GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
OUR UNDERSTANDING OF DISOWNMENT
AS HISTORICALLY PRACTICED
1 IN THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
by
Jenny Duskey Larry Kuenning Charlotte Kuenning Licia Kuenning
August 28, 1991
I believe it is … great darkness which leads people to believe that we cannot disown individuals and love them.2
When Phebe J. Hall wrote these words some 35 years ago, the word “disownment” had already been dropped from the annual statistics of Ohio Yearly Meeting for several years, to be replaced with the more ambiguous membership discontinued. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, having just reunited with the Hicksite branch (which had not used the category for 33 years), had ceased to record any kind of involuntary membership termination, unless such cases were intended to be covered by the term released. Clearly disownment was unpopular. In much of the ensuing discussion of disownment we speak in the past tense. This is not because we think the Quaker principles of discipline no longer valid nor because our interest is merely historical. It is because disownment is now so rare that it would be impossible to generalize about it if we wrote in the present tense. A questionnaire that some of us circulated at the 1984 conference of the Quaker Theological Discussion Group in Wichita revealed that although Friends from all branches and a wide selection of geographical locations were present none of them knew of a recent disownment in their meetings.3
1.The scholarship for this paper was chiefly the work of Licia Kuenning. The opinions expressed are shared by the four named authors. 2.Phebe J. Hall, THE TRUTH FOR FRIENDS TODAY (pamphlet, no place or date given, but internal evidence dates it to about 1955. Phebe Hall was a member of Stillwater Monthly Meeting, OYM), page 38. 3.The questionnaire asked only about the preceding 5 years, but one Friend wrote, this meeting has not actually disowned a member for any reason in the living memory of octogenarian members. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
This would be joyful news if it meant that Quakers had stopped sinning. Unfortunately the same questionnaire results showed that the whole spectrum of what used to be disownable offenses were being practiced by members of the meetings represented. Ensuing discussion brought out that the opinion Phebe Hall called great darkness was quite commonly held: modern Quakers think that we cannot disown individuals and love them. One respondent stated, We have never considered disowning anyone but rather seek to help them find wholeness again. For most of their history Friends did not think these two things mutually exclusive. The authors of this paper don’t think it impossible to disown individuals and love them, as it seems to us that Friends at their best often did just that. We think that very few Friends today know what disownment really means. The traditional principles of Friends on this subject are not a living tradition; they have been forgotten, and misconceptions on the subject — amounting almost to a phobia — prevent most Friends from looking into it. The history of the Society of Friends reveals a remarkably clear and consistent tradition about disownment that was practiced from the 1660s into the early 20th century. This is not to deny that the discipline was applied more strictly in some times and places than in others, that details of procedure could change, that the practical exercise of love in the disciplinary process had its ups and downs, or that irregular and unusual cases can be found. We will not say much about how the historical development of Friends’ practice has been influenced by internal and external political pressures, as although this could be an interesting study our purpose is in bringing out the general principles involved, which really did not change much. Therefore we have quoted rather freely from 17th/, 18th/ and 19th-century sources.
The Word Disownment
To disown is the opposite of to own, in a sense of that term that is now somewhat archaic but was in frequent use at the rise of Quakerism. A Puritan asked George Fox whether he owned election and reprobation, meaning, did he acknowledge these doctrines to be true.4 And for the scriptures which he quotes, they are owned, but not to cover the wolf withal, said Fox in response to another critic, meaning: we acknowledge the authority of those scripture texts, but not the application he is making of them.5 To own is to acknowledge, accept the authority of, or admit; correspondingly to disown is to deny, or reject, especially that which was formerly owned, or which one might be thought by others to own. As applied to persons it means to declare one’s disunity with the person, to deny responsibility for his or her behavior. Braithwaite attributes to Francis Howgill what may be the earliest technical use of the word “disown” in the following incident. A Puritan plot to overthrow the monarchy was discovered in 1662, and Quakers were rumored to be involved in it. One former Friend, Reginald Fawcett, was in fact part of the abortive uprising; when Howgill was challenged in court about this he replied, Fawcett has been disowned by us these six years.6
4.George Fox, JOURNAL, ed. John L. Nickalls (London: Religious Society of Friends, 1975), page 298. 5.George Fox, WORKS (Philadelphia, 1831), Volume 3, page 44. 6.William C. Braithwaite, THE SECOND PERIOD OF QUAKERISM (York, England: William Sessions Ltd. with the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, 1979), page 30. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
Friends sought to be a people whose lives, as well as words, testified to the power of Christ to teach and lead his people. Those whose lives said something different were undermining this objective. They provided ammunition to the enemies of Friends who maintained that reliance on an inward Light would lead to anarchy and libertinism. If disorderly individuals could not be persuaded to mend their ways, then Friends would go on record as not owning that person to be a member of their community. Disownment, then, is a statement. It is closely tied in with the concept of testimony that runs all through Quaker history. To testify, as a people, against war and fighting, meant being willing to testify, if need arose, that a certain person given to violence was not a Friend. To testify against, to deny, to declare disunity with, are all expressions that are used synonymously with to disown in Friends’ literature. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
EXCOMMUNICATION?
We deny all their... excommunications, cursing, with bell, book, and candle, for the scripture saith, bless and curse not.7 In testifying against an unrighteous action or even in disowning a sinful member, Friends were not excommunicating in the sense that other Christian churches did.8
Because other churches also at times revoke the membership of individuals on account of their disapproved behavior it is natural to think of disownment as another word for excommunication; however, the two concepts are not identical, and Friends have usually repudiated the term excommunication. The precise difference may be difficult to pin down, but we think it basically consists in this: that excommunication is aimed at the offender, whereas disownment is aimed at the world. This needs some clarifying. When the Roman Catholic Church denies a person the right to communicate (a technical term for receiving the eucharistic sacrament), they are denying him or her something which they believe to be an important, or even an indispensable, channel of the grace of God. If the excommunicated person believes in the doctrines of the church then he believes the salvation of his soul to be in serious jeopardy — not merely because of the sin he was excommunicated for but because he cannot get the sacrament. Historically excommunication has also involved other penalties, including exclusion from worship services, social shunning by other church members, and loss of civil rights in church-dominated nations. Other churches that practice excommunication have often differed from the Roman Catholic view of sacraments, but they have not discarded the underlying idea of excommunication as something done to an offender, of such nature as to motivate compliance based on fear of the church; in other words, it is a punishment. It can be a very severe punishment, putting a person into a far worse position than he or she would have been in had s/he never joined the church. Some Anabaptist groups have carried this so far that a husband and wife may not eat or sleep together if one of them has been excommunicated;9 and in communal churches excommunication can mean loss of one’s home, possessions, and means of livelihood. By contrast Friends, when they disowned a person, were not trying to do anything at all to that person. They were trying to define — for the world’s benefit — what Quakerism was; in particular that it was not consistent with the type of behavior for which the person was disowned. The individual did lose a few rights (chiefly the right to sit in Friends’ business meetings), but only to such an extent as was unavoidable if the Society was to maintain its self-definition; it was not done to make him feel bad, and he was in no worse position than any other nonmember.10
7.Fox, WORKS 4:271. 8.Richard T. Vann, THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH QUAKERISM: 1655-1755 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), page 131. 9.For an extreme example, see George Huntston Williams, THE RADICAL REFORMATION (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), page 494. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
Friends were often concerned to dissociate themselves from punitive disciplinary practices and to stress the limited nature of what they did in disowning: Misapplied censures have attached to the Society of Friends, called Quakers, in consequence of their practice of this nature, being (but not by themselves) denominated excommunication. This term though never used by them, sometimes confounds their dismemberments, in the ideas of many, with those interdictions which deprive of temporal advantages, and consign the soul to eternal wrath. On this account it may be proper to observe, that a simple declaration of disunity, and of the ground on which it has arisen, is the utmost that is practised by the Society of Friends.11 For when any, by their inconsistent or disorderly conduct, or by imbibing and adopting principles and practices contrary to the doctrines which we hold, have first openly manifested their disunity with the society, it is just and requisite, that after endeavouring to restore them without effect, the body should testify its disunity with such erring and refractory members; at the same time earnestly desiring, that they may be convinced of the error of their ways, and that through unfeigned repentance, and a consistent orderly conduct in future, they may be reunited. This being the utmost extent of our discipline respecting offenders, it is very evident that from the right exercise thereof, no degree of persecution or imposition can be justly inferred; for the imposition would rest entirely on the part of those who might insist on being retained as members, whilst at open variance with the Body, either in principle or practice.12 This is the extent of the Society’s censure against irreclaimable offenders, they are disowned as members of our religious community; which is recommended to be done in such a disposition of mind, as may convince them, that we sincerely desire their recovery and restoration, considering ourselves, lest we also be tempted. Gal. vi. 1.13
10.Thomas Clarkson, a non-Friend who confused disownment with excommunication, felt that Quakers needed to be defended against the charge that their discipline was not punitive enough! He states, “People are apt to say, where is the hardship of being disowned? a man, though disowned by the Quakers, may still go to their meetings for worship.” He goes on to argue that because of the Quakers’ distinctive form of church government individual members had more power than in most churches, and when one of them lost this power through being disowned his self-esteem was bound to suffer. But Clarkson does not seem to realize that Friends themselves did not cite this sort of thing as any part of the purpose of disownment. A PORTRAITURE OF QUAKERISM, Volume 1 (New York: Samuel Stansbury, 1806), pages 235-237. 11.William Alexander, CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE, PUBLIC RELIGIOUS WORSHIP, AND GOSPEL MINISTRY (York, 1814), p.20. 12.DISCIPLINE OF THE YEARLY MEETING OF FRIENDS HELD IN NEW-YORK, 1810 (reprinted 1830), pages 6-7. Emphasis added. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
As can be seen from the context, the reference to irreclaimable offenders in this last passage did not mean that Friends thought anyone permanently irreclaimable but only that Friends had done all they could, for the time being, in efforts to persuade the offender to repent,14 so that the integrity of the Society required a testimony of disunity.
13.RULES OF DISCIPLINE OF THE YEARLY MEETING OF FRIENDS HELD IN PHILADELPHIA, 1806, Introduction. (italics added). This statement in identical or very similar words appears in the introduction of nearly all 19th-century Disciplines, and in Ohio Yearly Meeting’s Discipline as late as 1922. 14.George Fox was particularly concerned that every one of the meeting have cleared his or her conscience; that if any thing be upon any further to visit such a transgressor, they may clear themselves, before a disownment was issued. WORKS 7:339-40. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS
If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault, between thee and him alone; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it to the church; but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen-man and a publican.15 It is agreed in the unity of freinds that all professing the truth, who have or shalbee guilty of any disorderly walkinge by which the name of the Lord comes to bee dishonour’d, shalbee by a particular paper for every such disorderly walking, condemned publiquely by freinds; if so bee they who are or may be concern’d shall refuse after foure or five exhortacions & admonitions, according to the good order of the gosple, to give forth a publick testimony, under their hands by which such particular disorderly practices shalbee judged & condemned.16 1694. — …And that all that walk disorderly, should be tenderly dealt withal, in the same love wherewithal God hath loved us; but, if they cannot be reclaimed, they ought to be denied, and Truth cleared.... — (Yearly Meeting).17 It is advised, that where any transgress the rules of our discipline, they may, without partiality, be admonished and sought in the spirit of love and divine charity, so that it may be seen by all, that the restoring spirit of meekness and christian love abounds, before church censure takes place, and that a gospel spirit is the spring and motive to all our performances, as well in discipline as in worship.18
When a member’s offense came to the attention of the Monthly Meeting — which was not supposed to happen before one or more Friends had already admonished the offender without success19 — the meeting would appoint
15. Matthew 18:15-17, in the form usually quoted by Friends. It was the standard scriptural text for Quaker discipline and usually appeared in the introductory pages of books of discipline. Perhaps the difference between Friends’ concept of disownment and the more punitive practices of other churches reflects a different understanding of the bottom line: how should heathens and publicans be treated? Can something be learned about this from Christ’s example? 16.Russell Mortimer, ed., MINUTE BOOK OF THE MEN’S MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS IN BRISTOL 1667-1686 (Bristol Record Society, 1971), page 19, minute dated 20th of 7th month, 1669. 17. Ezra Michener, A RETROSPECT OF EARLY QUAKERISM (Philadelphia: Zell, 1860), page 178, apparently quoting a minute or epistle of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. 18. DISCIPLINE OF PHILADELPHIA YEARLY MEETING, 1806, page 35. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
a committee (usually of two solid Friends) to ascertain the facts about the matter reported, and (if the member complained of was guilty) to learn whether he or she was repentant. It the individual did not seem contrite the visiting Friends would labor with him or her in meekness and brotherly compassion, hoping to bring the offender to sincere repentance. If this was successful the Friend would offer a written apology (often called an acknowledgment) expressing that what he or she had done was contrary to the principles of Friends, that s/he was sorry for it and intended with God’s help to behave better in the future. This was also referred to as condemning one’s action. The reason for its being in writing was so that Friends’ disunity with the action would be on record. How widely the repentant Friend would be asked to circulate such a paper would depend on how far the scandal had been known; the point being to make the position of Friends clear to those who might otherwise — through a member’s deviant action — have been in doubt about it. To read an acknowledgment in a public meeting might be a humiliating task for the contrite Friend, but humiliation was not its purpose, and it was felt that if the Friend was sincere he or she would be motivated to clear the reputation of the Society. It sometimes happened that a Friend felt so convicted about a misdeed as to make an acknowledgment even though the transgression had not come to the meeting’s attention. Disowning was not done lightly. Overseers labored sometimes for years with offenders.20 A reading of the Upperside Monthly Meeting minutes for 1669-1690 shows that the meeting would postpone disownment as long as there seemed the least tenderness in an offender, and sometimes when there didn’t, if a member felt concerned to make some further effort. If, however, the erring Friend persistently refused to offer a satisfactory acknowledgment,21 then the meeting would eventually write a paper indicating its disunity with the action and its disownment of the offender. The purpose of such a paper was the same as the purpose of the acknowledgment would have been — to keep the moral or doctrinal standards of the Society of Friends a clear matter of record. The extent of publicity would likewise be the same.22
19.Fox wrote concerning gospel-order; though the doctrine of Jesus Christ requireth his people to admonish a brother or sister twice, before they tell the church, yet that limiteth none, so as they shall use no longer forbearance, before they tell the church, but that they shall not less than twice admonish... before they tell the church. And it is desired of all, that before they publicly complain, they wait in the power of God to feel, if there is no more required of them to their brother or sister, before they expose him or her to the church (7:339). Since such preliminary admonitions didn’t get into the minute books it is not easy to be sure how well Fox’s advice about this was heeded. 20.R. W. Tucker, SPRINGFIELD MEETING: THE FIRST 300 YEARS, 1686-1986 (Springfield-Delco, PA: Springfield Monthly Meeting of Friends, 1986), page 21. Later in this booklet Tucker writes of the painful labor Springfield Friends had in disowning dozens of Friends for joining the 1827 Hicksite separation. Members of Springfield Meeting, for the next several years, had to call on every member of Providence Meeting, the men visiting the men, the women visiting the women, and try (really, honestly try) to restore them to orthodoxy. It took until 1836 to finish this task (pages 41-42). 21.Occasionally a meeting found an acknowledgment unsatisfactory; for more on this see page 13, below. 22.We have found two different doctrines, in Quaker writings, concerning how far such documents should be circulated. Some, including Fox (7:40), state that the publishing should go no further than the offense was known, while others say it should go as far as the offense was known. It can’t always have been possible to meet both these standards simultaneously, but we have not found this inconsistency addressed directly in Friends’ writings. A Philadelphia Yearly Meeting minute of 1719 states: when any offender refuseth so to acknowledge and condemn the fault, then the said meeting ought speedily to testify, upon record, against him or her, and the fact, and publish such testimony, so far as shall appear requisite for the clearing of Truth. But if the offence committed be only against the Church, and not of public scandal... the meeting ought, after deliberate dealing and due admonition, to testify against them,... and enter the same on their own minutes [without further publication], whereby such persons stand disowned, until they shall repent and give satisfaction. (Michener, pages 180-181). London Yearly Meeting in 1675 advised that the Church’s testimonies and judgments against disorderly and scandalous walkers,... be recorded in the respective Monthly Meetings, for the clearing of Truth, Friends, and our holy profession, to be produced and published by Friends for that end and purpose, so far only as in Gods heavenly wisdom they shall see needful (Michener, page 175). HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
When a minute of disownment had been written by the Monthly Meeting, a copy of it was given to the person disowned, who was informed that he had a right (within a limited time) to appeal to the Quarterly Meeting, which could overturn the disownment.23 If the Quarterly Meeting upheld the disownment, an appeal could be made to the Yearly Meeting, whose decision was final. A testimony against an individual would not be published until the case was settled.
23.The quarterly meeting is then to refer the same to a solid committee of Friends (omitting those of the monthly meeting from which the appeal comes) and to confirm or reverse the said judgment as, on impartial deliberation, shall appear to be right, taking care to inform the parties of the result (DISCIPLINE OF PHILADELPHIA YEARLY MEETING, 1806, page 1). HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
PURPOSES AND NONPURPOSES OF DISOWNMENT
We have discussed the primary function of disownment in maintaining the public credibility of Friends’ corporate testimonies. Another, closely related, purpose was that of maintaining the internal consistency of the Society in its decision-making bodies. Attendance at Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly meetings for business was select — that is, limited to members in good standing.24 These members could be assumed to have the same convictions and therefore to be approaching the questions before the meeting with a common purpose. Throwing the doors open to people who were at open variance with the Body, either in principle or practice, would make it difficult or impossible to find the unity that Friends sought in their deliberations. That true unanimity is now regarded as an impossible ideal in most Quaker meetings may be a direct result of the fact that disownment is no longer practiced. To sharpen up these concepts it may be helpful to list some things which were not the purpose of disownment. Disownment was not for the purpose of doing the offender good (nor for doing him or her harm). The admonitory steps that preceded disownment did aim at the spiritual welfare of the erring Friend, but disownment occurred at the point where the community felt it had done its duty to that end and must proceed with disownment for the sake of Friends’ testimony. Presumably in some cases disownment might have produced a salutary shock that would awaken the sinner and motivate reformation, while in other cases it might have led to the person’s hardening; but Friends did not try to predict which of these outcomes was the more likely in a given case and did not use this type of consideration to determine whether disownment was in order. Disownment was not done to get rid of the company of someone whom other Friends disliked. Members were disowned only for specific transgressions, and their company was removed only from business meetings. In other spheres there might be as much social interaction with an individual after disownment as there was before. It was not the purpose of disownment to define the individual’s standing with God. Jack Marietta states, Friends did not claim that admission to the Society indicated salvation or a state of grace. They were singularly quiet about the inner state of members. Quite consistently, then, they did not claim that disownment signified a fall from grace or damnation.25 This is true, though it should be modified with the observation that Friends did believe that the Light of Christ was available to all and would, if heeded carefully enough, prevent Friends from committing those acts which put them out of unity. Such expressions as J.T.... for want of duly attending to the dictates of Truth within himself has so far deviated from the wholesome Rules established amongst us as to [violate them in such-and-such a way]26 were not unusual in minutes of disownment. But it was the outward misdeed, not the inferred inward carelessness, that J.T. was disowned for. Friends did not consider conversion to be instantaneous and hence did not make assertions about who was or was not born again.
24.Friends felt so strongly about the select character of meetings for business that they would refuse to proceed with business if any unqualified persons were present and could not be persuaded to leave. An instance involving one refractory attender is found in the Upperside minutes of the 5th of 12th month, 1683 (Vann, page 112). Great inconvenience was caused in 1828 when disowned Hicksites refused to leave Orthodox business meetings; the Orthodox would wait them out for days, or find another building to meet in, all business being postponed until a select meeting could be achieved (Joseph Hoag, JOURNAL [Auburn: New York Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1861], pages 299ff; Thomas Shillitoe, LIFE, in FRIENDS LIBRARY, Volume 3 [Philadelphia, 1839], pages 428ff). 25.Jack D. Marietta, THE REFORMATION OF AMERICAN QUAKERISM, 1748-1783 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), page 10. However, minutes in the 17th century (which Marietta is not discussing) were less reticent about the offender’s inward state. 26.Kenneth S. P. Morse, BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING 1672-1830 (Barnesville, OH: Author, 1961), pages 54-55. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
CONSEQUENCES OF DISOWNMENT
The chief consequence of disownment for the disowned person was that he or she no longer had a right to attend business meetings; for the Society it was that they no longer had an obligation to oversee his behavior. This did not necessarily mean that pastoral concern for him ceased; numerous accounts exist in the journals of Friends’ ministers of visits to disowned persons and counsel offered them. But such efforts were undertaken at the minister’s own initiative in obedience to the leadings they felt; the meeting as such would not usually feel any need to delegate someone to visit a disowned person. There was no shunning involved in disownment; familial and secular relationships continued as before. This can be seen not only by the absence, from books of Discipline, of any injunction to shun former Friends, but by the lack of any disciplinary concern, in the minute books of meetings, about familiarity with disowned persons.27 Had such relationships been frowned upon we would know it: it would have been a major agenda item, for most disowned Friends were close relatives of Friends in good standing. In this respect there is a notable contrast with the discipline of some Anabaptist groups, in which the community has to struggle with the question of how much familiarity between a member and an ex-member is permitted and even at times to excommunicate members for being too friendly with the excommunicated. Friends felt they should be friendly toward the disowned, without compromising their testimony: The right exercise of the discipline in relation to offenders was feelingly adverted to, with desires that friends may particularly regard the obligations of the gospel spirit, which, whilst it inculcates the painful necessity of placing judgment upon the obdurate and unrepenting, regards with affectionate sympathy every appearance of returning rectitude, and also calls upon us to act with such propriety and circumspection relative to those who have been disunited from the society as that it may be obvious to them that even though the causes of the separation continue to exist, yet we nevertheless retain towards them that good will which remains to be one of the essential and distinguishing characteristics of the truly Christian mind.28
27.Except where the relationship seemed headed toward marriage: here the rule against marrying a non-Friend came into the picture. Young people were at times advised against keeping too close company with worldly people, which might have included the disowned, but not in any other sense than that they were like other worldly people. 28.A MINUTE OF BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING, 1802, quoted in Morse, BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING, page 31. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
DISOWNED PERSONS IN MEETINGS FOR WORSHIP
Friends were as zealous for the public character of their meetings for worship as they were for the select character of their meetings for business. As Richard Vann states, Quaker meetings for worship were in every sense public meetings, open to all who cared or dared to come.29 Dared was very much to the point in that Friends would put up with a great deal of abuse rather than limit access to these meetings; though they might be attended by informers who would supply persecutors with lists of Quakers; or by violent persons with or without judicial authority, who entered them to assault Quakers and drag them away. There was always the hope that the power of God in the meeting would reach the heart of the hostile attender.30 During the Wilkinson-Story controversy one of the complaints against the separatists was that they would hold their meetings in secluded places to avoid persecution.31 In fact the public character of Friends’ worship was part of the reason why disownment had to be instituted — not to keep disorderly persons away from meetings but to signify to the world that these people’s attendance at Quaker meetings did not imply Friends’ approval of their life styles. Thus a 1677 minute of Upperside Monthly Meeting, testifying against a couple living in adultery, states: We therefore ye People of God called Quakers (who live in ye parts adjacent) being met together in ye name & fear of ye Lord Jesus... do solemnly declare, yt although ye said J— C— & E— W— have at sometimes come to our Meetings (whose Meetings are wel known to be publick & open to al) yet were they never received or owned by us....32 Bristol Friends stated, we dare Not for Conscience Sake, keep any out of our Metinge how profane soever.33 In most cases, and especially in later years when Friends’ principles were more generally known and persecution was not an issue, disowned persons were positively encouraged to attend Quaker worship. One example of such outreach toward former members is a small book entitled “A Compassionate Call and Hand Reached forth in Tender Gospel Love, to all such Persons, as having once made Profession of the blessed TRUTH, yet by some Misconduct or other, have unhappily forfeited their Unity with the Society of Friends; in what Capacity, Post or Station soever in the CHURCH they may have been; or in what Circumstance of Life soever they now stand, in their present disunited Situation.” The author writes: that sometimes Persons that have given real Occasion for the Line of Judgment to be stretched over them, have taken such a disgust at the just Censure, when past upon 29. Vann, page 101. 30.Thomas Lurting is one such example, and the famous band of Indians who came to a frontier meeting with warlike intent and stayed to worship is another. 31.Vann, page 103. Braithwaite, pages 294-295. 32.THE MINUTE BOOK OF THE MONTHLY MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS FOR THE UPPERSIDE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 1669- 1690, transcribed, with Introduction & Notes, by Beatrice Saxon Snell (Buckingham Archeological Society, 1937), page 54, 1st of 6th month, 1677. 33.Quoted in Russell Mortimer, QUAKERISM IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BRISTOL (unpublished masters thesis, Bristol University, 1946), page 107, from a Men's Meeting paper dated in 1691. However, there have been rare instances when after repeated, persistent, and noisy disruption of meetings by insane persons or angry persons given to haranguing, Friends have made efforts to keep the individuals out of worship meetings. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM
them, that they have forsaken religious Assemblies; who by so doing do evidently demonstrate great Weakness, and that they give way to the Spirit of the Enemy, who is always seeking Advantage against us frail Mortals, in order to draw us farther and farther from the Truth,... Wherefore, I again most earnestly intreat you, in much Love and Good-will, that ye who have taken Offence of this kind, would forthwith endeavour to lay aside all Resentment, and Dislike, that you may have unwarily let in, and wait to feel the peaceable Spirit of meek Jesus, our blessed Redeemer and therein attend religious Meetings;....34 Marietta lists “How well had he attended meetings for worship?” as one of the criteria that would be considered if an offender petitioned for readmission.35 The vocal contributions of disowned persons were not always as welcome as their presence. An 1809 Discipline advises friends every where to avoid public opposition to a minister, not disowned by the monthly or quarterly- meeting to which he or she shall belong, by keeping on their hats in time of prayer, or any other token of disunion.36 Joseph Hoag relates the following incident: We then proceeded to Sugar Creek, arriving there on sixth day. Seventh day, we had a meeting with the few Friends of that place, who were much tired with a person, who had been disowned and had frequently come into their meetings, and took up much time in preaching, to the burdening of Friends; and what made it more grievous, he preached what were not Friends’ principles, and when spoken with, he justified himself, saying, that if he could not preach among them agreeable to his own conscience, he would not meet with them. After weighing the subject, I believed it right to tell Friends, that I thought it would be best for them to let him know they could not receive his testimony, and why; for if you suffer him to continue on, and he preaches as you have stated, it will do more hurt in this new country, by your giving him countenance — where Friends and their principles are but little known — than all he can do, should he make a noise abroad; for you can then inform the people why you rejected him.37 After the highly controversial disownment of Isaac T. Hopper in 1842 (he was connected with a political Abolitionist magazine that had attacked another Quaker minister as soft on slavery) Hopper attended meeting constantly, as he had ever done, and took his seat on the bench under the preachers’ gallery, facing the audience, where he had always been accustomed to sit, when he was an honored member of the Society. 34.David Hall, A COMPASSIONATE CALL... (London, 1747), page 13. 35.Marietta, page 8. 36.RULES OF DISCIPLINE OF THE YEARLY-MEETING HELD ON RHODE-ISLAND FOR NEW-ENGLAND (New-Bedford, 1809), pages 89- 90 (italics added). 37.Joseph Hoag, JOURNAL, page 281. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Charles Marriott [disowned for the same cause], who was by temperament a much meeker man, said to him one day, The overseers have called upon me, to represent the propriety of my taking another seat, under existing circumstances. I expect they will call upon thee, to give the same advice. I expect they won’t, was Isaac’s laconic reply; and they never did.38
38.Lydia Marie Child, ISAAC T. HOPPER: A TRUE LIFE (Philadelphia: Jenkins, 1881), page 397. Margaret Hope Bacon also includes this incident in her biography of Hopper. A TRUE LIFE HDT WHAT? INDEX
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REINSTATEMENT
The route to reinstatement to Quaker membership was the same as that for avoiding disownment in the first place: the writing (and if need be publishing) of a statement acknowledging one’s fault and expressing repentance. Though some Friends’ writings give the impression that this was the only thing sought by Friends for restoring unity, there arose in practice occasions for questioning whether a particular acknowledgment was adequate. One individual who wrote to Upperside Monthly Meeting acknowledging his weakness and imprudence in a certain action was told by the meeting that he had been deceitful as well as weak and imprudent and his acknowledgment was not accepted.39 A 1708 epistle of London Yearly Meeting states: And forasmuch as some persons (who, by their ill conduct, have justly deserved, and come under, the censure of the meetings to which they belong) have thought to get from under the weight of this judgment, by signing a paper of Condemnation, and thereby suppose themselves discharged; it is therefore recommended to Friends’ consideration, that they be careful not to admit such persons too early into fellowship (or to give them cause to think they are accepted,) before the meeting or meetings are satisfied in their repentance and amendment, notwithstanding such paper be given.40 Marietta mentions, as conditions of assessing the sincerity of a penitent, “Did the gestures of the delinquent demonstrate humility? Was his confession declamatory or evasive?” A period of time long enough to permit him to understand his guilt and show genuine contrition was also expected. The normal period of disunion for those who were reinstated was a year or longer; some returned fifteen to twenty years after disownment. Nevertheless, within any category of offense, one finds disowned Friends who were later readmitted. Disownment was never final; there was no kind of behavior or belief which Friends in Pennsylvania never forgave.41 Once a sin had been forgiven it was supposed to be forgotten: And it is also our advice, in the love of God, that after any friend’s repentance and restoration, he abiding faithful in the truth that condemns the evil, none among you so remember his transgression, as to cast it at him, or upbraid him with it; for that is not according to the mercies of God. 167542
39.MINUTE BOOK, pages 194-195 (7th of 9th month, 1687). 40.EPISTLES FROM THE YEARLY MEETING OF FRIENDS IN LONDON... TO THE QUARTERLY AND MONTHLY MEETINGS 1675 TO 1805 (Baltimore, 1806), page 97. 41.Marietta, pages 8, 10. 42.DISCIPLINE OF NEW-ENGLAND YEARLY MEETING, 1809, page 40. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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CONCLUDING REMARKS
Is it really a bad thing for our Religious Society to have principles, and to cease to acknowledge as members persons who insist on rejecting those principles? We have seen that disownment among Friends was not intended to hurt the persons to whom it was applied or to deny them love; that offenders were patiently and tenderly labored with before there was a decision to disown; that even after disownment they might be the recipients of Quaker ministry; that they were not socially ostracized nor denied the opportunity to worship with Friends; and that the possibility of reinstatement was always open. How did disownment get such a bad name? We do not attempt here to answer that question as regards what historical events led to the forsaking of a tradition that Friends had maintained for two and a half centuries. Ronald Selleck, in his paper, “Why Should the Doors Be Thrown Open?”43 presents an interesting historical discussion of the decline of Friends’ discipline between 1887 and 1907, especially in the Gurneyite wing. He seems unaware that there has also been such a decline among Conservative Friends, though it took place a little later. Phebe Hall wrote, Some say we must not disown, because the individuals may become hardened and never return,... I have read of many who did return after they were disowned and of some who became Gospel ministers. I do not believe it is the fault of the meeting if any fail to return, unless there has been a lack of exercising divine love towards them.44 Human beings, including Quakers, being what they are, there probably was an insufficiency of divine love in some disownment proceedings, but if so this shows only that Friends failed to live up to their principles. It does not prove that those principles were wrong.
43.In FRIENDS CONSULTATION ON ELDERING, sponsored by Earlham School of Religion and Quaker Hill Conference Center, 1982. 44.Phebe J. Hall, THE TRUTH FOR FRIENDS TODAY, page 39. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DISOWNMENT DISOWNMENT GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM APPENDICES
A. WHAT OFFENSES DID FRIENDS DISOWN FOR?
Any behavior thought inappropriate for a Quaker could become a matter of discipline; whether the process led to disownment depended less on the seriousness of the offense than on whether the offender made an adequate acknowledgment. (With serious offenses or public scandal, however, there is some indication that meetings were stricter about what sort of acknowledgment would satisfy them.) Marrying out was the commonest cause for disownment not because Friends thought it the worst deviation, but because it was the most frequent. We offer the statistics below and on the following page for historical interest; it is not our aim in this paper to take up the question of what actions should be matter for discipline today.
