The early " convincements " in Maryland included a
number of public men. William Durand, who was
"convinced" by Elizabeth Harris in 1656/7, was a
member of Cromwell's commission for the government of
Maryland, and was the secretary of that commission.1
He seems soon after — apparently at the Restoration — to
have moved to Carolina and to have settled a plantation
1 Archives of Maryland, \. 339, 355.
329
330 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
on the Roanoke, and the George Durand conspicuous in
early Carolina history was apparently his son.1
Another of Elizabeth Harris's converts was Robert
Clarkson, who served his colony for some time in the
House of Burgesses as member from Ann Arundel County.
Thomas Meares and William Burges were two im
portant public servants of the colony who became Quakers.
They frequently appear in the Records of the colony as
judicial commissioners, justices of the peace, and members
of the Assembly, and in 1657 they both refused to take
the oath of office, declaring that it was " not lawful in any
case to swear," though they had formerly done so without
compunction. These two above named members of the
Assembly from Ann Arundel County, and Michael
Brookes for Calvert County, were fined, October 6, 1657,
for refusing the oath.2 Thomas Meares appears again as
a member of the Assembly in 1663, and Michael Brooks
also figures in the Records as a member, in spite of the
difficulty over the oath, and he was put forward for
positions of trust and public service.3 Dr. Peter Sharpe
is another of the early Quakers in Maryland who was
prominent in public life and political activity. He, too,
was entrusted by the Assembly, of which he was a
member, with important colonial matters.4 Thomas
Taylor was " convinced " by George Fox's preaching in
1673. He was at the time Speaker of the Lower House
and one of the most influential men in public affairs.
He went to hear Fox preach at William Cole's house on
the Western Shore and was so impressed that he drove
seven miles the next day to attend another meeting at
Abraham Birkhead's house. Here at a " blessed meeting "
the Speaker was " convinced," and he seems to have
stayed " convinced," for a little later a meeting was held in
his house.5 He continued for many years in legislative
1 See Neill's Virginia Carolorum, p. 306.
2 Archives of Maryland, iii. 358.
3 Ibid., i. 359, 362.
4 Ibid. , i. p. 362. Peter Sharpe left in his will, "for perpetual standing a
horse for the use of Friends in the ministry ! " See Davis's Day Star, p. 78.
6 Fox's Journal, ii. 182 and 194.
CH. in QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 331
service. His name occurs seventy-one times in the
Records of the Assembly between 1666 and 1676, and
he was also a member of the Governor's Council.
William Berry, too, a leader in all the affairs of the
new Society, a hospitable entertainer of travelling Friends,
a liberal subscriber to the funds of the meeting, was for
some years a deputy in the Assembly, beginning his term
of service in 1674. He was frequently selected for
important committee work, and appears to have enjoyed
the trust and confidence of the colonial officials.1
The most interesting Quaker in politics in this colony
was, however, the old persecution-tried pioneer of Quaker
ism, Wenlock Christison of Talbot County, who had sat
in the shadow of the Boston gallows. He settled in
Maryland probably in 1670. In that year Dr. Peter
Sharpe transferred a piece of land, containing one hundred
and fifty acres — one of the finest sites on the Chesapeake
Eastern Shore — to Wenlock Christison " in consideration
of true affection and brotherly love," and " also for other
divers good causes and considerations." In 1673 another
Friend, John Edmondson, also " out of brotherly love,"
gave him a hundred acres more, adjoining his " Peter
Sharpe farm," while a third Friend, Henry Wilcocks,
presented him with "a serving-man," named Francis
Lloyd.2 He was thus a well-provided citizen. His house
was the place of assembly for the Friends' meetings
and he was the foremost Quaker minister in the colony.8
His first public service on record was to prepare, with
three other Friends, one of them being William Berry, a
petition to the Governor, the Council, and the Assembly
for the passage of an Act allowing the substitution of an
affirmation for an oath. It was an able, straightforward
document, and was referred to Lord Baltimore, " who hath
formerly had Intentions of Gratifieing the desire of sd
1 See Archives of Maryland, ii. passim.
2 See Samuel A. Harrison's Wenlock Christison (Baltimore 1878), pp. 52-54.
3 Peter Sharpe, in his will, left forty shillings apiece ' ' to Friends in ye
ministry, viz. Alice Gary, William Cole, Sarah Mash [Marsh], if then in being ;
Winlock Christeson and his wife, John Burnett [probably Burnyeat] and Daniel
Gould [Burnyeat's companion]." — Davis's Day Star, p. 78.
332 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
people called Quakers." It was, however, finally decided
that it would be " utterly unsafe to make a Law in this
Province to exempt the people thereof from testifying
upon oath." l Christison and his friend John Edmondson,
both of Talbot County, were chosen deputies to the
Assembly in 1678. What they did about the oath of
office we have no way of knowing, but they were at all
events enrolled as members of the Lower House the 2ist
of October i678.2 Christison at once received important
appointments to service for the House and was, strangely
enough, selected to serve on a Committee of six to prepare
an " Act for the Security and Defense of the Province "
and for drawing up the " necessary articles of Warre ! " 3
There is no way of discovering what this peace-loving
Quaker did on the military Committee, though the
Records plainly show that he accepted the appointment,
and that he received nine hundred pounds of tobacco from
the colony for his service as a deputy.4 In 1681, the
Records of the Lower House announce a vacancy in
the representation from Talbot County due to the death
of Wenlock Christison.5 His fellow-member, John
Edmondson, had a much longer term of service, and was
throughout his period of service on important standing
committees. September 6, 1681, William Berry and
Richard Johns, both apparently at the time members of
the Lower House, introduced another petition urging the
privilege of affirmation, which they presented so effectively
that the House adopted the following Resolution :
"If the Rights and Privileges of a freeborn Englishman,
settled on him by Magna Charta and often confirmed by
subsequent Parliaments, can be preserved by yea and nay in
wills and testaments and other occurients, the Lower House
may do well to prepare such a Law." 6
The Friends followed up this favourable action by
1 Archives of Maryland, ii. 355. 2 Ibid., vii. 7.
3 Ibid., vii. 19. 4 Ibid., vii. 87.
6 Ibid., vii. 134. The actual "Act of Security and Defense" was not drawn
up until after Christison's death. See Ibid., vii. 143.
8 Ibid. , vii. 153.
CH. in QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 333
presenting a paper giving six reasons for a modification
of the law on oaths. In their dignified address, taking
up the reference to Magna Charta, they said : " We are
Englishmen ourselves, and freeborn, although in scorn
commonly called Quakers, and therefore so far from desiring
the least breach of Magna Charta, or of the least privileges
belonging to a freeborn Englishman, we had rather suffer
many degrees more than we do (if that were possible)
than willingly admit the least violation of those ancient
rights and liberties which are our birthright. And had
we not been full well assured that our sufferings may be
redressed and our request granted without violating
Magna Charta in the least degree we would not have
desired it ! " If William Berry and John Edmondson
and Richard Johns wrote that document they were good
men to represent the Society of Friends in Maryland.
The Bill passed the Lower House but did not at that
time receive Lord Baltimore's approval.1 He, however,
issued a proclamation in 1688 making an oath unneces
sary in testamentary cases, for which act the Quarterly
Meeting at Herring Creek sent him an address of appre
ciation, and in 1702 Friends were entirely relieved of
the oath.
It was during the session of the Assembly in the
autumn of 1681 that Lord Baltimore announced to both
Houses that " moved by the frequent clamours of the
Quakers," he was resolved henceforth to publish to the
people the Proceedings of all the Assemblies 2 — surely a
distinct right of the people. In 1682 the Lower House
voted that " no member whatsoever be at any time during
the sitting of this House, admitted with his hatt on ! " 8
This was presumably directed against the Quaker members,
and yet in spite of this vote, two years later, in a speech
before the Assembly, Lord Baltimore reproves certain
members " for rudely presuming to come before his Lord
ship with their hats on," which would indicate that there
were a number of Quakers still in the House.
1 See Neill's English Colonies in America, pp. 305-306.
1 Archives of Maryland, vii. 221. " Ibid., vii. 353.
334 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
There were, too, many members of the Society of
Friends at this time occupying judicial positions in the
colony. In Talbot County in 1685 three out of the ten
judges of the county were Quakers — William Sharpe,
William Stephens, one of Fox's " convincements," and
Ralph Fishbourne, a prominent member of the meeting.
This Quaker activity was not allowed to pass un
challenged. The " practical politicians " of the time
circulated a report against the Friends who were in the
Assembly, charging that these Quaker members were the
cause of " the leavyes [i.e. taxes] being raised soe high ! "
The Monthly Meeting thereupon appointed a committee
" to treat with Lowe [the politician who made the charge]
for ye clearing of Friends and ye Truth ! " l " Truth "
was, for the time being, " cleared," but the feeling steadily
grew in " the Society " that it was safer to keep out of
politics, and Maryland Friends in the eighteenth century
contented themselves with sending petitions to the legisla
ture instead of sending members to it, a change of policy
which was a distinct loss to the colony and a still greater
loss to the Society itself.2
The opportunities for public service on the part of
Friends in Virginia were very meagre. There were, how
ever, a number of men in official station who threw in
their lot with the Quakers, and as a result found them
selves relegated to private life. John Porter is an
interesting instance of this. The story is laconically told
in the Colonial Records for September 12, 1663 :
" Whereas Mr. John Hill, high sheriff of Lower Norfolk, hath
represented to the House that Mr. John Porter, one of the
burgesses of that county, was loving to the Quakers and stood
well affected toward them and had been at their meetings, and
was so far an Anabaptist as to be against the baptising of children;
upon which representation, the said Porter confessed himself to
have been and to be well affected to the Quakers, but he con
ceived his being at their meetings could not be proved, upon
1 Minute of i4th October 1677.
8 In this particular Friends were in line with the early Christians. Tertullian
says (Apol. xxxviii. ) : " Nothing is more alien to us than politics."
CH. in QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 335
which the oaths of allegiance and supremacy were tendered to
him which he refused to take, whereupon it is ordered that the
said Porter be dismissed this House."1
John Porter, junior (who, oddly, was the brother of the
above-mentioned John Porter, senior), was Justice of the
County Court of Lower Norfolk, and tried a witch case in
1659, and had been High Sheriff of the county in 1656.
He was " convinced " as a Quaker in the early 'sixties,
and became the foremost preacher of that section of the
colony. He was again and again arrested for preaching,
and was once sentenced to be transported from the colony.
Quite naturally he ceased to hold public office. John
Bond (probably a Quaker) was declared " unfit to be
continued a magistrate and incapable henceforth of any
publique trust or employment because of his factious and
schismatical demeanour? 2
The most interesting glimpse we get of Quakers in
public life at this period comes from a section of the
colony which was claimed both by Virginia and Maryland.
As soon as the Virginia Assembly passed its Act of 1660
against the Quakers, those who were living on the eastern
shore of Virginia petitioned the Governor of Maryland to
grant them the privilege of moving up into the limits of
his colony. The Governor of Maryland appointed three
commissioners, John Elzy, Randall Revell, and Stephen
Horsey to arrange for the settlement of such persons as
wished to come over into his Province, assigning to them
" any parts below the Choptank River," 3 and a large
number accepted the opportunity, as we are informed that
there were in May 1662 "fifty tithable persons seated at
Monokin and Anamessicks " [on the eastern shore south
of Nanticoke River 4J.
Colonel Edmund Scarborough, who was one of the
original commissioners for the transfer of these settlers,
for some reason turned his service over to the Governor
of Virginia and became the agent of the latter colony for
1 Hening, Statutes at Large, ii. 198. This was John Porter, senior.
2 Hening, ii. 39.
8 Archives of Maryland, iii. 469. * Ibid., iii. p. 452.
336 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
collecting the rents of the Anamessick settlers on the
claim that they still belonged to Virginia. " Wee lye,"
the settlers write to the authorities in Maryland, " between
Sylla and Charibdis, not knowing how to get out of this
Labarinth." I While this somewhat momentous issue was
being settled by the two colonies, Colonel Scarborough,
" with forty horsemen for pomp and safty," arrived at
Anamessicks on a Sunday morning (October 11, 1663)
to force the issue. Here he found, he says, " some
contemptuous Quakers and a foole in office " [evidently
Stephen Horsey, a Quaker and the Agent of the colony
of Maryland.]
Colonel Scarborough well illustrates the usual official
attitude toward Quakers in the early period of their history,
and his description is coloured both with humour and
spleen. He arrested Stephen Horsey because he would
not acknowledge the authority of Virginia, and he put
the " broad arrow " on his door. He continues :
" Wee went to ye house of Ambrose Dixon, a Quaker, where
a boat and two men, belonging to Groome's shipp, and two
running Quakers were, also George Johnson and Thomas Price,
Quakers." He found there " a certain Hollingsworth, merchant
of a northern vessel [William Hollingsworth of Salem, Massa
chusetts], who presented his request for liberty to trade, which I
doubted [i.e. suspected] was some plott of ye Quakers."
"Stephen Horsey," he continues, "ye ignorant yet insolent
officer, a cooper by profession, who lived in ye lower parts of
Accomack [belonging to Virginia] once elected a burgess by ye
common crowd and thrown out by ye Assembly for a fractious
and tumultuous person, a man repugnant to all gov'mt, of all
sects yet professed by none, constant in nothing, but opposing
church government, his children at great ages yet unchristened.
He left the lower parts [i.e. Accomack] to head rebellion at
Annamessecks. George Johnson, ye proteus of heresy ... is
notorious for shifting, schism atical pranks. Thomas Price, a
creeping Quaker, by trade a leather dresser, whose conscience
would not serve to dwell amongst the wicked and therefore he
retired to Annamessecks where he hears much and says nothing
els but that he would not obey government, for which he also
stands arrested. Ambrose Dixon, a caulker by profession, that
1 Archives of Maryland, iii. p. 474.
CH. in QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 337
lived long in ye lower parts [i.e. in Accomack] was often in
question for his quaking profession, removed to Annamessecks
where he is a prater of nonsense. A receiver of many Quakers,
his house is ye place of their resort [i.e. their meeting-place].
Henry Boston, an unmannerly fellow, stands condemned for
slighting and condemning the laws of the county, a rebell to
gover'mt and disobedient to authority . . . hath not subscribed
[i.e. to the oath.] These are all, except two or three loose
fellows who follow the Quakers for scrapps, whom a good whip
is fittest to reform." 1
Stephen Horsey — " the ignorant, insolent officer " —
became one of the first judges of the new county, organised
by the government of Maryland, and he was also the first
sheriff of the county, a man of solidity, trustworthiness,
and large public service. Henry Boston — " the un
mannerly fellow " — and George Johnson — " the proteus
of heresy " — were both selected as county Judges !
George Fox visited the Anamessick region in 1673
and added many new members to the little Society, the
nucleus of which had migrated thither from the Accomack
strip in Virginia.
A provision was made in 1705 by the Legislature of
Virginia which granted the Quakers of that colony the
privilege of affirmation, but the time had already then
gone by for them to take up political activity and then,
too, they still remained in the thought of their Episcopal
neighbours a people apart — a peculiar sect2
There was at least one interesting exception to the
aloofness of the Virginian Quakers from the responsibilities
of public life. Charles Lynch, the founder of Lynchburg,
and the pillar of Quakerism in that region of the colony,
1 Neill's Virginia Carolorum, p. 302. This region became in 1666 a part of
Somerset County, Maryland.
2 The provision referred to is found in "An Act for establishing the General
Court and settling the proceedings therein." Section 31 reads: "Provided
always, That the people commonly called Quakers, shall have the same liberty
of giving their evidence, by way of solemn affirmation and declaration, as is
prescribed by one Act of Parliament, Septimo et Octavo Gulielmi Tertii Regis,
intituled An act that the solemn affirmation and declaration of the people called
Quakers shall be accepted instead of an oath, in the usval form ; which said Act
of Parliament, for so much thereof as relates to such affirmation and declaration,
and for the time of its continuance in force, and not otherwise, shall be, to all
intents and purposes, in full force within this dominion." — Hening, iii. 298.
z
338 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
was asked, in the critical period of the early 'sixties in the
eighteenth century, to become a member of the Colonial
Assembly. At first he declined because he felt that such
a public position would be inconsistent with the require
ments of his Quaker faith. As the storm increased, how
ever, and the colonial crisis plainly grew imminent, he
yielded, and in 1 764 went as member from his county to
the Virginia House of Burgesses. He was a member
when Patrick Henry delivered his famous speech which
heralded independence, and he remained a member until
the colony became a state. He was, however, eventually
disowned by his Meeting for his complicity with warlike
activities, though he continued until the end of his life to
attend Quaker meetings.
As soon as we turn to North Carolina we are in
another type of social and political world. Here the
only organised form of religion which existed before the
eighteenth century was that of the Society of Friends.
King Charles II., in his first Charter to the Proprietaries
of the colony, granted in 1663, gives "full and free
license and liberty and authority " to tolerate all persons
in the colony who, " in their judgment and for conscience
sake, cannot conform to the liturgy and ceremonies [of
the Church], or take and subscribe the oath."1 That
same year [1663] Sir John Colleton, one of the Proprietors,
wrote to the Duke of Albemarle, another Proprietor, inform
ing him the Carolina colony can be " planted and settled "
only on a basis of " liberty of conscience," without that
privilege, he declares, " settlers will not goe." 2 The result
was that the Proprietors issued in August 1663 this
" declaration and proposal to all that will plant in
Carolina " :
" We will grant, in as ample manner as the undertakers shall
desire, freedom and liberty of conscience in all religious or
spiritual things, and to be kept inviolably with them, we having
power in our charter so to do." *
1 Colony Records of North Carolina, i. 32.
1 Ibid. i. 34-35. 3 Ibid. i. 45.
CH. in QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 339
And the Fundamental Constitution, drafted by John
Locke, contained this enlightened article :
"No person whatsoever shall disturb, molest, or prosecute
another, for his speculative opinions in religion, or his way of
worship." l
Here then was an "open door" for the Quaker who
desired to make his principles prevail in the affairs of the
colony, and here, too, was forming throughout the last
quarter of the seventeenth century a very live and
aggressive band of Quakers, who saw themselves for once
in a region where their type of Christianity had no rival.
The influence of Friends in the colony dates from the
visits of Edmundson and Fox in 1672. The Governor
[Carteret] and his wife received George Fox " lovingly,"
and accompanied him through the wilderness, and in the
home of Joseph Scott, a deputy in the Assembly, the
Quaker missionaries held a " precious meeting." The
" chief secretary of the colony " was already a convinced
Friend at the time of Fox's visit, having been reached
apparently by Edmundson.
" For three weeks," writes a North Carolina historian, " Fox
lingered among these people of the forest, whom he described
as tender and loving and receptive of the truth, holding meetings
to which they flocked. The seed fell on good ground. The
faith of the zealous evangelist, who appealed so effectively to the
consciences of his hearers, took firm root in Albemarle. No
other religious meetings were held calling the people into
communion, and at once ministering to their human needs,
and satisfying their spiritual longings. It was in sympathy with
the solitude of their surroundings and the quietude of their
daily life." z
Francis Toms, Christopher Nicholson, and William
Wyatt, three of the leading men of the colony — all three of
whom held their land under the Great Deed of the Lord
Proprietors — had become Quakers by the year 1673, and
had meetings held in their houses.
1 Section 109, Colony Records, i. 204.
8 Ashe, History of North Carolina (1908), i. 109.
340 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
In 1677 the colony passed through a mild revolution,
known in history as " Culpepper's Rebellion," undertaken
and carried through with the aim of securing colonial self-
government — " a government by our own authority, and
according to our own model."1 One of the foremost
leaders of the little revolution was George Durand, who
became attorney-general of the colony in 1679. The
prevailing opinion among those who have described this
Rebellion has been that Durand was a Quaker, but that
seems improbable. Fox never mentions him, and there are
no contemporary evidences that he was in membership
with Friends.2 Friends did their best during this crisis
to keep from being entangled on either side in a move
ment which involved bloodshed, though Timothy Biggs,
the deputy collector of customs — apparently a Quaker —
was unduly aggressive in favour of the status quo, even
suggesting to the Proprietors that a ten-gun vessel would
have a marked influence in restoring order ! The official
utterances of the Society, however, declared Friends to be
" a separated people, standing single from all seditious
actions," and in their petition to the Lords Proprietors in
1679 they ask for protection from "the heads of the
sedition who now sit in Parliament," i.e. in the colonial
legislature.8
John Archdale first comes into connection with the
Carolinas by the purchase of Sir John Berkeley's share in
the proprietorship of the colony for his minor son, Thomas
Archdale, about 1680. His name is first mentioned in
the colonial records on March 26, 1 68 1, when he com
missioned Daniel Akehurst — formerly of Virginia — to
be his deputy.4 He had, however, already had a long
apprenticeship in colonial affairs, having served from 1 664
to about the end of that decade as agent for Sir Ferdinando
Gorges, Governor of Maine.6 He was not at this time a
Quaker, but became one soon after his return to England,
1 Colony Records, i. 228. * See Weeks, op.jcit. pp. 33-34.
1 Colony Records, i. 250-253.
* South Carolina Historical Collection, i. 104.
8 The National Dictionary of Biography makes Archdale brother-in-law to
Gorges.
CH. in QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 341
probably in the early 'seventies.1 He seems to have been
reached by Fox himself, for in a letter, written in 1686 to
the Quaker founder, he says :
" I desire to be had in remembrance by thee, having faith in
the power that was by thee, in this last age of the world, first
preached, and [which] convinced me ... and separated me
from my father's house." 2
Soon after he became a Proprietor, he came over to
America, and settled in the colony — at least we find him
there in the winter of 1683, for the new appointee for
Governor, Seth Sothel, received instructions (dated
December 14, 1683) to consult with John Archdale in
making his official appointments. The instructions order
" That he doe forwith, with the advice of Mr. Archdale, choose
four of the discreatest honest men of the county who were no
way concerned in any of the said disturbances to be Justices of
the County Court, and also an able man so qualified to be sherrif
of the county, that there may bee a Court of impartiall persons
for the tryall of all actions that have relation to the late disorders
that those injured may have right done them according to Law." s
During a part of the years 1685 and 1686 Governor
Sothel was out of the colony, and John Archdale
temporarily performed the duties of the governorship,
evidently to the great satisfaction of the colonists. It
was during this period of colonial service that he wrote
the letter to George Fox, already referred to. He
complains in the letter that opportunities for intercourse
between the colony and Great Britain are meagre, though
the colony produces many exportable commodities. " The
country produces plentifully all things necessary for the
life of man, with as little labour as any I have known.
It wants only industrious people, fearing God." He gives
an interesting account of the way he has dealt with the
Indians, and brought them into peaceful conditions — " I
1 Isaac Milles, who was vicar of Chipping Wycombe parish from 1674 to 1681,
expresses his regret that John Archdale has turned Quaker, because " he is the
chief gentleman of the village. "
8 Letter in Bowden, i. 416.
8 Colony Records, i. 346. There are, too, other orders to consult John
Archdale. See especially Colony Records, i. 346, 350, and 351.
342 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
look upon their outward civilising," he says, " as a good
preparation for the Gospel, which God in his season,
without doubt, will cause to dawn among them." He is
impressed with the spread of the Quaker faith, which,
undoubtedly, his presence in the colony had done much
to advance, but his reference to it is in these simple,
unostentatious words : " The growth of the Divine Seed
in these parts is an encouragement to all that witness it." 1
He apparently returned to England sometime during
the year 1686 ; to come back a decade later with greatly
enlarged powers. Between the years 1686 and 1695 —
i.e. the period of Archdale's absence in England — the
affairs of the colony were in a troublous condition. Sothel
became impossible either as Governor or Proprietor, and
was forced out of the country, but none of the men who
tried to direct affairs was possessed of wisdom or prestige
enough to quiet the disturbances, or to settle the issues
which were embroiling the different sections of the great
colony.2 The Proprietors were finally aroused to the
urgency of the situation by a letter from Governor Smith,
who was vainly trying to bring the colony into order,
calling upon the Proprietors to send over one of their
number.3 The colonists suggested that Lord Ashley was
the " proper person for such a worke," but " his circum
stances would not admitt of his absence from England,
though his heart and affections were intirely inclined
hither." It was then that Archdale was summoned to
the task. To quote his own words : " Ye Proprietors
were pleased to look upon mee as one that would be
impartiall in examining into ye causes [of discontent],
and thereby bee ye more capable of judging equally ye
parties concerned in ye differences " ; and furthermore
1 Bowden, i. 415-416.
8 Carolina was divided into the North and South Colonies about 1688, though
still under one proprietorship.
* In his opening speech to the Assembly in South Carolina Archdale said :
' ' The occasion of my coming hither was . . . that there came various letters
from Carolina, signifying ye great discontent and division ye people were under,
but especially one . . . wherein it was signified that ye heates and animosities
amongst you was growne almost irreconcileable, and that, except a proprietor did
speedily come over, there was no hopes of any reconciliation amongst you."
This address is printed in full in Historical Collection of South Carolina, ii. 102.
CH. in QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 343
his appointment had " the encouragement of several
Carolinians then in England." l
The official appointment of Archdale was made by
Lord Craven, Palatine 2 of the Carolinas, and was as
follows :
" WILLIAM, EARLE OF CRAVEN, VISCOUNT CRAVEN OF
UFFINGTON, BARON CRAVEN OF HAMPSTEAD, MARSHALL
PALATINE
" To JOHN ARCHDALE, Esqr.
one of the Landgraves and
Governour of Carolina.
"Whereas it is agreed by ye Lords Proprietors of ye said
Province that the Palatine should name ye Governour, I out of
the Trust and confidence I have in ye Wisdom, Prudence,
Integrity and Loyalty of you John Archdale, Esqr., Doe hereby
nominate, Constitute and Appoint you ye sd. John Archdale to
be Governour and Commander-in-Chief of Carolina, with full
power and authority to doe Act and Execute all such Jurisdic
tions and Powers as by virtue of ye Rules of Government and
Instructions given by myself and ye rest of ye Lords Proprietors
of ye sd. Province a Governour is to doe and Exercize. And you
are to follow such instructions as are herewith given you or that
you shall hereafter from time to time receive from myself and
ye rest of ye Lords Proprietors of ye said Province and thus to
continue during my Pleasure. Given under my hand and Scale
this z8th day of November 1694.
"CRAVEN, Palatine."3
This document is, however, only the official certificate of
his appointment, for the Proprietors had already, on the 3 ist
of August of the same year, " constituted and appointed "
" our trusty and well - beloved John Archdale, Esqr.,
Governour of our whole province of Carolina, reposing
special trust in ye courage, loyalty, and prudence of ye
sd. John Archdale." They had given him very large and
comprehensive power :
1 From Archdale's Speech in the South Carolina Assembly.
8 The Palatine was the highest order of nobility in Locke's Constitution for the
Colony.
8 From the Archdale Papers in the Roberts Collection at Haverford College.
I find from the British State Paper Office for October 17, 1694, the Governor's
salary was ^200 per annum.
344 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
"Wee do hereby further Impower, constitute and apoint
you our sd. Governour to be Admirall, Capt. Generall and
Commander-in-chief of all ye forces raised or to be raised both
by sea and land within our sd. Province and over them to
appoint a Lieutenant General, or Lieutenant Generals, Vice
Admirall or Vice Admiralls both of South and North Carolina "
with further extensive power of appointment and with
far-reaching authority over internal affairs.1
The new governor sailed almost immediately upon his
appointment, landed in New England, visited Boston,
Plymouth, Rhode Island, and travelled by land to his
province, arriving in North Carolina June 25, 1695.
His daughter, who was married to Emanuel Lowe,
resided in Albemarle, and here, among his own people,
organising the troubled affairs of the northern colony and
adding new life and power to the Quaker meetings along
the Sound, he remained about six weeks. On his arrival
he had found Thomas Harvey — probably a Quaker —
acting as deputy governor, and when he departed to go
to the Southern Colony, he left Harvey in charge of the
administration in North Carolina.2 Archdale arrived in
Charleston, South Carolina, early in August, and set him
self to work to get at the seat of the colonial troubles.
In his own account he says :
"When I arrived I found all matters in great confusion and
every faction apply'd themselves to me in hopes of relief. I
appeased them with kind and gentle words and as soon as
possible called an assembly."8
There was much hard feeling and jealousy between
dissenters and churchmen, and between moderate church-
1 These instructions are in the British State Papers Office for North Carolina,
and are printed in Colony Records of North Carolina, i. 389-390.
2 When Thomas Story came to North Carolina in 1699 he had letters to
Thomas Harvey who received him and entertained him (Journal, p. 157), and it
appears further that Harvey did not take an oath as Governor, since Governor
Nicholson of Virginia refused to recognise his authority to appoint commissioners
to settle the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia on the ground that
the Governor was not under oath in office (Ashe, i. 150). Daniel Akehurst, a
Quaker, was at this time Secretary of the Colony, and Francis Toms was an
assistant. See Colony Records, i. 413.
* Archdale's " Description of Carolina, " written in 1707, printed in Historical
Collection of South Carolina, ii. 85-120.]
CH. in QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 345
men and high churchmen, and in forming his Council
Archdale endeavoured to " mix " his forces. He gives
this quaint account of his plan :
"Although my power was very large, yet I did not wholly
exclude the High-Church party out of the essential part of the
government, but mixed two moderate church-men to one High
Church man in the Council whereby the Balance of Government
was preserved peaceable and quiet in my time." x
The choice of the Assembly was left with the people,
and it met for official business August 17, 1695. The
Governor was not required to take an oath, but gave
affirmation to the following engagement :
"Alt a Councill Held at Charles Towne the i?th day of
August Anno Domi. 1698: And Psent the Rt. Honoble. John
Archdale Esqr., Governor.
PAUL GRIMBALL.
STEPHEN: BULL.
Dep1?8. RICHARD : CONANT. Esqrs.
WILLIAM : SMITH.
WILLIAM HAWETT.
This day the Rl. Honoble. John Archdale Esqr., Governor, in
open Councill Tooke the following oaths or declarations accord
ing to the forme of his profession.
You being Governor doe solemnely promise and Ingage that
you will govern according to the Lords Proprs. Instructions and
Rules of Government and as the Law Directs : you will Dis
tribute equall Justice without delay to the Rich and poore : The
Secretts of the Council you will keep, In all things you shall
endeavour to discharge the Trust reposed in you on behalfe of
the Lords for the good of the people according to your power
and the best of your understanding. This you declare according
to the forme of your profession.
You shall well and truely to the best of yor Skill, use your
utmost endeavour to cause the severall Clauses contained in the
Acts of Parliament Called an Act for the Encouraging and
Increasing of Shipping & navigation, passed or made in the
twelfth yeare of the Reigne of our Late Soveraigne Lord King
Charles the Second; And the Acte of Parliament Called an
Act for the Encouradgement of Trade, passed or made in the
1 Historical Collection of South Carolina, ii. 113.
346 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
fifteenth yeare of our saide Late Soveraigne Lord King Charles
the Second. This you declare according to the forme of your
profession.
I doe solemnely promise to beare faith and true allegiance
To King William.
A True Coppy taken from the Records and
examined this iyth day of August 1695,
P. Jno., Deptv. Secty." l
He, thereupon, addressed the Assembly explaining
why he had been "endued with such considerable power
of trust," and promising " faithfully and impartially " to
" answer their expectations." " And I appeal," he says,
" to that of God in your consciences." " I shall endeavor
to heale all ye differences amongst you, to reconcile all
persons." " I hope you will heartily joine to carry on
ye public good," and " by ye good settlement of this
hopefull colony, posterity will have cause to blesse God."
Finally he urged speedy action toward the reasonable
and honorable ordering of all things because of the un
certainty of life — " my own mortality and that of others "
— " I hope these considerations will quicken you." 2
Archdale's expectations were more than fulfilled. He
proved to be, not a crude compromiser, but a genuine
pacifier, because he possessed, in an extraordinary measure,
the genius for putting his finger on cardinal issues, and
for penetrating through the husks of controversy to the
inner core of righteousness. When he proposed his solu
tion of an issue, it generally satisfied all parties concerned,
because it was seen to be wise and fair.
In their humble address to the governor at his leave-
taking, " the commons " expressed their thanks for his
" prudent, industrious and indefatigable care and manage
ment." They declared that he had " worked for the
1 From the Archdale Papers in the Roberts Collection. The following amusing
account of Archdale's scruples appears in the Report of William Gordon, repre
sentative in North Carolina " of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel."
' ' Mr. Archdale uncovered his head to hear a foolish woman make an unaccount
able clamour before meat, at his own table, but when he subscribed the oath
[affirmation] to be taken for putting in execution the laws of trade he did it with
his hat on, which is an error no Barclay has made an ' apology ' for I " — Colony
Records, i. 708.
2 Address to the Assembly.
CH. m QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 347
peace, welfare, tranquility, plenty, prosperity, and safety
of the colony," and they assure him that he has " removed
all former doubts, jealousies, and discouragements of us
the people." l
Archdale had four main problems to solve: (i) To
establish harmony and peace among the colonists them
selves ; (2) To reconcile them to the jurisdiction and
authority of the Proprietors ; (3) To establish a colonial
policy toward the Indians, and to regulate traffic with
them ; (4) To secure an amicable basis of relationship
between the English colonists and the Huguenot refugees
who were being discriminated against. In the first two
matters, he was, for the time being, entirely successful —
" he has removed all former doubts, jealousies, and dis
couragements."
He was peculiarly qualified to succeed with the
Indians, and he is one of the finest embodiments of
the Quaker attitude toward these native peoples. He
insisted that Indians should be treated as persons, and
should be protected in their elemental rights. One of
the first Bills which he drafted was an Act to prevent
debauching Indians. It reads :
"It is enacted. that every person which shall give, or any
other way dispose of any rum or brandy, or any sorte of spirrits
to any Indian or Indians . . . shall forfeit for every time he
shall dispose of any such liquors as aforesaid the summe of
twenty pounds." z
He himself has left a very happy illustration of the
effect of a kindly policy toward the natives. He says
that during his administration he made a treaty of
friendship with a coast tribe of Indians. Not long after,
a company of adventurous immigrants from New England
were shipwrecked on the same coast, and, finding them
selves surrounded by Indians, expected to be murdered.
They entrenched themselves as well as they could, and
prepared to defend their lives. The Indians tried in
every way to declare their attitude of friendship, but the
1 Historical Collection of South Carolina, ii. 104.
2 Statutes of South Carolina, ii. 109.
348 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
stranded immigrants would not trust them, until they
were forced, by the exhaustion of their provisions, to
throw themselves on the mercy of the Red men. These
received them with great civility, furnished them with
provisions, and helped them to send a delegation to
Charleston for relief.1
His attempts to settle the Huguenot difficulties were
less successful, though the solution was in sight before he
left the colony. The crux of the difficulty was that the
English settlers refused to allow the French — French-
English animosity being then very quick and keen — to
sit in the Assembly or to vote for its members. Archdale
found that he could not grant the French these privileges
of citizenship without losing the goodwill of the English
colonists, and he yielded for the moment. But he urged
the English to treat their alien neighbours in the spirit of
friendship, and to temper all their dealings with them
with " levity and moderation." He carried on a friendly
correspondence with the Huguenots, and he prepared the
way for their complete naturalisation. A letter from the
Proprietors to him says that they are glad to hear that
the Assembly is inclined to grant naturalisation to the
French ; 2 and soon after his return an Act was passed,
which provided that "all aliens of what nation soever,
which now are inhabitants of South Carolina shall have
all rights, privileges, and immunities which any person
born of English parents within this province has." 8
He oversaw the construction of improved public roads.
He prepared the first Act on record in South Carolina
for the regulation of the liquor traffic,4 and he also
prepared a beneficent measure for the administration of
charity, and for the care and relief of the poor.6 Many
complications had arisen over the inadequate methods
of " granting " lands and of collecting quit-rents. He
brought about a readjustment of methods, which greatly
relieved the old settlers, and which encouraged new
1 Historical Collection of South Carolina, ii. 108.
2 In British State Paper Office under date of September 10, 1696.
8 Statutes of South Carolina, ii. 131.
4 Ibid. ii. 113. 6 Ibid. ii. 116.
CH. in QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 349
immigrants to come in. He worked out a plan for
protecting the colonists round Cape Fear against kid
nappers, and he insisted on kindness toward mariners
who were shipwrecked on the coast. He was so far
tolerant of other faiths than his own that he took up
friendly relations with the Catholic Spaniards of Florida.
Four Indians, converts of the Spanish priests, were
captured by Carolina Indians and exposed for sale as
slaves. Archdale ransomed them and sent them to the
Spanish Governor at St. Augustine. " I shall manifest
reciprocal kindness," wrote the Spaniard, and he was
true to his promise.1 Settlers from New England were
attracted to this " American Canaan," as Archdale calls it,
and they recognised that the Southern colony now " stood
circumstanced with the honour of a true English govern
ment, zealous for the increase of virtue, as well as outward
trade and business." 2
When the Quaker Governor had finished his term of
service and was returning to England, the representatives
of the freemen of the colony expressed to him their
profound appreciation of his great work among them,
and declared, " By your wisdom, patience, and labor you
have laid a firm foundation for a most glorious super
structure." 3
One of the most immediate after-fruits of his sojourn
was the passage of an Act, March 10, 1697, which granted
liberty of conscience to all colonists — " except only
papists " — " All Christians which now are or hereafter
may be in this province shall enjoy the full liberty of
their conscience."4 Archdale himself did not receive
such broad and enlightened treatment. Soon after his
return to England he was elected to Parliament as
member from the borough of Chipping Wycombe, but
being unable, for conscientious reasons, to take the oath,
he was refused his seat.
Before sailing from America he revisited North
1 Historical Collection of South Carolina, i. 120.
3 Letter preserved in Historical Collection of South Carolina, ii. 105.
* Ibid. ii. 104. 4 Statutes of South Carolina, ii.
133-
350 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
Carolina, and travelled through the province with James
Dickinson who was there on a religious visit.1 He
reconfirmed the appointment of Thomas Harvey as
governor of the northern colony, and so far won the
regard and confidence of the colonists that they wrote
officially to the Proprietors of him : " It was his greatest
care to make peace and plenty flow amongst us." 2
This " American Canaan," however, was not long to
remain in "peace." In 1700, the first minister of the
Church of England arrived in Albemarle, and from that
time on, a strong party formed in the colony determined
to make life difficult for all who would not " conform." An
act was passed in 1701 which practically established the
Church in the colony. The dissenters — who were mainly
Quakers — rallied themselves at the next election, and
got control of the Assembly. Governor Walker — who
succeeded Harvey — and who was determined to make
North Carolina a Church of England colony, wrote to
the Bishop of London in October 1703 :
"I beg leave to inform you that we have an Assembly to sit
on the 3rd of November next ; above one-half of the Burgesses
chosen are Quakers, and have declared their designs of making
void the Act for establishing the Church." 3
The Act was, however, annulled by the Proprietors them
selves, but the issue was still very much alive.
In 1704 Rev. John Blair came to the colony as the
first representative of the " Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel in Foreign Parts." He found the Quakers
" the most powerful enemies to Church government," and
he found in the colony a large number of persons who
would have been Quakers " if the demand for purity of
life had not been too great for them." 4
The report of William Gordon (made in 1709), plainly
shows that the Quaker influence in politics at the beginning
of the century was very great. He says :
1 Friends Library, xii. 396.
9 John Archdale's will, dated 1713, is preserved in Portfolio 14, Devonshire
House.
* Colony Records, \. 572. * Ibid. \. 600
CH. in QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 351
" They [the Quakers] were made councillors and grew powerful,
for the council granting commissions, in a short time they had
Quaker members in most of their courts ; nay in some the
majority was such. They were very dilligent at the election of
members of the Assembly, so that what by themselves, the
assistance of several unthinking people and the carelessness of
others, they carried it so far that no encouragement could be
obtained for ministers [of the Church]." l
This Report of William Gordon, though full of pre
judice and hostility to the Quakers, gives some light on
their numbers in North Carolina. He says :
"As to their number, they are at this time but about the
tenth part of the inhabitants; and if they were more, they
would be but the greater burden, since they contribute nothing
towards its defence." . . . "The Quakers in the precinct of
Perquimans are very numerous, extremely ignorant, insufferably
proud and ambitious, and consequently ungovernable." ..." The
next precinct is Pasquotank, where as yet there is no Church built ;
the Quakers are here very numerous ; the roads are, I think,
the worst ; but it is closer settled than the others, and better
peopled in proportion to its bigness. In their way of living they
have much the advantage of the rest, being more industrious,
careful and cleanly."2
In 1 704 South Carolina passed an act " for the
establishment of worship according to the Church of
England" and the "Vestry Act" of North Carolina,
which was passed soon after, appears to have virtually
disfranchised all dissenters in that colony.3 Edmund
Porter, a representative Friend, was sent to England to
present the complaints of the dissenters and to secure
relief, and the old governor, John Archdale, soon after,
wrote his " Description of Carolina " to express his protest
against the attempted limitation of religious freedom in
the two colonies.
Troubles, however, increased. By an Act of Parlia
ment (1704) all persons holding public office were required
to take an oath of allegiance to the new Queen, Anne.
The oath was administered by Governor Daniel to the
1 Gordon's Report, Colony Records, i. 708-715.
2 Colony- Records, pp. 708-715.
* Act is described in Gordon's Report, Colony Records, i. 708-715.
352 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. m
Quakers in the Council and Assembly of North Carolina,
and, on their refusal to take it, they were thrown out of
office, and also dismissed from all courts of justice. Porter,
the Quaker " ambassador " from the colony, seems to have
succeeded in his mission to the extent of securing a
change of governors. Thomas Cary, supposed to be in
sympathy with dissenters, and himself a son-in-law of
Archdale, was selected for the new governor. He proved,
however, to be a hollow reed, for he, too, administered
the oath, which again cleared the Assembly of Quakers,
and a fine was imposed on any person who should act
officially without taking the oath. This time, John
Porter, a man of great determination and large influence,
was sent to England as the agent of the colony to secure
relief from these new grievances. Such matters moved
slowly in those days, and Porter needed patience, but he
finally, in 1707, secured a suspension of the laws imposing
oaths, and also an order suspending Cary as governor.1
John Porter, on his return, with consummate political
skill, won over Cary to the dissenters' side, and got him
chosen president of the Council, and so ex-officio governor.
The Quaker party was now a prominent influence in the
control of affairs. A strong reaction against the Cary
government set in, and in 1710 Edward Hyde was selected
by the Proprietors to be governor of North Carolina. He
decided to force the Quakers out of the Council and the
Assembly, and Gary's government was declared a " usurpa
tion." Cary and John Porter were seized but escaped,
and a tiny " rebellion " followed in which one man was
killed. The real issue was the principle of religious
liberty, but the Quakers were not active in the rebellion,
and did not sympathise with the methods adopted by
Cary and Porter, however much they were consecrated in
spirit to the principle at issue.2 But, though the Quakers
1 Colony Records, i. 709.
a Cary was, as said above, a son-in-law of Archdale, but he was apparently
not a " member of meeting," nor probably was John Porter. Emanuel Lowe,
however, another son-in-law of Archdale, and an active participant in the
" rebellion," was a "member." He was "dealt with" by the Yearly Meeting
for "having acted divers things contrary to our ways and practices." See
Southern Quakerism and Slavery, p. 166.
CH.III QUAKERS IN PUBLIC LIFE 353
were not directly responsible for the fiasco, it ended un
favourably for them. It marked the end of their political
influence. One Quaker, William Borden, was elected a
member of the Assembly from Carteret County in 1747,
and presented himself to take " affirmation," but the
affirmation was denied him, and a new election for his
successor was ordered.1 Henceforth, during the colonial
period, Quakerism was a quiet spiritual force, apart from
public affairs, and concerned with the formation of an
inward life and the creation of a peculiar people.
1 Colony Records, iv. 885-887.
2 A
BOOK IV
THE EARLY QUAKERS IN NEW JERSEY
BY AMELIA M. GUMMERE
355
CHAPTER I
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE JERSEYS
" My friends, that are gone or are going over to plant and make outward
plantations in America, keep your own plantations in your hearts with the
spirit and power of God, that your own vines and lilies be not hurt." — GEORGE
FOX, Epistles.
THE causes of Quaker emigration to the American
colonies are not so much to be sought in the desire to
escape from persecution, as in the idea which took shape
in the mind of William Penn, to show Quakerism at
work, freed from hampering conditions. Here, too, may
be seen the guiding hand of the founder himself. Ten
years before the " Holy Experiment " was tried in
Pennsylvania, George Fox and his companions — several
of whom were men of the true pioneer spirit — traversed
that part of the colonial wilderness destined to be the
Quakers' refuge from the increasing storm of persecution
which followed the Restoration. The latter was doubtless
a contributing cause, but the impulse to emigrate came
as much from within the sect itself, as from the outside
pressure of circumstances. The idea was not a new one.
As a matter of fact, effort in the direction of Quaker
settlements in the middle colonies of America was made
nearly twenty-five years before William Penn came to
Pennsylvania. The coast from Maine to Florida being
already apparently in possession of other adherents of the
King, the Quakers turned their first attention inland with
a proposal which came to naught, but which has escaped
the attention of most historians except Bowden.
Josiah Coale, an interesting Gloucestershire Friend,
357
358 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
visited America within a year after the three pioneer
women, Elizabeth Harris, Mary Fisher, and Ann Austin,
and appears to have penetrated farther west among
the Indians of the interior than any one else. His
second visit in 1660 was under commission from the
English Friends to treat with the Indians of the
Susquehanna for the purchase of lands.1 The absence of
an influential arbitrator familiar with savage customs, as
well as the violence of the tribal wars then being waged,
prevented further steps being taken at that time by Josiah
Coale, who returned home without having accomplished
his purpose. The liquid syllables of the Susquehanna
long had an alluring sound to English ears, for one
is reminded of the " Pantisocracy " of a century later,
when the same region for a time offered a refuge for
bruised literary and democratic hearts after the French
Revolution, until that too proved vain, and Wordsworth's
sonnet to the " Degenerate Sons " of Pennsylvania
expressed his chagrin when his financial speculations fell
out.
So early as 1630 the white man was in New Jersey,
called, according to Indian tradition, " Scheyichbi." The
"New Albion" settlement of Sir Edward Plowden, the Irish
nobleman, and the Dutch occupancy of the lower Delaware
in 1632, together with the Swedish undertaking at the
instance of Gustavus Adolphus carried out in 1637, were
followed by several companies of settlers, who, after the
complete destruction of more than one village and fort,
succeeded in establishing themselves in the neighbourhood
of the Dutch and Swedes near New Castle, and on the
Jersey side of Delaware Bay. Before 1663 an occasional
Puritan, Baptist, or Quaker appears to have drifted over
from the New England colonies in search of a less
restricted religious atmosphere, and to have found the
tolerant Dutchman a congenial companion. In this year
a group of New Englanders settled on the Raritan river,
and soon there were villages at Piscataway, Woodbridge,
and Newark, the latter under the spiritual guidance of
1 Coale's Letter is in the A. R. Barclay Collection, No. 53 (1661).
CH.I SETTLEMENT OF THE JERSEYS 359
Abraham Pierson, who with his followers in 1666 had
rebelled at the prospect of annexation to Massachusetts,
and had left New Haven and the theocratic rule of the
" Saints," to found a home in a more democratic
community. A few New England names still survive
among the descendants of Quakers who, in this early
period, came from Massachusetts to New Jersey, where
the meeting at Shrewsbury grew to great importance.
Before 1675, the enormous tract of intervening country
between these settlers and those on the lower Delaware
formed a great wilderness, untrodden by white man,
except the occasional trader, who followed the Indian
trail leading from "Achter Koll" (Back Bay) now
Newark Bay, to the Delaware at the Falls. This was
the "Upper Road." The "Lower Road" branched off
five or six miles from the Raritan river, made a sweep to
the east, and struck the Delaware at what is now
Burlington. Traces of this trail, known for over a
hundred years as the " Burlington Path," could until
recently be distinctly seen. There were one or two
primitive inns en route by 1695, and the province
appropriated ten pounds annually for repairs to these
"highways," which; so late as 1715, were only passable
for horsemen or pedestrians.
It was along the southern branch of this trail that
George Fox travelled in 1672, to visit the Quakers of
New England, Long Island, and East Jersey. On his
way east, Fox tells us that they had difficulty in procuring
guides.
"They were hard to get," he says, "and very chargeable.
Then had we that wilderness country to pass through, since
called West New Jersey, not then inhabited by English, so that
we have travelled a whole day together, without seeing man or
woman, house, or dwelling-place. Sometimes we lay in the
woods by a fire, and sometimes in the Indians' wigwams or
houses. We came one night to an Indian town and lay at the
king's house, who was a very worthy man. Both he and his
wife received us very lovingly, and his attendants (such as they
were) were very respectful to us. They laid us mats to lie on,
but provision was very short with them, having caught but little
360 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
that day. At another Indian town, where we stayed, the king
came to us and he could speak some English. I spoke to him
much, and also to his people, and they were very loving to us." l
The Quaker invariably met with similar treatment
from the savages, who were always kind when unprovoked.
Fox was on his way to the General Meeting in Rhode
Island, that memorable occasion when :
" The glorious power of the Lord which was over all, and His
blessed truth and life flowing amongst them, had so knit and
united them together, that they spent two days in taking leave
one of another, and of the Friends of the Island, and then, being
mightily filled with the presence and power of the Lord, they
went away with joyful hearts to their various habitations." 2
Returning by way of Flushing and Gravesend, at each
place finding Quaker settlers, Fox and his companions,
among whom were William Edmundson and Robert
Widders, came to Richard Hartshorne's at Middletown, the
"twenty-sixth of Sixth month," 1672. He describes the
bad bogs and swamps they had to cross before reaching
Shrewsbury, where, on the first day, " they had a large
and precious " meeting. Men's and women's meetings
were held, to which came Friends " out of most parts of
New Jersey. They are building a meeting-house in the
midst of them, and there is a Monthly and General
meeting set up, which will be of great service in those
parts." While at Shrewsbury the accident befell John
Jay, the Barbadoes planter, who was also in the party.
Thrown from his horse with violence, he fell upon his
head, and was taken up for dead by his companions.
But Fox, with the ready common sense of the experienced
traveller, found his neck not broken but dislocated.
"I took his head in both my hands," says Fox in relating
the incident, " and setting my knees against a tree, I raised his
head and perceived there was nothing out or broken that way.
Then I put one hand under his chin and the other behind his
head and raised his head two or three times with all my strength
and brought it in. I soon perceived his neck began to grow
stiff again, and then he began to rattle in the throat and quickly
to breathe."3
1 Journal, ii. 166. 2 Ibid. , ii. 160. * Ibid. , ii. 176.
CH.I SETTLEMENT OF THE JERSEYS 361
With returning consciousness he was carried into the
house and laid by the fire, when Fox ordered bed and a
warm drink to be administered ; " and the next day we
passed away (and he with us, pretty well)," riding sixteen
miles !
Fox set off from Middletown on the return journey,
the " 9 of 7 mo.", travelling forty or fifty miles a day.
"At night, finding an old house which the Indians had
forced the people to leave, we made a fire and stayed there at
the head of Delaware Bay. Next day we swam our horses over,
about a mile, at twice, first to an island called Upper Dinidock
[Matiniconk] and then to the mainland, having hired Indians to
help us over in their canoes." l
The vacant dwelling which sheltered the party was the
house, built in the Swedish fashion, of a Dutchman, Peter
Jegou, who had received a tavern licence from Governor
Carteret in 1668. The Indians plundered and drove him
away for some offence in 1670; his neighbours apparently
in alarm deserted the two other houses of which
we have record at that point. George Fox landed at
Bristol, England, in 4th mo. 1673, where his wife and
other members of his family joined him. With them
came William Penn and his wife Gulielma. A short stay
with London Friends followed, when there was an
interesting house-party at Rickmansworth, where Penn's
young wife was hostess, their wedding having occurred a
few months before. As soon as Fox left Penn's hospitable
roof, he was followed and taken for his eighth and last
imprisonment It is not too much to infer that this visit
1 Journal, ii. 177. "Mattinagcom" or "Matiniconk," now Burlington
Island. The Indian name for island was Tiniconk or Tenacong. At the time
Fox crossed the Delaware, this island was known as Upper Tineconk, to dis
tinguish it from Lower Tineconk, upon which now stands the city of Burlington,
close to the east shore of the river. It is easy to see how George Fox mistook
the unfamiliar Indian name. Editors of his Journal have further confounded the
name with the island [or "Tenacong"] of Tinicum, named and settled by the
Swedes, near Chester, Pennsylvania. Comparison with early authorities on
the subject shows Fox's account to be very accurate, ' ' near the head of the Bay "
meaning, undoubtedly, near the head of navigation. It took him two days'
travel over seventy miles of bad roads and a "desperate river" to reach New
castle, which would not have been the case had he crossed at Tinicum. [See
Benjamin Ferris, History of the Original Settlements on the Delaware ; Jasper
Bankers and Peter Sluyter, Journal of a Voyage to New York, 1679 ; Record of
the Court at Upland, Pennsylvania, 1676-1681, etc.].
362 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
of Fox, with his report fresh from the Friends in America,
must have made a great impression upon William Penn,
then a young man of eight and twenty.
The peaceful conquest of New Netherland by the
English in 1664 gave its royal proprietor, the Duke of
York, the great province lying between the " North " or
Hudson and the " South " or Delaware rivers. This, for
loyal service, was at once granted by the impoverished
Duke to two men of influence at Court — John, Lord
Berkeley, Baron of Stratton, a brother of Sir William
Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, and in 1674 Ambassador
to France ; and Sir George Carteret, a turbulent and
interesting man, companion of Samuel Pepys, who
frequently mentions him in his famous diary. The old
Norman family of de Carteret of St Ouen, in the island
of Jersey, was prominent for many generations in history.
The present representative had gallantly defended Jersey
against the Roundheads, and was the last Commander to
lower the King's flag. In compliment, therefore, to him,
the province received the Latin name for the island,
" Nova Caesarea," but the vernacular was from the first
preferred by the people, and except on early seals,
documents, etc., the new acquisition was known as New
Jersey. Sir George was sixty-one years of age at this
time, a member of the Privy Council of Charles II., and
Vice-Chancellor of the Household. As the representative
of the owners, Philip Carteret, a relative of Sir George,
was sent out, and in 1668 the first Assembly convened
at Elizabethtown. Such, however, were the dissensions
as to the veto power of the Governor, the adjustment of
quit-rents, and the taxation of the colonists, that it was
seven years before another Assembly could be called
which was other than illegal. A slight period of Dutch
rule was followed in 1674 by permanent English
possession, the right to legislate independently having
meantime been demanded by the people. The Treaty of
Westminster1 necessitated the bestowal anew of the
1 Signed gth February 1674, when the Prince of Orange made over the Dutch
possessions to King Charles II.
CH. i SETTLEMENT OF THE JERSEYS 363
province by the King upon the Duke of York, by whom
were disregarded the claims alike of those who held title
under him, and under Berkeley and Carteret. Amid the
technicalities that followed, Sir George Carteret demanded
and obtained from the Duke a separate grant of East
Jersey, with a division line loosely drawn from Barnegat
Bay on the coast, to just below Rancocas Creek on the
Delaware ; both the Jerseys remained under the ad
ministration of Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of New
York until 1680, when Carteret discomfited Andros at a
special Court of Assize, thus securing the independency
of both the Jerseys. In 1674 Lord Berkeley had become
a very old man, and his finances, as one result of the
quit-rent quarrel, had materially shrunk. Disheartened by
the situation, he determined to sell, preferably to the
Quakers, and this became their opportunity. In March
of that year he conveyed the whole of the vast estate to
two Quakers — John Fenwick, a Buckinghamshire yeoman,
and Edward Byllynge, a merchant of London, for the
sum of one thousand pounds !
This moment marks the entrance of the Quaker into
the affairs of government in the middle colonies, following
the example of Rhode Island, where the Quakers had
long been the administrators of the law and of the King.
It was by no accident that this purchase took place within
a short time after the return of George Fox to England
from America, and Bowden is doubtless right when he
says that the property was acquired for the benefit of the
Society at large. Fenwick was a litigious old Crom-
wellian soldier recently converted to Quakerism, and the
details of a dispute between him and his partner cannot
here be recited. The actual facts at this distance of time
are hazy, and are only vaguely referred to in two or three
letters1 from William Penn, written while the latter was
acting as arbitrator. The quarrel resulted in a division
of the property, one-tenth being awarded to Fenwick,
while complications in business soon forced Byllynge to
1 Three of these are quoted by Bowden, History of Friends in America,
\. 391, from the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum.
364 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
assign his nine-tenths in trust for his creditors to William
Penn, Gawen Lawrie, and Nicholas Lucas, all of them
Quakers. Subsequently, Fenwick's tenth also came under
their control.
The idea of emigration to England's western possessions
had been rapidly maturing in the minds of the leading
Quakers, led doubtless by William Penn. Penn had
been associated with John Locke, the philosopher, in
drawing up a theory of government for Carolina, and
Berkeley and Carteret were both already proprietors of
the southern colony when they became owners also of
the Jerseys. The part taken by William Penn in the
settlement of New Jersey has never yet received due
recognition from any historian. No sudden inspiration
led him to ask of Charles the grant for Pennsylvania in
liquidation of the debt of the crown to his father. George
Fox made his report to him in 1673, and when, in the
following year, his friend and neighbour John Fenwick,
near Rickmansworth, besought his aid as arbitrator, he
was obliged to give attention to conditions in the new
country. His trusteeship for Byllynge immediately after,
necessitated further acquaintance with the situation. It
is not too much to assert that these services as arbitrator
and trustee were the immediate causes leading to his East
Jersey proprietorship, and ultimately to the settlement of
Pennsylvania.
The " Concessions," etc., signed by Berkeley and
Carteret were drawn up by a group of men, not one of
whom was familiar with the country or its inhabitants for
whom they legislated. The terms were liberal, and the
laws tolerant, but the whole was based upon theory.
The second " Concessions and Agreements of the Pro
prietors, Freeholders, and Inhabitants of West Jersey, in
America " gave to the spirit of liberty a wider range than
had heretofore been the case in any record of Anglo-Saxon
organic law. These Concessions are dated 3rd March
1676 (O.S.), after the return from America of Coale,
Burnyeat, Fox, and Edmundson — all men of intelligence
and experience, who, we know from their journals, reported
CH.I SETTLEMENT OF THE JERSEYS 365
the character of the country and the situation of the
settlers then beginning to come in, to William Penn and
his advisers. Lucas and Lavvrie were business men,
little versed in statecraft, and Penn himself was at this
time but thirty-two, The making of constitutions was a
fashionable amusement. It had occupied Penn's friends,
Locke and Algernon Sidney, chiefly as a means of
illustrating their theories of freedom and philanthropy.
But the Quakers had known persecution, and it had
taught them and their leaders the value of personal
freedom, and of liberty of conscience. The Concessions
were placed for signature by the subscribers, (who did not
all sign at once) in London, and were probably later taken
to Yorkshire, as the grouping of signatures would lead
one to fancy, for the same purpose. Then, as though
with a sigh of relief, Penn and his partners wrote to the
most prominent Quaker in the Jerseys, Richard Hartshorne
at Middletown, from London, 26th June 1676-.
"We have made concessions by ourselves, being such as
Friends here and there (we question not) will approve of. ...
There we lay a foundation for after ages to understand their
liberty as men and Christians, that they may not be brought in
bondage but by their own consent, for we put the power in the
people."
There breathes in the great charter for New Jersey,
whose anonymous author is beyond doubt William Penn,
a spirit of religious and political freedom that is even more
marked than when, seven years later, he came to draw up
the famous " Frame of Government " for his own
Pennsylvania.
It will be noticed that East Jersey remained the
property of Sir George Carteret alone, while West Jersey
thus became a Quaker colony. The Quakers at once
set about publishing and distributing literature inviting
their people to emigrate to the new country, some of
these pamphlets being so enthusiastic in character that
the conscientious Penn issued a caution lest the unpre
pared find the expected paradise too great a wilder
ness. He and his partners in the trust, in their
366 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
cautionary address, after stating the facts of the purchase,
continue :
" The ninety parts remaining are exposed for sale on behalf
of the creditors of Edward Byllynge. And forasmuch as several
Friends are concerned as creditors as well as others, and the
disposal of so great a part of this country being in our hands,
we did in real tenderness and regard to Friends and especially
the poor and necessitous, make Friends the first offer, that if
any of them, though particularly those that, being low in the
world, and under trials about a comfortable livelihood for them
selves and families, should be desirous of dealing for any part or
parcel thereof, that they might have the refusal. This was the
real and honest intent of our hearts, and not to prompt or
allure any out of their places, either by the credit our names
might have with our people throughout the nation, or by
representing the thing otherwise than it is in itself."
