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Content THE TREATMENT OP THE QUAKER AS A CHARACTER
IN AMERICAN FICTION, 1825-1925
A Dissertation
Presented to
the Faculty of the Department of English
University of Southern California
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Thomas Kimber
August 1953
UMI Number: DP23003
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UMI DP23003
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p f ) O E ^
This dissertation, written by
THOMAS KIMBER
under the direction ofjQ-X-3... F a cu lty Com m ittee,
on Studies, and approved by a ll its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the C o uncil
on G raduate Study and Research, in p a rtia l f u l
fillm e n t of requirements fo r the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H IL O S O P H Y
Dean
D ate.
Com mittee on Studies
Chairm an
v' C O u > ^ d l W A 0 4 .
TABLE OP CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF QUAKER THOUGHT AND
ATTITUDES ................................... 1
II. THE QUAKER IN THE FICTION BASED ON THE
COLONIAL PERIOD............................ i j . 0
Early novels showing Quaker Influence . . . I 4.I
Colonial novels dealing with the adminis
tration of the Penn family............. 1|5
Later fiction showing the persecution of
the Quakers by Puritan intolerance in
the Colonial Period ............... 52
Summary..................................... 6J 4.
III. THE QUAKER IN FICTION BASED ON THE REVO
LUTIONARY WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH, 1776-1797 67
The origin of the Free Quaker movement in
Pennsylvania ............................ 68
Fiction dealing with the Free Quakers in
the Revolutionary W a r ............. 69
Fiction in which the War plays a minor part 81p
Summary ............................ 91
IV. THE QUAKER IN FICTION BASED ON THE PERIOD
1797-1865 ................................... 95
Resume of the Quakers' role in the anti
slavery movement................. 95
iv
CHAPTER PAGE;
Novels of the Underground Railroad .... 99;
Novels of the conscientious objector In the
Civil W a r ............................ llij.
Novels of the period ignoring the. War . . . 117:
Summary................................ 120;
Y. THE QUAKER AS A CHARACTER IN CERTAIN SPECIFIC
TYPES OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY FICTION . . . . 1221
The Quaker in Nantucket................ . 122:
The Quaker in Melville1s Moby Dick .... 125;
The Quaker in the juvenile n o v e l . 130;
The Quaker in the dime n o v e l ... lij.ll
Summary.................................... II4 . 7;
VI. CONCLUSION.......... 151
BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................... 159
CHAPTER I
A HISTORICAL SKETCH OP QUAKER THOUGHT AND- ATTITUDES
It will be my purpose in this dissertation to survey
the treatment of the Quakers, In American fiction of 1825-
1925, from their first appearance in Colonial America to
the present day. I shall pursue the study chronologically
through four distinct periods of American history: (1) the
Colonial Period, (2) the Revolutionary War Period and its
aftermath, (3) the Civil War and Reconstruction Period, and
(i4.) the Post-Civil War Period. Although I have chosen to
limit this survey to American fiction written between the
years 1825 and 1925* I have included a few significant
novels published after the latter date. Before attempting
such a survey of the treatment of the Quaker as a character
in American fiction, it seems advisable to present an
extended statement of the essential features of Quakerism,
emphasizing especially those aspects which have caused the
sect to be regarded in a special light and its represen
tatives to be used by both Quaker and non-Quaker writers as
characters in the pages of novels and shorter works of
fiction.
In order properly to evaluate and interpret any great
social, political, or religious movement it is first neces
sary to appraise the milieu from which it sprang.
Essentially a movement of protest against existing ecclesi
astical evils, Quakerism developed throughout the cities
and shires of England with an unpredictable and cumulative
force that stunned its opponents and mystified many of its
most rabid persecutors.
George Fox, the ardent founder of the Society of
Friends, more commonly known as Quakers, was shocked by
the flagrant irreverence and worldliness of the Anglican
clergy of his day and inflamed with an intense desire to
regain the lost spiritual heritage of the Church. He went
throughout the length and breadth of the little British
Isle preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ as he had come to
understand it, not through the work of any priest or
organization but through an inward potent, revelatory
experience.