Disciplinary Cases in Pennsylvania Monthly Meetings, 1682-1776 per Marietta, especially pages 6-7. % Disowned Offense Number Marrying contrary to discipline 4925 45.8 Fornication with fiance(e) 1311 39.6 Other fornication 727 70.6 Drunkenness 613 60.9 Debt 613 51.4 Military activity 504 71.0 Inattendance 497 70.8 Showing contempt for the Society’s authority over one’s conduct 408 77.1 Assault 391 41.3 Loose conduct 359 54.3 Profanity 231 68.9 Attending irregular marriage 217 27.4 Quarreling 214 41.1 Entertainments 178 39.9 Marrying too close a relative 174 75.7 Neglecting family responsibilities 142 49.6 Prosecuting another Friend at law 129 31.7 without having exhausted the arbitration procedure of the Society Slander 124 35.2 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Disciplinary Cases in Pennsylvania Monthly Meetings, 1682-1776 per Marietta, especially pages 6-7. % Disowned Offense Number Slaveholding 123 22.0 Fraud 118 58.1 Gambling 107 48.1 Disapproved company 81 75.0 Business ethics 64 70.3 Theft 61 60.0 Schism 54 28.8 Adultery 46 87.0 Miscellaneous 42 31.7 Ignoring Quaker arbitration (other than by going to law) 38 56.8 Oaths 35 60.0 Voluntary withdrawal 35 94.3 Courting and fraternizing 23 54.5 Holding public offices that entailed activity contrary to Quaker ethics 22 50.0 Lying 21 76.2 Disobeying parents 21 81.0 Dispensing liquor 21 23.8 Violating laws 17 17.6 Theological 15 20.0 Destroying property 11 36.4 Dress and speech 11 68.8 Fleeing master 9 76.2 Counterfeiting 7 57.1 Printing 7 71.4 Smuggling 6 50.0 Misuse of the First Day of the week 5 60.0 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Disownments in Hopewell M.M., 1760-1809 per Morse, BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING, pages 51-52 Number Offense 280 going out in marriage 132 fornication 5 adultery 5 other sexual immorality 41 drinking to excess 28 a combination of offenses 22 military service 19 attending or conniving at an irregular marriage 13 quarreling or fighting 13 dancing 13 joining another denomination 9 nonattendance of meetings 4 taking the test of allegiance 3 false accusation 2 dishonesty 2 killing a mare 2 attending places of diversion 2 horse-racing 1 failing in business 1 nonpayment of debts 1 refusal to arbitrate 1 going to law 1profanity 1wife-beating 1 striking a man in anger 1 wounding a man 1 gaming 1 lending money for gambling 1 administering oaths 1 buying slaves HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Disownments in Hopewell M.M., 1760-1809 per Morse, BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING, pages 51-52 Number Offense 1 permitting fiddling and dancing at one's home 1 appointing meetings and preaching HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Disownments in Fairfax M.M. and Goose Creek M.M., 1750-1799 per Morse, BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING, pages 52-53 Number Offense 247 going out in marriage 133 fornication 7 other sexual immorality 20 military service 18 quarreling and fighting 15 drinking to excess 14 a combination of offenses 13 frolicking and/or dancing 9 attending or conniving at an irregular marriage 8 nonattendance of meetings 6 nonpayment of debts 4 vile language or profanity 4 taking the test of allegiance 3 horse-racing 3 in connection with slavery 2 refusal to abide by award of arbitrators 2 betting or gaming 2 joining another society 2 disturbed meeting by preaching, etc. 1 fraudulent dealing 1 stealing 1slander 1 mistreatment of mother 1 taking an oath 1 paying priests’ wages 1 hiring a substitute 1 going to law 1 taking watermelons without leave HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Disownments in Fairfax M.M. and Goose Creek M.M., 1750-1799 per Morse, BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING, pages 52-53 Number Offense 1 denying authenticity of part of the Bible HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Disownments in Somerset M.M., 1820-1869 per Kenneth Morse, A HISTORY OF CONSERVATIVE FRIENDS (Barnesville, Ohio: Author, 1962), pages 29-30. Number Offense
142 going out in marriage
118 joining the Hicksites
28 joining another denomination
11 unchastity or fornication
10 nonattendance of meetings
9 attending or promoting a marriage contrary to discipline
7 nonattendance of meetings and departing from plainness of dress and address
6 military service
2 unjust dealing
1 adultery
1 offense regarding liquor
1 going to law
1 loose conduct
1dancing
1gambling
1fighting
1 attending a place of music and dancing
1 denying the divinity of Christ
1request
1 telling untruths HDT WHAT? INDEX
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B. SOME SAMPLE MINUTES OF DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1662
December 22, Monday:During this year, in the Mother Country, England, a Puritan plot to overthrow the monarchy had been discovered and not only were the English Quakers being rumored to have been involved, but one named Reginald Fawcett had in fact participated. In what may well have been the first technical use of the term “disown” by the Religious Society of Friends, Friend Francis Howgill was interrogated about the involvement of Reginald Fawcett and he informed the court officials that “Fawcett has been disowned by us these six years.”45 so nothing much had come of this in the form of additional persecutions for the Quakers in England. QUAKER DISOWNMENT
In the New England colony, however, in this year in which Friend Deborah Wilson was wandering the streets of Salem “naked as the day she came into the world” in order to dramatize to the Puritans the nakedness of their sin,46 the Puritans were installing a Quaker Act which would inaugurate a fresh period of religious persecution of Quaker dissenters.
During this year a total of three young Quaker women had come from England to Dover, where for six weeks they had been preaching in private residences against professional ministers, against restrictions on individual conscience, and against other established customs of the town. They controverted Dover’s Congregational minister, the Reverend John Reyner. One of the elders of 1st Church, Hatevil Nutter, had prepared a citizens’ petition “humbly craving relief against the spreading & the wicked errors of the Quakers among them.” The Crown Magistrate, Richard Waldron, ordered a severe punishment, including whippings in at least 11 towns and travel over 80 miles in bitterly cold weather. Constables John and Thomas Roberts of Dover seized the three women and carried out the punishment as instructed. George Bishop described the event: “Deputy Waldron caused these women to be stripped naked from the middle upwards, and tied to a cart, and after awhile cruelly whipped them, whilst the priest stood and looked and laughed at it.” Sewall’s HISTORY OF THE QUAKERS continues: “The women thus being whipped at Dover, were carried to Hampton and there delivered to the constable.... The constable the next morning would have whipped them before day, but they refused, saying they were not ashamed of their sufferings. Then he would have whipped them with their clothes on, when he
45. Braithwaite, William C. THE SECOND PERIOD OF QUAKERISM. York, England: William Sessions Ltd. with the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, 1979, page 30. 46. There is a 19th-Century update on this story. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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had tied them to the cart. But they said, “set us free, or do according to thine order. He then spoke to a woman to take off their clothes. But she said she would not for all the world. Why, said he, then I’ll do it myself....
So he stripped them, and then stood trembling whip in hand, and so he did the execution. Then he carried them to Salisbury through the dirt and the snow half the leg deep; and here they were whipped again. Indeed their bodies were so torn, that if Providence had not watched over them, they might have been in danger of their lives.” In Salisbury, Dr. Walter Barefoot convinced the constable to swear him in as a deputy, but after he had received the women and the warrant, what he did was put a stop to the punishment, instead dressing their wounds and returning them to the Maine side of the Piscataqua River. Eventually these three Quaker women would return to Dover and establish a worship group. In time, over a third of Dover’s citizens would become Quaker, and John Greenleaf Whittier would immortalize this suffering in poetry: How They Drove the Quaker Women from Dover The tossing spray of Cochecho’s falls Hardened to ice on its icy walls, As through Dover town, in the chill gray dawn, Three women passed, at the cart tail drawn, Bared to the waist, for the north wind’s grip HDT WHAT? INDEX
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And keener sting of the constables whip The blood that followed each hissing blow Froze as it sprinkled the winter snow. Priest and ruler, boy and maiden followed the dismal cavalcade; And from door and window, open thrown, Looked and wondered, gaffer and crone.
Friend Elizabeth Hooton, who had been tortured in the Bay Colony in 1661 under its previous Cart and Whip Law and who had then audaciously sailed to England and obtained an audience with King Charles II, and who had succeeded in persuading this English king to sign for her a letter about her rights, arrived in this year back HDT WHAT? INDEX
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in Boston harbor, accompanied by her adult daughter.
Authorities of the Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered her to be tied behind a cart, stripped to the waist, and whipped to the border of the colony. She returned, and was subjected to the lash, an incredible total of eight times, and a total of four times was abandoned in “the wilderness, to be devoured, where were bears and wolves, besides wild Indians” — but this 60-year-old Friend simply would not cease nor desist in her HDT WHAT? INDEX
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testimony. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Nor would other local Quaker women, inspired by her example, cease and desist.
There is at least a possibility that at least a decade prior to this event, Walden Pond (or Waldens Pond) in Walden Woods (or Waldens Wood) had being named after an owner, perhaps deputy sheriff Richard Waldron who was active in the Bay colony in the second half of the 17th Century. In witness of this, consider the following court order, followed by descriptive remarks as to the manner in which the order was carried out, from George Bishop’s NEW ENGLAND JUDGED BY THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD, something printed in London in 1703 describing a persecution of the Religious Society of Friends that had been initiated in Dover NH on this day, December 22, 1662. First we will consider the order itself, then the manner of its implementation:
To the constables of Dover NH, Hampton, Salisbury NH, Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, Lynn, Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, and until these Vagabond-Quakers are carried out of this jurisdiction: YOU, and every one of you, are required in the King’s Majesty’s Name, to take the Vagabond-Quakers, Ann Coleman, Mary Tompkins, Alice Ambrose, and make them fast to the cart’s tail, and driving the cart through your several towns, to whip them on their backs, not exceeding ten stripes apiece in each town, and so convey them from constable to constable till they come out of this jurisdiction, as you will answer it at your peril; and this shall be your warrant. Per me, RICHARD WALDEN
On the following screen is presented what the source NEW ENGLAND JUDGED BY THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD has to say as to the actual manner of implementation of this official named Walden’s warrant to the constables:
[see following screen] HDT WHAT? INDEX
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SO, on a very cold day, your deputy, Walden, caused these women to be stripped from the middle upward, and tied to a cart, and after a while cruelly whipped them; which some of their friends seeing testified against, for which Walden put two of them in the stocks. Having despatched them in this town, [Deputy Richard Walden] made way to carry them over the waters and through the woods to another. The women denied to go unless they had a copy of their warrant. So your executioner sought to set them on horseback, but they slid off. Then they endeavored to tie each to a man on horseback; that would not do either, nor any course they took, till the copy was given them; insomuch that he was almost wearied with them. But the copy being given them, they went with the executioner. And through dirt and snow at Salisbury NH, half-way the leg deep, the constable forced them after the cart’s tail, at which he whipped them. Under which cruelty and sore usage, the tender women traversing their way through all was a hard spectacle to those who had in them anything of tenderness. But the presence of the Lord was with them, in the extremity of their sufferings, that they sung in the midst of them, to the astonishment of their enemies. At Hampton, William Fifield, the constable, the next morning would have whipped them before day, but they refused, saying that they were not ashamed of their sufferings. Then he would have whipped them on their clothes, contrary to the warrant, when he had them at the cart. But they said, “Set us free, or do according to thy order,” which was to whip them on their naked backs. Then he spake to a woman to take off their clothes. The woman said she would not do it for all the world, and so did other women deny to do it. Then he said, “I profess, I will do it myself.” So he stripped them, and then stood trembling, with the whip in his hand, as a man condemned, and did the execution in that condition. Now, amongst the rest of the spectators, Edward Wharton, beholding their torn bodies and weary steps, and yet no remorse in their persecutors, could not withhold, but testified against them, seeing this bloody engagement. Whereupon one of your officers said, “Edward Wharton, what do you here?” “I am here,” answered Edward, “to see your wickedness and cruelty, that so if you kill them, I may be able to declare how you murdered them.” But the Lord unexpectedly wrought a way at that time to deliver them out of the tyrants’ hands, so through three towns only were they whipped, but cruelly, and then they were discharged. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1681
As an example of Quaker disownment, here is one that was announced in this year at the Castledermot monthly meeting: “These are to certify to all People where this Writing may come, that whereas A.B. hath for divers years gone under the denomination of a Quaker, and yet in several things hath walked disorderly, and more especially hath been subject to the vile and notorious Sin of Drunkenness; and tho’ he hath from time to time, for the space of ten years and upwards, been very tenderly admonished, both privately and publickly, yet still he persists and is subject to be overcome by that notorious Sin, to the great Dishonour of God, his Truth and People, and to the saddening of the Hearts of the Upright,... we can do no less than declare against him and his evil course of Life; and hereby signify unto all the World, that we do disown him and all such unsavoury Members and actions as he is found in. And the Lord our God, in whose Presence we are knows that this is not done in any Rashness or Prejudice towards him as a man, but in very much Tenderness and Humility. — And if it shall please God so to work upon his Heart and Spirit that he be made sensible of his Sin and Transgression, and come, thro’ Judgment, unto true and unfeigned Repentance and Amendment of Life, and, in true Penitency and Brokenness of Spirit, seek Reconciliation again with the Lord and his People, we shall in the same tenderness and unfeigned Love be glad and willing to receive him, as the Father did his prodigal Son, into Favour and Fellowship again, until which time we do Deny and Disown him and his Actions, and cannot account or esteem him to be one of us.”47 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS DRUNKENNESS
47. Quoted in John Rutty, TREATISE CONCERNING CHURCH DISCIPLINE (1752), pages 129-131. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1687
As an example of an acknowledgment of Quaker Disownment in the American colonies, here is one that was duly received and placed on file in this year at the Upperside monthly meeting: “Whereas I G.B. of Chesham, having for divers years made Profession of the holy Truth and way of God wch ye People called Quakers walk in, have of late, through my unfaithfullness to ye Principle I professed, joyned myself in Marriage (with) one who is not in the same Profession of Religion, & have gone to the Priest for the accomplishing therof, agt. the perswasion & conviction of my own Conscience; wherby I have greatly offended God, caused the way of Truth to be evil spoken off, grieved his People among whom I walked, broken my own peace, & drawn the displeasure of the Lord upon myself, to my great trouble & sorrow: In the sense wherof, I do freely acknowledge ye Evill I have done & do sincerely declare yt I am heartily sorry for it. Nevertheless, I do hereby declare, yt I hold myself firmly bound, before God and men, to keep ye promise I made unto my husband in Marriage, & with full purpose of heart do intend to be unto him a loving and faithfull wife, according to the Covenant made between us.”48 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
48.UPPERSIDE MINUTE BOOK, page 198, 1st of 11th month, 1687/8. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1692
The Reverend Benjamin Keach’s hymnbook provoked heated debate in the Assembly of Particular Baptists.
As an example of Quaker Disownment, here is one that was announced in this year: The Quaker street preacher George Keith was disowned by Friends. He went to England and became an Anglican, developing a doctrine that Quakerism was overemphasizing the inward Christ and paying too little attention to the historic Christ recorded in the Gospels. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS Friend George Keith’s AN ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT DIVISIONS AMONGST THE QUAKERS IN PENSILVANIA.
There is a pamphlet entitled NEW ENGLAND SPIRIT OF PERSECUTION TRANSMITTED TO PENNSYLVANIA AND THE PRETENDED QUAKERS FOUND PERSECUTING THE TRUE CHRISTIAN QUAKER, IN THE TRYAL OF PETER BOSS, GEORGE KEITH, THOMAS BUDD AND WILLIAM BRADFORD, AT THE SESSYONS HELD AT PHILADELPHIA, THE NINTH, TENTH, AND TWELFTH DAYS OF DECEMBER, 1692. GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF THE MOST ARBITRARY PROCEEDINGS OF THAT COURT. Here is the description of the origins of that pamphlet: In 1689, [William] Bradford lived in the city. A quarto pamphlet by George Keith, respecting the New England churches, printed by Bradford in Philadelphia in that year, is the oldest book I [John Watson] have seen, printed in the city. In the year 1692, much contention prevailed among the Quakers in Philadelphia, and Bradford took an active part in the quarrel. George Keith, by birth a Scotchman, a man of good abilities and well educated, was surveyor general in New Jersey; and the Society of Friends in this city employed him in 1689, as the superintendent of their schools. Keith, having attended this duty nearly two years, became a public speaker in their religious assemblies; but being, as the Quakers asserted, of a turbulent and overbearing spirit, he gave them much trouble. They forbade him speaking as a teacher or minister in their meetings; this, and some other irritating circumstances, caused a division among the Friends, and the parties were greatly hostile to each other. Bradford was of the party which was attached to Keith, and supported him; their opponents were the majority. Among them were the Lieutenant Governor Lloyd, and most of the Quaker magistrates. Keith and Thomas Budd wrote against the majority, and Bradford published their writings. Keith was condemned in the city meetings, but he appealed to the general meeting of the Friends; and in order that his case might be generally known and understood, he wrote an address to the Quakers, which he caused to be printed, and copies of it to be dispersed among the Friends, previous to their general meeting. This conduct was highly resented by his opponents; the address was called HDT WHAT? INDEX
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seditious, and Bradford was arrested and imprisoned for printing it. The sheriff seized a form containing four quarto pages of the types of the address; he also took into his custody a quantity of paper, and a number of books, which were in Bradford’s shop, with all the copies of the address which he could find. The civil authority took up the business; and as Keith and Bradford stated the facts, they who opposed them in the religious assemblies, condemned and imprisoned them by civil process — the judges of the courts being the leading characters in the meetings. Several of Keith’s party were apprehended and imprisoned with Bradford; and among them, Thomas Budd and John Macomb. The offence of the latter consisted in his having two copies of the address, which he gave to two friends in compliance with their request. The following was the warrant for committing Bradford and Macomb: Whereas William Bradford, printer, and John Macomb, tailor, being brought before us upon an information of publishing, uttering and spreading a malicious and seditious paper entitled, an Appeal from the twenty- eight judges to the Spirit of Truth &c. Tending to the disturbance of the peace and the subversion of the present government, and the said persons being required to give securitie to answer it at the next court, but they refused so to do. These are therefore by the King and Queen’s authoritie and in our proprietary’s name, to require you to take into your custody the bodies of William Bradford and John Macomb, and them safely keep till they shall be discharged by due courts of law. Whereof fail not at your peril; and for your so doing, this shall be your sufficient warrant. Given under our hands and seals this 24th of August 1692. “These to John White, Sheriff of Philadelphia, or his deputies.” [Signed by Arthur Cook and four others.] The day after the imprisonment of Bradford and his friends, a “Private Sessions” as it was called, of the county court was held by six Justices, all Quakers, who, to put a just complexion on their proceedings, requested the attendance of two magistrates who were not Quakers. This court assembled, it seems, for the purpose of convicting Keith, Budd, and their connexions, of seditious conduct; but the two magistrates who were not Quakers, if we credit Keith and Bradford, reprobated the measure, and refused to have any concern in it, declaring, that the whole transaction was a mere dispute among the Quakers respecting their religion, in which the government had no concern. They, however, advised that Keith and others accused should be sent for, and allowed to defend themselves, and affirmed that if any thing like sedition appeared in their HDT WHAT? INDEX
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practice, they would join heart and hand in their prosecution. To this the Quaker magistrates would not consent, and the others in consequence left the court. The court then, as is stated in a pamphlet, “proceded in their work, and as they judged George Keith in their spiritual court without all hearing or trial, so in like manner they prosecuted him in their temporal court without all hearing.” The pamphlet further states that “one of the judges declared that the court could judge of matter of fact without evidence, and therefore, without more to do, proclaimed George Keith by the common cryer, in the market place, to be a seditious person, and an enemy to the King and Queen’s government.” There is a mention of another dustup over the printing of derogatory materials. These guys evidently were playing hardball: In 1702, William Bradford is spoken of in Samuel Bonas’ Journal, as having combined with George Keith to have Bonas prosecuted and imprisoned on Long Island. Bonas says he was dispossessed of his place as printer for Friends, and was disowned because of his contentions among them at Philadelphia. Andrew Bradford, his son, began “the Weekly Mercury,” the first city gazette, in 1719 in conjunction with John Copson. In 1725, he was arraigned before the Council, concerning a late pamphlet, entitled “Some Remedies proposed for restoring the sunk credit of the province”; and also for printing a certain paragraph in his Mercury of the second of January. The Governor informed him he must not thereafter publish any thing relating to affairs of this government without permission from him or his Secretary; to which he promising submission, the subject was dismissed. About this time he held the place of Postmaster. The father (William) and the son (Andrew) are thus spoken of in Keimer’s poetic effusion of the year 1734, saying ——— “In Penn’s wooden country Type feels no disaster, The Printers grow rich; one is made their Post Master; His father, a Printer, is paid for his work, And wallows in plenty, just now, at New York, Though quite past his labour, and old as my Grannum, The Government pays him, pounds sixty per annum.” This preacher evidently also converted some Baptists to his way of thinking: Some very old tombstones are still in existence near Crescentville, in Bristol township, on the country seat of James N. Dickson, which have been intended to designate the remains of a mother and her two sons of the name of Price, of Welsh origin, who died there in 1702. They were members of the community of Seventh-day Baptists — the same which afterwards took the name of Keithian Baptists, from their union in sentiment with George Keith, who had been a Friend. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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There is evidently in addition some book about the Baptist faith by the Reverend Morgan Edwards (I’m sorry, I don’t have the title of this book but it was published in 1770), which contains a description of the followers of Friend George Keith.
E.W. Kirby would write a biography of Friend George in the 1940s.
According to Geoffrey Kaiser’s “Society of Friends in North America” chart, the “Christian Quakers” collapsed after their leader, Friend George Keith, joined the Anglicans. But according to H.E. Wildes’s biography of Friend William Penn (page 268): Keith had had quite enough of Pennsylvania, where Quakers cherished “more damnable heresies and doctrines of the devil” than members of any other Protestant sect. He could no longer tolerate, he said, the “fools, ignorant heathens, infidels, silly souls, liars, heretics, rotten Ranters, Muggletonians” who made up the Society of Friends. He forsook the Society of Friends, had himself baptized an Anglican and, still wearing Quaker costumes, preached in England for the Established Church.... Some of Keith’s followers, unwilling to follow him out of the Quaker movement, set up a separate organization, the Christian Quakers, which continued for more than two centuries before re-entering the main body of the Society of Friends. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1713
On Nantucket Island, Friend Tabitha Trott Frost incautiously married again, to a Dr. Joseph Brown, despite the fact that her previous husband, a privateer, had been considered lost at sea for only a few years. The absent husband, John Frost, would turn up shortly, leading to a charge of bigamy against the wife. Friend Tabitha had not been disowned when her husband became a privateer in defiance of the Peace Testimony and had not been disowned for marrying a non-Quaker, but this was her third strike and she was out! She would be disowned by the Nantucket monthly meeting, and would move with her new husband the doctor to Newport, Rhode Island. This is on record as the first disownment ever, in the Nantucket meeting. Tabitha’s mother would in shame no longer seat herself on the special bench for the meeting’s elders. QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1716
As an example of an acknowledgement of Quaker disownment, and penitence hopefully leading to reinstatement in the community, here is a statement having to do with a premarital pregnancy that was duly received and placed on file in this year at the Kennett monthly meeting: RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS To the Monthly Meeting, &c. Inasmuch as it hath been requested of me why I was not married according to the order used among us, my reasons are great. I would I had them not to excuse myself in this behalf, they are so plain and so manifest, having been unlawfully concerned with her that is now my wife before marriage. For the which deed I am right sorry as God knows. This I give forth for the clearing of Friends and the Truth. As witness my hand, T.S.49
49. Quoted in Ruth M. Pitman, “Structures of Accountability,” QUAKER RELIGIOUS THOUGHT #60 (Summer 1985), pages 34-35. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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The Quaker meetinghouse on Nantucket Island, erected in 1711, was expanded at this point so that it would seat the more than 300 Friends who desired to take part in silent worship. At this point some Quakers of the Newport, Rhode Island community were engaging in the “triangular trade,” involving as one of its legs the bulk manufacture of rum and as another of its legs the international slave trade,50 and some black slaves were present on Nantucket, where at least one Quaker, Friend Stephen Hussey, was a slaveholder. During this year an Englishman, Friend John Farmer, was making a missionary tour of the colonies attempting to persuade us that chattel slavery was “not in agreement with Truth.” Winning the support of Friend Priscilla Starbuck Coleman, Friend John was able to persuade the monthly meeting on the island into a minute depicting enslavement as immoral. It was “not agreeable to Truth for Friends to purchase slaves and keep them for a term of life.”51 This declaration made the Nantucket monthly meeting the 1st group of Friends anywhere in the world to disavow human enslavement, but it would seem that the island’s Quakers would fall back somewhat from their commitment to racial fairness, for some sixteen years, while Friend John’s success on the island
50. Below appears the rotting hulk of the slave ship Jem, as of the Year of Our Lord 1891 at Fort Adams near Newport on Aquidneck Island:
51. Refer to Friend Henry J. Cadbury’s JOHN FARMER’S FIRST AMERICAN JOURNEY, published in Worcester in 1944. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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would not be matched by any great success on the mainland of the American colonies — in fact, in the Philadelphia meeting, he would be put under dealing (visited by an official committee and struggled with), and he would, eventually, be publicly disowned by the Friends. Furthermore, the Friends in England would honor the American disownment, so that Friend John would come to be regarded as troublesome on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. ABOLITIONISM
Flushing Quakers who would speak out against slavery would include Friend Horseman Mullenix and Friend Matthew Franklin, who would come with another antislavery Friend John, an American one, Friend John Woolman (not yet born), when he would travel on Paumanok Long Island and visit their monthly meeting to speak against slavery.
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1717
The 2d disownment in the Nantucket Island monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends occurred when Friend Stephen Hussey and Friend Stephen Coffin, Jr. became embroiled in a dispute over the ownership of some land. Rather than follow the established practice, that such disputes were to be resolved by the meeting rather than by resort to civil courts, Friend Hussey took the case to law. He even would have some of the Quaker selectmen taken under arrest. A Quaker elder, Jethro Starbuck, would be appointed to mediate, and when this mediation would not be successful, Friend Hussey would be disowned. The disownment would occur during Hussey’s 82d year. QUAKER DISOWNMENT
The old Quaker would send his son George to study the law at Harvard College, the intent being to achieve the destruction of the Nantucket Proprietary that had ruled against him, but this son would be expelled from Harvard — after having, crime of all crimes, been discovered during an election-day revel attired as a woman. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1720
As an example of Quaker Disownment, here is one that was announced in this year at the Dublin monthly meeting: “Whereas E.F. hath made Profession of Truth several years, but by giving too much opportunity of Familiarity and Conversation on account of Marriage with A.B. who for committing Uncleanness with a young Woman, and afterwards refusing to marry her according to Justice, was testified against and disowned to be of us the People called Quakers, hath suffered herself, in a disorderly manner, to be joyned unto the said A.B. as his Wife, to the defrauding of the said young Woman of her Right, being yet Unmarried; we do hereby declare, that the said E.F. by her so going hath gone out of Fellowship with us the said People, and we cannot own her to be of our Society, until, by unfeigned Repentance, she obtain Mercy of the Lord, which that she may is our sincere Desire.”52 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
52.QUAKER RELIGIOUS THOUGHT #60 (Summer 1985), pages 131-132. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1738
As an example of an acknowledgement of Quaker Disownment, here is one that was duly received and placed on file in this year at the Concord (Pennsylvania) monthly meeting: J.T. offered an acknowledgment for his “going to a man [soothsayer] to be informed concerning my horse. I can only say I had no desire he should make use of any bad art in that affair; and if he could not tell me anything by his learning in an honest way to go no further. Likewise I was ignorant of Friends’ rules in that affair: But being better informed, hope for the future not to fall into the like again.”53
RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
53.Quoted in Howard H. Brinton, MEETINGHOUSE AND FARM HOUSE, Pendle Hill Pamphlet #185 (1972), page 25. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1741
As an example of Quaker Disownment, here is one that was announced in this year at the Goshen monthly meeting: J.Y. disowned because he hath given way to a libertine spirit as to strip off his shirt in order to fight with another person with blows at a public house they being playing a game called hustle cap. John informed he must make a public acknowledgment, refused, saying he was assured to be at his liberty. And was disowned.54 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
54. Quoted in Howard H. Brinton, MEETINGHOUSE AND FARM HOUSE, Pendle Hill Pamphlet #185 (1972), page 29. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1751
As an example of an acknowledgement of Quaker Disownment, here is one that was duly received and placed on file in this year at the Wilmington monthly meeting, which hopefully led to J.W.’s reinstatement in the community: Friends, — Whereas I contended with my neighbor, W.S., for what I apprehended to be my right, by endeavoring to turn a certain stream of water into its natural course, till it arose to a personal difference; in which dispute I gave way to warmth of temper so far as to put my friend W. into the pond; for which action of mine, being contrary to the good order of Friends, I am sorry, and desire, through Divine assistance, to live in unity with him for the future. From your friend, J.W.55 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
55. Quoted in Ezra Michener, A RETROSPECT OF EARLY QUAKERISM (Philadelphia: Zell, 1860), pages 185-186; also Ruth M. Pitman, “Structures of Accountability,” QUAKER RELIGIOUS THOUGHT #60 (Summer 1985), page 35. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1761
Although by his marriage he had gained control over 17,000 acres of farmland and 286 slaves (this man had previously owned only 30 human beings), and although he had harvested and shipped his first cash crop, George Washington had gone deep into debt — because the British buyers had been unimpressed by the quality of his tobacco.
A Quaker counted a total of 1,027 Quaker families in Rhode Island, including Nantucket Island, and a total of 1,146 Quaker families living elsewhere in New England. Despite the continuing ownership of slaves by Quaker families, at this point those who traded in slaves were being disowned.
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1763
In this year Friend John Woolman wrote A PLEA FOR THE POOR, andwarnedtheQuakers of Nantucket Island to beware of small pox inoculation and other such worldly practices that might display a suspicious lack of faith in God’s provenance.
Those who inoculated their children against the disease, he recommended, should be disowned and driven from the faith community.56 (Ironically, in 1772, while attending a Quaker meeting in England, Friend John
56. JOURNAL, Chapter IX 1763-1769 “Account of John Smith’s Advice and of the Proceeding of a Committee at the Yearly Meeting in 1764. Contemplations on the Nature of True Wisdom. Visit to the Families of Friends at Mount Holly, Mansfield, and Burlington, and to the Meetings on the Sea-Coast from Cape May towards Squan. Some Account of Joseph Nichols and his Followers. On the different State of the first Settlers in Pennsylvania who depended on their own Labour, compared with those of the Southern Provinces who kept Negroes. Visit to the Northern Parts of New Jersey and the Western Parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania, also to the Families of Friends at Mount Holly and several Parts of Maryland. Further Considerations on Keeping Slaves, and his Concern for having been a Party to the Sale of One. Thoughts on Friends exercising Offices in Civil Government.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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would die of the small pox.) QUAKER DISOWNMENT
Here is an attitude Friend John expressed toward the frivolous arts: “There came a man to Mount Holly who had previously published a printed advertisement that at a certain public-house he would show many wonderful operations, which were therein enumerated. At the appointed time he did, by sleight of hand, perform sundry things which appeared strange to the spectators. Understanding that the show was to be repeated the next night, and that the people were to meet about sunset, I felt an exercise on that account. So I went to the public-house in the evening, and told the man of the house that I had an inclination to spend a part of the evening there; with which he signified that he was content. Then, sitting down by the door, I spoke to the people in the fear of the Lord, as they came together, concerning this show, and laboured to convince them that their thus assembling to see these sleight-of-hand tricks, and bestowing their money to support men who, in that capacity, were of no use to the world, was contrary to the nature of the Christian religion. One of the company endeavoured to show by arguments the reasonableness of their proceedings herein; but after considering some texts of Scripture and calmly debating the matter he gave up the point. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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After spending about an hour among them, and feeling my mind easy, I departed.”57
57. “Religious Conversation with a Company met to see the Tricks of a Juggler” in JOURNAL, ed. Rufus Jones. Available online. A slightly different version is found in THE JOURNAL AND MAJOR ESSAYS OF JOHN WOOLMAN, ed. Phillips P. Moulton (Richmond IN: Friends United Press, 1989) 138f. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1765
Friend Timothy Matlack was disowned by the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. He would in 1781 help to form the Society of Free Quakers. Here is his portrait, done in 1826 by Charles Willson Peale, in which he at the age of 86 walking with the use of a cane has donned the “liberty cap” in order to display his politics:
As an example of Quaker Disownment, here is one that was announced in this year at the New Garden monthly meeting: Whereas, W.M. hath had his education among us, and been deemed a member of our Society, but for want of enough regarding the dictates of Truth in his heart, which would have preserved him from evil, and enabled him to live a life of integrity and self- denial, he hath given way to his libertine inclinations, so far as to neglect his lawful business, and too much practice jockeying or dealing in horses, and several other things tending to a vain and idle life; whereby he involved himself in debt, and became unable to satisfy his creditors, by paying their just demands; and hath also, for a considerable time, almost wholly absented himself from our religious meetings, and doth not keep to the plain language, nor appear convinced of the necessity thereof; all which being reproachful, we disown him,....58 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
58. Quoted in Ezra Michener, A RETROSPECT OF EARLY QUAKERISM (Philadelphia: Zell, 1860), pages 189-190. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1767
Charles Lynch had been born in 1736 into what would seem to have been a Roman Catholic family on a plantation in Virginia. By 1754, while Charles was about eighteen years of age, his mother Sarah Clark Lynch had begun to invite neighbors into her home to worship in the Quaker manner. There is, however, no mention of her husband’s involvement in such religious activities. In 1757, three years later, while her son Charles was about 21 years of age, these people had organized South River Meetinghouse as a monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, and Charles would have been considered as a member of that body. However, in this year, when Charles won election to the Virginia House of Burgesses, this participation in civil government of course led to his disownment, since at that time Quakers were not allowing themselves to take the requisite oaths or to hold such public office. (Had he not been disowned for this, then certainly he would have been disowned later for taking part in the revolutionary fighting, if not for owning slaves.) Therefore, when he served as a district Judge during the revolutionary fighting, he was in no sense acting as a Quaker. It should be mentioned, also, that while Judge Lynch did in those hectic times dispense a “summary” sort of justice, what he dispensed was never capital punishment: there is no record of his having ordered that any person brought before him be hanged or otherwise executed. The stories of the tree in the yard, the one which was used after court as the hanging tree, are to the best of my knowledge merely further accretions to the nice legend of “Lynch Law,” and are to be dismissed alongside the ridiculous accretion “Judge Lynch was a Quaker.”