It was, therefore, with a pretty clear idea of the real
facts, and with full understanding of difficulties ahead of
them, that the first Quaker emigration to West Jersey
began, when, in 1675, John Fen wick sailed with a number
of Quakers in the ship Griffin, from London, landing at
a spot, which, from the " delightsomenesse of the land," he
called Salem. Nearly all were Quakers, and they at once
began holding meetings, a monthly meeting being set up
the next year after their coming. Meantime, Penn and
his associates were rapidly selling off portions of the
Byllynge estate, and a number of Quakers who were the
latter's creditors accepted lands in liquidation of the debt.
Thus were acquired the properties held in such familiar
names in modern times as Hutchinson, Pearson, Stacy,
and many others.
The next year, 1677, was made the second important
effort at colonisation, when the ship Kent, from London
made the Delaware safely in October of that year,
landing her passengers, numbering two hundred and
thirty, at Raccoon Creek. The departure of so large a
group of Quakers at one time attracted public attention
in England, and was observed with interest by the King,
who took his yacht in the Thames to see the unusual
sight. Greeted by his loyal subjects, he asked if they
CH.I SETTLEMENT OF THE JERSEYS 367
were all Quakers, and gave them his blessing. Upon
landing, the settlers, acting under the instructions of Penn
and his colleagues, proceeded at once to the site of what
is now Burlington, which, it will be remembered, was the
spot where Fox had swum his horse across five years
before, and which, with the keen eye of the experienced
and observant explorer, he had recorded in his journal.
Here a town was laid out, and the company being equally
divided between London and Yorkshire Friends, it fell to
the latter to give it a name, and Bridlington or Burling
ton was chosen, from the town of that name whence many
came. The home-sick longing for familiar English names
accounts for the disappearance of most of the beautiful
Indian local names throughout the middle colonies.
Interesting details of the settlement and apportionment of
land are given by Smith.1 The Quakers " treated with
the Indians about lands," and purchases were made from
the natives, but as the settlers had not goods sufficient for
all they had bought, the land was not occupied until it
was fully paid for. Herein they followed precedent, for
to the Dutchman is due the credit of giving the Indians
full value for what lands they occupied or claimed. It
was not money that was lacking. The supply of trinkets,
jews' harps, and brass buttons gave out. An example of
one purchase will suffice for the rest.
"30 matchcoats, 20 guns, 30 kettles, and one great one, 30
pair hose, 20 fathom of duffields, 30 petticoats, 30 narrow hoes,
30 bars of lead, 15 small barrels of powder, 70 knives, 30 Indian
axes, 70 combs, 60 pair tobacco tongs, 60 scissors, 69 tinshaw
looking-glasses, 120 awl-blades, 120 fish-hooks, 2 grasps of red
paint, 120 needles, 60 tobacco boxes, 120 pipes, 200 bells, 100
Jews' harps, 6 anchors rum."
Soon after the settlement made at Burlington, another
ship from London brought within the year seventy more
passengers, who divided between Burlington and Salem,
and another from Hull brought one hundred and fourteen
more. Next year, in 1678, in the Shield from Hull,
came over a hundred more settlers, followed closely by a
1 Samuel Smith, History of New Jersey, p. 98, 2nd edition.
368 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
London craft whose name is not known. Fully eight
hundred Quakers joined and settled in the new colony
within the first eighteen months, many of them persons
of large property and wide influence ; while up to the
year 1681, at which time William Penn was negotiating
for the purchase of Pennsylvania, upwards of fourteen
hundred had found their way to the new province.
Sir George Carteret's death in 1679 necessitated the
sale of East Jersey by his widow to pay his debts. The
opportunity was again seized by the watchful Penn and
his associates, who, pleased with the success of their first
effort at colonisation, after a slight delay, purchased the
eastern province. In February 1681 it was conveyed to
William Penn and eleven other Friends. These immedi
ately joined with them twelve others as owners, among
whom were Robert Barclay, the Earl of Perth, Lord
Drummond, and several other prominent Scotchmen, not
Quakers. These twenty- four proprietors formed a
" Council of Proprietors," that for East Jersey being
appointed in 1684, and that for West Jersey in 1687.
These together were established as the original Council of
Proprietors, which, upon the accession of Queen Anne, in
1702, unconditionally surrendered the right of govern
ment for the united province of New Jersey into the royal
hands, the acceptance of which surrender was one of the
first official acts of that eventful reign. This unique body
retained, however, its proprietary rights, and exists to-day,
with quaint ceremonies of proclamation on the street
corners of Burlington and Gloucester, to effect an
occasional sale or transfer of the few unclaimed lands on
the New Jersey coasts of which they are still the rightful
owners. The organisation is the oldest existing pro
prietary body in America.
The choice of Governor for the newly purchased
Quaker territory fell upon Robert Barclay of Ury, author
of the " Apology," who accepted the trust, but never came
out, and Thomas Rudyard was made his deputy. Upon
the latter's death soon after, Gawen Lawrie took his
place. The attention of the Scotch, who were then and
CH.I SETTLEMENT OF THE JERSEYS 369
shortly after suffering in the Cameronian wars, was directed
to the lands in East Jersey by their countrymen of power
and influence, who followed the example of the Quaker
owners of the western division in the distribution of much
literature setting forth the advantages of emigration.
They were very far from coming to similar conditions
to those in West Jersey, there being at this date nearly
five thousand inhabitants already settled in the eastern
division. A large number of Scotch and Quakers came
into Monmouth county in the next few years, the former
being of the " Auld Kirk " — Covenanters and Presbyterians.
Among the Scottish Quakers was George Keith, whose
presence in the Jerseys was soon to become a matter of
no slight importance in the history of Quakerism. Born
in 1638, of the Keiths of Keith Hall, Aberdeenshire, he
took his M.A. at the University of Aberdeen in 1662,
about which time, in the heat and fire of his youth, he
left the rigid form of Presbyterianism in which he had
been brought up, to embrace the doctrines of Quakerism.
He was a surveyor and mathematician, but seems to have
given up most of his time to preaching, which, together
with his share in the famous discussion of Quakerism in
1675 at the University of Aberdeen, in company with
Alexander Jaffray and Robert Barclay, occasioned one of
several imprisonments. Various theories have been
advanced as to the object of his emigration to America ;
the chief reasons given are his choice by Barclay to run
the " Province Line," and his selection as master for William
Penn's new school in Philadelphia. It is no more
necessary to seek for an ulterior motive in the case of
Keith than in that of any of the other Friends who went
to America to improve their fortunes and to live in peace.
Keith's intimate acquaintance with the Barclays was
doubtless a large factor in his determination to emigrate.
The provincial records show that in 1684 he arrived with
his wife Anna, his daughters Anna and Eliza, an
apprentice named Richard Hodkins, and two maid
servants, Mary Smith and Christian Ghaine. Robert
Bridgman, a merchant, came with him and "imported
2 B
370 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
himself." Keith was shortly after made Surveyor-
General of East Jersey, and joined Andrew Robeson, who
held a similar office for the Western division, in 1686 in
running the famous " Province Line," which, after two
centuries of dispute, was in 1886 finally confirmed by a
special board of commissioners. The tracts of land taken
up by Keith in Monmouth county, near Freehold, where
he first settled, were gradually disposed of in lots to
various purchasers, and he removed in 1689 to
Philadelphia, to take up once more his calling of school
master, which he had been pursuing in Edmonton,
England, at the time of his determination to emigrate.
Between this date and that of his expulsion from the
Society for schism by the Yearly Meeting at Burlington
in 1692, his history belongs to that of Pennsylvania
Quakerism. His next appearance upon the soil of New
Jersey is as the accredited agent for the newly created
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts, in which capacity he laid the foundation stone of
St Mary's Episcopal church in Burlington, in 1703, and
was instrumental in establishing Episcopalianism upon a
sure basis in the Jerseys, at the cost of many converts
from Quakerism.
Connected with the Keith controversy were the two
printers, Daniel Leeds of West Jersey, and William
Bradford of Philadelphia. The latter removed to New
York early in the history of the schism, but it is supposed
that for a short time, his press was set up at Burlington.
Leeds's " Allmanack " was suppressed by the meeting, and
he himself forced to make an acknowledgment for his
statements, which, the Friends said, " evinced a froward
spirit." He became on intimate terms with the " Mystics '"
in Germantown, approved and published their astrological
predictions, and finally joined the " Christian Quakers," as
the Keithian separatists preferred to call themselves.
Thus came the Quaker settlers into the fertile lands
of the Jerseys. Many hardships had to be endured, but,
thanks to an abundant and bountiful return for their first
efforts in the field, they were spared nearly all the suffer-
CH. i SETTLEMENT OF THE JERSEYS 371
ing and sorrows which, in a more unfriendly climate, fell
to the lot of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts. Many
enthusiastic letters home, from which it is a temptation to
quote, still exist in praise of the new country. " I like
the place well," said one, " it's like to be a healthful
place, and very pleasant to live in." "It is a country,"
writes another, " that produceth all things for the support
and sustenance of man." " Whatever envy or evil spies
may speak of it, I could wish you all here," declared a
third.1 Not lightly did they speak. Many of the little
company had lain in loathsome English gaols, and many
of their sufferings may be found described by Besse.2
They had proved their faithfulness ; had borne their
persecutions patiently ; they had declared, as had Penn
for them, that they were not fleeing to escape trials that
they were called upon longer to endure. Justified by
their years of hardship, now they longed for the wider
outlook which provided a secure home for their children
in the future. " I wish," wrote one of the number 3 years
after, " I wish that they that come after may remember
these things." " The settlement of this country," says
another witness, "was directed by an impulse on the
spirit of God's people, not for their own ease and
tranquillity, but rather for the posterity which should be
after them." 4 It was not commercialism which established
them so firmly in the new country. The trading spirit,
strangely enough, has never yet sufficed for effectual
colonisation. Men of good estate, their English homes
were not left without a sigh.
"O remember us," they write, "for we cannot forget you.
Many waters cannot quench our love, nor distance wipe out the
deep remembrance. . . . Though the Lord hath been pleased
to remove us far away from you, as to the ends of the earth, yet
are you present with us. Your exercises are ours, our hearts are
dissolved in the remembrance of you."
1 S. Smith. History of Nova Caesarea, or New Jersey, where various letters are
given more at length.
2 J. Besse, Sufferings of the Quakers, 2 vols. folio.
8 Mary Murfin Smith, who came as a child with her parents. Drowned in
1739-
4 Thomas Sharp, Newtown Monthly Meeting Records.
CHAPTER II
MEETINGS AND SOCIAL LIFE
THE Friends' first care was to settle meetings. These,
both at Salem and Burlington, like the services of the
first comers to Virginia, were held in tents made of the
sails of their ships. They next met in their own dwell
ings, and the early minutes of most of the meetings of the
Jerseys begin in a private house, before any record can
be found of a meeting-house. Very soon, however, there
was an effort to build suitable accommodation for the
increasing numbers. The original meeting for the
middle colonies appears to have been at Shrewsbury,
where one was settled as early as 1670, and where
George Fox mentions the building of a meeting-house
going on at the time of his visit in 1672. These
Quakers were from New England, the first child born in
the settlement in 1667, according to an old authority,
having been Elizabeth, daughter of Eliakim Wardell,
who, with his wife Lydia, in 1665 had been cruelly and
publicly scourged for the appearance of the latter almost
unclothed as a " sign " before the Puritan congregation in
the meeting-house at their New England home in
Hampton. They would seem to have taken refuge in
East Jersey, where Bowden l refers to their residence two
years later. Doubtless meetings had existed in the
Jerseys a few years before. The meeting began at Salem
in 1675, and the next year the monthly meeting was set
up, being held for some time in the dwelling house of
hewn logs belonging to Samuel Nicholson. Bowden calls
1 Bowden, History of Friends in America, i. 405.
372
CH.II MEETINGS AND SOCIAL LIFE 373
attention to the fact, which is impressive, that several of the
American meetings were organised in the interval between
the first proposal of monthly meetings by Fox at Durham,
1653, and their regular establishment in England thirteen
years later.
Seven months after the landing at Raccoon Creek, a
Monthly Meeting was set up at Burlington. The minutes
begin with the following preamble :
" Since by the good Providence of God, many Friends with
their families have transported themselves into this Province of
West New Jersey, the said Friends in these upper parts have
found it needfull, according to our practice in the place wee came
from, to settle Monthly Meetings for the well ordering the affairs
of ye Church it was agreed that accordingly it should be done,
and accordingly it was done the i5th of ye 5th mo111. 1678."
Many small meetings were held in scattered planta
tions not many miles removed from each other, since the
" going," according to early minutes, was too bad in
inclement weather to allow Friends to journey far. Very
willingly the different settlements aided each other in
clearing roads, and the old colonial highway, still known
as the " Salem Road," was laid out by ten men from
Salem and ten from Burlington, at the people's expense.
The first meetings in Burlington were held at the
house of Thomas Gardiner. From here the Monthly
Meeting, under date "7th of ye I2th mo. 1680," sent
what Bowden asserts to have been the earliest recorded
epistle addressed to London Yearly Meeting by any
meeting in America. Care for the spiritual welfare of
their savage neighbours and provision for their poorer
members are evident from the early minutes ; but the
necessity for proper certificates as to the character of the
new-comers who so soon appeared, made the presentation
of proper credentials, particularly in cases of marriage, of
paramount importance. No less than thirteen couples in
the first three years presented themselves with that object
before the meeting in Burlington. Hence the following
document was sent to London.
374 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
"To our Dear Friends and Brethren at the Yearly Meeting at
London.
" DEAR FRIENDS AND BRETHREN — Whom God hath honoured
with his heavenly presence and dominion, as some of us have
been eye witnesses (and in our measures partakers with you) in
those solemn annual assemblies ; in the remembrance of which
our souls are consolated, and do bow before the Lord with
reverent acknowledgment to him, to whom it belongs forever.
" And, dear friends, being fully satisfied of your love and care
and zeal for the Lord and His truth, and your travail and desire
for the promotion of it, hath given us encouragement to address
ourselves to you, to request your assistance in these following
particulars, being sensible of the need of it, and believing it will
conduce to the honour of God and the benefit of His people ;
for the Lord having, by an overruling Providence, cast our lots
in these remote parts of the world, our care and desire is that
He may be honoured in us and through us, and His dear truth
which we may profess may be had in good repute and esteem
by those that are yet strangers to it
" Dear Friends, our first request unto you is, that in your
several counties and meetings out of which any may transport
themselves in this place, that you will be pleased to take care
that we may have certificates concerning them ; for here are
several honest and innocent people that brought no certificate
with them from their respective Monthly Meetings, not foreseeing
the service of them, and so never desired any, which for the
future, in cases of which defect, we do entreat you who are
sensible of the need for certificates, to put them in mind of
them ; for in some cases where certificates are required (and
they have none), it occasions a great and tedious delay before
they can be had from England, besides the hazard of letters
miscarrying, which is very uneasy to the parties immediately
concerned, and no ways grateful or desirable to us ; yet in some
cases necessity urgeth it, or we must act very unsafely, and
particularly in cases of marriage in which we are often concerned.
" So if the parties are single and marriageable at their coming
away, we desire to be satisfied of their clearness or unclearness
from other parties, and what else you think meet for our know
ledge. And if they have parents, whether they will commit
them to the care of Friends in general in that matter, or appoint
any particular person in whom they can trust. And if any do
incline to come that do profess truth yet walk disorderly, and so
become dishonourable to truth and the profession they have
made of it, we desire to be certified of them and it by some
other hand (as there are frequent opportunities from London of
CH. a MEETINGS AND SOCIAL LIFE 375
doing it) for we are sensible that here are several that left no
good savour in their native land from whence they came, and it
may be probable that more of that kind may come, thinking to
be absconded in this obscure place ; but, blessed be the Lord,
He hath a people here whom He hath provoked to a zealous
affection for the glory of His name, and are desirous that the
hidden things of Esau may be brought to light, and in it be
condemned ; for which cause we thus request your assistance as
an advantage and furtherance to that work ; for though some
have not thought it necessary either to bring certificates them
selves or require it of others, we are not of that mind, and do
leave it to the wise in heart to judge whence it doth proceed ; for
though we desire this as an additional help to us, yet not as
some have surmised, that we wholly build upon it, without
exercising our own mediate sense as God shall guide us. Some,
we know, that have been otherwise deserving, have been unad
visedly denied their impartial right of a certificate and very
hardly could obtain it, merely through the dislike of some of
their undertaking in their coming hither, which we believe to be
an injury ; and though we would not have any should reject any
sound advice or counsel in that matter ; yet we do believe that
all the faithful ought to be left to God's direction in that matter ;
most certainly knowing by the surest evidence that God hath had
a hand in the removal of some to this place, which we desire
that all who are inclined to come hither, who know God, may
be careful to know before they attempt it, lest their trials become
insupportable to them, but if this they know, they need not fear,
for the Lord is known by sea and land the shield and strength of
them that fear him.
"And dear Friends, one thing more we think needful to
intimate to you, to warn and advise all that come professing of
truth, that they be careful and circumspect in their passage.
" So, dear Friends, this, with what further you may apprehend
to tend to truth's promotion in this place, we desire your assist
ance in, which will be very kindly and gladly received by us,
who are desirous of an amicable correspondence with you, and
do claim a part with you in the holy body and eternal union,
which the bond of life is the strength of, in which God preserve
you and us, who are your friends and brothers."
Here follow signatures of thirty-seven Friends.
" From our Men's Monthly Meeting, in Burlington, in West New
Jersey, the ;th of the Twelfth Month, 1680." l
1 Bowden, History of Friends in America, i. 402, et scq.
376 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
At the monthly meeting held in 3 mo. 1681, it was
determined to establish a Yearly Meeting, to begin in the
6 mo. following. Notice to this effect was widely circulated,
and the transactions of the meeting, to which came Friends
from New England, Long Island, and as far south as
Maryland, occupied four days. Few particulars of their
business remain. Here the Yearly Meeting continued to
be held until the meeting-house was finished which was
ordered to be built in 1682. Thomas Gardiner died in
1694. The establishment of a Quarterly Meeting was a
part of its action, as the first minute of that meeting shows :
" Whereas, the Yearly Meeting saw it necessary yt there
should be Quarterly meetings kept in several places in this
Province of West New Jersey, and yt this Quarterly Meeting of
Friends for Burlington and ye Falls should be held at ye house of
William Beedle [Biddle] in Mansfield (being pretty near ye middle
of Friends belonging to it) at ye times hereafter mentioned, viz.,
upon ye last second-day of the 9 mo. ; last second-day of ye
1 2 mo. ; last second-day of ye 3 mo. ; and ye last second-day of
ye 6 mo. ; and to begin at ye loth hour, which said conclusion
of ye Yearly Meeting ye Friends of this meeting are satisfied
with.
"29 of 9 mo. 1681."
The second yearly meeting for the Jerseys met in
7 mo. (September) 1682. In the interval a large ship
had come to the Delaware shore, and landed three
hundred and sixty more settlers, thus greatly augmenting
their numbers. But most important was the information
they brought that William Penn and a large company of
Friends were about to sail for the same neighbourhood.
Penn landed from the Welcome at Newcastle in
October 1682, and attended the Yearly Meeting at
Burlington in 1683. At this meeting it was proposed to
hold a Yearly Meeting for all the North American
colonies, but the proposition fell through. In it may be
clearly seen the guiding hand of William Penn.1
The first meeting-house in Burlington was ordered to
be built in 1682, but was delayed for several years. It
1 Monthly Meetings were established at Shrewsbury, 1670 ; at Salem, 1676 ;
at Burlington, 1678 ; at Newtown, 1681.
CH. ii MEETINGS AND SOCIAL LIFE 377
was a curious little octagonal building, with no means of
heating, and seems to have been copied in architecture by
Penn's colony in their first house soon after. Several
examples of this octagonal style of building for places of
worship and for schools used by the Dutch and the
Quakers still exist in northern New Jersey and in
Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The great increase in
the size of the Yearly Meeting, to which belonged the
Friends from Long Island to Maryland, including the
rapidly growing town of Philadelphia twenty miles below,
in 1696 necessitated for this early house at Burlington a
brick addition, capable of being warmed in winter by huge
fire-places. Here were held the town-meetings, the school,
and the Court, and on the doors were nailed up all public
notices, whether a royal proclamation, the required banns
for a marriage, or the cattle brand assigned to each
planter.1
Sometimes a great Indian conference drew the savages
to the town. The Yearly Meeting of 1685 especially con
sidered the Indians, and in 1686 the meeting minutes
desire the Indian interpreters to be notified to attend the
meeting up the river proposed to be held for the Indians
by Thomas Budd and Robert Stacey.
The close of the seventeenth century saw a marvellous
growth of Quakerism in New Jersey, attracting much
attention in England. The economic and social life of
the two divisions of the province differed as much as did
their natural features. The influence of Puritan New
England was as marked in East Jersey as was the more
benign and peaceful, not to say indifferent, attitude of the
English Quakers in West Jersey. In the former, trade on
a smaller scale flourished, as was to be expected of a
Puritan, Dutch, and Quaker alliance. The intense ardour
of the Calvinist produced a note of individualism, whose
outcome was democracy, expressed in the town-meetings
held in Quaker meeting-houses, its religious aspect laying
the foundations of Presbyterian ism in New Jersey. The
1 An interesting census for 1699 shows the number of West Jersey Freeholders
who were Quakers to be 266 in a total of 832. The report (New Jersey
Archives, ii. 305) quotes the 566 others as " Christians," in distinction !
378 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
Quaker of West Jersey, naturally a Conservative, clung
closely to his English and sectarian institutions, and,
joining acre to acre, observing the custom of primogeniture,
and insisting rigidly on the ecclesiastical law which com
pelled his young people to marry within the pale of their
membership, he built up gradually a great land-owning
class which brought many thousand acres into compara
tively few hands. Puritan influence is shown in the
difference in the administration of law, thirteen classes of
crime being punishable by death in the eastern division,
and none in West Jersey, which did not permit capital
punishment Differences of manners, nomenclature,
traditions of commerce, and legal custom are traceable
even to-day, and Dutch and Scotch imprints remain in
Bergen (now Hudson) and Monmouth counties, as evident
as the old English inheritances in West Jersey, where
farmers' leases to this hour expire on Lady Day, 25th
March, and where eggs may still be bought by the score,
as in old Yorkshire. In East Jersey, the town-meeting
was the political factor to be reckoned with and the town
the unit of activity. In West Jersey, the county was
the unit, and the resemblance between the western
province and Virginia is as clear as that between East
Jersey and the Puritan home whence came its people.
William Penn's personal influence was much more felt in
West than in East Jersey. Many a time Governor Penn,
in the brief period of eighteen months which rounded out
his residence at his " palace " at Pennsbury, stopped at
Burlington in his barge on his way up and down the
Delaware. Sometimes he came to the fairs, which were
an important social feature of the day, so important that
when Monthly Meeting fell on fair day, in Burlington or
Salem, it was adjourned until the fair was over, as on
"ye 4th of ye 8 mo. 1697, Ordered at this meeting that
our next Monthly Meeting be deferred one week longer
than the usual Day, because the fair falling on that day
ye Meeting should be." Semi-annual fairs were held in
spring and autumn, and these market days were kept up
until the Revolution. In 1729 they became an abuse,
CH.II MEETINGS AND SOCIAL LIFE 379
and the Monthly Meeting at Burlington petitioned the
Assembly to remedy their evil effects.
William Penn was in England during the culmination
of the Keith controversy, but his advice was sought
regarding the disturbances of Keith's followers, who were
organising separate meetings at the time of his second
visit. Their doctrines had been promulgated by Daniel
Leeds and William Bradford, the printers, and several
prominent men had joined Thomas Budd in secession.
Another element occasionally felt was the " mystic "
society at Germantown and on the Wissahickon, whose
apostles occasionally came into meetings, and after one
invasion at Burlington, ascended the Court House steps,
and from there harangued the people.
The social life of the Quakers in the Jerseys was
unique. The prominent Friends in both colonies, although
chiefly in the western, were Governors, Councillors, and
members of Assembly. They were great planters, and
merchants on a large scale, sending their vessels, built on
the Delaware, to China and the West Indies. Perth
Amboy in East Jersey, and Cohansey (Bridgeton) and
Burlington in West Jersey, were the ports of entry. Great
activity began before the end of the century in the
exchange of ministers between London and the American
colonies. All of these were obliged to cross New Jersey
on their travels between New England and the south.
The Wardells and Richard Hartshorne, at Shrewsbury and
Middletown respectively, were the earliest resident Quaker
ministers of whom we have record. Samuel Jenings, John
Skein,1 Thomas Olive, all of them Governors ; William
Peachy,2 Thomas Gardiner, William Cooper, George
Deacon, Edward Barton, Elizabeth Day, Jane Seaton,
1 John Skein, born in Scotland, at Aberdeen. Imprisoned 1676, and suffered
distraint for fines imposed because he refused to give bond not to attend meet
ings (Besse, ii. 516). Emigrated to West Jersey 1678, where he was Governor
for two years. He died in 1687, a useful and much respected man. A minister
with an " edifying testimony." — Smith, History of New Jersey, 1765.
2 William Peachy, who, says Proud (History of Pennsylvania, i. 158), with
Thomas Olive, was the " first among Friends in West Jersey who had a public
ministry." He was from London, but had been imprisoned with his young wife
in Bristol, where she died. He arrived in West Jersey in 1677 on the Kent,
was elected to the Assembly in 1682, and died in 1689 at Burlington.
38o QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
Mary Smith (widow of Daniel), Peter Andrews, and
Abraham Farrington were all early preachers of Quakerism
in West Jersey, the last two dying in England on religious
visits abroad.
It is not surprising that several of the most distinguished
Quakers, whose influence told .greatly in both Church and
State, emigrated to America just before or immediately
after William Penn, and were all from the neighbourhood
of Rickmansworth. Thomas Ellwood appears to have
been untouched by the spirit of emigration ; but his
friends, John Archdale and Samuel Jenings, of High
Wycombe and Aylesbury respectively, left an indelible
impress upon the affairs of two great provinces.
The minute from their home meeting of Coleshill for
Samuel Jenings and Ann, his wife, and their children, is
dated "26th day of ye 3d. mo. 1680," and states that
they " have lived in these parts many years ; have walked
Conscientiously and honestly Amongst us Agreeable to
ye profession and testimony of Truth." It is signed by
sixteen men, among whom are the names of Thomas
Olive, Thomas Ellwood, and John Archdale. Samuel
Jenings came out in the official capacity of Deputy-
Governor for Edward Byllynge, who at first declined to
relinquish the prerogative of government along with
territorial rights to purchasers. Governor Jenings
reached the Delaware in the late summer of 1680, and
six weeks after sent a letter addressed to William Penn,
Edward Byllynge, or Gawen Lawrie, to apprise them of
his safe arrival, and to convey the welcome information
that the duties exacted illegally by the Governor of New
York had been removed. He wrote : l
" DEAR FRIENDS, — This may give you an account of mine and
my families safe arrival in New Jersey, with all the rest that came
with us. I might say something concerning our passage at sea,
but I waive it for want of time, and in fine may observe all was
well ; for which I bless God ; and the Lord keep us all sensible
of it, with the rest of his mercies for ever.
"Dear friends, about six weeks since, we arrived in the Delaware
1 Smith's New Je rsey, p. 124.
CH.II MEETINGS AND SOCIAL LIFE 381
river, where I expected to have met with a combat in the denial
of customs. In our passage at sea I had communicated to all
that had any considerable cargo on board the opinion of council
concerning any illegal demand thereof, with what else I thought
might be for their information ; which thus far prevailed that
most if not all concerned, seemed resolved to deny the paying
of custom here ; having paid all the King's duties in England.
In good time we came to anchor in Delaware, where one, Peter
Alrick, came aboard, and brought a handsome present to our
commander, and sent for me into the round-house, where they
both were, and Peter told me he had nothing to say to us relating
to customs ; he had no commission for it, nor did he know of
anybody that had ; so we had all our goods safely landed after
this unexpected easy manner.
" In pursuance of the trust committed to me after my arrival,
I acquainted those nominated in the commission with me of it ;
but in a short time after I received your letters, giving an account
of a new grant obtained, wherein the customs are taken off, a
free port confirmed and the government settled on Edward
Byllynge ; which, I doubt not, will be very acceptable to every
honest man ; but as yet I have not had time to let the people in
general know it. And now, seeing the ports are made legally
free, and the government settled, I would not have anything
remain as a discouragement to planters. Here are several good
and convenient settlements already, and here is land enough and
good enough for many more." SAMUEL JENINGS.
"New Jersey, the xyth October 1680."
Samuel Jenings took up land and settled at Burlington.
The following year he called together the first West Jersey
Assembly, and agreed with them upon certain fundamental
points of government. The Assembly dissolved on the
28th of ninth month, having passed in addition thirty-six
laws, many of which were later on repealed. The tact of
Governor Jenings, who was thoroughly acceptable to the
settlers, avoided open rupture, and quieted the prevalent
discontent. To silence the protests of all parties, whose
resentment was increasing against Byllynge, Jenings was
chosen, and duly elected Governor by the representatives
of the people in the Assembly of 1683. He was thus
empowered to act independently of Byllynge's appointment.
He and the council elected at the same time — all of them
Quakers, with one exception — gave their solemn promise
382 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
in lieu of an oath of office.1 The Governor's salary was
the right to take up six hundred acres of land above the
Falls of the Delaware.
When the provinces were united under one Royal
Governor, in the person of Lord Cornbury, the Queen's
cousin, who arrived in 1703, Samuel Jenings was elected
Speaker of the Assembly. In this position he was called
upon to silence the voice of controversy, the Assembly
supporting him loyally in his valiant opposition to the
unjust demands of the brutal and licentious governor.
This culminated in the famous remonstrance of the
Assembly of April 5, 1707. Repeatedly stopped in his
reading of the paper by Lord Cornbury's ejaculations of
"Stop!" "What's that?" etc., he quietly paused and
then resumed, with dignity repeating what he had
previously read, laying greater emphasis than before
upon the points which he desired to bring out, and
quite undaunted by the evident anger of Her Majesty's
representative :
"We cannot but be uneasy," he deliberately read, "when
we find by the new methods of government our liberties and
properties so much shaken that no man can say he is master of
either, but holds them as tenant by courtesy and at will, and
may be stript of them at pleasure. Liberty is too valuable a
thing to be easily parted with."
Upon the departure of the House, Lord Cornbury,
with emotion, turned to those about him, and exclaimed,
" Jenings has impudence enough to face the Devil ! " z
The reply of the Assembly to the Governor's answer —
which concluded with the words, " I was going to give
you some wholesome advice, but I consider it will be but
labour lost, and therefore shall reserve it for persons who,
I hope, will make a right use of it ! " — showed their
adherence to the Quaker customs by the insertion of the
following note, frequently appended to other official
documents :
" Divers of the members of this Assembly being of the people
1 Smith, History of New Jersey, p. 164. * Ibid., p. 295.
CH. ii MEETINGS AND SOCIAL LIFE 383
called Quakers do assent to the matter and substance, but make
some exception to the stile."
When the people of New York added their voice in
remonstrance to the evil proceedings of Cornbury, the
Queen ordered his withdrawal.
In the affairs of the meeting Samuel Jenings appears
in innumerable capacities as a church-officer. During the
height of the Keith controversy he took an active part,
exhorting to wisdom in individual cases ; assisting the
Friends in Philadelphia on behalf of William Stockdale
and Thomas Fitzwater, the particular objects of George
Keith's attacks ; publishing a fair setting forth in defence
of the Quakers in his pamphlet, known as " The State of
the Case Considered," etc. ; and finally in the latter part
of 1693 sailing for England on behalf of Friends in
America, where at London, together with Thomas Duckett
and William Walker,1 he laid the true facts before London
Yearly Meeting. The result was the disownment of Keith
by the Yearly Meeting of London in 1695, following the
action taken at Burlington in 1692. In 1702, after
George Keith returned to America as an officer of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts, he appeared at Burlington and endeavoured to
draw the Quakers into controversy, and succeeded in
attaching a number of the less loyal to the Church of
England. The new arrivals challenged the Quakers to
meet them, and reply to their charges at a public meeting
in the town-house at Burlington, which the Friends
quietly declined. Soon after, the clerical gentlemen went
so far as to invade the Quaker meeting, this being one of
the offences so often attributed to the Quakers themselves.
A letter from the rector of the recently founded church in
that place to George Keith, dated New York, October 20,
1705, says : '
" Mr. Sharpe was very jealous to bring ye Quakers to stand a
tryal; he carried one of ye 'Bombs' (an attack published at
this time) into their meeting, and read a new challenge I had
1 The latter died while in England. — Bowden, History of Friends in America,
P- 52-
384 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
sent them to answer what they had printed; but all in vain.
Samuel Jenings stood up and said, ' Friends, let's call upon God.'
Then they went to prayer, and so their meeting broke up."
Samuel Jenings held office as Speaker of the Assembly
until the year before his death, which occurred in 1709
at his home, " Greenhill," in Burlington, and he was
interred in the Friends' graveyard in that place. A fine
tribute to his character is paid by the historian Smith,
whose father knew Governor Jenings well.
" He was early an approved minister among (the Quakers),"
says Smith, " and so continued to his death. Common opinion,
apt to limit this sphere of action, will, however, allow general
rules to have their exceptions, as instances now and then, though
perhaps but rarely, occur, where variety of talents have united
in the same individual, and yet not interfered. Such, the account
of those times (strip'd of the local uncertainties of faction and
party), tell us, was the circumstance with regard to Jenings. His
authority, founded on experienc'd candour, probity, and abilities,
enlarged opportunities, rendered him not in one capacity or in
one society only, generally useful. . . . With a mind form'd to
benevolence and acts of humanity, he was a friend to the widow,
the fatherless, and the unhappy. Tender, disinterested, and
with great opportunities, [he] left but a small estate. Abhorring
oppression in every shape, his whole conduct discovered a will
to relieve and befriend mankind, far above the littleness of party
or sinister views. His sentiments of right and liberty were formed
on the revolution establishment, a plan successfully adapted to
the improvement of a new country, or any country. He was, not
withstanding all this, sometimes thought stiff and impracticable,
but chiefly on account of his political attachments. Yet there
were instances where better knowledge of his principles, and the
sincerity with which he acted, totally effaced those impressions,
and left him friends where none were expected. Much of his
time . . . was long devoted to the publick with a will to be
useful. West Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, after the
surrender, for near twenty-eight years successively, were repeated
witnesses of his conduct in various capacities. He studied peace
and the welfare of mankind. . . . He just lived long enough to
see (the country) emerging from an unpromising state of litigation
and controversy to more quiet than had been known for many
years."
He remembered his old friend and neighbour, Thomas
CH. ii MEETINGS AND SOCIAL LIFE 385
Ellwood, in England, by leaving a bequest to him of
twenty pounds to buy " my long - acquainted, worthy,
and endeared friend a gelding or otherwise as he shall
think fit."
Thomas Olive (or Olliffe) of Wellingborough in
Northamptonshire, was a convert to Quakerism by the
preaching of William Dewsbury in 1655. He was
imprisoned in 1665 under the Conventicle Act, and in
1666 had sixty pounds of cloth seized and taken from
him.1 He came out to the Jerseys as a London
Commissioner in the ship Kent in 1677, and was the first
Speaker of the Colonial Assembly, holding office several
years. In 1684 he became Governor. While Justice of
the Peace for the district of Burlington he gained the love
and esteem of all his countrymen.
"He had," says Smith the historian, "a ready method of
business, often doing it to good effect in the seat of judgment
on the stumps in his meadows ; he contrived to postpone sudden
complaints until cool deliberation had shown them to be justly
founded, and then seldom failed for accommodating matters
without much expense to the parties."
Thomas Olive died in 1692?
Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the im
portant part taken in the political affairs of New Jersey
by the Quakers of the earlier period. Their staunch
integrity and courageous defence of their actions in every
thing that involved a sense of duty to the public, is
beyond praise, and undoubtedly was an important factor
in forming the government of the state upon present
lines. Three Quaker governors have been named. In
May 1696 the legislature selected as King's Attorney
(Prosecutor of the Pleas) George Deacon, a Quaker
arrival on the Willing Mind, who came to the Delaware
in the winter of 1677, and who held office in various
capacities. In 1696 Benjamin Wheat8 served in the
1 Besse, Sufferings of the Quakers, i. 534-536.
2 Thomas Olive's salary as Governor was £20 per year !
8 Benjamin Wheat with another Friend furnished the handsomely designed
pine table, upon which the meeting at Burlington transacted its business, and
which is still in use.
2 C
386 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
same position, and was followed, two years later, by
Thomas Gardiner, son of the Thomas Gardiner at whose
house the early meetings were held. There were no
regularly admitted lawyers at the New Jersey Bar before
1702, and the "Rules of the Supreme Court" show that
from 1704 to the date of the Declaration of Independence,
only two chief-justices, out of eight that held the office,
were licensed attorneys of the province.1 Of twenty-two
associate justices, only three were regularly admitted, and
of the three, two, only on the day they were elevated to
the bench ! English standards, of course, governed the
practice of law, and the Supreme Court was modelled on
the Court of Queen's Bench, and set up in 1704. Less
concerned with the technicalities of the courts than with
the administration of substantial justice, the old Quaker
idea of righteousness in dealing with rights of property
owners and with offenders may well have laid the founda
tions of a system which to-day makes " Jersey Justice "
proverbial in the United States.
There were many Quaker Justices of the Peace ;
lenient and fair-minded as a class, these occasionally
meted out severe punishments, as when in 1682 Governor
Jenings and Justices Cripps and Stacey ordered a runaway
pair who added lies to their crime, at " the tenth hour in
the morning," to be " whip'd on their naked bodies," the
man thirty stripes and the woman thirty-five," he " paying
the ffees."
In East Jersey, marriages had been regulated accord
ing to the practice of the Scotch Kirk, requiring the
publication of banns three times, the Governor's licence,
and consent of parents. Equally stringent in West
Jersey were the marriage customs, where the House made
no legislative regulations, but where the Quaker meetings
saw to it that no laxness crept in, or if it did, that it met
with proper punishment. When disagreements occurred,
reconciliation was recommended, as when, some time
before 1694, a quarrelling pair were summoned before the
Quaker justices at Burlington and asked if they would live
1 F. B. Lee, New Jersey as Colony and State, i. 312.
CH.II MEETINGS AND SOCIAL LIFE 387
peaceably together. Mary agreed and so did Thomas,
he stipulating that Mary " will acknowledge that shee
hath scandalized him wrongfully." To this the woman
consented, adding an expression eternally feminine, " but
saith shee will not own that shee hath told lies of him to
her knowledge ! " At this point the negotiations naturally
come to a standstill. " But after some good admonitions
from ye Bench," says the record, " they both p'mise they
will forgett and never mention what unkind speeches or
Actions have formerly past betweene them Concerninge
each other." l
After the Crown took over the government in 1702,
the granting of marriage licences was placed in the
hands of the Governor, and the Church of England
was established. The nonconforming members of the
Assembly, however, for a long time opposed the passage
of England's ecclesiastical regulations of marriage.
A Women's Yearly Meeting was held in 1681. From
this time on, there was an increasing number of English
Friends in the ministry who crossed the ocean to visit
the American Colonies. James Dickinson paid three
visits to the Jerseys — in 1691, 1696, and 1714, when,
he says, " some of the meetings were the largest I had
ever been at. People flocked so to them that several
hundreds were forced to stand without doors, the meeting
house being not large enough to contain them." At
Burlington Yearly Meeting " the Lord owned us with
His living presence, and we had a glorious season to
gether. The meeting held five days and there was such
a concourse of people that we held two meetings at once,
one in the Court House and the other at the meeting
house." 2 The annual meeting of ministers, which was
held at the house of Samuel Jenings in Burlington, was
in 1698 attended by William Ellis, of England, who is
a rare instance of an intelligent visitor who took notes
on the spot — a custom which we may well wish had been
followed by others. Upon this deeply interesting occasion,
1 F. B. Lee, New Jersey, etc. \. 324.
8 Journal of J. Dickinson.
388 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
which lasted from the I7th to the 23rd of 7 mo. (O.S.),
much time was taken up in the careful perusal of papers
presented for publication for which the judgment of the
meeting was sought, and without whose authority their
dissemination was impossible. Pamphlet wars were then
the fashion upon every topic of public interest, and every
body rushed into print at the smallest provocation. At
this time the meeting set its approval upon Caleb Pusey's
answer to Daniel Leeds's " News of a Trumpet Sounding
in the Wilderness," a late heretical pamphlet with the
usual allegorical title, which sympathised with George
Keith. The Yearly Meeting which immediately followed
at the same place stated, in its epistle to London :
" We may in truth say through the large mercy and the wonder
ful goodness of our God, we have had very blessed and heavenly
meetings. The presence of the great God overshadowing us,
many living and powerful testimonies were delivered"
All the letters of visiting Friends at this time give
evidence of great growth in the meetings. Thomas
Chalkley, who came over just before, mentions a very
large meeting which he held under the trees at Crosswicks,
West Jersey, where the convincement took place of
Edward Andrews, who, he says, was " mightily reached,"
and who built up the Society in the neighbourhood of
Little Egg Harbour.
The Salem Friends at the end of the seventeenth
century formed a flourishing settlement, with a large and
growing meeting. Into this more southern community of
the Jerseys there arrived in the year 1700 from England,
a young girl of only eighteen, who came out to occupy
a plantation on land taken up some years previously by
her father, a London Quaker merchant, who had invested
in the scheme with his friend, William Penn. After
going so far as to send out mechanics to build him a
dwelling, he had, for reasons now unknown, altered his
mind and remained at home. His daughter, upon
hearing her father's proposal to sell his New Jersey
property, felt a drawing towards America, and that it
CH. ii MEETINGS AND SOCIAL LIFE 389
was her duty to settle there herself. This feeling was
sympathised with and shared in when, with much emotion,
she made it known in family conclave, and the result was
that John Haddon made over to his daughter Elizabeth
the lands which he had taken up. Under the care of
a widowed friend and two faithful menservants, this
Quaker daughter of wealth came to the unbroken
wilderness, followed by the blessings and prayers of her
God-fearing family. The instance is unique in Quaker
records. In the pleasant town of Haddonfield to-day,
pilgrimages are made to Haddon Hall, where, after a
most picturesque courtship, Elizabeth married John
Estaugh, and where forty years of married life were
spent. John Estaugh died on a preaching tour in
the Island of Tortola, where his brick tomb may still be
seen. Of Haddon Hall, only the old brew-house now
remains, with its latch-string still out, as when Elizabeth
there made her many simples and remedies for the sick
of the entire settlement, who all came under her care.
The present house stands where the original stood, burned
to the ground years since in a disastrous fire. But the
old yews which she planted still flourish in a green old
age in the garden which she laid out so long ago.
At the close of the century, in 1 699, Philadelphia had
an awful visitation of yellow fever, which broke out in
June, just before the time of Yearly Meeting, and in
eight weeks had carried off several hundred people. The
Friends in the Jerseys were consulted as to the propriety
of postponing the meeting, or holding it elsewhere, and
the subject engaged the attention of the meeting of
ministers and elders, which preceded the regular meeting.
Thomas Story and his companion Roger Gill were
present, and the former tells us : l " The testimony of Truth
went generally against the adjournment or suspension,
and the Lord's presence was greatly with us to the end.
Friends were generally much comforted in the divine
truth and the fear of the contagion was much taken
away." It was at this Yearly Meeting that Roger Gill
1 Life of Thomas Story.
390 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
prayed that " if the Lord would accept his life as a
sacrifice, he freely offered it up for the people." He
went immediately after to Burlington, and was taken
upon his return with the dread disease from which he
died shortly after, and the journals of the time note that
the ravages of the fever almost immediately ceased.
Although still in the midst of political disturbance —
which, however, was lessening somewhat, only to break
out on the coming of Lord Cornbury — there was a
remarkable degree of prosperity in the conduct of the
Quaker meetings. They appropriately noted in the
meeting at Burlington in 1698, in a minute which
fittingly closes the century :
" Whereas, it was the way of the world to forget God, yet the
Lord had gathered us, His people, to Himself, that we could not
forget Him ; for though we came poor and empty together, yet
the Lord in His wisdom, and goodness, and love, met us with
a full hand, to comfort and strengthen us, that we might not
faint in our minds, but be renewed in our strength."
CHAPTER III
JOHN WOOLMAN : THE NEGROES
THE Friends of Pennsylvania began to hold annual
meetings immediately after their arrival with William
Penn, but as a Yearly Meeting was already well organised
by the Friends of the Jerseys, and the two settlements of
Philadelphia and Burlington were but twenty miles apart,
it was agreed in 1684 that for the future, the meetings
should be held alternately at the two places — an arrange
ment which continued for seventy-five years. There was
an agitation in 1711 toward changing the Yearly Meeting
permanently to Philadelphia, but the time had not come,
and the minute speaks for itself:
"At our Monthly Meeting ye 7th of ye nth mo. 1711. The
minute of the Yearly Meeting was read at this meeting in Relation
to Removing of ye Yearly Meeting to Philadelphia, which this
meeting are all in general against, but would have it kept in its
common course as it hath been used & in ye same place and ye
same time both as to worship & Business & with the same
authority as formerly."
But Philadelphia was rapidly growing, and settlements
in Pennsylvania and Delaware (then the " Three Lower
Counties ") drew the centre of the Quaker population to
the south. Agitation was revived in the middle of the
century, and in 9 mo. 1 760 the Yearly Meeting removed
permanently to Philadelphia. The change from the sixth
to the ninth month was made in 1755 ; from this to the
fourth month, which is the present time, in 1798.
In 1701, John Richardson came to America, and
upon his second visit in 1731, he records his satisfaction
392 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
at the enormous growth of the meetings in the interval.
John Fothergill's three visits were made in 1706, 1721,
and 1736^^6 last continuing for three years, during a
period of great sensitiveness to spiritual teaching throughout
the country. In 1703 Samuel Bownas, although but
twenty-seven years of age, made a remarkable impression
upon the American meetings. Appearing at the time
when George Keith was preaching in the Jerseys as a
missionary clergyman of the Church of England, he
earnestly attacked the latter's attempts to lead away the
Quakers, often with marked success. Both were men of
great ability. They became pronounced rivals, and did
not hesitate to denounce each other. For a severe
snub administered to him while in Maryland, Keith con
trived to have Bownas seized and imprisoned as he crossed
the Jerseys, and for nearly a year detained upon the
accusation that he " spoke against the Church of England "
— then the established church in the Jerseys and New
York. Upon the release of Bownas, he visited nearly all
the New Jersey meetings, where he " found the Truth
growing."
In 1704 all "public meeting-houses" were ordered
recorded in the archives of New Jersey, and it is unfortunate
that the list of deceased Friends since the settlement of
Burlington sent up to the Yearly Meeting from subordinate
meetings should not now appear to exist. In this year
the meeting at Burlington issued a certificate for one
hundred and twenty-two of its members, pursuant of
the " Act of Assembly for Settling the Militia of the
Province," declaring these male members to be of " Ye
Society of ye people called Quakers," and willing to
"receive ye benefit of ye favour expressed to ye said
People " who, for conscience' sake, could not bear arms
and were, therefore, exempted from service. Rumours of
war were numerous. Some Spanish and Indian runaways
from a vessel in the Delaware roused a widespread report
that the French were at Cohacksink. Four young men, in
making their acknowledgment to the meeting at Burlington
naively gave their reasons for taking up arms in defence :
CH. m JOHN WOOLMAN: THE NEGROES 393
" That it seemed best for those that had guns to take them,
not with a design to hurt, much less to kill, man, woman,
or child ; but we thought that if we could meet these
runaways, the sight of the guns might fear them ! " No
less a person than James Logan, William Penn's secretary,
had shortly before made an acknowledgment which was
read at the Quarterly Meeting at William Biddle's house
in i mo. 1702, for going with the Sheriff and an armed
posse to the " Reed Islands of the Delaware."
All through the French and Indian wars there were
sufferings and distraints for the New Jersey Quakers who
were one with their Philadelphia Friends of the Yearly
Meeting in the action taken on the subject of war. The
results of disturbances on the frontier of Pennsylvania
came closely home to them as officials of the Yearly
Meeting, and met with sympathy upon their part The
proportion of New Jersey Quakers in the Yearly Meeting
may be gathered from the fact that in 1730 and for years
after, as many as thirty or thirty-five representatives were
annually sent from Burlington Quarterly Meeting to attend
the Yearly Meeting.
" It equally concerns men in every age," wrote John Woolman,
in speaking of the war tax of 1755, "to take heed to their own
spirit. ... It requires great self-denial and resignation of ourselves
to God to attain that state wherein we can freely cease from
fighting when wrongfully invaded, if, by fighting, there were a
probability of overcoming the invaders. Whoever rightly attains
to it does in some degree feel that spirit in which our Redeemer
gave his life for us."
In 1757 (August) orders came by night to the officers
of Burlington County, directing them to draft the militia
for the relief of the English at Fort William Henry, New
York. A general review was held, and soon after, three
times as many were called for, to be in readiness at any
moment for marching orders. A considerable number of
the young men who were Friends were thus drafted into
the army. John Woolman reflects upon the circumstance,
and sees in it " a fresh opportunity to see and consider
the advantage of living in the real substance of religion,
394 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
where practice doth harmonise with principle." Some of
the young Quakers left home and remained away until
the trouble was over. Others agreed to go as soldiers.
Still others expressed a " tender scruple " against all war,
and after holding council with John Woolman, who en
couraged them in it, informed the captain that they could
not bear arms for conscience' sake, nor could they hire
any to go in their place, being " resigned as to the event."
They finally obtained permission to return home, with the
warning to be ready when called upon to march. They
were not obliged to serve, the fort being taken and
destroyed by the French. In April 1758 John Woolman
was the reluctant host of a soldier who was quartered upon
him for lodging. He refused the payment to which he
was entitled, " having admitted him," Woolman told the
officer, " into my house upon a passive obedience to
authority. I was on horseback when he spake to me,
and as I turned from him he said he was obliged to me,
to which I said nothing ; but thinking on the expression,
I grew uneasy, and afterwards, being near where he lived,
I went and told him on what grounds I refused taking
pay for keeping the soldier."
No history of Quakerism in New Jersey can be
complete without due regard to one who is not only the
most conspicuous of his own community, but is as well the
best known American-born Quaker of colonial times.
When Charles Lamb recommended his readers to
" get the writings of John Woolman by heart, and so
learn to love the Quakers," he voiced the feelings of other
cultured and sympathetic minds whose experience of life
nevertheless differed widely from anything Quaker. Men
like Henry Crabbe Robinson and William Ellery Channing
— to name but one on each side of the ocean — submitted
to the spell which yet lingers about the pages of one of the
most pure and gentle souls that ever committed its tender
thoughts to paper. The fifty-two years which formed the life
of Woolman — he was born at Mount Holly, New Jersey,
in August 1720, and died in York, England, 7th October
1772 — were an important period in the world's history,
CH. in JOHN WOOLMAN: THE NEGROES 395
as well as that of the Quaker Church. The philosopher
may trace in Woolman the culmination of that intense
sensitiveness to the breathings of the Divine spirit which
marked the best element of Quakerism at a time when it
was seeking diligently, even if ineffectually, to perform an
impossible task — to live a life of perfect service, while
withdrawn from contact with all external influences.
Bred most simply in a social atmosphere which was,
perhaps, the most exclusively conservative of any within
the Quaker pale, the simple and unlettered youth had
opportunity in his country life and ample leisure to allow
a reflective spirit and an intelligent mind to follow their
own bent The life of Woolman, whose love of mankind
has only been equalled at rare intervals in the world's
history, produced two very important results. One of
these was due to his personal labours, the other, with less
visible immediate effect, is only to-day reaching the wider
world. The first was his successful effort in rousing an
anti-slavery sentiment and promoting the abolition move
ment ; the second, the wonderful influence exerted in the
world of letters and religion by his very remarkable
Journal and ethical essays.
The number of slaves held in the province of New
Jersey in the middle of the eighteenth century was large.
In one Quarterly Meeting alone there were eleven
hundred owned by Friends. The evil had increased
with the growth of the settlements and the need for
more servants. Early Quaker movements towards aboli
tion instituted by Fox in Barbadoes, by Edmundson in
Maryland and Virginia, by the Mennonites, or " German
Quakers," at Germantown, and by various isolated bodies
of Friends in the more enlightened subordinate meetings
of Pennsylvania and New England, had all been without
important results upon the main body of comfortable and
prosperous Friends who were slave-holders. It was not
that they were knowingly cultivating a revolting and
indefensible practice. The laws of Great Britain and of
the colonies countenanced the trade, and most people
were persuaded that to treat a slave well, and to teach
396 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
him the doctrines of Christianity, even while holding him
in bondage, was the kindest method possible with a
member of the inferior race. The Quakers would seem
to have been the first people able to see through the
mists of social prejudice, and, in the light of absolute
justice, to discern the dangers to society at large, which
lay at the root of a prevalent and corrupt social custom.
The necessity for preparing a bill of sale for a negress,
during Woolman's apprenticeship, in the year 1742, first
brought home with a shock to the young man's mind the
true meaning of the situation. From that moment to his
dying day, his life had but one object — to free the slave.
He at once set out, like a wise reformer, to discover the
true facts, and in tears and sorrow were they revealed to
him. In 1756 he made his first journey to the South.
This was followed by various other and similar journeys
and the Indians were also included in his solicitude.
The Indian conferences at Burlington and Easton were
held in the summer of 1758, at a time when Woolman
was under a special exercise on the subject of negro
bondage. His many and often successful private efforts
to ameliorate the condition of the negroes had attracted
general attention among the Friends to the subject.
London Yearly Meeting in that year in its epistle
condemned the unrighteous traffic ; and New England
Yearly Meeting placed upon its discipline the Query
against slavery :
"Are Friends clear of importing negroes, or buying them
when imported, and do they use those well, where they are
possessed by inheritance or otherwise, endeavouring to train
them up in principles of religion ? "
The culmination of all of Woolman's earlier efforts
came in the Yearly Meeting which met at Philadelphia in
1758. In that meeting for a long time John Woolman
sat, bowed in silence, unmindful of other important matters
which claimed the attention of Friends. When, finally,
the subject of slavery was introduced, and advice was
given to "wait"; that eventually a "way would be
CH. m JOHN WOOLMAN : THE NEGROES 397
opened " ; and procrastination and delay were the order
of the hour, it almost seemed to the agonized servant of
the Lord that the meeting was engaged in a justification
of slavery. He rose, and these were his solemn words : l
" My mind is led to consider the purity of the Divine Being,
and the justice of His judgments, and herein my soul is covered
with awfulness. I cannot forbear to hint of some cases where
people have not been treated with the purity of justice, and the
event has been most lamentable. Many slaves on this continent
are oppressed, and their cries have entered into the ears of
the Most High. Such are the purity and certainty of His
judgments, that he cannot be partial in our favour. In infinite
love and goodness he hath opened our understandings from one
time to another, concerning our duty towards these people,
and it is not a time for delay. Should we now be sensible of
what he requires of us, and through respect to the private
interests of some persons, or through a regard to some friend
ships which do not stand upon an immutable foundation,
neglect to do our duty in firmness and constancy, still waiting
for some extraordinary means to bring about their deliverance,
God may by terrible things in righteousness answer us in this
matter."
This appeal moved the hearts of the large assembly to
a sense of their neglected duty. Sympathetic discussion
followed, and finally the Truth triumphed over all opposi
tion, and the first committee then appointed began its
actual aggressive work. More than any other one man,
Woolman aided the English-speaking nations to throw
off the disgrace of slavery ; and although so late as 1800,
there were still 12,442 slaves held in New Jersey, of
these, thanks to the labours of John Woolman, almost
none were held by Friends. Instead, a few might be
found in each of the colonies who were received into
membership with the Society, notably the famous sea-
captain, Paul Cuffee, of Massachusetts.
John Woolman's personal influence had far-reaching
social and moral effects. The humility and self-abase
ment of the author of the journal are, however, so great,
that the reader unfamiliar with contemporary history
1 Woolman's Journal, Whittier's Edition, 1871, p. 18.
398 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
might well fail to understand the importance of the move
ments there recorded. Fear of exceeding the standard
of extreme humility which he had set for himself has
lost to us from his Journal any reference to great events
in which he was an actor. Unfortunately, no mention of
himself occurs with any adequate description of his part
in affairs. The world to-day is swamped with strenuous
literature in which the personal element is conspicuous.
Possibly, however, had this quality appeared in his works,
we might not have been able, with Henry Crabbe
Robinson, to call the Journal " a perfect gem." Its
flavour of purity and grace might be altogether absent,
had he given us more of himself. As it is, a soul
singularly full of " sweetness and light " transfers to the
printed page those exquisite moral qualities which breathe
forth like the perfume of a flower. All other passions
to which ordinary mortals are prone are in Wool man
swallowed up in the passion of love to mankind.
Woolman's ethical essays make an appeal even more
appropriate to our own day than to his own. Their
scope may be imagined from the subjects he treats :
" On Pure Wisdom and Human Policy," " On Labour,"
"On Schools," "On the Right Use of Outward Gifts,"
" On the True Harmony of Mankind," " On the Example
of Christ," " On Merchandizing," " On Divine Admonitions,"
" On Loving Our Neighbours as Ourselves," " On a
Sailor's Life," " A Word of Remembrance and Caution
to the Rich." Do not these seem timely topics for dis
cussion in a Christian spirit to-day ? " To labour," says
Woolman, " for an establishment in Divine love, where
the mind is disentangled from the power of darkness, is
the great business of man's life."
The Journal nowhere betrays any selfish solicitude for
his own well-being, either spiritually or physically, and
his close searchings of soul are only as he feels himself
to be one with all mankind. In the essays may be
clearly discerned a singular detachment of spirit from
everything sordid or worldly. He wrote as one who
" had seen in the Light of the Lord that ... he that is
CH. in JOHN WOOLMAN: THE NEGROES 399
omnipotent is rising up to judgment, and will plead the
cause of the oppressed," and he adds, " he commanded me
to open the Vision? The mystic finds expression in such
passages as these, and the following :
" I have frequently found a necessity to stand up, when the
spring of the ministry was low, and to speak from the necessity
in that which subjects the will of the creature, and herein I was
united with the suffering seed, and found inward sweetness in
these mortifying labours."
A desire had for some time been upon Woolman's
mind to visit Friends in England, and in 1772 he landed
at London, and straightway made haste to the meeting
of ministers and elders, which had then been sitting for
less than an hour. It was the 8th of June, and the only
thing he tells us of his soul-trying experience at this first
appearance among his English brethren is that " his
mind was humbly contrite." A New Jersey Friend, how
ever, was the medium through whom Whittier obtained
the actual facts, which the former had from an English
Friend who could verify them. The vessel reached
London on the fifth day of the week. Coming in hastily
and unannounced, the stranger Friend, just out of the
vessel's steerage quarters, with a correspondingly dis
hevelled toilet, which was in itself peculiar in its undyed
homespun and grey-white beaver hat, naturally created
some apprehension. Even the certificate which he
presented as a credential from Friends in America did
not suffice to quiet the alarm ; and a Friend suggested
that possibly Woolman's submission to this apprehended
service might be accepted, and the stranger now feel
at liberty to return to his home. Greatly affected by
this reception, John Woolman sat silently in tears,
awaiting further guidance. After a time he rose and
respectfully stated that he could not feel himself released
from his prospect of ministry, yet the unity of Friends
was necessary, and this being withheld, he preferred to
support himself. He stated his familiarity with his trade,
and desired employment in his own business.