In l6!j.7 Fox began preaching in the central counties
of England. Many thousands came to hear his messages and
shortly a band of preachers, many young like himself, went
from place to place telling simply but forcibly the gospel
of salvation from the power of sin and of man's privilege
of holding direct communion with his Creator. Subjected
to indignities and insults, drawn before magistrates,
hurled into loathsome prisons, the followers of this new
doctrine increased with a rapidity which rivaled the spread
of Christianity in the first century. This persecution of
the English Quakers continued throughout the period of the
3
Commonwealth and the reigns of Charles II and James II.^
The causes underlying the persecution of the Quakers
are many, for the sect protested not only against the
worldliness and ritualism of a depraved eeclesiasticism,
but also with equal vehemence against the injustices of the
magistrates and various government officials before whom
they were frequently summoned. The enforcement of the
Uniformity Act and the Conventicle Act (l661j.) wrought havoc;
among all of the nonconformist sects in Restoration Englandi
As Green points out, the Quakers were one of the smallest
of all the nonconformist bodies, but as a result of these
and similar oppressive measures, "more than four thousand
were soon in prison, and of these five hundred were
p
imprisoned in London alone.’
The Quakers, admittedly fanatical at times, were
utterly fearless in their testimonies and, in their complete
devotion to their own peculiar religious convictions, put
to shame alike the pleasure-loving bishops and the austere
Puritans. This attitude naturally led to their being hated:
by priests, presbyters, and magistrates alike. Trevelyan
states:
1
See Faith and Practice of the Religious Society of
Friends of Philadelphia and Vicinity, A Book of Christian
Discipline (Philadelphia: 1935>)» p. viii."
2-Jolm Richard Green, A Short History of the English
People (London, 1893), IIlT 1338-
The presbyterians hated Quakerism because it
threatened to take away their tithes; the Baptists
because it actually took away their congregations;
and the Episcopalians because it was further
removed than any other sect from their ideas of
ritual and church government.3
In the welter of denominational factions of seventeenth
: century England, each militantly proclaiming its own indi
vidual supremacy, the small body called the Seekers most
closely approximated the Quakers in spirit and doctrine.^
Braithwaite states that the Seekers or Waiters:
. . . who felt the insufficiency of the current I
doctrinal and external religion, and were not yet
brought into a deeper soul-satisfying experience
afforded the most receptive soil in England for
the message of Pox. (P. 26) j
These mystical souls found a distinct note of fellowship j
I between themselves and the followers of George Pox.
Certain of them retained the name of Seekers after their
conversion to Quakerism. Oliver Cromwell's daughter, Lady
Claypole, was a member of this body.
As the result of the new conditions of religious
freedom oh the one hand and religious controversy on the
‘other arising in England after the assembling of the Long
3(jeorge Macaulay Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts,
9th ed. (London, 1920), pp. 3 ± k --lS-
^For good summaries of the denominational factions
existing at the time of the founding of Quakerism see
;Samuel M. Janney, The Life of George Pox (Philadelphia,
,1853), and William C. Braithwaite, The Beginnings of
Quakerism (London, 1912).
Parliament, there was a veritable outburst of new sects.
Among these were many honest searchers after truth who did
not find satisfaction in mere doctrine or form. To such
distraught souls the clear, spiritual message of Quakerism j
d
made a very living appeal.-^
Pour major aspects of Quaker religious philosophy and j
practice embody the essence of their creed and way of life:
mysticism, including the special Quaker doctrine of the
inner light; simplicity, in worship, in attitude toward
literature and art, and in dress; pacifism, as an outgrowth:
of Friends' conception of the value of the individual soul;I
and philanthropy, as manifested in their constructive
efforts at prison reform, their interest in the physical,
mental, and spiritual improvement of the American Indian
and the Negro--these appear to me to constitute the core
of Quakerism in religion and sociology.
Probably no single aspect of Quakerism is more uni
versally ascribed to its followers than that of mysticism.
In the broadest sense all disciples of Christ show certain
mystical traits, but some have demonstrated these qualities I
more emphatically than others. Tertullian maintained in
his treatise "On the Testimony of the Soul" that "Whenever
the soul comes to itself as out of a surfeit, or a sleep of :
^Braithwaite, p. 27.
sickness, and attains something of its natural soundness,
'it speaks of God."^ St. Augustine likewise made this well ,
known statement in his Confessions. ,T0h, Lord, thou hast
made us for thyself and we cannot rest until we rest in
Thee." These are statements of universal application and
not of special privilege to a limited hierarchy of saints.