In this year Cesare Beccaria, in ON CRIMES AND PUNISHMENT, was insisting that there was no justification for the state’s taking of life. Soon capital punishment would be abolished in Austria and in Tuscany. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1770
In the previous year the South Kingstown, Rhode Island monthly meeting had taken the issue of abolitionism in New England to the New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, which had appointed a committee to study the matter and report back in the following year. At this year’s meeting, the committee recommended that all New England Quakers manumit all slaves owned by them, excepting only the very old and the very young. The Yearly Meeting embraced this recommendation.59
Up in the northern reaches of the Rhode Island colony, in Cumberland, motherless Friend Jemimah Wilkinson, age 18, was very happy that this was happening. She was decidedly opposed to human slavery. However, apparently without as much parental guidance as she needed, she was also being caught up emotionally in the religious re-awakening that was following the visits of the Reverend George Whitefield to New England. She would be becoming involved with the New Light Baptists of Ledyard, Connecticut, known also as “Rogerenes.” Her attendance at such meetings would lead in August 1776 to her being disowned by her Quaker meeting, the Smithfield, Rhode Island monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends — and then she would in effect transform herself into a New-Age “channeler” for a spirit from the Other World, and create her own religious climate centered around her own person and her own personal whims.60
59. For the benefit of non-Quakers, I need to point out what this means. It means that there was not one single Friend who was so troubled by this as to stand in its way! HDT WHAT? INDEX
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60. Examples of this sort of religious misconduct have always abounded. There has been, for instance, in our own time, “Judge” J.F. Rutherford of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society who channeled bigtime by receiving the concealed true meanings of Scripture direct from God as the occasion arose, and there has been the bestselling Jane Roberts, a housewife from upstate New York who was channeling “Seth,” and there has been the touring-circuit phenomenon J.Z. Knight who was channeling a Cro- Magnon warrior who identified himself as “Ramtha,” and of course, there has been the indefatigable and terminally enthusiastic Shirley MacLaine. The spiritual entities channeled have been variously assigned inventive names such as Ashtar, Aurora, Bashar, Emmanuel, Jesus, K17, Kuthumi, Lazarus, Lily, Mafu, Mary, Mentor, Merlin, Monka, Phebious, Ra, Ramtha, St. Germaine, Zolar, Zoosh — and in this indicated early instance in a Quaker or Baptist context, “Divine Spirit.” (You know the old one about how many legs a dog has, if you call its tail a leg, the answer being four and the reason being that calling a tale a leg doesn’t make it a leg? Well, in this context, calling self-privileging by the name “Divine Spirit,” in very much the same manner, doesn’t evade the sin of self-privileging.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1772
September: The Smithfield monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, of which former Rhode Island Governor Stephen Hopkins was at least nominally a member (as, for instance, President Richard Milhouse Nixon was at least nominally a birthright member of the Friends Church in Whittier, California –since his mother had been a member at the time of his birth– despite the fact that he had nothing whatever to do with Quakers and in fact refused to visit with committees coming to Washington DC to plead with him about such topics as the bombing of Cambodia), took Friend Stephen under dealing for his refusal to manumit his black personal manservant and slaves Toney. QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1773
January 28, Thursday: A couple of Quaker men who had been delegated to visit Governor Stephen Hopkins, and elder him about his not as yet having manumitted his black servant in accordance with the Quaker Query as to SLAVERY Noninvolvement in Slavery, reported back to the Smithfield, Rhode Island monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends that the governor “desires Friends not to act hastily.” (Does that mean “Can’t you wait until the polls close”?) QUAKER DISOWNMENT
March: Friend Stephen Hopkins, a former governor of Rhode Island, instead of manumitting his slave Toney, was still pleading special circumstances after 6 months of being dealt with. On account of this impasse, in this month the Smithfield monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends decided that they needed at this point to take action. If he continued to resist, then the clerk, Friend Moses Farnum, and an associate, were to draw up a “Paper of Denial” that would notify Rhode Islanders that the governor was no longer in unity with his Quaker associates.
QUAKER DISOWNMENT This all seems strange to us now. What was going on back then? The Smithfield, Rhode Island Quakers had not disowned Hopkins when time after time he had compromised their Testimony Against Swearing by taking an oath of office as Governor. The Smithfield Friends had not disowned Hopkins when he had compromised the Quaker Peace Testimony by directing the Rhode Island war effort in the Great War for the Empire, nor for seeking a defensive union of the English North American colonies. At this late date allofasudden they are acting against him but they are taking their own sweet time about it, taking him under dealing in September HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1772 and taking half a year to reach a decision to disown him — and they wouldn’t get around to making it public knowledge that he was being disowned for another 5 months, in October 1773! Now, Quakers are notoriously slow to be sure, but this is ridiculous — what was going on? Perhaps we may take some sort of clue from the fact that a published work of Quaker history (real trees killed to make real paper) has alleged that he was being disciplined “for refusing to free a slave woman who had small children. Hopkins insisted on retaining ownership until her children no longer needed her care.”61 Can you smell Fake Facts? Who was this slave woman and who were her small children? —They appear exactly nowhere in our historical record. Hopkins’s black manservant, whom he would not free, was named Toney Hopkins. When Stephen Hopkins would die more than a decade later on July 13, 1785, this Toney would not yet be in possession of his manumission document!
April 29, Thursday: The “Paper of Denial” constructed by clerk Moses Farnum and an associate (Friend George Comstock) was presented to the business meeting of the Smithfield monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, and the group put off for a month its decision on the matter of the disownment of the governor of the colony of Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Hopkins, until its meeting in June. QUAKER DISOWNMENT
61. Charles Rappleye, in his recent SONS OF PROVIDENCE: THE BROWN BROTHERS, THE SLAVE TRADE, AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2006, page 142), quotes the phrase “still refuses to set her at liberty tho often requested.” I wonder if he has actually looked at these holographic minutes at the Rhode Island Historical Society on Hope Street in Providence, Rhode Island, for I am unable myself in them to make out this word he has alleged, “her.” I find there to be nothing whatever in the record to suggest that the slave in question was female. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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June 24, Thursday: At the previous business meeting of the Smithfield monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, approval of the “Paper of Denial” disowning Governor Stephen Hopkins for his failure to manumit his black slave62 had been deferred. At this meeting “the matter concerning the Testimony of Stephen Hopkins’ Denial was considered, and said Testimony was approved of.” Hopkins finally had been disowned. QUAKER DISOWNMENT
However, the sole purpose of such a disownment is as a notification to the general surrounding Rhode Island community that such and such a person was no longer a Friend — and in this sensitive case the community was not notified. The community would not be informed of this action until October.
October: The Smithfield monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, that had in March decided to disown a famous former governor of Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Hopkins, at this point revealed that he had been disowned.63 QUAKER DISOWNMENT
62. We note that this Quaker document falsely uses the singular feminine, “her,” when in fact according to the census of 1774 Hopkins owned not one but six slaves, and when in fact according to the manumission document created at the Town Hall by his step-daughter after Hopkins’s death, one of those six had been “Toney,” a male. Clearly the Quakers had not only been improperly delaying their announcement of the disownment of this public figure, but also had been putting the best possible face on this by a not overcareful attention to the truth. (Subsequent Quaker literature has made much of the “historical facts” that since Hopkins was refusing to manumit only one person, and since that one person was female, then obviously there were special considerations to which we are no longer privy — he must have been attempting, by not freeing “her,” to tenderly protect “her” from the cold cruel world!) 63. Between 1775 and 1784 we would disown 147 Quakers who would become in one way or another involved with this civil disruption — in fact we would be less tolerant of this error of patriotic violence than we had been of Quaker slaveholding. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1774
In about this timeframe Hugh Finlay described the condition of the post in and around Rhode Island. FINLAY’S DESCRIPTION
The geographer to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Thomas Jefferys, created this map:
CAPE COD On Nantucket Island, Dr. Samuel Gelston was administering inoculations against the small pox. The Religious Society of Friends there was searching out any Quakers who were receiving such inoculations, and disowning them for their display of lack of trust in the provenance of God. For instance, Friend Silvanus Macy, and Friend Benjamin Coffin’s son Micajah, were disowned. There were so many disownments during this year that, at the suggestion of Friend William Rotch, a prominent businessman, there was a streamlining of the process of disownment. It would no longer be necessary to achieve a public reading of the charges prior to such an action. QUAKER DISOWNMENT
June 28, Tuesday: Evidently there had been some problems in the friendly persuasion of those Rhode Island Quakers who still held slaves and had been refusing to manumit them, because the official visits that appointed “Visitors” had been making to the households of these Quakers were at this point indefinitely “suspended.” QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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August: In Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene helped to organize a militia company that would acquire the name “Kentish Guards,” and at some point due to this he would request of his East Greenwich Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends that he be “put from under the care of Friends.” Because of his limp, his fellow militiamen would deny him a lieutenancy, with some holding that even as a mere private his limp would make him more of a liability to their outfit than an asset to it. QUAKER DISOWNMENT
Hmmm. His statue doesn’t look much like it is of a guy who limps along — or does it?
November 23, Wednesday: Still-extant records of the Dover, New Hampshire monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends include the wedding of Caesar Sankey and Sarah Sharp. This notation has been taken by some incautious historians to indicate that this African American couple had been recognized as Quakers — but in fact it indicates no such thing. (In addition, a notation dating to February 1777, of the disownment of Caesar Sankey for his “going into the war,” has been taken by some incautious historians to indicate that he had been recognized as a Friend — but in fact such a record likewise indicates no such positive thing, indicating merely that the general public needed to be alerted, for he might have been in some manner considered by them to have been marginally associated with this monthly meeting. The general rule, that Quakerism was for the white folks only, governed during this entire timeframe. Had Caesar Sankey or Sarah Sharp ever been considered by any of their contemporaries to have been Quakers, we most assuredly would now be able to discover in the record an abundance of commentary pro and con about that peculiarity.) QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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December 27, Tuesday: The Quakers dissolved their old, inactive committee to visit the homes of slaveholding Friends and remonstrate with them, appealing to their consciences, and a new such committee was appointed. Although members would be granted plenty of time, if they did not eventually manumit their black slaves they would be disowned. RHODE ISLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1775
During the American Revolution there were some Americans who considered it necessary to guard the shoreline of the mainland, and Nantucket Island, against seizure of property by British foraging parties based on Aquidneck Island in Narragansett Bay. We don’t know how effective this fighting was in protecting American property from the British, but Quakers of course refused to contribute to the cost of such protection, and therefore there were 496 cases of seizure of the goods of peace-testimony Quakers in Rhode Island by local revolutionary authorities. In 1778 the property thus distrained from members of New England Yearly Meeting by local American authorities amounted to £2,473, while in 1779 the total distraint rose to £3,453. For instance, here are some of the revolutionary seizures made of property of ancestors of Quaker families of Providence monthly meeting: • In 1775, local revolutionary authorities seized a dictionary belonging to Friend Thomas Lapham, Jr. of Smithfield. • In 1775, local revolutionary authorities seized 5 pairs of women’s shoes belonging to Friend Paul Green of East Greenwich. • In 1776, local revolutionary authorities would seize the fire tongs of Friend Stephen Hoxsie of South Kingstown, as he was the guardian of John Foster but John had not mustered during an alarm. • Between 1777 and 1782, local revolutionary authorities would seize 7 cows, 5 heifers, and 2 table cloths belonging to Friend Simeon Perry of South Kingstown. • In 1777, local revolutionary authorities would seize a mare worth £30 belonging to Friend John Foster of South Kingstown. • In 1777, local revolutionary authorities would seize 3 felt hats belonging to Friend John Carey of East Greenwich. • In 1780, local revolutionary authorities would seize a silver porringer belonging to Friend Isaac Lawton of Portsmouth. • Between 1780 and 1782, local revolutionary authorities would seize 29 boxes of spermaceti candles, 20 yards of white linen sheeting, 14 yards of kersey, 16 sides of sole leather, a 3-year-old heifer, and 2 stacks of hay belonging to Friend Moses Brown of Providence. • In 1781, local revolutionary authorities would seize 9 sheep and 2 steers belonging to Friend Amos Collins of South Kingstown. • In 1781, local revolutionary authorities would seize 2 ox chains and an ax belonging to Friend George Kinyan of Rhode Island, because he had not been appearing at militia trainings. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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In addition to property seizures, in three cases a Quaker man who refused to participate in militia activities would be jailed. One of these men was Friend David Anthony of East Greenwich. In each case the Friends would conduct an investigation to determine whether the person had acted in the spirit and manner of Friends, and if he had, would go to the General Assembly at Providence to petition the “tender consciences” of the lawgivers for his freedom. AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Not all Rhode Island Quakers refused to participate in the civil unrest of the period but those who did participate in any way were always rigorously and promptly disowned. Between 1775 and 1784, the New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends would disown a total of 147 Quakers who had become involved in one way or another with the civil disruption. Among those disowned was, upon his own request, Major General Nathanael Greene. (Less tolerance, in fact, was shown for those who deviated from the Peace Testimony than for those Friends who continued to hold slaves.) THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
20th, 3d Month: “The Committee appointed to treat with those Friends who hold their fellow creatures as slaves made return that they had treated further with Latham Thurston as desired by the last Monthly Meeting and that he still refused to comply with the advice of the Yearly Meeting respecting holding mankind as slaves. Wherefore we, apprehending our selves clear of any further labour with him in that respect do disown him to be any longer a member of our Society.”
“By a minutes of our last monthly meeting the Clerk was directed to procure a Book to record manumissions, but upon further consideration we do direct that said manumissions be recorded in one end of our book for recording condemnations.” RHODE ISLAND QUAKER DISOWNMENT
25th, 4th Month: “The women Friends inform that Damaris Fowler of Jamestown being left in possession of a Negro, but is informed that as her husband left no will the property is not hers but her childrens and desires the advice of Friends, on consideration of which we appoint John Hadwen and Gould Marsh to enquire into said matter and make return to our next Monthly Meeting.” SLAVERY RHODE ISLAND MANUMISSION QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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30th, 5th Month: At the previous monthly meeting of the Jamestown Friends, a committee had been appointed to make a recommendation as to the standing of a slave belonging to the estate of a deceased man. Could the widow, Friend Damaris Fowler, manumit this slave? The committee had established that in accordance with “widow’s thirds” dower rights, “She hath no right to but one third of said Negro, for which (she) presented a bill of manumission to this Meeting which is ordered to be recorded on Friends Records.” The other 2/3ds of this person were (was?) the property of the widow Fowler’s children (who presumably were not treated of because they were not Quakers?).
Also, “The Preparative Meeting of Portsmouth informs this Meeting [the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting held in Newport on Aquidneck Island] that P. Jonothan [sic] Brownell hath taken the place of a Captain in the Military and enlisted in for that service. And it appearing to this Meeting that he hath been laboured with on that account but still persists therein, wherefore for the Clearing of Truth and our Christian Testimony we do disown him to be any longer a member of our Society and order that a copy of this Minute be read at the close of a First Day Meeting at Portsmouth between this and our next monthly meeting. Jacob Mott, Jr. is directed to read said Minute and to report back to our next Monthly Meeting.” QUAKER DISOWNMENT
25th, 7th Month: “Jeremiah Thomas hath listed as a soldier, which being directly opposite to the peaceable principle we profess, we do disown him to be any longer under our care as a member of our Society, and order a copy of this Minute to be read by our Clerk at the close of a First Day Meeting at Portsmouth between this and our next Monthly Meeting and make return to the Meeting.” RHODE ISLAND QUAKER DISOWNMENT THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
Captain James Cook’s Resolution returned to England at the completion of a 2d world adventure. During 3 years of exploration of the southern waters of the terrestrial globe the expedition had lost but 4 men — an unprecedented feat.
30th (Saturday), 9th Month: “The Committee appointed to treat with those that claim slaves as their property inform that Elisabeth Thurston (widow of Edward Thurston) was possessed of some and refused to liberate them, which after being considered is directed to be sent to the Meeting of Women Friends.” RHODE ISLAND MANUMISSION QUAKER DISOWNMENT
People were trying to kill each other at Stonington, Connecticut. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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December 14, Thursday: Friends Moses Brown, David Buffum, and others of the Smithfield, Rhode Island monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends rode from Roxbury to Cambridge, carrying with them poor relief for Quakers inside the besieged city of Boston in the form of gold coins and other currencies amounting to what today would be more than $4,000. In Cambridge they sought out the headquarters of the American siege commander, General George Washington, for a pass to cross the military lines and visit British General William Howe. The American commander indicated that first they would need to pitch their scheme to his logistics aide, Brigadier General Nathanael Greene (a birthright Quaker with a club foot who had renounced the faith and asked to be disowned, having become fascinated by the efficacy and necessity of warfare, who had been directly promoted from private to brigadier general by Washington during the previous June).
Brigadier General Greene invited the Quakers to have supper with him, and listened to their plan. He wound up giving their plan the green light, telling them that so long as they “meddled not in the dispute,” they would be able to expect “protection from both sides.” AMERICAN REVOLUTION HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1776
During the Revolutionary War, Flushing, Paumanok Long Island was occupied by the British. Local Quakers would not participate in the war effort and a number of them suffered the confiscation of property as punishment. Flushing Meeting spoke out against members who aided the British or accepted military service. Consequently, the Friends meetinghouse was seized by the army and used for various purposes including a hospital, stable, and storage. It is believed that the army burned the original benches and picket fence as their
firewood, since this was in short supply. With this meetinghouse unavailable, New York Yearly Meeting moved its gatherings to Westbury, never to return. Monthly meetings in New York and other areas were HDT WHAT? INDEX
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formed, and Flushing Meeting became merely a local monthly meeting (which it remains today).
The American colonies were in revolt, and loyalties were divided. With all the pressures, divided loyalties were to be found even within the Religious Society of Friends. As an example of how Quaker disownment was used as a tool in this incendiary situation, here is a disownment that was announced in this year at the Fairfax, Maryland monthly meeting: “W.R. who by birth had a right of membership in our Religious Society but through levity and a disregard to that principle which would preserve if adhered to, he hath been seduced and drawn away with the Spirit of the Times so far as to inlist and join in the active part of war, leaving his place of abode to that end, and having given us no opportunity to treat with him on this sorrowful occasion, we, agreeable to our antient practice, think it requisite to deny him the right of membership among us, which is hereby confirmed by our monthly meeting and he so to stand until by due contrition he condemns his conduct which we can but desire on his behalf.” As an example of an acknowledgment of disownment due to warlike activity, here is a statement that was duly received and placed on file in this year by that same meeting: “Whereas I the subscriber have several times stood Centry in a military manner and having considered the same, I see it to be wrong, for which misconduct I am sorry, and hope to be more HDT WHAT? INDEX
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careful for the future, desiring that Friends would accept this my acknowledgment and continue me under their care as my future conduct shall render me worthy. J.L.”64 On Paumanok Long Island, Friend Elias Hicks was standing steadfast and refusing to participate in the American Revolution or “use any coercive force or compulsion by any means whatever; not being overcome by evil, but overcoming evil with the good.”
THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY He well knew that any suggestion that we attempt to kill the Devil with a gun or a sword could have been a suggestion sponsored only by the Devil himself. Instead he chose to make his contribution to the cause of American liberty by paying visits to Quaker slavemasters on Paumanok “Long Island,” entreating them to strike a direct blow for human freedom by manumitting their black slaves.
As you can see, even Quakers have such cannon:
This cries out for explanation but first you need to think about it because there are several levels at which explanation must be attempted.
64.These are per Morse, BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING, page 59. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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30th, 3d day, 1st Month: “The Preparative Meeting of Portsmouth informs that Joseph Brownell son of Thomas hath been acting in warlike matters as assisting in building a fortification, etc., whereupon we appoint Job Shearman and Daniel Fish, 2nd to labour with said Brownell and endeavour to bring him to a sense of his outgoings and make report to our next Monthly Meeting.” RHODE ISLAND QUAKER DISOWNMENT THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
February: At the women’s meeting for business of the Religious Society of Friends at Smithfield, Rhode Island, “Lower house Preparative Meeting [Saylesville] informing that Patience Wilkinson hath had an illegitimate child65 and also that Jemimah Wilkinson but seldom attends Friends Meetings nor makes use of the plain Scripture Language, This Meeting appoints Lydia Wilkinson and Mary Olney to Labor with them for said offenses and Report to this meeting in the 4th month next.”66 QUAKER DISOWNMENT
27th, 2nd Month: “Daniel Fish reported to this Meeting that as Job Shearman was deceased he took a Friend with him and laboured with Joseph Brownell son of Thomas, respecting his outgoing and that he appeared to be disposed to make satisfaction. Therefore said matter is referred to next month Meeting under the care of Daniel Fish, 2nd, and John Hadwen.” THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
The women’s meeting at the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting collected £13, 7s for the poor. QUAKER DISOWNMENT RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
65. Eventually Patience Wilkinson would marry, in upstate New York, with a son of Judge William Potter of South Kingstown, Rhode Island. 66. We may presume that this Friend Lydia Wilkinson would have been a close older relative who might succeed in placing herself in loco parentis for these motherless teenage girls. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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March: At the men’s meeting for business of the Religious Society of Friends at Smithfield, Rhode Island, “Smithfield Lower House Preparative Mtg. [Saylesville] informing that Stephen and Jeptha Wilkinson, sons of Jeremiah, have attended Training for Military Exercise — and but seldom attended friends meetings — Wherefore this meeting appoints Benja. Arnold, Wm. Buffum & Thomas Lapham Jr. to labor with them for said Transgressions — and report to next Assembly.” QUAKER DISOWNMENT THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
This is the cast-iron stove that we had installed in the Saylesville meetinghouse for use during the winters, at about this point in time or perhaps a few years earlier: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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26th, 3rd Month: The Constitution of South Carolina. READ THE FULL TEXT
“The Preparative Meeting of Newport inform that Job Townsend, 2nd hath appeared in train band under arms, whereupon we appoint James Wanton and John Gould to labor with Townsend and endeavour to bring him to a sense of his misconduct and report to next Monthly Meeting.” RHODE ISLAND QUAKER DISOWNMENT THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
April: At the women’s meeting for business of the Religious Society of Friends at Smithfield, Rhode Island, “Lydia Wilkinson & Mary Olney are to visit Patience & Jemimah Wilkinson (Daughters of Jeremiah) make report they have performed their visit which was not to satisfaction. The same committee continued to further Labour with them for said offenses and Report to this meeting in the Eighth month next.” QUAKER DISOWNMENT
30th, 4th Month: “Daniel Fish and John Hadwen made report that they had not had any encouragement from Joseph Brownell (son of Thomas) since last Monthly Meeting but rather the contrary, and this Meeting apprehended themselves clear from any further labour with him and on that account do disown Joseph Brownell to be any longer under our care as a member of our Society.” RHODE ISLAND QUAKER DISOWNMENT THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
May: Panic swept Charleston, South Carolina when a British armada carrying more than 3,000 British regulars was sighted offshore. Oh, this is bad, this is very bad. AMERICAN REVOLUTION
A call for American independence from Britain, the Virginia Declaration of Rights was drafted by George Mason (1725-1792) and amended by Thomas Ludwell Lee (circa 1730-1778) and by the Virginia Convention. Mason wrote “That all men are born equally free and independant [sic], and have certain inherent natural right, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; among which are the Enjoyment of Life and Liberty, with the Means of acquiring and possessing Property, and pursueing [sic] and obtaining Happiness and Safety.” Thomas Jefferson would draw from this document when a month later he worked over an early draft of the Declaration of Independence. In 1789 it would be accessed not only by James Madison, Jr. in drawing up the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution but also by the Marquis de Lafayette in drafting the HDT WHAT? INDEX
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French Declaration of the Rights of Man.
But that was in Virginia and applied to people who were safely pro-war. For people who were anti-war there weren’t all that many rights available in America:
Pennsylvania Quakers … experienced significant harassment for their pacifism and neutrality. Their numbers were already greatly reduced by the disciplinary renaissance of the 1750s, and they faced a real schism from “Free Quakers,” who both supported the Revolution and rejected pacifism. As a result “orthodox” Friends found themselves hunted down in a colony they had founded and long governed. In May 1776 a stone-throwing mob forced Philadelphia Friends to observe a fast day that the Continental Congress had proclaimed. A Berks County mob shackled and jailed Moses Roberts, a Quaker minister, until he posted a $10,000 bond guaranteeing his “good” behavior. Philadelphia patriots also exiled seventeen Friends to Virginia in 1776 for nearly two years so they would not interfere with revolutionary activities. Patriots celebrating the surrender of Cornwallis in October 1782 ransacked Quaker homes that had not displayed victory candles.
Clearly, there were in Rhode Island a few Quaker men who were attempting to avoid persecution by the usual coterie of Those-Who-Aren’t-With-Us-Are-Against-Us “patriots.” For, at the men’s meeting for business of the Religious Society of Friends at Smithfield, “Two of the Committee to labour with Stephen & Jeptha Wilkinson for attending Training etc. report that they have labored with them and they appear to have frequented Trainings for Military service and endeavour to justify the same, and seldom attended friends meetings, and gave but very little satisfaction for their said conduct. Therefore this Meeting puts them from under their care, until they shall condemn said conduct to the Satisfaction of friends, which we desire they may be enabled to do — Jona Arnold is desired to inform them of their denial, Right of appeal and report to next monthly Mtg. to which time the drawing of a Testimony of their deniels [sic], in order to be published, is referred. — L. Lapham, Clerk.” QUAKER DISOWNMENT
BETWEEN ANY TWO MOMENTS ARE AN INFINITE NUMBER OF MOMENTS, AND BETWEEN THESE OTHER MOMENTS LIKEWISE AN INFINITE NUMBER, THERE BEING NO ATOMIC MOMENT JUST AS THERE IS NO ATOMIC POINT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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ALONG A LINE. MOMENTS ARE THEREFORE FIGMENTS. THE PRESENT MOMENT IS A MOMENT AND AS SUCH IS A FIGMENT, A FLIGHT OF THE IMAGINATION TO WHICH NOTHING REAL CORRESPONDS. SINCE PAST MOMENTS HAVE PASSED OUT OF EXISTENCE AND FUTURE MOMENTS HAVE YET TO ARRIVE, WE NOTE THAT THE PRESENT MOMENT IS ALL THAT EVER EXISTS — AND YET THE PRESENT MOMENT BEING A MOMENT IS A FIGMENT TO WHICH NOTHING IN REALITY CORRESPONDS.
28th, 5th Month: The committee appointed by the Preparative Meeting of Newport to deal with Friend Job Townsend, 2nd having reported no success in dealing with him as an armed member of the local revolutionary militia, the Quakers disowned him “to be any longer a member of our Society.” RHODE ISLAND QUAKER DISOWNMENT AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
June: At the men’s meeting for business of the Religious Society of Friends at Smithfield, Rhode Island, “Jona. Arnold reports that he informed Stephen & Jeptha Wilkinson according to appointment — and the matter of publishing their deniels [sic] was considered in this meeting, and Jona. Arnold & Job Scott are appointed to draw Testimonies of their Denials and bring to next monthly meeting.” QUAKER DISOWNMENT THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
July: At the men’s meeting for business of the Religious Society of Friends at Smithfield, Rhode Island, “Jona. Arnold & Jeptha Wilkinson’s Deniels [sic] which was read and referred to next monthly meeting for Consideration.” THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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30th, 7th Month: “The Preparative Meeting of Portsmouth inform that Gideon Shearman (son of John Shearman) and Seth Thomas (son of Joseph Thomas) have enlisted as soldiers, which is a transgression of the rules of our Society. Therefore we do disown them to be any longer under our care as members thereof, and order a copy of this minute to be read publicly at the close of a First Day Meeting at Portsmouth. Jacob Mott 2nd is desired to read the same and make report at our next Monthly Meeting.” RHODE ISLAND QUAKER DISOWNMENT THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS AMERICAN REVOLUTION
August: At the women’s meeting for business of the Religious Society of Friends at the upper meetinghouse in Smithfield, Rhode Island, “Patience Wilkinson hath been laboured with on account of her having an Illegitimate Child and not appearing in a State of Mind Suitable to Make Satisfaction therefore this meeting Disowns her from membership. Jemimah Wilkinson hath been laboured with for not attending Meeting and not using the plain language, finding no amendment this meeting puts her from under there [sic] care. (Both daughters of Jeremiah Wilkinson). Mary Brown and Mary Olney are to draw a Denial against Patience and Jemimah Wilkinson and bring to Next Monthly Meeting.” QUAKER DISOWNMENT
Meanwhile, at the corresponding men’s meeting, “The testimonies of Stephen & Jeptha Wilkinson’s Deniels Referd [sic] to this meeting was Considered; and Being Drawn Seperate [sic], and Dated from this meeting, were approved of & signed by the clerk. The women’s meeting Informs that they have rec’d Sarah Buffum (wife of Jedediah) a member of our Society and Disowned Patience and Jemima [sic] Wilkinson (Daughters of Jeremiah).” THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
27th, 8th Month: “Jacob Mott reported in writing that by reason of indisposition he had not read the Minutes against Gideon Shearman and Seth Thomas and now desired to be excused from reading the Minutes. Therefore Samson Shearmen is desired to take care that they be read, and make report to next Monthly Meeting.” RHODE ISLAND QUAKER DISOWNMENT THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
September: At the women’s meeting for business of the Religious Society of Friends at the upper meetinghouse in Smithfield, Rhode Island, “The Committee presented the Denials of Jemimah Wilkinson approved & Signed by the Clerk. Also one for Patience Wilkinson Signed by the Clerk, both Daughters of Jeremiah Wilkinson. Benjamin Arnold appointed to read the Denials of Jemimah Wilkinson & Patience Wilkinson at a Publick Meeting at the Lower House. Lydia Wilkinson is appointed to enform [sic] Jemimah & Patience of their being Disowned.” QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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October: At the women’s meeting for business of the Religious Society of Friends at the upper meetinghouse in Smithfield, “Lydia Wilkinson continued to enform [sic] Patience and Jemimah Wilkinson of their being disowned from Friends and report to this Meeting.”
There was, meanwhile, an outbreak of typhoid fever in Rhode Island, that evidently came with the Columbus, a ship of war carrying prisoners. As a girl, Friend Jemimah Wilkinson had experienced evangelical sermons by the Reverend George Whitefield and had been inspired by the female leader Ann Lee (“Mother Ann”) of the Shakers. At about the age of 18, she had become involved with the New Light Baptists or “Rogerenes” of Ledyard, Connecticut. At this point, while suffering under the spiritual distress of being disowned by here monthly meeting of the Society and contemplating the long road of atonement and spiritual rectification that would be necessary before such a disownment could be erased, probably while in Ledyard, as a victim of the typhoid fever epidemic she fell into a prolonged coma — and upon reviving, she would proclaim that her soul had gone to Heaven and had been replaced in her body by “Spirit of Life.” God had sent this apparition to inhabit her body in order to warn earthly creatures of His impending wrath. Discontinuing the use of the name “Jemimah Wilkinson” and denominating herself instead “Publik Universal Friend,” she would preach, attired in something suggestive of men’s rather than of women’s clothing, through Connecticut and Rhode Island. The preserved image we have of her portrays her while attired in a rather standard clerical gown and collar over her men’s clothing:
For a time her friend Moses Brown had been taken by her pretensions, but at the point of her disownment, he was able to stand aside. Here is the account of this by the Los Angeles newsman and storyteller Charles Rappleye on page 187 of his recent SONS OF PROVIDENCE: THE BROWN BROTHERS, THE SLAVE TRADE, AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2006) — an account in which he has exaggerated some of the details (such as the precise number of hours that she was uncommunicative, and the conceit that she had been “pronounced dead”) and gotten other details bass-ackward (for instance suggesting that she had been opposed to war when in fact she and her family were at odds with the Quaker Peace Testimony, sending a number of the Wilkinson sons to Washington’s army): Moses’ quest for meaning drew him to another homegrown mystic during the early days of the war, a tall, striking woman named Jemima Wilkinson. As deep and stoic as was Job Scott, Wilkinson was extravagant. She called herself “the Public Universal Friend,” and mesmerized audiences for hours by proclaiming moral HDT WHAT? INDEX
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convictions she said were acquired by revelation, or simply by delivering from memory lengthy quotations from the Bible. Some of her contemporaries considered her a charlatan, but she had genuine charisma, and won a following among powerful people in Rhode Island, including several prominent judges. Moses knew Wilkinson from her youth. Her father, a Quaker farmer, was a cousin to Israel Wilkinson, the ironworker long associated with the Browns, and also to Stephen and Esek Hopkins, connections that ensured her entrée to the elite families of Rhode Island. Jemima was intrigued early on by a variety of religious doctrines, including those of the New Light Baptists and the Quakers, but her transformation took place in 1776, when she contracted a case of typhus. Beset with fever and delirium, she was pronounced dead, but she arose after thirty- six hours, and proclaimed her own resurrection. In the following months, Jemima Wilkinson renounced her former worldly identity and began holding ad hoc prayer meetings in country glades or borrowed meetinghouses. She preached a sort of radical strain of Quakerism, damning war, slavery, and matrimony in sermons that often ran over two hours. Her traveling services evolved into a sort of religious circus, featuring appearances by devotees who dubbed themselves Prophet Daniel and Prophet Elijah and who mimicked Wilkinson by professing visions and delivering messages from on high. Moses was intrigued by Wilkinson and attended several of her meetings. He was impressed with her knowledge of the Bible, but more than that, Moses was drawn to her story of divine inspiration. From the time of his own revelation, while walking home from Anna’s grave, Moses looked for similar signs of God’s active hand. Another adherent was Moses’ uncle Elisha Brown, who attended several of her meetings and, convinced “that she was a messenger from God,” invited her to his home, where they spent several evenings discussing her message and the controversy she caused among Rhode Island Quakers. Fortunately for Moses, however, he could not accept her as a prophet, and when the New England Meeting formally ostracized Wilkinson and barred attendance at her meetings, Moses was able to watch the proceedings with a sense of bemused detachment.