The " wise simplicity " of the stranger touched Friends
400 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
greatly, and when, in the silence that followed, Woolman
again rose with a Divine message upon his lips, all hearts
were moved, and he was owned and confessed by his
brethren, and passed forth to his brief labours. Four
months later, at York, on the 7th of October 1772, John
Woolman died of smallpox. Friends everywhere paid
the highest tribute to his character and labours, his
saintly life and example. His Journal is a classic, not
alone for Quakers, but for all the world. These modern
days, with the search for Truth in the abstract, should
be even more sympathetic than his own to the teachings
of Woolman. Students of religion, of philosophy, and of
social science may alike find in him inspiration and aid.
" For since those miraculous days
When marvellous wonders were rife ;
When the blind gaz'd with joy, and the dumb sang with praise,
And the dead were restored unto life —
I know not of one whom my heart could allow
More worthy the name of Apostle than thou."
BERNARD BARTON,
on JOHN WOOLMAN.
CHAPTER IV
JOHN WOOLMAN : THE INDIANS
HISTORY shows an honourable course pursued by the
settlers in the difficult problem of how to handle the
Indian. Peaceable under friendly rule, he became a
fiend when aroused by real or fancied ill-treatment.
Strict justice demanded and received at the hands of the
Quakers full remuneration for the lands obtained from the
Indian tribes of New Jersey, and efforts were made to
Christianise these red brethren very soon after the
Quaker settlements began. William Penn at one time
held a theory that the Indians belonged to the Ten Lost
Tribes of Israel. Samuel Smith, the historian, thought
the idea a delightful solution of a difficult problem ; and
Elias Boudinot's Star of the West elaborates it further.
However that may be, the Indian in the seventeenth
century was a very present menace to safety, and the
Quakers adopted the wise course.
The tribe of the Delaware or Lenni-Lenape Indians
who were scattered throughout the Jerseys, although at
no time very numerous, were frequently called into council
by the Quakers. Confused by the dissensions among
other Christian bodies and unable to comprehend an
altruistic faith, the Indians had yet a crude system of
justice among themselves, and it is quite possible that the
absence of complicated machinery, combined with the
evident spirit of justice conspicuous among the Quakers,
obtained for the latter a better hold on the savage nature
than was the case with other religious denominations. In
any case, the control was not very permanent, and the
401 2 D
402 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
missionary efforts of the Quakers were only a degree less
unorganised than had been those of the Dutch and
Swedes before them. The quarter-century from the
Dutch cession to the English until the surrender of the
government of the united provinces to the Crown in 1702,
covers the period when the intercourse between the whites
and red men was most marked. This was chiefly for
purposes of trade. New Jersey enjoyed greater freedom
from Indian disturbances and outbreaks of war than other
colonies. In the purchase of lands, all titles had to be
cleared of Indian ownership in both the Jerseys. Thus
the Indian claims had been nearly or quite extinguished
by the period of the Revolution. At no time was the
Indian on a political equality with the white man,
although West Jersey Quaker equity permitted a mixed
jury of Indians and English when the interests of the
former were involved. The Indian, despite certain
benevolent enactments of the Legislature, remained in a
position of servitude, cut off from any industrial privileges
or rights. Severe penalties were laid upon any persons
outside of the province of East Jersey who traded with an
Indian ; l while in West Jersey, a policy of indifference
left the helpless savage largely to himself. The Quakers,
however, continued throughout the colonial period to hold
meetings for the Indians, and set aside certain portions of
their meeting-houses for Indians and negroes, both of
whom were held as slaves. The wilder nature of the
American Indian, however, prevented satisfactory domestic
service. The interesting Indian conference at Burlington
in the late summer of 1758 was followed shortly after by
a very large and important Indian conference of the Six
Nations at Easton, Pennsylvania, on the upper Delaware.
The Governors of both the provinces, together with the well-
known Indian interpreter, Conrad Wieser, and others were
present. At this time deeds were obtained by which the
Indians, for the sum of one thousand pounds, surrendered all
claims on lands in New Jersey with the exception of a small
reservation. This — a matter both of charity and pro-
1 F. B. Lee, New Jersey as Colony and State, i. 69.
CH. iv JOHN WOOLMAN: THE INDIANS 403
tection, the first Indian reservation ever established in
the United States — was located at " Edgepelick " or
Brotherton (now Indian Mills), among the pine barrens
of Burlington County. Here the Indians of New Jersey
were settled on three thousand acres which maintained
them and their descendants until 1802, when they were
transported, first to New York State, then to Green Bay,
Wisconsin, and finally, in 1832, to Indian Territory. At
this time the New Jersey legislature, for the sum of two
thousand dollars, purchased the remnant of land, and
thus, with a measure of justice, obtained clear title to the
entire province.
Just before this reservation was established, Samuel
Smith, for years Treasurer of the province and a leading
Quaker, had drawn up a Constitution (1757) for the
" New Jersey Association for Helping the Indians " — an
organisation exclusively Quaker. It aided the Brotherton
Indians substantially, and did effective service in a field
in which Quaker philanthropy has always been pro
minent A good example of the cordial relations between
English and Indian in a Quaker community is described
in the account of the death of King Ockanickon, at
Burlington in I68I.1 The old chief, on his death-bed,
sent for his nephew, lahkursoe, and addressing him as
" Brother's Son," told him of his selection as King in
succession. " This day," said the dying man, " I deliver
my heart into your bosom. I would have you love what
is good, and keep good company. Be plain and fair with
all, Indians and Christians." Thomas Budd, one of the
proprietors, was present, and listened to the exhortation
of the old man with emotion. After he had continued
for some time until too exhausted to speak further,
Thomas Budd took the opportunity to remark that there
was a great God, who created all things ; that He gave
man understanding of what was good and bad, and after
this life rewarded the good with blessings, and the bad
according to their doings. Ockanickon replied, " It is
very true, it is so. There are two ways, a broad and a
1 Smith, History of New Jcricy, pp. 148-150.
404 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
straight way ; there are two paths, a broad and a straight
path. The worst and the greatest go in the broad, the
best and fewest in the straight path." The old chief died
shortly after, and was attended to his grave in the Friends'
graveyard in Burlington with great solemnity by a large
gathering of silent Indians, and by the English settlers to
whom he had always been a true friend.
A long journey to the Susquehanna to visit the Indians
at Wehaloosing was undertaken by John Woolman with
one companion in 1763. To go was to take his life in
his hands. He set out in May of that year, and the
quaint narrative gives us glimpses of the dangers by
the way. From the outset Woolman underwent much
spiritual travail. He even disregarded the friendly warn
ing of a deputation of Philadelphia Friends who arrived
at Mount Holly late on the night before the journey.
An express rider had reached Philadelphia, with word of
an uprising at Pittsburg, where the Indians were on the
warpath, and had slain some of the English. Certain
elderly Friends in Philadelphia thought it right to give
Woolman a word of warning, and sent. an able-bodied
deputation post-haste. Every one in the town was abed
and asleep when they arrived, and Woolman had already
taken leave of his neighbours. They rode to the tavern,
and despatched a messenger to call Woolman from his
bed. He appeared at once, received the message, and
returned to bed without telling his wife until next
morning, when, he writes, she was greatly distressed at
the news, and they had " an humbling time." Never
theless, so great was his assurance of protection, that he
departed in the fear of the Lord. Israel and John
Pemberton set him on his way to his friend Samuel
Foulke's in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he joined
four Indians — a man and three women — who were return
ing to the Wyoming Valley, after a business trip East,
and who had agreed to act as guides.
At this point, Woolman met another test. He writes :
" Here my friend Benjamin Parvin met me, and proposed
joining me as a companion — we had before exchanged some
CH.IV JOHN WOOLMAN: THE INDIANS 405
letters on the subject, — and now I had a sharp trial on his
account. As the journey appeared perilous, I thought if he
went chiefly to bear me company, and we should be taken
captive, my having been the means of drawing him into these
difficulties would add to my own afflictions. So I told him my
mind freely, and let him know I was resigned to go alone. But
after all, if he really believed it his duty to go on, I believed his
company would be very comfortable to me. It was indeed a time
of deep exercise, and Benjamin appeared to be so fastened to the
visit that he could not be easy to leave me. So we went on."
They soon struck into the wilderness, and their camp
the first night was pitched upon the banks of the Lehigh,
in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Walking about at sunset,
Woolman reflected upon the horrors of war, whether
among these children of the woods or civilised nations.
Upon the sides of the great forest trees, peeled for the
purpose, were drawn in red and black paint rude repre
sentations of Indians on the warpath, going and returning
from battle, with others suffering horrid deaths. They
were on a familiar Indian trail, often used by the savage
warriors, and as Woolman studied these fierce Indian
histories, his soul was moved to reflect on the afflictions
which " a fierce, proud spirit produceth in the world." He
meditated on their fatigues in hard mountain travel ; on
their misery and distress when wounded far from home ;
on their unnecessary bruises and weariness in thus chasing
one another over rock and stream ; on the restless,
unquiet mind of all those who live in the spirit of war
and hatred ; and on the inheritance transmitted to their
children, — and he yearned to tell the whole human race
the message of peace and love which he so fully believed
was his. The next rainy day, as he sat in his tent, he
was led to reflect upon the nature of the exercises which
attended him.
" Love was the first motion, and thence arose a concern to
spend some time with the Indians, that I might feel and under
stand their life and the spirit they live in, if haply I might
receive some instruction from them, or they might be in any
degree helped forward by my following the leadings of Truth
among them."
406 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
The dangers of the way increased. One Indian with
whom Woolman talked, produced a tomahawk which he
had kept concealed under his coat. He made no use of it,
however, and sat down to a friendly pipe, when conversation
became general. The hatchet, Woolman said, had a very
" disagreeable appearance," but it was only intended for
readiness in case of attack. On June 17 they reached
their destination, and as the afternoon shadows stretched
over the mountains, the first person whom they saw was a
modest old Indian woman, with a Bible in her hand, who
addressed the guide, and then the strangers, telling them
she had heard of their coming. This rejoiced their hearts,
and they sat on a log while the conch-shell was blown to
call the people together. Going into a house near the
town, they found some sixty persons awaiting them in
silence. Woolman addressed them, and a few interpreted
for others, and he greeted them from their white brethren,
nafvely showing these dark savages his certificate from
the Monthly Meeting, which he endeavoured to explain.
The difficulties of the Delaware tongue increased his
labours, and as the days went on, and the spirit of good
will was evident, he frequently dispensed altogether with
an interpreter. Once, feeling his mind covered with the
spirit of prayer, he assured the interpreters that if he
prayed aright, God would hear him without their aid,
and the " meeting ended with a degree of divine love."
An old Indian named Papunehang — a " tender man,"
says Woolman — appreciated the spirit and atmosphere of
the meeting, even if he did not comprehend the words,
telling the interpreter afterwards, " I love to feel where
words come from."
The little town of forty houses, the largest thirty feet
long and eighteen feet wide, standing compactly together
for protection, received the care and solicitude of John
Woolman for the remainder of his stay. On the 2Oth of
June he felt at liberty to return home, which he reached
by the end of the month. Thankfulness at having
accomplished his task and finding his family well caused
him to check his joy, lest the feeling might seem selfish
CH.IV JOHN WOOLMAN: THE INDIANS 407
in being " glad overmuch " ! A minute stands on the
books of his meeting :
" ist of 8 mo. 1763. Our friend John Woolman being re
turned from his visit to some religiously disposed Indians up
Susquehannah, informed the last meeting that he was treated
kindly, and had satisfaction in his visit."
Burlington, headquarters of Quakerism in New Jersey,
was but five years old when the Assembly of 1682 passed
an act "to encourage learning for the better education of
youth."
This act set aside a valuable tract of land in the
Delaware opposite Burlington known as Matiniconk
Island, to "remain to and for the use of the town of
Burlington ... for the maintaining of a school for the
education of youth."
The revenues from a part of this land, cared for by a
committee known as the " Island Managers," are still
devoted to the original purpose. This is probably the
oldest trust fund of an educational character now existing
in the United States.
Thomas Budd, one of the most prominent Quakers of
the time, and author of an interesting pamphlet, Good
Order Established in Pennsylvania and West New
Jersey, in a comprehensive plan of education which was
largely adopted, urged compulsory education at the
" publick Schools " for a period of seven years. " Schools
should be set up in all towns and cities with persons of
known honesty, skill, and understanding, chosen by the
Governor and Assembly, to teach in them." He would
have the children taught "true English and Latin . . .
and fair writing, arithmetic, and book-keeping."
The first mention in the meeting minutes of a school
for Friends occurs in a minute of the Monthly Meeting
of Burlington for " 7th of I ith mo. 1705."
"It is the request of some Friends of Burlington to this
meeting that they may have the privilege of allowing a school to
be kept in this meeting-house in • Burlington, which request is
answered by this meeting."
408 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
Schools were speedily set up in the country neighbour
hoods of the adjoining Quaker counties, being often held
in the meeting-houses, and while no high degree of learning
was reached, a fair average for the day was maintained,
with the exception of certain isolated settlements, where
both educational and religious interests suffered greatly.
That a high standard of intellectual attainment was reached
by the more cultivated Quakers may at once be perceived
when we recall the evidences of wide reading and liberal
views shown in the correspondence and literary work of the
leading Quakers of the early eighteenth century. Closely
in touch with the activities of the Society in religious
matters, they maintained with England a lively corre
spondence, both with the leading Friends and some of the
literary men of the day in London. Among these were
the Morrises, Smiths, Kinseys, Coxes, and Dillwyns, of
Burlington, which always maintained its position as the
chief town and centre of culture in the Jerseys. The
Yearly Meeting had been transferred to Philadelphia
when the Quaker revival of learning came at the end
of the eighteenth century. The War of the Revolution
startled the Friends into an appreciation of their pre
carious position. Shutting themselves up within their
defensive walls of discipline in the effort to strengthen
themselves, they disowned all offenders against the
sentiment of conservatism urged by the newly created
" Meeting for Sufferings," and began to teach a " guarded
education."
In 1720 we find the meetings in correspondence with
all the meetings at home and abroad, and still growing in
numbers, although more slowly. Some of the Friends
of the second generation had begun that movement to
the lands in the West which later became so great ; and
when, in 174.2, Edmund Peckover attended Burlington
Yearly Meeting, he noted that while not many who had
started West had been of " much note," when arrived
there they developed greatly in a spiritual sense, as they
were thrown more upon their own resources, and promised
to build up good and lively meetings. The list is a long
CH.IV JOHN WOOLMAN: THE INDIANS 409
one of those who came to refresh their American brethren
from the old home, but there were already growing up
within the circle of the meetings certain ultra-conservative
tendencies which were detrimental to the best spiritual
growth.
The following very interesting remarks stand appended
to a minute of the Meeting of Ministers and Elders, of
which John Woolman was Clerk, for Burlington and
Chesterfield Monthly Meetings, under date five years
before his death. In the absence of statistics for that
period, the list he gives is valuable, and is our only record
of these officers of the meeting. The writer's comment
was not intended for public perusal, but was a simple
expression of his feelings on making the list.
LIST OF MINISTERS AND ELDERS OF BURLINGTON QUARTERLY
MEETING, DATED 2 MO. 22nd, 1767.
1. John Sykes
2. Joannah Sykes
3. Josiah Foster
4. John Butkher
5. Mary Bunting
6. Samuel Sattertwaite
7. Thomas Buzby
8. William Morris
9. Daniel Smith
10. Joseph Burr
11. Jane Burr
12. Jacob Andrews
13. Josiah White
14. Daniel Doughty
1 5. Edith Doughty
1 6. Joseph Noble
17. Edward Cathrel
1 8. Rachel Cathrel
19. Elizabeth Woolman
20. Elizabeth Bordon
21. Katherine Kalender
22. Ebenezer Mot
23. William Lowrie
24. Benjamin Field
25. Edward Whitcraft
26. Anthony Benezet
27. Joyce Benezet
28. Sarah Newbold
29. Hannah Bickerdike
30. Elizabeth Shinn
31. John Smith
32. Peter Worral
33. Susannah Worral
34. Benjamin Jones
35. Elizabeth Jones
36. Thomas Middleton
37. Patience Middleton
38. Elizabeth Smith
39. Mary Brown
40. Jane Smith
41. Sarah English
42. Amos Middleton
43. Samuel Worth
44. Joseph Horner
45. Samuel Gaunt
46. Meribeth Fowler
47. Anthony Sykes
48. Peter Harvey
49. Mary Harvey
50. Mary Buzby
51. John Sleeper
52. Caleb Carr
53. Katherine Wetheril
54. Asher Woolman
55. Esther Atkinson
56. Elizabeth Hatkinson
57. Sarah Woolman
58. Abner Woolman
59. John Woolman
60. William Jones
"The 22, 2 mo. 1767 this list was entered in This Book and
the persons above named are, I believe, now living. As, looking
over the minutes made by persons who have put off this Body,
hath sometimes revived in me a thought how ages pass away ; so
this list may possibly revive a like thought in some when I and
the rest of the persons above named are entered in another state
of Being. The Lord who was the guide of my Youth hath in
Tender mercies helped me hitherto. He hath healed me of
410 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. iv
wounds ! He hath helped me out of grievous entanglements !
He remains to be the strength of my life, to whom I desire to
devote myself in Time and Eternity. JOHN WOOLMAN."
The period when John Woolman was most engaged
in the ministry is a striking one in the history of the
Church. Social and religious conditions on both sides of
the Atlantic were undergoing great changes. As a rule,
the Quakers, although perhaps unconsciously, felt the
influences pervading all classes of society ; and the fresh
breath of what has since been known as the " Great
Awakening" swept even into the quiet atmosphere of the
Quaker meeting. One of the great leaders among the
English Friends was Samuel Fothergill, who followed a
few years later directly in the footsteps of Whitefield.
The latter, in 1739, passed like a ghostly whirlwind over
the Jerseys, holding meetings in the open air, and on the
steps of the Court House in Burlington. Not once, but
many times, did the strange preacher vehemently exhort
his hearers to a holier life, and many were his converts.
His ministrations could not have been without a certain
influence upon the Society of Friends, and indeed, through
his indefatigable efforts, there were many converts to
Methodism, albeit Whitefield was no longer a follower
of Wesley.
John Woolman was a youth of eighteen at the time of
Whitefield's first visit, and the religious excitement in the
very air must have told upon him. Be that as it may, he
very soon became the most striking figure among the
Quakers of New Jersey, or, indeed, of America. Just at
the time when, with his highly ethical and spiritual views
of the conduct of life, he was seeking to arouse Friends
from the religious indifference into which over-attention
to the letter of the law had led them, Samuel Fothergill
arrived from England. He was the son of that John
Fothergill who had made three visits to America, the last
extending from 1736 to 1739. His preaching was
forceful, and it is worthy of note that at this period near
the middle of the century, Whitefield, Woolman, and the
Fothergills, father and son, were all labouring in their
CH.IV JOHN WOOLMAN: THE INDIANS 411
respective fields with great effect. Whitefield and Wool man
died within three years of each other.
Samuel Fothergill landed in 1754. He was a man of
remarkable influence and ability, with a gift for organisation
and a breadth of view singularly calculated to advise
wisely in the perplexed time when he visited the colonies.
Remarkable results followed his two years in America.
The Indian frontier wars were at their height, and he
encouraged Friends to withdraw from activity in the
legislative bodies of the provinces, rather than compromise
their distinguishing testimonies. To him the Society owes
much of the movement which revived and enforced the
discipline in London in 1760, with an immediate effect
upon all the American meetings.
The mutterings of the Revolutionary War were now
beginning to be heard. English Friends continued to
visit America, often in the endeavour to strengthen the
hands of the brethren, although few of them, except Dr.
Fothergill, brother of Samuel, and one or two others who
gave careful study to the situation and kept in corre
spondence with the colonial Quakers, could understand
the very difficult position in which the latter found
themselves. Among the last to come over was Elizabeth
Robinson, from Yorkshire, who, in a visit to the family
in Philadelphia where young Thomas Scattergood of
Burlington was serving his apprenticeship, was the means
of awakening him to a sense of his spiritual needs, and he
became a well-known minister. Between 1775 and 1785
no English Friend crossed the Atlantic for service as a
preacher, the difficulties being too great. The meeting at
Burlington in 1775 notes the reading of the caution
issued by the Meeting for Sufferings, advising " close
adherence to the principles of Quakerism in these times
of commotion." The Quarterly Meeting minutes for
ii mo. 24, 1777, state that twenty-six Representatives
from the preceding Quarterly Meeting of Ministers and
Elders had been prevented from attending Yearly Meeting
because " hindered from crossing the River (Delaware) by
military men stopping the boats on this side, on account
412 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. rv
of the British Troops being in possession of the city of
Philadelphia." Germantown also was occupied by General
Howe, who had taken possession of the town in September.
The Friends at Trenton, New Jersey, were obliged to meet
in private houses, their meeting-house being occupied by
soldiers ; and when, one day, the Burlington Friends came
in to the town to Monthly Meeting, they discovered that the
militia had occupied the house for quarters during the night.
The Friends suffered much throughout the war, certain
neighbourhoods in New Jersey feeling particularly the
sorrows of the time. Both armies moved through New
Jersey, General Howe's army causing much damage in
the " Quaker " counties of the state. Distraints on the
part of the Americans were heavy, one Friend with a wife
and child near Mount Holly being obliged to flee, when
their home was plundered ; another with eleven children
was stripped of all his property by both contending armies.
Through the Meeting for Sufferings, English Friends
contributed generously to the aid of their persecuted
brethren, one of the Friends referred to receiving fifty and
the other seventy-five pounds in this way.
Private journals and correspondence of the time show
how the subject of national independence was moving
Friends in New Jersey. Their position was trying, and
speedily became most grave. Many young men yielded
to the impulse, which also drew away some of the
older ones, to enlist in the cause of the Americans
Sympathising epistles came from London, and during the
struggle which followed, despite trials consequent upon a
position of neutrality among people alive with the spirit
of warfare, they steadily maintained their principles and
profession, although at the expense, in many cases, of the
confiscation of goods and property. To all inquirers they
replied, as one meeting stated in a special minute :
"We, the people called Quakers, ever since we were dis
tinguished as a Society, have declared to the world our belief
in the peaceable tendency of the Gospel of Christ, and that
consistent therewith we could not bear arms, nor be concerned
in warlike preparations."
CH. iv JOHN WOOLMAN: THE INDIANS 413
When the hostilities were over, came sufferings in the
effort of readjustment, — the price paid for neutrality.
Prosperity in material things smiled at last upon the
Friends ; but never again were they to see and experience
the power and freshness so marked in the earlier days.
They had received with almost the last breath of George
Fox his thought and blessing in one of his dying ex
pressions — the charge to his companions, " Mind poor
Friends in America."
BOOK V
THE QUAKERS IN PENNSYLVANIA
BY ISAAC SHARPLESS
-MS
CHAPTER I
THE SETTLEMENT
THE persecution of the Friends in England had varying
results, depending on the character and circumstances of
the victims. To the man of nerve and conscience it
taught a more close and fearless adherence to his station
and its duties. When the Conventicle Act of 1664 was
passed, an Act intended to break up all forms of worship
except those of the established church, George Fox wrote
to his followers :
" Now is the time for you to stand, you that have been public
men (ministers) and formerly did travel abroad ; mind and keep
up your testimony, go into your meeting-houses as at other
times."
He himself went to London " where the storm was
about to begin." When he heard that there were stocks
prepared for him at Evesham he went there and had " a
glorious meeting." Such was usually the conduct of the
leaders. They never flinched or fled — almost at times
they seemed to court persecution, and enjoy it. William
Dewsbury said : " I never played the coward but as
joyfully entered prisons as palaces, and in the prison-house,
I sang praises to my God and esteemed the bolts and
locks upon me as jewels." They fought it out on this
line and in the end conquered, but many times the issue
seemed doubtful, the conflict interminable, and the reward
hardly worth the suffering. To many it seemed that they
could do more good by attempting to establish a godly
commonwealth in America than by undertaking the
417 2 E
4i8 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES UK. v
seemingly impossible task of reforming the intolerant
institutions of England. So when William Penn opened
the way, many thousands were immediately ready to take
advantage of the offer.
It was not, however, a new idea with Penn in 1681.
Twenty years before, George Fox had commissioned
Josiah Coale to seek such a home in the new world, and
during the intervening time many longing eyes had turned
in that direction. William Penn tells us :
"This I can say that I had an opening of joy as to these
parts [the American Colonies] in the year 1661 at Oxford twenty
years since."
This was when he was a student of seventeen. Whether
he referred to this as a dream of youth to found an ideal
state, a reflection from his studies or the temper of his
associates, or, as the word " opening " was commonly used
by the Friends of the time, a divine revelation, we shall
not know. But when the opportunity came in the Jerseys
to make this dream something of a reality, he quickly
embraced it, and wove into the fabric of the government
there his advanced ideas of civil and religious liberty and
equality.
There was, however, not a clear field. The real Quaker
preserve had not been found. At the best it would
be a mixed experiment, but it gave him a foretaste and
a clear conception of better things which might follow.
The opportunity came in 1681. No other than
William Penn could have embraced it. Two considera
tions came to his aid. One was his great influence
at court, an influence gained in spite of his religious
peculiarities, and his open opposition to the libertinism of
the Stuarts, gained as the result of his father's high station
and services, his own most gracious but not obsequious
manners, the quickness of his intelligence, and the respect
felt for his ability and character. The Duke of York,
afterwards James II. was his own and his father's friend,
and a long list of titled associates loyally aided his
plans.
CH.I THE SETTLEMENT 419
The other consideration was a claim he had upon the
crown for ;£ 16,000 due his father's estate for a loan
and interest This he proposed to relinquish in return
for a lordly province in America, and Pennsylvania came
into his hands. To this the Duke of York added what
is now Delaware. The boy's dream was to be realised
and the Quaker hopes brought to fruition.
The royal ignorance of geography made trouble in
years to come. The King meant to give Penn three
degrees of latitude and five of longitude, but the former
was impossible between Maryland and New York, and
the southern boundary was a source of contest with Lord
Baltimore for many years, and kept Penn in England
when he wanted to be among his settlers.
He sent over his cousin William Markham to receive
the fealty of the few settlers along the western bank of
the Delaware — Swedes and Dutch and a few Quakers who
had straggled over from New Jersey and settled opposite
Burlington, at Tacony and on the Schuylkill, and at
Upland (now Chester).1 Markham was also to arrange
for the purchase of land from the Indians, to select the
site of Philadelphia, and to lay out the town.
William Penn was Governor of the new state, and had
1 Dankers and Sluyter, two Dutchmen, travelled through these Delaware
Settlements in 1679-80. With no friendly hand they depict the character of these
first Quakers along the Delaware. On igth November 1679, at Burlington, " We
went into the meeting of the Quakers who went to work very unceremoniously
and loosely. What they uttered was mostly in one tone and the same thing, and
so it continued until we were tired out and went away. " They describe them as
" most worldly of men," as an evidence of which they found a copy of Virgil
on the table of one, and also a book of van Helmont's. " Most of them are
miserably self-minded in physical and religious knowledge."
When they got down to Tinicum, an island in the Delaware River below
Philadelphia, ' ' In the evening there arrived three Quakers, of whom one was their
great prophetess, who travels through the whole country in order to quake. She
lives in Maryland and forsakes husband and children, plantation and all, and goes
off for this purpose. She had been to Boston and had been arrested by the authori
ties on account of her quakery, . . . They sat by the fire and drank a dram of
rum with each other and in a short time after began to shake and groan so that
we did not know what had happened and supposed they were going to preach
but nothing came of it."
They found at Upland two widows who were at variance and whom the
"prophetess" was trying to reconcile. "One of these widows named Anna
Salters lived at Tokany and was one of those who, when a certain person gave
himself out as the Lord Jesus and allowed himself to be carried around on an ass,
shouted Hosanna as he rode over her garments, for which conduct he was arrested,
his tongue bored through with a hot iron and his forehead branded with a B for
420 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
power to form its constitution and laws subject to the
consent of the settlers. He was also owner of the land,
and could sell it to whom and on what terms he chose.
But he made it cheap, as there was plenty of it, and he
must have settlers.
He himself landed at New Castle, Delaware, on the
27th of October 1682 in the Welcome. There had been
a wearisome voyage of nine weeks, and of the hundred who
sailed thirty died of small-pox on the ocean. By easy
stages he went to Upland (which he now called Chester),
to the hospitable home of Robert Wade, and then to
Philadelphia, where he landed at the foot of Dock-Creek.
Tradition says that the Indians met him there, and that
he gained their confidence by joining them in their feast
of roasted acorns and excelling them in jumping. He
called together the assembly at Chester, which in a three
days' session adopted a constitution and a body of
laws.
Friends came rapidly into the province. It need not
be assumed that it was release from penalties alone
which brought these godly people to Pennsylvania. Before
Penn left England he had published Some Account of
the Province of Pennsylvania. It was an advertisement
for settlers, an analysis of the social and political condi
tions of England, and how these conditions would be
bettered for the colonists by emigration. He told of the
noble river which fronted the province, the many square
miles of good land, the great forests, the wild animals,
the furs, the possible productions of the country, in
tempting terms.
Then he explained how the government would be free
and democratic, without religious or political disabilities.
He further urged that there would be place there for
blasphemer. She was not only one of these but she anointed his head and feet
and wiped them with her hair." This refers to the Bristol [England] episode of
James Nayler a score of years before.
Our travellers speak highly of Robert Wade and his wife, the pioneer Friends
of Pennsylvania who had come from Salem to Upland in 1675. They were
" the best Quakers we have seen " and " could not endure " Anna Sailers.
These early days of venture and suffering brought out the crudity as well as
the heroism of some of the Friends.
CH.I THE SETTLEMENT 421
mechanics and tradesmen of all sorts, younger brothers
without means, and " men of universal spirits " who wanted
to work out the problems of good government.
Many of all sorts came — solid Friends who had
endured the horrors of English prisons with a kindly
spirit to all the world, men of education and means
seeking larger estates, renters who wished to be land
owners, millers, handicraftsmen of many kinds, adventurers
for gain, some fairly good and some criminal. But at
first the better elements were in large preponderance and
in absolute control. They entered into the spirit of the
enterprise, did their best to support the institutions which
their governor and proprietor placed before them, and
were melted together in their simple but solemn religious
meetings.
For the most of them it was a happy exchange from
the social and political rigours of England. Here was a
country at their hands, to be owned for a trifling yearly
rental, a government in which they were partners, no
disabilities to trouble them, no classes to shame them.
Some of them had their heads turned by the sudden
access of power, and they became, as William Penn
expressed it, " too governmentish," too democratic, too
inclined to find little grievances, too in appreciative of
what they had gained.
The work began promptly :
" At a monthly meeting of the 8th of gth month (November)
1682; at this time Governor William Penn arrived here and
erected a city called Philadelphia, about half a mile from
Shackamaxon where . . . meetings were established." l
At the same time farmers were pressing into the
country from Chester, Philadelphia and Bristol, taking up
the plots they had purchased in England from rough
maps. The work of surveying went on rapidly, but there
must have been much neighbourly consideration to allow
all to locate so peacefully.
Only two boat loads of immigrants came to Pennsyl-
1 Watson, Annals of Philadelphia, \. 140.
422 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
vania in 1681 — one from London and one from Bristol.
But in 1682 the stream fairly began. Many reached the
country before Penn. Twenty-three vessels sailed up the
Delaware during the year, and these probably brought
2000 passengers. We hear nothing of any men of
prominence in these early days except Friends. The
first legislature was made up of Friends and of Swedes
and Dutch who were already in the country.
The Pennsylvania Friends represented nearly all
parts of the British Isles. Many came from Yorkshire
and the midland counties of England. London and
Bristol and their neighbourhoods sent their contingents,
and Wales a small army. Later many came from the
north of Ireland, converted from Presbyterianism by
William Edmundson and his friends. The eastern
counties, where Puritanism was the strongest, contained
fewer Friends. Their restless spirits had gone to New
England. Penn's acquaintance along the Rhine brought
in the Mennonites and kindred sects, and the province
in these early days grew rapidly, and with harmonious
elements. But we must study something of the character
of the great leader before we can understand the state
that he founded and the religious body for whom and
with whom he worked.
CHAPTER II
WILLIAM PENN IN PENNSYLVANIA
WITH William Penn as a founder of a state, this history
has to do only indirectly. There is little doubt that the
democratic character of the ideas which he at the first
advocated so enthusiastically produced its effect upon the
development of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. After the
partisan struggles of the first thirty years of colonial
history, when he was assailed with harsh and bitter
criticism, had passed away, a more just appreciation of
his services gradually found place. This grew, after his
death, into a profound and loyal respect. Friends vied
with each other in quoting his religious and political
tenets, as authorities which they held in ever increasing
veneration.
He wrote easily and he wrote voluminously. He
pondered deeply upon many phases of theological and
governmental theory, and presented his thoughts in
printed form. He wrote too easily and under too varied
impulses, and, like such writers, it is often hard to
reconcile his statements with each other. The general
trend both of his theological and political views is, how
ever, so evident and so abundantly and happily expressed
that they became in time the basis of the government of
Pennsylvania and the expressions of the doctrine and
policy of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. They were
followed too literally and had the odour of too great
sanctity. For what with him were only means and
expedients, became, under his less broad-minded followers,
ends and fixed principles.
423
424 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
To appreciate subsequent history, a critical estimate
of this remarkable man, whose qualities shine more
highly with each succeeding investigation, becomes a
necessity. His biographers have copied from each other,
and perhaps too carelessly accepted tradition as to
particular events which have not stood the test ot closer
examination ; but enough of well authenticated facts,
letters of himself and of judicious friends, epistles on
religion and government, and the undisputed actions of
his public and private career, exist from which to frame
an estimate of his strength and weakness.
Hepworth Dixon and others seem to have effectually
answered Macaulay's charges to his discredit. It is
unfortunate, however, that they are embalmed in that
historian's brilliant style and perennially interesting
volumes. Where a score read the attack but one knows
of the defence, and so the misstatements will for ever be
renewed and believed.
There are, however, certain weaknesses of Penn's
character, not seriously discreditable to him, but which
detract something from the universal praise often accorded
him. He was a poor judge of character. His Deputy-
Governors were often most unfortunate selections. Black-
well, an old Cromwellian soldier, honest and moral, had
no appreciation of the Quaker character with which and
over which he was to govern. He was, as he admitted,
" unequally yoked " and " unfeignedly gave thanks to
God " when he was recalled. Evans, a young libertine,
swollen with a puerile self-conceit, offended in every way
his best friends and made endless troubles for Penn.
Gookin, severe and unyielding, with a stubbornness
lapsing into insanity, was an unquestioned misfit. The
better judgment of Penn's widow saved the day for the
family after this succession of failures.
It is true the problem was a hard one. A Friend
would not perform the duties which involved certain
military declarations and offices ; these they were quite
willing that others should undertake, but against them
their own consciences rebelled. The Deputy-Governor must,
CH.II WILLIAM PENN IN PENNSYLVANIA 425
therefore, not be a Friend. He must, however, be accept
able to them, appreciating their spirit and respecting their
scruples, for by virtue both of numbers and character
they controlled the situation. They were to be his
partners, not his subordinates, and with the extravagant
idea of their rights and privileges which some of them had,
they were no easy partners to work with. The ideal
Governor must not only be self-respecting, but tactful ;
not only a strict moralist, but tolerant of differing
standards ; not only faithful to Penn's interests, but
appreciative of the people's liberties. Not one of Penn's
choices, with the possible exception of Thomas Lloyd,
possessed all these qualities, and bitterly the proprietor
paid the price of his poor judgment in thirty years of
governmental confusion and financial loss.
The account of Penn's relations to his knavish steward
is not pleasant reading for his friends. Ford was a
Friend and a business man of ability. Penn placed all
his affairs in Ford's hands and dismissed his care of them.
Full of great schemes of philanthropy, his influence
eagerly sought for suffering Friends and suitors of all
kinds, this is not a matter of wonder. But when the
fraudulent nature of his doings was known to Penn, or
might easily have been known, he still allowed matters to
proceed, heaping up claim upon claim till the province
became mortgaged and his friends had infinite difficulty
in untangling the complicated fraud. At first it was
misplaced confidence, which any busy man might have
fallen into. Then lest the plight which had happened to
him should injure the Holy Experiment, he allowed it to
proceed and kept it quiet, thus piling up untold suffering
and trouble and a term in the debtor's prison for himself,
and much vexation and expense for his friends, which an
earlier, vigorous exposure might have avoided. There
was nothing dishonest or illiberal in his course, only a
suggestion of a lack of downright positiveness in
extricating himself honourably from an unfortunate
position.
The question of military resistance was the great
426 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
difficulty in a Quaker state, which finally wrought the
downfall of the body which opposed it. Prior to the
downfall, the Friends had, in many cases, held their
places by pursuing what seems like a doubtful course,
going further than strict consistency would approve.
Penn himself was not quite clear of some equivocation
in the matter. As we have seen, he appointed non-
Quaker deputies to perform acts which he and no other
Friend would consider consistent with their profession ;
to " be stiff with our neighbours upon occasion " as he
once said.
This may be defensible, for liberty of the individual
conscience was their great claim. But when Penn
recovered his right to govern his province in 1693, it was
the result of a promise that he would faithfully transmit
to the Assembly all kingly commands for military aid,
which " he doubted not " that body would honour. It did
not honour the first communication he made in compliance
with this implied contract, and Penn must have known
that it would not and that he would not urge it to.
Fortunately the trouble was only ephemeral, and no
one called for a literal enforcement of the condition, but
this hardly acquits Penn of something like hedging in his
dealings with the Crown, a stroke of diplomacy very
venial in that day, but not quite consistent with an open
and perfectly transparent character.
These, then, seem to be the weak spots in Penn's
record, an inability to judge men and a certain timidity
in dealing with difficult situations, when his larger plans
would be thereby endangered. More than this can
hardly be fairly charged against him. These were the
causes of the most of his troubles. Good deputies and
bold strokes to rid himself of the webs of chicanery his
personal and political enemies had woven around him
would have kept the temper of the colonists sweet and
loyal and his own actions free to carry out his plans.
When he went to jail for a matter of conscience, every
one of his friends must have felt a thrill of pride as he
declared : " My prison shall be my grave before I will
CH. ii WILLIAM PENN IN PENNSYLVANIA 427
budge a jot, for I owe obedience of the conscience to no
mortal man." But when he sent out his frantic appeals
to Logan to gather in his dues, and allowed his friends to
raise a subscription to pay off the indebtedness he had
unwittingly contracted, when he lay months in Fleet
prison waiting for his creditors to come to terms, there
must have been a loss of respect among those who
looked to him for leadership, even though these were
recognised as under the circumstances right and necessary
things to do, and to be the result of no moral obliquity
on his part.
The other side of Penn's character is more pleasing to
contemplate, and is so much more impressive that the
flaws seem insignificant. He was profoundly and sincerely
religious, and his personal life was far above the ordinary
vices of his age. This was questioned probably but once.
When a persecuting Judge suggested that the early career
of the prisoner had been guilty of some of the sins
against which he was declaiming, Penn indignantly denied
it and challenged any one to prove that by word or deed
he had, even in his more thoughtless youth, ever offended
against the standards of a strict morality. The Judge
was rebuked by a fellow judge, who admitted the truth of
Penn's denial and told his associate that he had gone too
far. The truth of the declaration may well be admitted.
Only purity of life, or arch hypocrisy, could be the basis
of such beautiful precepts of morality and piety as we
find in his writings, and the latter alternative will hardly
be claimed by any one.
The wisdom of many of his Fruits of Solitude, the
fervent appeal to the reader at the beginning of No Cross,
No Crown, the fitting and eloquent eulogy on George
Fox, and many others which will occur to any readers of
his works, could hardly be the product of a character
which had ever suffered a moral relapse. Nor is there
evidence that the validity of his inspired ministry or the
profound respect and influence accorded to his preaching
was questioned by his rather exacting collaborators in the
Gospel among Friends. It is no proof of this that
428 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
crowds flocked to hear him l in England when he was
expected to be present at a meeting, for this is the meed
of every preacher who has for the time being the
popular ear.
A better evidence is the judgment of friends expressed
in private correspondence. Isaac Norris writes in 1701,
just as Penn was leaving the province the second time :
" The unhappy misunderstandings in some and unwarrantable
oppositions in others have been a block to our plenary comforts
in him, and his own quiet ; but these things are externals only.
Our communion in the church sweetens all, and our inward
waitings and worships together have often been a general
comfort and consolation ; and in this I take a degree of satisfac
tion, after all, that we part in love ; and some of his last words
in meeting yesterday, were ' that he looked over all infirmities and
outwards, and had an eye to the regions of spirits, wherein is our
surest tie ' ; and in true love, there he took his leave of us." 2
Again in 1 707, when the proprietor was in the darkest
days of his difficulties with the Fords, Isaac Norris writes :
" The more he is pressed, the more he rises. He seems of a
spirit fit to bear and to rub through difficulties, and after all, as
thou observes, ' his foundation remains.' " 8
William Penn was one of those choice beings whose
soul was attuned to Divine harmonies, and whose power
could be felt by kindred spirits in the life of Christ
When he was coming to Pennsylvania in 1699, he
received three certificates from his Friends in England,
one from " the Second -day's Meeting of Ministering
Friends," in London, one from the Friends in Bristol,
where he had resided for a considerable time, and one
from the Monthly Meeting of Horsham. They are all
most appreciative. The last tells of —
" Our unity and communion with him. . . . He had been a
holy and blessed instrument in the hands of the Lord, both in
1 Thomas Story writes in 1697 of meetings in Dublin : " Great was the resort
of people of all ranks and professions to our meetings, chiefly on account of our
friend William Penn, who was ever furnished by the truth with matter fully to
answer their expectations. Many of the clergy were there and the people with
one voice spoke well of what they heard."
2 Penn and Logan Correspondence. 8 Ibid.
CH.II WILLIAM PENN IN PENNSYLVANIA 429
his ministry and conversation [conduct] and hath always sought
the prosperity of the blessed truth and peace and concord in the
Church of Christ ; and both walked among us in all humility,
good sincerity and true brotherly love to our great refreshment
and comfort."
There was some adverse sentiment. In Pennsylvania,
this had, to a large extent, a political basis, and was led
by David Lloyd and Griffith Jones, both probably
estimable men, but whose extreme demands created a
partisan feeling that extended into the meeting.1 These
men were correspondents and in sympathetic relations
with William Mead and Thomas Lower, who are spoken
of in the letters of the day2 as representing the
opposition party. George Whitehead is often associated
with them.
This opposition from within was largely due to Penn's
supposed aristocratic tendencies and possible departure
from a proper simplicity in his relations with the courtly
influences among which he moved, and also to the Ford
question and the doings of Evans as deputy-governor.
It was later swallowed up by the prevailing and warmly
expressed regard, as these matters were seen to be
perfectly consistent with his profession and exalted
character. After 1710, both the personal and political
antagonism ceased in Pennsylvania, and those who had
been considered as opponents lost their influence. The
1 " Our meetings for business are now so much injured by some young forward
novices and a few partisans of D. Lloyd, still a close member, that the more
sound and ancient Friends do not venture upon anything there that concerns the
government, expecting a separation upon it whenever it is taken in hand.
According to present appearances of things, a separation will in time be unavoid
able, and that after Friends (in England) have taken notice of proceedings here,
nothing less than a general purge will ensue. J. Logan, 4 mo. 28, 1707."
8 ' ' There is a short communication held between thy opposites among Friends
there and that corrupted generation here. G. Whitehead has wrote a most affec
tionate letter to Griffith Jones. He expresses himself as thy friend, but we know
how he is linked with the Mead and Lower Party. I believe George is mistaken
in Griffith, and knows not that he is not received in unity with Friends."
James Logan to William Penn, 6 mo. 10, 1706.
" They address such on this side the water (England) who are judged by them
to be not in the best understanding with him."
Isaac Norris to Joseph Pike, i mo. (March) 18, 1707.
"Write a close letter to Friends concerning D. Lloyd insisting on that
remonstrance and his directing letters to thy enemies."
James Logan to William Penn, 12 mo, (February) 1709.
See Penn and Logan Correspondence.
430 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
English opposition, always less well defined and based
on more shadowy grounds, seems also to have disappeared
about the same time. So that, cleared of his financial
troubles, his colony loyal, and his enemies evanescent, he
spent the last two years of his vigorous life in a serene
atmosphere of success and triumph. The stroke that
then deprived him of his mental power, but left his
spiritual faculties unimpaired, brought him universal
sympathy and appreciation.
Mentally, Penn was one of the great men of his times.
It was a day of young men. The great preachers were
nearly all under thirty, but this might be consistent with
ordinary intelligence. Penn was more than a great
popular preacher. He was a man of great thoughts and
far-seeing plans and definite and courageous convictions
based on learning and experience and study. He was
ready for Oxford at fifteen. He was but twenty-three
when the germ of the principle of universal toleration
seems to have taken possession of him, apparently evolved
from within, which in time became the great enthusiasm
of his life. At the same age he began to preach. The
first of his religious works came a few years later,
and No Cross, No Crown immediately followed. The
erudition displayed by one so young was a surprise to
friends and enemies alike. Thus, at the age when the
average American youth is finishing college, Penn had
collected a wonderful store of knowledge, could command
an effective English style, and was a master of theological
argument of a most serviceable quality.
His development was continuous. His work on con
stitutions prior to his American experiment betrays the
thoughtful student of the best that had been written in
the past. He always had great conceptions and projects.
In 1693 he published his scheme for "An European
Dyet, Parliament or Estates," to which disputes between
nations should be referred. All the great Powers were
to be represented. The advantages of such a court,
and the means to make its decisions acceptable, in order
to avoid wars, were presented with great wealth of
CH. ii WILLIAM PENN IN PENNSYLVANIA 431
argument and illustration. The Hague tribunal was
there in embryo.
Three years later, he published a plan for the union
of the American Colonies. Two representatives of each
province were to meet in New York to arrange matters
of common interest. They were to settle questions
concerning commerce, the return of criminals, and
" consider ways and means to support the union and
safety of these provinces against the public enemies."
This was probably the first suggestion of the movement
which culminated about a century later in the Federal
Constitution and Union.
But the greatest, and at the same time, most practical
conception was the foundation of Pennsylvania itself.
That there were errors in detail, none can doubt An
absentee landlord, even though liberal, can hardly avoid
criticism and opposition, and such was William Penn to
his Colony. His forceful presence would undoubtedly
have composed faction and removed difficulties, and it
was his full purpose to have lived permanently in
Pennsylvania. The idea of a Commonwealth devoted
to liberty and peace drew out the best powers of a
comprehensive and enthusiastic intellect. There was no
room in Europe, but in the great unoccupied expanse of
the New World he would carry out his ideals with a
selected community in sympathy with them, of a serious
and honest sort, to whom he would transfer the govern
mental power and realty rights he had purchased of
the Crown, reserving only such moderate share of each
as security for the future and family interests would
justify. It was a glorious conception and a no less
glorious opportunity, and we find him continually temper
ing his natural ardour by considerations of duty to God
and man, as the seriousness of the task and the risks
of failure pressed themselves upon him.
There was, too, in his composition a good share of
fighting spirit. He was to have difficulties, but he never
quailed. The temper which declared that he would never
yield a jot, even though he died in prison, served him in
432 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
good stead in other contests. " Can my wicked enemies
yet bow ? They shall, or break, or be broken in pieces
before a year from this time comes about, and my true
friends rejoice," he declared in a crisis with Lord Baltimore.
"If lenitives will not do, coercives must be tried," he
announced in another emergency. It was only this
determined vigour which carried him through the vast
heap of difficulties among which he struggled.
The whole of Penn's life indicates the power of his
personality. Where he was present, events shaped them
selves towards his purposes. At the court of Charles II.,
of James II., and of Anne, he had surprising influence.
This is all the more remarkable because his Quaker
scruples in certain respects must have removed him far
from the ordinary courtier. We may assume that his
dress, while simple, was comely ; that his speech, while
observing the limitations of his sect, was well chosen,
pleasing and appreciative of the point of view of his
associates ; that his manners, while devoid of the flattering
postures and phrases of the day, were never offensive.
It is only thus that we can explain what seems his
general friendliness with royalty and nobility. " I know
of no religion," he says, " that destroys courtesy, civility
and kindness," and these qualities, together with a con
versation full of interesting matter and a ready wit, seem
to have made him generally acceptable. So it was that
he interceded successfully at court, not only for hundreds
of persecuted Friends, but for Anglican bishops, political
refugees, and suffering scholars, as well as crowds of
needy suitors of humbler rank.
It was for these purposes, and to counteract the
influence of Lord Baltimore in the matter of the boundary
line, efforts which never failed of success, that he felt
impelled to remain so much in England. Again and
again he hoped to come to Pennsylvania, but the demands
of Friends and the exactions of Ford kept him at home.
Only two visits of less than two years each, all too short
for the work to be done, was he able to make to his
province.
CH.II WILLIAM PENN IN PENNSYLVANIA 433
His personal influence was no less marked among his
colonists. When present, faction was stilled, the Indians
were pacified, desirable legislation was effected, and under
his ministry the meetings settled down into quietness and
harmony. Could he have longer remained, another
history would have been written. Perhaps it was well
that in the tutelage of the colony it should have been
left to its own responsibility, and have found its way
through confusion to liberty. For had the compelling
influence of its founder been continually present, a
heroic figure among his friends, certain aristocratic features
and social customs might have been engrafted on the
government less favourable to liberty than such as
were worked out through the stress of partisan conflict.
Whether we sympathise with David Lloyd or William
Penn in the struggle between them, we may accord to
each of them a potent influence in shaping the free
government which grew out of the troubled early years
of the experiment.
There are many traditions of his life in America :
how he outjumped the Indians, and gained their lasting
regard ; the great treaty immortalised by Clarkson in
history, by West on the canvas, and by Voltaire in happy
phrase ; the open house at Pennsbury, where in feudal
style he generously entertained red man and white,
politician and minister alike ; his " walks " with the
Indians and the regard he showed for their prejudices
and customs ; how on his way to Haverford Meeting
he took upon his horse little Rebecca Wood, and carried
her with him to the Meeting, her bare feet dangling on
either side ; how at Merion a little boy, curious to see
the great Governor, peeped through a hole in the door
of his chamber, and saw him on his knees returning
thanks that he had been provided for in the wilderness.
There is probably more or less truth in all of these.
They show that in a little time something of a halo
gathered around his name, and his little acts became
significant, a sure evidence of influence.
We may make such surmises as we will concerning the
2 F
434 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
extent of the influence of William Penn upon Pennsylvania
Quakerism, based on his character and standing. The
Meeting minutes make but limited reference to him. In
1683 a plan, doubtless originating in William Penn's
comprehensive mind, was presented to the meeting :
" It being desired to hold a general Meeting of Friends from
New England to Carolina, the Meeting appoints : William Penn,
Christopher Taylor, Samuel Jenings, James Harrison, Thomas
Olive, Mahlon Stacy, to make arrangements by writing to
Friends or speaking, and inform London Yearly Meeting."
What difficulties prevented the realisation of this
project for nationalising the Society of Friends, we do
not know. They were probably material, rather than
political. What different development would have
resulted is also a matter of conjecture. Something of
the same idea occurred to certain Yearly Meetings about
two hundred years later.
In 1700, on the occasion of Penn's second visit, we
have a record of certificates concerning him being received
from Bristol, London, and Horsham. In the same year,
" Governor Penn " was appointed on a committee to draw
up the epistle to London Yearly Meeting. The next
year the following minute was adopted :
"Our Governor, William Penn, having said before this
Meeting that he entends for England, and desires that they
would appoint ten or twelve Friends to meet him this evening
upon some weighty occasion, in order thereunto, Samuel
Jenings [and fifteen others] and such public Friends as have
freedom, are desired to meet the Governor accordingly about
six this evening."
This meeting is probably referred to in the letter of
Isaac Norris, already quoted. No other references to
him appear on the Yearly Meeting minutes. We may
safely assume, however, that he was an important figure
in any meeting which he attended.
In the minutes of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, there
are evidences of his interest in the details of society work
and his name appears occasionally. On Eleventh-month
1st, 1683 (January 1684):
CH.II WILLIAM PENN IN PENNSYLVANIA 435
" A letter of advice from the Governor was read to Friends
counselling them to be careful in their behaviour for Truth's
sake, that so the Lord might not be dishonoured and the Truth
evilly spoken of amongst wicked men."
Again on Sixth-month (August) 5th, 1684 :
" The Governor being present, and his departure for England
drawing nigh, he moved the Meeting to give him a certificate
as touching his demeanour amongst the people of his province,
which was taken into consideration by the Meeting."
And later in the same Meeting :
"A certificate was drawn up in the Meeting according to
the motion of the Governor, and subscribed by Thomas Lloyd
[and fifteen others] in the name of the Meeting."
During his second visit, he expressed to the Meeting
a " concern " that religious work should be done among
the negroes and Indians. Acting on this the Friends
appointed a Monthly Meeting for negroes to which their
masters were to send them, and " be present with them
at said meetings as frequent as may be." It was also
agreed that when Indians are in town they be invited to
a meeting " when our Governor is willing to speak to
them."
He worked on ordinary committees, as in the case of
the widow of Thomas Lloyd, who thought that the
executors of his will had not treated her fairly. The
Governor being present on another occasion, " readily
condescended " to give the materials of the meeting
house, erected where the City Hall now is, to another in
a more accessible part of the city.
When he left in 1701, never to return, though he and
they hoped otherwise, another cordial and loving certifi
cate drawn up by Thomas Story, Samuel Carpenter, and
Griffith Owen, was given him.
The personality of William Penn may well be assumed
to be the most potent influence in the early history of
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. His advantages of birth,
fortune, and education, his superior intellectual and moral
powers, his position as originator of the conception which
436 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
had given to all its members their worldly and religious
opportunities, his authority as Governor and proprietor,
would in any community have endowed him with a
towering ascendency. But when to these are added a
humility in religious affairs, which asked and would allow
no precedence, a record of faithful adherence to principle,
through losses and imprisonments, and an endowment of
a prophetic gift of remarkable fervour and power, there
is no need to doubt that whenever his gracious presence
could be felt, nothing could ever compare with it. Even
in his absence, his words and memory and spirit hovered
over his province in its religious life, and became, long
after his death, its inspiration and guide.
CHAPTER III
EARLY DAYS THE KEITH CONTROVERSY
PHILADELPHIA Yearly Meeting had its origin in the
Monthly Meeting of Burlington, New Jersey. On the
second of the 3rd month " it was unanimously agreed
that a general meeting be yearly held in Burlington, the
first of which to be the 28th of Sixth month 1681."
This was the first session of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
It decreed that women's meetings should be held monthly
at the same time as the men's.
The next year, 1682, a large number of Friends
having come to Philadelphia, an organisation was there
effected. These " Friends of God " agreed to meet
monthly and make every third meeting a Quarterly
Meeting. General Meetings were also held both at
Burlington and Philadelphia. The latter in 1684 was
attended by representatives from Rhode Island and from
Maryland in accordance with William Penn's com
prehensive plan already mentioned. Epistles were sent
to London and to Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and
New England :
"That it may be presented to them if possible from these
remote provinces they may send two or three for each province
to our Yearly Meeting here being as a center or middle part
that so communion and blessed union may be preserved
among all."
This duplication of General Meetings in the case of
Friends so closely associated as those in New Jersey and
Pennsylvania seemed undesirable, and in 1685 it was
concluded to hold them in the future alternately in
437
438 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
Burlington and Philadelphia, beginning at Burlington in
1686. This arrangement continued till 1760, when it
was decided that all the Yearly Meetings should be held
in Philadelphia.
The territory embraced in the Yearly Meeting in
early times included the settled portions of New Jersey
and Pennsylvania and the northern parts of Delaware and
Maryland and also some meetings in Virginia. Later
the whole eastern shore of the Chesapeake was given to
Philadelphia, and the Virginia meetings and others on
the west side of the Susquehanna both in Maryland and
Pennsylvania were transferred to Baltimore.
While in local matters the American meetings were
supreme each within its limits, they all paid great respect
to the letters of George Fox and the official epistles of
London Yearly Meeting. These were both doctrinal and
practical, stating the theory of the meeting for worship,
setting up the church machinery, giving directions as to
the treatment of delinquents and of the poor, advice as
to business, dress, and language, and a multitude of other
details. One can find practically the whole of formal
Quakerism as it existed for two centuries in these early
epistles. They are a wonderful tribute to the genius of
the Founder, whose followers in after years were almost
too faithful in their allegiance. Occasionally there was
a ripple of discontent, as John Burnyeat found in Long
Island in 167 'i.1 But such rebellion became in a little
time evidence of " a wrong spirit " wherever it cropped
out. The volume of these advices became in time so
large that in 1703 a committee of the Yearly Meeting
was appointed to codify them, and thus was established
the Discipline which became obligatory upon all the
meetings. The earliest draft of a discipline, adversely
called Canons and Institutions, was the work of Fox and
others, and was issued in London in 1668. In a little
time these foreign regulations and advices were replaced
by others of similar import adopted in the Yearly Meeting
to meet the various conditions as they developed.
1 See p. 229.
CH. in THE KEITH CONTROVERSY 439
In 1685 tne Yearly Meeting agreed that " Friends in
the Ministry" should meet at seven o'clock in the
morning prior to the Yearly or General Meeting. Elders
had not yet been created, but this was probably the
origin of " the meeting of ministers and elders " which
has been carried through all the subsequent history.
The first business meeting held in Philadelphia was
opened by this minute :
"The Friends of God belonging in Philadelphia in the
province of Pennsylvania being met in the fear and power of the
Lord at the present meeting-house in the said city the Ninth
Day of the Eleventh Month being the third day of the week in
the year 1682 l — They did take into their serious consideration
the settlement of meetings therein for the affairs and services
of the Truth according to that goodly and comely practise and
example which they had received and enjoyed with true
satisfaction among their friends and brethren in the land of
their nativity and did then and there agree that the first Third
Day in the week in every month shall hereafter be the monthly-
meeting day for men's and women's meeting for the affairs and
service of the Truth in this city and county and every third
meeting shall be Quarterly Meeting of the same."
They agreed to build a meeting-house, and to buy
the necessary books ; they advised that all Friends bring
certificates ; they arranged for a record of deaths, the care
of the poor, and the sanction of marriages, which were
very numerous.
Succeeding meetings decreed that ministering Friends
should gain the sanction of their Monthly Meetings ; that
these bodies should severely look after those who spread
false reports ; that Friends should not go to law with each
other until an attempt had been made by the meeting to
settle the dispute ; and that wrongdoing of various sorts
should be closely attended to.
The first Friend who came to Pennsylvania to reside
was probably Robert Wade. He had emigrated in 1675
from England to Salem, New Jersey, and within a year
crossed the Delaware River and occupied the Essex
House, the residence of the old Swedish governors, in
1 gth January 1683. The year began ist March.
440 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK.V
Upland, now Chester. At this house, on Eleventh Month
loth, 1 68 1, the first session of Chester Monthly Meeting
was held. The Friends of Burlington seem to have exer
cised some supervisory care over this meeting. William
Penn occupied the same house when he landed in 1682,
and here also met the first assembly of Pennsylvania.
Also prior to the arrival of Penn a number of New
Jersey Friends had crossed the river at Burlington and
settled the Falls Meeting in Bucks County.
When the province was divided into the three counties,
Philadelphia, Chester, and Bucks, three Quarterly Meetings,
coterminous with the counties, were established, while
Monthly Meetings were pushed out into the woods to
meet the rapidly growing needs of the immigrant population.
The early minutes of the meetings betray a great
anxiety to live up to the standard of Fox and his
friends in England. Within a few years after 1682 such
subjects as the following, selected almost at random, were
considered.
A member was disciplined for passing money " not
current " ; again and again were the evils of giving rum
to the Indians pointed out, and Friends urged against it ;
they were urged to attend to the wants of the poor outside
their borders ; not to buy " hog-bells " of the Indians, who
had probably stolen them ; they arranged their meetings
so as not to interfere with "the court," for the same
Friends were influential in both ; they set up schools, at
first in the meeting-houses, afterwards near by, both for
girls and boys ; they laboured with a man who wanted a
certificate for marriage " for the extravagant powdering of
his periwig," and made him promise to be more moderate.
Every matter connected with morals or conduct was a
proper matter for inquiry and church legislation. " To
clear Truth " was given as the object of any disavowal of
loose living, but reformation rather than rejection was
persistently sought for the offender.
