Tag: history

Reflections for 7th Month, 2025

Daniel Boone, the legendary pioneer and frontiersman, was raised a Quaker.

Among the list of famous Quakers are actors, musicians, and presidents.

But perhaps the most surprising name on that list is Daniel Boone, the legendary pioneer and frontiersman.

Boone was born in Pennsylvania in 1734 to Squire and Sarah (nee Morgan) Boone. Sarah’s family were Quakers from Wales. The Boones raised their 11 children as Quakers.

The family did create some drama in their Quaker community. Their oldest daughter (in 1742) and their oldest son (in 1747) both married non-Quakers. That was not acceptable at the time, and both were expelled from the faith.

Squire supported his son and was also expelled from the Quaker community, while his wife Sarah continued to attend meetings with her other children.

In 1750 Squire moved the Boones to North Carolina, and supposedly Daniel never attended any church after the move, although he did consider himself to be a Christian.

Daniel Boone the frontiersman was legendary, and it may be that many of the stories told about him are, in fact, legends.

You can’t read about his exploits without coming across expressions like “possibly folklore” and “embellished”.

Those embellishments might obscure the fact that Boone’s first 16 years growing up as a Quaker may have influenced him throughout his life.

Popular stories tell of many battles he waged against the Native Americans. But in fact, he had great respect for Indians. Boone believed he actually killed only three and expressed regret for taking even those lives.

Boone often lived in Native American territories and preferred to negotiate rather than fight. That was not a common approach for those times. He was quoted as saying that Indians “have always been kinder to me than the whites.”

At least one non-Quaker aspect of Boone’s life was that he did own slaves.

Although his history has been complicated by popular culture throughout the years, it’s interesting to know that one of America’s greatest folk heroes was raised as a Quaker.

Reflections for 8th Month, 2024

Mary Fisher was a dedicated Quaker activist in the late 1600s.

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.

Reflections for 7th Month, 2024

In Seventh Month of 1656 Ann Austin and Mary Fisher became the first Friends in the British North American colonies.

Today, there are an estimated 80,000 Friends in North America, with most being in the United States.

In 1656 the number of U.S. Friends was zero.

But in Seventh Month of that year, on the 11th to be precise, the Friends population rose to two as Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, two English Quakers, sailed from Barbados and landed in Boston, Massachusetts to become the first Friends in the British North American colonies.

Boston was a very Puritan city at that time, and Austin and Fisher’s arrival was met harshly.

Quakers in the 1600s were against church authority. They fought for equality between men and women and against slavery. These ideas were very radical for the time and did not go over well with the Puritan leaders.

The two Friends were arrested immediately after arriving in Boston.

Their prison cell was boarded up to isolate them, and possibly to try to starve them to death. A Boston innkeeper, Nicholas Upsall, was able to bribe the prison warden with five shillings a week so that he could deliver food to Austin and Fisher.

They ended up spending five weeks in jail. During this time, the women were able to share their new Quaker faith with Upsall and he became a Friend, becoming the first North American Puritan convert to Quakerism.

Austin and Fisher were deported back to Barbados and they returned to England in 1657.

Ann Austin continued her ministry until her death in 1665. Mary Fisher also continued to spread the word, and is one of the Valiant Sixty (a group of early Quaker activists and preachers). The accounts of her mission trip to the Ottoman Empire are truly remarkable, and will make a great subject for a future Reflections post.

Reflections for 4th Month, 2024

Three hundred and thirty-six years ago this month, in 1688, Quaker Francis Daniel Pastorius, and three other Friends published the Germantown Friends Petition Against Slavery on behalf of the Germantown (Pennsylvania) Meeting.

The Petition is considered to be the first protest against African American slavery made by a religious body in the English colonies.

It objected to slavery on moral and practical grounds at a time when the practice was almost universally accepted, including by most Quakers.

The argument presented in the petition was based upon the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It said:

“There is a saying, that we shall doe to all men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent or colour they are.”

At the time of its writing, the Petition got passed around in the Germantown meeting chain – monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings – without any official approval or rejection.

It disappeared for 150 years into the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s archives, when it was discovered in 1844. Quaker abolitionists republished it that year in “The Friend” in support of their antislavery work.

About 100 years later, it was misplaced again, only to be rediscovered in 2005 in the Arch Street Meetinghouse. It was in very bad physical condition by then, but was repaired and restored at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia.

Although it didn’t provoke changes immediately, the Petition is still considered a significant document in the fight against slavery.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture says this on their website:

“Sadly, ‘The Germantown Protest’ did not spark a significant change in the Americas against slavery. Even within Quaker communities the declaration was ignored, at least initially. But a seed had been planted. A belief shared silently by many was given voice.”

Reflections for 2nd Month, 2024

George Fox is generally considered to be the founder of the Religious Society of Friends. Born in 1624 near Leicestershire, England, his radically different approach to religion resulted in him being frequently arrested.

As a young man, Fox traveled extensively around England, and he frequently spent time with clergy, but Fox found little help for his troubles from their traditional views.

During this time, Fox heard an inner voice telling him, “I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition’; and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy.”

This thought would become a foundation of Quaker beliefs.

Fox began to preach in public around 1647, and he began to attract a following. His group was known as “Friends of the Truth”, which then became just “Friends”.

In 1650 Fox wrote that “Justice Bennet of Derby first called us Quakers because we bid them tremble at the word of God.” At that time, the term was meant to be derisive, but it was soon embraced by and still used by Friends.

Two days after preaching in London, George Fox died on January 13, 1690. He is buried at the Quaker Burying Ground at Bunhill Fields in London.