Jemimah would establish congregations at New Milford, Connecticut, and at Greenwich, Rhode Island. She did nothing to restrain enthusiastic followers who acclaimed her as the Messiah, and occasionally a stone would be thrown at her. A memorandum of the introduction of that fatal Fever, called in HDT WHAT? INDEX
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the year 1776 the Columbus fever, since called the Typhus.... The ship called Columbus which sailed out of Providence in the state of Rhode Island, being a ship of war, on her return brought with her prisoners this awful and alarming disease of which many of the inhabitants in Providence died. On the fourth of the tenth month it reached the house of Jemima Wilkinson, ten miles from Providence.... A certain young woman, known by the name of Jemima Wilkinson, was seized with this mortal disease. And on the 2nd day of her illness was rendered almost incapable of helping herself. And the fever continued to increase until fifth day of the week, about midnight she appeared to meet the shock of Death; which (released) the Soul. What was it she preached? –Generally, she favored celibacy and plainness of dress, and opposed slavery. As an intellectual record it’s not all that impressive. She totally bought into the Puritan vision of the inherent depravity of humankind. Various Quakers, especially those favorable to the American cause in the Revolution, would follow her in approximately a similar manner to the manner in which the Shakers followed Mother Ann Lee. The Religious Society of Friends would be disowning a number of these Friends as they made themselves guilty by association. Although her brother Stephen Wilkinson and sisters Mercy Wilkinson, Betsey (?) Wilkinson, and Deborah Wilkinson followed Universal Friend in her relocation to upstate New York, her father Jeremiah Wilkinson, who had admittedly at times served as her escort but had never been a convert, and her brother Jeremiah Wilkinson, eventually would resume association with the Smithfield Friends. AMERICAN REVOLUTION Jemima Wilkinson was born in Cumberland, Nov. 19, 1752, and is, without doubt, the most singular as well as celebrated female character Rhode Island has ever produced. When she was about eighteen years of age, she became very much impressed with matters of a religious nature. A great religious excitement prevailed about this time in the county of Providence, and soon spread itself all over the State, through the efforts and preaching of George Whitefield. Jemima became very much interested and a great change came over her life. From a gay, spirited girl she became a sort of recluse, and spent her time in the study of the scriptures and deep meditation. In 1775 she was stricken with a severe fever, and during her illness she pretended to have a vision from on high, and received a call, as she was pleased to term it, to go out and preach to the sin-burdened world. She arose suddenly one night, demanded her clothes, and appeared to be in a trance. The next Sabbath she preached her first sermon under the old oak tree we have mentioned in another part of this work. Her words made a decided sensation upon her hearers. She styled herself the “People’s Universal Friend,” and ever afterward was known by that appellation. She travelled through the country preaching her peculiar doctrine and soon surrounded herself with many devoted followers. For some six years she made her home at Judge Potter’s, in Kingstown. The Judge was a wealthy land-holder and became one of her most devoted admirers. When others began to desert her and cry her down as an imposter and a selfish, scheming woman, the Judge became all the more infatuated, and no means were spared to sustain her cause and protect her from the calumnies of her enemies. Wherever she went, the Judge was her companion, and when she finally resolved to leave her native HDT WHAT? INDEX
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State and settle in the wilds of western New York, Mr. Potter was among the most prominent advocates of this movement. He at last became embarrassed financially, and his fine estate was sold, and in his old age he was compelled to live in straitened circumstances, a victim of infatuated devotion to this artful adventuress. She claimed for herself supernatural powers, and great crowds often congregated to witness some of her wonderful performances. She several times attempted to raise the dead, and her failures were attributed to want of faith in those who had assembled to witness the verification of her pretended supernatural powers. She removed with a few followers to Yales County, N. Y., and settled at a place which they called New Jerusalem. Here she spent the remainder of her eventful life, and died July 1, 1819. After her death her followers remained for several years and kept up their peculiar organization. The history of this woman has been written by several different parties, and the fallacy of her pretended inspiration received the verdict it so justly merited. And yet, that she was a woman possessed of more than ordinary abilities and some admirable traits of character it would be more than folly to deny. She lived in an age when ignorance and superstition in matters of religion were more prevalent than now, and it is not strange that she drew to her faith many good and honest people. Experience teaches that there is no creed without its believers and no delusion without its dupes. The saying that “murder will out” is accepted as truth, and the excitement attending the supposed celestial powers of this artful woman was shrewdly turned to account, and avarice preyed upon credulity. A great revolution is silently making its way through the world by the developing influences of education, the freedom of thought and the press, and will end in promoting the highest interests of the race, and remove forever the last vestige of religious superstition and fanaticism. The Old Baptist Church at Abbott’s was situated on the east side of the Lanesville road, upon the site now [1878] occupied by D.A. Thompson’s house. It was built about the year 1700. It was a wooden structure, two stories high, with a large gallery. Its size was 30 x 60 feet, and it was torn down in 1825. Under an oak-tree that stood in front of this church, the celebrated Jemima Wilkinson made her first speech, and was listened to with attention. The Baptist Catholic Society was chartered January, 1797. It held its meetings during warm weather in the shade of the old oak-tree at Lonsdale. These meetings were discontinued about 1860. The old oak-tree in Lonsdale is an historical relic of the past. It is held in great veneration by the citizens of the place, and an iron railing has been placed around it. The tree is supposed to be three hundred years old, but is now [1878] rapidly going to decay. It is said, by good authorities, that these trees are one hundred years maturing, they flourish another hundred, and decay in the third and last hundred years. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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(Friend Jemimah Wilkinson was not the only American woman to begin cross-dressing in this year. In Middleborough, Massachusetts, the mind of a 16- year-old indentured servant, Deborah Sampson, was becoming “agitated with the enquiry — why a nation, separated from us by an ocean ... [should] enforce on us plans of subjugation.” Sampson would resolve to make herself into “one of the severest avengers of the wrong” and through flattening her breasts with a bandage would enlist in the Revolutionary army as a common soldier. She was at this point also involved with the New Light Baptists, although she would get in trouble with them and be expelled, and although she would be detected in the army and discharged. She would then transform herself more completely and competently, into the Revolutionary soldier Robert Shurtleff, for 17 months an enlisted man in the 4th Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army. She would suffer war wounds in an encounter with a Tory militia while on a scouting expedition in the New York countryside but, at a later point, would fall ill with a fever and be discovered again to be of the female persuasion. With “chastity inviolate” – but of course they checked this out– she would receive a revolutionary veteran’s pension. Her grave in Rockridge Cemetery is marked as that of “a revolutionary soldier.” She married, so after her death her husband received the monetary equivalent of a revolutionary veteran’s widow’s pension.)
29th, 10th Month: At the Preparative Meeting of Portsmouth, “One of the visitors from Newport informed that Benjamin Stanton had been on a cruise in a private vessel of war which being directly contrary to the peaceable principle we profess, we do disown him.” RHODE ISLAND QUAKER DISOWNMENT THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1777
January: A resident of the New York colony, John Cumming (this is not the Dr. John Cuming of Concord, Massachusetts), went to the city of New-York to determine how best he might handle his delicate political situation, his delicate political situation being that he was a Loyalist rather than a revolutionary. While in the city he refused a commission in the British army.
People were trying to kill each other at the Assumpsick Bridge in Trenton, New Jersey. AMERICAN REVOLUTION
At the women’s meeting for business of the Religious Society of Friends at the upper meetinghouse in Smithfield, Rhode Island, “Benjamin Arnold informs this meeting that he hath read the denials of Jemimah and Patience Wilkinson agreeable to appointment.”
JEMIMAH WILKINSON QUAKER DISOWNMENT Three more Quaker men of Worcester County, Massachusetts were imprisoned for adhering to the Peace Testimony. THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
1st, 2nd Month: “John G. Wanton and Robert Taylor of Newport have signed a declaration called the Test Act, which being contrary to the peaceable principles we profess, therefore for the clearing of our Christian testimony we do disown them.”67 RHODE ISLAND QUAKER DISOWNMENT AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 67. Subscription to this Test Act, since it involved the provision of a substitute soldier or the making of an adequate payment for the obtaining of such a substitute soldier, was held to constitute personal participation in conflict and therefore was in violation of the peaceable principles of the Religious Society of Friends. QUAKER DISOWNMENT THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY HDT WHAT? INDEX
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February: Still-extant records of the Dover, New Hampshire monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends include the wedding of Caesar Sankey and Sarah Sharp in 1774, and this notation has been taken by some incautious historians to indicate that this African American couple had been recognized as Quakers — whereas in fact it indicated no such thing. In addition, during this month in 1777 that record included a notation of the disownment of Caesar Sankey for his “going into the war,” which has been taken by some incautious historians to indicate that he had been recognized as a Friend — but in fact such a record likewise indicates no such positive thing, indicating merely that the general public needed to be alerted, for he might have been in some manner considered by them to have been marginally associated with this monthly meeting. The general rule, that Quakerism was for the white folks only, governed during this entire timeframe. Had Caesar Sankey or Sarah Sharp ever been considered by any of their contemporaries to have been Quakers, we most assuredly would now be able to discover in the record an abundance of commentary pro and con about that peculiarity.) QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1778
Friend Isaac Grey’s A SERIOUS ADDRESS TO SUCH OF THE PEOPLE CALLED QUAKERS, ON THE CONTINENT OF NORTH-AMERICA, AS PROFESS SCRUPLES RELATIVE TO THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT: EXHIBITING THE ANCIENT REAL TESTIMONY OF THAT PEOPLE, CONCERNING OBEDIENCE TO CIVIL AUTHORITY. WRITTEN BEFORE THE DEPARTURE OF THE BRITISH ARMY FROM PHILADELPHIA, 1778, BY A NATIVE OF PENNSYLVANIA. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, FOR THE INFORMATION OF ALL RATIONAL ENQUIRERS, AN APPENDIX, CONSISTING OF EXTRACTS FROM AN ESSAY CONCERNING OBEDIENCE TO THE SUPREME POWERS, AND THE DUTY OF SUBJECTS IN ALL REVOLUTIONS, PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND SOON AFTER THE REVOLUTION OF 1688 (Philadelphia: Printed by R. Bell, next door to St. Paul’s Church, Third Street. Just published and now selling at Bell’s book-store, in Third-Street, Philadelphia, price five shillings, the original edition (with an introduction by the author, not in the other edition, containing matters of importance to the Society) of the Serious address to such of the people called Quakers. ...). This amounted to a argument in favor of paying your taxes whether or not they are destined to be used by the government for purposes of warfare.68
When the 1st edition was bought up by the Quakers in order to suppress this publication and Friend Isaac had a 2d edition printed, this resulted in disownment by New Garden Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY ...[T]he present revolution is the work of the Lord, and according to the plan and design of his providence, and [the precedents and observations I have cited] tend to prove the safety and propriety of a submission to the powers which now rule: But it may be objected in justification of the present scruples and refusal by some, that the present powers and government are usurped and contrary to law: To this it may be answered that the same objection would have held good under every revolution which has heretofore been brought about, as they must no doubt have been contrary to the authority of the preceding powers, and by their friends and adherents been deemed usurpations, which might also have been alleged against the present constitution of Great Britain... It appears to me that it is for those who choose not to have any hand in the formation of governments, to take governments such as they find them, and comply with their laws, so far as they are clear of infringing religious rights and matters of faith toward God: It cannot perhaps be found that friends, ever since they were a people, ever refused to assist in the support of government, but have ever held it right and necessary to comply with the laws of the various governments under which they lived; for as, according to our own repeated declarations as a society.... the “setting up and putting down Kings and 68. The argument of this pamphlet may be of interest to those Thoreauvians who persist in supposing (incorrectly) that Henry refused to pay his $1 Massachusetts poll tax because it was destined to be used by the government for purposes of the war on Mexico. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Governments is God’s peculiar prerogative, for causes best known to himself, and that it is not our work or business to have any hand or contrivance therein, nor to be busy bodies in matters above our stations.” Whether then can such a people, by any means, undertake to weaken or oppose the present government, seeing these things are allowed to belong only unto God, is a matter worthy of consideration.... Let us then, I beseech of us, attend to the abovementioned profession and declaration, and see that if we are to have no hand in such matters, it may be uniform, if not on one side, neither on the other; for our declaration is that we have no hand “either in the setting up or pulling down,” neither by this way or that way, as a religious society, there is no distinction made of what King or of what government, if not as to one, so neither as to another: if not by encouraging, so neither by discouraging.
...[I]t may not be amiss to add something on the subject of the payment of taxes. For this purpose, I shall produce an epistle of George Fox... where he advises, All friends everywhere, who are dead to all carnal weapons, and have beaten them to pieces, stand in that which takes away the occasion of wars, which saves men’s lives, and destroys none, nor would have others; and as for the rulers that are to keep peace, for peace sake, and for the advantage of truth, give them their tribute; but to bear and carry weapons to fight with, the men of peace, (who live in that which takes away the occasion of wars) they cannot act in such things, under the several powers, but have paid their tribute, which they may do still for peace sake, and not hold back the earth, but go over it, and in so doing friends may better claim their liberty. William Penn, in an address to the high court of parliament, anno 1671... tells them that We both own and are ready to yield obedience to every ordinance of man, relating to human affairs, and that for conscience sake; and that in all revolutions, we have demeaned ourselves with much peace and patience, disowning all contrary actings; and that we have lived most peaceably under all the various governments that have been since our first appearance; which could not have been said with propriety, unless they had submitted to the civil ordinances of men, as above declared. Thomas Story, in his journal... speaking concerning a law made to enforce the bearing of arms, which he disapproved, yet in the HDT WHAT? INDEX
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course of the debate, which he had with the judge of a court, says, I began with the example of Christ himself for the payment of a tax, though applied by Cæsar unto the uses of war, and other exigencies of his government and was going to show the difference between a law that directly and principally affects the person in war, requiring personal service, and a law which only requires a general tax, to be applied by rulers as they see cause; for though we as a people readily pay such taxes impartially assessed, yet as the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, his servants will not fight, though they may and ought to pay taxes, according to the example of Christ their head: And what that instance and example was, he relates... where he says that The Lord Jesus Christ obeyed all the righteous laws both of Jews and Romans, so far as his condition in this world subjected him to them: For though he was and is the peaceable Savior, and came not destroy men’s lives, but to save them, yet in obedience to the laws of men, where not opposite to or interfering with the laws of God, he wrought a miracle to pay a poll-tax, where in strictness the law did not require it of him, nor of his disciples; for having Roman privileges by virtue of an old league between the Jews and Romans, whereby they were as children and not strangers, nevertheless to obviate all occasion of offense, he submitted to it, though only an ordinance of men, and his apostles likewise, as an example to his church through all ages then to come. Though this example is generally well known, it may not be improper here to recite it, which was thus: And when they came to Capernaum, they that received tribute-money, came to Peter, and said, does your master pay tribute? He said yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, what thinks you, Simon? Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute; of their own children or of strangers? Peter said to him, of strangers. Jesus said to him, then are the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go you to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first comes up, and when you have opened his mouth, you shall find a piece of money: That take, and give to them for me and you. — Matthew 17:24– 27. It is here remarkable that our Savior appears to have revolved HDT WHAT? INDEX
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in his mind the whole nature of the case, and of the demand that was made; for upon Peter’s informing the tax-gatherers that his master paid tribute, our Lord took occasion to remind him by a gentle reprehension, that he had gone further in his reply than he was bound to do, or than was requisite from the nature of their condition and circumstances; and immediately upon Peter’s entering the house, prevented his speaking by making use of a very strong and lively argument to convince Peter that he had been quite as quick as was necessary; and that instead of being bound to pay the tax, they were, according to the custom of the country, exempt and free; yet notwithstanding this freedom and privilege, or without the least objection to the use to which they money might be applied, though the Romans were in general heathen idolaters, and about that time, as appears from history, actually engaged in war on several sides, and the character of their emperor Tiberius marked as debauched, unjust, cruel, tyrannic, sanguinary, and inhuman. Yet Christ our Lord, though clothed with majesty and power above all the laws and powers of this world, and was thereby able to have subdued all things unto himself, and made them subservient to his will, was so tender of giving uneasiness to the powers that then bore rule that he ordered Peter, by producing an astonishing miracle, as we have read, to comply and pay the tax for this very striking reason, “lest we should offend.” Thomas Story beforementioned, in his journal... says, “That the sufferings of the faithful in Christ, in all ages, have not arose from the breach of any laws relating only to civil government, which they do readily observe and conscientiously obey.” And in the same page adds, “That as there always is and must be, in the nature of things, a great and necessary charge attending government, (a kingdom or state being but as one great house or family, and no private or particular family can subsist without charge) for that cause, all are to pay tribute, as justly (or equally) imposed by the legislature.” The said author, in a conference had with the Czar of Muscovy, says, Though we are prohibited arms and fighting in person, as inconsistent (we think) with the rules of the gospel of Jesus Christ; yet we can, and do, by his example, readily and cheerfully pay unto every government, and in every form, where we happen to be subjects, such sums and assessments as are required of us by the respective laws under which we live. For when a general tax was laid by the Roman Czar, upon his extensive empire, and the time of payment came, the Lord Jesus Christ [according to scripture, Matthew 25, as recited by Thomas Story] wrought a miracle to pay a tax, where yet it was not strictly due; we, by so great an example, do freely pay our taxes to Cæsar, who of right has the HDT WHAT? INDEX
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direction and application of them, to the various ends of government, to peace or to war, as it pleases him, or as need may, according to the constitution or laws of his kingdom. William Penn... says, “That since we are as large contributors to the government as our antagonists, we are entitled to as large protection from it.” Now this saying could not have been true, unless they paid all the public taxes, in common with other men, which no doubt their antagonists did; and by analogous conclusion, if we, under the present dispensation, refuse to contribute to the government under which we live, how can we expect to be entitled to its protection, not only at present, but in case the Almighty should see meet further and fully to establish it? The said author... in answer to some objections made against the society, observes among other things, that it was said, “The Quakers will not support civil government,” etc. To which he answers, “This is also untrue upon experience; for what people, (says he) under government, pay their taxes better than they do.” Samuel Bownas, in the account of his life, relates an epistolary argument he had with one Ray, a priest, who charged friends with an inconsistency in that, while they actually paid and even collected tax for the purposes of carrying on a war against France with vigor: They yet refused to pay tithes and militia assessments. To which Samuel Bownas replies, We are still of the same mind with Robert Barclay, that wars and fightings are inconsistent with the gospel principles, and still lie under sufferings with respect to the militia, being careful to walk by the rule of Christ’s doctrine; and yet do not think ourselves inconsistent in actively complying with the law of taxes, in rendering unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and he may do therewith what pleases him. Where it may be well to observe, that he there speaks of taxes as due unto Cæsar; thereby no doubt meaning the power that for the present bears rule, whether Emperor, Protector, King, or Congress. From what has been observed, I think it may plainly appear, that friends heretofore have been so far from censuring or condemning their members on such occasions, that they have rather encouraged the payment of taxes, (except those in lieu of personal service) and advised a submission to the powers that bore rule, under the various governments and revolutions in which they lived; but if this be doubted, or any thing has been advanced that is not conformable to the truth, it will be well for any one to point out the same; but if they are consistent with reason, justice, and truth, it will be well to be cautious HDT WHAT? INDEX
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how any thing is acted opposite thereto; and while we declare that we cannot have a hand in public revolutions, (as belonging unto God) by promoting and encouraging, we may beware of taking an active part by opposing and discouraging, whether as to non- payment of taxes, or other civil acts; and then of consequence none can, with propriety or consistency, be censured or condemned concerning the same, especially in cases where no precedent for censure or condemnation can be found in the history or proceedings of friends. As it is queried by some, whether Friends paid their taxes under the government of Oliver Cromwell, although there is as great or greater reason to conclude they did, than there is to suppose or prove that they did not; yet it may be observed that the practice of friends, ever since the time of George Fox, has been to keep a particular account of the sufferings they sustained, and the amount thereof, when it was on a conscientious or religious account, which have been recorded, and transmitted down to us from time to time: Now as it never yet has appeared in the accounts of friends sufferings, that anything was taken from them on account of taxes, even under Cromwell’s government, the committee of safety, or any of the then powers, which, if on a religious account, they had refused to pay, would have amounted to a very considerable sum, equal, if not superior, to any recorded by them, and would no doubt have been taken particular notice of among their other sufferings; but as nothing of this kind appears, it is therefore more than probable, and may be very safely concluded, that they submitted in these respects to the several governments, of what kind soever, under which they lived; and that they paid their taxes for the support of those governments, in common with other men, according to their uniform practice as a people. To the above testimony of the dead, let us attend also to one of the living, an anonymous author, though well known to be Timothy Davis, a worthy friend and minister of the gospel; in a letter to some of his intimate friends on the subject of paying taxes to the present government, printed at Watertown, about two years ago, and sold by B. Edes, near the Bridge, has fully declared his sentiments in the following manner: ... The matter now under consideration is serious. Many valuable members of society, both public and private, at this time, in different places, do not think themselves called or bound to join in the refusals and scruples which some make, and many more who have not yet fully considered the matter will probably be of the same mind; if this be allowed, which I believe may safely be done, will it not be exceeding hard that they should be denied the privileges of that society, in whose ways they have been educated, and whose religious principles they profess and hold, and to which they are closely attached? In time past, though there was diversity of sentiments with regard to some matters, yet we bore one with another without censure, in that spirit of condescension and brotherly regard, which is peculiarly HDT WHAT? INDEX
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characteristic of the followers of the Lamb, and shall we now, in very similar cases, give up that Christian temper, cast one another off, and produce a separation, when love and union might be preserved as well as in former days, and for which there is probably as much occasion as ever there was since the foundation of the province. If indeed we think it proper as a society to maintain an opposition to the present powers of government, in civil as well as religious respects, it may preclude the use of the present observations, or at least render any service, which might be expected from them, very improbable; but as that would appear to be so contrary to the profession we have made, as well as inconsistent with our established principles, that I presume it cannot really be the case: I have therefore taken the freedom of laying these observations before us for our serious consideration. Never was there a people more deeply interested in the event of public proceeding, than we now are. We are considerably numerous in various parts of the continent, and particularly so in this State. We are not only interested ourselves, but future generations may likewise be deeply affected by the part we now act. I wish us therefore so to conduct, as that Jew nor Gentile, or the church of Christ, either at this or any future time, may have just occasion of offence. Now, notwithstanding what has been offered, as there may be some who may allege that their scruples and non-compliance with the demands of the present government, as to civil affairs, arises from a principle of conscience, which I am sensible is a very delicate point to touch upon, yet as I have no other end in view, but the good of society, as well as individuals, I would therefore beg them to consider that conscience, according to the general idea annexed to it, is a very sacred thing. Let us therefore be cautious how we apply it to common, civil, and merely human affairs, lest we make the plea for it upon more important occasions of too light estimation: It is deeply expedient for us to consider its nature, or what we are to understand thereby in religious affairs, and what are the proper and fit objects and subjects thereof, which may be necessary to claim and assert as independent of the power of the civil magistrate: For this purpose let us observe Robert Barclay’s sentiment of the matter, who, in the latter part of the 5th and 6th proposition, after speaking of the light of Christ, and the light of man’s natural conscience, says, To the light of Christ then in the conscience, and not to man’s natural conscience, it is that we commend men: This, not that, it is, which we preach up and direct people to, as to a most certain guide unto eternal life. From hence we may safely infer, that no objection arising from HDT WHAT? INDEX
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any thing short of the light of Christ, can be sufficient to operate with the professors of Christ our Lord, as a Christian church, in their proceedings and determinations; so that it essentially behooves them, certainly to know that it is altogether from the illumination and power thereof, and not at all from the other, that they are actuated: This appears to be absolutely and indispensably necessary for the right and true support of a pure Christian testimony, and which I heartily wish may be deeply and sufficiently attended to by all the active members of society; for in vain is it to endeavor to lift up a standard to the nations, unless in and by that power alone which is able to strengthen for the work; without which pure and unmixed qualification it will prove too large and too heavy, so that being beaten and driven by the winds, it will fall to the ground, to the shame and confusion of those who attempted to erect and support it. The said author, in the 14th proposition of the apology, treating of the power of the civil magistrate, said, The question is first, whether the civil magistrate has power to force men in things religious, to do contrary to their consciences, and if they will not, to punish them in their goods, liberties and lives? This (says he) we hold in the negative. But secondly, as we would have the magistrate to avoid this extreme of encroaching upon men’s consciences; so, on the other hand, we are far from joining with or strengthening such libertines, as would stretch the liberty of their consciences to the prejudice of their neighbors, or the ruin of human society. We understand therefore by matters of conscience, such as immediately relate betwixt God and man, or men and men, as to meet together to worship God in that way which they judge is most acceptable unto him; and not to incroach upon or seek to force their neighbors, otherwise than by reason, or such other means as Christ and his apostles used, viz. preaching, and instructing such as will hear and receive it; but not at all for men under the notion of conscience, to do anything contrary to the moral and perpetual statutes generally acknowledged by all Christians; in which case the magistrate may very lawfully use his authority. The doctrine here preached is excellent both for those in, as well as those under authority, as it may clearly appear from thence that “in things religious,” such as he there mentions, he apprehends the magistrate has no just power, and that conscience may safely be pleaded; but observe the care and caution with which he writes, and how positively he excludes from that sacred claim “any thing that is acted contrary to the moral and perpetual statutes generally acknowledged by all Christians.” But it may be asked, what are those moral and HDT WHAT? INDEX
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perpetual statutes? I at once take it for granted that the laying and paying of taxes for the support of human and civil governments, and acknowledging the authority of the same, are material parts; seeing they have been very generally assented and submitted unto by Christians of all sects and denominations, at and from the personal appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, in all countries, and under all revolutions, down to this very day; and without which “human society” could not be supported, but inevitably verge into confusion and ruin: From which I would as concisely as possible, according to the worthy author’s manner, and nearly in his own words, lay down a position, and then draw and prove what I apprehend to be an undeniable and conclusive argument, as follows:
• Position: That it is unlawful and improper to counteract the moral and perpetual statutes generally acknowledged by Christians.
• But the laying and paying of taxes for the support of human and civil governments, and acknowledging the authority of the same, are of those moral and perpetual statutes, etc.
• Therefore it is unlawful and improper to counteract them.
If the cause of refusal and non-compliance were a matter of mere faith and conscience toward God, the case would be exceedingly different, and there would probably be no dissent; but as it appears to be only of civil concern, and relates solely to human affairs, it is therefore apprehended not censurable by the church, or properly cognizable thereby: And here I cannot but remark one reason why I believe many among us are led into a mistake, and scruples arise against paying of taxes for want of a well informed judgment. It is a received opinion among us, that all wars without distinction are sinful: Hence arises this scruple against paying of taxes for the support of war; but this is not the genuine doctrine of our ancient friends, as will fully appear in the following extract from the writings of Isaac Pennington, where speaking to what he very properly styles “a weighty question concerning the magistrates protection of the innocent,” it is to be observed that this enlightened author views magistracy and defensive war as the same thing, or, if I may use a simile as one building (though consisting of diverse parts) standing on the same foundation. The question is as follows:... Whether the magistrate, in righteousness and equity, is engaged to defend such, who (by the peaceableness and love which God has wrought in their spirits, and by that law of life, mercy, good-will, and forgiveness, which God, by his own finger, has written in their hearts) are HDT WHAT? INDEX
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taken off from fighting, and cannot use a weapon destructive to any creature Answer: Magistracy was intended by God for the defense of the people; not only of those who have ability, and can fight for them, but of such also who cannot, or are forbidden by the love and law of God, written in their hearts so to do. Thus women, children, sick persons, aged persons, and also priests in nations (who have ability to fight, but are exempted by their function, which is not equivalent to the exemption which God makes by the law of his spirit in the heart) have the benefit of the law, and of the magistrates protection, without fighting for the defense of either. Now if magistracy be appointed by God, and if it be magistrates duty to defend such, who are either not able, or cannot for conscience sake defend themselves; is it possible any can be right who lay waste this ordinance, or speak of such defense as sinful? If any man be appointed by God to defend my life, is it possible that God can authorize me to call him a sinner for doing his duty? or is it possible that I can, consistent with my duty, refuse him that tribute which is absolutely necessary to enable him thus to defend me? But had I much greater abilities to speak to this subject than I am conscious of, no reasoning of mine could be of equal authority with the author above quoted. Hear him therefore again... where, treating on this peaceable principle professed by the society, he says, I speak not this against any magistrates or peoples defending themselves against foreign invasions, or making use of the sword to suppress the violent and evil-doers within their own borders; for this the present state of things may and does require, and a great blessing will attend the sword, when it is uprightly borne to that end, and its use will be honorable; and while there is need of a sword, the Lord will not suffer that government, or those governors, to want fitting instruments under them for the management thereof, who wait on him in his fear to have the edge of it rightly directed; but yet there is a better state which the Lord has already brought some into, and which nations are to expect and travel towards. A candid and judicious author, to wit, Richard Finch, in a treatise called Second Thoughts concerning War... after the above quotation, further adds, It is evident that this great man holds forth plainly the divine economy I have hinted at above. We see it was his judgment that men using the sword, in this gospel day, may be God’s instruments; and that herein, though HDT WHAT? INDEX
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not come to the better state or summit of Christian perfection, they may yet be good enough to use or direct the sword to be used religiously in God’s fear: When perhaps many would think that religion in all, instead of using the sword, would if regarded, lead directly from the use of it; but it seems this writer, though a great advocate of our doctrine, thought otherwise; and I profess myself to be his proselyte, though at present, if there are a few persons so pious, I should almost as soon expect to find the philosophers stone, as a whole army of such warriors: And I am persuaded a due regard to what may be urged upon his and my principle, will require more benevolence and reflection of mind than can be expected from unthinking bigotry. Again the same author, I admire the wisdom and charity of this writer, in his prudent and generous concessions, though some may think he thereby gives his cause away; but I believe them so essential to the preservation of it, that what he writes is the very truth, and that without such concessions it will be impossible to maintain our ground against a keen adversary. All attempts to explain and defend our doctrine, which go upon the literal sense of the precept, or consider defensive war as a thing in itself wicked, how specious soever worked up or received by shallow judges, instead of honoring and serving, have injured a good cause by multiplying many if not needless absurdities and contradictions upon all such ill-judged attempts to state and clear the controversy. The same author...: The sword then which in tenderness of conscience you can not draw, may in another (whom for wise reasons it has not pleased God to lead in the manner he has done you) become the outward providential means to preserve you and others, as well as himself; upon which principle his arms may protect thy person and property, and thy virtue and piety be a defense and blessing upon his arms. Again...: King William the Third was a great warrior, and a great blessing to England, as he interposed for its deliverance in a trying time, when the liberty of the subject, under a specious solemnity of preserving it, was secretly undermined; and the great duke of Marlborough, instead of being convinced of our principle, was a glorious instrument in a warlike way. From what has been laid down we may strongly conclude, that though a measure of divine grace, according to scripture, is given to every man, yet there may be an HDT WHAT? INDEX
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infinite diversity in degrees, and all things considered, it seems even impossible that it should by the giver, in every age and person, be designed to make precisely the same discoveries, and exalt to the same degrees of knowledge and perfection. The above doctrine corresponds with a matter of fact, wherein the apostle Paul himself was nearly interested: It was at the time when upwards of forty of the Jews had “bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul” (Acts 23:16-24): And when Paul’s sister’s son heard of their lying in wait, he went and entered into the castle, and told Paul. Then Paul called one of the centurions unto him, and said, Bring this young man unto the chief captain: for he has a certain thing to tell him. So he took him, and brought him to the chief captain, and said, Paul the prisoner called me to him, and prayed me to bring this young man to you, who has something to say to you. Then the chief captain took him by the hand, and went with him aside privately, and asked him, What is that you has to tell me? And he said, The Jews have agreed to desire you that you would bring down Paul tomorow into the council, as though they would enquire somewhat of him more perfectly. But do not you yield unto them: for there lie in wait for him of them more than forty men, which have bound themselves with an oath, that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed him: and now are they ready, looking for a promise from you. So the chief captain then let the young man depart, and charged him, See you tell no man that you has showed these things to me. And he called unto him two centurions, saying, Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to Cesarea, and horsemen threescore and ten, and spearmen two hundred, at the third hour of the night. And provide them beasts, that they may set Paul on, and bring him safe to Felix the governor. It is evident here that the apostle’s life was preserved through the interposition of the chief captain; and Paul hesitated not to put himself under his protection, although he had been previously assured of the Lord’s particular providence and protection; the Lord having stood by him, and said, “Be of good cheer, Paul, for as you has testified of me in Jerusalem, so must you bear witness also at Rome.” Upon the whole, much more might be produced to show that it is perfectly consistent with the doctrines of Christianity, and the practice of friends to acknowledge allegiance to the government that God, in the course of his providence, has thought proper should take place, and to conscientiously pay our proportion of HDT WHAT? INDEX
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taxes for the support thereof; but it is hoped the above is sufficient with every unprejudiced mind.
During this year, on Paumanok “Long Island,” the Quaker meeting of Friend Elias Hicks appointed him a “recorded minister.”
As an example of an acknowledgement of Quaker disownment, here are two that were duly received and placed on file in this year at the Wilmington monthly meeting: “Dear Friends, — Whereas I have paid a fine imposed on me for not appearing in a militant order with Andrew Tranburg and company, for which act of so doing I have received considerable condemnation, and am sensible that it is not consistent with a Christian life to do so; therefore, for the clearing of Truth and my own conscience, I thus give my testimony against that misstep, and hope for the future to keep nearer the spirit of Truth, that leads and not astray. I am your Friend, I.H.”69 “S.D., under a sense of her own transgression, attended this meeting and offered a paper in order to acknowledge and condemn the same. ‘Whereas I, the subscriber, for want of giving heed to the dictates of Truth in my own heart, which would have preserved me from evil, have, in a most sorrowful manner, deviated therefrom, and given way to a libertine disposition in keeping company with a man in no way suitable for me; and was led away in such a manner as to be guilty of fornication. It is with shame and sorrow of heart that I expose myself; but it has often come before the view of my mind that the taking of the accursed thing formerly, although hid, even under ground, yet it was a hindrance to the battle of the Lord going forward. So I have been ready to conclude, that my endeavoring to keep this a secret might, in a spiritual sense, be a hindrance to the battle in this our day. And it is the sincere desire of my mind, that Infinite Goodness, which has been graciously pleased to visit me and set my sins in order before me, may not leave me nor forsake me; and that everything in me that is sinful or displeasing in his sight may be stoned, and the stump and root thereof be burned with fire, and that I may witness my sins to be washed away. Then I shall have more comfort that I sometime ago had, when I thought the time had come wherein I must appear before Him who knows the secrets of all hearts, and is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity with approbation. Oh, that I may often think of the distress that I was then in, for it passed through my mind, with many other things, that there was a woe pronounced against those that made the outside of the cup and platter clean, while the inside was full of hypocrisy; and it seemed to me that they were those who had the favor of man, but not of God. Now, as I felt myself, through my misconduct (though in a secret manner), disowned from the true unity of Friends,
69. Quoted in Ruth M. Pitman, “Structures of Accountability,” QUAKER RELIGIOUS THOUGHT #60 (Summer 1985), page 34. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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yet I think I can say that I am heartily sorry for all such misconduct as I have been guilty of, and do wish that Friends may find freedom so far to pass by my offence as to continue me under their care, hoping my future conduct may better desire it. S.D.’”70 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
The Reverend James Manning, Friend Moses Brown, and disowned Quaker Stephen Hopkins (who himself owned six slaves, one of whom was his manservant Toney) began the first concerted multi-denominational effort to agitate for the abolition of slavery in Rhode Island, and participation by its citizens in the international slave trade.