The large majority of the settlers were Englishmen,
mostly yeomen. They had bought their lands of Penn
from rough maps before leaving England, at the very
CH. m THE KEITH CONTROVERSY 441
moderate price which he asked of £100 for 5000
acres or smaller tracts in proportion, with a quit -rent
annually of one shilling for each hundred acres. This
enabled many a poor English renter to become a land
owner in Pennsylvania, and, as a matter of fact, these
farmers greatly prospered, though Penn had difficulty in
collecting his quit- rents. The meeting-houses a few miles
apart through the settled country were the first concern
after the necessities of living were provided for, and the
machinery of the church was easily constructed after the
George Fox model. While a number of Friends of
education and means found homes in Philadelphia, the
Yearly Meeting was essentially rural in its characteristics.
This fact and the absence of any provision for higher
education created a steady, conservative community, per
petuating its type from one generation to another.
Two other elements of the population must be
considered. On the 26th of the Fifth Month (July) 1683,
having narrowly escaped capture by a Turkish pirate,
landed Francis Daniel Pastorius and Thomas Lloyd,
representatives and leaders of little bands of Germans
and Welsh respectively. They were both well educated,
but Latin was the only language they had in common.
Pastorius, the Pennsylvania Pilgrim of Whittier, had
been a Mennonite. But he and his friends, after settling
in Germantown, were identified with Friends. We find
him appointed on committees of the Yearly Meeting, and
his Monthly Meeting was recognised as a definite branch.
In 1688 this Monthly Meeting sent up a celebrated protest
against slavery :
"There is a liberty of conscience here which is right and
reasonable, and there ought to be likewise liberty of the body,
except for evil-doers, which is another case. But to bring men
hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against."
The Yearly Meeting deferred action, but the seed was
sown.
The Mennonites and other German sects, as well as
the little Quaker community of Criesheim, were drawn
442 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK.V
to Pennsylvania by similarity of doctrine and practice
with the Friends. They knew of Friends through the
visits of William Penn and George Fox to the Rhine
Valley, and the contemporaneous spread of Reformation
principles in Germany and England. While but few of
them followed the example of Pastorius in joining in
membership, they were always sympathetic and doctrinally
and politically closely associated with Friends. Their
great leader, Christopher Sauer, became a powerful ally
of Quakerism in all good works. The later immigration
of German Reformed and Lutheran, driven from the
Palatinate by the ravages of war, had less in common
with the Friends, but up to the Revolutionary War were
quite willing to permit the civil ascendency of the Friends
to remain unchallenged.
The friends of Thomas Lloyd were more definitely
in the fold. He himself became the great leader of
Pennsylvania Friends, in the absence of William Penn, in
all affairs of Church and State, until his lamented death
at the age of forty-five in 1694.
Quakerism had started in Wales when John ap John
in 1653 was sent as a " tryer " to hear George Fox preach.
It suited him, and he became its great apostle. Joined
with him were Richard Davies, and also Charles and
Thomas Lloyd, university men of high social position.
Nowhere was persecution more severe. The old Briton
blood, which boasted that it had never been conquered
by Roman or Norman, did not quail. They stood it all
heroically, and when William Penn offered them a haven of
rest they found an honourable way of escaping the trials
which seemed practically endless. But they loved their
old country, its language and customs, and a committee of
them obtained from William Penn the offer of a " Barony,"
where they could have a new Wales, and, as they hoped,
a government of their own, unmixed with alien influences.
They came in great numbers. Their Barony of 40,000
acres, now a beautiful suburb of Philadelphia, was assigned
them, and the old names along the Pennsylvania Railroad
keep alive its traditions.
CH. in THE KEITH CONTROVERSY 443
It was impossible to give them a complete government
and complete possession of the soil. Saxon ideas would
creep in, and Saxon men would marry their daughters,
and while their countrymen at home retained the Welsh
customs, in a generation or two they were lost in Penn
sylvania. A political governor ran a county line through
their tract, and divided their state interests. The Chester
County Friends tried to divert all on their side of the line
from Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting, but in this they
failed. They did, however, succeed in stopping the
growth of new meetings which would not be under their
supervision in the Chester territory. Thus the powers,
both civil and ecclesiastical, conspired to break their
unity. But their vigour and industry made the Welsh
tract the garden spot of the province, and many a family,
illustrious in colony and state, started here.
They were not all Friends when they arrived. A
group of sober people settled in " North Wales," outside
the Barony. They heard of their compatriots in Haver-
ford and Merion, and sent a delegation to investigate.
The report was reassuring, and John Richardson, who
visited their meeting in 1 702, says they were " a fine
tender people, but few understanding English." They
were not then in membership with Friends, but recogni
tion soon followed.
The first settlers sent back good reports to their friends
in England, Wales, and Germany. They told of the fertile
lands to be purchased cheaply, of the kindly natives, of the
easy government, and, more than all, of the possibility of
worship as they felt to be right without hindrance from
the state, or supercilious disregard on the part of an estab
lished church. Multitudes flocked in during these early
days, mostly Friends, and the meetings grew rapidly in
size and number.
In 1683, within five months of Penn's landing, a group
of Friends could write to their brethren at home :
" In Pennsylvania there is one [meeting] at Falls, one at the
Governor's House, one at Colchester River, all in the county of
Bucks; one at Tawcony, one at Philadelphia, both in that county;
444 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
one at Darby at John Blunston's, one at Chester, one at Ridley
at J. Simcock's, and one at Wm. Ruse's at Chichester, in Cheshire.
. . . And for our outward conditions as men, blessed be God,
we are satisfied ; the countries are good, the land, the water, the
air — room enough for many thousands to live plentifully. . . .
" Dear Friends and Brethren, we have no cause to murmur, our
lot is fallen every way in a goodly place, and the love of God is,
and growing, among us, and we are a family at peace within
ourselves, and truly great is our joy therefor."
There are many testimonies to this delightful peace
and harmony of the early days. In 1684 they write to
their friends in London :
" At the two aforementioned General Meetings [in Burlington
and Philadelphia] we had such a blessed harmony together that
we may say we know not that there was a jarring string amongst
us. A great multitude came of many hundreds, and the gospel
bell made a most blessed sound. There was the men's and
women's meeting in both places in their precious services to
inspect into Truth's matters in what related to them ; and God
gave them wisdom to do it, and all was unanimous."
They expected still more in the future :
" The majesty of Truth is great here, and does prevail and
grow. . . . Yea it will increase more and more to the ends of
America. The day of its great visitation is come, and his great
power and holy authority is rolling hither like the inundation and
breaking and overflowing of waters."
One could hardly suppose it to be otherwise. The
men who had through deep conviction joined a persecuted
and despised sect, who had endured the discipline of
English jails, and who had expatriated themselves for the
sake of conscience, were not bitter, suspicious men. Their
Divine communion was very real, their human communion
was very sweet. When they met together in these early
days, full of thanks for the blessings of peace and liberty,
needing no words to draw their hearts together in silent
worship of their ever near Master, their feelings were too
deep and sincere for anything but love and unity.
But the second generation had had no such discipline.
Some of them caught the spirit of their fathers and some
CH. in THE KEITH CONTROVERSY 445
did not. They were no longer all melted together in
spiritual sympathy, and a place was found for division
whenever the occasion arose. This occasion came in the
person of George Keith.
He was born in Scotland about 1638 and educated
as a Presbyterian. He studied at the University of
Aberdeen, and received the degree of Master of Arts
from that institution. Bishop Burnet says that he " was
the most learned man ever in the Quaker sect, well
versed both in Oriental tongues and in philosophy and
mathematics." About 1663 or 1664 he joined Friends,
and for twenty-seven years was in favour, sharing with the
other leaders of the Society the full measure of writing,
public discussion, and persecution. He had the true spirit
of the early Friends. He said in 1665 :
" It lay upon me from the Lord to depart from these teachers
who could not point me to the living knowledge of God where I
could find it : and I came and heard men and women who were
taught of God who pointed me to the true principle; and
though some of them could not read a letter yet I found them
wiser than all the teachers I ever formerly had been under." x
Many other of his testimonies are eloquent of the great
peace and rapturous joy that came into his heart as the
result of the Quaker teaching of God's direct communion
with men and his own experience of it. He found " the
gates of the heavenly paradise" opened in himself and
came to have a great love for all mankind. It is un
necessary for our purpose to go over the details of his
early life. His books and sufferings both betray the
unflinching spirit of the early Quaker apostle. He had
his full share of imprisonments and beatings, which he
bore with humility. He was especially effective in public
discussions, and vigorously espoused his new convictions
before hostile audiences of Presbyterian divines. In 1670
he published his Benefit, Advantage and Glory of Silent
Meetings, a most sympathetic treatment of the subject
written in Aberdeen prison. " There are immediate
revelations now-a-days" is the emphatic point. In 1675
1 Immediate Revelation, by George Keith, p. 84.
446 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
he debated in company with Robert Barclay the principles
of his sect before the students of the University of
Aberdeen. He joined with George Fox, William Penn,
and Robert Barclay in a visit to Germany, and worked in
great unity with them. In 1684 he came to New Jersey,
where as surveyor he laid out the division line between
East and West Jersey. In 1689, at the opening of the
Friends' Public School, he was made headmaster, but
gave it up in a year, finding that his abilities needed freer
scope than in a school of young boys. Up to this time
no serious ripple of discontent with Friends or of Friends
with him seems to have appeared.
There now began to come out in his sermons and
discourses certain doctrinal views, which were looked
upon with suspicion by many Friends and received with
enthusiasm by others. He charged that Friends had in
their preaching of the inward Christ neglected the outward.
He asserted that ministers declared that they could be
saved by the Christ within them " without anything else,"
and hence that they undervalued the historic Christ and
the Scriptures. When he himself was asked whether
ignorant men and infants who had not heard the New
Testament could not be saved, it appeared that he had
adopted the principles of van Helmont of the trans
migration of souls, and that these uninformed people
would have another chance in the next cycle. He prob
ably did not press this latter doctrine, but his followers
found in it an acceptable refuge. He made, too, a sharp
distinction between the human and divine natures in
Christ, and the question was debated with great acrimony,
whether or not it was the body which was born of Mary
that ascended into Heaven.
These doctrinal questions were mingled with others of
a more practical nature. He charged a general slackness
in the administration of the Discipline. The magistrates
were often ministers, and in their civil functions would
arrest offenders by force but without loss of life or limb.
This Keith declared to be inconsistent with the profession
of non-resistance of evil.
CH. in THE KEITH CONTROVERSY 447
In these early days the civil and ecclesiastical powers
were so closely united in practice, if not in theory, that it
was difficult to distinguish them, and disputes in one court
were easily transferred to another.
There were doubtless, owing to the emphasis Friends
placed on inspiration as the sole endowment for the
ministry, a number of crude and narrow preachers among
them. The doctrine of direct divine leading unto all
truth was so simple and had such sanction from the
leaders of the Society that it is not surprising that it
constituted for many the one staple subject of discourse.
A scholar like George Keith, whether in general harmony
with them or not, could not fail to see the lack of
perspective and breadth of such men. That there was no
ground for his doctrinal charges would be difficult to
maintain. That Friends denied the offices and failed to
recognise the divinity of the Christ of Judea was in
answer to his challenge emphatically contradicted by
official assertions both in Pennsylvania and London.
The Friends across the water sent a special message
urging a full acceptance of the biblical account of Christ,
while not weakening in the least in their belief that the
light of Christ reached all men whether they had this
account or not. The leading Philadelphians issued
another paper defining their position in full in the same
strain. It was urged upon Keith that the doctrinal
shortcomings of individuals should not be used against
the Society. It was also urged that for a score of years
while the same conditions existed he had been a strong
defender of its teachings.
As late as 1688, he had published a catechism
teaching the doctrine he now attacked, that the inward
operation of the spirit of Christ was essential and that
belief in these outward matters was non-essential but
greatly helpful. In the same year he engaged in public
discussions with New England Independents to the same
purport, in which his fierce and uncontrolled temper
seemed so evident that some Friends became suspicious
of him.
448 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
It was quite as much the spirit as the doctrine of
George Keith to which the Friends objected. He loved
controversy, and in the days when he was in favour used
the severe language of his time against the opponents of
Quakerism. His open arguments with Cotton Mather
and other New England divines left but little to choose
between them as to the courtesies of debate. But to call
the leaders of the Yearly Meeting by opprobrious names,
to get excited and angry in discussion, and to make
statements which he had to retract, were evidences of
" brittleness " of temper, according to his opponents, which
were inconsistent with a claim to spiritual guidance. He
was evidently hot-tempered and pugnacious. He called
Thomas Lloyd, then Deputy- Governor, and a man of
amiable disposition and excellent abilities and education,
"an impudent man and a pitiful governor," challenged
Lloyd to send him to jail, and said that " his back had
long itched to be whipped." A magistrate he called
M an impudent rascal," and a meeting of ministers he said
were "come together to cloak heresies and deceit, and
that there were more damnable heresies and doctrines of
devils among the Quakers than among any profession of
Protestants." l
It was an age of rough controversy. His opponents
1 Both in America and in England it was the temper and spirit of Keith that
were objected to rather than his doctrines. In A Quaker Posting, p. 57, we
find a letter dated 2 mo. 27, 1694, from Henry Gouldney, a prominent English
Friend :
" I have little to give thee account of ; the most considerable is G. K.'s being
here — He is not a man governed wth. that meekness that becomes his Doctrine
who puts a great value upon the outward comeing of our Blessed Lord ; wch. I
hope all honnest ffrds. finds it their duty to doe ; yet himselfe far from makeing
him a lively example in meekness and humility — ffrds. have had many private
meetings wth. him, and by them all, I don't finde great hopes of his comeing
more near us in spirit. His doctrines, in the generall, are I think owned by all
sound ffriends, but he seems to lay downe abt. 7 points wch. he calls fundimentalls,
in any of whome, if we disagree in, we cannot hold ffellow-ship, tho upon the
whole, was not his spirit wrong, that would easily be accomodated — He takes
commonly large time in meetings, but mostly fflat ; he has a tone sometimes,
especially wn. on one of his pticular points that he huggs more than ordinery,
that he carrys off more lively — My accnt. is in groese, tis to large and beyond my
memmorey to pticularize — I hope it will have one good effect, viz. the more
unitemg W. P. and G. W. who chieffly manages him — the other ffrds. that came
from Pensilvania appear far the better spirited. Men come in unity of ffrds there,
and is so reed, here ; yet some caution upon them that G. K. might not take
occation to accot. ffriends partiall — He speaks of appealing to the yearly meeting
and will submitt to their judgment so far as it agrees wth. his, and not otherwise — "
CH. in THE KEITH CONTROVERSY 449
did not spare him. Possibly they better controlled their
temper in debate, but in the title-page to one of their
works written in cold blood a little later the author
speaks of
"... the apostate convicted ... in which his apostasy from the
Truth and enmity against it is manifested, his Deceit Hypocricie
and manifold prevarications are discovered, his false Quotations
Lyes and Forgeries out of the Quakers Books are detected, etc."
and even the courteous Thomas Story calls him "that
contentious apostate from the Truth of God once made
known to him."
Matters could not abide in this state. Keith had
complained to the Ministers' Meeting against William
Stockdale charging him with saying that Keith had
preached two Christs. Stockdale denied the charge, and
in reply said that Keith had called him "an ignorant
heathen." The meeting blamed them both and tried to
make peace. But it was too late. Thomas Lloyd and
twenty-seven other ministers issued a temperate epistle
representing the troubles they had with Keith, earnestly
appealing to him to be reconciled and to lay down the
separate meeting which he was then engaged in setting up,
and repudiating him as an authorised minister among
Friends.
Keith had a considerable following among the
Philadelphia Friends, including a few who held high
station. He organised his own body, The Christian
Quakers, with a discipline of its own. This contained
some admirable provisions. There are a few copies in
existence of a printed Confession of Faith and of manu
script " Queries " 1 which his followers were probably
expected to sign. These ask whether in view of the fact
that many not really Friends have become nominal
members, there should not be some mark of distinction
between faithful friends of Truth and such formal pro
fessors ; whether it is not desirable to have a personal
public Confession of Belief, the sincerity of which should
1 One of the original copies is in possession of George Vaux of PhDadelphia,
2 G
450 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK.V
be discerned by faithful Friends before recognition of
membership ; whether those whose lives do not evidence
their inward rectitude and spirituality should be admitted
into the fold of the faithful ; whether such a purged
body would not increase in discernment so that true
judgment could be reached by the aid of the Spirit of
Truth ; whether it is not desirable that all new members
should make an open Confession of Faith, by answering
yea or nay to the necessary principles of doctrine as
propounded to them ; whether such a confession and a
holy life are not worth more than the plain language and
coming to meeting ; whether all Friends' children should
not in the same way make confession and be judged by
the spiritually-minded before admission to membership ;
whether marriage to be sanctioned should not be between
faithful Friends only ; whether the discipline should not be
impartially enforced against all, great or small, who are
out of the unity with Friends ; whether all faithful
Friends should not constitute the meetings for business of
the church and not the elders only ; whether a record
should not be kept of all faithful Friends in suitable
books ; whether in such meetings of faithful Friends
only there would not be an infallible spirit which would
enable them to judge of the ministry, so as to require
" sound knowledge, experience, and spiritual ability " before
giving liberty to preach or pray in open assemblies.
Some of these, the recording of members and of
ministers, the wider attendance of business meetings, the
greater rigidity of the discipline against loose livers, and
of late the partial abolition of birthright membership
have become accepted facts. The uniformity of belief
through an open individual endorsement of a set pro
position has never been demanded. The queries of Keith
were an evidence of an intention to have the body made
up of living spiritual members only, united in faith,
purpose and spirit, under Divine guidance and influence,
a church rather than a society.
The ministry and the magistracy were so associated
that Keith in one of his pamphlets laid himself open to
CH. in THE KEITH CONTROVERSY 451
the charge of sedition and disturbance of the peace by
reviling Samuel Jenings, who was as an ecclesiastic
strongly opposed to Keith, and as a judge and magistrate
the author of certain acts against privateers which Keith
bitterly attacked. The Grand Jury brought in a true bill,
and Keith and a friend were fined five pounds each,
which fine was never collected. The Justices imposing
this fine were all Friends and among Keith's strongest
antagonists. They said in an explanation to the public
that they would endure all personal reflections and attacks
upon their religious body in quiet, but the pamphlets
tended to revile State officials and incited to oppose the
administration of Justice.
William Bradford, the printer of the seditious pamphlets,
was also indicted, and refusing to give bail was committed
to jail. The jailer, however, allowed him liberty, and
wishing to make an appeal to the court dated from
prison, he was disappointed to find the jailer absent with
the key. As he could not get in he signed the paper
from the entry outside. So fraternally were all things
conducted in those primitive days.
The trial of Bradford which followed, and which
resulted in a divided jury, is memorable as being the
earliest recognition of the principle that the jury is to
determine the seditious character of a paper as well as the
fact of issuance by the defendant. This principle is the
basis of the liberty of the press in all civilised countries.
It was laid down first by five Quaker judges in a case
where feeling ran high, and in which if they had any
prejudices which would warp their judgment, they would
be on the other side.1
These trials bring out the prominence of ministering
Friends in civil positions, a prominence to which Keith
and his friends with some justice objected, but which
naturally resulted from the Friendly conception of the
absence of any definite line of distinction between the
preachers as a class, and the other spiritual members of
the body.
1 See Pennypacker's Colonial Cases.
452 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
" The Meeting of Ministering Friends " and in Seventh
Month (September) 1692 the Yearly Meeting itself were
the ecclesiastical courts into whose hands George Keith
now fell. The latter body after a careful investigation
declared :
"We find it our duty to join with our brethren in their
testimony against that spirit of reviling, railing, lying, slandering,
and falsely accusing which hath risen and acted notoriously in
George Keith and his adherents which hath led them into a
mischievous and hurtful separation."
This paper is signed by over 200 Friends beginning
with Thomas Lloyd, including Pastorius and nearly all
those prominent in Church and State.1
Keith now became an avowed leader of a new sect,
gathered out of the large body of Friends. He set up
meetings in Philadelphia, Burlington, and Bucks County.
His eloquence, learning, and previous high standing
brought many to his ranks. The denial of the outward
Christ was his main subject of attack. In these days he
had among other public controversies one with James
Dickinson, an English minister, in which, according to
the account of Dickinson's companion, he was vanquished
" and went away in great wrath." Such discussions and
voluminous writings fanned the separating spirit
It was said many times that Keith's doctrinal attacks
upon the main body of Friends could be all answered by
his own earlier writings, and after examining these one is
inclined to think the statement true. He had often
pleaded the sufficiency of the Divine Light to lead into
doctrinal truth, into correct living, into right public
preaching and praying ; and it is impossible to note any
difference between his views and those of his friend and
fellow-worker and sufferer, Robert Barclay. The charges
he now made against the Philadelphia Friends seemed to
indicate a change in himself. The main one, that Friends
1 One of the acts which show the turbulent spirit of the times was the erection
of a gallery opposite the minister's gallery in Bank meeting by the friends of
Keith, for his own use. Two of the trustees of the meeting told them to tear it
down, whereupon they tore down the old gallery. The account states that
" Keith, who was present, laughed and expressed his satisfaction."
CH. HI THE KEITH CONTROVERSY 453
considered the Light within sufficient " without something
else," was one to which his own early statements made
him quite as fairly liable to attack as his opponents.
But they both asserted in positive terms the ordinary
orthodox position as to the outer Christ and the Scriptures.
It seems impossible to reconcile the Keith of 1670 with
the Keith of 1691 and later. Of course he had a perfect
right to change his position as to these matters, but he
never fairly admitted the change.
In a public discussion Thomas Lloyd had said that
one might be saved without the outer revelation of Christ
if he had had no opportunity to know of it. But Keith
said that this was impossible, and that if such were Lloyd's
views " he could not own him as a Christian brother,
though he might be a devout heathen." This is hardly
compatible with his earlier statement. " God him
self ... is objectively manifest so that he can be heard,
seen, tasted, and felt if all Scripture words were out of
our present remembrance," l or with many other similar
statements. In 1670 he had defended Friends against
Robert Gordon, who made against them the same charges
he was now preferring against the Philadelphians.
Early in 1693, in company with his chief supporter,
Thomas Budd, he transferred the controversy to England.
He had not secured the control of any of the American
meetings, but his party, though considerable in the
aggregate, had been disowned by all the regular organisa
tions in America, and now Samuel Jenings, his most
active opponent, and Thomas Duckett went to London
to represent their meetings before the English Friends.
The case was heard before the Yearly Meeting, and un
fortunately for Keith he appears again to have lost his
temper. There were conventions lasting several days
during which the controversy was carried on. The meet
ing censured Keith for his publications and the magistrates
for proceeding against him at law, but the final decision
on the main charge was distinctly a disavowal of his
spirit and methods :
1 Immediate Revelation, by George Keith, p. 20.
454 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
" It is the sense and judgment of this meeting that the said
George Keith is gone from the blessed unity of the peaceable
spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, and hath thereby separated him
self from the holy fellowship of the Church of Christ."
He appears to have had a very small following in
England. William Penn l says in a private letter dated
26th of loth mo. 1696 to Robert Turner, who had been
one of Penn's most trusted friends, but had joined the
Keith party, " not five people in the unity before he came
over here, adhere to him." '" The matter could go no
further, and he established himself in Turner's Hall,
London, where he preached to large companies eloquent
sermons which were largely directed against the teachings
and practices of Friends. He finally joined the Established
Church and ably argued its position as to rites and
sacraments. He was taken into full standing and ordained
by the Bishop of London.
When his followers in Pennsylvania found that he had
deserted them, their disintegration began. A few returned
to Friends. More became Baptists and quite a number
Episcopalians, following the example of their leader.
They constituted an opposition element in Church and
State for a few years. The " Keithians " are heard of
in the journals of Friends and the political records of
the province as active allies in any movement attacking
the proprietor and his friends, but they were soon ignored.
In 1698 Thomas Chalkley could say "there are many
large meetings of Friends, and the Lord prospers them
spiritually and temporally."
George Keith himself was sent over in 1702 by the
Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts to
gather as many as possible into the Established Church.
He was received with much favour by the remnants of
the Keithians, and claimed that he had brought 500 of
them into the true faith. He immediately began his
1 Penn at first was inclined to side with Keith. At least this was the report
which reached Pennsylvania. He probably remembered his fraternal relations of
earlier days, but when he heard of Keith's changed spirit, he repudiated him and
became the object of virulent attack. See letter of Hugh Roberts in Pennsylvania
Magazine, xviii. 205.
8 Pennsylvania Magazine, October 1909.
CH. in THE KEITH CONTROVERSY 455
series of public polemics of which he was so fond,
challenging to debates. His old opponents, the Puritans,
he now largely left to their own ways, but invaded the
meetings of Friends, engaging in dispute wherever he
could find an antagonist. His challenges were usually
accepted, and the victory seemed to lie upon the side
whose account we read. In July 8th and pth 1702,
he met in Lynn, Massachusetts, John Richardson in
debate. Both Keith and Richardson give their impres
sions in their journals. Keith says he read the "vile
errors " of Edward Burrough, a prominent English Friend,
to the people, and heard the Quaker preachers' " utter
abundance of falsehoods and impertinences and gross
perversions of the Scripture." Richardson says that he
told Keith that "he offered violence to the sense and
understanding God had given him." " I spoke in the
Lord's dreadful power, and George trembled so much
as I seldom ever saw any man do."
George Keith spent about two years travelling back
and forth from New Hampshire to Carolina, omitting
no opportunity to attend the meetings of Friends, where
he usually precipitated an unpleasant controversy. His
staple charge would be that they asserted that the Light
of Christ within men was sufficient for salvation " without
anything else." The answer would usually be that they
believed all that the Scriptures said about Christ, but
that the inner experience was the essential thing. He
also completely reversed himself on the subject of water
baptism and the communion, arguing for them with
great urgency. He had a collection of sentences from
George Fox, Edward Burrough, and Richard Claridge,
which he claimed sustained his charges of heterodoxy,
and this collection was continually being increased by
the statements of present preachers, some of which were
doubtless crude enough.
He and his friend William Bradford, the late authorised
printer of Philadelphia, who had been tried for sedition,
appear to have secured the confinement in jail of Samuel
Bownas on a similar charge. Bradford declared that
456 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK.V
Bownas had uttered on Long Island in a sermon certain
malicious statements concerning the doctrines and practice
of Episcopalianism, then the established religion of New
York. After great trouble they secured some kind of a
verdict, and Samuel Bownas spent nearly a year in jail.
Afterwards Keith and Bownas, by accident or design,
were frequently at the same place holding meetings and
engaging in the public discussions which characterised
the times.
George Keith performed at least one valuable service.
He gives us in his Journal^ interesting historical state
ments as to the methods by which Friends in those days
maintained and increased their numbers. Their excellent
organisation of meetings in which large amounts of
money were collected, he says, was the basis of their
work. This money was used to help the poor, and
hence to proselytise them, and also to pay the travelling
expenses of ministers, many of whom from England as
well as the Colonies were always in the field. George
Fox's Orders and Canons were read in those meetings,
but never the Bible.2 Books were circulated exciting
their youth to prejudice against the Church of England.
" Divers large and fair structures for their meeting-houses,
especially in Philadelphia, Burlington and Rhode Island "
were being built, and great hospitality was extended to
all Friends who attended their meetings. They would
set up new meetings without any resident ministers, and
men "pretending to extraordinary gifts of the Spirit"
would soon be exercising these gifts. If the ministers
were poor, they would be especially aided in procuring
lucrative work so that they became rich. They dealt
with each other in business, married each other, made
careful records of births and deaths, and kept out of the
militia, and other dangerous employments, on the plea
of conscience. They held the allegiance of their people
by telling all the unfortunate things which happened
1 Collections of the Protestant Episcopal Historical Society, 1851.
a That the Bible was read in the meetings of Friends of early times is certain,
though not regularly. Samuel Bownas says, ' ' It came to my mind to stand up
and take out my Bible, which I did."
CH. in THE KEITH CONTROVERSY 457
to their enemies, and the happy deaths of their good
friends.
The whole is a portraiture, made by no friendly hand,
of the customs of Friends in those early days, which,
read between the lines, shows a beautiful fraternity and
an earnest missionary spirit.
It shows also, perhaps more clearly than any other
document, the dawn of those customs which soon
crystallized into the conservatism of the succeeding
decades. The lack of educated leadership fed directly
the tendencies to imitation of the virtues of the past.
The fear of innovations and devotion to the orthodox
literature of the first generation received a new impulse
from the Keith separation and the partisan spirit en
gendered, and the Society settled down into a century
or more of doctrinal ease and quiet.
The influence of the separation also probably brought
Friends into a more careful consideration of their doctrinal
positions. The necessity to controvert the charge of
the Keithians that they disregarded the offices of Jesus
Christ and the authority of the Bible gave a new life
to these teachings. Otherwise they might have easily
drifted into a position that such outward helps to spiritu
ality were not important. They never wavered in their
assertion of the efficacy of the Divine Light to lead into
all truth necessary to their salvation, but they were
equally emphatic in the statement that the Scriptures
were from the same source and constituted the test of
orthodoxy, and were of inestimable value to the Christian.
The Keith controversy steadied them in this position.
Had he been better balanced himself, his power would
have been greater. As it was, for a century after, their
committal to orthodoxy kept Friends somewhat in line
with the other Christians of the time, free from the
danger which the exclusive exaltation of the inner light
might have developed.
The writings of George Keith, both before and after
his repudiation of Quakerism, are marked by an excellent
style, an earnest spirit, much clearness in thought, and
458 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK.V
moderation of temper. Perhaps no better presentation
of Friendly tendencies, even in the works of Barclay,
Penn, Penington, or the other voluminous writers of the
times, is to be found than in the books of George
Keith in the years of his Friendly communion. They
contain not only well-considered defences of Christian
positions, but soul-satisfying appeals to live the life most
in harmony with the word of Christ. Had he died in
1690, they would have ranked high as Quaker classics.
Perhaps also there are few more able presentations
of the positions held at that time by the Established
Church of England than are in Keith's writings and
sermons after 1697. He was intellectually a great man.
His changes from Presbyterianism to Quakerism, from
this, after nearly thirty years' advocacy, to Independency,
and from this again to Episcopalianism, necessarily made
many enemies and required many explanations. His
biographies have been mainly written by his opponents
who emphasise his faults and his apostacy. He died in
1716, in the performance of his duties as minister of
the Established Church.
There is a story, which seems to be well authenticated,
that he said before he died " that if God had taken him
out of the world when he was a Quaker, it would have
been well with him." But the printer of the will of
George Keith says that he "never altered his mind to
the last."
CHAPTER IV
GOVERNMENT
THE Friends of Pennsylvania, whether they wished it or
not, had the responsibilities of government thrown upon
them. The first settlers were practically all Friends, and
for almost 200 years the rural districts of the south
eastern corner of Pennsylvania had almost exclusively
Quaker owners of the soil. In a short time, perhaps in
three decades, the influx of others made them a minority
in the province. But by the aid of German voters and
their own inherent fitness for the task, they retained an
easy supremacy in the Colonial legislature till their
voluntary abnegation in 1756. It becomes an interesting
question to consider whence they derived their principles
of government and what those principles were.
On these general principles there seemed great
harmony. Their leader found willing followers. The
disputes among themselves, which at this distance seem
trivial, relate to matters of detail and application. Many
of them doubtless had no settled theories, and followed
their Church leaders in State affairs with unthinking
fidelity. But William Penn always found intelligent and
loyal men to carry out his liberal ideas or to oppose
them by ideas still more liberal.
The attitude of the early Friends towards active
politics in England was largely one of neutrality. Being
dissenters, and dissenters of an especially unpopular type,
they could not expect to hold office, and there is no
reason to assume that they desired to. They were
rigidly obedient to law whenever the law did not touch
459
460 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK.V
their consciences, and with equal rigidity refused obedience
whenever it did. They would go to jail and stay there
indefinitely rather than remove their hats in court or take
an oath, but having been placed there by lawful powers,
no temptation in the shape of open doors and intimations
from the jailers could induce them to escape.
The times of the Commonwealth and the later Stuarts
were times of vast numbers of plots and counter-plots, but
against all of these the Friends were ever ready to testify.
They would have nothing to do with them on one side or
the other. It became in time a favourite doctrine that
thiey had no responsibility for the creation of any
government, and that their only duty was to be entirely
obedient to the one that then existed.
They were never revolutionists, but they transferred
their allegiance without demur from Cromwell to Charles
and from James to William and Mary as soon as the
successful revolution was accomplished.
While the responsibilities placed upon them in America
caused in various ways a change of attitude towards
government, when the American Revolution broke out
this old testimony against plotting was made to do duty
in the attitude of neutrality which all of their Meetings
adopted. Some of the wise Friends protested against
this position, while definitely opposing war. They urged
such encouragement to the American cause as Friends
could conscientiously give. Thus Dr. Fothergill writes :
"If America relaxes, both you and we are all undone.
Submission to the prevailing power must be your duty. The
prevailing power is the general voice of America."
This very mild advice was considered too strong by
many of the Friends, and the impression was given that
they were actively hostile to the American cause. We
shall have occasion to say more on this subject in the
future. Suffice it at present to note that the American
Friends had received from their English ancestors such
a strong bias in opposition to any change of government,
such a firm belief in the necessity of obedience to every
CH. iv GOVERNMENT 461
existing law which did not encroach upon their consciences,
that tradition made many of them faithful to British
allegiance who would otherwise have warmly welcomed
American independence. "The setting up and putting
down of governments is God's peculiar prerogative,"
declared their Yearly Meeting.
The testimony against war is perfectly intelligible, but
the testimony against all revolution by any means except
passive resistance is much less so, and probably would not
now be considered an essential part of Quaker polity.
But if, under ordinary circumstances, the Friends were
thus passively obedient to existing powers (relying upon
the frequently expressed advice of George Fox and his
friends to keep clear of all worldly commotions), they
were profoundly disobedient to other demands of the
Government. Obedience to conscience, or what they
assumed to be the Divine command to them as
individuals, in every smallest item was always to be
superior to any obligation of obedience to a human
power. They lived up to this principle with unfaltering
courage. One can see now that the wearing of the hat
and the use of the singular pronoun were testimonies to
human equality which it is fortunate that some one has
borne. But this argument was used by the Friends but
seldom. Their main reliance was a consciousness of
rectitude which was not always voiced in arguments, and
while some of them entered hotly into the theological
controversies of the times, and made many laboured
defences of their positions, many of the reasons which
seemed to them good and effective would appeal very
slightly or not at all to their successors.
The great principles which had been established by
their faithfulness are usually admitted to be the basis of
civil and religious liberty in England, but they did not
feel much responsibility for the conduct of the govern
ment. Their responsibility was to themselves as subjects
of the government
With the exception of William Penn, who publicly
advocated the election of the republican Algernon Sydney
462 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK.V
to Parliament, and in other ways made himself active
in public affairs, there was very little participation in
politics, and even Penn, with the responsibilities of Penn
sylvania resting upon him, could write to his children in
1699:
" Meddle not with government ; never speak of it, let others
say or do as they please ; . . . I have said little to you about
distributing justice, or being just in power or government, for
I should desire you should never be concerned therein."
If, therefore, we are to judge of the public attitude of
Friends by reference to early days in England, we have
little on which to base an opinion which will be of much
service to us in later times. When they came to America,
conditions were different. Wherever a group of Friends got
together, political instincts came to the surface. In Rhode
Island, for several years, they had the important offices in
their hands and were the active political workers of the
colony. The same was true in North Carolina for a little
time under John Archdale. In New Jersey, while there
was an effort to deprive them of public influence, it was
found that the government could not be conducted with
out them. In Pennsylvania, they took up the problem
with their eyes open and a full comprehension of the
responsibilities involved. In this Colony we can best
study the application of Quakerism to politics and the
problems of the State. The issues were partly determined
by the general principles of the Society of Friends, and
partly by the broad-minded and forceful personality of
William Penn.
The passivity with which Friends suffered in certain
circumstances when their convictions were attacked
hardly seems to have been their attitude when in active
politics. Abuses were checked with a strong hand.
Morality of a high order was demanded and secured.
Standards were maintained and wrong-doing vigorously
and effectively punished. Sometimes we find evidence
that their faith that an Almighty Power would rectify
abuses gave them confidence in ultimate triumph, even
CH. iv GOVERNMENT 463
under dark conditions, but it did not seem to cause them
to abate their own efforts.
Acquiescence in evil when the means were at hand to
strike it down morally never was a part of their principles
or practice. It has been left for mercenary and time
serving men of later ages to preach a timid and nerveless
policy and then to shelter themselves behind a supposed
Quaker example of non-resistance. Quakers were not
non-resistants. ,They resisted most courageously, and at
their best most successfully, many forms of political ills.
Their resistance only ceased when they were asked to use
immoral means. Here they drew the line, and a careful
student of Quaker political ethics will find them advo
cating not supine submission to wrong, but a resistance
limited in its methods by the moral law alone. To do evil
to correct evil was never a part of their theory of govern
ment or public action, and this hesitation sometimes has
made them seem less vigorous than others.
On the other hand, the same conscientiousness has
kept them true to resistance under circumstances when
hope seemed to have disappeared, and other advocates of
the good fight have given it up, or postponed it to a more
propitious period.
The influence of Friendly ideas upon American
institutions, and especially the experiment of William
Penn, has been great. It is quite possible that these
institutions have drawn more from the principles brought
over in the Welcome than from the intellectual freightage
of any other ship ; that of all the colonial founders
William Penn saw more truly than any other the line
on which the future would develop ; that himself and his
collaborators builded more wisely than any others when they
reared a state devoted to democracy, liberty and peace.
It was with them no denominational question. " I
would found a free colony for all mankind that shall come
hither," Penn declared, and while the early settlers, both
British and German, were men of kindred spirit and
impulses, the very basis of their union, peace and justice
with all and equal rights without regard to religious
464 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
affiliation, inevitably drew vast numbers of all sorts. So
that the Quaker majority soon disappeared, and before
the Revolution the province might more truthfully be
said to have been German or Scotch- Irish Presbyterian
in its prevailing tendencies than Quaker.
Yet through it all, the basis laid down by Penn stood,
and when in 1780 to 1790 this band of scattered states was
gathering itself into a nation, and painfully picking up
the threads of principle, political and social, with which
it would weave its permanent fabric, it found them not
in the dogmatism of Massachusetts, or the aristocracy
of Virginia, but in the civil and religious liberty of
Pennsylvania.
When later the nation recovered from its debauch of
Indian atrocities and encroachment upon weaker nations,
it saw the way in the success of the policy of justice
practised for three score years in the eastern end of
this province, making it a little oasis in the dreary
history of blood and aggression which told the story in
New England, New York and the South, and accompanied
the frontiers as they were pushed forward to the
Mississippi and beyond.
If the signs of the times as represented by the Hague
Congresses and the universal demand for peaceful
methods of arbitration coming up from the Boards of
Trade and the Labour organisations of all countries mean
anything, they indicate that the Friendly settlers had a
glimpse of a principle in which they had sufficient faith to
abide, for a long time deemed Utopian, but now within
sight of adoption.
All these were worked out in England by Penn and
his many unknown advisers, and were brought to shore
at Chester when he called together his first legislative
body in the early winter of 1682.
He could not extinguish denominational rancour.
Men looked on religious doctrine and belief more seriously
than now. It was critical and all compelling. Govern
ment was a brand of religion, the Bible was the standard,
and each man's interpretation of the Bible was sacred.
CH. iv GOVERNMENT 465
So said the zealous religionists of the day. So said some
of the Friends themselves. Did we not come over here
to create a Quaker preserve whence all error should be
excluded and a truly righteous Commonwealth established?
Why should we on equal terms admit all others to
citizenship with ourselves who have won a little corner of
the wilderness where we can work out our destiny in our
own way ?
The argument was plausible, and other colonies had
not been able to resist it. But Penn said, " We should
look selfish, and do that which we have cried out against
others for, namely, letting nobody touch government, but
those of their own way," and the narrow sectarianism
disappeared.
But while the doctrine of equal rights in government
could not be shaken, when it came to methods men
would divide on denominational lines. Quakers and
Presbyterians, in the later colonial days, were names not
only of religious affiliation but of political policy. " To
govern is absolutely repugnant to the avowed principles
of Quakerism " declared the Presbyterians in the hot
pamphlet warfare of 1764 which followed the invasion of
the " Paxton boys." " To be governed," was the reply,
perhaps about equally truthful, " is absolutely repugnant
to the avowed principles of Presbyterianism."
A little earlier than this, the Episcopal minister of
Chester wrote to his English brethren :
"The flock committed to my charge is indeed small; but
God be thanked, generally sound, which is as much as can be
expected considering the religion of the bulk of the people
among whom they live. I need not tell you that Quakerism is
generally preferred in Pennsylvania, and in no county of the
province does the haughty tribe appear more rampant than
where I reside, there being by a modest comparison twenty
Quakers, besides dissenters, to one true churchman."
But these harmless polemics were but the counterparts
to actual persecution and disabilities elsewhere. In New
England, as Longfellow makes the Puritan minister to
say, " There is no room in Christ's triumphant army for
2 H
466 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
tolerationists." So they drove out the Baptists and
Episcopalians and hanged the persistent Quakers on
Boston Common. In New York after Dutch times, in
Maryland when the Catholics lost control, and in all the
South, the Established Church held the offices, the jury-
box, and the franchise, and the actual liberty and property
of dissenters were hardly maintained.
In the State of Rhode Island alone was there equality
of political right and freedom of conscience. The
experiment among the little handful of people there was
not conclusive, and it required no little faith and courage
for Penn to embark his whole fortune, his reputation just
budding under the favouring friendship of the Stuart
kings and paternal influences, the standing and prosperity
of his religious society, dearer than fortune or reputation,
in an enterprise so largely based on an untried and
seemingly impossible principle.
The problems of the relation of Church to State are
not yet all worked out. How to give the children of the
country the religious education they should have without
violating the conscience of any ; how to secure the
Biblical knowledge in our country necessary to appreciate
our standard literature and maintain our institutions,
permeated, often insensibly, by Christian ideas and
standards ; how, in short, to prevent a break with the
past which will destroy the fruits of our old endeavours
and the continuity of history, — this is still our problem.
But no sane man thinks it lies in a State religion or
sectarian test. When Penn sailed up the Delaware, the
beginning of the end of ecclesiasticism in politics began,
and when he pledged himself and his heirs to maintain
"inviolably forever" the foremost clause of his charter
granting religious liberty to all, it was the legislative
enactment which, a century later, had ceased to be an
experiment, and was imperishably chiselled into the
national constitution.
Liberty always means conservatism. It is the abso
lute monarchy which has to fear revolution. The free
government moves quietly forward to the accomplishment
CH. iv GOVERNMENT 467
of its ends, for progress is the normal condition of
humanity, and the strain to prevent it, to keep things
fixed, is the danger of every stationary system. The
free government feels the gusts of public opinion, bends
before them, and rises superior to them, holding fast to
the good that is nearly always in them, but quietly
detecting and refusing the evanescent or injurious.
One finds in the early government of Pennsylvania
a certain sanity which was the logical concomitant of
liberty. Her paper money before the Revolution never
depreciated, and this, I believe, could be said of no
other Colony. She had no witchcraft crazes. The one
trial held before William Penn himself in 1683, in
Chester, when the usual charges of injuring children and
bewitching cattle were brought against an unfortunate
woman, simply resulted in a verdict of guilty of the
common fame of being a witch, but not guilty as
indicted. Her friends took charge of her, and no new
cases developed. It was in the next decade that
witches were being slaughtered with horrid cruelties in
Massachusetts.
Free institutions brought free thought, and free thought
is the only atmosphere in which science can flourish. It
is no accident that about Revolutionary times a company
of scientists, unrivalled elsewhere in America, and perhaps
in Europe, sprang up in Philadelphia. The botanists
Bartram and Marshall, the astronomer Rittenhouse, the
ornithologists Audubon and Wilson, a host of dis
tinguished physicians, and above all, the versatile Franklin,
found a congenial home in the uncramped atmosphere of
a liberal democracy.
Freedom and peace brought also unequalled material
prosperity. The natives of the ravaged Rhine Valley,
the battle-ground of Europe, the hardly used tenants of
Ulster whose Presbyterianism was attacked, heard of a
land where war was unknown and religion was secure,
and came in unprecedented numbers.
Though the last to be founded, Pennsylvania grew the
most rapidly, and at the time of the Revolution shared with
468 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
Massachusetts and Virginia the leading place in prosperity
and wealth. Its chief city was the largest, best governed,
and most progressive in the colonies. This, Andrew
Hamilton, the great lawyer of the province, said in 1737,
they owed not primarily to their fertile lands, or great
rivers extending into the country, or any other material
thing, but to " the constitution of Mr. Penn."
The great hope and lesson is this (and Penn foresaw
it, perhaps dimly) : give the people freedom and education,
and tendencies dangerous to political or social or material
conditions may have their little day, but do not last.
Russia has the same physical advantages as the United
States, but she has no freedom, no room to develop, and
hence is sunk in poverty, immorality, and intellectual
stagnation, without security for the future.
The other principle which Penn tried to engraft on
his experimental commonwealth was peace. We now see
that there were at that time unsurmountable difficulties
in the way of a permanent adoption of peace by any one
nation, and yet perhaps it did not seem to Penn more
impossible than liberty. A necessary element to success
must inevitably be justice. It could not be expected
that natives or neighbours would be peaceful if aggression
were made on their rights, real or supposed. So Penn
did more than buy the Indian lands. He bought them
of all claimants. He paid what was in their minds a
liberal price. He did not cheat them with false maps or
deceptive compass bearings, or weights and measures
that lied. He kept, as much as he could, fire-water from
them. When they got home, and thought the matter
over, they had only friendly feelings, and till new forces
came into power, and new methods were used, there were
no wars.
He meant also to deal justly with foreign powers ; but
England would fight and her colonies had no control, and
demands for troops against Canada made endless trouble,
and the policy ultimately broke down through the opera
tion of forces outside the reach of the province. All that
the Colony could do was to adopt the advice of Paul :
CH. iv GOVERNMENT 469
" If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably
with all men," which is no slight guarantee of peace.
Few men will attack an inoffensive man, and few nations
will attack a nation which is known never to do an unjust
deed or give any cause of offence.
The argument of Penn and his friends was something
like this :
We will act justly, even generously, with all, red men and
white men alike. We will never be an aggressor. If attacked,
therefore, we will always be in the right. We will not yield one
iota of our rights willingly, but will defend them by all means
which in themselves are right. We can not fight, for we believe
that fighting itself is immoral, and we will not do wrong even
for a righteous cause. If there is no other alternative, we can
suffer as we have shown our capacity to suffer in England, and
conquer by suffering.
It was, as will be seen, a doubtful experiment whose
success was dependent on conditions not likely to arise,
and yet it pointed the way to the future. It gave the
most potential lesson in the world's history of the
possibilities of applied Christianity as shown in a policy
of justice and moral resistance.
The argument was that the moral law was transcendent
to all decrees of king and legislatures, and to all supposed
exigencies of circumstances. No conditions permitted its
annulment. No necessities were so great as to justify its
abrogation. It was the all-wise Creator's law upon which
all right human conduct must be based. It could not
always be accurately determined, but when known, it was
imperative, and so to fight evil with evil was, in the long
run, only to postpone the victory of truth and to pile up
trouble for the future. Fight, fight continuously and
without flinching, but do not play into the hands of
iniquity by substituting one form for another — this was
the influence and example of William Penn. This is
far from non-resistance. The teaching of Penn was not
the teaching of Tolstoy. Resist all you can with' vigour
and practical efficacy but do it morally, said one. Do
not do anything, says the other, except your own quiet
470 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
work ; the truth will triumph of itself if you do not
obstruct. There was a vast gap between the two
positions.
Liberty and peace : these were the two main elements
of the Holy Experiment. There was not room in
Europe, for system there was set, and prejudice would not
yield. But with all the enthusiasm of his nature, Penn
saw the ideal commonwealth growing up in his woods.
He was to have bitter disappointments ; his colonies
were to be ungrateful, unappreciative of their great
opportunities, haggling over little matters of property, led
by demagogues into unreasonable demands ; he himself
was to lose his splendid patrimony in the enterprise and go
to a debtor's jail ; disease was to wreck his great intellect ;
the wife of his youth, to whom he was romantically
attached, was to be taken from him ; his children were to
be bitter disappointments ; but he could not foresee these
blows of fortune, and none can blame him if, on the bright
October day as he landed at Chester, he felt all the
exultation of his seemingly unlimited opportunities.
Proprietor and legislator by the Charter of the Crown,
he would use his great powers, not for aggrandisement or
personal glory, or a hereditary pre-eminence, but, he says,
" I will put the power in the people," and he saw, perhaps,
with his far-seeing vision, a commonwealth where idealism
should become a reality. His enthusiasm did not see the
slow growth and the many set-backs.
The material prosperity has been, doubtless, beyond his
wildest dreams. To him, this would have been valuable
only as making happy homes and beneficent institutions.
The material never would have dominated the spiritual.
Righteousness, piety, beneficence : these were the fruits for
which the growth of riches was worth while, and without
which liberty itself would be no blessing. It is still true,
as the old Grecian declared, that " virtue does not come
from wealth, but wealth and every other good thing we
have comes from virtue."
" William Penn is offered great things," writes James Claypoole,
";£6ooo for a monopoly in trade, which he refused. I truly
CH. iv GOVERNMENT 471
believe he does aim more at justice and righteousness and
spreading of truth than at his own particular gain."
These were the words of one who wanted to form a
trust to secure the Indian trade, but was surprised to learn
that the founder cared somewhat, though then in great
need of money, for the kind of men who would be let
loose upon the frontier to annul his policy of fairness to
the Red -men. " I did refuse a great temptation last
Second-day," Penn quietly remarked, "but I would not
defile what came to me clean."
Plato wrote his Republic, Thomas More his Utopia,
and John Locke his Fundamental Constitution, building
up in theory ideal commonwealths. The last one was
tried in practice and proved a failure. William Penn had
the opportunity and the wisdom, a combination which
comes to scarcely one man in a millennium, to rear in his
study a theory of government on the broadest principles
of right and justice, and to set it to work in a vast territory
with friendly neighbours and a sympathetic population.
These principles, by their inherent vitality, went far
beyond the bounds of his commonwealth, and a great
nation found in them the best expression of its aspirations
and needs, and is living on them to-day.
In the matter of oaths, the Friends had another difficult
experiment. They were firmly convinced of their pro
hibition in the New Testament and of their general
inutility. Hence, for themselves, they could do nothing
but refuse to take or administer them. But the laws of
England demanded them. At first, in Pennsylvania,
they attempted to get along without them. But certain
Crown officers, not responsible to the Colonial Govern
ment, and not Friends, were required by English law to be
sworn and to swear others, and concessions to such had
to be made. There was much trouble for a number of
years, both as to the oath and the form of affirmation,
which contained the words " in the presence of Almighty
God." This was assumed to be something of the nature
of an oath, also to occasion the irreverent use of a sacred
name.
472 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
In 1718 a settlement of the matter was attempted,
making an affirmation valid in evidence and as a qualifica
tion for office, and affixing the same penalties for lying
and perjury, which Act was confirmed by the English
Crown. A few years later, the name of God was stricken
from the form of affirmation. Friends could now be freed
from any disqualifications, except that they could not hold
offices, the duties of which included administering oaths,
and the Meetings insisted on their resigning such positions.
They were not troubled, however, as witnesses or jurymen,
or as members of the legislature, or as other officials,
except as above mentioned, and matters still stand
practically as arranged in 1725.
The threat of an imposition of an oath in order to
drive Friends from power was frequently made both in
Pennsylvania and England by those politically hostile.
In 1756 it is probable that this threat would have been
made good by Parliament, had not Friends resigned from
the Assembly.
The "Great Law" of 1682, which William Penn
brought with him from England, made capital punishment
applicable to the crimes of murder and treason only. So
far as is known there was only one case of capital punish
ment before 1700, and that was for murder. It was
charged by the opposition that this leniency encouraged
crime and, along with the absence of oaths, it was an
indictment of the efficiency of the colonial government.
There does not seem to be much truth in the charge, but
the Friends were willing to compromise in the matter.
The Act of 1718, which made affirmations valid, contained
additional clauses accepting the laws of England in their
provisions for the penalties for crime, and some dozen of
offences were added to the capital list. This Act was
drawn up by a Quaker lawyer, and passed by a Quaker
Assembly, without protest from the Meetings. There
appears to have been no testimony against capital punish
ment per se. The law stood all through the colonial
days, but when, in the Revolution, the Quaker control
was finally ended, the opposing party readopted the laws
CH. iv GOVERNMENT 473
of the early times. Penn and his mild penal code died
in the same year, and its restoration came about when
his denominational successors were driven from power.
The Act of 1718 was apparently a political bargain
which extended capital punishment in exchange for a
relief from oath-taking. It has been said that Penn's
" Holy Experiment " ended with his death. This is true
in the one feature of penalties for crime, but hardly
otherwise. The absence of any positive testimony against
taking human life weakened the position of the Friends
on the subject of war, though they were able to point to
a valid distinction between police and martial measures.
Had they abolished capital punishment, or even kept it
down to the limitations of the founder, so far in advance
of anything else ever tried, charges of inconsistency, which
troubled them considerably in their political arguments,
and threw certain forces to the side of their opponents,
would have been avoided. But they had not reached
this position.
The political principles of Friends seem to have been
a logical deduction from their theology. The doctrines of
direct Divine messages given to men, created a spiritual
democracy. It was this message, rather than any other
merits of the messenger, which was to be honoured. It
came to the poor and ignorant as well as to the wealthy
and learned. The humblest member of a great congrega
tion might break forth in heavenly accents of praise or
exhortation. No human ordination and no scholastic
requirements were necessarily precedent. All was equality.
Closely connected with this root doctrine were the refusal
to remove the hat (then a mark of inferiority), the con
sistent use of the singular pronoun, and the plain spoken-
ness and persistency with which sin was rebuked and
illegal authority disowned.
Religious liberty, which is much more than toleration,
and civil equality could not fail to be essential parts of a
system of government conducted by such men. Freedom
of conscience would be its very choicest possession. They
would get into the spirit, which, as George Fox said,
474 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
" took away the occasion of all wars," and love and peace
would characterise their intercourse among each other and
to all men. However far from this standard were the
lives of many of them after persecution ceased, there were
always some who were up to it ; and the extreme veneration
felt for the holy men of the first generation, kept the others
in outward conformity. They buttressed their position
by Biblical arguments, and always were willing in their
discussions, to abide by the verdict of the book. But
among themselves, their own experience of truth and
godliness was its own convincing evidence.
CHAPTER V
THE FRIENDS AS POLITICIANS
UNLIKE other colonies, Pennsylvania came under the
political control of Friends at the first. When Penn
landed at what is now Chester on the Delaware River in
the fall of 1682, he called together a Legislative Assembly.
This consisted of representatives of the Swedes and Dutch
who had previously settled there, and of the newly arrived
English Friends. The lines were immediately drawn on
the election of the Speaker. At a time when two of the
old residents were absent, the Friends carried the day by
a majority of one. This was the nearest to losing control
of the popular Assembly which they experienced for seventy-
four years. Often every member was a Friend. Always
they constituted a large and controlling majority.
This division in the first Legislative Assembly seemed
to create no permanent feeling, and it proceeded to ratify
the laws which Penn had drawn up in England, with some
modifications satisfactory to him, with great unanimity.
These first colonists were mostly men who had lost
much property, and had felt the rigours of English and
Welsh jails for months and years. They were not likely to
make trouble in government. They were profoundly thank
ful for their escape from persecution, for their beautiful
country, and for the liberties which their founder granted
them. He was among them in the vigour and enthusiasm
of mature manhood, meeting every reasonable demand,
adjusting difficulties in a statesmanlike and liberal spirit,
and enjoying with them the reality of their Divine
Communion in the religious meetings. Everything was
475
476 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
sweet and harmonious, and the government started under
the best of conditions.
"Two general assemblies," Penn writes in August 1683, "have
been held, and with such concord and dispatch that they sat but
three weeks, and at least seventy laws were passed without one
dissent in any material thing."
This first specimen of Quaker legislation embraced
provisions for the absence of any religious test, except
belief in a God, for extended suffrage, for freedom of
conscience, for legal protection of individual rights, for
the mildest penal code ever enacted up to that time, for
forbidding the sale of liquor to the Indians, for abolishing
primogenitures, against swearing, duelling, cock-fighting,
stage-plays, lotteries, and drunkenness. The Friends were
puritan in the matter of popular amusements, not so rigid
as the New Englanders, but still with the idea that it
was necessary to maintain a moral and godly common
wealth.
The Charter which Penn gave his colonies was modified
several times in the first score of years. In 1701, when
he sailed for England, he included in the final form the
features which experience had suggested. It became in
time a revered instrument, lasting till the revolutionary
spirit of 1776 overthrew it in common with every other
vestige of subordination to England. But even then it
disappeared with the sincere regret of many friends of
independence.
The first article grants liberty of conscience to all, but
restricts the right to hold office to those who profess to
believe in Jesus Christ. The second requires an assembly
of one house to be chosen annually, which has power to
judge of the qualifications of its members, to make all
laws, subject to the Governor's veto, to vote all supplies
for the Government, and to adjourn when it pleased. It
was too near Stuart times to take any risk of a denial of
the rights of the people by arbitrary power. Other articles
relate to the election of local officers, the rights of criminals,
and the power of Courts to decide all property cases, and
CH. v THE FRIENDS AS POLITICIANS 477
pledges the proprietor and his heirs never to invade the
consciences of his people.
To what extent did these settlers mean that Pennsyl
vania should be a Quaker Colony ? In so far as this would
signify that Quaker rights and privileges should be secure,
and that they should be in no danger from a renewal of
English persecution, they undoubtedly intended that the
then dominant sect should have the rights of ordinary
freemen. William Penn expresses this distinctly in a
semi-private letter.
" I went thither to lay the foundation of a free colony for all
mankind, more especially those of my own profession ; not that
I would lessen the civil liberties of others because of their
persuasion, but screen and defend our own from any infringement
on that account."
When the Friends had time to steady themselves in
the face of these new principles we find no attempt to
grasp at power for sectarian ends or by sectarian machinery.
The liberties they claimed for themselves they granted to
all others, save in the reservation already noted of the
privileges of office-holding to Protestant Christians, and
this was probably forced upon them. Their demand
for liberty of conscience included a freedom to perform
all the civil functions of government without taking or
administering oaths, and without being engaged in any
martial operations or appropriations. Had all been
Friends there would have been no difficulty in these
matters, except from outside. But others with equal
consistency considered oaths essential, and fighting
justifiable or meritorious. How were these views to be
reconciled ? Practically it came about that the Friends
allowed the oaths and the militia, but refused to have
any part in them. To take an affirmation instead of an
oath was a simple matter of choice ; but there might be
judicial or magisterial positions, involving administering
oaths when they were sanctioned by law, and there the
option could not be permitted. Hence Friends refused
to allow themselves to accept such positions.
The war question was less easy of solution. William
478 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
Penn accepted a Charter from the Crown, which permitted
him —
" To levy, muster, and train all sorts of men . . . and to make
war and pursue the enemies and robbers as well by sea as by
land . . . and by God's assistance to vanquish and take them
to put them to death by the law of war, or save them, etc."
This was ample authority for a Quaker Governor, and
not infrequently there was a call made for him to exercise
these powers. Usually he evaded this by the appointment
of a deputy who was not a Friend, who went through the
harmless military motions of the times with a clear
conscience.
Then there were frequent calls upon the Quaker
legislature for appropriations for aid against the French
or Indians. Some of these were refused, some evaded,
and this finally wrought the downfall of Friendly domina
tion in the province. Up to 1756 it was possible to
make the necessary adjustments, but when the issue
became clear and definite the Friends resigned or declined
re-election.
These two illustrations serve to show their position as
to government. They were committed to it, and meant
to make it succeed. They voted, and were elected to
office. In all ordinary political affairs they were active,
even adroit, politicians. But they made their stand on
a violation of personal conscience. No ulterior good,
however plausible or comprehensive, or even seemingly
necessary, could induce them to take an oath or join a
military company, because they deemed that these were
wrong in themselves, and hence justified by no necessity.