This universal concept is the root idea underlying the
Quaker position regarding mysticism, especially the doctrine
of the "inner light." Basing their belief particularly on I
John 1:9 ("That was the true Light, which lighteth every
man that cometh into the world"), the Quakers steadfastly
maintained that this inward revelation or "seed" was
implanted in every man born into the world.
In analyzing this important doctrine in the writings
of early Quaker teachers Professor Brand Blanshard in an
essay entitled "Early Thought on the Inner Light" reduces
it to four essential aspects: (1) a faculty that passed
judgment on right and wrong, (2) an organ for apprehending ;
religious truth, (3) a kind of occult divination of natural:
fact, and (I4 . ) the indwelling presence of God himself.^
^Quoted by Rufus M. Jones, Studies in Mystical
Religion (London, 1909), p. 82.
^Byways of Quaker History, ed. Howard Brinton (Pendle
Hill, Pa., 19i|l(-), p. 1 $ 3• Elbert Russell in his treatment
of the doctrine in The History of Quakerism (New York, 19^3)>
pp. l|.9-5l, gives three rather similar points of emphasis:
(1) It stood for God as knowable to and within men, (2) it
meant also the capacity in all men to perceive, recognize
7
Under the first of these categories we may consider
George Pox's statement:
Therefore to the light in you I speak, that when the
book of conscience is opened then shall you witness
me and you all judged out of it. So God Almighty
direct your minds who love honesty and sincerity
that you may receive mercy in the time of need.
Your teacher is within you.8
Robert Barclay, the great apologist, also comments that
"it is that little small thing that reproves them in their
hearts.*1^ To the same effect is the following remark by
William Penn:
It is the Inspiration of the Almighty which gives
them to understand what is Good, and what is Evil;
that they may do the one, and reject the other.^0
Upon this important topic--the power of perceiving good and
evil as an inward, subjective capacity--it is held by
Rachel Hadley King that the Quaker insistence that "the
light which is Christ is what shows a man evil" succeeded
in steering Quakerism safely away from the theological
and respond to God, and (3) the Inner Light was also a
designation for God as inwardly known for a man's whole
experience of God.
®Journal of George Fox, ed. John L. Nickalls
(Cambridge, England, 1952), p. ll± 3 •
^Apology for the True Christian Divinity (Philadelphia,
Friends' Book Association, no date), p. 187. Originally
written in Latin and English, 1675.
■^"A Serious Apology for the Principles and Practices
of the People Called 'Quakers^'" in A Collection of the
Works of William Penn (London, 1726), II, 38.
8!
pantheism and ethical antinomianism of the Ranters. "The
pantheism of the Ranters had no theoretical reason for
distinguishing the good from the had," she writes.11
As a distinct aspect of this principle we have the
sense of man’s capacity to respond to G-od and religious
truth. According to Barclay, "this inward, immediate,
objective revelation . . . is the only sure, certain, and
immovable foundation of all religious faith" (p. 70). Upon;
this point we seem to have a clear elaboration by this
great Quaker philosopher of the Apostle Paul’s own state
ment in the first epistle to the Corinthians: "The natural;
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit . . . neither
can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned"
(I Corinthians 2:lljJ.
One of the most prominent of recent Friends’ philoso
phers, Rufus M. Jones, supports this position. "in so far
as we arrive at truth," he writes, "we are getting in line
1 P
with something beyond ourselves." Elbert Russell feels
that this mystical capacity in all men to respond to God is
a distinct denial of the Calvinistic teaching that such a
11
capacity liras limited strictly to certain elect souls.
3-3-George Fox and the Light Within (Philadelphia, 19l|0),
pp. 90-97.
J-^New Studies in Mystical Religion (New York, 1928),
p. 182.
13The History of Quakerism, p. 60.
According to Blanshard, George Pox at times manifested1
a third phase of the principle, which approached the idea
of the occult. For example, Pox claims to have had certain!
prophetic insights, as when he asserted that he knew in
advance that King Charles II would be restored to the
throne of England. Many of the early Friends were subject
to such inward impulses, and it was largely owing to their :
fearless if tactless public denunciation of officials of
both church and state that they became the object of as
much calumny as frequently came their way. They often
resorted to extravagant and indeed picturesque ways of
uttering these denunciations, which aroused the bitterest
opposition on the part of the accused.