“It is simply crazy that there should ever have come into being a world with such a sin in it, in which a man is set apart because of his color — the superficial fact about a human being. Who could want such a world? For an American fighting for his love of country, that the last hope of earth should from its beginning have swallowed slavery, is an irony so withering, a justice so intimate in its rebuke of pride, as to measure only with God.” — Stanley Cavell, MUST WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY? 1976, page 141
70. Quoted in Ezra Michener, A RETROSPECT OF EARLY QUAKERISM (Philadelphia: Zell, 1860), pages 191-192. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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29th, 8th Month: Although the “Battle of Rhode Island” was taking place on the “Quaker Hill” of Aquidneck Island, it is interesting to note that this event so significant to other Rhode Islanders would go entirely unmentioned in any local Quaker meeting minutes. What would be mentioned about this day, however, would be the sad fact that during the build-up for this “Battle of Rhode Island,” a Tory home near Bristol, Rhode Island had had to be abandoned — and later Friend Sarah Trask, wife of Ebenezer Trask, was found to have in her possession some objects from that home. When Friend Sarah would prove to be unwilling to express contrition for her conduct she would be disowned by her Friends meeting. AMERICAN REVOLUTION
(Battles we could put up with –they having nothing to do with us –but theft was a no-no.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1779
As an example of Quaker disownment, here is one that was announced in this year at the Fairfax, Maryland monthly meeting: G.N. having had his Birth and education amongst us the People called Quakers but for want of taking heed to the dictates of Truth in his own breast he has so far deviated as to be guilty of fornication; for which reproachful Conduct we deny him the right of membership amongst us until he is enabled to make suitable satisfaction for the same, which is desired on his behalf.71
And here is an application for re-enrollment as a member in good standing after disownment, at this same meeting in this same year (not the same case as the above case of G.N.): Whereas I the subscriber some years past was so off my watch as to accompany my sister in her outgoing in marriage, contrary to the good order used amongst friends, on which account friends laboured with me, but thro’ obstinacy I rejected their advice and suffered myself to be disowned, but being since favoured with a sight of the inconsistency of such a conduct do hereby condemn the same as disorderly and request that Friends may receive me into membership again, hoping to conduct better in future.72 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
August: Friend Samuel Wetherell, Jr. (1736-1816), a cloth manufacturer of Philadelphia who considered the Revolution to be defensive, and who considered defensive war to be not only permitted, but morally obligatory, was for such errors in judgment disowned by the Religious Society of Friends. THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY AMERICAN REVOLUTION
71. Ezra Michener, A RETROSPECT OF EARLY QUAKERISM (Philadelphia: Zell, 1860), page 55. 72. Quoted in Morse, BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING, page 55. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1780
20th, 11th Month: The situation of the French troops in Newport, Rhode Island would be described by François Jean, Marquis de Chastellux. MARQUIS DE CHASTELLUX AMERICAN REVOLUTION
“Was read in this Meeting to good satisfaction an Epistle from the Quarterly Meeting held at Dartmouth the 12th and 13th of 10th month 1780 by which they desire we would treat with such Friends as are concerned in keeping slaves, they having had information that there were some such among us, whereupon we appoint Isaac Lawton and Sampson Shearman to treat with them and report to next Monthly Meeting.” MANUMISSION QUAKER DISOWNMENT
27th, 11th Month: A disownment by the Newport meeting: “Whereas James Marsh, who some time past came off from Rhode Island [Aquidneck Island] and by his own account had never been deprived of a right of membership which he held by Birth among Friends, has since he came among us [among the Friends of Smithfield] maintained a life and conversation in many respects inconsistent with our religious testimony, particularly in hiring a man or men to go into the war in his stead and although he could not deny but that he thought it incompatible with the Christian profession under which he had past, yet after being laboured with for his restoration, he gave no encouragement in making Friends satisfaction....” QUAKER DISOWNMENT AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Between 1775 and 1780: The Friends of Aquidneck Island, Rhode Island had recorded 22 manumissions of black slaves between 1775 and 1780, while disowning during that period 14 members of the Society who after being visited and labored with had refused to sign such documents. At the end of this process the comment was made that there was “hardly a Friend” who continued as a slaveholder. “Hardly?” –We do know of one such Quaker: Ann Bower was still holding her slaves, nor had she been disowned. QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1781
Friend John Dalton’s early years had been heavily influenced by Friend Elihu Robinson, an instrument maker and meteorologist. At the age of 15, Friend John joined his older brother Jonathan in running a Quaker school at Kendal, near the family home in Cumberland, England.
The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends held in London, this year considered it necessary once again to emphasize that the Quaker Peace Testimony was incompatible with any Quaker vessel being armed: It is recommended to the several quarterly and monthly meetings, that all concerned in armed vessels be dealt with according to the minute of 1744; and it is recommended to Friends everywhere, to take into their serious consideration the inconsistency of any under our profession suffering their temporal interest to induce them in any manner to contribute to the purposes of war.
Friend Benjamin Say, a physician of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was among those known as the “fighting Quakers,” who upon being disowned by the Religious Society of Friends on account of their disregard of the Quaker Peace Testimony, initiated the formation of the society entitled “The Monthly Meeting of Friends, railed by some Free Quakers, distinguishing us from the brethren who have disowned us.”73 AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Friend Samuel Wetherill wrote these words upon being disowned by Philadelphia Monthly Meeting: We wish only to be freed from every species of ecclesiastical tyranny, and mean to pay a due regard to the principles of our forefathers, and to their rules and regulations so far as they apply to our circumstances, and hope, thereby, to preserve decency and to secure equal liberty to all. We have no design to form creeds or confessions of faith, but humbly to confide in those sacred lessons of wisdom and benevolence, which have been left us by Christ and His apostles, contained in the holy scriptures; and appealing to that divine principle breathed by the breath of God into the hearts of all, to leave every man to think and judge for himself, according to the abilities received, and to answer for his faith and opinions to him, who “seeth the secrets of all hearts,” the sole Judge and sovereign Lord of conscience.74
73. There’s this jest, that a Free Quaker was someone who was free of Quakerism. This wasn’t the way they thought of themselves, of course, but we don’t have a record that any of these people came back to Quakerism when the bloodshedding came to be over and the Ten Commandments reasserted themselves as guides to our conduct. 74. “An Address to those of the People called Quakers, who have been disowned for Matters Religious and Civil” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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29th, 5th Month: “The Women’s Meeting informs that Ann Bowers is holding slaves and refused to follow anyone’s advice.” A committee of male Friends was formed, to labor along with the women. RHODE ISLAND MANUMISSION QUAKER DISOWNMENT
12th, 5th Day, 7th Month: Friend Artemis Fish had been disowned by the Religious Society of Friends for marrying a woman who was not a Friend, and for being “concerned in warlike matters.” AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Despite thus having been disowned, at this point in his subsequent life he requested in writing that his former Meeting take him under its care while he wrestled with an uneasiness he had, over his progressive involvement in the civil warfare. On this day the Committee appointed by the Religious Society of Friends to deal with the peculiar problem in which former Friend Artemis Fish had requested their assistance reported to the meeting that “he appeared to be concerned to be under the care of Friends,” and requested continuance for another month since “said Fish was therewith embarrassed over what was mentioned in his acknowledgement.” RHODE ISLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1783
A group of approximately 200 disowned former members of the Religious Society of Friends who, terming themselves Free Quakers, had responded to the call for arms during the American revolution and marched off to serve as a militia company, at this point founded for themselves on Arch Street between 5th and 6th Streets in Philadelphia a brick Georgian mansion-style meetinghouse of their own. The granite tablet that architect Samuel Wetherill set in their north gable reads “in the year of or Lord, 1783, of the Empire 8,” which is an indication that at that point the new country’s condition of being was as yet unclear — that it might have become an imperium rather than a republic. Initially 30 to 50 of these disowned Friends would regularly attended worship meetings in their new meetinghouse and the group would never have more than about 100 members. Over the course of several years, actually, participation would wane until in the mid-1830s there would no longer be enough members even to continue to hold meetings for worship. Their leader was Samuel Wetherell, Jr. (1736-1816), a cloth manufacturer who considered the Revolution to be defensive, and who considered defensive war to be not only permitted, but morally obligatory — and had for this been disowned in 1779. THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
Also prominent among the disowned Free Quakers were:
Colonel Timothy Matlack Colonel Clement Biddle William Crispin Christopher Marshall Peter Thomson Benjamin Say “Betsy” Ross Thomas Ross, Jr. Isaac Grey75 AMERICAN REVOLUTION
19th, 4th day, 3rd Month: “Preparative Meeting of Portsmouth informed that Weston Hicks [a member of the Religious Society of Friends] appeared at a public Town Meeting and there advised the people not to let any refugee Tory or anyone that had been friendly to the British Army while they were in Rhode Island [on Aquidneck Island] have any vote or be chosen into any office in the Town [Portsmouth, Rhode Island], which appearing to us to create strife and animosity and being inconsistent with our religious principles and very unbecoming to a professor thereof, whereupon a committee was appointed to labour with him and bring him to a sense of his misconduct, and for his neglect of attendance of our religious meetings.” AMERICAN REVOLUTION QUAKER DISOWNMENT
75. There’s this jest, that a Free Quaker was someone who was free of Quakerism. This wasn’t the way they thought of themselves, of course, but we don’t have a record that any of these people came back to Quakerism when the bloodshedding came to be over and the Ten Commandments reasserted themselves as guides to our conduct. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1784
November: As an example of the practice of Quaker disownment, here is an expression of contrition found on file at the Hopewell, Maryland monthly meeting: Whereas I have been guilty of strikeing and riding over a man, for which conduct I am sorry, desiring that friends may pass it by, and continue me under their care as my future conduct may render me worthy. Given from under my hand this 1st day of the 11th month, 1784. R.F.76 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
76. BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING, page 56. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1786
In approximately this year the followers of disowned “Universal Friend” Jemimah Wilkinson hired Abraham Dayton, Thomas Hathaway, and Richard Smith to scout a site for their “New Jerusalem” refuge. Passing through the valley known as Wyoming in upstate New York, the trio encountered a backwoodsman named Spalding who directed them to the Yates County region around Seneca Lake. Heading upriver until they fell upon the track left by General John Sullivan’s genocidal army, they arrived at the foot of Seneca Lake, and on Cashong Creek found a pair of French traders, De Bartzch and Poudry, who assured them of the attractiveness of the area. QUAKER DISOWNMENT
January 2, Monday: As an example of the practice of Quaker disownment, here is an expression of contrition found on file at the Hopewell, Maryland monthly meeting: Whereas I have made profession of the Truth, but not being strickly on my guarde, gave way to passion, so as to throw a stool at a man, for which misconduct I am sorry, desiring Friends to pass it by, and I hope to be more careful. January 2, 1786, W.S.77 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
77. BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING, page 56. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1787
As an example of the practice of Quaker disownment, here is an expression of contrition found on file at the Hopewell, Maryland monthly meeting, which we may hope led to reinstatement in the religious community: “I have for some time past been desirous to be joined in membership with my Friends, and from the feelings of my mind, have requested the same, and do acknowledge the Meeting was just in disowning me from being a member of their religious society for accomplishing my marriage by the assistance of an hireling teacher, for which conduct I am sorry, and desire Friends may pass it by, and receive me into membership again, as my future conduct may recommend me. This from your friend, P.Y.”78 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
June: When William Worrall and his slave stole some sheep, this was witnessed by other St. Helena slaves who reported the offence. Since of course the word of a slave could not be taken against the word of a free man, Worrall’s slave was tried and convicted but all that would happen to Worrall himself was that he received £15 compensation for the loss of his slave. ST. HELENA THE HISTORIC
Two cases in this month of this year raise the interesting question of why, if we USers are so wonderful, sometimes folks do everything they can to put distance between themselves and us. The two cases are a band of religious refugees fleeing into the wilderness, and a band of free black Americans attempting to flee back to Africa. As follows: • 25 followers of Jemimah Wilkinson, the disowned Universal Friend, among whom were the families of Abel Botsford, Peleg and John Briggs, and Isaac Nichols, met at Schenectady, New York and loaded themselves into a bateaux destined for their promised land. At Geneva they found one solitary, unfinished log cabin, that of Jennings. They went up the east side of Seneca Lake to Apple Town and there, for several days, they searched for a mill site (the first grist mill in upstate New York would be constructed by Richard Smith, Joseph Parker, and Abraham Dayton, on a site a few miles from Penn Yan later to be occupied by the Empire Mills). They would purchase, at auction, some 14,000 acres at a little less than 2s. per acre, and then they would purchase land for their settlement of Jerusalem for 1s., 2d. per acre. QUAKER DISOWNMENT • When Revolutionary veteran Prince Hall had offered to lead a contingent of 700 black soldiers from the Boston area to put down Shays’ Rebellion in western Massachusetts, officials had elected to deploy instead only white troops. This was considered such a serious insult, that Hall obtained 70 signatures of black Bostonians on a petition to the General Court, for funds to transport Africans back to Africa: [W]e find ourselves, in many respects, in very disagreeable and
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disadvantaged circumstances; most of which must attend us as long as we and our children live in America.
June 27, Wednesday: Credentials of the members of the Federal Convention: State of New Hampshire.
Thomas Say was born in Philadelphia, son of the disowned “Free Quaker” physician, Dr. Benjamin Say, who in this year was co-founding the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.79 THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
July: Isaac Hicksled was killed by a shark while swimming near the St. Helena landing place.
25 followers of Jemimah Wilkinson, the disowned Universal Friend, journeyed from Connecticut to the Mohawk River, then to Seneca Lake, New York where they arrived near today’s Dresden. Jemimah herself was not among them, and would follow only after some of the initial hardships had been reduced: “We go to prepare a place for you.” QUAKER DISOWNMENT
79. Thomas was a great-grandson of Friend John Bartram, and during his boyhood would frequently take his butterfly and beetle specimens to his great-uncle Friend William Bartram. Refer to Harry B. Weiss and Grace M. Ziebler’s THOMAS SAY: EARLY AMERICAN NATURALIST (Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois and Baltimore, Maryland, 1931) or Patricia Tyson Stroud’s THOMAS SAY: NEW WORLD NATURALIST (U of Pennsylvania P, Philadelphia, 1992). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1789
Spring: In upstate New York, the Markham-White party renewed its journey from the Susquehanna. Reaching the head of Seneca Lake, one of the men herded the animals to the northern end while the others rafted their belongings up to Geneva. Then they all continued on to Canandaigua. Phoebe Markham and her baby boy remained there as a housekeeper for Oliver Phelps while the rest of the party continued on to the Genesee River.
Elnathan Gooding’s brother rejoins him at Bristol, New York, following a visit back to New England.
Some of the initial hardships of life in the wilderness having been reduced, Jemimah Wilkinson, the disowned “Universal Friend,” joined her followers at their new Jerusalem refuge in upstate New York. QUAKER DISOWNMENT
The society built its community around a log-cabin meetinghouse near the present town of Torrey adjoining Seneca Lake. According to HISTORY & DIRECTORY OF YATES CO., NY: By 1789, she had persuaded her followers, who were drawn from the states of Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, that they should move into a separate community, a “New Jerusalem,” and thus she was the leader of the first white man's community established in what was then called the Genesee country in the Finger Lakes region of New York state. This drawing of the meetinghouse of the Society of Universal Friends in Yates County, New York is per the memories of Henry Barnes, who had attended services there as a child:
According to page 32 of HISTORY & DIRECTORY OF YATES CO., NY: In 1790 a national census was taken. A return of the Deputy Marshall of New York shows that there were 1,047 inhabitants on the seven Ranges of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, and west of HDT WHAT? INDEX
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the Genesee River.... If we add, however, the Friend's Settlement east of the Pre-emption Line, numbering 260 persons.... Of these inhabitants, there were in Township number 7, first Range, Milo, 66; number 8, Benton, 25; number 8, second Range, then Augusta, now Potter, 38. This would give us 388 for the population of what is now Yates County in 1790. It will be seen that the Friend's Settlement was at that time much the largest and most important community west of Seneca Lake, and even west of Fort Stanwix and the Susquehanna River. It is spoken of in one of Mr. [Charles] Williamson's earliest letters as “a very industrious community who have already made considerable improvements, having completed an excellent grist and saw mill sometime since. It is expected there will be double their present number before a twelvemonth.” However, in 1794 a dispute over land titles would split the movement, causing Universal Friend to move her colony to what would be named Jerusalem, in the “Finger Lake” district. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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December 2, Wednesday: In Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island, cotton from the slave plantations of the American South and from the slave plantations of the West Indies was being woven into cloth for resale to its growers. The operation, run by the merchant Moses Brown, was on a small scale. On this date Samuel Slater,
a young man recently arrived from England after working in cotton spinning mills, applied for a job with Brown. Slater alleged an intimate knowledge of the British thread-spinning machinery: “I flatter myself that I can give the greatest satisfaction in making machinery, making as good yarn, either for stocking or twist, as any that is made in England.”
Samuel [Slater] was a stalwart, handsome, rosy-cheeked youth of twenty-one when he came to America. Moses Brown sent him to Oziel Wilkinson’s, in Pawtucket, as a suitable place for him to board. When he entered Wilkinson’s house Hannah and another of Oziel’s daughters were working in the kitchen. Seeing a stranger, girl-like, they fled to an inner room; but Hannah, with maidenly curiosity, looked through a hole in the door and was favorably impressed with the young Englishman’s appearance. Samuel saw the eyes and resolved to win them. The young people were both smitten, but the Wilkinsons were Friends and did not approve of Hannah’s marrying a man of another faith. They proposed to send her away to school, but Samuel declared he would follow the girl to the ends of the earth if need be. The parents wisely concluded to withdraw their opposition and the lovers were allowed to marry. In the words of Slater’s biographer, Hannah was a “lodestone” that kept him in Pawtucket. Had it not been for her influence and sympathy, he might have given away HDT WHAT? INDEX
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to discouragement at the many difficulties he was obliged to encounter in making the new machines and running them successfully. In telling the story of Slater we must not forget the woman who assisted him in winning his great success. The machines are supposed to have been started up temporarily in October, 1790, but the first record of their work commences with December 20, 1790. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1795
The Rotch whaling family returned from France and England to Nantucket Island, and then settled in an elaborate new home in New Bedford, Massachusetts. At this point Friend Mary Rotch had reached 18 years of age. The Rotch “Mansion House” on the northeast corner of Union Street and 2d Street can be seen in this 1810 painting of New Bedford by William Allen Wall, which is now at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Mary, who would remain single, would be in this home with her parents until both had died, her mother in 1828 and her father in 1850. It is commonly expressed that during this period Friend Mary would be “disowned” by her New Bedford monthly meeting, but I think actually that was not the case. Instead, what would happen would be that she was disenfranchised by the group of elders of the meeting and so thoroughly “frozen out” by these “Old Lights” that she would begin to worship instead with non-Quaker religious groups. (Friend Elias Hicks had already preached in the New Bedford meetinghouse, and the issues over which Mary would be “frozen out” were so Hicksite that Mary and her “New Light” Friends might actually best be described as the 1st Quakers to be impacted by the coming Hicksite split of the Religious Society of Friends.)
As an example of an actual Quaker disownment –by way of radical contrast– here is one that was announced in this year at the Hopewell, Maryland monthly meeting: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Whereas M.H. hath been guilty of appointing meetings and preaching to the people contrary to the good order used among friends, for which conduct of his we disown him from being a member of our society untill he comes to a sense of his error so as to make suitable satisfaction for the same, which that he may is desired for him.80
80. BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING, pages 60-61. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1802
Summer: By mid-year, Hannah Barnard was disowned by her monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends for possessing a “a Caviling, contentious disposition of mind,” so from this point in time forward it will not be appropriate for us to refer to her as “Friend Hannah.” In Ireland as well, most of these so-called “New Lights” had resigned from the Society or been disowned by their monthly meetings. Remaining faithful to the Peace Testimony, Barnard would organize a Peace Society, and attendance at the meetings of this society would soon become greater than attendance at the Hudson Friends Meeting. The situation in Hudson was famous among the Quakers of her time and there would be a spate of pamphlets and books produced, arguing the merits pro and con. QUAKER DISOWNMENT THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1805
February 20, Wednesday: Angelina Emily Grimké was born as the 14th and final child of John Fauchereau Grimké, an aristocratic slaveholding judge in the Deep South, on his mother’s side a descendant of the Huguenots, with Mary Smith Grimké, in Charleston, South Carolina. Her sister Sarah Moore Grimké, 12 years of age, was designated as Angelina’s godmother.
The mother, burdened as she was with 14 children, seems to have been less than competent in dealing with the family’s domestic slaves, even when she resorted to the more severe punishments. Hence this, from Angelina’s diary: On 2d day I had some conversation with sister Mary on the deplorable state of our family, and to-day with Eliza. They complain very much of the servants being so rude, and doing so much as they please. But I tried to convince them that the servants were just what the family was, that they were not at all more rude and selfish and disobliging than they themselves were. I gave one or two instances of the manner in which they treated mother and each other, and asked how they could expect the servants to behave in any other way when they had such examples continually before them, and queried in which such conduct was most culpable. Eliza always admits what I say to be true, but, as I tell her, never profits by it.... Sister Mary is somewhat different; she will not condemn herself.... She will acknowledge the sad state of the family, but seems to think mother is altogether to blame. And dear mother seems to resist all I say: she will neither acknowledge the state of the family nor her own faults, and always is angry when I speak to her.... Sometimes when I look back to the first years of my religious life, and remember how unremittingly I labored with mother, though in a very wrong spirit, being alienated from her and destitute of the spirit of love and forbearance, my heart is very sore.
Having married outside the Religious Society of Friends, Friend Charles Brockden Brown of course needed to be disowned by his Philadelphia monthly meeting: At a monthly meeting of friends of Philadelphia for the Southern District held the 20th of 2mo. 1805. — The following Testimony against the conduct of Charles Brockden Brown was united with and a committee appointed to deliver him a copy out — Charles Brockden Brown of this city who had by Birth a right of membership in our Religious Society — having accomplished his marriage by the assistance of an hireling minister — to a person not in profession with us — it became our concern tenderly to treat with him on that account — HDT WHAT? INDEX
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but not appearing duly sensible of the impropriety of his conduct — We testify that we cannot consider him a member among us — yet desire that thro’ submission to the operation of Truth he may be qualified to condemn his transgression to the satisfaction of this meeting and become united in Religious Fellowship with us —
RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1816
As an example of Quaker disownment, in this year a number of Quakers were disowned by the Lynn and Salem meetings for refusing to submit to a spiritual discipline that was beginning to go beyond governance of behavior and attire into matters of theological opinion. “Beware the lo heres, and the lo theres.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Friend Elias Hicks began to go from Quaker meeting to Quaker meeting as an authorized Quietist “traveling minister.”
When, in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, Henry Thoreau would argue for the liberty to travel unnecessarily on the Sabbath, he would be taking up a Hicksian cudgel against one of the pet projects of the very most prominent citizen of his town, Squire Samuel Hoar. For a story had it that when the great hurricane of September 23, 1815 had devastated the woodlands around Concord, one old farmer had exclaimed:
I wish the wind’d come on Sunday! –Sam Hoar would’ve stopped it. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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A WEEK: History has remembered thee; especially that meek and humble petition of thy old planters, like the wailing of the Lord’s own people, “To the gentlemen, the selectmen” of Concord, praying to be erected into a separate parish. We can hardly credit that so plaintive a psalm resounded but little more than a century ago along these Babylonish waters. “In the extreme difficult seasons of heat and cold,” said they, “we were ready to say of the Sabbath, Behold what a weariness is it.” — “Gentlemen, if our seeking to draw off proceed from any disaffection to our present Reverend Pastor, or the Christian Society with whom we have taken such sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company, then hear us not this day, but we greatly desire, if God please, to be eased of our burden on the Sabbath, the travel and fatigue thereof, that the word of God may be nigh to us, near to our houses and in our hearts, that we and our little ones may serve the Lord. We hope that God, who stirred up the spirit of Cyrus to set forward temple work, has stirred us up to ask, and will stir you up to grant, the prayer of our petition; so shall your humble petitioners ever pray, as in duty bound —” And so the temple work went forward here to a happy conclusion. Yonder in Carlisle the building of the temple was many wearisome years delayed, not that there was wanting of Shittim wood, or the gold of Ophir, but a site therefor convenient to all the worshippers; whether on “Buttrick’s Plain,” or rather on “Poplar Hill.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Many of the local historians of Concord, and many Thoreauvian scholars, have made this sort of connection. It is the sort of connection in which they deal, between one prominent citizen of Concord with prominent attitudes and another prominent citizen of Concord with prominent attitudes. It is, I might say, an easy association. But how many such historians and scholars know that when Thoreau would grow up in Concord in the following generation, and would take such attitudes, he was seconding the attitudes of the great Quaker preacher, Friend Elias?
ELIAS HICKS
For Hicks had pronounced in opposition to the “Blue Laws,” laws which for instance entitled the Quakers of Philadelphia to stretch chains across the public street during their First Day silent worship in order to prevent the noise of the passage of carriages. For Hicks, First Day was just another day, of no greater or lesser holiness than any other weekday. He would come in from the fields, change his clothing, put on his gloves, and go off to Meeting for Worship on First Day just as he would come in from the fields, change his clothing, put on his gloves, and go off to Meeting for Worship on Fourth Day (Wednesday). But this was not merely a matter of preference for Friend Elias, any more than it was a matter of preference for Squire Hoar: it was a principle. Blue laws were laws, and laws were enacted by governments, and therefore such laws were infringements upon religion, sponsored by the state apparatus which should be allowed have no connection whatever with religion. In this direction lay a great danger, sponsored by the Squires of this world who would like nothing better than to be able to legislate the religious convictions of other people. Thus, when the Governor of New York issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation, Friend Elias Hicks was greatly alarmed, that he “has by recommending a religious act united the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, and broken the line of partition between them, so wisely established by our enlightened Constitution, which in the most positive terms forbids any alliance between church and state, and is the only barrier for the support of our liberty and independence. For if that is broken down all is lost and we become the vassals of priestcraft, and designing men, who are reaching after power by subtle contrivance to domineer over the consciences of their fellow citizens.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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The terminology and the cadence was not Thoreauvian, but Henry Thoreau’s attitudes as proclaimed in AWEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS would be identical with this. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE The Fair Quaker81 The fair Quaker maiden, neat, elegant, plain, With justice the praise of the world may obtain; Content with the beauty by nature bestowed, Unpractised the licence by custom allow’d, Of fashion regardless she thinks herself drest, Without tort’ring her hair or exposing her breast: But the modest reluctance that faintly reveals, Enhances each charm that it shows or conceals. The girls who have borrowed gay burdens from art And are of themselves a very small part, With envy shall view ev’ry sweet native grace, That breathes in her form, or that blooms in her face; with envy shall sigh, while their hearts must confess, That lovely Simplicity’s beauty’s best dress.
81. From the Latin of Vincent Bourne, Port Folio (Philadelphia), March 1816, page 259 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1819
After Friend Elias Hicks had preached at the Hudson meetinghouse in this year, he was informed that Hannah Barnard had been in attendance, and had said that his message had greatly moved her — in part because his expressions were so similar to those for which she herself had been disowned. Friend Chuck Fager has analyzed the matter as follows: In the Society or out, Friend Hannah Barnard remained faithful to the Quaker Peace Testimony, later organizing a Peace Society whose meetings soon became larger than those at Hudson Friends Meeting. Asked once if the breach between her and the meeting were irreparable, Barnard replied, with a fine dig at Quaker process, that it was not, because when the meeting understood that it “had accused me wrongfully, they had only to confess it, and I could freely forgive them.” Friend Hannah Barnard’s case was famous among Quakers of her time, and for decades afterward; a spate of pamphlets and books appeared, arguing the issues one way or the other. The breach she exposed continued to widen: in Ireland, most of the “New Light” Friends either resigned or were disowned. When Elias Hicks preached at the Hudson Meetinghouse almost twenty years later, in 1819, Friend Hannah Barnard was reportedly in the audience, and Hicks was told that she said his message had greatly moved her, in part because his ideas were identical to those for which she had been disowned. Hicks’s religious witness was in many ways similar to Friend Hannah Barnard’s, not least in the fact that it was evoking the increasing opposition of the evangelical establishment, opposition that was to have fateful results for the Religious Society of Friends. But that’s another story. Hicks visited Friend Hannah Barnard in Hudson in 1824, and a year later she died peacefully at home. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1820
The Essex, a whaler, sank after an attack by a sperm whale. The white members of the crew, in order to survive after their shipwreck, had resort to cannibalism. The crew members of color were of course the first to die and be eaten — the only crew members to survive would be of the white color. Only a few Quakers would survive — and only by drawing lots and killing and eating the Quaker who drew the short straw. This ship’s captain, disowned Friend George Pollard, Jr., would live out his life on Nantucket Island as a night watchman, but it would be generally recognized in this ship’s home port that “on Nantucket we do not speak of the Essex.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1822
The recorded Quaker minister Mary Newhall, and friends Elizabeth Redman and Mary Rotch, were in the process of being disowned by the New Bedford Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, for espousal of “advanced doctrines.”
Read about this “New Light” controversy: THE “NEW LIGHTS”
Read about the impact this controversy would have on Waldo Emerson (according to his own evaluation): FREDERICK B. TOLLES
About 35 of these “New Lights” were being disowned in Lynn,82 and almost that many in nearby Salem. Micah Ruggles and Lydia Dean were involved in this set of beliefs.
ELIAS HICKS
“Our hearts are filled with many guests — many beloveds.”
82. Lynn (maybe it was yet called Lynnfield) was less than an hour’s travel from Boston. From Burrill’s Hill there you can see the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Quaker Meeting for Worship Note that Thoreau and Emerson scholars, to date, have taken a simplistic attitude toward this history, presuming for one thing that in the Friendly struggle between Hicksites and Evangelicals, it was always the Hicksites who were disowned and the Evangelicals who stayed in possession of the Quaker logo when that is utterly inaccurate, and presuming, for another thing, that whenever there was a struggle with the Evangelicals in the Friends groups, those who were in opposition were Hicksites or Hicksite sympathizers when that is utterly simplistic. For instance, the “New Light” movement of Mary Newhall that began in about 1815 had not more sympathy for Hicksites than for Evangelicals, was affiliated with the “Irish Liberals,” and was a parallel within Quakerism of the group within the Congregational Church which had eventually split off as Unitarians. (The payoff for these simplistic attitudes is that the scholars get to pretend that the Hicksites were merely Unitarian-symps within Quaker groups, and thus dismiss the fundamental difference between the sort of “reformer” who goes for religious closure, like the Reverend Ralph Waldo Emerson or the Reverend Frederic Henry Hedge or Martin Luther, but merely for closure of a different stamp, and the sort of religious reformer, like Henry Thoreau or Elias Hicks or George Fox, who seeks to forestall any religious closure.) Mary Newhall, Elizabeth Redman, and Mary Rotch, reformers of the “closure-seeking” variety and deadly opponents of the Hicksites (of whom they had no comprehension, because they did not know what it was to seek “non-closure” in matters of the spirit) as well as of the Evangelicals (in opposition to whom they defined themselves), became Unitarians and became friends (small f) of Ralph Waldo Emerson. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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To characterize their belief system, the historian has to explain that these “New Lights” opposed the Evangelicals within Quakerism who were tending to oversimplify the spiritual life by an escapism in which the old was automatically better than the new, the past better than the present, their model of religious doctrine being one of gradual deterioration with time, and has also to explain that what they had to offer in the place of these simplicitudes was merely an equal but opposite oversimplicitism according to which the new is automatically better than the old, because bright and new, and the future better than the present because after the present. Their simplistic model of religious doctrine was one of progressive revelation with time — a doctrine of evolutionary progress in religious attitudes similar to the sophomoronic attitude that a few deities are obviously better than a confused pagan mess of them, and one monotheistic deity obviously superior to a few (and no deity superior to one). What these people had to offer reduced to the message “Oh, that’s old- fashioned now,” if one allows that they did deliver this doctrine with some wit and subtlety. Friend Elias was responsive to the tribulation of these disowned Friends, but his basic attitude had already been expressed in a letter to Martha Aldrich on May 29, 1801: neither memories of the past nor anticipations of the future should be allowed to distract us from the seriousness of our task of using “our own experience and judgment” in “living our daily experience in that injunction of our dear Lord.”