Penn and his heirs held the governorship by virtue of the
King's Charter. As during much of the time they could not
be present it was necessary to appoint deputies, limited in
their powers by instructions. These deputies were usually
not Friends, and after the death of Penn and his widow
they surrounded themselves with Councils, in which Friends
had little place. The Executive management of the Colony
was therefore largely out of Friendly control. But the
CH.V THE FRIENDS AS POLITICIANS 479
Friends had no serious opposition in the popularly elected
legislative assembly so long as they chose to seek places
there. In the local offices of the three south-eastern
counties they, by inherent fitness and the popular choice,
held everything to which their scruples presented no bar.
These conditions made Pennsylvania for about seventy
years a Quaker province. There was enough opposition
and enough diversity to make interesting problems, and
to test the idea that the political principles and methods,
which naturally result from their theological and moral
ideals, were adapted to practical conditions. There never
has been before or since any other opportunity where they
had even an approximate chance to sway the destinies of
a State for any considerable length of time.
We will now take up more consecutively the affairs of
the State so far as they were determined by the activities
of Friends.
After the first burst of good feeling, resulting from the
new opportunities and the presence and leadership of Penn,
had exhausted itself, the difficulties and bickerings began.
A little body of English churchmen were evidently intent
on grasping something of the pre-eminence they held in
England, and sent home reports discrediting the manage
ment. The Friends themselves, unused to political control,
seemed to have exaggerated ideas of their personal rights,
and to have become unduly suspicious of all authority.
After the founder's short stay in the province Thomas
Lloyd was the leader, both in Church and State, of the
Friendly forces. Penn made him, either alone or as
chairman of a Board, his deputy, as long as he would
accept the place. Under his administration matters went
smoothly. The same men led both in meeting and politics,
and so we find them adjusting their appointments by
changing the hour of meeting to suit the " Court " and
otherwise. The most of the State leaders were ministers,
and they seem to have drawn no definite line which would
indicate that one side of their work was more religious or
more secular than the other.
In 1688 Thomas Lloyd became tired of the responsi-
480 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
bility of government. Penn appointed John Blackwell, a
Cromwellian soldier, whom he describes as " not a Friend,
but a grave, sober, wise man." The first two adjectives
may be true, but the hot fight he immediately found on
his hands from Quaker opposition makes us doubt the
applicability of the third. The transformation from the
submissive martyr of England to the noisy defendant of
popular rights in Pennsylvania is also instructive. Here
is one of several turbulent scenes in the Council.
"The Governor [Blackwell] declared ye Council to be
adjourned till ye next council day, . . . and rose up out of his
place to depart accordingly ; upon which several members of ye
Council departed. But divers remayned, and a great deal of
confused noise and clamour was expressed at, and without the
doore of the Governor's roome where ye Council had sat, which
occasioned persons (passing by in the street) to stand still to
heare, which the Governor observing, desired the said Thomas
Lloyd would forbear such loud talking, telling him he must not
suffer such doings, but would take a course to suppress it, etc., etc."
The Governor could not manage the situation, and was
removed by the proprietor, and again Lloyd came into
power.
In 1689 there occurred the first of many difficulties
due to Quaker scruples on the subject of warfare.
Blackwell had asked aid of the Council, then partly
Friendly, in providing defence against an apprehended
war with France. John Simcock, a minister, could see
"no danger but from bears and wolves." Samuel
Carpenter, then laying the foundation for his great
business career, took the position that he would have
nothing to do with it. " I would rather be ruined than
violate my conscience." But he would not tie the hands
of the Governor if he felt that something should be done.
To this his Quaker associates assented, and this seemed
generally the position of the Friends. If others wanted
to defend themselves they would interpose no barrier,
but they would not join in it themselves, for it would
violate their consciences. They would not use arms
themselves or vote supplies for others.
CH.V THE FRIENDS AS POLITICIANS 481
The recall of Blackwell came in opportunely, and the
French danger also disappeared, so that this test was
not brought to an issue.
Of the ecclesiastical results of the schism created by
George Keith, we have already spoken. His teachings
added one more to the political distractions which
were discrediting the province. His attacks upon the
Quaker leaders were vigorous and eloquent. Thomas
Lloyd was especially an object, and it was impossible
in those days to separate religious from political
prejudices. The Keithian and Foxian Quakers became
convenient terms for parties in the state. Keith's
claim that no Friends could consistently use any force
in affairs of government created a new issue ; and his
demand, resulting logically from it, that all members
should resign their magistracies and other executive
positions would have broken up the Quaker experiment.
His party in politics lived for a decade, and then slowly
disappeared ; but his friends formed a group opposed to
the proprietor, and ready for years to come to unite with
any opposition which should form itself.
These unhappy disturbances, magnified in England,
and Penn's unfortunate friendship for the exiled King
James brought about in 1692 the confiscation by the
Crown for two years of Penn's control of the government,
The governorship was placed in the hands of Benjamin
Fletcher, then also Governor of New York. He was
supported by the churchmen and Keithians, while the
Friends, as under Blackwell, made a troublesome and
vigorous opposition. They still controlled the Legis
lature, and the two parties managed to block each others'
hands till Penn regained his hold on the province and to
a large extent his influence in London. Politics moved
quietly along till in 1699 he found it again possible to
visit his province.
He found a colony which politically seemed unwhole-
somely full of bickerings. The people were tyros in
government. The Friends had been divided among
themselves. A little later he wrote, advising his secretary
2 I
482 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
to send some of the chief men of the colony to England,
so that they might find how insignificant they were.
They were trying to carry points and create parties
entirely out of proportion to the importance of the issues
involved, and this condition was to continue for another
decade.
Penn himself was in deep financial trouble though, as
a partial excuse for his colonists' baffling policy, they did
not know it.
His steward had fraudulently involved him in debt far
out of his ability to manage unless his Pennsylvania
property could be made productive. Indeed when he
came over his whole interest in the colony had been con
veyed to Philip Ford, and leased from him again so that
he could collect his quit-rents and encourage immigration.
This explains his almost frantic appeals for the money
which was his due, and which his political opponents
were using to harass him and drive additional bargains,
not only for political but also for commercial privileges.
The contrast between the high hopes in his first visit
and the mean and mercenary troubles of the second would
have broken the enthusiasm of an ordinary man. Yet it
does not seem to have done so with him. " The more he
is pressed the more he rises," said his best Pennsylvania
friend, Isaac Norris. " Friends," Penn said to the Legis
lature, " if there is anything in the Charter that jars, alter
it ... I desire to see mine, no other than in the people's
prosperity."
And the people's prosperity was justifying him. The
political troubles were on the surface. Friends and others
were flocking in. They were building their houses and
clearing the lands. They were establishing Meetings and
were coming together semi-weekly in the fear of God.
To an outside observer who could fairly judge, the
solidity of the state was established under Penn's benign
institutions, and the quarrels which make up history were
only the froth. Two busy years of Penn's forceful
personality cleared away many difficulties. He gave the
province, the city, and the school new charters. He
CH. v THE FRIENDS AS POLITICIANS 483
bought additional land of the Indians, and cemented their
bonds with the whites. He preached in the Meetings
and straightened out the church affairs ; and he went
through an immense amount of detail, as to property
lines, local offices, and public bridges and roads. Could
he have remained, much of the subsequent unedifying
politics would never have had to be recorded.
When Penn left the province in 1701 three political
parties sprang into existence. With the churchmen
we need have little to do. They demanded military
defence and oaths, but were more of an obstacle to the
Pennsylvanians by their reports sent to London than by
their direct influence. They were led by certain Crown
officials not under provincial authority, whose following
was limited in numbers, but just at present was reinforced
by the remnants of the Keithians.
The Friends were strong enough to divide. They
were now but little if any more than a majority of the
inhabitants, but in character, influence, and historic claims
constituted the potent social and political forces of the
State.
One of the parties was made up of friends of the
proprietor, the best educated, most wealthy, and most
responsible citizens. Their strength was largely in
Philadelphia, but they had their representatives through
the Counties. Their agent, and in time their leader,
was James Logan, the secretary of William Penn.
He had come with his " master " on the same boat in
1699, a young Friend of twenty-six years. For a half-
century he was a most potent factor in provincial affairs.
Perfectly faithful to the Penn family, scholarly and genial
among his friends, but harsh and unfair in his judgment
of his enemies, he was for the coming years the centre
of the volcanic disturbances which afflicted the colony.
His standing among Friends was not very secure. He
believed in defensive war, and was intolerant of their
narrow distinctions. He managed the Indian affairs
with great skill and quite in the spirit of the founder.
Later he became more placable and settled down at
484 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
Stenton into an honoured age, devoted to literature and
science.
The leader of the opposition was David Lloyd, a Welsh
man of remarkable ability. His standing as a Friend was
better than Logan's. He was fully devoted to their extreme
views concerning war and oaths. He was an intense
democrat, a stout champion of popular rights, a shrewd
politician, a man who, if any, deserves the name of the
first Pennsylvania " boss." He marshalled the country
Friends against the aristocratic tendencies of the pro
prietary party, and opposed with vigour and success any
increase of its prerogatives.
Some of his methods seem at this distance unjustifi
able. His attacks upon Penn were, at least, ungenerous,
and probably grossly exaggerated the grievances. His
enemies gave him ample material for attack, of which he
made skilful and generally legitimate use.
Penn had made a young man named John Evans his
Deputy-Governor. As usual with Penn's appointees, this
was an unfortunate selection. Evans was capable but
indiscreet and something of a libertine. He imprisoned
a critical member of the Assembly. He tried to discredit
the Friends by bringing a false alarm of a French
invasion so that they would disown their principles. He
collected " powder money " by a tax on commerce, alike
burdensome and illegal. In many ways he showed his
inability to succeed in a province of Friends. Penn's
supporters hung their heads and Lloyd triumphed.
These conditions existed until 1710, when a complete
revulsion of feeling in favour of Penn came about.
Evans had now been superseded, and the province had, or
hoped to have, a sober and acceptable Deputy-Governor.
Every member, without an exception, of Lloyd's assembly
was defeated, and a loyal and responsible house gave the
people a taste of sane progress.
They had had for the time, at least, enough of petty
quarrelling. They had found that their founder had
been considering the sale of his possessions to the Crown,
and had only held back because he could not sufficiently
CH.V THE FRIENDS AS POLITICIANS 485
protect their rights. While they had been complaining
of little evils and treating him most shamefully he had
been sacrificing his own interests to protect theirs ; and
when after the election he sent them a letter full of kindly
advice, a pathetic plea for friendliness and sympathy, it
was everywhere read, and the heart of the people went
out as one man to their generous and statesmanlike
leader.
It did not come any too soon. William Penn had
two years of normal life in which to enjoy the loyalty
and respect of his people. His troubles with his steward
were also over, and his American property was beginning
to yield a comfortable income. His acceptance among
his English Friends of all classes was also much more
cordial, and the tongue of calumny was silenced. He
was about to complete his arrangements for the sale of
his privileges in Pennsylvania to the Crown, with the
rights and scruples of his colonists fairly protected, when
a stroke of paralysis prostrated him, and the transaction
was never completed. He lingered for almost six years,
his mind weakened but his sense of the Divine presence
unimpaired. During this time, and until his death, his
Pennsylvania affairs were managed by his wife, Hannah
Callowhill Penn.
We now enter upon the happy period of Friendly
control of government. For thirty years following 1710
we have a state, satisfied, at peace, enjoying popular liberty
and security for its continuance. It was prosperous, too,
beyond precedent. The ravaged and outraged dwellers
in the Rhine Valley, the battle-ground of Europe, the
vigorous Presbyterians of Ulster who were threatened
with the invasions of Episcopacy, heard of a land where
wars were unknown, where taxes were light, where land
was plentiful and cheap, and where every man worshipped
as he pleased. The streams from both lands, little
rivulets at first, but strengthening with each decade,
settled the province at an unprecedentedly rapid rate.
The government was simple and inexpensive, making very
light demands upon the people. Fortunately England
486 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
made no calls on her colonies for warlike aid. Oaths
were settled so that the question made no trouble. The
wise arrangements of Logan kept peace and amity with
the Indians. A scheme of paper money supplied the
medium to pay for the importations of a growing colony,
yet was so cautiously issued, that Pennsylvania probably
alone among the provinces always maintained it at par.
The parties of the early days were forgotten. Lloyd
and Logan preserved, if not friendship, at least decorous
intercourse. The Friends carried everything their own
way in the state, the Governors selected by Hannah Penn
being wisely responsive to prevailing desires and their
councils made up of judicious and clear-headed men.
The popular assembly was easily theirs by its quiet,
scrupulous management of affairs and the aid of the
German vote. The days that Penn had dreamed of had
been as nearly realised as one has a right to expect of
dreams. They were days of which the annals are so
uninteresting as to take but little space in history, and
yet in which the ends of government were better subserved
than in times of internal strife and external warfare.
All that Penn had striven for had not been perfectly
secured. His gentle penal code had gone a sacrifice
to political expediency. Oaths were given and taken,
though not by Friends. Catholics were allowed to
worship as nowhere else among the Colonies, but they
could not hold office or corporate title to property.
There were malefactors, ungodly and immoral people
who were hardly restrained. It was not ideal, but as
near to it as a reasonable person would expect.
Andrew Hamilton, the great lawyer of the province,
when he resigned the speakership of the Assembly in
1739, thus sums up the conditions:
" It is not to the fertility of our soil, and the commodiousness
of our rivers, that we ought chiefly to attribute the great progress
this province has made within so small a compass of years, in
improvements, wealth, trade, and navigation ; and the extra
ordinary increase of people who have been drawn here from
almost every country in Europe ; — a progress which more ancient
CH. v THE FRIENDS AS POLITICIANS 487
settlements on the main of America cannot, at the present,
boast of. No. It is principally and almost wholly owing to
the excellency of our constitution, under which we enjoy a
greater share both of civil and religious liberty than any of our
neighbors.
" It is our great happiness that instead of triennial assemblies,
a privilege which several other colonies have long endeavored
to obtain but in vain, ours are annual, and for that reason as
well as others less liable to be practised upon or corrupted
either with money or presents. We sit upon our own adjourn
ments when we please and as long as we think necessary and
are not to be sent a-packing in the middle of a debate, and
disabled from representing our just grievances to our gracious
sovereign.
" We have no officers but what are necessary, none but what
earn their salaries, and those generally are either elected by the
people or appointed by their representatives.
"Our foreign trade and shipping are free from all imposts
except those small duties payable to his majesty by the statute
of the law of Great Britain. The taxes which we pay for
carrying on the public service are inconsiderable, for the sole
power of raising and disposing of the public money for the
public service is lodged in the assembly who appoint their
own treasurer, and to them alone he is accountable. Other
incidental taxes are assessed, collected, and applied by persons
annually chosen by the people themselves. Such is our happy
state as to civil rights. Nor are we less happy in the employ
ment of a perfect freedom as to religion. By many years'
experience, we find that an equality among religious societies,
without distinguishing any one sect with greater privileges than
another, is the most effectual method to discourage hypocrisy,
promote the practice of the moral virtues, and prevent the
plagues and mischiefs that always attend religious squabbling.
"This is our constitution, and this constitution was framed
by the wisdom of Mr. Penn, the first proprietary and founder
of this province, whose charter of privilege to the inhabitants of
Pennsylvania will ever remain a monument of his benevolence
to mankind, and reflect more lasting honor on his descendants
than the largest possessions in the framing of this government.
He reserved no powers to himself or his heirs to oppress the
people, no authority but what is necessary for our protection,
and to hinder us from falling into anarchy, and, therefore
(supposing we could persuade ourselves that all our obligations
to our great lawgiver, and his honorable descendants, were
entirely cancelled), yet our own interests should oblige us
488 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
carefully to support the government on its present foundation,
as the only means to secure to ourselves a prosperity, the
enjoyments of those privileges, and the blessings flowing from
such a constitution, under which we cannot fail of being happy
if the fault be not our own."
Hamilton was succeeded as Speaker by John Kinsey,
the Clerk of the Yearly Meeting. He also became in a
few years the Chief-Justice in the province, and held the
three offices combining leadership in Church and State
till his death.
Times were coming when the political policy of the
Friends needed wisest direction. Though they did not
know it, their days of easy supremacy were about over.
The experience and the entrenched power gained by the
thirty years of peace and prosperity carried them along
through fifteen years more of troubled politics, and then
came the end of official control.
The troubles centred partly around the Quaker
attitude toward war. To appreciate this we will retrace
our history and mention a few instances.
Governor Fletcher in 1693 wanted money for a
French war. He promised that the appropriation should
be used for other purposes and not "dipt in blood."
Though this was really an evasion the vote was given. In
1701 the Assembly assured the King that they would
acquiesce in his requests for money "so far as our
religious persuasions shall permit," and voted nothing.
Governor Evans made frequent requests for a militia,
but the Assembly went no further than to suggest to
him that he had authority as Deputy-Governor to form a
voluntary organisation, which, however, did not prosper.
In 1709 Governor Gookin asked for 150 soldiers
from Pennsylvania to join the quotas of the other states,
or in lieu of them £4000 of money. This was a serious
proposition, for war was an actual fact. The Friends in
Council and Assembly met and debated the question.
The former, the Logan party, were of the opinion that
though they could not vote war supplies, they must support
the general government by a present to the Queen. To
CH.V THE FRIENDS AS POLITICIANS 489
this the Assembly agreed, with the promise that it should
be placed in safe hands till they were satisfied that it
would not be used for war. This was David Lloyd's
amendment to the Logan proposition, and when the
Governor refused to accept it with the condition, the house
abruptly adjourned without his consent
When the Logan party came into power in 1711
they voted £2000 " for the Queen's use " in response to
a demand for a military expedition, though as a matter
of fact it was not used for that purpose. Isaac Norris
says : " We did not see it to be inconsistent with our
principles to give the Queen money notwithstanding
any use she might put it to, that not being our part,
but hers."
This seems to have been the attitude of the Friends'
Assembly in the days to come. The grasping and unfair
policy of the sons of William Penn embittered the Indians.
The wars between England and France were reproduced
among the Indian tribes, and French intrigue took
advantage of their excited state to inflame them against
the English colonists. Military defence or the abandon
ment of the frontiersmen to Indian cruelty seemed the
only alternatives. The legislators would assert their
peaceable principles and their conscience against personal
participation, and would then vote money " for the King's
use." The Governor would use it to build forts, or to
feed the militia, or buy munitions of war. It is true that
the causes of the wars were entirely out of their control,
and not only so, but, in so far as they could, they had
opposed them. The wars were the result of measures
which had had their earnest but ineffectual resistance.
When William Penn or James Logan bought Indian lands,
the Indians were fully satisfied, and went home without
the least feeling of hostility. But when Thomas Penn
devised his infamous " Walking Purchase " to cheat the
Minisinks out of their ancestral homes against their
consent, by methods which they well knew were fraudu
lent, he absolved them from their loyalty to the white
settlers, and they bided their time for revenge.
490 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
This did not come for a few years. In the meantime
other troubles arose. In 1739 England and Spain
declared war. Governor Thomas asked for an appropria
tion to protect the province against a probable attack.
This opened a paper discussion between the Governor
and the Assembly led by John Kinsey, in which the
possibility of conducting a province without war was dis
cussed with some bitterness and considerable ability by
both sides. In the first reply of the Assembly they
remind the Governor that most of them were " of the
people called Quakers, and principled against bearing
arms in any case whatsoever." As to other people they
said that it would not be fair to throw burdens upon them
from which the Friends were relieved, and they suggest
that the Governor make the service voluntary. They
intimate that rather than show any complicity they would
trust the defence of the province to that power which
"not only calms the raging waves of the sea, but sets
limits beyond which they cannot pass."
The Governor replied that this did not relieve them
of the necessity for defence — that sailors must furl their
sails in a storm even though they trusted in a Divine
Protector, He suggested that they did not hesitate
to put a burglar to death, and that there was no logical
difference between this act and more extended resistance
to an army which would attack their persons and
property.
To this last point they objected that the burglar was
doing a conscious wrong while the men in the army were
probably innocent of any criminal intent.
It is unnecessary to go through the discussion. It
wound up with a statement from the Governor that
Quaker principles were inconsistent with government,
and he followed this by a recommendation to England
that the Friends should be made ineligible to office.
James Logan advised the Yearly Meeting to the same
effect, suggesting that all Friends who held such scruples
should voluntarily resign, but that body refused to permit
the paper to be read.
CH.V THE FRIENDS AS POLITICIANS 491
The total result was a Quaker triumph. They refused
the appropriation. They strengthened their hold on the
legislature, and brought the Governor to terms by a
refusal to vote him a salary, and they probably had the
better of the argument. The pious reflections and adroit
political argument of John Kinsey had carried the day.
The excitement lasted through several years, and
culminated in a street fight in 1742, when a number of
sailors tried to raid the polls in the interest of the
Governor's party, and a bunch of hard-fisted Germans
stood by the Assembly. In both the street fight and
the elections the Quakers triumphed.
The Spanish war was soon over, but one with France
immediately followed. In 1745 the Assembly, again
declaring their peaceable principles, but recognising their
duty " to give tribute to Caesar," voted ^4000 for " bread,
beef, pork, flour, wheat, and other grains " in lieu of
military supplies. The Governor is said to have con
strued the " other grain " to mean gunpowder. French
wars were now almost continuous, and again and again
money was voted " for the King's use," always, however,
receiving for it some addition to their political liberties
and powers.
John Kinsey died in 1750. He had no successor
capable of coping with conditions within and without
the Society of Friends, and the affairs of the " Quaker
Party " fell largely into the hands of Benjamin Franklin,
who had no sympathy with their anti-martial views.
He writes of the Friends in 1747 as "that wealthy
and powerful body of people who have governed our
elections and filled almost every seat in the Assembly."
Hitherto the wars had been outside the province, but
when Braddock's army went down to defeat before Fort
Du Quesne in 1755 the exasperated Indians were let
loose on the frontiers. During this time of anxiety and
real suffering the annual election for the Assembly came,
and again Friends had an overwhelming majority.
Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting, writing to the London
Meeting for Sufferings in explanation of the situation,
492 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
says that many of their members had declined executive
and some legislative positions, and more would do so
if there were others on whose probity and principles
they could rely to take their places. Though they were
now a small minority of the population, yet such was the
confidence reposed in them that even in the back districts
where but few Friends resided, these were generally
chosen by the votes of others. They add :
"It is remarkable that for 16 years successively, more than
half of which was a time of war, a set of men conscientiously
principled against warlike measures have been chosen by those
of whom the majority were not in that particular of the same
principle."
Thus being honourably the recipients of the confidence
and support of the Colony, they could not properly evade
a manifest duty.
Many of the more spiritual Friends did not, however,
take this position. The votes for warlike defence,
imposing a tax which some of their members could not
conscientiously pay, were too much like temporising to
suit the Quaker regard for plain dealing. They urged
their brethren to withdraw from a government which
involved such inconsistency.
This tendency was strengthened by the English
Friends. Dr. Fothergill and David Barclay came into
possession of information which led them to believe that
the Ministry were about to introduce a bill requiring an
oath of all Colonial officials. The real object of this
was to drive Friends from public life. By their explana
tions they secured a stay of this purpose by the promise
that they would use their influence to have the Penn
sylvania legislators who were Friends withdraw from the
house. A delegation from London Yearly Meeting was
sent over to enforce by urgent representation this course
of action.
It found matters ripe for the purpose. The Governor
and his council, the Quaker member, William Logan,
alone dissenting, had declared war against the Delaware and
CH.V THE FRIENDS AS POLITICIANS 493
Shawnee Indians, and for the first time in its history the
province was actually at war. Certain Friends immedi
ately resigned their places in the Assembly, and when
the Englishmen arrived a number of others declined
re-election.
Thus ended in 1756 the Quaker regime. They could
not carry on a state at war. Had they had executive
control they would have pacified the Indians as they did
privately a few years later. But all they could do was to
vote supplies for a war not of their creation, or be held
responsible for cruel massacres of innocent people on the
frontier. Their Yearly Meeting gave no uncertain sound.
It fully endorsed the action of London Friends and asked
all its members to keep out of compromising offices.
Committees of Monthly Meetings laboured incessantly to
bring this about. Some officials were defiant, many
reluctant, but notwithstanding the evident wishes of the
people who again and again would have sent up Friends,
they managed to keep them down to a minority of the
Assembly, though Isaac Norris second, George Ashbridge,
and others continued their useful careers in public life till
their deaths.
The " Quaker Party," however, did not die. Under
new leaders, and supported by the same voters, it con
trolled the province till the Revolution in 1776 threw
down all the old lines. It was always the liberty party
of the province, whether led by Lloyd and Kinsey or by
Franklin. It wrested from proprietary and Crown one
accession of privilege after another, and Pennsylvania
never knew tyranny. The spirit of William Penn never
deserted it. His name and principles grew in power with
every decade. While Friends did not hold the offices
their opponents said that they still controlled the govern
ment through " Quakerised " Episcopalians and Presby
terians.
In the early days of the province the opposition came
from the Episcopalians with such transient aid as they
could receive from the Keithians and other malcontents.
But by the end of the thirty years' peace a new element,
494 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
even more inimical to Quakerism, was making itself felt
in the province and constituted a rapidly growing power.
The Presbyterians from the north of Ireland, " Scotch
Irishmen " as they were called, during the decades just
prior to the Revolution were coming in, in thousands.
They pressed for the frontiers and bore the brunt of
Indian attack. Except on the principle that the Indians
should be killed or crowded out, a worse contact could
not have been devised. The Germans who constituted
the central belt generally were peaceable and just. But
" why should these heathens have lands which Christians
want?" demanded the militant, vigorous descendants of
the Covenanters. In habit of thought and life, in doctrine
and testimony, they were the direct opposite of the
Friends, whom they considered to be altogether nerveless
and despicable. They had some just grounds for opposi
tion. When the new counties came in they were not
accorded proportionate representation, and this aided in
maintaining Friendly ascendancy in the Assembly. But
their other claims for rewards for Indian scalps and a
vigorous policy of Indian extinction probably made the
Friends feel that they were justified in not admitting such
antagonistic elements to a large share of the government.
Until the Revolution the Quakers and the Presbyterians
constituted the rival political forces of the province. The
Episcopalians tended towards the Friends, and the Germans
were also usually sympathetic.
These forces maintained the ascendancy till 1776, but
the Revolution was three parts out of four a Scotch-
Irish movement in Pennsylvania.
CHAPTER VI
FRIENDS AND THE INDIANS
THE importance of the attitude of William Penn towards
the Indian natives of Pennsylvania has not been over
estimated, though probably the emphasis has been wrongly
placed. It was a just as well as a politic thing to do, to
buy their lands, and the great Shackamaxon Treaty, in
itself only a symbol of decent treatment, has been
interpreted as covering the whole transaction. As some
times understood, this meant that Penn and a few trusted
friends brought together the Indian chiefs, and at one
great negotiation, with much eloquence and many ex
pressions of fraternity, received the right to occupy the
soil of the whole province. It was not at all the first
time that Indian rights to the land had been bought.
The Dutch and Swedes on both sides of the Delaware
river had done it long before Penn had any claims there,
and were careful not to settle on unpurchased soil. It
had been done in New England, New York, and Mary
land at their early settlements. The neglect to do it had
led to massacres and the extermination of several colonies
in the south. By 1682 it had been recognised by
colonists generally as wise policy. Moreover, Penn did
not buy all Pennsylvania at one transaction, or any con
siderable part of it. He had at first no use for any but
a little strip along the Delaware, and this was bought of
various tribes at different times by separate treaties.
This south-eastern part of the state is divided into strips
by several " creeks " running down from the upland
country to the river. Penn would buy from one creek
495
496 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
to another, and the unit of measure up the creek was a
day's walk, in his time about twenty miles, though vastly
extended later. The Shackamaxon Treaty is only one
of several which between 1681 and 1686 conveyed to
Penn the south-eastern corner of the state, extending
perhaps forty miles inland and running up the river above
the site of the present Trenton. These treaties were not
only negotiations for sale of land, but also leagues of
friendship where, amid much circumlocution in Indian
fashion, eternal amity and mutual good-will were promised,
and the promises sealed with wampum belts.
But this sort of thing was not new in 1682. It had
been done many times before. We must go farther to
seek the significance of the Quaker relation to the
Indians.
In some colonies the Indians were made drunk, and in
this state signed away valuable claims. In others false
maps were shown them, or false weights deceived them in
selling their furs. The land unpurchased was not always
excluded from settlement. They were killed, and no
penalty was meted out to the white murderer. Their
food was taken, in their eyes unjustly, often by irre
sponsible whites, but the acts were not disowned by
the authorities. They were treated as inferior, and their
pride was hurt. The land bought of one tribe was not
bought of another which possibly had, or thought it had,
superior claims. Rumours of Indian invasions were
excuses for bloody attacks.
From all these things the Pennsylvania Indians were
preserved. Every effort was made to keep rum from
them. Again and again in the minutes of the meetings
we find this urged. William Penn refused the right to
trade to men likely to abuse the privilege. Every trans
action was fairly explained, and in case of conflicting claims
all were satisfied. His first " Great Law " enacted that
juries which sat on Indian cases should be half white and
half red. This was an impracticable scheme, but when
given up other fair methods were substituted. The price
paid was in their eyes ample and the "walks" were
CH. vi FRIENDS AND THE INDIANS 497
moderately construed. In 1688 it was reported from
two sources apparently independent that 500 warriors
were about to attack the settlement, and had already
commenced depredations. Caleb Pusey, a member of the
Council, and one of the prominent Friends of the Colony,
offered to investigate the rumour in person, if five others
were appointed by the Council to go with him unarmed.
They went through the woods to the alleged rendezvous,
found the king lying quietly on his bed, with only women
and children about him. He had some small claims for
money not yet paid for land, but was not troubled about
it, and added that the authors of the report " ought to be
burned to death."
It was this fair and frank treatment which created the
fraternity which held good for about sixty years. No
Quaker family in this time suffered from the Indians,
except in matters of petty pilfering, which were rectified
where possible. Thus the Haverford settlers sent to the
Council a charge against the Indians " for the rapine and
destruction of their hogs." But the Council sent for the
" Kings," and we hear no more of it. The red men were
welcome guests in the homes, and hospitably entertained
the whites in their wigwams. They supplied them with
wild food abundantly, and were paid a satisfactory sum.
" As our worthy proprietor treated the Indians with
extraordinary humanity they became very civil and loving
to us and brought us in abundance of venison," said
Richard Townsend. They looked after white children
when their parents went away to meeting, and were good
neighbours in times of need. They were lazy, improvident,
weak-willed, but faithful to their agreements. General
W. H. Harrison says :
" A long and intimate knowledge of them in peace and war, as
enemies and friends, has left upon my mind the most favorable
impression of their character for bravery, generosity and fidelity
to their engagements."
The Moravian missionary Heckewelder relates a
ceremony which he had often seen, when the old men
2 K
498 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
spread out on a blanket or piece of bark the various
wampum belts which commemorated the treaties of
William Penn, and explained to the young braves the
significance of each and the sacred obligations attaching
to it. This custom was kept up for 100 years, and the
contract was passed on from father to son.
The Friends, beginning with George Fox and William
Penn, made many attempts to convert the Indians to
Christianity. At first they had large hopes of success.
Their favourite teaching of the universal divine light
seemed in consonance with Indian ideas. When spoken
to in this way they said that the Good Spirit in their
hearts confirmed the words. But this was about as far
towards Quakerism as they ever got. Indian converts
were practically non-existent. The Moravians, with a
definite teaching of ordinances, which appealed to the
pictorial sense of the woodmen, were more successful, and
some hundreds of them, as the result of the work and
influence of devoted missionaries, joined the peaceful sect,
only to suffer later the horrible massacre of Gnadenhiitten.
The Indians respected Quaker teaching and example,
but did not adopt them. Had it been possible to have
kept from them the physical and moral diseases of the
whites and gradually to have influenced them towards
civilisation, the results might have been more happy.
But the slow development of the Seneca Indians in
western New York under Quaker tutelage for a century
shows in them an incapacity to accept quickly the moral
and religious ideals of their teachers.
William Penn had more influence over them than any
other. They attended his conferences, and drank his
spirits, which he handed out to them moderately, with
great enthusiasm. They were delighted when he joined
them in athletic sports, and when he spoke their language.
He was evidently a man after their liking, an elder
brother, and they listened with becoming gravity to
his religious exhortations. Thomas Turner, Thomas
Story, John Richardson, and Thomas Chalkley had
devotional meetings with them. They listened sym-
CH. vi FRIENDS AND THE INDIANS 499
pathetically and approvingly but went their own way
afterwards.
The corporate " concern " of the Yearly Meeting is
expressed in the following minutes :
"1685. This Meeting doth unanimously agree and give as
their Judgment, that it is not consistent with the Honour of
Truth, for any that makes Profession thereof, to sell Rum or
other strong Liquors to the Indians, because they use them not
to moderation, but to Excess and Drunkeness.
" 1687. We give forth this as our Sense, that the practice of
selling Rum or other strong Liquors to the Indians directly or
indirectly, or exchanging Rum, or other strong Liquors, for any
Goods or merchandize with them, considering the abuses they
make of it, is a thing contrary to the mind of the Lord, and
great Grief and Burthen to his people, and a great Reflection
and Dishonor to the Truth, so far as any professing it are
concerned; and for the more effectually preventing this evil
practice as aforesaid, We advise that this our Testimony may
be entered in every Monthly Meeting Book, and every friend
belonging to the said meeting to subscribe the same.
"1719. Advised, that such be dealt with as sell, barter, or
exchange directly or indirectly, to the Indians, Rum, Brandy, or
any other strong Liquors, it being contrary to the Care Friends
always had, since the settlement of these Countries, that they
might not contribute to the Abuse and Hurt those poor people
received by drinking thereof, being generally incapable of using
Moderation therein ; and to avoid giving them Occasion of
Discontent, it is desired, that Friends do not buy or sell
Indian Slaves.
"1722. When way was made for our worthy Friends, the
Proprietors and Owners of Lands in these provinces to make
their first Settlements, it pleased Almighty God by his over
ruling Providence to influence the native Indians so as to make
them very helpful and serviceable to those early Settlers, before
they could raise Stocks, or Provisions to sustain themselves and
families : and it being soon observed, that those people when
they got Rum, or other strong Liquors, set no Bounds to them
selves, but were apt to be abusive, and sometimes destroyed one
another, there came a religious Care and Concern upon Friends,
both in their Meetings and Legislature, to prevent those Abuses.
Nevertheless, some people prefering their filthy lucre before the
common Good, continued in this evil Practice, so that our
Yearly Meeting held in Philadelphia in the year 1687, testified,
4 That the practice of selling Rum, or other strong Liquors to
500 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
the Indians directly or indirectly, or exchanging the same for
any Goods or Merchandize with them (considering the abuse
they make of it) is a thing displeasing to the Lord, a Dishonour
to Truth, and a Grief to all good people.' And altho' this
Testimony hath been since renewed by several Yearly Meetings,
it is yet too notorious, that the same hath not been observed by
some persons ; and therefore it is become the weighty Concern
of this Meeting earnestly to recommend the said Testimony to
the strict Observance of all Friends ; and where any under our
profession shall act contrary thereunto, let them be speedily
dealt with, and censured for such their evil Practices.
" 1759. The Empires and Kingdoms of the Earth are subject
to the Almighty power, he is the God of the Spirits of all Flesh,
and deals with his people, agreeable to that Wisdom, the Depth
whereof is to us unsearchable ; we in these provinces may say,
He hath, as a gracious and tender parent, dealt bountifully with
us, even from the Days of our Fathers; it was he who strengthened
them to labour thro' the Difficulties attending the Improvement
of a Wilderness, and made way for them in the Hearts of the
Natives, so that by them they were comforted in times of Want
and Distress.
" It was by the gracious influences of his holy Spirit, that they
were disposed to work Righteousness and walk uprightly one
towards another and towards the Natives, and in Life and
Conversation to manifest the Excellency of the principles and
Doctrines of the Christian Religion, and thereby they retained
their Esteem and Friendship : Whilst they were laboring for the
Necessaries of Life, many of them were fervently engaged to
promote piety and virtue in the Earth, and educate their
Children in the fear of the Lord.
"1761. It being observed by the last Epistle from the
Meeting for Sufferings in London, that they express their
approbation of the proceedings of those Friends here, who have
been concerned in using their Endeavours for the Establishment
of Peace with the Indians, by pacific Measures, and warmly
recommend that a Christian Regard and Notice may be
extended towards these people, for cultivating a good Under
standing with them, and the Confirmation of peace on the
principles of Justice and Equity. Several suitable Observations
were now made thereupon, to excite friends individually to a
religious Concern and Care in this matter ; now especially, as of
late, some good Effects of a remarkable Visitation of divine
Grace has appeared among some of those people. . ."
The Assembly, in early days under the influence of the
CH. vi FRIENDS AND THE INDIANS 501
same men that led the meetings, followed the meetings a
few years later with its prohibitions against selling liquor,
its votes of supplies to maintain Indian friendship and to
purchase land, its hospitable treatment of visiting chieftains
and its formal expression of eternal brotherhood. James
Logan was in charge of the relations with the red men for
about fifty years after Penn's second visit of 1701. With
skill and kindly hospitality and accurate knowledge of
Indian character, he led the colony along the paths of
peace. He could not, or did not, however, avert the
alienation of the Delaware tribe caused by a series of
outrages upon their rights, the most noted of which
was the Walking purchase of 1737. Friends were not
even remotely responsible for this inequity, but as they
had to aid in overcoming its unfortunate results, it is
proper to refer to it here.
There was an old agreement, of doubtful authenticity,
made in 1686, which conveyed to William Penn certain
land in Bucks County and extending northwards as far
as a man could walk in a day and a half. With the
understanding of the time, this would mean about thirty
miles, and would carry the purchase to the junction of the
Delaware and Lehigh Rivers where Easton stands. But
the land farther to the north between the rivers was
greatly desired by Thomas Penn, the son and heir of the
founder, and then potent in the management of the
executive branch of the government. There were
settlers who would buy of him, and some had already
gone there and occupied their tracts. The Minisink
tribe of the Delaware Indians, whose ancestral home was
there, refused to sell, and asked to have it secured from
invasion. No one questioned their right, and so artifice
had to be resorted to to give an appearance of legality to
the claim. The " Walk " would be taken. Two athletes
were found and trained. The underbrush was cleared,
horses provided to carry the impedimenta, and boats to
cross the streams. The runners covered sixty miles, and
at the end of the line the surveyors slanted the upper
boundary, which was to reach the Delaware River, far to
502 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
the north so as to enclose all the desired territory. The
Indians were told that their land had been sold and were
ordered to leave. But, conscious of the fraud, they were
sullen and disobedient, and the Quaker legislature would
appropriate nothing to enforce the demand. Thus
matters remained till 1742, when another power was
introduced.
The Delaware Indians were at this time subject to the
over-lordship of the Iroquois of New York, " women," in
the language of the forest. A great convention was held
in Philadelphia, attended by all parties interested. After
a due allowance of liquor and many seductive words of
friendship, the Iroquois judicially examined the old deeds
and the records of the walk and pronounced judgment
against the Minisinks, telling them that they had no right
to make treaties and that they must immediately remove
to the Susquehanna. The alliance was too strong to
resist, and they, with bitter hearts, left their old home to
the whites.
It may be significant that while many of the Indian
treaties and negotiations were held in the Meeting-Houses
of Friends, this one was at the house of the Proprietor.
The Minisinks went westward and bided their time.
This process of encroachment on what seemed to the
Indians their rights now went on. They were drugged
with liquor and cheated ; their lands were appropriated in
advance of purchase. Their crowning grievance came in
1754, when at Albany the proprietors purchased of the
Iroquois, many of the Pennsylvania tribes being un
represented, nearly the whole of western Pennsylvania.
To have all their ground sold over their heads and the
proceeds go to their feudal lords was bad enough, but
those that were present came away with a belief that they
had been defrauded. They did not understand, they said,
the compass courses and did not know the extent of the
sale ; they were told that it was only to clear away some
titles which Connecticut claimed ; they believed that some
chiefs were privately bought.
The French ingeniously fanned the flames, and when
CH. vi FRIENDS AND THE INDIANS 503
Braddock went down to defeat before Fort Du Quesne the
next year, the long smouldering wrath of the Penn
sylvania Indians found vent, and for the first time the
frontiers were wet with blood. The Governor and Council
declared war, bounties were offered for scalps of the male
and female Indians, and the Quaker legislators resigned.
Here was work cut out for the Friends. They formed
" The Friendly Association for gaining and preserving
Peace with the Indians by pacific measures." They had
been charged with parsimony in their objections to war
appropriations and the payment of war taxes, and now
agreed to give " a much larger part of our estates than
the heaviest taxes of a war can be expected to require."
They were used to the peaceable method of settling
Indian affairs, and knew that it cost money. In times
of perfect peace the records seem to indicate that
some .£500 a year had been expended for Indian
presents by the Assembly. Whether this gratuitous aid
was good for the Indians may be doubted. The best
thing for them would have been never to have seen a
paleface. But it was cheaper and better both for white
and red men than fighting. Now that war was on, and
rewards for scalps substituted for public presents, private
liberality was to make the attempt to win back the
Indians to peace. They began with the northern
Delawares under their great chief Tedyuscung, a
diplomatist of no mean order when sober, and a reliable
friend of the Quakers. The first conference was at
Easton in 1756. Israel Pemberton, the leader of the
movement, and a large number of other Friends were
present, though evidently not desired by the Governor.
The Indian was very plain. " This very ground that is
under me (striking it with his foot) was my land and
inheritance and is taken from me by fraud." He could
not forget the " Walking Purchase " and the enforced
emigration. All sorts of compromising suggestions were
thrown in his way, but with the aid of Friends he kept a
clear course. Then appeared the confidence won by
seventy years of fair intercourse. Israel Pemberton said :
504 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
" The name of a Quaker of the same spirit as William Penn
still is in the highest estimation among their old men, and there
is a considerable number of us here united in a resolution to
endeavor by the like conduct to fix the same good impression of
all of us in the minds of the rising generation."
The next year another conference was held at Easton,
which Tedyuscung refused to attend unless the Friends
were there. Then, probably at their instigation, he made
the demand for a private clerk to note the proceedings.
This he also made an ultimatum, and unwillingly the
Governor yielded. He chose Charles Thomson,1 then a
young man, master of the Friends public school, after
wards secretary of the Continental Congress and author
of a Translation of the Bible.
It took weeks to do the talking, and then they
adjourned till 1758, when a still larger number of Indians
was brought in. Tedyuscung still was master of the
situation, and the eloquence flowed on. He finally got
some kind of a recognition that the " walk " was unfair,
was given compensation for his stolen lands, and a peace
was declared, cemented by the Friendly presents.
The Western Indians were also brought into peaceful
lines. The Assembly was short of money, and though
now not made up of Friends was thoroughly sympathetic.
When the Association offered to lend them money, the
House accepted the loan with thanks " for their friendly
and generous offer." They sent some £2000 of goods
to Pittsburgh for the Indians, and acted as agent of the
British government in forwarding another consignment
for the same purpose. Peace for a little time through
their efforts settled down over Pennsylvania. It was a
great work well done, costing the Association about
£5000.
Few deductions of historic significance are more
evident than that the Quaker method of Indian manage
ment if continued through all the years after the death of
William Penn, would have saved the Colony from all
1 The best account of all these proceedings is in a book written by Charles
Thomson, The Alienation of the Delaware and Shawnese Indians,
CH.VI FRIENDS AND THE INDIANS 505
these wars. As Charles Thomson, who was not a Friend
and not opposed to all war, and who had a first-hand
knowledge of the whole series of transaction, has
conclusively shown, the Delawares and Shawnese were
thrown into the arms of the French by indefensible
treatment. Had their friendliness been retained they
would have been an effectual buffer against western
attack, and the frontiers might have remained in security.
The Friendly policy of the early settlers is abundantly
justified on the score of justice, peace and economy.
Had Thomas Penn had the spirit of his father, the Holy
Experiment might have been continued as a more potent
" example to the nations," and to the advantage of his
finances. Incidentally also the active Friendly participa
tion in Pennsylvania politics, and the attitude of the Society
to public life, might have been continued at least to the
Revolutionary War. That there was in the Indian mind
some sense of justice which prevented outrages on
regularly purchased land is evidenced by several state
ments, as for instance one by William Reckitt, an English
travelling minister of 1756, who says, " Friends hitherto
had not been hurt, yet several had left their plantations
and fled back again over the Blue Mountains, where the
lands had been rightly purchased of the Indians."
Scarcely had the province settled down into peace,
through the efforts of the " Friendly Association " and the
final defeat of the French and the surrender of Canada
to England, when another cause of disturbance arose
which shook the Yearly Meeting to its centre. This time
the opposition was not the Proprietors and Governor, but
the Presbyterian frontiersmen on the Susquehanna River,
the " Paxton Boys," as the records of the time usually call
them.
In the fall of 1763 John Penn, the grandson of the
Founder, came as Governor. Among the delegations
which welcomed him was one from the Conestoga Indians
of Lancaster County. Their tribe had made treaties with
William Penn, had been permitted to live on one of his
manors, had been visited by Thomas Chalkley and other
506 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
Friends, and were generally regarded as a harmless
company of makers of baskets and brooms, which they
sold to the settlers. But white diseases and vices had
carried them off, and now only about twenty remained,
mostly women and children.
The settlers about them and to the west were mostly
Scotch- Irishmen, a militant vigorous people, who based
their morality upon the Old Testament, and felt themselves
commissioned like Joshua to destroy the people of the
land. They were just now irritated by sporadic border
outrages, and incensed against the Quakers for befriending
the Indians and opposing military expenses. They had
adopted the Indian theory that in a time of war all of the
opposing colour might properly be killed. They suspected,
with how much justice it is difficult to determine, that
these Conestoga Indians gave information to their more
warlike western brethren, and resolved to annihilate the
tribe. This they did, some in their homes, and the
rest in the Lancaster jail where the Indians had been
placed for safety. This first Pennsylvania lynching
created great indignation in the east, but so secure were
the " Boys " in the support of their neighbours that they
never could be brought to justice.
Encouraged by this immunity, they announced their
intention of meting out a like fate to a band of Moravian
Indians that had been removed for safety to Philadelphia,
and intimated that the Quakers who stood in their way,
especially Israel Pemberton, might be treated similarly.
A band of several hundred marched in rude array from
the Susquehanna, and encamped at Germantown. The
town rose to arms to . defend the Indians. Many young
Friends joined, and it being a cold winter day the meeting
house served as barracks, and the guns were stacked in
the gallery.
This show of force was all that was necessary. The
raiders were met by Benjamin Franklin at the head of a
delegation, which asked their grievances and promised a
careful consideration. There was some justice to their
claim for increased representation if this were to be based
CH.VI FRIENDS AND THE INDIANS 507
on numbers, but as a matter of fact the only demand
which was granted them by Governor John Penn and
his council was a reward for Indian scalps, which was
intended to stimulate the industry of the frontiersmen in
this direction.
The meeting, however, had the problem on its hands
of dealing with its members whose conduct had helped
to frustrate the intentions of the attacking party. The
proceedings in Philadelphia Monthly Meeting were carried
over several years. Those who acknowledged an offence
were very few. The others justified themselves. No one
was disowned. There must have been a secret sympathy
with the young men which prevented anything more decided
than "labour" to induce them to see the logic of the
Friendly position against war. Many of these offenders
became a dozen years later active participants in
American defence, and lost their rights among Friends
as a consequence. Others changed their views, and were
strong advocates of the Yearly Meeting's position, and
suffered for it. James Logan favoured defensive war
during his older years, and the Quakers, of whom
Benjamin Franklin in his autobiography writes as actively
sympathetic with military measures, were of this same
period. But they never represented the official attitude
of the Yearly Meeting. The Pontiac Wars immediately
followed this episode, and gave the Friendly Association
plenty to do, though it probably disbanded soon after.
In 1768 the treaty of Fort Stanwix quieted the Indian
Question for colonial days.
An active and virulent pamphlet warfare followed the
Paxton Invasion, the combatants being Presbyterians on
one side and the defenders of Friends on the other. It
is said that none of the publications, except a paper issued
by the Meeting for Sufferings, was the work of Friends
themselves. The controversy was not mild. The line of
attack was that non-military advocacy was an impossible
element in a government with outside enemies ; that the
best and most practical Friends did not believe in it ; and
that the others had no business in state affairs, and were
508 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
beginning to come to this conclusion themselves. To
this it was replied that for seventy years the policy had
succeeded until muddled by alien elements, out of line
with it, and which could not be controlled ; that it was
the encroachments and excesses of the Scotch-Irishmen,
rather than the lack of military defence, which were the
initial cause of the troubles, and that treaties and presents
and friendship rather than killing and fighting were still
the means by which peace could best be regained.
With many unjustifiable reflections on either side,
which may here be omitted, this question of the adapta
bility of Quakerism to government was ably debated, and
when a temperate official document came out restating the
ancient arguments against war, and giving a short re'sume'
of the history of Friends connected with government in
the past, the controversy closed, not, however, without
leaving many bitter personal and partisan feelings.
CHAPTER VII
FRIENDS AND SLAVERY
THAT Friends have been in point of time leaders in many
moral reforms can not well be gainsaid. Why they have
been so is more difficult to tell. They have not been
superior in intelligence or education to many other
Christian bodies. They probably have not had more of
devotion to goodness, or a greater desire to do right than
many others. They have not been in positions where
they could see in advance the trend of human thought or
impulse better than others. Is there any reason more
probable than the one the early Friends themselves would
have given, that when they got together in their quiet
assemblies, each one seeking to know God's will, with
hearts prepared to follow it, and minds emptied so far as
possible of misleading prepossessions and prejudices, they
received the instruction for which they waited ? They
rather felt than reasoned that some things were right and
others were wrong, and that it was their duty to follow
the right in the face of apparent difficulties and danger.
It was not a question of results. They were not
opportunists, nor did they parley with their fears. The
simple revelation came to them that they should follow a
certain course in the definite issue before them, and in
time it became evident that this was the course the future
would sanction. This did not preclude the exercise of
reason and common sense. It simply permitted this sense
of right to turn the scale in the midst of conflicting
arguments on both sides.
There were in colonial times in Pennsylvania several
509
5io QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
moral questions affecting politics which have been already
considered, as oaths, penalties for crime, the amount of
force to be used in supporting law, the treatment of Indians,
and war. On these subjects it will generally be admitted
that Friends, earlier than other religious bodies, were on
the right side. But the impulse which placed them there
did not have its origin in politics, but in the church
meetings. We find the minute of the Yearly Meeting
used as the preamble to a statute a few years later. Such
a relation could not fail to exist so long as the same men
were prominent in both sets of activities. The lessons
learned in the meeting would inevitably crop out in the
Assembly.
In no other instance is this growth of sentiment for a
moral cause more conspicuous than in the question of
slavery. It began as a meeting problem — a problem of
individual and church duty. Following this by a few
years it came into political life, and as the meeting cleared
the air the legislature acted. Very soon after the Yearly
Meeting had abolished slavery among its members, the
state of Pennsylvania enacted an abolition law.
We will trace the growth of the movement by means
of the meeting records of the colonial days. George Fox
in a public discourse in 1671 on the island of Barbadoes
thus advises the slave holders : l
" Let me tell you it will doubtless be very acceptable to the
Lord, if so be that masters of families here would deal so with
their servants, the negroes and blacks whom they have bought
with their money (as) to let them go free after they have served
faithfully a considerable term of years, be it thirty years after,
more or less, and when they go and are made free, let them not
go away empty handed."
William Penn owned a few slaves in Pennsylvania.
When he left in 1701 he wrote a will which says, " I give
to my blacks their freedom as is under my hand already."
1 For the most of the quotations in this chapter the author is indebted to a
pamphlet published by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1 843 entitled ' ' A Brief
Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious Society of
Friends against Slavery and the Slave Trade."
CH. vii FRIENDS AND SLAVERY 511
He appears to have intended immediate emancipation,
but his wishes in this respect seem not to have been
immediately carried out after he left the province. He
was, as already stated, deeply interested in a proper
education and religion for the blacks.
The first protest after the German memorial of 1688,
and it was a radical one, came from the Keithians. Their
body in 1693 declared that slavery was opposed to the
Golden Rule, and that buying negroes was buying stolen
goods ; that " to buy souls and bodies of men for money,
to enslave them and their posterity to the end of the
world, we judge is a great hindrance to the spreading of
the Gospel." They advise that no negroes be bought,
except to free them, and none be held in slavery after
reasonably working out any charges which the masters
had incurred for them.
The first official statement of the Yearly Meeting on
the subject, after the non-action on the German suggestion
of 1688, was in 1696 when the Yearly Meeting advised :
"Whereas, several papers have been read relating to the
keeping and bringing in of negroes ; which being duly considered,
it is the advice of this meeting that Friends be careful not to
encourage the bringing in of any more negroes ; and that such
that have negroes be careful of them, bring them to meetings,
have meetings with them in their families, and restrain them from
loose and lewd living as much as in them lies, and from rambling
abroad on First-days or other times."
This was as far as the meeting would go. Slave Trade
was an evil and must be discouraged, and such blacks as
were here must be protected and trained as men.
The legislature followed slowly. In 1700, though
almost unanimously Friendly, they rejected a bill proposed
by William Penn "for regulating negroes in their morals
and manners." Five years later they made certain crimes
capital for blacks which were not for whites, but the same
year they taxed the owners of imported negroes forty
shillings per head.
The radical leaders of the reform seem to have resided
about Chester. This meeting in 1711 sent up a minute
512 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
to the Yearly Meeting expressing its dissatisfaction with
the encouragement the slave trade received by the purchase
of slaves after importation. This brought out the moderate
advice that —
"... after a due consideration of the matter, the meeting
considering that Friends in many other places are concerned
in it as much as we are, advises that Friends may be careful,
according to a former minute of this Yearly Meeting (1696), not
to encourage the bringing in of any more ; and that all merchants
and factors write to their correspondents to discourage them from
sending any more."
In 1712 William Southeby, a Friend, prayed the
legislature to abolish slavery in Pennsylvania. He was a
pioneer. The House would not do this, but levied a
prohibitory duty of £20 on every slave imported, which
law was repealed by the English Queen.
The Yearly Meeting in the same year addressed their
Friends in London, as the central body with which all the
others corresponded, asking for some general advice
concerning the slave trade in all the American Colonies :
" And now dear Friends we impart unto you a concern that
hath rested on our minds for many years, touching the importing
and having negro slaves, and detaining them and their posterity
as such, without any limitation or time of redemption from that
condition. This matter was laid before this meeting many years
ago, and the thing in some degree discouraged, as may appear
by a minute of our Yearly Meeting (1696), desiring all merchants
and traders professing Truth among us, to write to their
correspondents, that they send no more negroes to be disposed
of as above; yet notwithstanding, as our settlements increased
so other traders flocked in amongst us, over whom we had no
gospel authority, and such have increased and multiplied negroes
amongst us, to the grief of divers Friends, whom we are willing
to ease, if the way might open clear to the satisfaction of the
general ; and it being last Yearly Meeting again moved, and
Friends being more concerned with negroes in divers other
provinces and places than in these, we thought it too weighty
to come to a full conclusion therein ; this meeting therefore
desires your assistance by way of counsel and advice therein,
and that you would be pleased to take the matter into your
weighty consideration, after having advised with Friends in the
CH.VH FRIENDS AND SLAVERY 513
other American provinces, and give us your sense or advice
therein."
The suggestion in reply to this was very cautious and
unsatisfactory, and in 1714, rather brusquely for a Friendly
Yearly Meeting, Philadelphia writes : —
" We also kindly received your advice about negro slaves, and
we are one with you that the multiplying of them may be of
dangerous consequence, and therefore a law was made in
Pennsylvania, laying a duty of twenty pounds upon every one
imported there, which law the Queen was pleased to disannul.
We could heartily wish that a way might be found to stop the
bringing in more here ; or at least, that Friends may be less
concerned in buying or selling of any that may be brought in ;
and hope for your assistance with the government, if any further
law should be made, discouraging the importation. We know
not of any Friend amongst us that has any hand or concern in
bringing any out of their own country ; and we are of the same
mind with you, that the practice is not commendable nor allowable
amongst Friends; and we take the freedom to acquaint you,
that our request unto you was, that you would be pleased to
consult or advise with Friends in other plantations, where they
are more numerous than with us ; because they hold a corre
spondence with you but not with us, and your meeting may
better prevail with them, and your advice prove more effectual."
The next year Chester Friends again stir up the matter.
They send a very urgent request to legislate that " Friends
be not concerned in the importing and bringing of negro
slaves in the future." A little was gained, for the Yearly
Meeting decrees :
" If any Friends are concerned in the importation of negroes,
let them be dealt with and advised to avoid that practice,
according to the sense of former meetings in that behalf; and
that all Friends who have or keep negroes, do use and treat them
with humanity and with a Christian spirit ; and that all do
forbear judging or reflecting on one another, either in public or
private, concerning the detaining or keeping them servants."
But Chester was not satisfied, and again petitioned the
Yearly Meeting in 1716 against " buying any that shall
be imported hereafter." They received a discouraging
reply which indicated that no forward movement was to
be expected at that time : —
2 L
514 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
"As to the proposal from Chester meeting about negroes,
there being no more in it than was proposed to the last Yearly
Meeting, this meeting cannot see any better conclusion, than
what was the judgment of the last meeting, and therefore do
confirm the same ; and yet in condescension to such Friends as
are straitened in their minds against the holding them, it is
desired, that Friends generally do, as much as may be, avoid
buying such negroes as shall hereafter be brought in, rather than
offend any Friends who are against it ; yet this is only caution
and not censure."
Three years later they advise :
"That none among us be concerned in the fetching or
importing negro slaves from their own country or elsewhere ; and
that all Friends who have any of them do treat them with
humanity and in a Christian manner, and as much as in them
lies make them acquainted with the principles of Friends, and
inculcate morality in them."
And the same year they adopt this minute showing
that Indians as well as negroes were held in slavery by
some Friends :
"To avoid giving them [the Indians] occasion of discontent
it is advised that Friends do not buy or sell Indian slaves."
Friends had done all they could directly against the
slave trade from Africa. They had withdrawn their
members from participation, and had secured laws from
the legislature which would have stopped others had not
the Crown disallowed them. There came a lull till 1729,
when Chester again appears on the scene, renewing its old
request, which evidently struck at the root of the trade,
that all purchases of such as were to be imported should
be disallowed. There was evidently a growth in public
sentiment in the intervening ten years. The minute of
1730 which followed means more than appears on the
surface. The reference to the Monthly Meetings makes
such a purchase a disownable offence :
" The Friends of this meeting resuming the consideration of
the proposition of Chester meeting, relating to the purchasing of
such negroes as may hereafter be imported ; and having reviewed
CH. vii FRIENDS AND SLAVERY 515
and considered the former minutes relating thereto, and having
maturely deliberated thereon, are now of opinion, that Friends
ought to be very cautious of making any such purchases for the
future, it being disagreeable to the sense of this meeting. And
this meeting recommends it to the care of the several Monthly
Meetings, to see that such who may be, or are likely to be found
in that practice, may be admonished and cautioned how they
offend herein."
Reports were now sent up yearly as to the faithfulness
with which the instructions were carried out. In 1738
the Yearly Meeting says :
" Divers Friends in this meeting expressed their satisfaction in
finding by the reports of the quarterly meetings, that there is
so little occasion of offence given by Friends concerning the
encouraging the importing of negroes ; and this meeting desires
the care of Friends in their quarterly and monthly meetings, in
this particular, may be continued."
This advice was crystallized in 1743 into the following
query to be answered annually by all meetings : " Do
Friends observe the former advice of our Yearly Meeting
not to encourage the importation of negroes nor to buy
them after imported ? " In 1755 this was enlarged to :
" Are Friends clear of importing or buying negroes ; and do
they use those well which they are possessed of by inheritance
or otherwise ; endeavoring to train them up in the principles
of the Christian religion ? "
In such an agitation the question of the wrongfulness
of slavery itself could not fail to be considered. Men were
asking whether the importation was the only evil. John
Woolman and Anthony Benezet were beginning to write
and speak for the blacks. The former in 1754 published
his, Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, which was
widely read.
The same year the Yearly Meeting issued a paper
written presumably by Anthony Benezet. It attacked
slavery as the cause of the slave trade with its attendant
horrors, and argued that if any held their slaves for any
other reason than the good of the slaves themselves, it
indicated that the love of God did not rule their lives.