Unquestionably certain of their public acts were
sensational, such as Thomas Aldam’s wresting his cap from
his head and tearing it into pieces before Oliver Cromwell
as he cried out, nSo shall thy government be rent from thee:
and thy house.Perhaps a more important consideration
from the point of view of this study, is the unflinching
faithfulness with which the Quakers carried out their con
victions, even to the point of physical suffering and
-^Willem Sewel, The History of the Rise, Increase and !
Progress of the Christian People Called Quakers (Phila- :
delphia, 1728)', 1, 2ijjL.
10
icr
sometimes of death. Fanatical the lay Friends may some-
;times have been; fearless and faithful to their consciences
they certainly were, with but few exceptions.
Such emphatic utterances during the period when
Quakerism was still a young and flaming message inspired
by the same spirit that provoked the Old Testament prophe
cies of Jeremiah and Amos, affected not only the adult
followers of the sect but frequently even children. A
striking example is Mary Fell, the eight-year-old daughter
of Judge and Margaret Fell of Swarthmoor, who wrote the
following extravagant letter to the Anglican priest Lampitt:
Lampitt the plaiges of God shall fall upon thee,
and the seven vials he powerd upon Thee, and the
milstone shall fall upon thee. . . . This did the
lord give me as I lay in bed--Mary Fell.l&
One of the truly beautiful facts recorded in early Quaker
history is the faithfulness of children in carrying on
meetings for worship while their parents, for preaching the
gospel, were rudely ushered into prisons.
With regard to the last aspect of the inner light, the !
indwelling presence of God in the human soul, this is not a
15a notable example of such treatment is James Nayler's
*cruel imprisonment and consequent public punishment at
Bristol, during which he was twice sentenced to the pillory,!
beaten with 310 stripes, and had his tongue bored through
with a hot iron. See M. R. Brailsford, A Quaker From
Cromwell^ Army; James Hayler (London, 1927), p. Ilp8 ff.
l^Brailsford, p. 58-
11
unique Quaker doctrine but belongs rather to all Christians)
)who believe in the power of God to enter into and influence
the conduct of the individual. But it is fair to assert
that the Friends, ancient and modern, have laid special
: stress upon the fact of the indwelling presence of God or
Christ. Barelay insists on this as a real spiritual
: substance:
This is that Christ within which we are heard so
much to speak and declare of; everywhere preaching
him up, and exhorting people to believe in the
light, and obey it, that they may come to know
Christ in them, to deliver them from all sin. (P. 137) 1
)It was through their great stress on this guiding principle)
of the T 'inner light" that a conflict finally arose between |
ithe Friends and other denominations regarding the authority;
iof the Scriptures. Although George Fox, William Penn,
Robert Barclay and others always gave an important place to
the Scriptures, some of their statements tended to elevate
the inward capacity of the soul and consequently diminish
)dependence upon Scriptural authority. Thus George Fox
writes of his own experience of Christ as indwelling:
This I saw in the pure openings of the Light without
the help of any man, neither did I then know where
to find it in the Scriptures, though afterwards
searching the Scriptures, I found it. For I saw in
that Light and Spirit which was before Scripture was
given forth, and which led the holy men of God to
give them forth, that all must come to that Spirit--
if they would know God or Christ or the Scriptures
aright— which they that led them forth were led and
taught by.17 >
^-7Journal, p. 3i j . .
12
i In a similar vein William Penn declares in , ! A Serious
Apology":
Nay, the Scriptures cannot be properly stiled the
Revelation of the Will of God, till they are first
opened by him, who was found worthy to unseal the
Book.18
William Wistar Comfort's recent book interpreting the
principles of the Society of Friends lays emphasis upon
this inner awareness of the divine presence in the human
19
soul as the foremost and central doctrine of Quakerism.
I have laid special stress upon the principle of
"the inner light" both because it illustrates the mystical
element in Quakerism and because it is a fundamental
religious concept of Friends. It is not, however, the only
concept which reflects their mystical approach to religion.