ELIAS HICKS
“The candle could not be often put out, unless it was also often lighted, which shows the mercy of God.” Is it any wonder that this was the year in which Friend Elias had his first heart attack? HDT WHAT? INDEX
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February 10, First Day: Chief among the “New Lights” of New England was Friend Mary Newhall, who had accused the Quaker elders of a “dead formality” and had been informed by these elders that she was no longer welcome to speak in her New Bedford meeting. This group included a young cordwainer, Benjamin Shaw, who averred their intention to be to “pull the old order down, for they were a stiff, arbitrary set.” A committee of elders had met with him, he had rebuffed them, and he had been disowned. On this First Day, Benjamin Shaw sought to seat himself in the raised seats at the front of the Lynn, Massachusetts meetinghouse in which traditionally the ministers and elders of the meeting positioned themselves. After an unseemly scuffle he was ejected, and then the elders held him at the town’s poorhouse until late in the evening.
Read about this “New Light” controversy: THE “NEW LIGHTS”
Read about the impact this controversy would have on Waldo Emerson (according to his own evaluation): FREDERICK B. TOLLES
When Carl Maria von Weber left Dresden for Vienna, he was sufficiently worried about his health to leave a farewell note for his wife in a sealed envelope — in case he did not return.
Richard Henry Dana, Sr.’s wife Ruth Charlotte Smith Dana died in childbirth, and with her the infant Susan.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 10th of 2 M / In our Morng Meeting D Buffum was engaged in short but uncommonly lively pertinent & pithy testimony the Afflictions of this life which reached Several present In the Afternoon we were Silent - In the eveng [——sin] Henry Gould & his Wife visited us — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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February 14, 5th day (Thursday): It was Monthly Meeting day at the Lynn, Massachusetts meetinghouse of the Religious Society of Friends, with the committee from the Quarterly Meeting present. Friend Benjamin Shaw again, as he had done on the previous First Day worship, seated himself in one of the raised seats traditionally reserved for recognized ministers and elders. When two Friends attempted forcibly to pull him down he “braced himself against the railing and split the seat,” but nevertheless they managed to carry him away. Struggling, he was being “escorted” toward the meetinghouse door when Friend Caleb Alley interceded by raising his hands “in a fighting attitude,” and he was surrounded. At this point Caleb’s father, Friend John Alley, Jr., entered the building and attempted to make his way up into the ministers’ galley, yelling at the Quakers who stood in his way “Let me go by.” Friend Jonathan Buffum, a housepainter, seized advantage of this confusion and slipped up into the high seats, where he began to shout out a ministry: “You that profess to be Quakers, Christians, have shewn forth by your conduct the fruit of your hell-born principles this day.... You thirst for our blood; you want to feed upon us; this I call spiritual cannibalism.” The meeting for worship was terminated by the elders, the partition separating the men’s section from the women’s section was brought down, and in the men’s section a Monthly Meeting for Business was begun in which Jonathan Buffum and several other “New Lights” were disowned.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 14th of 2nd M / Our Meeting considering it was a moderate Snow Storm, was pretty well attended by male & female & to me it was a comfortable lively Season - we sat in Silence This is Moy [Monthly] Meeting day at Lynn. There is a spirit of Ranterism among them & my mind has been much in simpathy with the faithful among them, especially as some of that spirit was to be taken under dealings at the Meeting this day & much trouble was anticipated. — May Truth Stand its ground & be established over the heads of all opposition. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
March 18, Monday: The Preparative Meeting recommended to the New Bedford Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends that Friend Mary Newhall be disowned (eventually the bodies of the local New Lights would be allowed to be buried in the meeting’s cemetery, although surrounded by a fence to distinguish these ones as disowned).
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould commented about the lonely state of the sole remaining Jew of Newport, Rhode Island, Moses Lopez: 2nd day 18 of 3 M / Last night at half past 11 OClock JACOB LOPEZ died - he & his Brother Moses were the only Jews to have lived in Newport for a number of Years & no men have stood fairer as Moral honest men — They are old acquaintances of mine, they have often visited me in my shop & passed many hours in pleasant converstaion, & poor MOSES will now feel himself as he really is quite alone, & destitute of associates of his own religious views — I visited him this morning & found him in affliction HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1823
February 11, Tuesday: Mary Newhall and Friend Mary Rotch preached in the church at the corner of William Street and Purchase Street in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Due to their support for Mary Newhall, Friend Mary Rotch and her younger sister, Friend Elizabeth Rotch Rodman (Mrs. Samuel Rodman), would be frozen out of the council of elders of their local Monthly Meeting in New Bedford. This would cause an entire set of New Bedford Quakers (the so-called “New Lights”) to turn Unitarian.
RHODE ISLAND RELIGION During the hours of darkness disowned Friend George Pollard, Jr. had kept his whaling vessel moving along despite the fact that no stars were visible — and despite the fact that the Two Brothers was being sailed through a poorly charted quadrant of the Pacific Ocean some 600 miles northwest of the Hawaiian chain known to contain shoals. Due to this extremely poor judgment, off French Frigate Shoals his vessel ripped its bottom on a reef. The captain did not want to abandon ship but was brought along by his crew into their small boats, and the following morning all lives would be saved by another Nantucket whaler. (Captain Pollard had been in charge during the shipwreck of the Essex. This would be, therefore, the final time he would be entrusted with a vessel — he would finish out his life as a night watchman. Herman Melvill(e) would seek him out in Nantucket for a sympathetic interview, and in 2011 the wreck of the Two Brothers would be explored by HDT WHAT? INDEX
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skindivers: its anchors, its trying vessels for whale blubber, etc.) LOST AT SEA
TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1825
Publication of Friend Luke Howard’s “A letter from Luke Howard, of Tottenham, near London, to a friend in America; containing observations upon a treatise written by Job Scott, entitled Salvation by Christ, &c.” (This treatise ON SALVATION BY CHRIST by Friend Job Scott had been published in Providence, Rhode Island in the year of his death, 1793. You can inspect it at
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States, which have lately issued from the press, and been transmitted to this country, I observe two or three of a posthumous character, purporting to be from the MSS. of the late Job Scott. I have perused one of these, entitled, “Salvation by Christ,” attached to which, is a kind of second part, entitled “On the Nature of Salvation by Christ” — the whole making about 88 pages, the matter of which is stated to have been penned more than thirty years ago, and left in the hands of his friends, when he embarked on his last voyage in the work of the ministry. Having heard him preach with much power and energy, when he was in England on that occasion, I was interested (I remember,) and affected by the circumstances of his death in Ireland, soon afterwards: and the regard which I have cherished for his memory, makes me a little concerned for his religious reputation. Had he lived to near the present time (as he might have done in the course of nature,) and left his MSS. revised for publication, I suppose no one could have complained that justice was not done to him, by the appearance of the present pamphlet: but my own decided opinion, after mature consideration is, that he never would have published it as it now appears, nor probably, at this time of day at all. The Yearly Meeting of New England therefore, or its committee, did certainly evince both a prudent care, and a due regard for his reputation, and that of our religious Society, in so long declining to sanction this piece. But it seems now to have made its appearance in opposition to their judgment. We have extant, among us here, a small collection of “letters from Job Scott, written whilst in Europe to his relations and friends,” &c. first published in America, and reprinted in England. In one of these dated 14th of 11th Month 1793, I find the following remarks. “There is scarce any thing that makes longer life desirable, [he was then within eight days of its termination,] but to finish the field of religious labour, which I had hitherto mostly thought was not yet done; especially with regard to digesting my Journal and some other writings. [Then follow allusions to the peculiar doctrine advanced in this Essay on Salvation, and which it appears he still regarded as true — but he adds,] On the ocean, I wrote over about a quire of paper, which I believe is now in my trunk at ———— , respecting which, I was ever a good deal doubtful, whether some parts of it, not particularly upon these points, were not more in a way of abstruse reasoning, than might be best for a Friend to publish. Be that as it may, I am very apprehensive that most of my writings are far from properly digested, and some of them I believe might be a good deal better guarded. Our views of things do not usually open all at once: it is so in the individual — it is so in the world.” There was certainly in the character of this dear Friend, a perceptible excess on the side of the imagination and the feelings. This had been the case with many good and useful men HDT WHAT? INDEX
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before him: and such a temperament makes a minister faithful, or courageous and energetic in the discharge of duty — but in measure disqualifies him from being a competent judge of doctrine and controversies. It is nevertheless, sometimes corrected by experience, and by intercourse, in a spirit of charity, with others as zealous and knowing as himself. I remember an honest man’s remark, who had been hired as a “help” from a distant county, and had had to follow his employer for the first time through our crowded metropolis. “I never saw such a place as London in my life: why nobody would get out of my master’s way!” Just so it is with powerful, but secluded minds, when they emerge from their circle of assenting hearers and weak opponents, into a wider horizon, and have to compare the contents of their budget, with the variety of conflicting opinions around them. It is in vain that the man says to himself and others, “I am quite sure of this.” For, if religion, for instance, be the subject, and there be not in the Scriptures of Truth, a preponderating mass of evidence in his favour, another may soon fall in his way who is quite as sure of the contrary — and then who is to judge between them? If either of them refuse the test of the Scripture, in its plain and obvious meaning, he may indeed decide the matter for himself, and be quite sure in his own opinion still, but in vain will he expect to do it for the other. He may now, if he incline so to do, ascribe his own persuasion, which he calls his certainty, to the Testimony of the Spirit of Truth in himself. But then, the other may pretend to this likewise, and with as plausible appearances (it may be,) on his side, to support him in his pretensions. For this reason it is wisely proposed by Robert Barclay in his Apology, that both doctrine and practice shall be tried by the Test of Scripture. We are very willing, (he says, Prop. 3 Sect. 6) that all our doctrines and practices be tried by the Scriptures; which we never refused, nor ever shall, in all controversies with our adversaries as the Judge and Test. And if in controversies with adversaries, then much more in differences of opinion about doctrine, or differences of belief, between members of the same religious society. By this test therefore, I shall proceed to try some opinions of Job Scott — he himself having admitted, at a time when men are not used to express themselves lightly, that he was very apprehensive, most of his writings were far from being properly digested: and that some of them (he believed) might be a good deal better guarded. The subject of this pamphlet is regeneration, and the new birth: that doctrine which our Lord chose to propound but to one person, and that in privacy; as if on purpose to instruct us, that it should be learned in secret, and brought to the test of individual experience, not talked about in crowds, or discussed in religious assemblies — a doctrine, moreover, which would bear to be treated, in those ancient times, with a freedom of terms which does not so well comport, now, with the due restraints of HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Christian conversation. A subject, which he, who is clothed with right authority, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, may at times profitably impress upon the minds of serious hearers, in the solemnity of public preaching, but which, when cast before the sensual and worldly minded, is as pearls among swine; and may serve to bring the great and precious truth which lies under it, into doubt if not into derision. I shall strive not to make this letter the vehicle of improper thoughts, by quoting expressions which could not be read, I think, in a mixed company of Friends of both sexes, without bringing confusion over some of their faces; but I must specify enough (and I may as well do it at once) to make myself intelligible. The fundamental proposition then of the whole book, and which the author seems to have regarded as a special revelation to himself, is, that the human soul is in a spiritual sense, and in relation to its God and Saviour, a female; and that salvation by Christ consists in, or is effected by a real process of generation, conception and birth; by which it is made the mother of Christ, the only begotten Son of God! He insists again and again, that those things are real, which sober Christians have regarded only as lively and apposite metaphors, in the sayings of Christ and his Apostles on the subject of that change of heart and life, which all must experience, who become qualified for the kingdom of heaven. Before I proceed to show the bearings and consequences of this opinion of his, I will make some observations upon the text of Scripture, on a misapplication of which, the most part of what is original in his views of the subject, will be found to rest. It is related in Matt. xii.47-50, and in Mark iii.32-35, that on a certain occasion the mother, and brethren of Jesus were without, desiring to speak with him, while he was in the house, teaching the people: and that before he went out he took occasion, as his manner was, to spiritualize the occurrence; reminding those who were about him, that there was a spiritual union and relation to be experienced, by doing the will of God, in which they should be as near to him in the inward life, as were his brother and sister, and mother naturally. In this speech he puts his mother last, (in both places) I apprehend as being the least appropriate in the comparison, yet not to be slighted by the want of all mention of her, now that she was on the spot. But what does Job Scott make of it — or rather what does he not make of it? Putting mother first (in one of his quotations) he insists that “Jesus meant as he said,” and that “had he not carefully confined his words to a strict meaning, he might have called such his father too:” “but in the spiritual sense in which he was speaking, no man can possibly be his father, but God” [only] and that “man at most can be his mother!” He spake then in a spiritual sense — and yet he made these, really and not metaphorically his different relations, as mother, sister, and brother! But in a spiritual sense what is HDT WHAT? INDEX
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the distinction among these? none at all: The apostle Paul says, Gal. iii.28. “In Christ, there is neither male nor female,” alluding to the very kind of union that our Lord here pointed out. Though the meaning therefore was spiritual, and the thing spoken of, real in that sense, yet the form of speech was figurative, importing only a most near and intimate union in spirit: and he made no mention of his father; first, because it would have been an improper figure, or comparison, he having no natural father; secondly, because no mention was made of his reputed father to him. The expressions are encouraging when thus simply taken: but if they were really meant to convey this new doctrine, I would ask, is it likely, a thing so deep and so wonderful as this, the very mystery of Christ, (as this author deemed it,) should have been dropt by our Lord, in the act of rising from his seat to go out of the house, and at no other time further spoken of by him? I trust I need say no more here, for the satisfaction of any unprejudiced person, that the saying here was figurative not literal. I may just refer, however, to the expressions used in Mark x.30, as a proof of the freedom with which the like terms were used by our Lord on another occasion. Of the various figures made use of in the New Testament, to represent the great and permanent change wrought, in every person, who comes to experience “salvation, through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth,” 2 Thes. ii.13, there is not any thing which is more appropriate, or more insisted on, than that of being born again, or born from above: but this is by no means the sole or exclusive idea, that even Christ himself presents to us, in illustration of the subject. The word and power of God entering into minds, variously disposed as to its reception, is compared, very aptly to seed sown in various soils: Matt. xiii. One man forgets the instruction received, almost immediately, being careless and unwatchful: another gives out in the first season of difficulty, being impatient: another prefers gain or pleasure, and so stifles conviction: but of him that prospers in religion, it is simply said, that “he heareth the word and understandeth it and bringeth forth fruit,” according to his capacity, watchfulness and diligence. How simple, natural and intelligible is all this; which is the exposition of Christ himself. The small portion of secret help and guidance at first afforded to believers, is pointed out (that we might not despise or overlook it in the heart,) by the parable of the grain of Mustard seed, verse 31,32, and its efficacy in producing in time a total reformation of the man, by a comparison with the working of leaven, in the meal of which bread is made: and the necessity, in order to success in religion, of making this our primary concern, and letting all other things give place to duty, by the treasure hid in a field, and by the pearl which would enrich the purchaser, by taking it into another country with him, (for such HDT WHAT? INDEX
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is probably the intent of the parable,) verse 44,46. In like manner, as the estates of individuals, differing in their talents and improvement, so is that of the Church at large, illustrated, by most apt comparisons in the New Testament. But in all these, there is nothing that tends to the thing so much insisted on by the author of this piece: nor is the subject, in his sense, so much as once mentioned or alluded to by our Saviour! In reply to a question of the apostle Peter, in Matt. xix.28, as to what they should acquire who followed him, as the reward of their adherence to him, he says indeed; “Ye who have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, &c.” But if the English were made to agree with the construction of the text, according to the punctuation that may (and probably should) be given in the Greek, it would be seen that the term regeneration or renovation, belongs to the latter part of the sentence; and points to the future state of the visible church in this new and spiritual dispensation, with Christ, its King and High Priest at its head. That he could not mean any such thing as our author has attached to the term elsewhere, nor even the individual conversion, or change from a carnal to a spiritual state of the disciples, is plain from hence, that in this respect, Christ who had never sinned, had not gone before them; nor could they as yet have been said to have followed. Matt. xviii.3. Luke xxii.32. The only occasion of our Lord’s treating “of the new birth” in strict terms, (so far as appears from the New Testament,) was upon that visit of Nicodemus to him: and he seems here to have followed his own rule, as laid down, Luke viii.10. of speaking to them that were “without,” (or who had not shown their faith by following him) “in parables.” This would humble an inquirer, if he were sincere; and put him upon the exercise of faith, instead of curiosity. Nicodemus stumbled at first upon the “stone of offence,” when emphatically told this truth, that “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” John iii.3. but our Saviour in compassion, probably to a sincere but prejudiced mind, condescended to add to his statement, the terms “of water and of the spirit,” (by which we may understand, the being first washed, and then inspired, or in other words, first purified from sin, and then filled with holy dispositions and desires,) terms from which the Jewish teacher was able to gather something; assisted as he most probably was, by the further conversation of Christ at that time and by that “power of the Lord,” Luke v.17, which, when many “Pharisees, and doctors of the law” were sitting on another occasion under his teaching “was present to heal them.” These terms of being “born of water, and of the spirit,” are quite inconsistent with the main proposition of the pamphlet, as already stated: they are delicate and appropriate metaphors, expressive of a thing which in itself, is to us incomprehensible, and to be known only by HDT WHAT? INDEX
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its effects. This also Christ teaches us, by that comparison of it to the wind, which blows on in its course, and we hear the sound of it, and see plainly its effects on the bodies around; yet in itself it is invisible; we cannot tell whence it comes, nor whither it goes, as we can of visible substances. “So is the way of every one that is born of the spirit.” He gives the most evident proofs of having become a new man, of a thorough change of heart, effected by a divine power within him: of the manner, origin, progress and final accomplishment of which, however, God alone is in full possession — and man (pretend what he will of spiritual discerning) can neither describe nor define it, in terms that shall apply alike to every case of conversion, under all the varieties of constitution, habits, character and circumstances of those who may be the subjects of it. The metaphor thus employed, but not first introduced by Christ (for the Jews applied it in the case of a proselyte to their religion, whom they compared to a new born child) was taken up and applied by the apostles in a variety of apt illustrations; which so well suit the case, and become so natural by use, that they are ready at times to supersede the real sense, that lies underneath, unchangeable. Hence the great wisdom of the Teacher of all truth himself may be inferred, in having so set it forth under a variety of similitudes, that it is impossible for any one of these, finally to usurp the place of the divine reality. But the author of the pamphlet has fallen into this mistake: and in trying to establish his own views of doctrine, he has in a variety of ways wrested the sense of Scripture; of which take the following instances: — Matt. i.1. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” “Christ,” says Job Scott, “is not only the son of David, and David the son of Abraham, but Christ himself is the son (strictly so in spirit) both of Abraham and of David.” Is this the way to prove doctrine by reference to Scripture? The text relates, not to Christ as a “Spirit” or principle of holiness in men, but to the man Jesus Christ, whose outward descent from Abraham, by the mother’s side, was in the first place to be set forth in this book. He confounds the outward person with the inward life; and then seeks the latter where it is not at all treated of. The pamphlet says, page 19, “that babe of life, that true child of God that cries Abba, Father, is never brought forth but through a union of the two seeds, the human and divine.” Now it happens that in the only two places in Scripture, in which this figure of the infantile cry to its parent is introduced, each passage exhibits the infant as an adopted child! Rom. viii.14,17. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. [We see here, why, and how, they are sons,] For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father.” Who is it that is led by the spirit of God, but he that HDT WHAT? INDEX
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before went astray? 1 Peter ii.25. Who is it that receives the spirit of adoption, but he, that before was the servant of sin. Rom. vi.16,23. “And such were some of you (says Paul to the Corinthians, after enumerating different kinds of evil doers, 1 Cor. vi.9,11) but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” Is there any thing here, other than, or beyond a change of heart and life, the same soul being saved that sinned before? Yet these are the “common notions” of sanctification held by the Christian Church at large, that is, by the sound members in all denominations: but to proceed to the other text, — Gal. iv.1-7. It is clear from the context here, that the figure has relation to the two dispensations of the Law and the Gospel. Under the former, the Galatians “were in bondage under the rudiments of the world:” they were redeemed by Christ that they might “receive the adoption of sons,” the effect and consequence of believing in Him. “And because ye are sons (continues the apostle) God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” Thus he describes, in a figure, that happy change which was then proceeding in them, and concerning which he was jealous, lest it should be impeded by others who were leading them back and preaching to them “another Gospel.” Now, let these texts be fairly taken along with the context, in the full and plain acceptation of both; and it will be seen at once, that the author derives no support to his hypothesis from either of them. For generation is not adoption; nor the Law, the old man, nor the Gospel, the new man. The pamphlet says, page 54, “This is the great mystery of godliness. God manifest in the flesh, is not confined to the flesh of that one body.” And then it proceeds to quote John xiv.21.23. as before, verses 16,21. also Rom. i.19. and Col. i.27. But take with the first cited text, the context also, 1 Tim. iii.16. “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” Observe first, that all this is said in the past tense, God was manifest, not is: secondly, that the whole is connected together as the proper attributes of Jesus Christ, even of Him that was crucified. Are we to take these upon us — are we preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory? Nay, says some advocate of this mystical doctrine, but Christ within is. But this, according to them, is the new birth itself, the heir of the promise, the believer himself: then one believer is preached to another, and believed on by him as his Saviour. Let us for argument sake transfer the meaning in a figure, to Christ within, or the Life which is the light of men, &c. then, what becomes of the new opinion? For this Christ is not an individual “production,” but a Divine principle, holy and unchangeable: a light shining in darkness, and giving power to as many as receive HDT WHAT? INDEX
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and follow it, to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name, John i. “No man (says J.S.) can receive any one that Jesus sendeth (observe the inaccuracy of the term, for Jesus is the man) and not as really receive him; I mean absolutely him, the only begotten Son of God: any more than we can receive Christ, and not receive the Father that sent him.” I give this with the italics as I find them. It is a perversion of that speech of our Lord’s, Matt. x.40. in which he confirms his disciples, then going forth as apostles, and encourages all to receive them as such, by this consideration, that the power and presence of the Father, and of the Son as the Divine Word, should go along with them. “It is not ye that speak, (he says, verse 20.) but the Spirit of our Father which speaketh in you:” the Omnipresent Spirit of God. It need scarcely to be added now, that the pamphlet supersedes the promised Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, John xiv. in his office of instructing and supporting believers, giving it all to the new birth; or God and man in “immediate” union, our own spirits being one of the component parts of this “production”! Rom. vi.1-11. Out of this whole passage he selects the 10th verse: “For in that he died, he died unto sin, once and in that he liveth, he liveth unto God:” making it signify that Christ “died to the motions of sin in himself,” (instantly, that is, “once,”) and placing this mystical death of Christ by the side of the great atonement on the cross: in the same way it may be made to supersede all acknowledgment of the merit and efficacy of this sacrifice. The pamphlet says, page 63,64. “Can a birth of real life [note, of the Divine and human conjoined!] be stifled and slain? It can. Was, ‘the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’ — was this said only of what should be afterwards, [note, it was written by John, of what had been before! Rev. xiii.8.] or was it really done from the very foundation? It was really done: it is done still in thousands. In the very day that Adam ate the forbidden fruit he died. Death took instant place in him, upon that which was before alive in him, only in the life of the Lamb. Here the Lamb was slain in him, here the branch was cast forth and withered.” Is not this to assert the death, not of a creature who had sinned, but of Him by whom all things were made? For how is the life of Christ to be separated from his proper divinity, but in a figure only. John the Baptist said, pointing out the man Jesus Christ, Behold the Lamb of God! John i.29.36. According to our author this was quite in vain. It was impossible for the “man” who was to be “made manifest” to Israel, thus to be shown to them: even he then is mystical, and not to be beheld outwardly! The “common notions” of the Christian world, which I believe to be quite right here (and the pamphlet quite wrong), make the Lamb of God to be the man Jesus Christ, who was foreshown by the lamb in the Jewish passover; and who came accordingly, and HDT WHAT? INDEX
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offered up for us his most precious life, “as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot” — “foreordained before the foundation of the world,” 1 Peter i.18-21. Let us proceed. In page 58 we read thus: “The natural man, the mere creature, as the work of God is a created being: he never saw God, cannot know him, nor receive the testimony respecting the mystical union and sonship: but the babe, the begotten, that with a true and living knowledge of its sonship, cries Abba, Father, both sees and knows the Father, and receives the heavenly testimony. For Christ, speaking of this mystery, says, ‘Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.’ Matt. 18.10.” There are in this short passage several perversions of scripture. In the first place, I suppose it will not be controverted, that Adam “the mere creature” (for such he was in strictness, though a noble and a perfect one) saw and knew God, in some sense, while in paradise. Secondly, I have already shown who it is that cries Abba, Father, in the sense of Paul, who wrote it; and that it is not the “babe” of this pamphlet. Thirdly, it does not appear that Christ was “speaking of this mystery” in that passage: it does appear, from the forepart of the chapter, that he was speaking of a converted state, a state also of great self-humiliation and docility: in which they who abide “as little children” shall experience, notwithstanding their outward weakness, the watchful care (implied by the ministration of angels) of their Father in heaven. It would be tedious, and it may not probably be necessary for me, to follow the author through at least as many more unwarrantable applications of scripture, by which he endeavours to make as much as possible appertain to his “babe.” of that which is written concerning the Redeemer of mankind, in his own proper person. Taking the author now, therefore, upon his own hypothesis, let us see what follows from it. First; that there is no such thing as redemption by Christ, properly speaking, and restoration of mankind from the fall; (a conclusion which he could scarcely have intended:) for, upon his system, Adam who fell, is not he who is restored: he is a mere creature, cannot see God, nor know him. Yet, strange to tell, he was redeemed, in and by the very transgression by which he fell, for in that very day that he sinned, the Lamb was slain in him, being a part of himself! It is difficult to get through the labyrinth of our author’s doctrine on this subject; but the result of it plainly is, that one man sins, and another being, is born of him, who is saved instead of him! Secondly. If the human soul be the mother of this babe, not by a “metaphorical expression,” but by “as perfect a reality as any in nature,” as he affirms — and if the soul be immortal, and created for a future state of happiness or misery, which will not probably be controverted — then, upon the supposition of the HDT WHAT? INDEX
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salvation of the son, what becomes of the mother? This is a part of the “mystery,” which he has not explained to us; though as necessary to have been made clear as any. It should seem upon this hypothesis, either that the mortal part is the mother, which would make a very strange confusion in the matter, besides that we know that “what is born of the flesh is flesh;” or that all human souls are eternally lost and perish, some leaving offspring to inherit the realms of bliss, and others not! But no — I go too fast: For, thirdly, he says in another place, “If it be objected, that Christ is his [God’s] only son, his only begotten, and that therefore none else can be his son in the same sense, I answer: 1. It is not pretended that any other visible person or human being was ever begotten in the same manner as was Jesus the son of Mary: so, in that respect, that was a singular and only instance of sonship. 2. But a second part of the answer to this objection is, that though the sonship as brought forth in a plurality of persons, is expressed in the plural number in relation to them; and so is called sons, children and heirs; yet in relation to God, with whom the union is immediately formed in all those persons wherein the sonship takes place, the whole is but one sonship. The seed of which they are begotten is one in all, that is, ‘the incorruptible seed and word of God,’ of which all that are, or ever was born again of God, are begotten.” Pa. 80. If we now keep still to the real system, it appears that the many persons constituting the visible church, as to us, are in relation to God, but one person, or no person at all: contradicting our Lord’s declaration that He is the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob — not the God of the dead, but of the living. Matt. xxii.32, &c. Consequently now, instead of heaven being peopled at a double rate, as it would be on the supposition that men’s souls were saved, and that our author’s doctrine were also true, there will be gathered from the high and glorious mission of the Redeemer, instead of an innumerable multitude before the throne, no increase of blessed spirits at all! In order to escape from some such inference, our author here, towards the conclusion of his work, and perhaps upon a little further reflection, begins to slide out of his realities; making the son, a sonship, and admitting other scripture metaphors into his statements; out of which metaphors others have just as much right to constitute what is real, as he had to make this so. If conversion and sanctification be really a process of generation, then it is also really a dying and rising again inwardly, a being washed from our sins in water or in blood, a being leavened with leaven, purified by fire, &c. all of which are impossible in a real sense. In the use of metaphors, Holy Scripture will always be found, I believe, consistent with itself. He who is “converted” becomes at first “as a little child:” the direction HDT WHAT? INDEX
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of his will and desire is effectually changed: and he afterwards grows in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; until he arrives at “the measure of the stature of his fulness.” 2 Peter iii.18. Eph. iv.13. Not so the “babe” of this pamphlet. For our author seems greatly perplexed in himself, to decide whether he be born at all, until sanctification is fully accomplished; that is, until he be arrived at manhood! “If any man in whom this birth has some real existence, finds himself still in a degree under the power of sin, he may be assured, that so far as he is so, he is not born of God.” “No man is ever wholly born of God, who is not brought under his rule and government in all things.” — “That which sinneth, in any man, is not born of God; is not the new man, but the old man, which is corrupt, and in which sin yet dwelleth.” Note this monosyllable yet, which at once refutes the real doctrine, for it would imply, in his sense, that there may be in us, really one man already saved, and another in a capacity of salvation! The apostle John says, “Whosoever is born of God doth not sin; for his seed [the principle of Truth and righteousness, the Eternal Word] remaineth in him.” &c. 1 John iii.9. But he also says, “Whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world,” 1 John v.4, which is a great and self-evident truth, closely connected with the former, and, as it were, the root of it. For nothing can be “born of God” in us, but what shall be pure, holy and harmless; Light in the understanding and Love in the affections, the two great preservatives (as every child of God knows) from the act and power of sin. The apostle says also: “He that committeth sin is of the devil.” [but as if to prevent the too literal acceptation (of his being born of him) he adds] “for the devil sinneth from the beginning.” Ch. iii.8. But our author has a person much nearer to ourselves to lay the blame upon. He imputes all the “babe’s” sins, to the old man “which is corrupt [as if it were really the original principle of Evil in us] and in which sin yet dwelleth” [as if it could notwithstanding be yet purified and saved.] Such are the consequences of affecting to be wise above that which is written — of making that real which is metaphorical; that figurative or mystical which is literal — of not being content to take the plain text along with the context, and draw from both in humility and faith the instruction they may thus well afford — in short, of rejecting, from an apprehension of our own superior attainments and greater spirituality, the doctrines deduced from scripture, by Christians in all ages, concerning salvation by Christ. It is greatly to be feared, that a spirit of self- righteousness may sometimes be lurking under these exalted pretensions. For how can a man be supposed to entertain and feed his mind upon such doctrine, without applying it to his own case and to his neighbours? He himself, forsooth, is regenerate and born again; he has in him, the only begotten, the son and heir of the HDT WHAT? INDEX
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promises, who ever beholds the kingdom, and dwells in it; nay, claims it as his rightful inheritance! He is the brother, and of late, it seems, also the mother of Christ! He needs no teaching of man — the anointing is in him, by which he knows all things — or if not as yet so, they will in due time be revealed to him, without research or inquiry on his part. He can do without the scriptures: he will be led and guided into all Truth without them: the letter kills [a text often perverted thus] it is the spirit that giveth life: — with much more of the like, that may be traced in what escapes from persons in this state of mind. As to the letter killing, let us here explain the text. 2 Cor. iii.3-6. “Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, [here is a strong figure!] written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, [the same thing with ‘the anointing,’ 1 John ii.27.] not in tables of stone, [as was the law of Moses] but in fleshly tables of the heart. And such trust have we, through Christ, to Godward. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to think any thing as of ourselves, [to arrive at positive conclusions concerning your state] but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, [or Covenant] not of the letter [to wit, the law of Moses] but of the spirit: for the letter [of that law] killeth [by denouncing death for the breach of the commandment, and yet providing no remedy or escape] but the Spirit [of the living God in the new covenant] giveth life.” Now, let any candid person try for his own satisfaction, whether he can bring any thing from this, or any other part of the Scriptures of Truth, which implies that the doctrines contained in that book, which (after the subject it treats of) is called the New Testament, do kill, or in any way prejudice the believer in Christ, by being simply read and received into his understanding: It was plainly not the letter of this book to which the apostle applied the text — but mark! his words will often be found so applied by those who think themselves highly spiritual. It is true, that “knowledge” without charity “puffeth up,” and that charity edifieth, or buildeth up: but it buildeth, in part, with the very materials that inquiry and knowledge furnish. And the apostle in the very same Epistle had said, “Brethren be not children in understanding — howbeit in [freedom from] malice be ye children, [here is the ‘babe’ of the apostle Paul] but in understanding be men.” 1 Cor. xiv.20. For which end he had written them so many instructive advices. The letter, then, killeth, and the spirit giveth life: but to whom does it give life? To those exclusively who have in their minds this view of it? By no means. One man may have been taught, that he is saved by the righteousness of Christ imputed to him, and by this merely, without any respect to his works: another may have imbibed the sentiment, that what Christ did and suffered outwardly, (as he may inconsiderately term it,) effected nothing for his eternal good: I think them both wrong: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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but as I believe that men are not saved merely by a notion of religion, so neither that they are lost merely through it: though, when fondly cherished and uncharitably contended for, their notions may hurt them as Christians, and impede or endanger their sanctification. Our author himself, I am sorry to have to remark, does not appear to have had his charity towards others extended, or his humility deepened, by these speculations. “No doubt (he says in his preface) professors will object, as they always have done, to every unfolding of truth: but what avails their cavils, or indeed what avails their quiet, with us, if it is in a way that allows them to live at ease in sin, under a mistaken notion that they are going to heaven by Christ?” — “The Lord is on his way, gradually unveiling himself to his inquiring, seeking children; and wo, wo, from an all-righteous judge, to those who dare to lift a hand against the right-timed openings and revelations of his heavenly mysteries!” This note of admiration, I conclude, is the editors — but probably not in the sense in which I admire at the passage. For, let it be recollected, that not fire and faggot, personal restraint, or persecution, is here alluded to, but simply the objections (which he calls cavils) of professors of the same religion! But he proceeds, “I care not how soon their false rest is disturbed.” — “I would as soon trust my immortal state upon the profession of Deism, as upon the common notions of salvation by Christ.” These highly improper concessions to unbelieving spirits, are found in more than one or two places in the book. “I am as sure (says J. S.) there is no salvation out of Christ, as I am of any thing in the world: I am also as sure, that the common ideas of salvation are very greatly beside the true doctrine of salvation by Christ.” So much for the sweeping sentence, which the author is made, by this imprudent publication, to pass upon his fellow professors of the Christian religion, without distinction of name or sect. Now, let us hear him speak of himself and his own experience — which he does towards the conclusion, in the following terms: “The substance of what I have written, I have at least learned mostly of the Father. I learned the mystery of it, not of man; neither was I ever clearly and livingly taught it by man, as man; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Are these the terms in which it becomes a poor finite being, endued with such limited powers, to speak of the Great Author and Finisher of our faith; and of those things, which, as the apostle himself says, we now know but in part, and see as through a glass, darkly? Not one of the apostles of Christ any where mentions God the Father as his teacher, in this familiar manner. And surely he had forgotten, at the moment, that he had ever read the New Testament; from the “letter” of which, his memory at least furnished him with another man’s words, in which to clothe his own thoughts of his own attainments. Let this source of magnificent expression (to which preachers and disputants so freely resort) be removed, and HDT WHAT? INDEX
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it would soon be seen into what, both the spirit of paradoxical inference from detached portions of the letter, and an exalted, mystical mode of expounding the hidden sense (where it is not,) would degenerate! But rather let it not be removed — for it is greatly needed on these occasions, to serve as a touchstone for the false gold, and detect the fallacy. Let it not be thought, that in thus meeting the author of this piece, or rather the piece itself, as unceremoniously as it comes, (though there is more that is exceptionable left unnoticed,) I am actuated by any degree of hostility towards the memory or character of this deceased Friend. Truth, and above all, “the very Truth of God,” as he has expressed it, is too precious a thing to be deserted by its advocate, were it even certain that he would lose all his friends (in this world) by defending it: the author himself would have joined me in this conclusion. I believe him to have been a very sincere and spiritually minded man, a fervent, and in some respects, a useful and effectual preacher, and a good example in life and conversation. With the strong perception which he seems to have had of some doctrinal errors of others, (such as the Antinomians, who probably came frequently in his way,) I think it quite probable that with further humbling experience of the power of Truth, and further opportunities of conference with his equals, he might have come to see and correct his own. That with all these strange notions about the manner of salvation, he was enabled, through the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, and the sanctifying efficacy of the Holy Spirit, to experience (through faith) the thing itself, is what I entertain no doubt of. And here I trust I may safely leave him and conclude the subject. Were I to be inquired of, whether there be at the present time any religious society or body of men on the face of the whole earth, who are entitled to draw between themselves and other “professors” a clear line of distinction, and say, “We know the rest are ignorant; we possess and enjoy; the rest are aliens: we are the church, they, the world that lieth in wickedness:” I must honestly reply, that I know of no such body or society. I believe that religious knowledge, accompanied by a heartfelt experience of the great work of sanctification, has of late years greatly spread and increased among mankind; and in quite as great a proportion without, as within, the pale of our own religious society, taken in its whole extent. In forming this conclusion, I have been guided by the rule which our Lord himself lays down concerning doctrines and teachers, By their fruits ye shall know them: for men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles. Matt. vii.6. And when, with unimpeachable integrity and unquestionable piety, I see joined, in many whom I know of other denominations, a lively concern and diligent endeavour to spread the knowledge of Christ; to promote (what I hope no sound member of our society will deny to be of great importance, and of great probable future utility to mankind) the HDT WHAT? INDEX
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reception and perusal of the Holy Scriptures: when I am obliged to admit, on certain evidence, that these labours have been blessed, and have succeeded to the turning of many to righteousness, Dan. xii.3, who before were dark, ignorant of the true God and of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, sensual and unprincipled — when I behold these things in which we (as a body) have taken hitherto so little part, I own I feel for the Christian character and reputation of that part of the visible professing church on earth, to which I belong. We are, it may be said, a peculiar people, and have peculiar Testimonies, in some respects, to bear to the simplicity, peaceableness and purity of Christ’s kingdom. Granted — no one believes this, I trust, more firmly than I do: not many, perhaps, more sincerely desire that we may be faithful to our duty in these respects. The day will come, however, soon or late, when we must merge (if we remain so long a society) into the great assembly of the visible Church. For it is said, They shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. Isa. lii.7-10. No squinting then upon each other, for differences of opinion among sound and faithful members of the true Church: but a universal charity at least — if not a most perfect agreement in the Truth! But, O that before that day come, we the Religious Society of Friends, who have sometimes called ourselves the Lord’s people, and who believe that we have Testimonies committed unto us to bear for His name, may not, by departing from the true humility and fear of God; by letting in the wide-wasting love of this world and its treasure; and by following strange doctrines, which have no root in scripture, and which vary with the mental complexion of every teacher, be scattered and come to nought. But I am persuaded better things (though I write thus to provoke to Christian zeal and emulation) of the sincere in our own society. I trust that they will yet more and more become, and long continue, a sober yet spiritually minded, a consistent, self-denying company of believers; bearing testimony to the Truth of God; not in words alone, in which we may err from want of knowledge, but in practice, where the way is safe and plain; and where our Great Example has gone before us, leaving us his footsteps that we might follow Him. We acknowledge, that our own opinions of the Christian religion, received by others, merely as notions, will effect no more for them, than they could for us: will constitute but the “letter” of the New Covenant, until written with the finger of God on fleshly tables of the heart. How important is it, then, for all, that they thus come to feel and possess that which they hear and speak of! In order to which, let us in humility and faith, commune in private with the Blessed Saviour, in his inward appearance in our minds. Here we may learn of him, practically, what it is to be born again, and what is the nature of his salvation: and having received the Truth “as little children,” grow therein from stature to stature, till being finally gathered from the east and from the west, from the HDT WHAT? INDEX
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north and from the south, we may be permitted to sit down with the faithful and saved of all generations in the kingdom of God. I am thy affectionate friend, LUKE HOWARD HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1827
Fall: The Reverend Waldo Emerson was preaching in various Unitarian churches in various Massachusetts towns. He would be serving as what was known as a “supply” preacher into 1829. He would be delivering his supply, which amounted to about 26 different sermons in all, almost 200 times. In November he would substitute for his cousin, the Reverend Orville Dewey, at the New Bedford First Congregational Church (Unitarian) make up largely of Hicksite Quakers. He would note that Mary Rotch, one of the prominent members of this group of attenders, had during the rite of the Last Supper quietly absented herself from the church service.83
83. The most prominent precedent for this sort of religious nonobservance was of course the Deist father of our nation, George Washington. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1828
In a novel RACHEL DYER, a failed Quaker from Maine named John Neal, who had sought disownment from the Religious Society of Friends, reworked the Mary Dyer/Anne Hutchinson stories in the context of Salem witchcraft, initially for Blackwood’s Magazine. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1829
Friend William Rotch, Jr. of New Bedford, Massachusetts got married with Lydia Scott, young daughter of the deceased Quaker mystic Job Scott, although she had in the meanwhile become a Swedenborgian.84 In consequence, Friend William Rotch, Jr. was disowned by his monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.