5i6 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
Slaves seem to have increased in number among
Friends, and probably some of them were concerned in
the trade, for in 1755 the Yearly Meeting adopted these
directions to the Monthly Meetings :
"The consideration of the inconsistency of the practice of being
concerned in importing or buying slaves, with our Christian
principles, being weightily revived and impressed, by very
suitable advices and cautions given on the occasion, it is the
sense and judgment of this meeting, that where any transgress
this rule of our discipline, the overseers ought speedily to inform
the monthly meeting of such transgressors, in order that the
meeting may proceed to treat further with them, as they may be
directed in the wisdom of Truth."
The year 1758 was the great year in the history of
the movement. All this time the sentiment against
slavery itself had been gaining ground. The Friends,
doubtless, had treated their slaves with great humanity,
and some of them argued with truth that they were
undoubtedly better off than with irresponsible freedom.
But the Quaker conscience could not be lulled with this
argument. Slavery was wrong, and against this position
there could be no effective attack. Ralph Sandiford,
John Woolman, Anthony Benezet, and even the eccentric
and troublesome Benjamin Lay were preaching it to an
ever-increasing circle of sympathetic hearers. It was not
wrong only because it encouraged the trade — that would
now be admitted by all Friends ; it was wrong in itself.
No man had a right to hold another man in bondage except
temporarily for his own good.
But this struck at many personal and property
interests, and these joined together to have the usual
minute, so often previously adopted, condemning the
African importations and encouraging the good treatment
of such as already were here, again sent down to the
meetings. These interested advocates of a deeply rooted
custom for a time swayed the Meeting. But the fire
burned in the heart of John Woolman. He felt rather
than saw the sophistries of their arguments. He could
no longer be silent. It had been urged that if slavery
CH. vii FRIENDS AND SLAVERY 517
was wrong God Himself would open a way to abolish it,
and that unity and deference were Christian duties.
Then he spoke :
" My mind is led to consider the purity of the Divine Being
and the justice of His judgment, and herein my soul is covered
with awfulness. I cannot forbear to hint of some cases where
people have not been treated with the purity of justice and the
event has been most lamentable. Many slaves on this continent
are oppressed and their cries have entered into the ears of the
Most High. Such are the purity and certainty of His judgments
that He cannot be partial in our favour. In infinite love and
goodness He hath opened our understandings from one time to
another concerning our duty towards this people ; and it is not
a time for delay. Should we now be sensible of what He
requires of us, and through a respect to the private interests of
some persons, or through a regard to some friendships which do
not stand upon an immutable foundation, neglect to do our duty
in firmness and constancy, still waiting for some extraordinary
means to bring about their deliverance, God may by terrible
things in righteousness answer us in this matter."
To this feeling appeal of John Woolman the Meeting
responded. There was an authority in it which quieted
opposition, and without spoken dissent the following
minute was adopted :
" After weighty consideration of the circumstances of Friends
within the compass of this meeting, who have any negro or
other slaves, the accounts and proposals now sent up from
several quarters, and the rules of our discipline relative thereto ;
much time having been spent, and the sentiments of many
Friends expressed, there appears an unanimous concern prevail
ing to put a stop to the increase of the practice of importing,
buying, selling, or keeping slaves for term of life ; or purchasing
them for such a number of years, as manifests that such
purchasers do only in terms, and not in fact, avoid the imputa
tion of being keepers of slaves. This meeting very earnestly
and affectionately intreats Friends, individually, to consider
seriously the present circumstances of these and the adjacent
provinces, which, by the permission of Divine Providence, have
been visited with the desolating calamities of war and bloodshed,
so that many of our fellow-subjects are now suffering in captivity ;
and fervently desires, that, excluding temporal considerations or
views of self-interest, we may manifest an humbling sense of
5i8 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
these judgments, and in thankfulness for the peculiar favour
extended and continued to our Friends and brethren in pro
fession, none of whom have, as we have yet heard, been slain
nor carried into captivity, would steadily observe the injunction
of our Lord and Master, 'To do unto others as we would they
should do unto us ' ; which it now appears to this meeting,
would induce such Friends who have any slaves to set them at
liberty, — making a Christian provision for them according to
their ages, etc. And in order that Friends may be generally
excited to the practice of this advice, some Friends here now signi
fied to the meeting their being so fully devoted to endeavor to
render it effectual, that they are willing to visit and treat with
all such Friends who have any slaves; the meeting therefore
approves of John Woolman, John Scarborough, John Sykes and
Daniel Stanton undertaking that service; and desires some
elders or other faithful Friends in each quarter to accompany
and assist them therein ; and that they may proceed in the
wisdom of Truth, and thereby be qualified to administer such
advice as may be suitable to the circumstances of those they
visit, and most effectual towards obtaining that purity which
it is evidently our duty to press after. And if after the sense
and judgment of this meeting, now given against every branch
of this practice, any professing with us should persist to vindicate
it, and be concerned in importing, selling, or purchasing slaves,
the respective monthly meetings to which they belong should
manifest their disunion with such persons, by refusing to
permit them to sit in meetings for discipline, or to be employed
in the affairs of Truth, or to receive from them any contribution
towards the relief of the poor, or other services of the meeting.
But if any cases of executors, guardians, trustees, or any others
should happen, which may subject any such Friends to the
necessity of being concerned with such slaves, and they are
nevertheless willing to proceed according to the advice of the
monthly meetings they belong to, wherever such cases happen,
the monthly meetings are left to judge of the same in the
wisdom of Truth, and, if necessary, to take the advice of the
quarterly meeting therein."
This meeting of 1758 was a memorable one. Two
years before, partly in response to a request of the London
Meeting for Sufferings, the majority of the Friendly
members of the legislature had given up their places
rather than vote supplies to the war against the Delaware
and Shawnee Indians which the Governor had declared.
CH. vii FRIENDS AND SLAVERY 519
Now the Yearly Meeting sent out definite advices to the
Monthly Meetings not to permit any of their members to
hold any civil offices which involved any departure from
Friendly principles. This would, for a time at least, keep
them out of the Assembly, as well as all judicial positions
which involved administering oaths. With this with
drawal from public life came the increased zeal for moral
causes. The transition was in progress. Friends were
no longer to be in the public eye in matters of government,
but they were resolved to clear themselves of moral
taints and give their energies to the machinery of moral
reforms. The transformation was just beginning and the
Revolutionary War twenty years later completed it.
The purport of the minute was that slavery as an
institution was to be testified against, and all the persuasive
influence of the strong men of the Meeting was to be used
with slave-holders to induce them to free their slaves.
The crusade had begun. The Yearly Meeting was com
mitted and all loyal members were expected to respect
its judgment. John Woolman and his associates travelled
industriously, and laboured in the meetings and at the
homes assiduously. There is but little record of the
number of slaves manumitted in the succeeding decade,
but there were many.
In 1760, after only two years' service, the Meeting
minuted :
" As the growing concern which hath appeared amongst us
for some years past to discourage the practice of making slaves
of our fellow-creatures hath been visibly blessed with success, we
earnestly exhort that Friends do not abate their diligence in this
weighty matter, but continue in the love which beareth long and
is kind to labor with such as having membership with us do in
any manner by buying, selling, or keeping them countenance
the trade, to inform their understandings and convince their
judgments, and some of us are firmly persuaded, that if this case
is diligently and honestly pursued the Society will in time come
up more universally in fulfilling the evangelical law of righteous
ness in this respect."
Again and again the central body repeats the advice,
520 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
and after 1767 encouraging statements, not numerical,
of the progress of the effort were sent up.
So matters went on till 1774. By this time all
willing members had freed their slaves. It remained to
be decided what to do with the unwilling ones. The
Quarterly and Monthly Meetings were now urged to
make one more effort to convince the recalcitrants, and,
this failing, they were to be dealt with as offenders
against the discipline. This was strengthened two years
later, and the directions were added to see that all
manumissions were recorded to protect the blacks in the
future.
Committees of each Quarterly Meeting were now
appointed to visit the homes of the remaining slave
holders. By urgent entreaty, through these dark days
of the Revolutionary war, one after another yielded to
the kindly solicitations, and a few who persistently
refused were disowned.1 Thus did the Yearly Meeting
extinguish the iniquity. By 1780 no slaves were held
by members except in peculiar cases where legal difficulties
prevented manumission, as where husband or wife was not
a member and would not consent.
But the duty was not yet quite accomplished. The
minute of 1758 urged besides freedom, " making a
Christian provision for them according to their ages."
This also was a part of the labour of the committees.
Where the blacks had worked long and faithfully they
were not to be turned away empty-handed, and many a
Quaker ex-slave-holder paid a debt not demanded by the
law for the past unrequited services of his slaves.
The interests promoted by slavery were greatly
reduced in Pennsylvania by the freeing of the Quaker
slaves and its consequent effect upon public opinion.
So that of all the states it was the first to pass an
abolition law.
All this time efforts were being made to appeal to
the negroes religiously. A few joined Friends. Many
1 A manuscript copy of James Moon's Journal describing those efforts in Bucks
County is in existence, which shows the long and kindly and successful efforts of
one of these committees. See Quakerism and Politics by Isaac Sharpless.
CH. vii FRIENDS AND SLAVERY 521
attended the meetings appointed for them. Joseph Oxley
in 1771 speaks of the "Meetings for Negroes in
Philadelphia. Few there but negroes. They generally
sat soberly." These meetings were held quarterly at
this time, and frequently all through the Colonial period.
But the quiet of a Friends' meeting was not the religious
atmosphere which the race would appreciate.
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-177$
IT is difficult to estimate the number of Friends in the
province of Pennsylvania during Colonial days. The
immigration was very active at the start, and the early
immigrants were largely Friends. But others, attracted
by opportunities for trade, also came. The country
settlers were largely, in some districts exclusively, Friends.
James Logan in 1702 estimated that the population of
the city and of the country were equal, and that one-
third of the former and two-thirds of the latter were
Friends. This would make them one-half the population
at this date, and as, later, non-Friends came in greater
numbers, the proportion probably never reached this
figure again. In 1698 Gabriel Thomas, who had lived
fifteen years in the province, said that there were 2000
houses in Philadelphia, some of them accommodating
several families, and gives the total population of the
city as 20,000. Putting together the statements of
James Logan and Gabriel Thomas, we would infer that
about 1700 there were 20,000 Friends in Pennsylvania,
which is doubtless too large a figure. Thomas Lloyd
writes as early as 1684 that as many as 800 people
attend the Friends' meeting in Philadelphia, not all
Friends, however. The meetings were very large, surpris
ing the English visitors. They had not been used to
such grouping — a whole district of several miles square,
containing hardly a family outside the membership.
A few quotations from Journals will give an idea of
the numbers in attendance.
522
CH. via GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 523
James Dickinson in 1691 held meetings through
Pennsylvania in the winter out of doors, sometimes in
deep snow, the meeting-houses not being large enough
to contain the people.
Thomas Chalkley, writing in 1701, says:
"Since my settling in the province which is now about a
year, some hundreds of people are come here to reside and
many meeting houses are built."
In 1726 he visited meetings in the Welsh Tract and
found " a religious, industrious, and increasing people."
In 1715 the Yearly Meeting wrote to London :
" Our meeting hath been very large, the people and youth
increasing much. . . . Friends generally solaced therein for we
may truly say in humility and fear the Lord is still with his
people."
Two years later they say :
" There is some convincement in many places and a great
increase of young people, so there seems to be occasion for
increasing and enlarging our meeting houses."
Samuel Bownas speaks in 1727 of the size of the
meetings through Chester County, amounting in several
cases to 1500 each. In Philadelphia the meetings were
" exceedingly large," " more like Yearly Meetings than
common First Day Meetings." Between his two visits,
twenty years apart, meeting-houses had been enlarged
two, three, and four times, and in Pennsylvania thirteen
new ones had been built. Ten places needed new ones
(1728) and many old ones should be enlarged.
In 1754 Samuel Fothergill says that the meetings in
and around Philadelphia are "exceedingly large and all
sorts and ranks of people flock to them."
John Griffith tells us in 1765 that 1500 people
attended a meeting in Philadelphia.
Joseph Oxley says in 1770 of Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting :
" The meetings were very large, more so than I have ever
seen in England, both for worship and discipline."
524 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
He says of Wilmington, Del. :
"Attended a very large meeting. The chief part of the
inhabitants of this town, which is a very improving one, are
under our denomination."
Many other testimonies as to the increasing size of
the Pennsylvania meetings might be found. It was,
though unofficially, the State religion of Pennsylvania.
Its ministers were the most active and aggressive, its
discipline the most effective, and its gatherings the most
imposing for numbers and solemnity of any religious
exercises of the colony. The Episcopal minister of
Chester writes in 1712 with evident misgiving :
" I need not tell you that Quakerism is generally preferred in
Pennsylvania, and in no county of the province does the haughty
tribe appear more rampant than where I reside, there being by
a modest computation 20 Quakers besides dissenters to one
true Churchman."1
This continuous increase brought the number of
Friends in the province at the outbreak of the Revolu
tion probably up to 25,000, and adding to this the
Friends of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia,
membership of the Yearly Meeting may have reached
30,000. Franklin in 1766 gave the population of
Pennsylvania as 160,000, of which he said that Quakers
constituted one-third. They probably did for political
purposes, and this was what Franklin had in mind, but
the number is too large for the actual membership.
About the same time another estimate gives the popula
tion as 200,000, and of these one-eighth were said to be
Friends. The exact figures will never be known, for no
census was taken.
The average of spiritual life did not grow with the
numbers. This was inevitable with birthright member
ship. For while the best of Friends kept up the standards
a large and increasing minority were Friendly only in
name and custom. John Smith of Marlborough, whose
1 Papers relating to the Church in Pennsylvania, page 69.
CH. vin GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 525
memory extended back to about 1 700, said, sixty years
later, that in these early days
" Friends were a plain lowly-minded people, and that there
was much tenderness and contrition in their meetings. That at
20 years from that date, the Society increasing in wealth and in
some degree conforming to the fashions of the world, true
humility was less apparent, and their meetings in general were
not so lively and edifying. That at the end of 40 years many
of them were grown very rich ; and many made a specious
appearance in the world, that marks of outward wealth and
greatness appeared on some in our meetings of ministers and
elders, and as such things became more prevalent so the
powerful overshadowings of the Holy Ghost were less manifest
in the Society. That there had been a continual increase of
such ways of life even until the present time, and that the weak
ness that had now overspread the Society and the barrenness
manifest among us is matter of much sorrow."
Making all allowance for the divine enthusiasm of
youth, this is a striking statement and represents an
undoubted tendency. John Smith may have been mis
taken in associating wealth and show with spiritual
barrenness strictly as cause and effect. They were
probably contemporary results of the same causes.
Samuel Bownas's testimony is something the same.
Comparing conditions of 1727 with those of twenty years
earlier, he says :
" Many of the rising youth come in form more than in the
power and life that their predecessors were in."
Yet he admits that " there is a fine living people
amongst them."
All through these years there were marked periods
of spiritual interest and effectiveness. Jane Hoskens,
writing about 1712, says, "The Lord was pleased to
renew a merciful visitation unto the Friends and in
habitants of North Wales and Plymouth. Many of the
youth were reached, and several were called to the
ministry." And John Griffith writes :
" About this time [1734] a fine spring of ministry was opened
within the compass of our Yearly Meeting. About 100 opened
their mouths in public in a little more than a year."
526 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
This meant far more than a simple testimony to
Christian conversion. It meant the beginning of a life of
ministry, though he admits that " some of them withered
away like unripe fruit."
On the whole during these early days of the century
the outlook was cheering.
"The Truth prevails and prospers and great openness in
many places, and many flocking to hear the testimonies of it,
and some are convinced, and some that are young coming
forth in testimony; and good discipline increases among the
churches,"
the Yearly Meeting reported in 1705. This was the
general tone of such statements for a number of years.
But the coming years, as John Smith intimates, saw
changes not all for the better.
Not only was there in many members a spiritual
decline during the century, but there was also very con
siderable moral laxity. The offences for which Friends
were disowned in large numbers, mentioned in the
minutes with great plainness, show this clearly. Life in
a new country, when unaccompanied by the refining
influences of religion or education, brought out crude and
coarse manners and morals. Standards in the body were
high and open offenders were disowned, but certain
departures from Christian conduct were not reached by
disciplinary processes.
The various assemblies of the country people at fairs,
vendues, shooting matches, games of " hustlecap " (a
species of pitching pennies), gave rise to much drinking,
carousing, and fighting.
It was not, however, only these concomitants that
were objected to. The Puritan objection to amusements
was applied to the games themselves, and many a sport-
loving young Quaker had to apologise to the Meeting
for acts which would now be part of our settled habits.
A Friend who afterwards became a prominent
minister admitted that he was " frisky " in his early
years, and in 1714 "acknowledged himself to blame for
CH. vin GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 527
running at a Horse Race at Chester Faire, and is heartily
sorry for it and hopes never to do the like again."
A few quotations will show the nature of delinquencies
noticed by travelling Friends :
" Many showed themselves very disorderly in going frequently
out of meeting during the time of worship."
" A large meeting, a dry lifeless state in too many and incon
sistent conduct in others, especially in excessive drinking."
" I was concerned to exhort Friends to purge the Society of
those under our profession who live in open profaneness and
are riotous in conversation. The Governor also issued a
proclamation against similar evils. But some young people
still disturbed our religious meetings and were obnoxious to
government."
"There are many earthly-minded and some loose libertine
people."
" There is a low vulgar education among the possessors of
Quakerism here that if they do not feel and live to what they
profess they are very low indeed in behaviour and conduct,
which by a spirit of obstinacy which prevails among them is very
degrading to the Truth and to Society, and especially in the
European opinion who are brought up otherwise. But where
Truth prevails it polishes and makes all beautiful and lively."
This last quotation refers to the condition of Friends
educationally. The study of this condition will explain
a number of failures of Quakerism of the Colonial and
following days, and is worth understanding in some detail.
Within a year after Penn's landing, Enoch Flower was
commissioned by the Council to open a school for
elementary work. About the same time another council
meeting, William Penn presiding, proposed that a higher
school " of Arts and Sciences " be established. We know
nothing of the subsequent history of either of these
efforts, but these or other schools were held in the
meeting - houses during the next half - dozen years.
Gabriel Thomas tells us in 1698 "there were several
good schools of learning" in the city. In 1689 William
Penn instructed Thomas Lloyd to set up a " Public
Grammar School." It was immediately started and
George Keith made master. This was the origin of the
528 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
educational movement which later became the William
Penn Charter School, still in flourishing existence. It
was intended as a school for the people, whether Friends
or not, and the poor were admitted free. There was a
charter granted it by Deputy -Governor Markham in
1697, and again by Penn in 1701, 1708, and 1711.
Up to 1708 the school was a source of much expenditure
of time and trouble to the Monthly Meeting of Phila
delphia, under whose control it was carried on. In the
charter of this year it was given over fully to the
Corporation, all of whom must be Friends. The last
charter removed this restriction, but as the body was self-
perpetuating none but Friends have ever been appointed
to it. The school under this arrangement continued
its beneficent work through the Colonial days. It was
generally patronised by Friends except such as could
afford private instruction. Mathematical, classical, and
elementary branch schools were established for boys and
girls in the city, and graded prices were intended to
accommodate families of varied means.
Other schools were started in other parts of the colony,
usually under the control of a meeting. Benjamin Clift
was allowed £12 a year for a school at Darby, and
Christopher Taylor, a University man and prominent in
the official life of the colony, had a private school on
the Island of Tinicum. In 1697 the Yearly Meeting
minuted :
" Meetings [schools ?] for the education of youth are settled in
most counties except Bucks, Shrewsbury, and Salem."
These small elementary schools, encouraged by Meeting
support, soon became rather general. But by 1 746, there
appearing some reasons to make the movement more
general or more effective, the Yearly Meeting advised :
"We desire you, in your several Monthly Meetings, to
encourage and assist each other in the settlement and support of
schools for the instruction of your children, at least to read and
write, and some further useful learning, to such whose circum
stances will permit it. And that you observe, as much as
CH.VIII GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 529
possible, to employ such masters and mistresses as are con
cerned, not only to instruct your children in their learning, but
are likewise careful in the wisdom of God and a spirit of meek
ness, gradually to bring them to a knowledge of their duty to
God and one another ; and we doubt not such endeavors will be
blessed with success."
The advice was renewed a few years later, and by the
Revolution was acted on to such an extent that the
elements of education were within the reach of all Friends
except those on the frontiers, and not infrequently by
the conjunction of an ambitious boy and an inspiring
teacher, excellent scholars were produced. There are
several accounts of travellers being surprised to encounter
a farmer who read his Hebrew and Greek Testaments or
spent his leisure times in the solution of mathematical
problems of difficulty, while John Bartram and some of
his friends were botanists of the highest order.
John Smith of Philadelphia and Burlington wrote
a most illuminating journal l which gives us an insight
into the private life of the more wealthy and cultured
Friends of Philadelphia about the middle of the century.
There must have been much book culture among them
as well as indefinite sociability of the better sort. John
Smith himself read the current books of the day —
Pope's Poems, Addison's Essays, and (strange to say),
Steele's Comedies and Fielding's novels. As he was an
elder and clerk of the Yearly Meeting, besides holding
many responsible places in business and public affairs,
it is evident that this miscellaneous reading and active
life did not unfit him, as would later have been the
case, for the confidence and recognition of his associates.
Interspersed with it we find references to the approved
writings of Friends which show that he had also drunk
deeply of the literature and spirit of Quakerism. His
own writings and public appointments as companion
to many ministers would also show this. The Logans,
Pembertons, Norrises, Morrises, Kinseys, and others with
whom he was connected by family and social ties seem
1 Hannah. Logan's Courtship, edited by Albert Cook Myers.
2 M
530 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
to have been a most delightful combination of denomina
tional zeal and consecration and simple piety with
cultivated minds and manners.
Their formal education was probably received in part
in the " public school," in part by private tuition, but it
was mostly gained as the result of an interest in good
things which impelled them to educate themselves and
each other. The effect of the reading of the journal,
never intended for other eyes than his own, is to impress
one with the feeling of a community in which wealth,
public spirit, free and simple social intercourse and
recreation, considerable mental culture and real religious
feeling were happily blended. At the other extreme the
Meeting minutes display a large proportion of city vices
and ignorance. The gap between the extremes was much
wider than a century and a half later. This contrast is
often indicated. Thomas Chalkley tells us in 1726:
" The Lord was angry with the people of Philadelphia and
Pennsylvania for the wickedness committed by the inhabitants
in the public-houses — with the magistrates for not enforcing
laws against profaneness and immorality — with the representatives
of the people because they do not suppress vice and immorality
— and with the better sort of people because they love the world
more than heaven."
The offenders may not have been Friends, but the
magistrates probably, and the representatives and " better
sort " almost certainly were. But side by side with this
he speaks of the Yearly Meeting
"Wherein divers young men and women appeared who had
lately come forth in the ministry — a large gathering of some
thousands of people."
The liquor problem, as always, was with these Colonial
Friends. At first it was rum supplied to Indians which
caused the trouble, and the Yearly Meeting went so far
as to order a written pledge signed by individual members
through the meetings agreeing not to sell or give away
any strong drink which would be likely to reach the
Indians. Then their own state officials were the objects
CH.VIII GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 531
of concern, and the legislature passed a law that drunken
ness should disqualify a man for holding office. The
Deputy-Governor, however, would not, he said, penalise a
man for " taking a cup too much."
A practice had arisen of making a burial the occasion
of feasting and drinking. The vigour and frequency with
which the meetings combated this inexcusable custom
shows hs hold upon the times. Such opportunities were
occasions of vast crowds of people gathering, some of
whom came from a distance, and hospitality demanded
their entertainment But this easily grew to excess and
caused anything but solemnity.
" When wine or other strong liquors are served (which many
sober-minded people think needless) that it be but once "
the Yearly Meeting recommended in 1729.
They strove also in meeting and legislature to abate
the evils of public-houses, which were centres of drunken
ness and crime. The remedy was to place the business
in the hands of men who would wish to control the
excesses. It was then respectable to patronise and own
such taverns, for they were needed to accommodate the
travel of the times.
But the drink habit could not be kept in moderation
in many instances. Ministers succumbed as well as the
humble people. In the trial of Bradford in 1692 it was
intimated that the prominent Friends and ministers of the
day were put to bed drunk.1 This may be a false charge,
but many other cases, hardly less conspicuous, might be
cited. There were, however, most earnest efforts used by
all in authority to remedy the evil of drunkenness, and
those guilty of it could not be employed in church services.
There was with the years a growing stringency as to the
use of spirituous liquors which, however, in Colonial days
never reached the position of total abstinence.
But what of the great body of Friends who were
neither great saints nor great sinners, neither highly
educated nor grossly ignorant? These constituted the
1 Pennypacker's Colonial Cases.
532 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
typical Quakers of Colonial days. When they got
together in meetings, it was their voice which prevailed,
their thoughts and feelings which set the policy of the
society. The Yearly Meeting was not a reflex of the
educated leaders of the city, nor of the more coarse
element among the country people. Its standards were
determined very largely by the strong democracy of the
farmers. A farming community is apt to be conservative,
to be economical, and hence slow to take risks, or make
advances without great deliberation, but it is also apt to
be clear-headed, honest, direct, and moral. If we form
our judgment from the offenders whose cases we read in
the minutes of the Monthly Meetings, which occupy so
large a proportion of the space, we should infer that the
Friends were an outrageously demoralised community.
But the very fact that these delinquents are dealt with
so plainly and without any condoning of their faults,
or relaxation of the standards, shows that there was
everywhere a prevailing majority, of whom we read
nothing directly, who stood with unyielding sincerity for
righteousness.
The journals of travelling Friends are most unsatis
factory exponents of actual conditions. They are full of
subjective expressions, telling how the minister felt very
" low," or that the meeting was " lively," which judgments
might have resulted from the writer's physical or spiritual
condition at the time, or might have been a reflex of the
external attitude of the Friends. It is impossible to doubt
that the former often dictated the expressions in the
journal. Thus to John Griffith, who travelled about 1765
through the Yearly Meeting, things were " mournfully low,"
" few seemed alive," " great weakness and want of living
concern," " religion at a low ebb," and many other such
disconsolate expressions. While to Joseph Oxley, who
journeyed over the same territory about the same time —
" The affairs of the church were carried on in much brotherly
love and condescension, a very great deal of becoming plainness
and honest simplicity being coupled together in the fear of God.
" The meetings for the most part have been large, comfortable,
CH. vni GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 533
and to edification, many mothers with their infants attending, the
zeal of the mothers I thought sufficiently compensating for the
cries of the babes.
" The meeting held fresh and green mostly for six hours."
It is impossible to reconcile the saddening experiences
of the one with the hopeful expressions of the other, except
by the differing temperaments of the writers.
The whole tenor of the teaching was inward. The
best Friends have always been mystics, and mysticism is
seldom so pure and exalted as to free itself from an
admixture of the elements which come from mental
buoyancy or good digestion on the one hand, or the
reverse conditions on the other. Hence our Quaker
journals must be read between the lines.
It can hardly be doubted, however, that there was a
steady increase in the proportion of unspiritual Friends
as the century advanced. The journalistic testimony in
its entirety would point to this conclusion. Prosperity,
leadership in public affairs, birthright membership, absence
of the means of education, opened increasing temptations
to a non- religious life. The sweetness and light and
enthusiasm of the first fifty years were passing away.
While many maintained the spirit and standards of the
older days, a number, large in the aggregate, were
indifferent, substituting formalism for piety. Some weare
openly rebellious, in spite of, or perhaps in consequence
of, the increasing stringency of disciplinary requirements.
The matters with which the Yearly Meeting concerned
itself in its endeavour to keep to simple standards were
very detailed. In 1694 it testified against challenging to
run races, wrestling, pitching " barrs," " drinking to one
another," " riding from house to house to drink rum and
other strong liquors to excess," " to jest or talk idly," " for
children to answer parents forwardly or crossly," " the
immoderate and indecent smoking of tobacco," " to ride
or go in the streets with pipes in their mouths," and so
on. This list is interesting as showing the customs of
the age as well as the care of the Yearly Meeting. A
little later it testifies against drunkenness, " a prevailing
534 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
evil," against such as "hold Truth for worldly ends,"
" publishing books to raise contention," importing slaves,
" marrying out," " using unscriptural language," — thus
mingling together serious moral evils and the breaking of
the special testimonies of Friends.
In 1695 the meeting advised that all Friends keep to
plainness in apparel, and specified as innovations to be
avoided " long-lapped sleeves or coats gathered at the
sides or superfluous buttons or broad ribbons about their
hats or long-curled periwigs," and that women should not
dress " their heads immoderately," or " wear long scarves,"
or buy "striped or flowered stuffs," and that Friendly
tailors, who presumably would not sell these gaudy
innovations, be dealt with exclusively. They also urge
that excesses in building and furniture be avoided, that
business be kept down to moderate dimensions, and that
debts be promptly paid. The reason they give in 1701
for these advices is worth reading :
" Earth was made for the service of man, not man for the
service of the earth. . . . How ignoble and debasing a thing it
is for a man to divert that noble, gracious, primitive institution
in which he was advanced to a divine dominion, and yield
himself a slave to that over which he once was and still should
be lord."
In nearly all the meetings, acting on many "advices,"
beginning with Burlington in 1681, the Monthly Meetings
appointed two Friends each to settle differences amicably,
to prevent defamation of character by untrue or libellous
reports, to administer the discipline as to attendance at
and proper behaviour in meeting, and to look after the
habits of Friends as to plainness of living and sobriety
of conduct These officials were probably not called
Overseers before 1700, but soon after the name seems
to have been pretty general. About the same time
Preparative Meetings were set up, to attend to the more
personal work required to bring the business in good
shape to the Monthly Meetings. The overseers were
originally the appointees of these Preparative Meetings,
which consisted of the more experienced and reliable
CH. vin GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 535
Friends only. In case of an offender these overseers and
the Preparative Meetings were expected quietly to reform
him, and long-continued efforts were made to this end.
If they succeeded, no record was made of the case.
Should he prove not amenable to such influences, the
Monthly Meeting was informed, and more formal proceed
ings instituted, resulting either in his acknowledgment
of culpability and reinstatement in good standing or
disownment. While therefore the records of the Monthly
Meetings, which have been preserved, seem to indicate
rather abrupt and arbitrary proceedings, they give us no
indication of the private labours which preceded them, of
which we have no official accounts.
The creation of Preparative Meetings was made
optional with Quarterly Meetings in 1698, and we find
John Churchman, as late as 1758, advising their establish
ment in places where they were unknown.
There is no doubt that the " Queries " had a large
effect in maintaining the discipline and standards of the
Quaker community. As we have seen, there was an
attempt made in 1703 to codify and arrange the advices
and instructions of the Yearly Meeting into a formal
" Discipline." Manuscript copies of this were made, and
were added to as new conclusions were reached. This
Book of Discipline was read quarterly in the meetings
for worship. To it was often appended an epistle of
doctrinal advice and earnest exhortation to spiritual and
holy living. In 1707 it was concluded to call the
Quarterly Meetings by name, and each one was to
answer as to the conduct of its members. Two years
later these reports were to be in "wrighting."
The varied questions which the Friends of those days
had under consideration, and which the Preparative
Meetings and the overseers were expected to attend to,
may be seen in a minute of Chester Quarterly Meeting
of 1711. They were instructed to look into the following
offences : —
"That against inviting servants to marriages, except near
relations. That against going to the marriages of any that
536 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
profess Truth, but marry not among Friends. That of keeping
company in order for marriage with any one's servant without
leave of master or mistress. That about being clear of one
before being concerned with another. That of being too hasty
in marriage after the death of husband or wife, and against
marriage by priests. That against giving occasion of public
scandal, and that against all disorderly walkers in general. That
about Friends putting their children to apprentices, or otherwise
to be brought up by those who are not Friends. That about
parents causing their children often to read the Holy Scriptures,
and to let them know some degree of writing ; and that they be
bred up in some useful employment. That against drinking to
excess, swearing, cursing, lying, etc. That against superfluity of
apparel and furniture in all its branches. That against calling
the days and months contrary to Scripture, and against calling
them by the names of the idol gods of the heathen. That about
speaking the plain Scripture language of thee and thou. That
against buying and trading beyond abilities, and of not keeping
to our words and promises. That about attending Weekly
Meetings, and against disorderly going in and out ; and against
sleeping in meetings. That against smoking tobacco in streets,
roads, and public-houses, except privately. That against talking
and tale -bearing. That against giving any just occasion of
trouble to the government, and against our refusing to pay its
tributes or assessments. That against selling rum to the Indians,
and against buying Indian slaves. That against brother going to
law with brother, as explained or amended by the last Yearly
Meeting held at Burlington. That against challenging to fight,
etc. That against keeping vain or loose company, in fairs,
markets, drinking-houses, or any other places, etc. That against
vain and frothy discourses, drinking to excess, and against a vain
custom of drinking healths, as it is called, and against drinking
one to another."
Reports on these subjects were to be made to the
Quarterly Meetings usually at first by word of mouth of
the representatives. Gradually to induce uniformity,
definite subjects were proposed for report, and about
1725 these crystallised into " Queries." They were
adopted as a matter of convenience, and were not
uniform through the Yearly Meeting. That body in
1743 systematised the plan by the following minute,
which is interesting alike as a means of discipline and as
an expression of standards :
CH. vni GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 537
" This meeting directs that the following queries may be read
in the several Monthly and Preparative Meetings within the verge
of this meeting, at least once in each quarter of the year ; to the
end that the overseers, or other weighty Friends, may make such
answers to them as they may be able to do, and their respective
circumstances may require. The members of such meetings may,
by this means, be from time to time reminded of their duty.
" I. Are Friends careful to attend their meetings for worship,
both on first-days and other days of the week appointed for that
service ? and are they careful to meet at the hour appointed ?
Do they refrain from sleeping in meetings ? or do any accustom
themselves to snuffing or chewing tobacco in meetings ?
"II. Do Friends keep clear of excess, either in drinking
drams or other strong drink ?
" III. Are there any who keep company, in order for marriage,
with those who are not of us, or with any others without the
consent of parents or guardians ?
"IV. Do Friends keep clear from tattling, tale-bearing,
whispering, backbiting, and meddling in matters wherein they
are not concerned ?
" V. Are there any Friends that frequent music houses, or go
to dancing or gaming ?
" VI. Are Friends careful to train up their children in the
nurture and fear of the Lord, and to restrain them from vice and
evil company, and to keep them to plainness of speech and
apparel ?
"VII. Are the poor taken care of and are their children put
to school and apprenticed out (after sufficient learning) to
Friends ? and do Friends put their own children out to Friends,
as much as may be ?
" VIII. Are there any who launch into business beyond what
they are able to manage, and so break their promises, in not
paying their just debts in due time? And where differences
happen, are endeavors used to have them speedily ended ?
"IX. Are there any belonging to this meeting that are
removed without certificates ? or are there any from other parts
appearing as Friends, and have not produced a certificate ?
" X. Are Friends clear of depriving the King of his duties ?
"XI. Do Friends observe the former advices of the Yearly
Meeting, not to encourage the importation of negroes, nor to
buy them after imported ?
" XII. Are Friends careful to settle their affairs and make
their wills in time of health ? "
These queries were not at first formally answered.
538 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
They seem to have been for the purpose of reminding
members of their duties and of testing the work of the
overseers. The list was modified from time to time, and
in 1755 a definite answer to each query was demanded,
which answers were co-ordinated through the various
grades, and finally reaching the Yearly Meeting were
intended fairly to represent the state of the Society. The
formal queries induced, however, formal answers, and it
is doubtful if the information was as illuminating as
when a freer expression was permitted, as in the earlier
days.
The practice of the ministers or "public Friends" meeting
together apart from others originated in Philadelphia, in
1685, and soon became general over the Yearly Meeting.
At first no regular authorisation of a minister was necessary.
Any one who spoke acceptably in the meetings for
worship was a minister. But in a little time objectionable
speakers would make trouble, and it was decided that all
ministers in order to attend these meetings must bring a
certificate of acceptability from their Monthly Meetings.
These bodies, therefore, became the appointing power.
In 1714, in response to numerous suggestions from
Monthly Meetings that a few other Friends be authorised
to sit with the ministers, the Yearly Meeting sent down
this minute : —
"This meeting agrees that each monthly meeting (where
meetings of ministers are or may be held) shall appoint two or
more Friends to sit with the ministers in their meetings ; taking
care that the Friends chosen for that service be prudent solid
Friends and that they do carefully discharge their trust in such
matters, and in such manner as the monthly meeting shall from
time to time see occasion to appoint them."
This meant elders, whose duties at first were scantily
defined. In a little time they were expected to assist and
encourage acceptable ministers either by spiritual or
temporal counsel, and to discourage ill-advised utterances.
In time they became a great power, and their repressive
influence was sometimes exerted out of proportion to
its value.
CH. vin GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 539
In 1740 the Yearly Meeting defined its previous
minute to include women Friends, and the meeting for
ministers and elders, or Select Meeting, became a con
stituent part of the church machinery, usually assembling
just in advance of the Yearly, Quarterly or Monthly
Meetings respectively.
The large meetings which we find mentioned in all the
journals were drawn together by mixed motives. In
many sections there were no other places of worship than
the Friends' meeting-houses. The means of travel were
limited, being practically reduced to walking and horseback.
Where there were other religious services the sentiment
against attending them was too strong to be resisted.
The overseers were active in giving official encourage
ment to regular attendance, and persistent absence was a
cause of disownment. The social opportunity was valued
by young and old, and the traditions of the earlier
generations, reinforced by Yearly Meeting advices and the
sermons of many itinerant ministers, created a strong
feeling that a meeting was a fixed engagement to which
all else must bend. Did a farmer have hay cut in his
field to be injured by a storm appearing over the horizon ?
The hay might suffer, but the mid-week meeting must not
be neglected. Did a storekeeper expect a valued customer
at meeting hour? The store must be closed, and he and
all his clerks must attend the religious service. Nothing
but physical disability was a valid excuse for an omission
of the prime duty.
It is true that the overworked farmer might sleep
through the meeting, or the city clerk interest himself in
the contemplation of a young lady across the aisle, but
anyhow he must attend. It is even possible that the
serious-faced men and women facing the meeting were
not so continuously and exclusively engaged in personal
worship as their attitudes would seem to indicate to an
observant youth. But that many solid and sincere
Christians, who above all things permanently desired to
do God's will, were produced by this system of home life
and communal worship is beyond dispute. And that
540 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
such honest souls were continuously in control of the
tendencies of the Society seems also pretty certain.
John Churchman in 1748 divided the Friends he
visited into three classes — those who were glad to hear
him and invited him home, though " without much sweetness
of truth about their houses," and would tell him he had
hit the nail on the head exactly in his sermons ; those
who dealt out his exhortations censoriously to others, but
did not with any penitence take them to themselves ; and
those, " a few in each meeting," who humbly acknowledged
their own weakness and the weakness of the church. It
was this last class upon whom, as he deemed, the hope of
the Society must rest.
There can be no doubt that the peripatetic ministers,
both English and American, had a great influence in
strengthening and preserving Quakerism among the
colonists. They were the most spiritual and often the
best educated men and women of the Society. They
were listened to, especially those from England, with the
greatest respect. Their journals nearly always speak of
the great crowds which attended their ministry. George
Keith, after his separation, said that it was these " travelling
preachers that kept the Quakers so strong in countenance,"
and in some colonies, in order to stop the increase of
Quakerism, the early New England plan of prohibiting
their journeying was in the eighteenth century seriously
proposed. Besides the numerous American " public
Friends," of whom there were nearly always one or more
in the field, the following ministers from abroad were
engaged in religious visits in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting: —
1684
1687
1691
1694
1695
James Martin
Roger Longworth .
Thomas Wilson ^
James Dickinson J
Thomas Musgrove .
Robert Barrow
Ralph Wardell
Jonathan Tyler .
London.
Lancashire.
. Ireland.
• »
Westmorland.
Sunderland.
. Wiltshire.
1 Brackets indicate that the ministers travelled together the whole or part of
the time.
CH. viii GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 541
1696 Jacob Fallowfield .
Henry Payton)
Sarah Clark /
1698 William Ellis |
Aaron Atkinson/
Thomas Chalkley)
Thomas Turner /
Elizabeth Webb)
Mary Rogers /
Thomas Story)
Roger Gill /
Elizabeth Gamble .
1699 Sarah Clemens
1700 John Salkeld
Thomas Thompson |
Josiah Langdale J
John Richardson .
John Estaugh
1703 Samuel Bownas
1704 Thomas Turner
Joseph Glaister
Mary Banister
Mary Ellerton
1706 John Fothergill 1
William Armisteadj
1707 Patrick Henderson 1
Samuel Wilkinson /
1709 William Baldwin .
1713 Thomas Wilson "1
James Dickinson/
1715 Thomas Thompson)
Josiah Langdale /
Benjamin Holme .
1717 William Armstrong )
James Graham /
1718 John Danton \
Isaac Hadwin/
Elizabeth Rawlinson)
Lydia Lancaster /
1719 Rebecca Turner )
Elizabeth Whartnabyj"
1720 John Appleton
1721 Margaret Langdale
Margaret Payne
John Fothergill)
Laurence King /
1722 Benjamin Kidd
1725 Abigail Bowles
Hertford
London.
Yorkshire.
England.
Barbadoes.
London.
Westmorland.
Essex.
Yorkshire.
»
Essex.
Westmorland.
Essex.
Cumberland.
London.
York.
Yorkshire.
North of Ireland.
Lancashire.
Ireland.
Essex.
Yorkshire.
York.
Cumberland.
Swarthmore.
Lancaster.
Westmorland.
England.
Lincolnshire.
England.
5>
Yorkshire.
Banbury.
Ireland.
542 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
1726 William Piggottl
Joshua Fielding/
Samuel Bownas
1728 Rowland Wilson \
Joseph Taylor /
1731 Henry Frankland .
John Richardson .
1732 Mungo Bewley "j
Paul Johnson J-
Samuel Stephens]
Alice Alderson)
Hannah Dent /
Margaret Copeland
1734 John Burton .
William Backhouse
Joseph Gill
1736 John Fothergill
John Tylee .
Ruth Courtney \
Susanna Hudson/
1738 John Hunt
1739 Thomas Gawthrop .
1741 Samuel Hopwood .
1742 Edmund Peckover .
John Haslam
I744(?) Christopher Wilson
Eliezar Sheldon
1747 Samuel Nottingham
1750 Josiah Thompson .
James Thornton
Mary Weston
1753 Mary Peisley
Catherine Payton .
1754 Samuel Fothergill .
Joshua Dixon
1757 William Reckitt
Samuel Spavold
Mary Kirby .
1760 John Storer .
Jane Crosfield
George Mason
Susannah Hutton .
1761 Robert Proud
John Stephenson .
Hannah Harris
Elizabeth Wilkinson
Alice Hall .
1765 John Griffith .
London.
England.
it
Yorkshire.
H
Ireland.
Yorkshire.
Westmorland.
Yorkshire.
Lancashire.
Ireland.
Yorkshire.
Bristol.
Ireland.
London.
Westmorland.
Cornwall.
Norfolk.
Yorkshire.
Cumberland.
Ireland.
England.
Ireland.
Warrington.
Durham.
Lincolnshire.
Hertfordshire.
Norfolk.
Nottingham.
Westmorland.
Yorkshire.
England.
Essex.
CH. vin GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 543
1765 Abigail Pike .... England.
1768 Rachel Wilson . . . Kendal.
1770 Joseph Oxley . . . Norwich.
Samuel Neale . . . Ireland.
1773 Robert Walker . . . Yorkshire.
Elizabeth Robinson . . „
Mary Leaver . . . Nottingham.
During the ninety-three years which intervened between
the founding of the Colony and the Revolutionary War
over one hundred Friends from outside America engaged
in this travelling ministry. Many of them would spend
years in the country. The meetings of Friends in and
around Philadelphia would therefore frequently be visited.
And not the meetings only. Many of the ministers
would visit families, speaking to the conditions of the
individual members. After a little time of silence, with
all the assurance of Hebrew prophets they would lay bare
internal conditions and address themselves to personal
weaknesses. It seemed to many a member of the quiet
assembly that an unerring insight brought their secret
thoughts and hidden actions to judgment or gave them
the special spiritual message which their souls craved.
The frequent recurrence of such public and private
opportunities made an indelible impress on many a young
Friend. A young woman writes about 1712:
" Infinite goodness . . . was pleased to send his servants, both
male, and female, filled with life and power who sounded forth
the gospel in Divine authority."
This was the spirit in which such messages were
received. The effect of these family visits by home and
foreign ministers in the aggregate was very large. The
authority of the word was hardly doubted even when not
received, and not a few transformations of life were
wrought, where an open heart existed. Such visits were
repeatedly advised by the meetings, and were a very large
part of the practice and policy of the Friends.
The attitude of the Friends to other denominations
was not marked by any large tolerance. The Colony
beyond all others taught freedom of worship and equal
544 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
civil rights of all, but the Friends had testimonies to bear
which prevented any approach to religious unity. In
1711 they were urged not to go to the " worship houses "
of other bodies, or even to listen to their sermons at
funerals. This was not so much for fear of doctrinal
influence upon themselves as because they wished to bear
their testimony against a " paid and stated ministry," a
ministry exercised not under the immediate conscious
propelling power of the Holy Spirit.
All the needed expenses of the travelling ministers
were met with a liberal hand, collections being some
times taken at the times of meetings for worship, but a
distinct line was drawn between payments for necessary
expenses and payments for preaching. Many references
were made in the journals to silence, because the minister
felt that the worshippers were becoming too dependent
upon words. " The people seemed full of expectation
from one come so far," said the Englishman John Griffith,
" but I was shut up." This perfect freedom of ministry
was the choicest possession of the early Friends. For
this they would not recognise the pre-arranged services of
other religious bodies even by attendance. For this they
sacrificed all special theological education, and tried to
judge a message by its spirit rather than its form. Yet
the unbounded hospitality of a new country, the profound
reverence felt for those who gave forth the Word of God,
insured against suffering all who needed financial aid.
If a man could by business operations sustain himself
against the day of travel, he felt it a privilege to be free
of the help of his friends, and his message derived a
greater power and freedom from this knowledge that no
thoughts of pleasing the people intruded themselves
into it.
Next to the personal influence of the spiritual Friends
was the literature of the Society. Books published in
England or Philadelphia were subscribed to by the
Monthly Meetings, and circulated among the members.
Thus endorsed they became almost as authoritative as
the Bible, and were read with undoubted confidence. We
CH. vin GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 545
have from an unfriendly source the effect of the teaching
of Barclay's Apology. An Episcopal minister writes in
1740 about a man who had brought a wife and nine
children to baptism :
" His misfortune was as to this particular that his wife was a
Quaker, and her Quaker relations plyed him with heretical books
especially Robert Barclay's Apology, the glory and Alcoran of
Friends. 'Tis a pity it escapes so long a clear and full confuta
tion and I beg leave to say that some of our acutest have been
worse employed than in taking that hurtful work to pieces.
Smith's Preservative was of use to me in gaining the family I
spoke of and if that gentleman is alive I hereby tender him my
thanks for his endeavours to pull down this stronghold of Satan,
Barclay's Works." x
In addition to the works of Fox and Barclay, Sewel's
History of Quakers was thus distributed, also the works of
William Dell (who was not a Friend), Moses West's book
against mixed marriages, Daniel Pastorius' " Primmer "
and others. The meeting agreed in 1705 to have at
least one copy of every suitable Friends' book printed in
England sent over for inspection.
In 1690 all books approved by the meeting of "Public
Friends " were to be taken by the Yearly Meeting to the
extent of two hundred copies each and given to the
Monthly Meetings. The same meeting opened a sub
scription to pay for an authorised printer, who was at
first William Bradford. His usefulness ended a couple of
years later when he imprudently espoused the cause of
George Keith. He had, however, a line of successors. In
1703 the management of the press was turned over to
the Monthly Meeting of Philadelphia, and Isaac Norris
went to England to find a printer, " a Friend if possible."
A few years later absolute power was given to any five of
a committee of eight appointed by that meeting to issue
official documents. Later still the Yearly Meeting
resumed its care of publications, acting through the
"Overseers of the Press," till 1771, when the matter went
to the " Meeting for Sufferings."
1 Papers relating to the Church in Pennsylvania.
2 N
546 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
All through these years Friends seemed impressed
with the fact that they were making history, and that
Pennsylvania was a test of Quaker principles applied to
government. They were urged to live worthy of their
origin, and not to allow the work to go down in their
hands. The Yearly Meeting early began the task of
collecting valuable material, and the minutes show
through whose hands the collection passed. Cabel Pusey,
the zealous and trusted friend of Penn, whose many places
in State and Church show the esteem in which he was held,
was the custodian till his death in 1725. Following him
were David Lloyd, Isaac Norris, James Logan, and John
Kinsey, each of whom added something, and probably each
of whom had some indefinite intentions of writing the
history. After the death of John Kinsey in 1750, Samuel
Smith received the papers and compiled a manuscript.
This was not published in its original form till 1830 in
Hazard's Register. Between 1776 and 1780 Robert
Proud, the master of Friends' School, compiled a History
of Pennsylvania which is still the highest authority on all
things colonial. He had all the collections of the previous
decades as well as Smith's manuscript in his hands and
added his personal knowledge. Thus the care of the
Yearly Meeting produced its result.
There does not seem to have been any name uniformly
adopted by the Society in these early days. It was
never called a church, that name being understood as
meaning a congregation of vitalized members only.
George Fox probably felt that he was preaching a spirit
which would draw all men to it ultimately, and for some
years did not wish to think that he was forming a distinct
organization. Any one who could meet in reverent
dependence upon God to worship and receive gifts for
work was of his denomination. By the time of the settle
ment of Pennsylvania this loose aggregation of kindred
spirits had been outgrown, and a system was developed
which was reproduced in America. But he had not given
it a name. The first Monthly Meeting in Philadelphia
began its minutes, " The Friends of God . . . being met in
CH. vin GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 547
the fear and power of the Lord." In future minutes they
call themselves " The people of God," " The people of the
Lord," " The people called Quakers." The latter was the
title most frequently used in documents which were to go
outside the ranks. They called each other Friends, but
the term Society of Friends seems not to have been
adopted as a corporate title during colonial times.
The Monthly Meetings had a source of perennial
labour in the matter of marriages. The concern began in
the early stages. " Keeping company " with unsuitable
persons (non-Friends) was looked into, and parents who
did not manage it properly were themselves objects of
meeting action. The parties most interested were ex
pected to gain parental consent, and in some cases the
approval of the meeting, before they made or accepted
final proposals. This being satisfactorily arranged, they
stood up in meeting and each one separately announced
his or her intention. This was done twice, in some cases
thrice, at intervals of a month. Committees of men and
women Friends respectively were appointed to inquire
into the " clearness from similar engagements " of their
member, and the consent of parents was publicly given.
After this preliminary the meeting allowed the marriage
to proceed, and appointed a committee to see that it was
accomplished according to order, and that the entertain
ment at the house was simple and free from excessive
drinking and frivolity.
The parties, flanked by the parents, then stood up in
meeting and took each other as man and wife. No priest
or minister intervened or dictated the words. No ring
symbolised the union. No organ broke the quiet of the
occasion. But in the hush and silence of a house full of
worshippers they took each other by the hand. In the
words of a minute of 1684, John Pemberton did openly
declare as follows :
" { Friends, you are here witness, in the presence of God and
this assembly of His people, I take this maid, Margaret Matthews,
to be my loving and lawful wife, promising to be a true and
faithful husband unto her till death shall us part.' And then
548 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
and there in the same assembly she, the said Margaret Matthews,
did in like manner declare : ' Friends, before God and you His
people, I take John Pemberton to be my husband, promising to
be a loving and faithful wife until death shall us part.'"
After this open declaration to the world a certificate
was produced, which the contracting parties signed, and
also many of the spectators as witnesses.
Such contracts, gone into with caution and the advice
of Friends, and ofttimes with a sincere desire to know
and do God's will, were seldom broken. The need of
greater care and publicity was felt because the Quaker
form of marriage was specially allowed by English law
and must be above suspicion. The form and method,
though with slight variation in the words, have always
been used in marriages of Friends. It was a binding and
religious contract, in which a testimony was borne against
the need of any priestly intervention, but in which, in the
presence of God with men as witnesses, the man and
maiden took their irrevocable vow.
The care of the Meeting extended itself to the bride's
house. Simplicity was expected in the entertainment of
the guests, and very small details were attended to. Thus
in 1773 everything was reported to the Meeting as satis
factory at one of the weddings except that the groom
" had assistance in taking off his gloves." In others the
hats were not worn in the meeting-house, and many
superfluities of apparel were commented on unfavourably.
While the duty of meeting attendance was urgently
pressed, it was also recognised that it must be adjusted
to other duties to the state and to society. The " Court,"
an organisation of " Peacemakers " to adjust civil
differences by equity, was in early days composed of the
same men who guided ecclesiastical affairs, and religious
appointments were often changed to avoid conflicts of
date. In 1687 the Monthly Meetings which constituted
Bucks Quarterly Meeting deferred the meeting because
"next Quarterly Meeting and the Philadelphia Fair fall
both on the same day." And a few years later a Monthly
Meeting in Chester County adjourned because " the greater
CH. vin GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 549
part of the members of this meeting are called away upon
a business relating to government."
William Penn had placed upon Friends the duty of
working out the adaptability of Quaker principles to
government. In these early days the responsibility was
upon them. It was a sacred obligation just as much so
as worship. The line between the secular and the
religious was not closely drawn, but all duty was
compelling, and Friends were used to approach a political
problem with the same regard for inward promptings
towards righteousness as in their religious meetings. The
difference was rather one of the degree of attention to
be paid to these promptings. In meeting they would not
speak at all without them. In public affairs, if they
were absent they did the best they could ; but in all
cases Whittier's characterisation is not far wide of the
mark :
" The presence of the wrong or right
They rather felt than saw."
The Friendly Legislatures of early days began their
sessions with a period of devotional silence after their
manner of worship, and all activities were carried on in
the same spirit.
This identification of varied duties seemed, however,
to grow less pronounced as time advanced. Secular
interests were made to yield to religious. The demand
to drop everything else at the regular time of meeting
became more imperious, and the decisions of the church
as to a man's outward activities more binding.
The public meetings themselves from a miscellaneous
assemblage became better organised. A minute of 1699
contains these explicit directions :
"The meeting having under consideration the indecent
sitting and settling of our meetings, doth order, that public
Friends do sit in the galleries, and the elder Friends with them,
or before the galleries; and that our women Friends take one
side of the house, and the men the other ; and that all sit with
their faces towards the galleries ; and that the meeting be kept
below, and a fire made above, for such as are weak through
550 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
sickness, or age, or otherwise, to warm at, and come down
again modestly; and keep the meeting soberly, without going
out any more than necessity requires." l
This arrangement dictated a special style of archi
tecture, and the type is readily recognised down to the
present day. The description, except as to the fire, will
apply to the internal arrangements of the houses for two
centuries following.
The subordination of the Quarterly to the Yearly, of
the Monthly to the Quarterly, and of the Preparative to
the Monthly Meeting was fully recognised by a minute of
1719, and the machinery was rapidly developed. But the
old spirit of personal worship was diligently cherished. In
all churchly affairs even relating to ordinary business the
same reverent introversive attitude was the standard of
the Meeting. " Advised that Friends keep all your meet
ings in the wisdom of God and unity of His blessed
Spirit wherein they were created and settled. . . . Keep
all contentions, reflections, and smitings out of your
meetings ; and keep down and out all heats and passions
and doubtful disputations . . . that they may be managed
in the peaceable tender spirit and wisdom of Jesus
Christ with decency, forbearance, care and charity towards
each other," said they in 1721.
Out of this attitude grew naturally the Friendly
method of reaching decisions. When Friends were
" gathered inward to the divine principle to know from
what spring and motive you act," 2 if this divine principle
working in responsive hearts were a reality, it would be
a most potent factor in producing unanimity. Hence
voting and parliamentary law would be out of place.
A quiet religious discussion and much feeling after the
truth and the right would bring discordant views into
harmony. When this result was reached the clerk, who
was supposed to have spiritual discernment as well as
clerical skill, would make a minute expressing the decision
holding it open till the Meeting decided upon its fairness
1 Middletown Monthly Meeting.
* Yearly Meeting Minutes of 1765.
CH. vin GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 551
and validity. It was often a slow proceeding, and
probably worked in the interests of conservatism within
the body, though, as we have seen in matters of moral
reform, Friends were not conservative. But it worked for
two centuries, and even now Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
has no disposition to change it. Such decisions are not
infallible. Prejudice and unreason and narrow concep
tions are not so easily expelled. With bitter partisan feel
ing and selfish ends and unscrupulous methods the system
would break down. But the advantage of it was that these
ignoble impulses would go to the rear, along with noisy
oratory and political appeal. The eloquence which would
prevail in a Meeting would be a quiet feeling statement
of truths and principles. It is doubtful whether a more
wise and just series of decisions extending over so long
a time have been reached otherwise.
The decisions of the Meetings with regard to general
policy were usually initiated in some progressive Monthly
Meeting. This went as a request for advice or direction
up through the Quarterly to the Yearly Meeting, which
legislated upon it, and sent down the result through the
same channel, for definite action. The Monthly Meetings
for practical purposes thus became the originating and
executive bodies. They came in contact with the in
dividuals, and had power to receive and disown members
as well as insist on certain standards of living. These
functions were usually performed with great forbearance
and caution. There was no effort to induce men and
women to join till they were sure that their real
church sympathies would be satisfied by the beliefs and
customs of the body, and till the Meeting was satisfied
that their convincement was genuine. Numbers never
counted as such. The disownments, not only for moral
weakness, but for disregard of advice as to plain living,
to meeting attendance, to the form of marriage, were
rigidly administered in all cases where repentance was
not forthcoming.
It became customary, in the case of any offender who
wished to remain in membership, to require a written
552 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
acknowledgment of error, and a recognition of the
wisdom of the regulations which he had violated. This
was read, not only in the Monthly Meeting, but, to make
it absolutely public, in the First-day morning meeting,
and in early times also before the " Court " (a secular body),
after which it was posted on the door of the meeting
house for days. As cases of serious moral delinquency
both of men and women were dealt with in this public
way, many preferred to take the milder penalty of dis-
ownment, which cut them off from church membership,
and such losses were counted by the hundreds or
thousands. That standards must be maintained, however
individuals suffered, was the unflinching rule.
Did two Friends have a difference developing into
contention for rights ? They were forbidden to go to
law until everything else failed ; but the overseers or a
special committee of the Monthly Meeting would hear the
case and make the award, and the whole power of the
Society was behind its acceptance. Was it reported that
a man was taking risks in business which would imperil
his creditors if everything did not go smoothly ? He was
warned and almost ordered to protect the innocent before
extending his operations. Was a young person evidently
attracted by the charms of some non- Friend of the
opposite sex ? Both the parents and the possible offender
were early advised of the danger and warned to desist.
Was a Friendly official in a place which required the
administration of an oath or a recognition of some
military act ? He was urgently advised to resign rather
than compromise the principle. The good name of the
Society, the honour of Truth, the bright record of the
early days of suffering were appealed to, to preserve at
least a remnant true to the purest conceptions of right
and duty.
We may have differing opinions as to whether the
rigid discipline and final disownment of offenders were
wise or not, but we can hardly withhold our approval of
the kindly and effective treatment of their own poor,
extending into careful scrutiny and intelligent detail.
CH. vni GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 553
A man in the country through sickness is reduced to
want ; the Monthly Meeting gives or lends him a cow.
Another is unable to harvest his crops ; his neighbours
do it for him, or failing this, the Monthly Meeting hires
the necessary labour. Another needs clothing ; the
Monthly Meeting specifies the garments to be procured,
and pays the bill. The doctor's charges for another are
paid. Another needs a house ; the Monthly Meeting
orders it to be built and assumes the debt. Another is
old and unable to care for himself ; the Monthly Meeting
finds him a boarding-place and pays the board.
These are all real cases taken from the minutes, and
typical of hundreds of others. No Friend in want was
allowed to suffer or seek help elsewhere than from the
Meeting. The sense of fraternity was very strong.
