GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM 1 FRIEND JOHN, THE 1ST GREAT QUAKER POLITICIAN 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 BORN 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 DIED 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1. John Greenleaf Whittier was distantly related to Benjamin Franklin, Friend Lucretia Mott, Octavius Brooks Frothingham, and Henry Adams. HDT WHAT? INDEX FRIEND JOHN JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM 1253 The rights and liberties affirmed by the Magna Charta were, during this 13th Century, being deemed of such importance, that the Bishops, twice a year, with tapers burning, and in their pontifical robes, were pronouncing, in the presence of the king and the representatives of the estates of England, the greater excommunication against any infringer of that instrument. This imposing ceremony took place in the great Hall of Westminster. The curse, as pronounced in this year, declared that “by the authority of Almighty God, and the blessed Apostles and Martyrs, and all the saints in heaven, all those who violate the English liberties, and secretly or openly, by deed, word, or counsel, do make statutes, or observe them being made, against said liberties, are accursed and sequestered from the company of heaven and the sacraments of the Holy Church.” Friend William Penn, in his political pamphlet ENGLAND’S PRESENT INTEREST CONSIDERED, would allude to the curse of the Charterbreakers, writing: “I am no Roman Catholic, and little value their other curses; yet I declare I would not for the world incur this curse, as every man deservedly doth, who offers violence to the fundamental freedom thereby repeated and confirmed.” Friend John Greenleaf Whittier would, in 1848, create the following poem: THE CURSE OF THE CHARTER-BREAKERS. IN Westminster’s royal halls, Robed in their pontificals, England’s ancient prelates stood For the people’s right and good. Closed around the waiting crowd, Dark and still, like winter’s cloud; King and council, lord and knight, Squire and yeoman, stood in sight; Stood to hear the priest rehearse, In God’s name, the Church’s curse, 2 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX FRIEND JOHN JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM By the tapers round them lit, Slowly, sternly uttering it. “Right of voice in framing laws, Right of peers to try each cause; Peasant homestead, mean and small, Sacred as the monarch’s hall, — “Whoso lays his hand on these, England’s ancient liberties; Whoso breaks, by word or deed, England’s vow at Runnymede; “Be he Prince or belted knight, Whatsoe’er his rank or might, If the highest, then the worst, Let him live and die accursed. “Thou, who to Thy Church hast given Keys alike, of hell and heaven, Make our word and witness sure, Let the curse we speak endure!” Silent, while that curse was said, Every bare and listening head Bowed in reverent awe, and then All the people said, Amen! Seven times the bells have tolled, For the centuries gray and old, Since that stoled and mitred band Cursed the tyrants of their land. Since the priesthood, like a tower, Stood between the poor and power; And the wronged and trodden down Blessed the abbot’s shaven crown. Gone, thank God, their wizard spell, Lost, their keys of heaven and hell; Yet I sigh for men as bold As those bearded priests of old. Now, too oft the priesthood wait At the threshold of the state; Waiting for the beck and nod Of its power as law and God. Fraud exults, while solemn words Sanctify his stolen hoards; Slavery laughs, while ghostly lips Bless his manacles and whips. Not on them the poor rely, Not to them looks liberty, Who with fawning falsehood cower To the wrong, when clothed with power. Oh, to see them meanly cling, Round the master, round the king, Sported with, and sold and bought, — Pitifuller sight is not! “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 3 HDT WHAT? INDEX FRIEND JOHN JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM Tell me not that this must be: God’s true priest is always free; Free, the needed truth to speak, Right the wronged, and raise the weak. Not to fawn on wealth and state, Leaving Lazarus at the gate; Not to peddle creeds like wares; Got to mutter hireling prayers; Nor to paint the new life’s bliss On the sable ground of this; Golden streets for idle knave, Sabbath rest for weary slave! Not for words and works like these, Priest of God, thy mission is; But to make earth’s desert glad, In its Eden greenness clad; And to level manhood bring Lord and peasant, serf and king; And the Christ of God to find In the humblest of thy kind!. Thine to work as well as pray, Clearing thorny wrongs away; Plucking up the weeds of sin, Letting heaven’s warm sunshine in; Watching on the hills of Faith.; Listening what the spirit saith, Of the dim-seen light afar, Growing like a nearing star. God’s interpreter art thou, To the waiting ones below; ’Twixt them and its light midway Heralding the better day; Catching gleams of temple spires, Hearing notes of angel choirs, Where, as yet unseen of them, Comes the New Jerusalem! 4 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX FRIEND JOHN JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM Like the seer of Patmos gazing, On the glory downward blazing; Till upon Earth’s grateful sod Rests the City of our God! 1657 August 20: According to Joseph Dow’s HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF HAMPTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE. FROM ITS SETTLEMENT IN 1638, TO THE AUTUMN OF 1892, this was the actual 1st report of a shipwreck — one which eventually would inspire a poem by Friend John Greenleaf Whittier (included below): The: 20th of the 8 mo 1657 The sad Hand of God upon Eight p[er]sons goeing in a small vessell by Sea from Hampton to boston Who wear all swallowed up i[n] the ocian sone after they ware out of the Harbour the p[er]sons wear by name as Followeth Robert Read “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 5 HDT WHAT? INDEX FRIEND JOHN JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM Sargent: Will Swaine Manewell: Hilyard John: Philbrick & Ann: Philbrick His wife Sarah: Philbrick their daught Alice the wife of moses Cocks: and John Cocks their sonn: who ware all Drowned the: 20th of the 8 mo: 1657 TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS 6 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX FRIEND JOHN JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH IVERMOUTH ROCKS are fair to see, By dawn or sunset shone across, When the ebb of the sea has left them free, To dry their fringes of gold-green moss: For there the river comes winding down From salt sea-meadows and uplands brown, And waves on the outer rocks afoam Shout to its waters, “Welcome home!” And fair are the sunny isles in view East of the grisly Head of the Boar, And Agamenticus lifts its blue Disk of a cloud the woodlands o’er; And, southerly, when the tide is down, “Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown, The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheel Over a floor of burnished steel. Once, in the old Colonial days, Two hundred years ago and more, A boat sailed down through the winding ways Of Hampton River to that low shore, Full of goodly company Sailing out on the summer sea, Veering to catch the land-breeze light, With the Boar to left and the Rocks to right. In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass, “Ah, well-a-day! our hay must be made!” A young man sighed, who saw them pass, Loud laughed his fellows to see him stand Whetting his scythe with a listless hand, Hearing a voice in a far-off song, Watching a white hand beckoning long. “Fie on the witch!” cried a merry girl, As they rounded the point where Goody Cole Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl, A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul. “Oho!” she muttered, “ye’re brave to-day! But I hear the little waves laugh and say, ’The broth will be cold that waits at home; For it’s one to go, but another to come!’” “She’s cursed,” said the skipper; “speak her fair: I’m scary always to see her shake Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake.” But merrily still, with laugh and shout, From Hampton River the boat sailed out, Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed nigh, And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye. They dropped their lines in the lazy tide, Drawing up haddock and mottled cod; They saw not the Shadow that walked beside, They heard not the feet with silence shod. But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew, Shot by the lightnings through and through: And muffled growls, like the growl of a beast, Ran along the sky from west to east.