As an example of Quaker disownment, here is one that was announced in this year at the Somerset monthly meeting:
W.M. Jr. has been guilty of dancing, attending a places of diversion and deviating from the truth and after having been treated with without the desired effect, we disown him from being a member of our religious society.85
84. Note that in an earlier timeframe the Rotch family and Job Scott had been finding refuge in Dunkirk, on the coast of Flanders, and then in England. 85. Morse, HISTORY OF CONSERVATIVE FRIENDS, page 36. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1830
September 26, Sunday: To Friend Stephen Wanton Gould, in Providence, Rhode Island, it was a distinctly unpleasant experience to encounter in the public street his former friend William Rotch — since he had been disowned from the Religious Society of Friends for having Hicksite leanings: 1st day 26 of 9 M / Silent & measurably favour’d Meeting. —After meeting in the Afternoon I rode into Town.- In the Street I met Wm Rotch & noded to him, & he to me - but he did not look nor feel to me, as Wm Rotch once looked & felt. — I deplore his departure from Society - but nothing can be done - he must remain as he is. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1832
March: Friend Arnold Buffum of Old Smithfield and Providence, Rhode Island initiated the New England Anti-Slavery Society, which would be based in Boston and of which he would become the 1st president. Some mystery attends the disownment by Smithfield, Rhode Island, meeting of Arnold Buffum, a European American abolitionist and one of the most visible and vocal radicals in New England. Buffum had converted to the cause after buying the first issue of The Liberator and meeting Garrison. Though numerous sources refer to his disownment, none provide dates for the event, and monthly meeting minutes record no such act. Still, Buffum himself once stated that the Smithfield meeting had disowned him, and his daughter Elizabeth Buffum Chace recalled that the meeting told Buffum the matter might be “amicably settled, if he would give up this abolition lecturing.”86
86. Page 89 in Donna McDaniel’s and Vanessa Julye’s FIT FOR FREEDOM, NOT FOR FRIENDSHIP: QUAKERS, AFRICAN AMERICANS, AND THE MYTH OF RACIAL JUSTICE (Philadelphia: Quaker Press of Friends General Conference, 2009). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1834
This year produced the 1st of a number of investigations into Eastern State Penitentiary’s finances, punishment practices, and deviations from the Pennsylvania System of confinement.
There had never been more than about a hundred “Free Quakers,” even during the Revolution. At this point there were only two of the disowned “Free Quakers,” or “Pretend Quakers,” still regularly attending at the special meetinghouse constructed in 1783 in Philadelphia — Friend “Betsy” Ross and Friend John Price Wetherill. There was no longer any attempt being made, to hold meetings for worship. In this year these two permanently closed the doors of their meetinghouse, so that it could be rented out and converted successively into a school, a library for apprentices, and then a plumbing warehouse, as a source of income for them.87 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
87. The persons who would continue to be members of this group would continue only for purposes of property ownership, out of their entitlement to a share in the brick building at the corner of 5th Street and Arch Street in Philadelphia. Presently it is the headquarters for the Junior League of Philadelphia, although annually the descendants of the Free Quakers meet there to decide upon the distribution of funds generated by rental of the hall and income invested for charitable purposes. Inside are two of the original benches, and an original window exists nearly intact. The balcony is a recent addition. Among the exhibits is the 5-pointed star tissue pattern that Friend Betsy had allegedly used in making the 1st American flag (but the legend of her making such a flag is simply that, a legend and nothing more). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1837
Friend John Greenleaf Whittier was elected to the Massachusetts legislature, and his POEMS WRITTEN DURING THE PROGRESS OF THE ABOLITION QUESTION IN THE UNITED STATES was published:
In 1837 an edition of my complete poems, up to that time, was published by Ticknor & Fields.
Friend William Basset joined the antislavery society of Lynn, Massachusetts, thus going directly against the Quaker reluctance to insist upon a public condemnation of the institution of slavery, and also running a considerable risk of being disciplined for joining an association outside the Society of Friends. He published a pamphlet in defense of this membership. (Eventually he would in fact be disowned.)
The Pastoral Letter, by Whittier The General Association of Congregational ministers in Massachusetts met at Brookfield, June 27, 1837, and issued a Pastoral Letter to the churches under its care. The immediate occasion of it was the profound sensation produced by the recent public lecture in Massachusetts by Angelina and Sarah Grimké, two noble women from South Carolina who bore their testimony against slavery. The Letter demanded that “the perplexed and agitating subjects which are now common amongst us should not be forced upon any church as matters for debate, at the hazard of alienation and division,” and called attention to the dangers now seeming “to threaten the female character with widespread and permanent injury.” So, this is all, — the utmost reach Of priestly power the mind to fetter! ANGELINA EMILY GRIMKÉ When laymen think, when women preach, A war of words, a “Pastoral Letter!” SARAH MOORE GRIMKÉ Now, shame upon ye, parish Popes! Was it thus with those, your predecessors, HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Who sealed with racks, and fire, and ropes Their loving-kindness to transgressors? A “Pastoral Letter,” grave and dull; Alas! in hoof and horns and features, How different is your Brookfield bull From him who bellows from St. Peter’s! Your pastoral rights and powers from harm, Think ye, can words alone preserve them? Your wiser fathers taught the arm And sword of temporal power to serve them.
Oh, glorious days, when Church and State Were wedded by your spiritual fathers! And on submissive shoulders sat Your Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers, No vile “itinerant” then could mar The beauty of your tranquil Zion, But at his peril of the scar Of hangman’s whip and branding-iron. Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church Of heretic and mischief-maker, And priest and bailiff joined in search, By turns, of Papist, witch, and Quaker! The stocks were at each church’s door, The gallows stood on Boston Common, A Papist’s ears the pillory bore, — The gallows-rope, a Quaker woman! Your fathers dealt not as ye deal With “non-professing” frantic teachers; They bored the tongue with red-hot steel, And flayed the backs of “female preachers.” Old Hampton, had her fields a tongue, And Salem’s streets could tell their story, Of fainting woman dragged along, Gashed by the whip accursed and gory! And will ye ask me, why this taunt Of memories sacred from the scorner? And why with reckless hand I plant A nettle on the graves ye honor? Not to reproach New England’s dead This record from the past I summon, Of manhood to the scaffold led, And suffering and heroic woman. No, for yourselves alone, I turn The pages of intolerance over, That, in their spirit, dark and stern, Ye haply may your own discover! For, if ye claim the “pastoral right” To silence Freedom’s voice of warning, And from your precincts shut the light Of Freedom’s day around ye dawning; If when an earthquake voice of power And signs in earth and heaven are showing That forth, in its appointed hour, HDT WHAT? INDEX
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The Spirit of the Lord is going! And, with that Spirit, Freedom’s light On kindred, tongue, and people breaking, Whose slumbering millions, at the sight, In glory and in strength are waking! When for the sighing of the poor, And for the needy, God hath risen, And chains are breaking, and a door Is opening for the souls in prison! If then ye would, with puny hands, Arrest the very work of Heaven,
And bind anew the evil bands Which God’s right arm of power hath riven; What marvel that, in many a mind, Those darker deeds of bigot madness Are closely with your own combined, Yet “less in anger than in sadness “? What marvel, if the people learn To claim the right of free opinion? What marvel, if at times they spurn The ancient yoke of your dominion? A glorious remnant linger yet, Whose lips are wet at Freedom’s fountains, The coming of whose welcome feet Is beautiful upon our mountains! Men, who the gospel tidings bring Of Liberty and Love forever, Whose joy is an abiding spring, Whose peace is as a gentle river! But ye, who scorn the thrilling tale Of Carolina’s high-souled daughters, Which echoes here the mournful wail Of sorrow from Edisto’s waters, Close while ye may the public ear, With malice vex, with slander wound them, The pure and good shall throng to hear, And tried and manly hearts surround them. Oh, ever may the power which led Their way to such a fiery trial, And strengthened womanhood to tread The wine-press of such self-denial, Be round them in an evil land, With wisdom and with strength from Heaven, With Miriam’s voice, and Judith’s hand, And Deborah’s song, for triumph given! And what are ye who strive with God Against the ark of His salvation, Moved by the breath of prayer abroad, With blessings for a dying nation? What, but the stubble and the hay To perish, even as flax consuming, With all that bars His glorious way, Before the brightness of His coming? HDT WHAT? INDEX
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And thou, sad Angel, who so long Hast waited for the glorious token, That Earth from all her bonds of wrong To liberty and light has broken, — Angel of Freedom! soon to thee The sounding trumpet shall be given, And over Earth’s full jubilee Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven!
Hymn, by John Greenleaf Whittier. Written for the celebration of the third anniversary of British emancipation at the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, first of August, 1837.
O HOLY FATHER! just and true Are all Thy works and words and ways, And unto Thee alone are due Thanksgiving and eternal praise!
As children of Thy gracious care, We veil the eye, we bend the knee, With broken words of praise and prayer, Father and God, we come to Thee. For Thou hast heard, O God of Right, The sighing of the island slave; And stretched for him the arm of might, Not shortened that it could not save. The laborer sits beneath his vine, The shackled soul and hand are free; Thanksgiving! for the work is Thine! Praise! for the blessing is of Thee! And oh, we feel Thy presence here, Thy awful arm in judgment bare! Thine eye hath seen the bondman’s tear; Thine ear hath heard the bondman’s prayer. Praise! for the pride of man is low, The counsels of the wise are naught, The fountains of repentance flow; What hath our God in mercy wrought? Speed on Thy work, Lord God of Hosts! And when the bondman’s chain is riven, And swells from all our guilty coasts The anthem of the free to Heaven, Oh, not to those whom Thou hast led, As with Thy cloud and fire before, But. unto Thee, in fear and dread, Be praise and glory evermore. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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June: Friend Luke Howard was one of the “50 influential members” of the London Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends who signed “A Faithful and Affectionate Address to the Society of Friends on the Temperance Subject.”
It must therefore have been after this point in time, that the Howards departed from the Religious Society of Friends. According to page 11 of a small booklet entitled SHORT MEMORIALS OF THE LATE LUKE & MARIABELLA HOWARD, OF ACKWORTH VILLA, YORKSHIRE. BY AN AGED RELATIVE, FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY (London, Printed by Edward Newman, Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate, 1865), “L.H.’s views differing in some respects from those held by the Society of Friends, he wished to have the connection dissolved, which was accordingly done, much to the regret of his friends, with many of whom he maintained a sincere friendship. M.H. also withdrew from the Society. They afterwards established a meeting on their own premises, in which some of their neighbors joined them, and it is believed that the simple form of worship in which they united was to the edification, and the satisfaction of their own minds.” It is clear, also, from this booklet, that they never formally returned to the Society, for their burial at Winchmore Hill is described as “with the full acquiescence of Friends,” and had their requested disownment ever been reversed, such “acquiescence” in burial in a Quaker cemetery could not have been an issue.
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1838
July: Their monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends disowned Friends Angelina Emily Grimké Weld and Sarah Moore Grimké. The reason given for their disownment of Friend Angelina was that she had married a non-Quaker. The reason given for their disownment of Friend Emily was that she had attended her sister’s illicit wedding to a non-Quaker. The sisters and Theodore Dwight Weld removed to Fort Lee, New Jersey, where the sisters would work in local petition campaigns. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1839
As an example of Quaker disownment, here is something that was announced in this year at the Somerset monthly meeting: S.W. has neglected the attendance of our religious meetings and attended those of the Hicksite; and having been treated with therefor, manifested no desire to retain her right of membership with friends. We therefore disown her from being a member of our religious society.88 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
April: The disowned American Quaker Sarah Moore Grimké authored a statement for distribution among Friends in England, about the racial discrimination that existed within monthly meetings of the Religious Society of Friends in the United States of America, “Society of Friends in the United States, Their Views of the Anti-Slavery Question, and Treatment of People of Color.”89
(In the previous year Friend William Bassett of Lynn, Massachusetts had spoken out against racially segregated seating, which is to say, Negro lofts such as the one in the meetinghouse in Saylesville, Rhode Island, in Friends meetinghouses. When Friend Sarah asked Sarah Douglass to contribute to the writing of this material by describing incidents that had occurred in her personal experience, she was warned that it would be counterproductive to name names, because “I believe Friends in this country as a body are given over to a reprobate mind.” Friend Sarah persisted, however, and her first draft amounted to a letter to Elizabeth Pease on this subject bearing the date April 10, 1839, “Letter on the Subject of Prejudice against Colour amongst the Society of Friends in the United States.”90 In the following year, in a speech to the Anti-Slavery Convention in London, Friend Arnold Buffum of Providence, Rhode Island would charge that a woman had been denied membership in the Society of Friends in Philadelphia because she was black, and it would seem that in all likelihood he was making reference to Sarah Douglass’s account of how her mother had been encouraged not to apply for membership. In this speech Friend Arnold indicated that the practice of asking blacks to sit aside, in special seats, still was continuing among American Friends.)
88. Somerset Monthly Meeting (Ohio Yearly Meeting), Minutes. 89. This would be printed in Darlington, England in the following year, but not distributed. A copy is in the Quaker Collection at the Haverford College Library. 90. It is said that this letter can be examined among the Anti-Slavery Papers at the Boston Public Library. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1840
With disownment by his Lynn meeting of the Religious Society of Friends imminent, Friend William Basset joined with Joseph S. Wall in a publication in Worcester called the Reformer. In this periodical he would be able to position his own writings in favor of nonsectarianism, nonresistance, and the abolition of slavery. However, Bassett was forced to change work several times and eventually would be unable to continue publication of this paper. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1843
Former Quaker (disowned) William Basset inquired about taking up a membership in the Association of Industry and Education, where he had friends.
These Northampton communists received an award of a diploma, from the American Institute of New York, for a piece of raw silk, and another award, 2d-best, for sewing-silk. In the course of one year the association would grow from 102 to 180 members. The old oil mill would be put back into production as a grist mill, which may or may not have been a good idea but may be utilized as something of an illustration of the impulsiveness and the diffuseness of effort which would come to characterize this group of people, who we will discover to be constantly abandoning their current tasks to rush off into any newer and disparate and more interesting and more hopeful projects and agendas that were coming over their thought-horizon. COMMUNITARIANISM
In this year and the following one, Dr. Benjamin Barrett of Northampton would be serving in the Massachusetts senate.
THE FALLACY OF MOMENTISM: THIS STARRY UNIVERSE DOES NOT CONSIST OF A SEQUENCE OF MOMENTS. THAT IS A FIGMENT, ONE WE HAVE RECOURSE TO IN ORDER TO PRIVILEGE TIME OVER CHANGE, A PRIVILEGING THAT MAKES CHANGE SEEM UNREAL, DERIVATIVE, A MERE APPEARANCE. IN FACT IT IS CHANGE AND ONLY CHANGE WHICH WE EXPERIENCE AS REALITY, TIME BEING BY WAY OF RADICAL CONTRAST UNEXPERIENCED — A MERE INTELLECTUAL CONSTRUCT. THERE EXISTS NO SUCH THING AS A MOMENT. NO “INSTANT” HAS EVER FOR AN INSTANT EXISTED.
Disownment “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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January: Although the teachings of Friend John Wilbur were sustained by a large majority of his Quaker neighbors in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, that monthly meeting had been dissolved and its members added to the Greenwich, Rhode Island monthly meeting. At this point this monthly meeting formally disowned him, and its decision would subsequently be confirmed by the Friends quarterly meeting and then by the New England Yearly Meeting. His supporters would form an independent yearly meeting, the members of which would be known as “Wilburites.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1844
After being disowned as a Quaker on account of his abolitionist activities, William Basset joined the Association of Industry and Education in Florence, Massachusetts. Describing his disownment by the Lynn MA monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, he commented that he was being “cast out of one of the ‘little cabins’ of sectarianism” into “Christianity itself.”
A retitled reprint, David Hudson’s MEMOIR OF JEMIMA WILKINSON, A PREACHERESS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; CONTAINING AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF HER LIFE AND CHARACTER, AND OF THE RISE, PROGRESS AND CONCLUSION OF HER MINISTRY. (Bath NY: R.L. Underhill).
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In the New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends during this year and the following one, Friend John Wilbur would be maintaining that the Truth could be ascertained both from the records of past revelations encapsulated in the Scripture, and from continuing revelations which were coming from God to individuals of the present day. As an advocate of the personal Inner Light, he would be being opposed by Friend Joseph John Gurney, a traveling minister from England, who would be holding that such personal revelations were of necessity pernicious should they differ in any particular from what we were deriving from a careful perusal of the Scripture. The upshot of this would be that Friend John would be disowned by the Society, and several of the monthly meetings in southern New England during this timeframe would find themselves separating into “Wilburite” versus “Gurneyite” meetings.
“Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth — to see it as it is, and tell it like it is — to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.” — Republican Presidential nominee Richard Milhous Nixon, 1968 (a birthright Quaker) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1845
Friend John Hunt Painter and Friend Edith Dean Painter invited local Quakers to meet at their house in Salem, Iowa, which would also function as a station on the Underground Railroad. There was a metal seat mounted on the roof of their barn from which they were able to survey the countryside.
The Providence Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends was split by the great Wilburite schism of 1844, having to do with the message of Friend John Wilbur, a Rhode Island farmer and traveling Friend (minister). At the New England Yearly Meeting they disowned, not only Friend John, but his entire monthly meeting as well. (These separated Friends formed a separate body which they called the “New England Yearly Meeting of Friends” to distinguish it from the “Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England,” or simply “the smaller body” in distinction from “the larger body,” the Gurneyite bolsheviks –adherents of the English evangelical Friend Joseph John Gurney– claiming 8,136 adherents, the Wilburite mensheviks claiming only 629. One group, the Wilburites, became the Providence Monthly Meeting of North Providence/Pawtucket. This meeting would be laid down in 1881, its members joining to South Kingstown Monthly Meeting and worshiping until 1892 as the Pawtucket Worship Group.)
As the Yearly Meeting School affiliated with the Gurneyite grouping, letting the Wilburites depart, its HDT WHAT? INDEX
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enrollment plunged to 55 resident young scholars.
Friends Olney Thompson and Lydia Thompson came to the school as superintendents.
1819-1824. Purinton, Matthew and Betsy. 1824-1835. Breed, Enoch and Lydia. 1829-1835. Gould, Stephen Wanton and Gould, Han- nah, Asst. Supts. 1835-1836. Davis, Seth and Mary. 1837. Breed, Enoch and Lydia. 1838-1839. Rathbun, Rowland and Alice. 1840-1844. Wing, Allen and Olive. 1845-1846. Thompson, Olney and Lydia. 1847. Congdon, Jarvia and Lydia. 1847-1852. Cornell, Silas and Sarah M.
The Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends on Nantucket Island declared itself to be a Wilburite meeting, following the teachings of Friend John Wilbur in regard to the ongoing divine inspiration provided by an Inner Light. With the Gurneyite split among the Quakers, some of the former members of the disbanded Hicksite meeting on Nantucket Island joined this new Gurneyite meeting.
READ ALL ABOUT IT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1857
March 6, Friday: Edwin Coppoc was disowned by the Red Cedar Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in the West Branch/Springdale area of Iowa outside of Iowa City, on account of his having gone dancing.
President James Buchanan appointed John Buchanan Floyd as Secretary of War and Lewis Cass as Secretary of State. Floyd would soon demonstrate incompetence, and Cass would be sympathetic with American “filibusterers” and would be instrumental in having Commodore Hiram Paulding removed from his command after he landed US Marines in Nicaragua to compel the removal of the filibustering William Walker.
US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS
[THOREAU MADE NO ENTRY IN HIS JOURNAL FOR MARCH 6th]
April: The disowned Edwin Coppoc’s brother Barclay Coppoc was disciplined by the Religious Society of Friends for using profane language and for striking a man in anger. He accepted the discipline and was forgiven.
Chaplain Daniel Foster informed the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson that he wanted to emigrate to Kansas because he was “convinced that our cause must receive a baptism of blood before it can be victorious.”
I expect to serve in Capt. John Brown’s company in the next Kansas war, which I hope is inevitable & near at hand.
THE 2D GREAT AMERICAN DISUNION
January 13, Wednesday: Henry Thoreau lectured at Lynn, visiting Nahant and Danvers. At Lynn he lectured in the parlor of John and Mercy Buffum Alley,91 disowned Hicksite Quakers who were the parents of the Mary Buffum Mansfield who had heard Thoreau speak during silent worship at Eagleswood on October 26, 1856 (am I sure this was not November 1??), and had written down what he said.92
91. [What relation was this Mercy Buffum Alley to the James N. Buffum, successful carpenter of Lynn MA, who had been Frederick Douglass’s traveling companion in steerage aboard the Cambria to Ireland in 1845?] 92. It appears that Charles Chauncy Shackford and John B. Alley were responsible for Thoreau’s being invited to lecture in Lynn at the end of 1857. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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On his way Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, the COLLECTIONS OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY volume for 1857, in which is to be found, on pages 9-136, Henry C. Murphy’s translation “Voyages from Holland to America, A.D., 1632 to 1644” of David Pietersz. de Vries’s KORTE HISTORIAEL ENDE JOURNAELS AENTEYCKENINGE VAN VERSCHEYDEN VOYAGIENS IN DE VIER DEELEN DES WERELDTS — RONDE, ALS EUROPA, AFRICA, ASIA, ENDE AMERIKA GEDAEN, DOOR D. DAVID PIETERSZ. DE VRIES, ARTILLERIJ-MEESTER VANDE ED: M: HEEREN GECOMMITTEERDE RADEN VAN STATEN VAN WEST-VRIESLANDT ENDE ’T NOORDER- QUARTIER WAERIN VERHAELT WERD WAT BATAILJES BY TE WATER GEDAEN HERFT: YDER LANDTSCHAP ZIJN GEDIERTE, GEVOGELT, WAT SOORTE VAN VISSEN ENDE WAT WILDE MENSCHEN NAKR ’T LEVEN GECONTERFAEYT, HDT WHAT? INDEX
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ENDE VAN DE BOSSCHEN ENDE RAVIEREN MET HAER VRUCHTEN (1655).
COLLECTIONS NYHS In this same volume, on pages 163-229, is to be found John Gilmary Shea’s translation “The Jogues Papers” of an account by Père Isaac Jogues, and on pages 309-322, Shea’s translation “Narrative of a Voyage made for the Abnaquiois Missions...” of an account by Père Gabriel Druillettes. (Thoreau would copy from these two translations into his Indian Notebook #11.) COLLECTIONS NYHS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Having already perused the JESUIT RELATION volumes for the years 1633-1643, and the volumes numbered 11 through 26, he checked out the volumes for 1662-1663 and for 1663-1664.93
http://www.canadiana.org
January 13, Wednesday: Go to Lynn to lecture, via Cambridge. 4:30 P.M.–At Jonathan Buffum’s, Lynn. Lecture in John B. Alley’s parlor. Mr. J. Buffum describes to me ancient wolf-traps, made probably by the early settlers in Lynn, perhaps after an Indian model; one some two miles from the shore near Saugus, another more northerly; holes say seven feet deep, about as long, and some three feet wide, stoned up very smoothly, and perhaps converging a little, so that the wolf could not get out. Tradition says that a wolf and a squaw were one morning found in the same hole, staring at each other. JONATHAN BUFFUM
93. Thoreau presumably read each and every volume of the JESUIT RELATIONS that was available in the stacks at the Harvard Library. We know due to extensive extracts in his Indian Notebooks #7 and #8 that between 1852 and 1857 he did withdraw or consult all the volumes for the years between 1633 and 1672. Thoreau took notes in particular in regard to the reports by Father Jean de Brébeuf, Father Jacques Buteux, Father Claude Dablon, Father Jérôme Lallemant, Father Paul Le Jeune, Father François Le Mercier, Father Julien Perrault, Father Jean de Quens, Father Paul Ragueneau, and Father Barthélemy Vimont. Cramoisy, Sebastian (ed.). RELATION DE CE QUI S’EST PASSÉ EN LA NOUVELLE FRANCE IN L’ANNÉE 1636: ENVOYÉE AU R. PERE PROVINCIAL DE LA COMPAGNIE DE JESUS EN LA PROVINCE DE FRANCE, PAR LE P. PAUL LE JEUNE DE LA MESME COMPAGNIE, SUPERIEUR DE LA RESIDENCE DE KÉBEC. A Paris: Chez Sebastian Cramoisy..., 1637 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1859
December 7, Wednesday: The Reverend William Henry Furness wrote from Philadelphia to Charles Wesley Slack in Boston, accepting a preaching engagement conditional upon his finding a replacement for his own pulpit.
The Quakers of Springdale, Iowa, aware at this point of what John Brown and his men had been up to after they had drilled and prepared and planned in their midst, and horrified at what had happened, made haste to restate their testimony for peace. Their Monthly Meeting appointed “a large and representative committee” including Friends Joel Bean, Henry Rowntree, Israel Negus, Laurie Tatum, James Schooley, and Samuel Macy to respond to “an impression abroad that the Friends in this neighborhood have improperly encouraged a war spirit”: We have endeavored to consider the subject confided to us in all its bearings and are united in the conclusion, that any publication (in the way of defense) on the part of the [Monthly Meeting] is unnecessary.... We believe our principals [sic] of peace were never dearer to most of our members than now. THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY HDT WHAT? INDEX
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I have been unable to find a record of the Iowa Quakers having completed a process of Quaker disownment in regard to those in their meeting who had been helping Captain John Brown and supplying him with firepower.
The United Sons of Freedom, to Governor Henry A. Wise: St. Louis Dec. 7th 1859 To His Excelency Gov[ernor]. H.A. Wise Dear Sir At a meeting of the United Sons of Freedom of St. Louis, helled at their meeting room, on the 7th Dec. it was unanimously resolved that we present you with a leather medal for the energetic manner in which you have discharged your duty, as Gov[ernor]. of the State of Virginia in the late Harper’s Ferry difficulty; and rest assured that we appreciate you very much for your bravery in haveing two thousand brave sons of Virginia present at the execution of the Hero of the North, and the lover of our motto, Give us liberty or give us death We feel proud to think that the lover of our motto died so noble and we shall always treasure his memory as long one of our greatest men, who loved his country better than life Oh! you are a noble representative of the State of Virginia. Just think you would not permit a lady to accompany Mrs. Brown to her last interview with her husband, but we trust that his spirit has arrived at that haven from whose bounds no traveler returns, when the wicked cease from trouble and the wary are at rest We subscribe your humble servants William Lewis, President J.P. Cutler, Sec[retar]y
Here is how Peter Wallenstein has parsed the continuing tense situation on the floor of the House HDT WHAT? INDEX
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of Representatives in his article “Incendiaries All”:94 [Representative Albert Iverson continued] to link John Brown, Hinton Rowan Helper, and [Congressman] John Sherman [of Ohio]. “When you say that you do not sympathize with Brown and his acts, when you say that you do not intend to interfere with slavery in the southern States, when you say that you intend to observe the constitutional rights of the southern people, you, at the same time, go to the polls banding together in political organizations, and elevate to political power the very men who inculcate these treasonable sentiments. Then, what are all your disclaimers worth?” Warming to his theme, the senator from Georgia raised the stakes. “And yet the Republican Party proposes to elevate to a high office a man who has ... attempted to circulate a pamphlet containing the most treasonable and the most insurrectionary sentiments, ... exciting insurrection and advising our slaves to fire our dwellings and put their knives to our throats.” For such a crime, Iverson noted, Brown had already been hanged, and anyone who endorsed Hinton Helper’s book should be hanged as well.