Nor was the aid confined to their own members. In
1697 a general subscription was taken up for "Friends
and others" who were suffering from Indian raids in
New England, which was repeated in the early days of
the Revolution before the war had migrated to the South.
In 1710 there was a general subscription to build a
meeting-house in Boston. A century later there was a
failure of crops in England and Ireland, and a sum of
about £6000 went from Philadelphia to relieve the
situation. In 1725 another subscription went to New
England to aid Friends carried away by the Indians.
In 1741 a letter of the Governor of South Carolina to
the Pennsylvania proprietor was read in the meetings
asking aid to recover from a fire at Charleston, which
met with a response. During the days of the Indian
raids upon the Pennsylvania frontiers following 1755,
large subscriptions were made in the meetings for the
white sufferers and to buy Indian peace.
A function which had absorbed much of the thought
and labour of English Friends had been the collection
and tabulation of statistics concerning the suffering of
Friends for conscience* sake by fines and imprisonment.
From this duty, for a long time, the Pennsylvania Friends
were relieved. For freedom of conscience, and especially
554 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
of the Quaker conscience, was a cherished principle of
Penn's province. There were some distraints for tithes
in neighbouring provinces where members of Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting lived, and these were regularly reported
by the Quarterly Meetings. But a " Meeting for Suffer
ings " seemed to have little place.
When, however, in 1755 the Indian Wars broke out,
and there seemed a likelihood of privations for the Friends
who lived on the frontiers, the Yearly Meeting directed a
subscription of £1000 to be raised to meet the foreseen
contingency. To distribute this it was proposed to
appoint a committee consisting of twelve Friends of
Philadelphia and four of each of the other Quarterly
Meetings, appointed by them respectively, who should
investigate all cases of suffering and administer relief.
This temporary need was the origin of the Philadelphia
Meeting for Sufferings, a body of great import in the
subsequent history of Friends. Following the example
of the English counterpart, it was to have larger powers
than its name would indicate. It was
"... to represent this meeting and appear in all cases where
the reputation of Truth and our religious Society are concerned ;
provided that they do not meddle with matters of faith or
discipline not already determined in this meeting ; and that at
least twelve should concur on all occasions ; and that in matters
of great importance, notice be given or sent to all members of
the Committee."
Subsequent minutes directed them to have their
minutes read in the Yearly Meeting ; committed to them
the proper administration of all legacies and trusts
belonging to the Yearly Meeting ; still later the work
of the Overseers of the Press was also given them. In
short they were made the Executive Committee of the
Yearly Meeting with large jurisdiction. At first they
were appointed from year to year, but in 1768 they
were made a permanent body.
This meeting in time, by virtue of the strength of the
men composing it, and their long continuance in office,
became a most influential body — the inner circle of leaders.
CH. viii GENERAL CONDITIONS, 1700-1775 555
Its ascendency was exerted in all times of stress, and
being free from control between the sessions, and having
large influence during them, it was able for the succeeding
century largely to govern the destinies of the Yearly
Meeting, strengthening at all times the tendencies towards
conservatism.
CHAPTER IX
THE FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION
THE Friends approached the Revolutionary War shorn
of some of their political power, but still a strong factor
in public affairs. The rift between the ecclesiastical
Quakers and the political Quakers which showed itself
first about 1755 had been widening since. There were,
in Philadelphia especially, a large number of Friends
who had adopted the principles of James Logan, that
offensive war was never to be considered, but that a
war of defence was Christian and therefore justifiable.
When that veteran, after nearly fifty years of conspicuous
service in the State, proposed this doctrine to the Yearly
Meeting, and intimated that any one who did not believe
in it was hardly fitted to serve in the Legislature, he
seemed to have no following. The one Friend who
stood up to support his cause was plucked down by the
coat-tail with the remark, " Sit thee down, Robert, thou art
single [alone] in the matter." His paper was not even
read. But James Logan, while deservedly honoured as a
scholar and as a statesman, was never an authority in
the affairs of his church. He gave his money to establish
lotteries in the public interests. He supported Franklin
in his aid to military expeditions. He was a member
of the Council and a confidential adviser of Thomas
Penn when the alienation of the Delaware Indians was
caused by ill-treatment ; and though himself not responsible
for this, there was evidently no great sympathy between
him and the Friends who later formed the Friendly
Association.
556
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 557
But while not influential in the Yearly Meeting, he
evidently had a large following among the young Friends
of the more prominent families of the city. It was these
that constituted the members of the fire company who
proposed to buy a great gun for the protection of the
city under the name of a fire-engine,1 who absented
themselves when the question of military defence was to
be voted on, because, while they approved of it, they
did not wish to bring themselves under the censure of
their Meetings. It was these also who rushed to arms
on the stormy February days of 1764, when the " Paxton
Boys " were encamped in Germantown, and who were the
objects, in most cases the unsuccessful objects, of the
labours of the Monthly Meeting for years to come. It
was these who, against the urgent and oft-repeated advice
of the Meeting for Sufferings and the Yearly Meeting,
maintained the interest in politics that kept, not Quakers,
but, as their enemies said, " Quakerized " members of
other bodies, in the prominent places in the government,
a policy which, while not bringing upon themselves direct
censure, was a cause of much concern to the worthy
leaders of the Yearly Meeting. It was these also who,
after the death of John Kinsey in 1750, ranged them
selves under the banner of Isaac Norris 2nd, a Friend
of the Logan type, and Benjamin Franklin, and fought
at the polls and in the Legislature the battles of freedom
against proprietor and crown, yet so conservatively and
skilfully that Pennsylvania never drew upon herself the
penalties which the greater audacity of Boston had to
suffer.
There is no reason to believe that, prior to the
Revolution, more than a few of the Friends felt that
their political days were for ever ended. The wars of
1756 made it impossible for them to support the policy
of the executive. The threat of an enforced oath sent
over from England, for ever excluding the Friends of
all the colonies from participation in government, they
avoided by an agreement to decline places in the Assembly.
1 Franklin's Autobiography.
558 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
But they felt that this sacrifice was but temporary, and
that the days to come might be a duplicate of those
prior to 1750 when they managed the most prosperous,
the most peaceful, the most progressive province along
the Atlantic coast -line. The people were still with
them. More than once the Yearly Meeting had to
sound a note of alarm lest Friends should regain their
ascendency in the Legislature. James Pemberton of the
straitest sect apologised for allowing himself to be elected
because by this he could keep a worse man out. The
political Quaker was dying hard, and was never beyond
the hope of resurrection. When John Adams came
down to the first Continental Congress he found the
Quaker influence in politics and at the dinner -table
almost too strong to be resisted.
The country Friends probably did not draw the lines
so clearly. They had complete control over the local
offices, and these were not affected by war and oaths.
They were not in touch, as were their city brethren, with
the greater problems of the day, and were more inclined
to accept the traditional unwarlike policy of the early
Friends. Hence, when the war actually broke out, we
find that among those who definitely espoused the
American side in the city were such representative names
as Biddle, Marshall, Matlack, Mifflm, Morris, Wetherill,
and Wharton, while those dealt with as offenders in the
country were often such as had little vital relationship
to the Meetings.
The Friends approached the Revolution as a whole
with a very meagre education. There was none of the
illiteracy of many of the Germans and Scotch Irishmen
of the middle and western belts, but there was very little
of the possession of the belief in real scholarship. Yet
they had a nucleus of it in the isolated self-educated
country Friends and the circle of moderate wealth and
culture in the city, which read widely and with discrimina
tion the literature of the ancients and of England.
Unfortunately for the Society much of this circle, following
Logan in his scholarly interests, was also of the group
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 559
that followed him in their attitude to military defence.
Their Quaker impulses kept them true to the cause of
liberty. Their knowledge of affairs made them see the
strength of the American policy of resistance. Their past
leadership and broad training gave them a prominent
place in the excitements that preceded the outbreak of
war. It was perfectly natural that their mental grasp of
problems should have drawn them by insensible degrees
not only into participation in, but also into logical
leadership of the movement, which, unknown to them for
a long time, was carrying the united colonies into the
support of Boston and into war and independence.
The attitude of Friends cannot be well understood
without a reference to John Dickinson. He was probably
not a member, though why he was not it is difficult to
explain. His ancestors were Friends for several generations.
His wife and children were Friends, and he himself in
later life was identified with Friends, used their language
and customs, and was so considered by his acquaintances.
But he was not married by Friends regulations, and he
was for a time a soldier in the Revolutionary army.
There seems no record of his disownment, which is
explained by some historians by the statement that he
was too important a man for such peremptory proceedings,
an explanation which any one who knows the temper of
the Quakerism of the times will recognise as inadmissible.
There is much in his conservative attitude to point to
his Friendly habit of thought. Up to the memorable
Fourth of July he was a leader of leaders. His Farmer's
Letters of 1768 gave the legal and historic basis for
American claims. He was better known across the
water during these pre-Revolutionary days than any other
American. He wrote nearly every important state paper —
the appeals to the King and English people, the Declara
tion of Rights, Articles of Confederation, both the argument
to convince and the passionate oratory and poetry to
inflame the American mind — up to the date of the
Declaration of Independence. Here he halted, and the
movement swept by him. He would not sign the
560 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
Declaration, not that he did not desire independence, but
that he thought the occasion to be premature. He would
have preferred longer to try the continuance of protest
and appeal to a sense of justice in the English people and
the world. He would have waited to take advantage of
a change of English ministry, of the hundred ways of
solving a problem and securing honourable claims, of a
resistance stopping short of arms, instead of the plunge
into a war which if unsuccessful would have left America
at the mercy of English aggression, and liberty only a
name on either side of the Atlantic. Who will now say
that if the American statesmen of his day had been all of
his mind all that we secured by war could not have been
secured by diplomacy and the bitter memories which lasted
a century have been avoided? His life was typical of
Quaker influence — potent to the very outbreak of war,
suddenly and strikingly impotent after it becomes a fact.
The more consistent Friends, who ruled the deliberations
of the Meeting, saw the storm coming and began to put
up the defences. Many of them had been the leading
merchants of Philadelphia, and the Navigation Acts had
struck them heavily. For they were not only limited in
their trade to English ships and English countries, but the
stringent query which every Monthly Meeting had to
answer " Are Friends careful not to defraud the King of
his dues?" must be answered in the negative, and so the
favourite resort of the multitude, smuggling, was denied
them. These merchants joined heartily in all the pre
liminary measures of resistance. Some fifty of them,
including the Pembertons and Whartons, signed the non
importation agreement to defeat the Stamp Act of 1765,
and wrote to London Friends explaining and defending their
position. This passive resistance suited their principles,
but they would not join in the forcible ejectment of the
King's officers. In that year James Pemberton was
elected to the Assembly on the basis of the temperate
measures the Friends proposed, defeating the more radical
candidate.
The Stamp Act was repealed. Among the exuberant
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 561
expressions of triumph, the bonfires, and burning of effigies
by which the repeal was celebrated in Boston and New
York, Philadelphia through Quaker influence sent a
dignified declaration of appreciation to the King. Franklin
lent his aid in these moderate endeavours.
So matters went on till 1773, when the attempt to
force tea upon the colonies precipitated the historic act in
Boston harbour.
The consignees of the tea in Philadelphia were two
Quaker firms, T. & I. Wharton and James & Drinker.
A meeting of citizens had decreed that the tea should not
be landed. The Whartons were quite willing to join with
this movement, and James & Drinker seem to have been
forced into it by public sentiment. The results were
satisfactory, for the vessel was not allowed to unload any
of its cargo, but was sent back, the consignees loaning
the captain enough money to see him through.
The next step in the drama was the visit of Paul
Revere to secure the sympathy of Philadelphia for the
suffering Patriots of Boston. The allies with whom he
worked were closely associated with Friends. First of all
must be secured John Dickinson, then trusted by everybody.
Charles Thomson, not a Friend, but late master of the
Friends' School and the faithful clerk of Tedyuscung,
was a most efficient aid, as also was Thomas Miffiin, a
well-to-do Quaker merchant of Philadelphia, with a
distinguished career as General in the army and Governor
of the State ahead of him. These three men, representing
the more militant Friendly influence of the city carried
the day and sent a sympathetic message to Boston, which
gave the harassed citizens there great encouragement and
opened the way for the first Continental Congress in 1774.
These three men represented not only the more ardent
members of the Quaker fold, but at first that larger class
who since 1756 had governed the Colony through the
Legislature, not Friends but in all but non-resistance
perfectly sympathetic with Quaker policy — a conservative,
liberty-loving, progressive people who would have gone to
any length save independence and war to secure American
2 O
562 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
freedom of trade and taxation and local self-government.
Had the movement been left with Thomson, the shrewdest
of the three, it is not improbable that he would have
brought these moderates into line, and made the course of
revolution in Pennsylvania easy and possibly pacific. But
the fiery Presbyterians could not be restrained, and much
of this non-Quaker conservatism went over to " loyalty,"
and for a time the issue was doubtful. In the meantime
the real Friendly forces were getting into line. War was
in the foreground if not actually here. Independence was
being uttered, as yet but under the breath. The beneficent
charter of Penn of 1 70 1 , working for just seventy-five years,
was cast incontinently aside, against the advice of Dickinson,
Thomson, and Mifflin, and with the aid of Franklin, who
had now joined the Radicals, in 1776 a new revolutionary
government was effected.
The Friends had a testimony not only against war,
but, which is harder to explain logically, against revolution.
It probably grew up in this way.
In the troubled days of England in the seventeenth
century, there was a continued series of plots and counter
plots, some for worthy and some for unworthy purposes.
All movements were suspected as covering some traitorous
design, and Friends did not escape these suspicions. As
a matter of fact they were living in the serene atmosphere
of spiritual experiences which forbade all participation in
such underhand and questionable designs. Their leaders
were continually urging them to keep clear of all com
motions and intrigues of the time, and there grew up in
the consciousness of English Quakerism a belief that
obedience to the powers that were, whenever that obedience
did not trench on conscience, was a fundamental duty of
the citizen. This consciousness, doubtless much weakened
by the decades of successful government of Pennsylvania,
now responded to the new conditions. When the Friends
saw the plotting of the leaders tending to weaken the
hold of the crown of England upon the colonies, the
eager following of a class of people, always their political
opponents, who had embroiled them in Indian wars, and
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 563
who were associated in their minds with the narrow policy
of early New England, they brought to light again the
advice of George Fox of 1685 :
" Whatever bustlings or troubles or tumults or outrages should
rise in the world keep out of them; but keep in the Lords
power and in the peaceable truth that is over all, in which power
you seek the peace and good of all men, and live in the love
which God has shed abroad in your hearts through Jesus Christ,
in which love nothing is able to separate you from God and
Christ."
They urged their members who were in official position,
positively to oppose measures tending towards revolution,
and finally declared that, quoting an old Friends' document
of 1696:
" The setting up and putting down Kings and governments
is God's peculiar prerogative, for causes best known to himself."
Hereafter there was a concurrent testimony to be
borne against war and against revolution, which placed
Friends in quiet opposition to the American cause. Not
only must they keep out of martial operations but they
must keep out of all participation in the new government
set up for the purpose of independence. They would not
actively oppose it. Their place was to be in quiet
attendance upon their private and religious duties till the
storm was overpast. Many of them sympathised with
the American cause. Many, including the leading
Philadelphians, were in their hearts Loyalists, though
guiltless of overt acts. All who remained true to their
church allegiance, and they constituted the vast majority
everywhere, were united in a policy of neutrality for
conscience' sake.
In an address to the people of America, dated First
Month 2Oth, 1776, they strongly define their position,
and reiterate their loyalty to the King of England, but
this was in the early days when even the military associa
tions led by Anthony Wayne vigorously declared that
the idea that they were working for independence could
only originate " among the worst of men for the worst of
564 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
purposes." A rapid change of front of many a Patriot
took place in the first six months of 1/76.
Dr. Fothergill, fully sympathising with the opposition of
the Friends to war, and urging them to maintain it firmly
and quietly, yet evidently would have them yield to the
voice of America and not oppose the general movement.
The cause of liberty in England, as in America, was bound
up, he said, with its success. It would have saved them
much trouble and some indefensible positions had they
heeded his advice. For their testimony against the new
government made them feel that they must hold no office
under it, or pay taxes to it, must not affirm allegiance to
it, or even handle its paper money. It is difficult to
separate in a time of war the support due to the usual
demands and needs of the State from those directly and
obviously for war purposes, but had they attempted to
make the distinction, as Dr. Fothergill urged, it would
have set them right not only with their contemporaries but
also with many historians, in whose eyes a Quaker and
a Tory were synonymous names. It would have obviated
the necessity of meting out the penalties of the discipline
to any but those who had trangressed its peace pro
visions. It is probable that actual disownment was
reserved for these only, but others were made to feel that
they were out of unity with the body.
There was plenty for the overseers to do in these early
days of the war, and there was none of the deliberation
and leniency shown in 1764 to the would-be defenders
of the Indians. The integrity of Quaker testimony
against war was at stake, and gathering up all their
reserve of strength, and shutting their hearts against the
pleadings of mercy for their brothers and sons who had
joined the " associators " or paid war taxes, or placed
guns for defence upon their vessels, or paid fines in lieu
of military service, or paid fines for refusing to collect
military taxes, or in any way aided the war on either
side, they cleared the Society of all open complicity with it.
The offence was reported to one Monthly Meeting, and
at the next the testimony of disownment would go out.
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 565
One of the first to go was Thomas Mifflin, and several
hundreds of others soon followed. It was in these early
days of the Revolution, 1775 and 1776, that the process
was most vigorously carried on, and it seemed to halt
the tendency to warlike participation. Not half-a-dozen
Friends, perhaps, joined the British Army, while those
who asserted themselves in an objectionable way in the
American cause numbered probably four or five hundred.
This was a small proportion of the 30,000
Friends of the Yearly Meeting, but contained some
valuable elements whose loss weakened the prestige of
Quakerism for years to come. But it need not be
inferred that they were all of this class. As usual the
demoralised elements of Society eagerly or weakly would
go into the army, and the disownments drove from
Friends much that was simply out of touch with all
religious or moral principle as well as those whose
patriotism asserted itself in divergent views.
The Friends did not officially evade the issue. The
new government founded on the ruins of Penn's charter
could hardly afford to ignore such a declaration as that
of the Meeting for Sufferings of Twelfth Month 2Oth,
1776:
" Thus we may with Christian firmness withstand and refuse
to submit to the arbitrary injunctions and ordinances of men
who assume to themselves the power of compelling others,
either in person or by assistance, to join in carrying on war, and
of prescribing modes of determining concerning our religious
principles, by imposing tests not warranted by the precepts of
Christ or the laws of the happy constitution under which we and
others long enjoyed tranquility and peace."
In 1777 the war came into Pennsylvania. By this
time the Friends were generally united as to policy.
They would assist neither army. They would allow
their goods to be taken by foragers without resistance, and
would take no pay for them. Their meeting-houses might
be used for barracks or hospitals, and they would at the
usual time meet elsewhere. Their pleasant farm-houses
and well-filled barns were at the mercy of any needy
566 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
trooper. Their vacated city houses could be used for the
sick and wounded, or the winter quarters of soldiery.
They would in the meantime quietly attend to their
business or religious duties so far as circumstances would
permit :
"On the 29th day of the gih month, 1777," says a minute
of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, " being the day in course for
holding our monthly meeting a number of Friends met when the
present situation of things being considered, and it appearing
that the King's army are near entering the city, at which time
it may be proper the inhabitants should generally be at their
habitations, in order to preserve as much as possible peace and
good order on this solemn occasion, it is therefore proposed to
adjourn the monthly meeting."
Thus was the British army welcomed by Friends to
Philadelphia. " The people," an old account says,
" appeared sad and serious." If there were any tendency
at the start to look upon these soldiers of the King as
liberators, their actions through that melancholy winter
disabused Friends' minds of it. Not only was their fair
city, the best built and best kept in America, made
a prey to the dirt and devastation of a rude soldiery, but
the revels, and gambling, and lax morality of the officers,
in which many of the well-to-do citizens joined, made it
difficult to maintain their old standards among their
young men. That war was an evil was indelibly
impressed upon them.
But they suffered also from the other side. As the
army of Sir William Howe approached the city from the
Chesapeake, the Continental Congress advised the Council
of the State of Pennsylvania to arrest and seize the
papers of such citizens of Philadelphia as were notoriously
British in their sympathies. It was specified that " a
number of persons of considerable wealth who profess them
selves to belong to the Society of people called Quakers
. . . are with much rancour and bitterness disaffected
to the American cause " and should be seized, and their
private papers and minutes of their meetings searched for
evidences of their having furnished valuable information
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 567
to the British. The Council thus advised arbitrarily
made the arrest of about forty people, many of whom
were Friends. They were offered their liberty if they
would give their word that they would not leave their
houses. This the Friends and a few others refused, and
about twenty of them were placed in confinement. They
protested against the arrest as an outrage and would
make no promises. The list included the Pembertons,
the Fishers, Thomas Wharton, Henry Drinker, and others,
all prominent in the Meeting. They were sent to
Winchester, Virginia, and kept in nominal confinement
through the winter. Two of them, John Hunt and
Thomas Gilpin, died during their stay, and Israel
Pemberton shortly after their return. Nothing in the
way of communication with the British was ever proved
against them ; nor, as we well know now, was there
anything except exhortations to faithfulness and explana
tions of the conduct of Friends found in the minutes of
their meetings, which were soon returned to them.
Nothing was gained for the American cause by the
banishment, except possibly the quieting of some Tories,
and this is doubtful. That these Friends desired the
success of the British is probable ; that they so far
stultified their constant advice to keep out of the contest
completely, as to give information of either army to the
other, is at this distance incredible. Meetings everywhere
rallied around the exiles, and the incident undoubtedly
drew Friends together. They were finally returned
home, with something of an apology and a recognition
of their good motives.1
The retreat of the British army in the spring of 1778
gave the city again into the hands of the Americans.
The condition of Friends was not much improved, for a
mob of extreme Revolutionists obtained control, who
would have vengeance on all Tory sympathisers. The
real Tories were out of their reach in New York, but
they hanged Roberts and Carlisle, both Friends, on the
1 Thomas Gilpin, descendant of one of the sufferers, has written a careful
account of the whole affair under the title Exiles in Virginia.
568 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
charge of treason, on very slight ground. Moderate men
like Robert Morris and James Wilson, and even such an
ardent supporter of the American cause as Thomas
Mifflin, were besieged in their houses and hardly escaped.
The windows of Friends' houses were broken with stones
and they hooted in the streets. They would neither
weep nor rejoice at the command of the State, and even
when the crowning victory of Yorktown was announced,
" the occasion of a victory of one of the parties of war
over the other," as they characterised it in their effort for
stern neutrality, they refused to illuminate their houses,
and passed a night of danger and damage.
Whatever other effects were produced upon their
minds there is no doubt that they appreciated that a time
of warfare is an unpleasant time for non-combatants.
It was a favourite preamble to their resolutions in the
days when they controlled the Assembly :
"While we do not as the world is now circumstanced
condemn the use of arms in others, we are principled against
bearing arms ourselves."
That is, do as you please, only do not ask us to help you
— do not allow any conscience to be strained. They
would probably hardly subscribe to this doctrine now,
for they would recognise that a neutral could not be let
alone, however much he might desire it. They had,
doubtless, come to the same conclusion as General
Sherman regarding war, and for the same reason, because
they had seen it ; though their characterisation was not
so trenchant and effective.
The aggregate of Quaker suffering was very great.
The Meetings kept actual records and detailed estimates
of the losses by fines and distraints and foraging parties.
These losses continued for some time after the war was
over, probably till about 1787. In general they would
not pay the fines, for this would recognise a government
based on war and revolution. Distraint would follow,
always a costly expedient. Possibly the total direct loss
of property to members would not fall short of £50,000.
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 569
Personal unpopularity was even harder to stand, and
cases of imprisonment were not rare. Six Friends were
kept in Lancaster jail for months, because they would
not take a test of allegiance to the new government,
and when they might have been released they refused
to pay the jailer's fees, on the logical ground that they
did not choose the imprisonment for themselves, and
should not pay for it. School teachers were required
to take the test There were then a number of Friends'
schools and teachers. Some closed the schools, and some
took the consequences. As is always the case with this
class they had no money, and so jailing was the only
satisfaction the State got. Friends were elected to offices,
as tax collectors, which it was known that they would not
fill, then fined for non-compliance. Friends were advised
by the Meetings not to furnish supplies, grind grain, or
make weapons for the army for money, or allow their
goods to be transported in armed vessels.
Moses Roberts and his friends of Catawissa, then a
frontier town, who had always been safe among the
Indians, were arrested on the way to meeting, sent to
Lancaster jail in a canoe, and kept there for months
without trial. Their families were driven from their
homes without any means of support, and their property
seized. Other frontier Friends suffered greatly on the
charge that they gave information to hostile Indians.
The Meeting for Sufferings did not cease to protest
against these persecutions. The change from the day
when they ruled the Quaker Commonwealth by the
suffrages of all kinds of citizens to the time when, without
change of principle, they were hooted and persecuted, was
a bitter change indeed ; and with whatever influence they
had left they pleaded their rights to the liberty of
conscience which they had always granted to others. As
they were a religious, not a political, body, they urged
that they could not have any corporate political opinions,
and were simply governed by the moral law as they
understood it. They asked the government to accept
their obedience to all laws which they could obey as
570 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
a substitute for military aid to either party. They
emphasised the thought that they sought to encourage
such a temper that they could forgive all injuries, and be
friends to all men. But such appeals count for little in a
time of war.
The Friends who were disowned generally took the
action quietly. Some had lost all interest in Friends,
and cared but little for membership. Some were thankful
for the opportunity to pose as martyrs when they might
have been brought up for moral obliquities or non-
attendance at any religious exercises. A few, like Owen
Biddle, one of the strongest men of the Yearly Meeting,
repented and were reinstated. Besides these, however, there
were those whose attachment to the general principles
was sincere. The passage from one denomination to
another was not so easy as now. They did not care to
be unchurched, and they wanted the simple unclerical
worship of Friends. But they were sure that their war
record was right, and that Friends made a mistake when
they did not follow James Logan into the position of
military resistance to aggression. These formed a society,
the Free Quakers. The discipline was simple. No one
was to be disowned. All were to be encouraged in the
performance of their civil and military duties. The
meetings for worship and business and the habits of
living were to be according to the old Quaker customs.
They immediately entered into a controversy with
the main body for the use of the graveyards and other
property of the Society, and carried the case to the
Legislature. They got plenty of sympathy, but their
disownments were so regular, and the risks of interfering
with the internal affairs of a religious body so great, that
they could obtain no legislative relief. They then raised
money and built the house now standing at Arch and
5th Street. Washington and Franklin subscribed. The
numbers, never large, gradually dwindled, though worship
was maintained in the house till 1836, Betsy Ross, the
flag maker, being about the last of the original members.
We must now take up some of the effects of the
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 571
Revolutionary War upon the main body of Friends who
stood by their principles. They entered the war something
of a divided body. They came out of it united by the
separation of the alien elements and the harmony induced
by suffering. There was no longer a minority supporting
war. If there was a minority supporting active participa
tion in politics farther than voting and holding local
offices, it was very quiet. Penn and Thomas Lloyd,
Logan and David Lloyd, Isaac Norris and John Kinsey
had no counterparts. The work of Friends by common
consent was to be philanthropic only, so far as it touched
the outside world, but mainly it was to be given to
strengthen the body in its own principles and testimonies,
following the teachings of the Holy Spirit. Their ideals
of saintliness were expressed by Isaac Penington and
John Woolman.
Through these trying war days it was engaged in
clearing its own skirts. The disasters which were falling
upon it were judged to be due to its own unfaithfulness,
and, like Israel of old, it was being urged by its trusted
leaders to give up strange gods, and return to its ancient
worship in its purity.
In 1777 the Yearly Meeting resolved upon what it
called " a reformation." The organisation was set to
work in all its ramifications. The Quarterly Meeting
appointed Committees, and these, reinforced by local
Friends, visited Meetings and families, pressing the
reforms.
As an illustration of the way the advice of the Yearly
Meeting worked itself out we will follow its course in
Chester Quarterly Meeting, perhaps the largest and most
influential of the country Meetings. At the first session
after the Yearly Meeting the following minutes were
adopted :
" The Extracts from the Minutes of our last Yearly Meeting
were read over. And that meeting, having had under their
weighty consideration the sorrowful complaints of deficiencies
in the religious care and Education of the Youth, both with
respect to their Pious Education in Friends' families, and also
572 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
their Schooling, and under the calming influence and Seasoning
virtue of Truth, Unanimously Agreed to recommend this weighty
subject to the deep attention and speedy care of Quarterly
Meetings. That they may appoint suitable Friends in each of
them as Committees to visit the Monthly, Preparative, and
Particular Meetings or Families of Friends as Truth may point
out the way for reformation with respect to the due and wakeful
attendance of our religious Meetings, plainness of Speech,
Behaviour, Apparrel, and Household furniture, with other
deficiencies, mentioned in the Answers to the Queries, which
were the cause of deep Concern and Exercise ; and in order to
strengthen the hands of Friends in the Quarterly Meetings
Appointed a Committee of fourteen Friends to take the matter
relating to the Youth and their religious Education and Schooling
particularly under their care, and give such advice and assistance
therein and respecting other deficiencies as they in the wisdom
of Truth may see expedient. Divers of which Committee from
other Quarters attended here to our satisfaction, and the subject-
matter coming solidly under ye Consideration of this Meeting,
and some awful remarks made touching the necessity of a real
and speedy reformation in ye Church now in this alarming season,
Thomas Massey, Caleb Seal, Nathan Yarnal, Jr., Joseph Talbot,
Jr., John Perry, Robert Valentine, William Fell, and John
Humphries are appointed to the said service, and are Particularly
enjoyned by this Meeting to be careful to excite Friends (in the
Schooling of their Children) to put them under the care of
Virtuous Tutors.
" The care of Friends respecting Grave Stones is desired to be
continued untill they are all removed.
" As the Reports from the Monthly Meetings are mostly silent
respecting slaves this meeting is desirous that there may still be
a fervent concern among Friends to labour with such members
who retain any of our fellowmen in Bondage Agreeable to the
repeated Advice of the Yearly Meeting, and render an account
to our next Meeting."
" Sundry of the Weighty Advices contained in the Extracts
being again read, and solidly considered and spoken to, particularly
those respecting the Distiling and Use of Spirituous Liquors, and
the polluting practice of keeping of Taverns, Beer-Houses, etc., this
Meeting, desirous that the good End intended may be answered,
appoints Thomas Metier, John Eyre, Robert Johnson, Isaac
Massey, Thomas Swayne, Isaac Sharpies, and William Lightfoot
to labour for a reformation among Friends in this Quarter in those
Respects as they may be directed in best Wisdom agreeable to
the Advice of the Yearly Meeting, and Report their care and the
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 573
Circumstance of Friends in regard to those things to a future
meeting."
We have here certain subjects of " reformation " which
were to be attended to. They ultimately arranged them
selves under these heads :
1. Plainness in personal habits, including the abolition
of gravestones.
2. Schools and literature of definitely Friendly sort.
3. Definite advances in the matter of Temperance and
the sale of Intoxicants.
4. The extinction of slavery among themselves.
5. The erection of barriers against alien influences
being introduced into the Society.
I. They made a serious attempt to return to primitive
simplicity in their dress, habits, and furniture. The
committee of Chester Quarterly Meeting went vigorously
to work. They first visited their own houses and the
houses of the overseers of the several Meetings, insisting
on the abolition of matters simply ornamental, or un
necessarily complex, and striving to stir the officials of
the Meetings to a sense of the importance of their
example and religious labour for their fellow members.
It was a difficult service, yet they reported that on the
whole their visits were well received and effective. Meet
ings were held in which Friends were exhorted to return
to " primitive zeal and purity," or as elsewhere expressed
to " primitive zeal, plainness, and circumspect walking
amongst the professors of Truth." The committee
continued its work through about four years, and then
relegated it to committees appointed in the several
Monthly Meetings. How much of the services related to
outward matters, and how much to the weightier matters
of spiritual growth, does not appear in the minutes. It
is expressed in one minute as —
"... a revival of ancient simplicity in plainness of apparel,
household furniture, the education of youth, and a due and
wakeful attendance of our religious meetings."
It was deemed a favourable time under the impulse
574 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
gained by common suffering to recover lost ground in
both these respects. As one meeting expresses it :
" Under the prevailing trials and difficulties we have a prospect
that some are so loosened from outward things as to promote a
more steady care to keep to true moderation and temperance." l
2. They revived and developed the idea of schools
where the elements of education could be obtained under
religious influences. While one committee was working
for a circumspect and zealous life among the members,
another was equally interested in promoting a guarded
religious school education. A committee of the Yearly
Meeting under date of 28th of 3rd month 1778 sent
down a stirring piece of advice to all subordinate meetings
which afforded a groundwork of labour. They state
that " corruption " exists among Friends as the result
of their children mixing in schools with children of a
different sort. They recall the efforts of the earlier
Friends, both in England and America, to extend Christian
care to the schools, and now " while reformation is loudly
called for," they ask that godly and consistent teachers
shall be employed. The letter was signed by Anthony
Benezet, Isaac Zane, Nicholas Wain, Warner Mifflin, and
George Churchman. The committee visited all the Meet
ings in the interest of this concern. It is difficult to
judge from its reports how successful it was, for they
usually state in a general way that the work was
progressing in certain quarters. This may mean that
some new schools were established, or that a more careful
selection of teachers was made. The object, of course,
was to influence the youth towards Friendly customs
and a Friendly spirit, and so train them for later service
in the church.
We have a more definite contribution to the educa
tional conditions of these revolutionary times in the
minutes of the Northern District Monthly Meeting of
Philadelphia of 7th month, 1779.
That Meeting had appointed a committee to inquire
1 Northern District Monthly Meeting, Philadelphia, 7th mo. 1779.
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 575
into the cause of " the evident degeneracy and corruption
in the manner of deportment of many of the youth
among us." They conferred with the " Overseers of the
Public Schools." There had been an experiment made,
they say, in mixing the children of Friends with others
in these schools which had produced an unfavourable
result
Attempts would now be made to separate them.
The "Overseers" expressed a desire to co-operate with
the Monthly Meetings so far as the purposes and history
of the schools would permit. They state that the central
school was started in 1689 at the cost of the Monthly
Meeting. As the result of the increase in value of the
property owned by the trustees, and the donations since
made by Friends, they had been able to school the
children of poor Friends, and some not Friends, freely.
They desired to employ masters who would enforce the
stringent rules made for them, but these do not always
meet with co-operation at the homes. They admit the
seriousness of the situation, and ask that Friends should
bestir themselves. The committee propounded to the
Overseers a series of questions as to what steps the
Monthly Meetings should take to remedy the evils,
whether the Friends' children may be separated from
others, how far parents will go in the restraint of children
from running in the streets with unsuitable companions,
and whether parents are not evidently lacking in such
care, whether poor Friends have ample facilities, whether
any new regulations should be added, what number of
schools are in existence, and what is the financial condition
of the trust.
The Overseers in their answers place the blame for
the unfavourable situation mainly upon parents who do
not guard their children's morals on the street, and the
lack of a pious education when not under the care of the
schools. They give a list of nine schools under their
care. One of these is primarily for the Latin and Greek
languages taught to boys of various denominations. Two
are exclusively for Friends' boys. Two schools, one
576 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
under Anthony Benezet, are for girls, some of whom are
to be admitted free. Three are mixed schools both as
to denomination and sex, for primary children. The
numbers in all of them are not given, but so far as can
be judged they average about fifty. Up to the war the
funds had permitted them to admit many poor Friends
and others into the schools, but now, owing doubtless
to the depreciation resulting from the troublous times,
there was little money available for charity, indeed they
were in debt to some of the teachers.
This narration throws much light on the question of
education among the Friends of Philadelphia. The
original school of William Penn now had these nine
branches presumably educating some four hundred children.
They were supplying education at cost to the most of
these children, and the income of money invested enabled
them to grant it freely to some others. Presumably the
children of Friends had first claims, and others were
aided with the superfluity. Except among the little
children there was no co-education. One school, probably
for those in better circumstances, was a classical school,
but there was " occasionally taught writing and arithmetic
and some branches of mathematics." In the other schools
there were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, and
apparently these branches only. It was the era when
children were to be made good by the observance of
many restrictions laid down for them by wise committees,
before student responsibility for government was much
recognised. The Overseers disclaim the suggestion that
the badness of certain youth was the fault of the schools,
and place it, probably justly, on the parents who were
not careful to discourage street associations, and for this
they had no remedy except advice.
Under other management schools for negro children
were established about 1773, but how extensive this
movement was during the war it is difficult to determine.
3. They abolished tavern -keeping and the sale of
spirituous liquors by their members, and made a de
termined attempt to limit their use. Coincidently with
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 577
the others a third committee was working in Chester
Quarterly Meeting on this subject. It reported some
deficiency and then the matter was referred to the
Monthly Meetings :
" At the Meeting in the Eleventh month was also appointed
a committee to labour for a Reformation in Respect to ye
Distiling and Use of Spirituous Liquors amongst Friends and
the Polluting Practice of keeping Taverns, Beerhouses, etc.
Agreeable to the advice of the Yearly Meeting. Which Com
mittee now reported That they attended to the services " And
visited friends in their Particular Meetings and taken other
opportunity's with some Friends who keep Publick houses of
entertainment and such as keep Stills, etc., and find that there
are some Friends in each Meeting who are concerned to have
the advice of the Yearly Meeting put in Practice, a number of
Friends having Used Spirituous Liquors very Sparingly in ye
time of our late Harvest and others have with great satisfaction
used none at all. Yet think the care of monthly meetings
should be continued in these Respects as there are among
Friends who are not sensible enough of the necessity of dis
couraging a Practice that has tended much to Corrupt the
inhabitants of this Land. Which Rep' was read and approved,
and the monthly meetings desired to have these matters closely
under care accordingly and Report their Several Circumstances
and how far Friends do keep to the advice of the Yearly Meet
ing therein to next meeting."
It was reported in 5 mo. 1779 that "very few Friends
are now concerned in keeping taverns in our Quarter,"
and again " we observe a growing care among Friends to
avoid the unnecessary use of spirituous liquors." Three
months later
"... very satisfactory progress has been made in each meeting in
dissuading Friends from keeping houses of public entertainment,
beer houses, etc., insomuch that very few are now concerned
therein."
In 8 mo. 1780 they say:
" There are one or two Friends who continue in the practice
of keeping taverns within the verge of this quarter."
A year later
"... it does not appear that any Friends are concerned in
2 P
578 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
keeping public houses except some women whose husbands do
not belong to Friends,"
and this list the next year was reduced to one woman.
4. They finished up the process of freeing their slaves.
When the war ended none were left except in cases
where husband or wife was not a member, and where
complete manumission could not be secured — or where
they were held in trust tied down by old deeds or wills.
The long struggle, beginning when Pastorius and his
friends of Germantown memorialized their meeting in
1688, was won about a century later. Before the close
of the war the Friends had also the satisfaction of seeing
a manumission measure passed by the state of Penn
sylvania, the first in the country, though as one of the
opposite party expressed it :
" Our bill astonishes and pleases the Quakers. They looked
for no such benevolent issue of our new government exercised
by Presbyterians."
The Friends were doubtless pleased. Their previous
work had cut the ground from under the institution, and
though the triumph had come, under the exigencies of the
times, when they were out of government, the moral
advance was no less gratifying to them.
Henceforward their attention was to be turned to the
development of the freed negroes by education and
employment, and the advance of the cause of abolition in
the country at large.
5. They drew the line more closely about their own
membership in opposing participation with others in any
religious work, even to the extent of attendance on other
religious services, on the ground that their testimony
against preaching for pay and without conscious inspira
tion, could not be maintained in its integrity. In the
country districts especially they had been much by them
selves out of touch with other denominations. Political
lines were drawn on the basis of church affiliation, and an
element of suspicion was thus introduced. Their testi
monies therefore reinforced their traditional and political
CH. ix FRIENDS IN THE REVOLUTION 579
opposition to mingling with others, and in school and
society and church services they constituted themselves
a body apart from others, a tendency which the war
greatly strengthened.
These " reformations " were decreed and carried out in
the midst of the war. The heated air of strife was
around them. Matters were going any way but theirs in
the State and in moral standards. They simply drew
together as the world turned against them, more certain
of their ground, more determined to maintain it at any
cost of suffering and unpopularity. If all around had
conspired, as it seemed, to annul Penn's Holy Experiment
they would renew it, not externally, that appeared hope
less, but in the hearts of a devoted band. Let others do
as they would, they would serve the Lord according to
the preaching and example of George Fox and the other
heroes of the seventeenth century.
Nor were they without encouragement. A great
revival of religious interest followed the labours of the
Committees. Many young men, prominent afterwards,
consecrated themselves to the work. A real zeal and
spiritual enthusiasm followed the indifference of the days
just before the war. New and acceptable preachers
sprang up. The Query then standing " What remark
able convincements since last report ? " was nearly always
answered, " A number of solid Friends have joined the
Society." The years to come were to show the greatest
growth of numbers of any score since the settlement, so
that by the end of the century there were probably 40,000
Friends in the Yearly Meeting.
The Revolutionary War left Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting more moral internally, more devoted to moral
reforms, more conservative of ancient tradition, custom,
and doctrine, more separate from the world, more intro-
versive in spirit, than it found it. In fact the Quakerism
of the youth of some of us, in important particulars had
its origin here, and would have been greatly different had
the Society not gone through this ordeal. Had the
active public-spirited Friends, who went off with the
58o QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES BK. v
revolutionary movement, remained to mould their genera
tion, a type more outward, more progressive, more
intellectual would have resulted. Had the Society
drifted along as it was drifting prior to the conflict a
moral stringency, since characteristic of Quakerism, could
hardly have been maintained. As a result of the narrow
ing and uniting processes combined Friends are what they
are. What they would have been with a wider outlook
upon life and a looser standard of conduct, we can
only conjecture. But he who understands Philadelphia
Quakerism of a century past must read it in the light
of the Revolution — a revolution not less in Quaker
development than in American history.
INDEX
Accomack —
meeting in, 305
migration from, 335-337
Adams, John, 255 «.
Akehurst, Daniel, 291
deputy for John Archdale, 340
in politics, 344 «.
Akin, John, 155
Albemarle country, 283, 285, 299,
344. 350
counties included in, 287
Albemarle, Duke of, 338
Alden, John, 61 n.
Allen, Jedediah, 146 w.
Allen, William-
meeting in house of, 141 «., 143
on tithes, 154
Almy, Job, 210
Ambrose, Alice —
in Piscataqua, 103, 104, 130
whipping of, 104, 105, 276 ».
in Virginia, 276
Anabaptists, 19, 23 n.
captured Miinster, 30 «.
in Dover, 104
in Holland, 215
in Long Island, 215-219
in Lynn, 216
in Virginia, 271 n.
forerunners of Quakers, 215, 219
Anamessicks —
meeting in, 305
settlement of, 335-337
Andrews, Edward, 388
Andrews, Peter, 380
Andrews, Samuel, 245 n. , 250
Andros, Edmund —
letter to W. Coddington, 187
Governor of united Royal Colony,
I93-I9S
Governor of New York, 228 «.
Governor of Jerseys, 363
Angell, John, 120
Anne, Queen, 154 «., 432
Jerseys surrendered to, 368, 383
Anthony, Joseph, 155
Antinomian controversy, 4
point at issue, 7-14, 21 ».
cause of name, 14 n.
sympathisers and opponents, 8
pronounced on by synod, 15, 16
and founding of Rhode Island, 21
Aplin, John, 210
Aquidneck (see Rhode Island), 21,
22 n.
Archdale, John —
proprietor of Carolinas, 340
Governor of Carolinas, 328, 343,
380
agent of Governor of Maine, 340
in the Carolinas, 340-350, 462
elected to English Parliament, xiv,
349
will of, 350 n.
book of, 351
Arnold, Benedict, 189-191
Articles of Confederation, 559
Ashbridge, George, 493
Aspinwall, William —
in Antinomian controversy, 8
banished, 22 n.
a founder of Rhode Island, 22 «.
Atherton, Humphrey, 89
Audland, John, 74
Audubon, J. J., 467
Austin, Ann —
comes to America, 4, 26, 266, 358
early life, 27
in Barbadoes, 27, 28
in Boston, 28, 29, 65
Austin, Jeremiah, 158
"Awakening, Great," The, 128, 410
Bacon Rebellion, 289
Baldwin, John, 267
Baltimore, Lord, 331, 333
and William Penn, 419, 432
Baptist church —
founded in Newport, 23, 24
some members join Quakers, 53 n.
581
582 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Barbadoes —
the port of entry to the Colonies, 26-
27
" Nursery of the Truth," 41, 280
visitors to, 41-43, 44, 70 «., HI,
280
meetings in, 41
number of Quakers in, 112 n.
letter to Governor of, in
slavery in, 395
Barclay, David, 492
Barclay, Robert —
Governor of East Jersey, 368, 369
and George Keith, 445, 446, 452
Apology of, 545
Barefoot, Walter, frees Quaker women,
IOS
Barker, Robert, meeting in house of,
140 n.
Bartlett, Moses, 128 n.
Barton, Edward, 379
Bartram, John, 467, 529
Bayly, Charles, 267
follower of John Perrot, 267 n.
Beasley, Elizabeth, 267
Bellingham, Richard —
deals with first Quakers, 28
pamphlet of, 93
Governor of Massachusetts, 180
Benezet, Anthony, 515, 516, 574,
576
Bennett, Major-General, 285
Berkeley, Bishop —
on slavery, 158 n.
in Newport, 203
Berkeley, John, Lord —
proprietor of New Jersey, 362, 363
proprietor of Carolina, 364
Berkeley, Sir John, 340
Berkeley, Sir William, 285, 362
and Quakers in Virginia, 272, 274
Bermuda, 26
Quaker visits to, 44
Berry, Margaret, 314
Berry, William, 276 n. , 290
in politics, 331-333
Berwick, Quakerism in, 131-133
Biddle, William, meeting in house of,
376, 393
Biggs, Timothy, 340
Bill of Rights, in Virginia, 318
Birkhead, Abraham, 330
Bishop, George, writes New England
Judged, 9, 78
Blackwell, John, 424, 480
Blair, John, 350
Blunston, John, 443
Bond, John, 335
Borden, Richard, 154 n.
Borden, William, 353
Boston —
Antinomian controversy in, 4-22
Quakers in, 28, 36-40, 54, 55, 57,
66, 67, 70-72, 79, 80-89, 94-104,
106, 107
ideals of founders of, xx-xxii, 100,
265
Quaker Meeting in, 99, 102, 137
Quaker Meeting prohibited, no «.
Samuel Fothergill in, 129-130
Boston, Henry, 337
Bownas, Samuel, 144 «.
visits Long Island, 234
imprisoned, 235-236, 392
rights of jury maintained at trial of,
235
visits New Jersey, 392
and George Keith, 234, 392, 455, 456
in Pennsylvania, 523, 525
Bowne, Daniel, 257
Bowne, John —
becomes Quaker, 227
persecution of, 227-228
meeting in house of, 227
leaderofLong Island Quakers, 144*2.,
245 n., 246 n. , 250, 255 n.
Bowne, Samuel, 253 n.
Bowne, Samuel, jun., 257
Bowron, John, first Quaker foreign
missionary, 43
Bracket, Thomas, 69 n.
Bradford, William, 370, 531
in Keith controversy, 379, 451,
455
authorised printer of Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting, 545
Brend, William —
comes to Boston, 36-39
comes to Boston again, 46, 47, 57
in Plymouth Colony, 61
in Providence, 63
persecution of, 70-72, 88
in Barbadoes, 70 n.
Brenton, Jahleel, 198
Brenton, William, 22, 23
Brewster, Margaret —
appears as sign, 109
last woman to suffer whipping,
no n.
Briggs, Thomas, in Barbadoes and
Jamaica, in, 112
Brocksoppe, Joan —
released from Boston prison, 94
in Virginia, 274 n.
Brookes, Michael, 277
in politics, 330
Brown, Goold, 68 «.
Brown, John, 211
Brown, John (of Long Island), 248
Brown, Judith, whipping of, 102
INDEX
583
Brown, Moses —
joins Quakers, 165 «.
and education, 167 n.
work in Providence, 209, 211
Bryant, Ruth, 202
Budd, Thomas, 377, 403
leads a secession, 379, 453
and education, 407
Buffum, Joshua and wife, 108
early Salem Quakers, 69 n.
banished, 77
Bull, Henry-
sympathiser with Anne Hutchinson,
192 n.
marries Ann Easton, 192 n.
Governor of Rhode Island, 192, 195
Bull, Jireh, 114 n.
Bull, Stephen, 345
Burden, Ann, 45 n.
Burges, William, 277
in politics, 330
Burling, John, 257
Burling, Thomas, 256
Burlington —
Quakers land at, 367, 381
Quaker Meetings in 372-377
meeting house in 376, 377
Monthly Meeting sends first epistle
to London Yearly Meeting, 373
school in, 407
prominent Quakers in, 408, 409
description of Quakers in, 419 n.
Burlington path, 359
Burnyeat, John, 331 n.
at New England Yearly Meeting,
54 n., 112
in debate with Roger Williams, 116
travels through New England, 118-
121
in Long Island, 229-230, 438
holds first Quaker Meeting in New
York City, 230
brings record book from George Fox,
244
in Maryland, 280, 281
in Virginia, 280, 302 ». , 303
Burrough, Edward —
defends Quakers before Charles II.,
93. 94
writings attacked by George Keith,
455
Burstow, John, 95
Burton, John, 69 «.
Byllynge, Edward, in West Jersey,
363- 364. 38o. 3Sl
Camm, John, 74
Canons and Institutions, 229 n., 438,
456
Caplin, Charles, 267
Carlisle, Abraham, 567
Carolina, North —
Quakers in, gathered from un
churched, 265, 284, 287, 321
George Fox in, 283, 285-287
William Edmundson in, 283-285,
287, 289
Quaker visitors to, 290-295
slavery in, 322-326
migrations to, 295, 297, 298
Scotch-Irish in, 298
meetings in, 297, 298, 299
business meetings in, 307, 308
Quakerism first organised form of
religion in, xv, 338
Culpepper rebellion, 340
Quakers and politics in, 339-353,
462
number of Quakers in, xvi, 351
English Church in, 350, 351
Carolina, South —
Quakers in, 298-300
meetings in, 308 n.
John Archdale, Governor of, 344-349
Huguenots in, 347, 348
Established Church in, 351
Carolinas —
proprietors of, 338, 340
division of, 342 n.
John Archdale, Governor of, xv,
342-344
Carpenter, Samuel, 435, 480
Carr, Caleb-
becomes a Quaker, 174
in Rhode Island politics, 174, 184,
192
Governor of Rhode Island, 197
spiritual leader of Quakers, 200
Carteret, Sir George, 362
proprietor of Carolina, 364
obtains grant of East Jersey, 363-
365
Carteret, Governor of North Carolina,
339
Carteret, Philip, 362
Cartwright, John —
in Barbadoes and Jamaica, in, 112
in Rhode Island, 112
in debate with Roger Williams,
118 n.
travels in New England, 120
Gary, Miles, 291
Gary, Thomas, 291
Gary, Thomas, 352
Case, Thomas, 232, 233
Chalkley, Thomas —
life of, 124 n.
in Nantucket, 134
m New York, 238, 239
in South Carolina, 299
584 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Chalkley, Thomas (contd. ) —
in New Jersey, 388
in Pennsylvania, 454, 498, 523, 530
Chamberlein, John —
released from prison, 99
whipped, 102
holds meeting in his house, 99, 102,
137
marries Catherine Chattam, 108 «.
Charles II., King, 432
and Quakers in America, 91-94, 101
mandamus to Governor Endicott, 98
Dutch wars under, 174, 362
on religious liberty in Virginia, 272
on religious liberty in North Caro
lina, 320, 338
Charleston, 299, 300, 344
relief for fire in, 553
Chattam, Catherine —
released from Boston prison, 95
appears as a sign, 108
whipped, 108 n.
marries John Chamberlein, 108 n.
Chester, 419, 420, 421, 465
Monthly Meeting in, 440
Quarterly Meeting in, 440, 571-573,
577
Friends in, on slavery, 511, 513, 514
Chew, Ann, 305
Choptank, 276 n., 279 «. , 295, 305,
313
Christison, Wenlock —
tried and sentenced to death, 95-97
set free, 97
in Maryland, 304, 313, 331
and slavery, 322
meeting in house of, 304, 306, 331
in politics, 331, 332
Chuckatuck, 292, 295 n. , 306, 307 «.
Church, Established—
in Massachusetts, 35, 265, 317
in New York, 392, 456
in Virginia, xv, 265, 269-272, 317,
318 n.
in Maryland, 466
in the Carolinas, 320, 321, 350-353
in New Jersey, 387, 392
George Keith and, 454, 458
members of, hold political offices,
466
problem of, 466
Churchman, George, 574
Churchman, John —
travels in Maine, 131-132
in Pennsylvania, 535, 540
Claridge, Richard; 455
Clark, Mary, goes to Boston, 47, 48,
57
Clarke, Jeremiah, a founder of Rhode
Island, 53
Clarke, John, 22
forms Baptist Church, 23, 24
Colonial agent in England, 52, 172,
173
Clarke, Walter —
becomes a Quaker, 53, 174
in Rhode Island politics, 177, 184,
191, 193-195, 199, 200
Governor, 185 n. , 188, 189, 192,
197
stands on rights of Charter, 198 n.
spiritual leader of Quakers, 200
Clarkson, Robert —
becomes Quaker, 266
letter to E. Harris, 267
fined for violating Military Act, 268
in politics, 330
Clayborn, William, 291, 293
Cleaton, Ann, 79 n.
Cleave, Elizabeth, 233
Clift, Benjamin, 528
Clifton, Hope, 80
Coale, Josiah, 364
early life, 74
journey from Virginia to New
England, 73, 74, 273
in Long Island, 225
in Virginia, 267, 268, 269
in Maryland, 276, 303
banished from Maryland, 279, 303
commissioned to buy Indian lands,
xiv, 358, 418
Cock, Henry, 254 n.
Cock, John, 257
Coddington, William —
in Antinomian controversy, 8, ir, 16
defends Anne Hutchinson, 19
forced out of Massachusetts, 20,
22 n., 171
first Judge of Newport, 22, 172
Governor at Newport, 23, 172, 179,
181, 191
influence on government in Rhode
Island, 173, 191
leader of new religious group, 23-
25. 171
becomes a Quaker, 53, 173
meeting in house of, 137, 179
fails to bring Rhode Island into
New England Confederacy, 172
Coddington, William, jun. , Governor
of Rhode Island, 192
Coffin, James, 123
Coffin, Tristram, 123
Coggeshall, John —
in Antinomian controversy, 8, 16
disfranchised, 22 n.
Elder in Rhode Island, 22
President of Rhode Island, 172
leader of new religious group, 23-25
INDEX
585
Coggeshall, Joshua —
becomes Quaker, 53, 173
in Rhode Island politics, 177, 184,
189
Cole, Thomas, 267, 268
Cole, William, 267, 268, 282 «., 331 «.
imprisoned in Virginia, 272
meeting in house of, 330
Coleman, Ann —
in Piscataqua, 103, 104
whipping of, 104, 105
Coleman, Isaac, 123
Coleman, Joseph, on tithes, 154
Colleton, Sir John, 338
Ceilings, Samuel, 143 «.
Collins, Moses, 130
Collins, Stephen, 130
Colonial Congress, 209
Comstock, Ezekiel, 165
Conant, Richard, 345
Concessions, etc. , of proprietors of New
Jersey, 364, 365
Congdon, Joseph, 165
Connecticut —
Quakers in, 61, 72, 121, 123
John Winthrop, jun. , Governor of,
86, 121
encroaches on Narragansett, 190
Charter hunt in, 194
George Fox in, 230
Continental Congress, 504, 558, 561,
566
Conventicle Act, 417
Cooper, William, 379
Copeland, John —
comes to Boston, 36
returns to Boston, 46, 47, 75
in Sandwich, 57-60
in Scituate, 61
in Salem, 65-66
imprisoned, etc., 66, 67
issues Declaration of Faith, 67
suffers ear-cropping, 75
in England, 90
in Virginia, 292
Cornell, Thomas, jun., 154 ».
Correspondence between Yearly Meet
ings, 252, 314, 319, 373, 512, 560
Cotton, John, 30
comes to Boston, 5
type of preacher, 7, 8, 10, n
at trial of Anne Hutchinson, 17, 20
Cowland, Alice, 80
Cowperthwaite, Henry, 246 «.
Cowperthwaite, Hugh, 245 «.
Cowsnocke, Peter, 79 n.
Cranston, John, 115
not a Quaker, 177 «.
in Rhode Island politics, 177, 178,
188
Cranston, Samuel, Governor of Rhode
Island, 199
Craven, Lord, 343
Crew, John, 319 n.
Cromwell, Oliver, u, 48, 121 «.
Cuffee, Paul, 397
Culpepper's Rebellion, 340
Daniels, John, 69 «.
Dankers, Jasper, 361 n. , 419
Dartmouth —
Yearly Meeting, 144 «.
assessors refuse to collect tithes,
155
Davies, Richard, 442
Davis, Nicholas, banished from Boston,
79
Day, Elizabeth, 379
Deacon, George, 379
in New Jersey politics, 385
Death, sentence of, against Marmaduke
Stephenson, 84
William Robinson, 84
Mary Dyer, 84, 87
William Leddra, 88
Wenlock Christison, 96
Declaration of Faith, xxiii
earliest of Quakers, 67, 68
letter of George Fox not a, 112
in Keith controversy, 447
individual adoption of, not required,
45°
Declaration of Independence, 206, 212,
569
early movements toward, 198 n. , 206,
209-211, 464, 558-562
Delaware, granted to William Penn,
419
Dell, William, 545
Demon, Richard, 218
Dewes, Colonel, 285
Dewsbury, William, 13 «., 42, 48, 385,
417
at meeting in Bristol, 77
"convinces" Richard Smith, 219
Dickinson, James —
in New York, 238
in North Carolina, 350
in New Jersey, 387
in Pennsylvania, 523
and George Keith, 452
Dickinson, John, 559. 560, 561, 562
Discipline —
of London Yearly Meeting, 229 ».,
411, 438
in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,
535
Disownments —
Nathanael Greene, 151
Samuel Rodman, 163
586 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Disownments (contd. ) —
Joshua Rathbun, 163 n.
Stephen Hopkins, 165, 212
Charles Lynch, 338
George Keith, 370, 383
Thomas Mifflin, 565
for holding slaves, 520
in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 551,
552, 564, 565
Distraints —
for hiring substitutes in war, etc. , 150,
319. 393. 412. 568
for tithes, 153, 317, 318, 554
Dixon, Ambrose, 336
Dixon, William, 322
Dobson, Thomas, 257
Dorsey, Ann, 267
Doty, Isaac, 257
Doudney, Richard —
goes to Boston, 47, 48
lands first in New York, 51, 220
signs Declaration of Faith, 67
in Long Island, 221
Doughty, Francis, 218
Dover —
Hansard Knollys in, 104
Anabaptists in, 104
Quakers come to, 103, 104
Quakers persecuted in, 104
D'Oyley, Edward, 43
Drinker, Henry, 567
Drisius, Samuel, 218, 220, 225
Duckett, Thomas, 383, 453
Dudley, Thomas, 8, 16, 17
Dunch, Walter, father of Lady Moody,
216
Durand, George, 330, 340
Durand, William —
Commissioner for Maryland, 267 ».
268, 329
becomes Quaker, 267
in Carolina, 329
Durham, Quakers in, 133
Dutch settlers, 215, 358, 367, 377, 378,
419, 422, 475
and Indians, 495
Duxbury —
Quaker meeting in, 140 n.
attempt to suppress meeting in, 141 n.
business meeting in, 141, 144 n.
Dyer, Mary —
in Antinomian controversy, 8
and Anne Hutchinson, 21
returns to Boston, 45 n. , 80
becomes Quaker Minister, 53
travels in New England, 70
banished from Boston, 79
dying testimony, 84
sentenced to death, 84
reprieved, 86
Dyer Mary (contd. ) —
in Shelter Island, 86
execution of, 87, 89
Dyer, William, pleads for his wife, 87
Easton, John —
becomes a Quaker, 53, 173
in Rhode Island politics, 174, 177,
179, 182, 189, 192
Governor of Rhode Island, 195
spiritual leader of Quakers, 200
Easton, Nicholas —
in Antinomian controversy, 8
Elder in Newport, 22, 173
builds first house in Newport, 22 ». ,
173
a leader of new religious group, 23-25
becomes a Quaker, 53, 173
Governor of Rhode Island, 112, 174,
177
war policy of, 174-179
death of, 180
widow of, marries H. Bull, 192 n.
