In our Reflections last month we told the story of Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, who became the first Friends in the British North American colonies, the colonies that would be the beginnings of the United States of America.
It turns out the imprisonment Fisher endured with Austin in Boston was one of the least dramatic and harrowing aspects of her Quaker ministry.
Fisher was born in Yorkshire, England in 1623. She was working as a maid for the Tomlinson family and in 1651 heard George Fox speak to the family. She loved what Fox had to say and became a Quaker, joining the Quaker Valiant Sixty, a group of Quaker activists in the late 1600s.
Fisher was a dedicated activist.
Starting in 1652, she was imprisoned multiple times: for publicly rebuking a church vicar; for the pamphlet she wrote with four other Quakers titled “False Prophets and False Teachers Described”, which encouraged people to leave the church and turn to the Inner Light; and again in 1654 and 1655 for additional offenses against the church.
In 1653, as part of their opposition to organized religion, she and Elizabeth Williams criticized student theologians at Sidney Sussex College. For this they became the first Quakers to be publicly flogged for their ministry.
As we read last month, Fisher and Austin made their trip to the New World in 1656, and they both returned to England in 1657.
But her most amazing missionary trip took place the next year. Here’s how it is described in Wikipedia:
“In 1658 Fisher traveled in a group of six Quakers to the Mediterranean and to visit the Ottoman Empire to expound her Quaker faith to the Sultan Mehmed IV. When their ship reached Smyrna, she asked the English Consul there how to contact the Sultan. He told her this would be unwise, and tricked the party into boarding a ship bound for Venice.
“Realizing this when at sea, Fisher asked the captain to land her on the Morean coast of Greece. She then traveled alone on foot across Macedonia and Thrace until she reached the Sultan, who was encamped with his army at Adrianople. There she persuaded Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, the Grand Vizier, to arrange an audience for her with the Sultan, describing herself as an ambassador of ‘The Most High God’.
“According to her account, the Sultan received her ministry ‘testifying to the Universal Light’ attentively. She then declined his offer of an armed escort and made her way alone to Constantinople and then back to England.”
That’s dedication.
Fisher died in 1698 and her remains were buried at the Quaker burial ground in Charleston, South Carolina, where she had lived with her second husband John Crosse. When those burial grounds were removed in 1967, most of Fisher’s remains were then moved to Court House Square in Charleston.
Peachtree Friends Meeting 