[THOREAU MADE NO ENTRY IN HIS JOURNAL FOR DECEMBER 7th]
December 17, Saturday: Oberlin College Professor James Monroe set off from Oberlin, Ohio to retrieve the corpse of John Anderson Copeland, Jr. from Virginia authorities.
Precious opportunity! Lydia Maria Child responded to the indignant letter she had received from the slaveholding wife of Senator James Murray Mason: Wayland, Mass., Dec. 17th, 1859. Prolonged absence from home has prevented my answering your letter so soon as I intended. I have no disposition to retort upon you the “two-fold damnation” to which you consign me. On the Contrary, I sincerely wish you well, both in this world and the next. If the anathema proved a safety valve to your own boiling spirit, it did some good to you, while it fell harmless upon me. Fortunately for all of us, the Heavenly Father rules His universe by laws, which the passions or the prejudices of mortals have no power to change. As for John Brown, his reputation may be safety trusted to the impartial pen of History; and his motives will be righteously judged by Him who knoweth the secrets of all hearts. Men, however great they may be, are of small consequence in comparison with principles; and the principle for which John Brown died is the question issue between us. You refer me to the Bible, from which you quote the favorite text of slaveholders:— “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward.” — 1 PETER, 2:18. 94. This interesting book THE IMPENDING CRISIS OF THE SOUTH: HOW TO MEET IT has been republished in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1968. For more on this guy and his not-all-that-novel conceit that the black victims by their very presence were victimizing the nice white folks who were victimizing them (identical in every respect to the later Nazi attitude of outrage in regard to the German Jews they were so systematically persecuting), see Bailey, Hugh C. HINTON ROWAN HELPER: ABOLITIONIST- RACIST (University of Alabama: 1965). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Abolitionists also have favorite texts, to some of which I would call your attention:— “Remember those that are in bonds as bound with them.” — HEBREWS 13:3. “Hide the outcasts. Betray not him that wandereth. Let mine outcasts dwell with thee. Be thou a convert to them from the face of the spoiler.” — ISAIAH 16: 3, 4. “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee where it liketh him best. Thou shalt not oppress him.” — DEUTERONOMY 23: 15, 16. “Open thy mouth for the dumb, in the cause of all such are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.” — PROVERBS 29: 8,9. “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” — ISAIAH 58: 1. I would especially commend to slaveholders the following portions of that volume, wherein you say God has revealed the duty of masters:— “Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.” — COLOSSIANS 4:1.
“Neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.” — MATTHEW 23: 8, 10.
“Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.” — MATTHEW 7: 12. “Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” — ISAIAH 58: 6.
“They have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.” — JOEL 3: 3.
“He that oppresseth the poor, reproacheth his Maker.” — PROVERBS 14: 31. “Rob not the poor, because he is poor; neither oppress the afflicted. For the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those who spoiled them.” — PROVERBS 22: 22, 23. “Woe unto him that useth his neighbor’s service without wages, and giveth him not for his work.” — JEREMIAH 22: 13.
“Let him that stole, steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands.” — EPHESIANS 4: 28. “Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless.” — ISAIAH 10: 1, 2. “If I did despise the cause of my man-servant or my maid-servant, when they contend with me, what then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer Him?” — JOB 31: 13, 14. “Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken. Therefore snares are round about thee, and sudden fear troubleth thee; and darkness, that thou canst not see.” — JOB 22: 9, 10, 11. “Behold, the hire of your laborers, who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourishes your hearts as in a day of slaughter; ye have condemned and killed the just.” — JAMES 5: 4. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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If the appropriateness of these texts is not apparent, I will try to make it so, by evidence drawn entirely from Southern sources. The Abolitionists are not such an ignorant set of fanatics as you suppose. They know whereof they affirm. They are familiar with the laws of the Slave States, which are alone sufficient to inspire abhorrence in any humane heart or reflecting mind not perverted by the prejudices of education and custom. I might fill many letters with significant extracts from your statue-books; but I have space only to glance at a few, which indicate the leading features of the system you cherish so tenaciously. The universal rule of the slave State is, that “the child follows the condition of its mother.” This is an index to many things. Marriages between white and colored people are forbidden by law; yet a very large number of the slaves are brown or yellow. When Lafayette visited this country in his old age, he said he was very much struck by the great change in the colored population of Virginia; that in the time of the Revolution, nearly all the household slaves were black, but when he returned to America, he found very few of them black. The advertisements in Southern newspapers often describe runaway slaves that “pass themselves for white men.” Sometimes they are described as having straight, light hair blue eyes, and clear complexion.” This could not be, unless their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers had been white men. But as their mothers were slaves, the law pronounces them slaves, subject to be sold on the auction-block whenever the necessities or convenience of their masters or mistresses required it. The sale of one’s own children, brother, or sisters, has an ugly aspect to those who are unaccustomed to it; and, obviously, it cannot have a good moral influence, that law and custom should render licentiousness a profitable vice. Throughout the Slave States, the testimony of no colored person, bond or free, can be received against a white man. You have some laws, which, on the face of them, would seem to restrain inhuman men from murdering or mutilating slaves; but they are rendered nearly null by the law I have cited. Any drunken master, overseer, or patrol, may go into the negro cabins, and commit what outrages he pleases, with perfect impunity, if no white person is present who chooses to witness against him. North Carolina and Georgia leave a large loophole for escape, even if white persons present, when murder is committed. A law to punish persons for “maliciously killing a slave” has this remarkable qualification: “Always provided that this act shall not extend to any dying of moderate correction.” We at the North find it difficult to understand how moderate punishment can cause death. I have read several of your law books attentively, and I find no cases of punishment for the murder of a slave, except by fines paid to the owner, to indemnify him for the loss of his property: the same as if his horse or cow had been killed. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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In South Carolina Reports is a case where the State had indicated Guy Raines for the murder of slave Isaac. It was proved that William Gray, the owner of Isaac, had given him a thousand lashes. The poor creature made his escape, but was caught, and delivered to the custody of Raines, to be carried to the county jail. Because he refused to go, Raines gave him five hundred lashes, and he died soon after. The counsel for Raines proposed that he should be allowed to acquit himself by his own oath. The Court decided against it, because white witnesses had testified; but the Court of afterward decided he ought to have been exculpated by his own oath, and he was acquitted. Small indeed is the chance for justice to a slave, when his own color are not allowed to testify, if they see him maimed or his children murdered; when he has slaveholders for Judges and Jurors; when the murderer can exculpate himself by his own oath; and when the law provides that it is no murder to kill a slave by “moderate correction”! Your laws uniformly declare that “slave shall be deemed a chattel personal in the hands of his master, to all intents, constrictions, and purposes whatsoever.” This, of course, involves the right to sell his children, as if they were pigs; also, to take his wife from him “for any intent or purpose whatsoever.” Your laws also make it death for him to resist a white man, however brutally he may be treated, or however much his family may be outraged before his eyes. If he attempts to run away, your laws allow any man to shoot him. By your laws, all a slave’s earnings belong to his master. He can neither receive donations or transmit property. If his master allows him some hours to work for himself, and by great energy and perseverance he earns enough to buy his own bones and sinews, his master may make him pay two or three times over, and he has no redress. Three such cases have come within my knowledge. Even a written promise from his master has no legal value, because slave can make no contracts. Your laws also systematically aim at keeping the minds of the colored people in the most abject state of ignorance. If white people attempt to teach them to read or write, they are punished by imprisonment or fines; if they attempt to teach each other, they are punished with from twenty to thirty-nine lashes each. It cannot be said that the anti-slavery agitation produced such laws, for they date much further back; many of them when we were Provinces. They are the necessities of the system, which, being itself an outrage upon human nature, can be sustained only by perpetual outrages. The next reliable source of information is the advertisements in the Southern papers. In the North Carolina (Raleigh) Standard, Mr. Mieajah Ricks advertises, “Runaway, a negro woman and her two children. A few days before went off, I burned her with a hot iron on the left side of her face. I tried to make the letter M.” in the Natchez Courier, Mr. J.P. Ashford HDT WHAT? INDEX
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advertises a runaway negro girl, with “a good many teeth missing, and the letter A branded on her cheek and forehead.” In the Lexington (Ky.) Observer, Mr. William Overstreet advertises a runaway negro with “his left eye out, scars from a dirk on his left arm, and much scarred with the whip.” I might quote from hundreds of such advertisements, offering rewards for runaways, “dead or alive,” and describing them with “ears cut off,” “jaws broken,” scarred by rifle-balls,” &c. Another source of information is afforded by your “Fugitives from Injustice,” with many of whom I have conversed freely. I have seen scars of the whip and marks of the branding-iron, and I have listened to their heart-breaking sobs, while they told of “piccaninnies” torn from their arms and sold. Another source of information is furnished by emancipated slaveholders Sarah Moore Grimké, daughter of the late Judge Grimké, of the Supreme Court of South Carolina, testifies as follows: “As I left my native State on account of Slavery, and deserted the home of my fathers to escape the sound of the lash and the shrieks of tortured victims, I would gladly bury in oblivion the recollection of those scenes with which I have been familiar. But this cannot be. They come over my memory like gory sceptres, and implore me, with resistless power, in the name of a God of mercy, in the name of a crucified Saviour, in the name of humanity, for the sake of the slaveholder, as well as the slave, to bear witness to the horrors of the Southern prison-house.” She proceeds to describe dreadful tragedies, the actors in which she says were “men and women of the families in South Carolina;” and that their cruelties did not, in the slightest degree, affect their standing in society. Her sister, Angelina Emily Grimké Weld, declared: “While I live, and Slavery lives, I must testify against it. Not merely for the sake of my poor brothers and sisters in bonds; for even were Slavery no curse to its victims, the exercise of arbitrary power works such fearful ruin upon the hearts of slaveholders, that I should feel impelled to labor and pray for its overthrow with my latest breath.” Among the horrible barbarities she enumerates is the case of a girl thirteen years old, who was flogged to death by her master. She says: “I asked a prominent lawyer, who belonged to one of the first families in the State, whether the murderer of this helpless child could not be indicted, and he coolly replied that the slave was Mr. ----’s property, and if he chose to suffer the loss, no one else had any thing to do with it.” She proceeds to say: “I felt there could be for me no rest in the midst of such outrages and pollutions. Yet I saw nothing of Slavery in its most vulgar and repulsive forms. I saw it in the city, among the fashionable and the honorable, where it was garnished by refinement and decked out for show. It is my deep, solemn, deliberate conviction, but this is a cause worth dying for. I say so from what I have seen, and heard, and known, in a land HDT WHAT? INDEX
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of Slavery, whereon rest the darkness of Egypt and the sin of Sodom.” I once asked Miss Angelina if she thought Abolitionists exaggerated the horrors of Slavery. She replied, with earnest emphasis: “They cannot be exaggerated. It is impossible for imagination to go beyond the fact.” To a lady who observed that the time had not yet come for agitating the subject, she answered: “I apprehend if thou wert a slave, toiling in the fields of Carolina, thou wouldst think the time had fully come.” Mr. Thome, of Kentucky, in the course of his eloquent lectures on this subject, said: “I breathed my first breath in an atmosphere of Slavery. But though I am heir to a slave inheritance, I am bold to denounce the whole system as an outrage, a complication of crimes, and wrongs, and cruelties, that make angels weep.” Mr. Allen of Alabama, in a discussion with the students at Lane Theological Seminary in 1834, had told of a slave who was tied up and beaten all day, with a paddle full of holes. “At night, his flesh was literally pounded to a jelly. The punishment was inflicted within hearing of the Academy and the Public Green. But no one took any notice of it. No one thought any wrong was done. At our house, it is so common to hear screams from a neighboring plantation, that we think nothing of it. Lest any one should think that the slaves are generally well treated, and that the cases I have mentioned are exceptions, let me be distinctly understood that cruelty is the rule, and kindness is the exception.” In the same discussion, a student from Virginia, after relating cases of great cruelty, had related: “Such things are common all over Virginia; at least, so far as I am acquainted. But the planters generally avoid punishing their slaves before strangers.” Miss Mattie Griffith, of Kentucky, whose entire property consisted in slaves, emancipated them all. The noble-hearted girl wrote to me: “I shall go forth into the world penniless; but I shall work with a heart, and, best of all, I shall live with an easy conscience.” Previous to this generous resolution, she had never read any Abolition document, and entertained the common Southern prejudice against them. But her own observation so deeply impressed her with the enormities of Slavery, that she was impelled to publish a book, called “The Autobiography of a Female Slave.” I read it with thrilling interest; but some of the scenes made my nerves quiver so painfully, that told her I hoped they were too highly colored. She shook her head sadly, and replied: “I am sorry to say that every incident in the book has come within my own knowledge.” St. George Tucker, Judge and Professor of Law in Virginia, speaking of the legalized murder of runaways, said: “Such are the cruelties to which a state of Slavery gives birth — such the horrors to which the human mind is capable of being reconciled by its adoption.” Alluding to our struggle in ’76, he said: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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“While we proclaimed our resolution to live free or die, we imposed on our fellow-men, of different complexion, a Slavery ten thousand times worse than the utmost extremity of the oppressions of which we complained.” Governor Giles, in a Message to the Legislature of Virginia, referring to the custom of selling free colored people into Slavery, as a punishment for offences not capital, said: “Slavery must be admitted to be a punishment of the highest order; and, according to the just rule for the apportionment of punishment to crimes, it ought to be applied only to crimes of the highest order. The most distressing reflection in the application of this punishment to female offenders, is that it extends to their offspring; and the innocent are thus punished with the guilty.” Yet one hundred and twenty thousand innocent babies in this country are annually subjected to a punishment which your Governor declared “ought to be applied only to crimes of the highest order.” Jefferson said: “One day of American Slavery is worse than a thousand years of that which we rose in arms to oppose.” Alluding to insurrections, he said: “The Almighty has no attribute that can take side with us in such a contest.” John Randolph declared: “Every planter is a sentinel at his own door. Every Southern mother, when she hears an alarm of fire in the night, instinctively presses her infant closer to her bosom.” Looking at the system of slavery in the light of all this evidence, do you candidly think we deserve “two-fold damnation” for detesting it? Can you not believe that we may hate the system, and yet be truly your friends? I make allowance for the excited state of your mind, and for the prejudices induced by education. I so not care to change your opinion of me; but I so wish you could be persuaded to examine this subject dispassionately, for the sake of the prosperity of Virginia, and the welfare of unborn generations, both white and colored. For thirty years, Abolitionists have been trying to reason with slaveholders, through the press, and in the halls of Congress. Their efforts, though directed to the masters only, have been met with violence and abuse almost equal to that poured on head of John Brown. Yet surely we, as a portion of the Union, involved in the expense, the degeneracy, the danger, and the disgrace, of the iniquitous and fatal system, have a right to speak about it, and a right to be heard also. At the North, we willingly publish pro-slavery arguments, and ask only a fair field and no favor for the other side. But you will not even allow your own citizens a chance to examine this important subject. Your letter to me is published in Northern papers, as well as Southern; my reply will not be allowed to appear in any Southern paper. The despotic measures you take to silence investigation, and shut out the light from your own white population, prove how little reliance you have on the strength of your cause. In this enlightened age, all despotisms ought to come to an end by the agency of moral and rational means. But if they resist such agencies, it is in the order of Providence that they must come to an end by violence. History is full of such lessons. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Would that the evil of prejudice could be removed from your eyes. If you would candidly examine the statements of Governor Hincks of the British West Indies, and of the Rev. Mr. Bleby, long time a Missionary in those Islands, both before and after emancipation, you could not fail to be convinced that Cash is a more powerful incentive to labor than the Lash, and far safer also. One fact in relation to those Islands is very significant. While the working people were slaves, it was always necessary to order out the military during the Christmas holidays; but since emancipation, not a soldier is to be seen. A hundred John Browns might land there, without exciting the slightest alarm. To the personal questions you ask me, I will reply in the name of all the women of New England. It would be extremely difficult to find any woman in our villages who does not sew for the poor, and watch with the sick, whenever occasion requires. We pay our domestic generous wages, with which they can purchase as many Christmas gown as they please; a process far better for their characters, as well as our own, than to receive their clothing as a charity, after being deprived of just payment for their labor. I have never known an instance where the “pangs of maternity” did not meet with requisite assistance; and here at the North, after we have helped the mothers, we do not sell the babies. I readily believe what you state concerning the kindness of many Virginia matrons. It is creditable to their hearts: but after all, the best that can be done in that way is a poor equivalent for the perpetual wrong done to the slaves, and the terrible liabilities to which they are always subject. Kind masters and mistresses among you are merely lucky accidents. If any one chooses to be a brutal despot, your laws and customs give him complete power to do so. And the lot of those slaves who have the kindest masters is exceedingly precarious. In case of death, or pecuniary difficulties, or marriages in the family, they may at any time be suddenly transferred from protection and indulgence to personal degradation, or extreme severity; and if they should try to escape from such sufferings, any body is authorized to shoot them down like dogs. With regard to your declaration that “no Southerner ought henceforth to read a line of my composition,” I reply that I have great satisfaction in the consciousness of having nothing to loose in that quarter. Twenty-seven years ago, I published a book called “An Appeal in behalf of that class of Americans called Africans.” It influenced the minds of several young men, afterward conspicuous in public life, through whose agency the cause was better served than it could have been by me. From that time to this, I have labored too earnestly for the slave to be agreeable to slaveholders. Literary popularity was never a paramount object with me, even in my youth; and, now that I am old, I am utterly indifferent to it. But, if I cared for the exclusion you threaten I should at least have the consolation HDT WHAT? INDEX
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of being exiled with honorable company. Dr. Channing’s writings, mild and candid as they are, breathe what you would call arrant treason. William C. Bryant, in his capacity of editor, is openly on our side. The inspired muse of Whittier has incessantly sounded the trumpet for moral warfare with your iniquitous institution; and his stirring tones have been answered, more or less loudly, by Pierpont, Lowell, and Longfellow. Emerson, the Plato of America, leaves the scholastic seclusion he love so well, and disliking noise with all his poetic soul, bravely takes his stand among the trumpeters. George W. Curtis, the brilliant wealth of his talent on the altar of Freedom, and makes common cause with rough-shod reformers. The genius of Mrs. Stowe carried the outworks of your institution at one dash, and left the citadel open to besiegers, who are pouring in amain. In the church, on the ultra-liberal side, it is assailed by the powerful battering-ram of Theodore Parker’s eloquence. On the extreme orthodox side is set a huge fire, kindled by the burning words of Dr. [George Barrell?] Cheever. Between them is Henry Ward Beecher, sending a shower of keen arrows into your entrenchments; and with him ride a troop of sharp-shooters from all sects. If you turn to the literature of England or France, you will find your institution treated with as little favor. The fact is, the whole civilized world proclaims Slavery an outlaw, and the best intellect of the age is active in hunting it down. L. MARIA CHILD.
After escaping from the raid on Harpers Ferry Barclay Coppoc appeared on this day at the family home in Cedar County, Iowa. A most unusual situation developed there: despite its Quaker status, during his presence the Coppoc house would be surrounded at night by men waiting in the dark with firearms, to protect him in his rest if the occasion arose, from capture by federal agents!
On March 6, 1857 Edwin Coppoc had been disowned by the Red Cedar Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in the West Branch/Springdale area. During April 1857 Barclay Coppoc had been disciplined by the Quakers for using profane language and for striking a man in anger. Several months after his return from Harpers Ferry, Barclay Coppoc would be disowned for absenting himself from meetings for worship and for bearing arms. The following is from chapters entitled “The Iowa Quakers and the Negroes” and “The Springdale Quakers and Old John Brown” in Louis Thomas Jones’s THE QUAKERS OF IOWA (Iowa City: Iowa State Historical Society, 1914, pages 195-7): Haggard and worn with his long flight, with a price upon his head, and hunted by an official with a requisition from Governor Wise of Virginia upon Governor Kirkwood of Iowa for his immediate rendition to justice, Barclay Coppoc reached his home in Iowa on December 17th [1859]. On the day before, his brother Edwin, loaded with chains and shackles, had yielded up his life upon a Virginia scaffold. Thus the mother’s parting prophecy had been fulfilled. [According to this source, when the two departed the mother had said to them: “When you get the halters around HDT WHAT? INDEX
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THE TOUCHSTONE. BY WILLIAM ALLENGHAME. A man there came, whence none could tell, Bearing a touchstone in his hand, And tested all things in the land By its unerring spell. A thousand transformations rose, From fair to foul, from foul to fair; The golden crown he did not share, Nor scorn the beggar’s clothes. Of heirloom jewels, prized so much, Were many changed to chips and clods, And even statues of the gods Crumbled beneath its touch. Then angrily the people cried, “The loss outweighs the profit far, Our goods suffice us as they are, We will not have them tried.” But since they could not so avail To check his unrelenting quest, They seized him, saying, “Let him test How real is our jail.” But though they slew him with their swords, And in the fire the touchstone burned, Its doings could not be o’erturned, Its undoings restored. And when, to stop all future harm, They strewed his ashes to the breeze, They little guessed each grain of these Conveyed the perfect charm.
your necks, will you think of me?”] For the sake of accurate history, it now seems necessary to make plain the real relation which the much-eulogized Coppoc boys bore to the Society of Friends at the time of the events in question. Early in life both of the boys developed wayward tendencies, discomfiting to their mother and to the church. Edwin took to dancing, and though repeatedly dealt with in the “spirit of restoring love” by the Monthly Meeting, he spurned all advice, refused to “condemn his course,” and was in consequence duly disowned from membership in the Society on March 6, 1857. Barclay, also, about the same time gave the Springdale Friends grave concern. Fresh from the stirring scenes in Kansas, he had engaged in a fight soon after reaching home, and a month after his brother’s disownment the complaint was entered on the records of the Monthly Meeting that “Barclay Coppoc has used profane language, and struck a man in anger.” “Coppoc gave the proper satisfaction for this first offense. and the meeting “passed it by.” But immediately upon his return from Harpers Ferry his conduct called for new attention. With the officers close upon his heels Coppoc sought his home in Cedar County; and upon his arrival there a large number of the young men in the vicinity united as a military guard to prevent his HDT WHAT? INDEX
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capture, while he himself went heavily armed. His presence of course attracted wide attention, and the Overseers of the Preparative Meeting called upon him. Action was made to the [Red Cedar] Monthly Meeting that “Barclay Coppoc has neglected attendance at our religious meetings & is in the practice of bearing arms.” The usual care was extended to him, but with no avail. Two months later Barclay, like his brother, was formally disowned; and thus came to a close this interesting episode in the history of the Iowa Friends. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1860
January 13, Friday: Breitkopf and Härtel completed publication of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. LISTEN TO IT NOW
Barclay Coppoc, having unlike his brother Edwin Coppoc escaped from Harpers Ferry, and then having eluded capture, wrote to Franklin Benjamin Sanborn of the Secret “Six” conspiracy to bring him up to date on developments: “but five of our little band now away and safe, namely Owen [Owen Brown], Tidd [Charles Plummer Tidd], Meriam [Francis Jackson Meriam], O.P. Anderson [Osborn Perry Anderson], or as we used to call him Chatham Anderson, and myself…. We were together eight days before [John E. Cook and Albert Hazlett were] captured, which was near Chambersburg, and the next night Meriam left us and went to Shippensburg, and there took cars for Philadelphia. After that there were but three of us left, and we kept together, until we got to Centre County, Pa., where we bought a box and packed up all heavy luggage, such as rifles, blankets, etc., and after being together three or four weeks we separated and I went on through with the box to Ohio on the cars. Owen [Owen Brown] and Tidd [Charles Plummer Tidd] went on foot towards the north-western part of Penn.” Osborn Perry Anderson, Barclay Coppoc, and Francis Jackson Meriam, traveling separately, would eventually find safe exile in the area of St. Catharines, Canada. Owen Brown and Charles Plummer Tidd would find work and safety, under assumed names, on an oil well in the vicinity of Crawford County, Pennsylvania.
During this month, in Iowa, at his monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, Friend Barclay Coppoc was being disowned on account of his failure to adhere to the Peace Testimony. THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
January 13. Tuttle was saying to-day that he did remember a certain man’s living with him once, from something that occurred. It was this: The man was about starting for Boston market for Tuttle, and Mrs. Tuttle had been telling him what to get for her. The man inquired if that was all, and Mrs. Tuttle said no, she wanted some nutmegs. “How many,” he asked. Tuttle, coming along just then, said, “Get a bushel.” When the man came home he said that he had had a good deal of trouble about the nutmegs. He could not find so many as were wanted, and, besides, they told him that they did not sell them by the bushel. But he said that he would take a bushel by the weight. Finally he made out to get a peck of them, which he brought home. It chanced that nutmegs were very high just then, so Tuttle, after selecting a few for his own use, brought the remainder up to town and succeeded in disposing of them at the stores for just what he gave for them. One man at the post-office said that a crow would drive a fox. He had seen three crows pursue a fox that was crossing the Great Meadows, and he fairly ran from [them] and took refuge in the woods. Farmer says that he remembers his father’s saying that as he stood in a field once, he saw a hawk soaring above and eying something on the ground. Looking round, he saw a weasel there eying the hawk. Just then the hawk stooped, and the weasel at the same instant sprang upon him, and up went the hawk with the weasel; but by and by the hawk began to come down as fast as he went up, rolling over and over, till he struck the ground. His father, going up, raised him up, when out hopped the weasel from under his wing and ran off none the worse for his fall. The surface of the snow, now that the sun has shone on it so long, is not so light and downy, almost impalpable, as it was yesterday, but is somewhat flattened down and looks even as if [IT] had had a skim-coat of some whitewash. I can see sparkles on it, but they are finer than at first and therefore less dazzling. The thin ice of the Mill Brook sides at the Turnpike bridge is sprinkled over with large crystals which look like HDT WHAT? INDEX
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asbestos or a coarse grain. This is no doubt the vapor of last evening crystallized. I see vapor rising from and curling along the open brook and also rising from the end of a plank in the sun, which is net with melted snow, though the thermometer was 16° only when I left the house. I see in low grounds numerous heads of bidens, with their seeds still. I see under some sizable white pines in E. Hubbard’s wood, where red squirrels have run about much since this snow. They have run chiefly, perhaps, under the surface of the snow, so that it is very much undermined by their paths under these trees, and every now and then they have come to the surface, or the surface has fallen into their gallery. They seem to burrow under the snow about as readily as a meadow mouse. There are also paths raying out on every side from the base of the trees. And you see many holes through the snow into the ground where they now are, and other holes where they have probed for cones and nuts. The scales of the white pine cones are scattered about here and there. They seek a dry place to open them, — a fallen limb that rises above the snow, or often a lower dead stub projecting from the trunk of the tree. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1865
A small booklet was published, SHORT MEMORIALS OF THE LATE LUKE & MARIABELLA HOWARD, OF ACKWORTH VILLA, YORKSHIRE. BY AN AGED RELATIVE, FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY (London, Printed by Edward Newman, Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate).95 From it we derive the following information about Luke Howard and Mariabella Howard: “L.H.’s views differing in some respects from those held by the Society of Friends, he wished to have the connection dissolved, which was accordingly done, much to the regret of his friends, with many of whom he maintained a sincere friendship. M.H. also withdrew from the Society. They afterwards established a meeting on their own premises, in which some of their neighbors joined them, and it is believed that the simple form of worship in which they united was to the edification, and the satisfaction of their own minds.” QUAKER DISOWNMENT
95. A curiosity of this publication is that it makes no reference whatever to the discoveries about the classification of clouds for which Luke Howard had become famous. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1882
As an example of Quaker disownment, here is one that was announced in this year at the Somerset monthly meeting:
R.M. formerly P. has accomplished her marriage contrary to our discipline and having been treated with there for did not manifest a suitable disposition to condemn her deviation. We therefore disown her from being a member of our religious society.96 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
96. Somerset Monthly Meeting (Ohio Yearly Meeting), Minutes. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1887
During this year and the following one, John Hunt Painter was erecting in Pasadena, California the Painter Hotel, which would become a local landmark.
(One of the investors in this hotel, the canny New York investor and miser Henrietta “Hetty” Howland Robinson Green, would be described as the richest woman in the world.)
As an example of Quaker disownment, here is one that was announced in this year at the Somerset monthly meeting:
“R.G. having neglected the attendance of our Religious meetings and joined the Methodist Society and being treated with therefor did not manifest a disposition to condemn her deviation, we therefore disown her as a member of our Religious Society.”97 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
97. Somerset Monthly Meeting (Ohio Yearly Meeting), Minutes. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1941
10 mo: There being nothing whatever in the local record that would indicate a deliberation process, it would appear that a momentous decision –the decision to disown Lyndon LaRouche– had been previously made, made not by the monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Lynn, Massachusetts but by the quarterly meeting of which this monthly meeting was a part, and all this local meeting was doing was uniting themselves with this decision that had already been reached, and then implementing the communication: A recommendation was received from the overseers [the Board of Overseers], that Lyndon LaRouche be disowned, and the meeting united with this recommendation with regret after a calling of the roll. QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1969
As an example of continuity in Quaker practice, here is a disownment that was announced at the Somerset, Ohio monthly meeting:
“Since K.J. violated our Christian testimony against military service by serving in the air force, and since he manifests no disposition to condemn his deviation, he is now disowned by this meeting.”98 THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
98. Somerset Monthly Meeting (Ohio Yearly Meeting), Minutes. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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MEMBERSHIP AND DISOWNMENT
by Christopher Densmore
My understanding is that MEMBERSHIP in the Society of Friends was not clearly defined until the mid 1700s when meetings began keeping careful records of who was and who was not a member— and became more concerned with disowning those that fell short of the disciplinary standards. Before that time, MEMBERSHIP was more a matter that if one looked like a Quaker, acted like a Quaker and associated with Quakers, one was a Quaker, unless one was disowned. As stated in previous posts, there was a concern to provide assistance to those Friends suffering in the cause of truth and that there was also a concern to disassociate the Society of Friends from some people. By the end of the 1600s, one couldn’t got about preaching as a Friend without Friendly approval. I suspect it was fairly clear within local communities who was a Quaker and who was not. However, since identity as a Friend stemmed from behavior, it is much harder to pin down than MEMBERSHIP in a standard church, which is determined by a specific act: baptism and/or a statement adhering to the beliefs and practices of the particular denomination. Those were acts that happened at a particular time and were generally recorded. However, even within denominations that clearly defined MEMBERSHIP, the question of denominational adherence is not so clear cut. I’ve heard it estimated that no more than 10% of Americans were church MEMBERS in colonial New England. However, most of the other 90%, except for the minority Baptist, Quakers and a few others, were adherents of the Puritan churches — and attended regularly. The percentages just given exclude Native Americans — most of whom were emphatically not Puritans, though there were some of those. The fuzzyness of who was and was not a Quaker in the 17th and 18th century and even later drives genealogists and some historians crazy. Elizabeth Cady Stanton at one point claimed to be a Progressive Friend— but she’s definitely not on any formal MEMBERSHIP register. In the mid 18th century, Quakers tightened the discipline to clearly define who was and was not a member. This brings on problems with “birth-right” MEMBERSHIP and DISOWNMENTs. For another century, Quaker had no way for someone to leave the Society of Friends other than DISOWNMENT. However, even among the Quakers, there is the problem of MEMBERSHIP vs. adherents. My best guess is that in the late 18th and early 19th century, the normal attendance at Friends’ meetings was at least twice the formal MEMBERSHIP. Non- members were clearly excluded from business meetings, but may still have been considered— by non-Quakers at least— to be, in some sense Friends. This category includes some disowned individuals. One of the architects of the early United States navy was a Quaker named Fox. He was disowned, I believe for his involvement with the military, but continued to dress as a Friend, use plain speech, and attend Quaker meetings until his death. Was he a Friend? He clearly continued to be part of the Quaker community. I don’t think that the question of dual MEMBERSHIPs would have made much sense to many Quakers before the 1840s at least. Quaker practices, such as the testimony against “hierling” that is paid, ministers, would prohibit any activities with another church. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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The situation begins to change in the 1840s and onward. The more evangelical Friends begin to recognize their common grounds with other Protestant denominations, and began to down-play Quaker “peculiarities.” By the mid 19th century, most Orthodox or Gurneyite yearly meetings were beginning to accept members as transfers from other denominations and to release rather than disown those who left Friends to join other denominations. The Hicksite yearly meetings, though more “conservative” and less likely to acknowledge commonality with other denominations became more willing to release people from MEMBERSHIP by request— which suggest that people might leave Friends over matters of individual conscience which should be respected by Friends. By the twentieth century there were ministers from other denominations serving in Friends’ churches. I don’t know when or if the yearly meetings of the Orthodox-Gurneyite and/or Evangelical traditions allowed dual MEMBERSHIP but certainly the idea of religious fellowship with others of the same theological orientation goes back the later nineteenth century. I looked at a recent NYYM discipline. It assumes that by joining another church, one is relinquishing MEMBERSHIP in the Society of Friends. It doesn’t seem to explicitly state that one is assumed to have dropped MEMBERSHIP in any other churches by joining the Society of Friends, but I would think that is the implication. However, even if dual MEMBERSHIP is disallowed in NYYM— I don’t know about other YMs- that leaves the old question of religious adherence. Someone who thinks of him/her self as Catholic-Quaker or Jewish-Quaker or Whatever-Quaker may be in formal MEMBERSHIP with one group or the other or with neither. So, there is the question of how the Society of Friends as a corporate body wants to deal with dual MEMBERSHIP, and how the Society of Friends as a religious fellowship wants to deal with dual adherence. They are related questions, but not the same.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2017. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Prepared: March 30, 2017 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button.
Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with