Easton, Peter, in Rhode Island politics,
176 «. , 192
Easton, Samuel, 166 n.
Eaton, Samuel, 30
Eaton, Theophilus, 30
Eccles, Solomon, in Barbadoes and
Jamaica, in, 112
Edmondson, John, 331
in politics, 332-333
Edmundson, William —
in Barbadoes, in
in Jamaica, 112
in Ireland, 422
in debate with Roger Williams, 116,
118 n.
first missionary visit in New England,
121-123
in Newport, 188 », 189-190
in Long Island, 231
in Virginia, 283, 285, 289, 303, 395
in North Carolina, 283-285, 287,
289, 290, 339
in Maryland, 289
in New Jersey, 360
Education, xxvi-xxix
Quakers and, in New England, 166-
167
in New York, 261-262
in Southern Colonies, 309
in New Jersey, 407, 408
in Pennsylvania, 440, 441, 527,
53°. SS8, S7i. 574-576
Edwards, Jonathan, 128
Elders, 439. 538
Eliot, Quakers in, 104, 130, 131
Ellis, William, in Burlington, 387
Ellwood, Thomas, 380, 384
INDEX
587
Ellyson, Thomas, 319 n.
Ely, John, 335
Emerton, Humphry, 310
Emigration, Quaker, causes for, 357,
364, 369, 371, 420, 421
Endicott, John, 8, 76, 100
sentences Quakers to death, 84, 87,
96
and Samuel Shattuck, 98-99
Elizabeth Hooton at funeral of,
107 n. , no n.
England —
political relations with, in Massa
chusetts, 100, 101, 196
in Rhode Island, 192-195, 196-
199, 205-207, 209-211
in Pennsylvania, 468
and Pennsylvania compared, 420, 421
Quakers in politics of, xiv, 459, 460,
461, 462
number of Quakers in, xv
Estaugh, John, 389
Estes, Matthew, 143 n.
Estes, Richard, 143 ».
European Dyet, etc., An, 430
and Hague Congress, 431, 464
Evans, John, 424, 484, 488
Evans, Peter, 42
Everitt, John, 279 n.
Exile, sentence of, against —
John Wheelwright, 15
Anne Hutchinson, 20
William Aspinwall, 22 n.
Nicholas Upsall, 40
Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick,
77
Joshua Buffum, 77
Samuel Shattuck, 77
Nicholas Phelps, 77
Josiah Southwick, 77
William Robinson, 79
Marmaduke Stephenson, 79
Mary Dyer, 79
Nicholas Davis, 79
Christopher Holder, 80
William Leddra, 88
Edward Wharton, 89 «.
Richard Smith, 219 n.
Alice Ambrose, 276 n.
Mary Tomkins, 276 n.
Thomas Thurston, 278
Josiah Coale, 279
Philadelphia, Friends during Revolu
tion, 567
Eyre, John, 572
Falmouth, Maine (now Portland),
Quaker Meeting in, 130, 133
Falmouth (Massachusetts), founding of,
60
Farnum, Moses, 150, 165
Farrington, Abraham, 380
Farrington, Dorothy, 249
Feake, John, 245 n. , 250
Feake, Tobias, signs Flushing re
monstrance, 224
Fell, Henry-
visits Barbadoes, 41-43
letter of, 64, 65
goes to New England, 79 K.
Fell, William, 572
Fenwick, John, in West Jersey, 363,
364, 366
Fielding, Joshua, 294
Fishbourne, Ralph, 334
Fisher, Mary —
in America, 4, 26, 266, 358
early life, 27
in Barbadoes, 27, 28, 41
in Boston, 28-29, 65
grandmother of Sophia Hume, 300
Fiske, John —
on Quakerism, 35
on Flushing remonstrance, 224
Fitsrandal, Nathaniel, on tithes, 154
Fitts, Jonathan, 299
Fitzwater, Thomas, 383
Fletcher, Benjamin, 481, 488
Flower, Enoch, 527
Flushing —
Lynn Anabaptists come to, 217
Quaker persecution in, 223, 227
protest for liberty of conscience in,
223-225, 228
Quakers in, 225, 360
John Bowne of, 227
Half-year's Meeting in, 234, 235
Yearly Meeting in, 239, 246 n.
Monthly Meeting in, 246, 247
Forby, Benjamin, 274
Foster, Lydia, 233
Fothergill, John —
travels in New England, 127
in American colonies, 392, 410
Fothergill, Dr. John, 411, 460, 492,
564
Fothergill, Samuel —
in Nantucket, 127
and the "Great Awakening," 128-
129
travels in New England, 128-130
in Georgia, 300 ».
in Maryland, 322
in New Jersey, 410, 411
in Pennsylvania, 523
and reviving of Discipline, 411
Foulke, Samuel, 404
Fowler, John, 146 «.
Fowler, Robert, builds the Wood-
house, 46, 219
588 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Fox, George, xiii, 25, 30, 455
Epistles of, xiv, 44, 78, 229 n. , 417,
438- 456
proposes business meetings, 373
has a sense of Quaker executions, 90
in Barbadoes, in, 510
letter to Governor, in
in Jamaica, 112
in Rhode Island, 112-113
at Providence, 114
collision with Roger Williams, 114-
118
suggests keeping of Records, 141 n. ,
229 n.
in Long Island, 230
in Maryland, 281, 282, 287, 288,
3°3- 337
in Virginia, 282, 283, 287, 306
in North Carolina, 283, 285-287, 339
epistle to South Carolina, 299
in New Jersey, 359-361, 372
in Germany, 442, 446
colonial missionary work of, 288, 303
Fox, Margaret, 314
Franklin, Benjamin, 467, 524
proposes union of Colonies, 209
in Pennsylvanian politics, 491, 493,
506, 507, 556, 557, 561
and Free Quakers, 570
Franklin, Matthew, 257
Franklin, Thomas, 257
Fuller, William, 267
Fundamental Constitution for the
Carolinas, 321, 339, 364, 471
Galloway, Anne, 294, 310, 314
Gardiner, Richard and wife, 123
Gardiner, Thomas —
meeting in house of, 373, 376
minister, 379
Gardiner, Thomas, jun. , 386
Gardner, George, 69 n.
Gartrite, Ephrim, 319 n.
Gary, Alice, 314, 331 «.
Gary, John, 282 n.
Gaskin, Samuel, 69 «.
Gaspte, burning of, 211, 212 «.
George I. , decision on tithes, 155
Georgia, Quakers in, 298, 300 ».
Gibbons, Sarah —
comes to Boston, 36, 39
returns to Boston, 46, 47, 73
lands first in New York, 51, 220
in Scituate, 61
in Barbadoes, 70 n.
in Salem, 73
in John Norton's church, 108 n.
in Long Island, 221
Gifford, Joseph, 147 n.
Gildersleeve, Richard, 228 «.
Gill, Roger, 237, 291, 389
dies of yellow fever, 390
Gilpin, Thomas, 567
Godby, Ann —
trial of, 275
becomes Quaker, 275
Goldsmith, Ralph, 94, 97
Gookin, Charles, 488
Gordon, Robert, 453
Gordon, William, 350
Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 340
Gorton, Samuel —
corresponds with early Quakers, 38-
39
views of, 120-121
Gould, Daniel, 176 «., 331 «.
in Boston, 80
a prisoner, 85 n.
in Virginia, 280
Gould, John, 176 n.
Gould, Stephen, 180 n.
Gouldney, Henry, 448 n.
Government —
Quaker experiment in Rhode Island,
xvi, 171-212
in Pennsylvania, xvi, 357, 418,
425. 43ii 462-474, 475-479.
493. S46
in Carolinas, xvi, 339-353, 462
Governors, Quaker —
William Coddington, 23, 172, 179,
181
William Coddington, jun. , 192
Nicholas Easton, 24 n. ,112, 174,177
Walter Clarke, 185 «., 188, 189,
192, 197
Henry Bull, 192, 195
John Easton, 195
Caleb Carr, 197
John Wanton, 202-204
Gideon Wanton, 204
Stephen Hopkins, 164, 209
John Archdale, 328, 348
Thomas Harvey, 344, 350
Robert Barclay, 368
Samuel Jenings, 379, 381
John Skein, 379
Thomas Olive, 379
William Penn, 419, 478
Grace, Covenant of, 9-14, 17, 18
preachers of, 7, 8
Gravesend —
Lynn Anabaptists come to, 217
Quakers in, 221, 225 n. , 360
Greene, Nathanael, "disowned" for
taking arms, 151
Griffith, John, 544
travels in New York, 239-240
in Pennsylvania, 523, 525, 532
Grimball, Paul, 345
INDEX
589
Haddon, Elizabeth, 388, 389
H addon, John, 389
Hallett, William, 218
Hamilton, Andrew, 468, 486, 488
Harnet, Edward, 69 n.
Harper, Robert, 80
Harpswell (see North Yarmouth), 132
Harris, Elizabeth —
came to Maryland 4 »., 266, 267,
276. 329. 358
not in Virginia, 266, 268
work in England, 266 n.
appears as a "sign," 266 «.
Harris, Thomas —
comes to New England, 61 n., 70
in Barbadoes, 70 n.
persecution of, 70
Harris, William, 180, 181 n.
Harrison, James, 434
Harrison, Richard, 310
Hart, Edward, signs Flushing re
monstrance, 223
Hartshorne, Richard, 360, 365
Quaker minister, 379
Harvey, Thomas, Governor of North
Carolina, 344, 350
Hatherly, Timothy, befriends Quakers,
61"
Haviland, Nicholas, 149
Hawett, William, 345
Hazard, Thomas, opposes slavery, 157,
158, 159, 165
Head, Peter, 41, 43
Heald, Robert, 254 n.
Heckewelder, John, 497
Heferman, William, 114 ».
Helmont, Van, 419 «., 446
Hempstead —
Lynn Anabaptists come to, 217
Robert Hodgson in, 221, 222
Henry, Patrick, 211, 318, 338
Hicks, Thomas, 235
Higginson, Francis, 29
Hobby, Remington, starts meeting in
Vassal borough, 135
Hodgson, Robert —
goes to Boston, 47, 48
lands first in New York, 51, 219
in Barbadoes, 70 «.
persecution in Hempstead, 221,
222
in Virginia, 273
in Maryland, 278
Holder, Christopher —
comes to Boston, 36
returns to Boston, 46, 47, 57, 75
in Sandwich, 57-60
in Salem, 65-66
imprisoned, etc., 66, 67
issues Declaration of Faith, 67
Holder, Christopher (contd. ) —
suffers ear-cropping, 75
marries Mary Scott, 75
banished, 80
in England, 90
in Long Island, 230
in Virginia, 273
in Maryland, 278
Hollingsworth, William, 336
Hooton, Elizabeth —
released-from Boston prison, 94
earlier life, 105
persecutions of, 106-107
at Governor Endicott's funeral,
107 n.
in Barbadoes, in
dies in Jamaica, 107 n., 112
in Virginia, 274 n.
Hopkins, Stephen —
Governor of Rhode Island, 164,
209
"disowned" for holding a slave,
165, 212
early history, 208
in Rhode Island politics, 208-209
intercolonial service, 209-212
opposes taxation without representa
tion, 209-211
signs Declaration of Independence,
212
Horsey, Stephen, 335-337
Hoskens, Jane, 525
Howe, Sir William, 152, 412, 566
Hoxie, Stephen, 165
Hubberthorne, Richard, 144
Huddestone, Peleg, 149
Huguenots, in South Carolina, 347,
348
Hull, John, in Barbadoes and Jamaica,
III, 112
Hume, Sophia —
granddaughter of Mary Fisher, 300
book of, 300, 301
Humphries, John, 572
Hunt, John, 567
Hussey, Christopher, a purchaser of
Nantucket, 123
Hussey, Stephen, becomes Quaker in
Barbadoes and returns to Nan-
tucket, 123
Hutchinson, Anne, 63, 192 n.
life, 4-7, 25 ».
holds "women's meetings," 6
precipitates Antinomian controversy,
8-10
trial before court, 16-20
sentenced to exile, 20
goes to Rhode Island, 21
Hutchinson, Edward, 12
Hutchinson, William, 4, 25 n.
590 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Indians —
Quakers and, in Rhode Island, i75». ,
189
in New Jersey, 367, 401-404
in Pennsylvania, 419, 433, 468, 489,
491-493, 495-507
treatment in Carolinas, 347, 348
meeting with, 230, 281, 377, 402,
435- 498
John Woolman visits, 404-407
conferences of, 396, 402, 503, 504
light of Christ in, 286, 498
"walking purchase," 489, 501-503
reservations for, 402, 403
Moravians and, 498, 506
New Jersey Association for Helping,
4°3
Friendly Association, etc., 503, 504,
5°7
Intoxicants —
law against selling proposed, 113,
3"
regulation of traffic in South Carolina,
348
Quaker views on use of, 148, 311,
53°. SSL 576-578
selling to Indians, 440, 476, 496,
499-Soi- 53°
Inward light, xvi-xviii, xxiv-xxvii,
32-36
Inyon, John, 249
Jaffray, Alexander, 369
Jamaica, 26
Quakers in, 43, 44
visitors to, 112, 281
minute to Quakers in, 248
Jamaica (New York) —
Lynn Anabaptists come to, 217
Quakers in, 221
James II., 432, 481
withdraws Rhode Island Charter, 192
grants Pennsylvania to William Penn,
418, 419
James & Drinker, 561
Jamestown, Virginia, 272
Jay, John, 360
Jenings, Samuel, 237, 434
Deputy Governor, 380
Governor of West Jersey, 379, 381,
386
in New Jersey politics, 381, 383, 384
in Keith controversy, 383, 450, 451,
453
tribute to, 384
meeting in house of, 387
Jenner, Obedience, 313
Jennings, John, 299
Jersey, East (see also New Jersey) —
granted to Sir G. Carteret, 363, 365
Jersey, East (contd. ) —
sold to Quakers, 368
Council of Proprietors, 368
Scotch in, 369
Governor of, 368
compared with West Jersey, 377-
379- 386
Jersey, West —
sold to Quakers, 363
early difficulties in, 363, 364
Quaker settlements in, 365-368
number of Quakers in, 368, 377 «.
Quaker ministers in, 379
Council of Proprietors, 368
compared with East Jersey, 377-379,
386
John, James, 293
John ap John, 442
Johns, Elizabeth, 326
Johns, Richard, in politics, 332-333
Johnson, George, 336-337
Johnson, Robert, 572
Jones, Griffith, 429
Jordan, Robert, 317
Jordan, Thomas, 317
Judkins, Obadiah, 313
Jury-
rights of, 235
to determine seditious character of a
paper, 451
in trial of Indians, 175 «. , 496
Keddy, Stephen, 290
Keith, George, 293, 540
opposes Samuel Bownas, 234, 392
early life, 369, 445
runs Province Line, 369, 370, 446
master at Penn Charter school, 369,
370, 446, 527
settles in New Jersey, 369
in Philadelphia, 370
schism of, 370, 379, 446-452, 481
doctrinal views, 452, 455, 458
disowned, 370, 383, 452, 453
joins Established Church, 454
and Christian Quakers, 370, 449,
45°. 454
establishes Episcopal Church in
Jerseys, etc., 370, 383, 392, 454,
455
writings of, 450, 452, 456-458
Keithians, 481, 511 (see Christian
Quakers).
Kempthorn, Simon, 28
Kennebec County, Quakers in, 133-135
Kenny, John, 150 ».
King, William, in Boston, 80
Kinsey, John, 546
in Pennsylvania politics, 488, 490,
49L 493. 557. 57i
INDEX
59i
Knollys, Hansard, preacher in Dover,
104
Kuton, William, 309
Lancaster, James —
in Barbadoes and Jamaica, in, 112
in Rhode Island, 112
in Long Island, 230
in Virginia, 282
Lapham, Thomas, jun. , 165
Lawrence, Daniel, 249 n.
Lawrence, Elizabeth, 314
Lawrence, Robert, 317
Lawrence, William, wife of, 218 «.
Lawrie, Gawen, 364, 365, 380
Deputy-Governor of East Jersey, 368
Laws —
on militia in Rhode Island, 190-191
on militia in Virginia, 318-320
Laws, anti-Quaker —
in Boston, 40, 66 n., 70, 76, 101,
103, no n.
in Plymouth Colony, 59 n.
"looked in the face," 79, 80, 87,
102
in New Netherlands, 223
in Virginia, 269-272
Laws, anti-slavery, 158 »., 165 «., 510,
520
Lawton, Isaac, 165
master of Quaker school, 167
Lay, Benjamin, 516
Lay-religion, xxx-xxxii
Lead, John, 319 n.
Leddra, William —
citizen of Barbadoes, 41, 87
comes to New England, 61 n. , 70
in Barbadoes, 70 ».
banished, 88
executed, 88, 89, 96
dying testimony, 88
Leeds, Daniel —
printer, 370
"Allmanack" suppressed, 370
in Keith controversy, 379, 388
Lenthall, Mr., 24
Leverett, Thomas, 16
Liberty of conscience, xx, xxi
first announced in New World, 21 n.
in Declaration of Breda, 100
in Rhode Island, 23, 52, 55, 171,
191, 466
in Plymouth Colony, 61 «.
in Providence, 21 n. , 63
in New Netherlands, 215, 228
in Flushing, Long Island, 223-225
for Virginia, 272, 318
in Maryland, 276 n.
in North Carolina, 320, 338, 339,
349. 350-353
Liberty of conscience (contd. ) —
in New Jersey, 364, 365
in Pennsylvania, 420, 441, 464, 465,
473- 476, 569
Liddal, John, 274 n.
Lightfoot, William, 572
Literature, Quaker, 544-546
Little Egg Harbour, 388
Lloyd, Charles, 442
Lloyd, David, 429, 433, 546
in Pennsylvania politics, 484, 489,
S7i
Lloyd, Thomas, 425, 435, 441, 442,
522, 527, 571
Deputy-Governor, 448, 479, 480
and George Keith, 448, 452, 453, 481
Locke, John, 321, 339, 364, 365, 471
Lockwood, Garsham, 233
Loddwick, Christian, to have school in
Newport, 166
Logan, James, 427, 522, 546
acknowledgment of, 393
in Pennsylvania politics, 483, 488,
489, 490, 507, 571
and Indians, 501
and war, 556, 570
Logan, William, 492
Long Island —
Quakers in, belong to New England
Yearly Meeting, 144, 229 »., 246
set off as separate Yearly Meeting,
144 n. , 229 n. , 246
Anabaptists in, 216-219
migrations from Lynn to, 217, 223,
224
visitors in, 225, 229, 230-240
number of Quakers, xvi, 225
Quaker divisions in, 229 n. , 438
Ranters in, 230-234, 247, 248
denominations in, 234
type of Quakerism in, 243-244
organisation of Quakerism in, 244-
254
Lotteries —
Quaker views on, 147, 476
in Pennsylvania, 556
Lowe, Emanuel, 344, 352
Lower, Thomas, 429
Lucas, Nicholas, 364, 365
Lynch, Charles, 296
in politics, 337, 338
disowned, 338
Lynn —
Seekers in, 65
business meetings in, 141-144 «.
Lady Moody in, 65, 216
Anabaptists in, 65, 216, 217
migrations from, to Long Island,
217, 223, 224
number of Quakers in, xvi
592 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Macy, Thomas, 123
Maine —
first Quakers in, 103, 104, 130
development of Quakerism in, xv,
130-134
whipping of Quakers in, 130
John Archdale, agent for Governor
of, 340
Malins, Robert, 79 ».
Mallins, Mary, 94
Marbury, Francis, 4
Markham, William —
sent to lay out Philadelphia, 419
Deputy-Governor, 528
Marriage —
Quaker views on, xxiv, 147, 249,
312, 313, 547
Quaker, legal, 147, 249 n. , 548
Quaker, not legal, 290
regulations in New Jersey, 386, 387
certificates on account of, 373-375
Quaker ceremony for, 547
Marsh, Sarah, 331 n.
Marshall, Christopher, 30
Marshall, Humphrey, 467
Maryland —
Elizabeth Harris visits, 4 «. , 266,
267, 268, 276, 329, 358
Quaker visitors to, 276, 278-282,
287-288, 290-295
ordinance of toleration in, 276 n.
Quaker persecution in, 276-280
number of Quakers in, xvi, 278, 282
migrations from Pennsylvania to,
295, 296
Yearly Meeting in, 281, 288, 293,
303- 3°4. 311
Half-year's Meeting, 282, 305, 309,
315, 321 n.
business meetings organised, 303-
306
slavery in, 321-325
Quakers in politics of, 329-334
Maspeth, religious freedom promised
in, 215 n.
Massachusetts —
first citizen of to join Quakers, 41
spread of Quakerism in, xv, 62
exempts Quakers from tithes, 155-
156
anti-slavery laws, 165
Rhode Island annexed to, 192
Church uniformity in, 35, 265, 317
political relations with England,
100, loi, 196
Quakers without franchise in, xv
Massey, Isaac, 572
Massey, Thomas, 572
Mather, Cotton, 5, 31 «., 59, 64
and G. Keith, 448
Matiniconk, 361 n.
revenues from, to maintain school,
407
Island Managers of, 407
Matthews, Margaret, 547
Mayo, Edward, 299
Mead, William, 429
Meares, Thomas, 277
in politics, 230
Meeting for sufferings —
established in New England, 151
established in New York, 259
distributes relief, 152, 259
parliamentary agent of London,
207 n.
of New York petitions Governor for
abolition of slaves, 258
of New York during Revolutionary
War, 259-260
in Philadelphia, 408, 411, 545, 554,
555. 569
Meeting for Worship —
type of meeting, xxii, 34, 137-139,
243
first held in private houses, 99, 102,
126, 137, 140, 141 «., 143, 179,
222, 227, 274, 302, 306, 331,
339. 372. 373. 376. 443
central feature of Quakerism, 136,
242, 243, 302
sometimes called a Church, 137 n.
ministry in, xxii, 138, 544
Meeting, Women's, 6, 7
in New England, 245
in Maryland, 281, 305, 308, 312,
313, 314, 321 n.
in Virginia, 283
in New Jersey, 387
in Pennsylvania, 437, 539
Meetings, business —
underlying feature of, 140-141
social value of, 143, 314, 315
records of, 141 n. , 244, 304, 307,
439
correspondence between, 313, 314
proposed by George Fox, 373
organised in New England, 140-145
in New York, 244-254
in Virginia, 280, 283, 285, 303,
306, 307
in Maryland, 281, 303-306
in North Carolina, 296, 297, 299,
307, 308
in New Jersey, 372-377. 39*-393
in Pennsylvania, 437-440
Meetings, Monthly —
in New England, 141 «.
in New York, 246, 247, 250-252
in Maryland, 305
in Virginia, 306, 307
INDEX
593
Meetings, Monthly (contd.) —
in North Carolina, 296, 297, 307, 308
in South Carolina, 308 «.
in New Jersey, 372, 373, 376 ».
in Pennsylvania, 434, 534
business of, 145-147, 247-250, 305,
308-310, 316, 440, 538
postponed for fairs, 378
Meetings, Preparative —
in New York, 251
in Pennsylvania, 534, 535
Meetings, Quarterly —
business of, 142, 247-250, 393
in New England, 142 ». , 143 n.
in New York, 237, 246, 250-251
in New Jersey, 376
in Pennsylvania, 437, 440, 535,
571-573
Meetings, Quarterly for Ministers —
in New York, 253
in Maryland, 305
in Virginia, 307
in North Carolina, 307
in New Jersey, 409
in Pennsylvania, 539
Megapolensis, J., 218, 220, 225
Mennonites —
and slavery, 395
in Pennsylvania, 422, 441, 442
Merryconege Neck —
Quakers in, 132
Metier, Thomas, 572
Miars, Elizabeth, in Barbadoes and
Jamaica, in, 112
Middleton, Thomas, 226
Middletown, 360, 365, 379
Millard, Jane, 274 ».
Mills, Sarah, 130
Mifflin, Thomas, 561, 562, 565, 568
Mifflin, Warner, 326, 574
Ministers, Quaker —
number visiting Nantucket, 127 n.
influence of travelling, 139, 140,
2S2. 3i5. 379. 54<>
business meetings for, 145 n., 253,
387. 388, 389, 409, 439, 449,
451. 538, 539
in West Jersey, 379
in Burlington Quarterly Meeting, 409
in Pennsylvania and George Keith,
449
visiting Pennsylvania, 540-543
recording of, 254 n. , 450, 538
paying of, xiii, 456, 544
in politics, 451
Ministry, Quaker —
type of, xxii, xxv, xxvi, 138, 544
weakness of, 252-253
Moody, Lady Deborah, 65
prepares Long Island forQuakers, 2 16
Moody, Lady Deborah (contd. )-
story of, 216-217
becomes Quaker, 222
meeting in house of, 222
Moon, James, 520 n.
Moravians, 498, 506
More's, Thomas, Utopia, 471
Morris, Robert, 568
Mott, Adam, 53 n.
Miinster, and Quakers, 30, 31, 71 n.
Mystics, Germantown, 370, 379
Nansemond, 282, 295 n., 306, 307 n.
Nantucket —
Quakerism in, 123-127, 215
whaling in, 127 n.
population of, 127 n. , 297
migrations to South, 295-298
Narragansett —
Quakerism in, xv, 114
slavery in, 156
encroachment of Connecticut, 190
Nayler, James, 30, 121 ». , 419 «.
Neale, Mary, 300
Needham, Anthony, and wife, 69 n.
New Amsterdam, 51 (see New York
City)
Newark, 358
Newberry, Walter —
in Rhode Island politics, 192, 193,
197
meeting in house of, 246 «.
Newby, Gabriel, 292
Newby, Nathan, 292
New Castle, 358
William Penn lands at, 376
New England's Ensign, 36 n. , 48, 90
New England Judged, 91
New Garden, 323
settlement of, 297
Newhouse, Thomas, breaks bottles in
a church, 108
New Jersey —
migrations to the South from, 296
migrations to the West, 408
earliest settlements in, 358, 359
granted by Duke of York to two
proprietors, 362
division of, 363
origin of name, 362
first Assembly, 362
Charter of, 364, 365
freedom in, 364, 365, 382
William Penn in, 363-365, 368,
418
Province Line drawn, 370
Council of Proprietors surrenders
rights to Queen Anne, 368, 382,
402
Quaker Meetings in, 372-377, 390
2 Q
594 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
New Jersey (contd. ) —
united under Lord Cornbury, 382
Quaker influence in, 377, 379
Quakers in politics of, xv, 363, 379,
380-383, 384, 385, 386, 462
lawyers, etc., in, 386
list of meeting-houses in, 392
Quakers and war in, 392-394, 411-
413
slavery in, 395, 397
Quaker education in, 407, 408
number of Quakers in, xvi
New Netherland (see New York), re
ligious freedom in, 215, 228
Newport —
first settlement in, 22-25
Quaker Meetings in, 137
number of Quakers in, xv, 201
Yearly Meeting in, 54, 112, 127,
144, 160-163, S^o
local business meeting in, 141
Quaker School in, 166
Newtown (N.J. ), 376 n.
Newtown (N.Y. ), 237, 239, 247
New York —
Dutch war in, 174, 178, 228, 229
English conquest of, 362
defence demanded for, 196-197,
393
growth and decline of Quakers in,
xvi, 225, 241, 261
meetings in, 236, 240, 246-252
Established Church in, 392
Quakers and slavery in, 255-258
Quakers and education in, 261, 262
Quaker persecution in, 220, 221,
223, 225 n. , 227, 228, 234-236,
265
New York City-
landing of first Quakers in, 219, 220
meetings in, 230, 231, 237, 239
Quaker School in, 261-262
number of Quakers in, xvi, 262 «.
Nicholas, Jonathan, 210
Nicholson, Christopher, 339
Nicholson, Joseph —
goes to New England, 49
imprisoned, 89 n.
book written by, 90
in Virginia, 274 n.
Nicholson, Samuel, meeting in house
of, 372
Norris, Isaac, 428, 434, 489, 545,
546, 57i
Norris, Isaac, 2nd, 493, 557
Norton, Humphrey —
goes to Boston, 47, 57, 71, 76
writes New England's Ensign, 48,
90
conversion, 52
Norton, Humphrey (contd.) —
in Plymouth Colony, 60-62
in New Haven, 61
in Virginia, 273
Norton, John —
and early Quakers, 37, 71
to visit prisoners, 84 n.
guardian of orthodoxy, too
Nottingham, Samuel, 254
Nowland, John, meeting in house of,
137
Oaths —
Quaker views on, 149, 169
in Rhode Island, 192 n. , 198
Quakers refuse, in Maryland, 277,
278
Quakers petition against, in Mary
land, 331-333
Quakers and, in Virginia, 334, 335,
337, 344 n.
in Carolinas, 338, 344 n. , 345,
346 »., 351, 352, 353
not required in New Jersey, 381-382
in Pennsylvania, 471-472, 477
Olive, Thomas, 380, 434
Governor of West Jersey, 379
in New Jersey politics, 385
Opequan, 296
Overseers —
in New England, 146
in Pennsylvania, Monthly Meetings,
534. 539. 564
Owen, Griffith, 435
Oxley, Joseph, 523, 532
Oyster Bay —
Lynn Anabaptists come to, 217
Half-year's Meeting at, 229, 230,
246
Palmer, Major, 293
Pantisocracy, 358
Partridge, Richard —
foreign agent for Rhode Island,
205-207
parliamentary agent for London
Meeting for Sufferings, 207 n.
petitions against tithes, 155
Partridge, William, 203
Parvin, Benjamin, 404
Pastorius, Francis Daniel, 441, 442,
452
and slavery, 441, 511
" Primmer" of, 545
Pattison, George —
in Barbadoes and Jamaica, 111-112
in Rhode Island, 112
travels in New England, 120
in Virginia, 282
INDEX
595
Patuxent, 277, 281, 283, 287, 289,
305
" Paxton Boys," raid of, 505-508, 557
Peachy, William, 379
Pearson, Peter, 79 n.
released from Boston prison, 95
whipping of, 102
Peasley, Mary, 300
Peckover, Edmund —
in Nantucket, 126
in Maine, 131
in Long Island, 239
in Southern Colonies, 294, 295
in Burlington, 408
Pemberton, Israel, 404, 503, 506, 567
Pemberton, James, 558, 560
Pemberton, John, 404, 547
Pembroke (see Duxbury)
Penington, Isaac, 571
Penn, Hannah Callowhill, 424, 485,
486
Penn, John, 505, 507
Penn, Thomas, 489, 501, 505, 556
Penn, William —
in Germany, 422, 442, 446
George Fox visits, 361, 364
and Mead, trial of, 235 n.
proprietor in West Jersey, 364, 365,
378, 380, 418
proprietor in East Jersey, 368
and John Locke write charter for
Carolina, 364, 430
receives grant of Pennsylvania, 418
lands at New Castle, 376, 420
Governor of Pennsylvania, 419, 478
and Pennsylvania politics, 462-474,
57i
and Indians, 401, 419, 420, 433,
468, 495
and slaves, 510
character and work in Pennsylvania,
423-436, 462-474, 476, 481-483,
485
and George Keith, 454
writings, 423, 427, 430
ministry of, 427, 428
Penn Charter school, 369, 370, 446,
504, 527, 528
at time of Revolution, 575, 576
Pennsylvania —
granted to William Penn, 418, 419
immigrants into, 420-422, 440-444,
494
charter of, 476, 478, 482, 487, 562
first Assembly, 420, 440, 464, 475
deputy-governors of, 424, 425, 479-
481
division into counties, 440
raid of " Paxton Boys," 505-508
size of, 419
Pennsylvania (contd.) —
prosperity of, 467, 468, 470, 485-
489
migrations from to South, 295, 296
History of, 546
Quakers in politics of, xv, 459,
47S-494i 556-558
capital punishment in, 472, 473, 486
education in, 440, 441, 558, 574-
576
oaths in, 471, 472, 486, 492
Indians in, 419, 433, 468, 489,
491-493, 495-507
slavery in, 510-521
Quakers and war in, 424, 425, 426,
468-470, 477, 478, 480, 488-493
Quakers and education in, 527-530,
558, 571
Quaker meetings in, 443
business meetings in, 437-441
number of Quakers in, xvi, 522-
524
State religion of, 524
Quakers and the Revolution in, 562-
568
Pequot War, 21 n.
Percevall, Andrew, 298
Perkins, Robert, 291
Perrot, John —
goes to Rome, 267 n. , 275
leader of a schism in Virginia, 275-
276, 302 n.
Perry, John, 572
Persecution, Quaker —
causes for, 29-32, 92, 93, 100, 265,
279. 317
lists of, 41, 91, 278
results of, 357, 417, 418
unsettles sanity of some Quakers,
108
end of, in New England, no «.
in New England, 28, 37-40, 45,
57-6l, 66-89, 90-97, IOI-IIO
in New York, 220, 221, 223, 225 n.,
227, 228, 234-236
in Virginia, 269-273, 274, 276 ».,
290, 317
in Maryland, 276-280
in England, 417
in Wales, 442
in Pennsylvania, 566, 567, 568, 569
Peters, Hugh, 8, 17, 18, 172
Peyton, Catherine, 300
Phelps, Jonathan, 308
Phelps, Nicholas, 69 n.
banished from Salem, 77
in England, 90
death of, 102
Philadelphia —
yellow fever in, 389
596 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Philadelphia (contd. ) —
William Markham sent to lay out,
419
size of, 468, 522
William Perm lands at, 420, 421
General Meeting in, 391, 437, 444
meetings in, 421, 443, 522, 523
Monthly Meeting in, 434, 437, 439
Yearly Meeting in, 391, 437
Penn Charter school in, 369, 370,
446, 504, 527-528, 574-576
Philips, Catherine, 300
Philip's War, King, 121, 181-189
Phillips, Henry, 284
Phillips, Thomas, 248
Phipps, Sir William, 196
Pierson, Abraham, 359
Pinder, Richard, 44
Piscataqua —
Quakers in, xv, 103, 104, 119, 122,
130
Yearly Meeting in, 144 «.
Piscataway, 358
Pitt, John, 313
Plato's Republic, 471
Pleasants, Thomas, 316, 319 n.
Plymouth Colony —
Seekers in, 57 n.
Quakers in, 57-62, 72
religious freedom in, 61 «.
tithes in, 193 n.
Pope, Joseph, and wife, 69 n.
Porter, Edmund, 351
Porter, John, jun. , 274, 275
Quaker minister, 275, 335
in politics, 335
Porter, John, sen., turned out of
politics in Virginia, 334
Porter, John, of North Carolina, 352
Portland (see Falmouth), 130
Portsmouth —
colony of, 22, 23, 25
united with Newport, 172
united with Providence and Warwick,
172
forerunners of Quakers in, 251
Quaker school in, 167
Preston, George, goes to Dover, etc.,
103, 104
Preston, Richard, 276 n.
Price, Thomas, 336
Prince, Mary —
comes to Boston, 36-39
in the east, 46 n.
Prior, Edmund, 259 n.
Prior, Matthew, 249, 250
Proud, Robert, 546
Providence Colony —
founded by Roger Williams, 21 ».
liberty of conscience in, 21 »., 63
Providence Colony (contd.)—
Quakers in, 63
Yearly Meeting in, 144 n.
Quaker school in, 167 n.
becomes part of Rhode Island, 172
internal strife in, 180-181
burned in Indian War, 188
growth of, 201-209
proposes Continental Congress, 211
Puritans, xx-xxii
Pusey, Caleb, 388, 497, 546
Pyott, Edward, 77
Quaker saints, xxix-xxx
Quakerism, English and American, xiii
central truth, xvi-xviii, 32-36 •
mystical element of, 129, 136, 168,
242, 243, 395
divine movings, 80, 81, 87, 89
source of power in New England,
134. 135
meeting, central feature of, 136, 243,
minor testimonies of, xxiii, xxiv, 169,
170, 248-249, 312, 534, 572, 573.
Keith controversy and Pennsylvania,
456- 457
effect of Revolution on, in New York,
259-262
effect of Revolution on, in Phila
delphia Yearly Meeting, 408, 519,
570-580
to be prevailing type of religion, xiv,.
xxii
causes for decline of, xxii-xxix
Quakers —
forerunners of, xix, 134, 135, 215.
in Rhode Island, 23-25, 53
in Plymouth colony, 57 n., 215
in Salem, 64, 65, 69 n.
in Lynn, 65
in Nantucket, 123, 125, 215
in Long Island, 215-219
in Southern Colonies, 265
among Anabaptists, 215
to be peculiar people, xxiii, 146,
167
number of in Pennsylvania, xvi, 522
first to preach in North Carolina, xvr
265, 287
number of in America, xv, xvi
and Puritans, xx-xxii
views on marriage, 147, 249, 312,
313. 547
on lotteries, 147, 148
on intoxicants, 148, 311, 530-531
on fidelity to obligations, 149
on oaths, 149, 169
on war, 150, 249, 260, 464, 468-
470
on tithes, 153
INDEX
597
Quakers (contd. ) —
views on political institutions, 461-474
on revelation, xxi, xxii
unity amongst, 314-316
membership among, 546, 547, 551
Quakers, Christian, 370, 449, 454
Confession of Faith, 449
Queries, 449, 450
join other churches, 454
and slavery, 511
Quakers, Free, 570
Queries and advices —
in New England, 145, 146
prepared by George Fox, 146 «.
in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 535-
538, 579
on slavery in New England, 163, 396
in New York, 257
in Philadelphia, 323, 515
in Virginia, 323, 324 n.
of Christian Quakers, 449
Quinby, Josiah, 250
Randolph, Edward, 192, 198, 199
Ranters —
George Fox and, 113
how different from Quakers, 136
in Long Island, 229 n. , 230, 231,
234, 236, 241, 247, 248
Rathbun, Joshua, dealing with, 163 n.
Rayner, "priest," of Dover, persecutes
Quaker women, 104, 105
Reckitt, William, 505
travels in Maine, 133
in Long Island, 239
Records —
suggested by George Fox, 141 n. , 244
first in Sandwich, 141 n.
in Rhode Island, 141 n.
in New York and in America, 244
in Maryland, 304
in Virginia, 307
in North Carolina, 307
in Pennsylvania, 439, 546
Relief—
of Quaker poor, 142, 143 n. , 151,
3°S. 3°8, 315, 456, 552, 553
by Quakers in war time, 151, 152,
259, 412. 553
funds for, in tobacco, 305
Revell, Randall, 335
Rhode Island —
distinguished from Providence, 21 «.
founded by "Antinomian" party, 21,
22, 171
nursery of Quakerism, 21, 24, 25, 53
early government, 22, 23, 172, 181
religious difficulties, 23-25
denominations in, 193 n. , 198
applies for charter, 52, 174 n. , 197
Rhode Island (contd. )—
not admitted in union of New Eng
land Colonies, 54, 172
refuses to remove Quakers, 54-56
prosperity of, 191
Quakers in, xv, xvi, 72
Quaker Governors of, xv
William Coddington, 23, 172, 179,
181, 191
William Coddington, jun. , 192
Nicholas Easton, 24 «., 112, 174,
177
Walter Clarke, 185 «., 188, 189,
192, 197
Stephen Hopkins, 164, 209
Henry Bull, 192, 195
John Easton, 195
Caleb Carr, 197
John Wanton, 203, 204
Gideon Wanton, 204
Quakers in politics of , xv, 1 7 1 -2 1 2 , 462
laws on slavery, 158 n. , 165 ».
earliest library in, 208 n.
in war time, 176-191, 196
controversy over charter, 192-195
controversy over militia, 196-197
pirates in, 199-200
Richards, William, 282 «.
Richardson, John, of Flushing, 250
Richardson, John —
in Nantucket, 124, 125
in two American visits, 391
visits Welsh in Pennsylvania, 443
and George Keith, 455
and Indians, 498
Richardson, Thomas, petition against
tithes, 155
Richardson, William, 255 «.
Richmond, William, 210
Rider, John, 254 ».
Roberts, John, 567
Roberts, Moses, 569
Roberts, Thomas, 237
Robeson, Andrew, 370
Robinson, Elizabeth, 411
Robinson, Isaac, 60
Robinson, Nicholas, wife of, 275
Robinson, William —
goes to Boston, 47, 79
banished, 79
returns to Boston, 80, 81, 82
dying testimony, 35, 81
death sentence, 84
execution of, 84-86, 90 «.
in Piscataqua region, 103 «.
in Virginia, 273
in Maryland, 278
Rodman, John, 144 «., 246 n.
Rodman, Samuel, disowned for buying
slave, 163
598 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Rofe, George, 41
visits Bermuda, 44
begins New England Yearly Meet
ings, 54 n. , 144
in New York City, 226
in Virginia, 273, 303
in Maryland, 279, 303
Rogers, Richard, 254 «.
Rose, Philip, 79 «.
Ross, Alexander, 296
Ross, Betsey, 570
Rous, Lieut. -Col. , and son John, first
Quakers in West Indies, 28, 41
Rous, John —
challenges Governor Endicott, 53 n.
in Plymouth Colony, 61, 62
Quaker missionary, 70
in Boston, 71, 72, 75, 76
suffers ear-cropping, 75
in England, 90
in Barbadoes and Jamaica, in, 112
Rous, Thomas, 226
Rudyard, Thomas, 368
Ruse, William, 443
Russell, Peleg, 151 «.
Russell, Richard, refused to condemn
W. Christison, 96 n.
Russell, Richard, Quaker meeting in
house of, 274
Salem (Massachusetts) —
forerunners of Quakers in, 25 «., 64,
65, 67, 216
Quakers in, xvi, 72, 73
Quakers banished from, 77
business meeting in, 141, 144 ».
relief distributed in, 152
Salem (New Jersey), 366, 367
Quaker meetings in, 372, 376 «., 388
Salmon, Joseph, 41
Salters, Anna, 419 n.
Sandiford, Ralph, 516
Sands, David —
travels in New England, 133-134
becomes Quaker minister, 254-255
Sandwich —
Seekers in, 25 n. , 57 n. , 58, 215
Nicholas Upsall in, 40, 57
Quakers in, 57-60, 72
meeting in, 137
business meetings in, 141, 144 n.
great Quarterly Meeting in, 143
Sauer, Christopher, 442
Scarborough, Edmund, 335, 336
Scarborough, John, 518
Scattergood, Thomas, 411
Scituate —
Quaker meeting in, 61, 137, 201
business meeting in, 141
John Burnyeat in, 119
Scotch- Irish —
in Carolinas, 298
in East Jersey, 369
in Pennsylvania, 494, 505-508, 558
Scott, Catharine —
first Quaker in Providence, 25 «. , 63,
7S> 2°8
whipping of, 75
Scott, Joseph, 286, 339
wife of, 225 «.
Scott, Mary —
marries C. Holder, 75
comes to Boston, 80
Scott, Patience, arrested as a Quaker,
79
Scott, Richard, 63, 79
Scott, Sarah, marries Stephen Hopkins,
208
Scott, Stephen, 292
Scriptures —
Quaker views on, 34 n. , 457
read in meetings, 456
Seal, Caleb, 572
Seaman, Thomas, 257
Seaton, Jane, 379
Seekers, xix, 24 «.
in Plymouth Colony, 25 «., 57 n.
in Salem, 65
Seman, John, 229 n.
Severn (Annapolis), 267, 276, 282 n.
Sewel, William, 545
Shaftesbury, Lord, 298
Shapleigh, Major, 104, 122
Sharpe, Peter, 279 ».
in politics, 330
gifts by, 331
Sharpe, William, 334
Sharpies, Isaac, 572
Shattlewood, William, 249
Shattuck, Samuel —
befriends Quakers, 67
joins Quakers, 69 n.
banished from Salem, 77
in England, 90
carries King's Missive, 94, 97-99
Shattuck, William, 169 n.
Shearman, Philip, 53 n.
Shelter Island, 77
story of, 226
Quakers in, 226, 230
Shrewsbury, 379
meetings at, 360, 372, 376 n.
"Sign," Quakers appear as a, 108,
109, 266 n.
Simcock, John, 443, 480
Simons, Thomas, 292
Sisson, John, 155
Skein, John, Governor of West Jersey,
379
Skipton General Meeting, xiii n.
INDEX
599
Slavery —
Quakers and, in New England, 156-
166, 395, 396
in New York, 255-258
in Southern Colonies, 321-327,
395
in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
396-397, 441, 510-521, 578
petition for laws against, 165, 258 «. ,
326, 511, 512
laws against in Rhode Island, 158 «.,
165 n.
in Pennsylvania, 510, 520, 578
Pastorius and, 441, 511, 578
Slocum, Eleazer, 157 n.
Slocum, Peleg, 124, 153 ».
Sluyter, Peter, 361 «., 419
Small, John, 69 n.
Smith, Hugh, 283, 285, 286
Smith, Isaac, 151 ».
Smith, John, 524, 529-530
Smith, Margaret —
in Boston, So
whipped, 109
Smith, Mary, 380
Smith, Mary Murfin, 371 «.
Smith, Richard, testimony on slavery,
iS9
Smith, Richard —
comes to Boston, 36, 39, 219
first American Quaker, 219
banished from Southampton, Long
Island, 219 n.
Smith, Samuel, 401, 403
Smith, Samuel, 546
Smith, William, 345
Society for Propagation of the Gospel,
346 ».. 350
George Keith and, 370, 383, 454,
455
Somerton, 283, 286
Soule, James, 149
Soule, William, 157 n.
Southeby, William, 512
Southwick, Daniel, 69
Southwick, Josiah —
banished from Salem, 77
in England, 90
whipping of, 102
Southwick, Lawrence and Cassandra —
entertain Quakers, 67
persecution of, 69
banished, 77
asceticism of Cassandra, 69 «.
in Shelter Island, 226 «.
Southwick, Provided —
to be sold, 69
in Boston, 80
Spicer, Samuel, Long Island Quaker,
245 «. , 250
Stacey, Robert, 377
Stacy, Mahlon, 434
Stan ton, Daniel, 518
Starbuck, Edward, 123
Starbuck, Mary, 124, 125
meeting established in her house,
126, 135
Starbuck, Nathaniel, 124
Stephens, William, 334
Stephenson, Marmaduke —
" Call" of, 33
banished from Boston, 79
returns, 80
in Piscataqua region, 103 n.
dying testimony, 82
death sentence, 84
execution of, 84-86, 90 «.
Stevens, Magdalen, 314
Stockdale, William, 383, 449
Story, Robert, 249
Story, Thomas —
Quaker missionary, 125
establishes meeting in Nantucket,
126
in Long Island, 236-238
in Southern Colonies, 291-294, 344 «.
at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 389.
on William Penn, 428 n., 435
and Indians, 498
Strange, Lott, 181 n.
Stubbs, John —
in Barbadoes and Jamaica, 111-112
in Rhode Island, 112
in debate with Roger Williams, 116
letter from, 266 ».
Stuyvesant, Governor, and the Quakers,
220-223, 22&
Swain, John, 123
Swayne, Thomas, 572
Swedish settlers, 358, 419, 422, 475
and Indians, 495
Governors, 439
Sykes, John, 518
Sylvester, Constant, 226
Sylvester, Nathaniel, owns Shelter
Island, 77, 226
Synod of Ministers —
first in America, 15
to consider Antinomian heresies, 15
Taber, Philip, 155
Talbot, Joseph, jun., 572
Talbott, Elizabeth, 314
Taylor, Christopher, 434
Taylor, Christopher, 528
Taylor, Edward, 233 «.
Taylor, John —
testimony on Mary Dyer, 86, 87 ».
in Long Island, 225
in Shelter Island, 226
600 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Taylor, Thomas —
meeting in house of, 330
in politics, 330, 331
Teddes, Edward, 79 «.
Tedyuscung, 503, 504, 561
Temple, Governor, offers to provide for
Quakers, 86
Terrell, Ann, 296
Terry, John, 150 n.
Thomas, Gabriel, 522, 527
Thomas, Governor George, 490
Thomas, Sarah, 314
Thomson, Charles, 504, 505, 561, 562
Thurston, Edward, in Rhode Island
politics, 192
Thurston, Thomas —
comes to Boston, 36-39
returns to Boston, 46 n.
journey from Virginia to New
England, 73, 273
in Long Island, 225
in Virginia, 267, 268, 269, 273
in Maryland, 276, 277, 278
banished from Maryland, 278
follower of J. Perrot, 280 n.
Tilton, Mary, 225 n.
Tilton, John, 216
migrates to Long Island, 223
imprisoned, 225 n.
leader of Long Island Quakers, 245 «.,
250
Tinicum, 361 n, , 419
school on, 528
Tithes —
Quakers refuse to pay, 153
distraints for, 153, 317, 318
petitions to government against, 154-
156, 193 «•
Tobacco —
meeting funds in, 305, 314
use of, discouraged, 310, 312
Tolstoy, 469
Tomkins, Mary —
in Piscataqua, 103, 104, 130
whipping of, 104, 105, 276 «.
in Virginia, 276
Toms, Francis, 285, 307, 308, 344 n.
in provincial council, 292
meeting in house of, 339
Torrey, Joseph, 181 n.
Townsend, Henry, 223
Townsend, Richard, 497
Trask, Henry and wife, 69 «.
Trask, Mary, 80
Tredhaven, 119, 282, 290, 304, 322
Tripp, Benjamin, 149
Tucker, Abraham, 148, 151 «.
Tucker, Barzellai, 147 n.
Tucker, John, 153 «.
Tucker, Joseph, 148
Tucker, Moses, 150 n.
Turner, Robert, 454
Turner, Thomas, 498
Underbill, John, 250
Underbill, Captain John, in Antinomian
controversy, 8
Underbill, Samuel, 256
Union of American Colonies, proposed
by William Penn, 431
Union of New England Colonies —
Rhode Island refused in, 54, 172
endeavours to suppress Quakers, 54-
56, 76 n.
Commissioners of, 40, 54, 55, 57 n. ,
76 n.
Upland (see Chester)
Upsall, Nicholas —
befriends Quakers, 28, 39
banished, 40
first Quaker convert in Massachusetts
4i
released from prison, 99
Valentine, Robert, 572
Vane, Sir Henry, 8, 21, 172
in Antinomian controversy, n
returned to England, 20
Varney, Peter, 150 «.
Vassalborough, 135
Virginia —
Quaker persecutions in, 265, 269-
273, 274, 276 «. , 290, 317
anti-Quaker laws, 269-272, 319,
320
Quaker visitors in, 267, 268-269,
280, 282, 287, 290-295
John Perrot in, 275, 276, 280, 287,
302 ».
growth of Quakerism, xvi, 271,
295-297
migrations from North to, 295-296
meetings in, 274, 280, 283, 285,
293, 295 «., 296
business meetings in, 303, 306, 307
Bill of Rights, 318
Established Church in, 265, 269-
272, 317, 318 n.
Quakers and militia in, 318, 320
slavery in, 321, 323-326
Quakers in politics of, xv, 334-338
Wade, Robert-
comes to Pennsylvania, 420 «. , 439
meeting in house of, 440
Waite, Jacob, 298
Walden, Richard, 105 «.
Walker, Dr. , 293
INDEX
601
Walker. William, 383
Wain, Nicholas, 574
Walton, Sydrach, 150 «.
Wanton, Edward —
meeting in house of, 137
becomes Quaker, 201
on tithes, 154
Wanton, Gideon, Governor of Rhode
Island, 204
Wanton, John —
Quaker preacher, 203
in Rhode Island politics, 203
Governor of Rhode Island, 203,
204
Wanton, Joseph, 154 ».
shipbuilder in Tiverton, Rhode
Island, 20 1
Wanton William, in Rhode Island
politics, 202
War-
Quakers and, in New England, 23 «. ,
150, 175, 176, 188 n.
in New York, 249
in New Jersey, 392, 412
in Pennsylvania, 424, 425, 426,
464, 468-470, 477, 478, 480,
488-493, 507, 508, 518, 562-568
Quaker sufferings in, 150, 279 «.,
319, 320 »., 393, 412, 565-569
Tolstoy on, 469
Indian, 21 «., 121, 181-189, 4^9>
492, 493- 505. 5°6
Dutch, 174, 178
French and Indian, 150, 196, 209,
319. 393. 489. 554
Revolutionary, 150, 320 «. , 565-568
Revolutionary and Quakerism, xxvii
in New York, 259-261
in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,
408, 411-413, 460, 461, 519,
562-580
Ward, Samuel, 210
Wardel, Lydia —
appears as "a naked sign," 108,
372
in New Jersey, 372, 379
Wardell, Elizabeth, 372
Warwick —
Yearly Meeting, 144 n.
burned in Indian War, 188
Washington, George, 152, 260, 570
Waugh, Dorothy —
comes to Boston, 36-39
returns to Boston, 46, 47, 73
lands first in New York, 51, 220
imprisoned, 220
in Barbadoes, 70 «.
in Salem, 73
in John Norton's Church, 108 «.
Wayte, Nicholas, 267
Weeks, Francis, wife of, 225 «.
Welde, Thomas, 5, 6, 8, 20
writes anti-Quaker tracts, 30
Welsh settlers —
in Pennsylvania, 441, 442, 443, 523
granted a " Barony," 442
West, Moses, 545
Westbury, Quaker Meeting in, 233,
237, 246, 247
Westchcster —
Yearly Meeting at, 236
Quakers in, xvi
Westminster, Treaty of, 362
West River, Maryland, 281, 303, 305
sale of liquors near, 311
Wetherhead, Mary —
comes to Boston, 36-39
returns to Boston, 46, 47
lands first in New York, 51, 220
imprisoned, 220
Wharton, T. and I., 561
Wharton, Thomas, 567
Wharton, Edward, 69 «.
imprisoned in Boston, 89 n.
banished, 89 n.
remains in Salem, 89 «. , 96 n.
goes to Dover, etc., 103, 104
Wheat, Benjamin, 385
Wheelwright, John, 5
preaches Covenant of Grace, 7, 10
fast-day sermon, 12-14
life, U-I2
sentenced to exile, 14-15, 20
Whipping —
laws for, 40, 66 «.
first woman to suffer, 57 n.
last woman to suffer, no n.
instances of, 61, 62, 66, 70, 75, 80,
104, 106, 107, 108, 109, 130,
222, 276 n.
White, Henry, 292, 307
Whitehead, George, 429
Whitefield, George, 128, 410
in Georgia, 300 n.
Whittier, J. G.—
poems by, 69 n. ,g8n., jogw., 123 «.,
441
anti-slavery worker, 166
Wickendam, William, 218
Widders, Robert —
in Barbadoes and Jamaica, in, 112
in Rhode Island, 112
in Virginia, 282
in New Jersey, 360
Wieser, Conrad, 402
Wilcocks, Henry, 331
Wilkinson, Ruth —
mother of Stephen Hopkins, 208
library in house of, 208 «.
Willet, Charity, 254 «.
602 QUAKERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Williams, Roger, 22
founds Providence, 21 «.
first in New World to announce
soul-liberty, 21 n. , 63
in Salem, 64, 65
collision with George Fox and the
Quakers, 114-118
Colonial agent to England, 173 ».
Willis, William, 254 «.
Wills, Henry, 246 n.
Wilson, Alexander, 467
Wilson, Anne, 292
Wilson, Deborah, 108
appears as " naked sign," 109
Wilson, George, in Virginia, 272
Wilson, James, 568
Wilson, John —
type of preacher, 7, 8
excommunicates Anne Hutchinson,
20
at hanging of Mary Dyer, 86
Wilson, Samuel, 114 n.
Windham, Quakers in, 133
Wing, Joseph, travels with David
Sands, 134 n.
Winthrop, John, 8, 16, 21 »., 24,
60 «.
Winthrop, John, jun. , 121
Governor of Connecticut, 86
pleads for Quakers, 86
Winthrop, Samuel, 60 «.
Witches —
searching of suspected, 28, 31
trial of, 275, 467
Woodbridge, 358
VVoodhouse, ship —
story of, 45, 46
voyage of, 48-51, 219, 220
Woodson, Tarlton, 319
Woolchurch, Henry, 267, 268
Woolman, John, 176
visits New England, 159, 160-163
visits New York, 255
and slavery, 159-163, 322-324, 396,
397- 5iS. Si6, 518, 519
and Indians, 396, 404-407
and war, 393, 394
ministry of, 409, 410
life of, 394, 395, 400
in England, 399
Journal and Essays of, 394, 395,
397-399- 4°o
and Quaker ideals, 571
type of Quaker saint, xxix n.
Women —
first to preach Quaker message in
London, 26
first to preach in universities, 26-27
first to preach Quaker message in
America, 4, 26, 265
Works, Covenant of, 9, 17, 18
preachers of, 8
Wright, Anthonie, 245 n.
Wyatt, William, 339
Yarnal, Nathan, jun. , 572
Yarmouth, North (Harpswell), Quaker
ism in, 132
Yearly Meeting, Baltimore —
organised by John Burnyeat, 281,
288, 293, 303, 304
business of, 308, 311
and slavery, 324, 325
sends representatives to Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting, 437
territory covered by, 438
Yearly Meeting, London —
epistle from New York to, 252
first American epistle to, 373
influence on American Meetings, 438
earliest discipline in, 229 «., 438
disowns George Keith, 383, 453
in Pennsylvania politics, 491, 492
correspondence with other meetings,
Si3
Yearly Meeting, New England —
beginning ot, 54, 144
visitors to, HE, 127, 160
Colonies represented in, 113 «., 144
number of attenders of, 127, 129 «.,
144
held at different places, 144
representatives to, appointed, 145
business of, 143 «., 145
and slavery, 157-166, 396
sets off Long Island as a Yearly
Meeting, 144 n. , 246
sends representatives to Philadelphia,
437
Yearly Meeting, New York, 239
set off from New England, 144 n. ,
246
General Meeting in Westchester,
236, 247
views on slavery, 257-258
Yearly Meeting for North America
proposed, 376, 434, 437
Yearly Meeting of North Carolina, 307
and slavery, 324 n. , 325, 326
Yearly Meeting, Philadelphia —
set up at Burlington, 376, 377,
437
held alternate years in Philadelphia,
39L 437
moved permanently to Philadelphia,
391, 408, 437
and yellow fever in Philadelphia,
389
size of, 377, 387, 393. 522, 523,
524. 565
INDEX
603
Yearly Meeting, Philadelphia (contd. ) —
territory embraced by, 438
type of membership, 441, 530-534
ministry in, 525, 530
general organisation of, 534-539,
550-555
William Penn and, 423, 433-436
proposes Yearly Meeting for North
America, 376, 434, 437
disowns George Keith, 370, 452
and slavery, 396, 397, 510-521,
572. 573. 578
and Indians, 499, 500
Yearly Meeting, Philadelphia (contd. ) —
and education, 528-529, 571, 574-
576
and liquor problem, 530, 531, 572,
576-578
and Pennsylvania politics, 510
in the Revolution, 562-571
reformation of, 571-580
Yearly Meeting of Virginia, 306,
311 «., 316
and slavery, 323, 324 «., 325
Zane, Isaac, 574
THE END
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh,
IN PREPARATION.
COMPANION VOLUME TO THE PRESENT WORK.
THE BEGINNINGS
OF
QUAKERISM
BY
WILLIAM CHARLES BRAITHWAITE
LONDON : MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
BY PROFESSOR RUFUS M. JONES
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CONTENTS
Introduction. The Nature and Value of First-hand Experience
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Christianity — II. Ministry and Organization in the Early Church
— III. Montanism : A Return to Prophecy — IV. Roots of
Mysticism in Classical Literature — V. Mysticism in the Church
Fathers — VI. Dionysius, " the Areopagite " — VII. A Great
Light in the Dark Ages : John the Scot, called Erigena — VIII.
The Waldenses, an Anti- Sacerdotal Sect — IX. St. Francis and
the "Spiritual Franciscans" — X. A Group of Pantheistical
Mystics — XL Brotherhood Groups in the Thirteenth Century —
XII. Meister Eckhart— XIII. The Friends of God— XIV. The
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EARLY CHRISTIAN WORSHIP.
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