;This approach is further revealed in the spiritual rather
than physical belief in the ordinances of the Lord's
Supper and of baptism. The Society of Friends, from its
very beginnings, has always maintained that the outward
observance of these ordinances was a temporary rite of the
early days of the apostolic church. They held that such a
Scriptural statement as that of John the Baptist in Luke
\3 ‘ 16, "I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier
than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy
l8A Collection of the Works of William Penn (London,
1726), II, 37.
1(?Just Among Friends (New York, I9I 4 .I), p. 20.
13
to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy G-host and
with fire,” represented a transition from one age of
religion to another, from the age of visible, outward forms
20
to the age of deeper spiritual realities. Friends took a
similar position regarding the historic institution of the
Lord’s Supper.
As Rufus M. Jones clearly points out in The Faith and
Practice of the Quakers:
The external sacramental practices which prevailed
in the churches of the seventeenth century seemed to
George Fox to have little inner meaning and but
slender spiritual significance. 1
A lucid summing up of the Quaker attitude toward the
outward observance of the sacraments is contained in a
passage in The Discipline of the London Yearly Meeting:
We are thus compelled at times to stand apart from
other communions in such matters as a separated
ministry, forms in public worship, and the use of
the outward sacraments. . . . We do not make use
of the outward rites of baptism and the Lord’s
Supper, but we do believe in the inward experiences
they symbolize. Our testimony is to the actuality
of this experience even without the external rite.22
20Faith and Practice of the Religious Society of
Friends! p! lit* Cf. also Comfort, p. 8.
216th ed. (London, 191j 4) > P« 20.
22giix>istian Life, Faith and Thought in the Society of
Friends (London. Friends House.no date), p! 77. See also
Jones, The Faith and Practice of the Quakers, pp. 76, 7Q,
82. In thus interpreting the Scriptural teachings on these
important rites of the Church, Friends relied on the Gospel
of John more than on the other three Gospels.
1 1 4 -
Friends’ constant reliance upon subjective experience
led them gradually to give less attention to formulated
creeds than most Protestant sects, and to place more con
fidence in the inward manifestation of God’s Spirit to the
individual human heart.
If the mysticism of Quakerism is shown in its attitude
toward the ”inner light" and toward the spiritual rather
than physical observance of the ordinances of the Church,
it is illustrated also by another characteristic belonging
especially to the early followers of the Movement, namely
'the quality of simplicity, which marked not only the
worship but also the outward conduct of the true Friend.
As I have already pointed out, Quakerism was born in
a period of worldliness and ecclesiastical ritualism when
the outside of the cup was regarded with more interest than
the inside, when the cut of a man’s clothes was considered
of more significance than his moral standards. Magnificent
; cathedrals, pealing organs, and costly vestures were in
abundance in seventeenth century England, but these outward
symbols of religion meant little to the band of humble
disciples of George Fox. William Penn, the son of Admiral
Penn, Lord Admiral of England, brought up in luxury,
educated at Oxford University, was glad to forsake all his
prospects of worldly preferment to become a member of the
despised group of fanatics who had come to be known as
; Quakers.
15
In No Cross. No Crown. Penn condemns the follies of
his day: Pride, conceit of knowledge, love of worldly
honors and compliments, pride in ancestry, luxury in diet
and apparel--these are some of the common vices of Restor
ation England against ivhich the youthful Quaker convert
inveighs. On the other hand, Penn strongly deprecates the
monastic ideal of fleeing from the temptations of the world
and warmly advocates facing evil and overcoming It with
, 23
good.
While the Quaker ideal of simplicity was in part a
protest against such excesses as those mentioned above, it
was a good deal more than that. It was, as William WIstar
Comfort asserts, "a way of life"; it was a fundamental
24
philosophy of living. Rufus M. Jones comments: "In all
the best generations of Quakerism, the ideal aim and the
controlling expectation of the wiser members have been to
live the simple life" (Faith and Practice, p. 90). The
simple life, according to Jones, means sincerity above all.
"The fountain must be right if we want the water to be
clear. Unclouded honesty at the heart and center of the
man is the true basis of simplicity" (p.-90).
^^William‘1. Hull, William Penn: A Topical Biography
(Oxford, 1937), p. 158.
* ^Just Among Friends. p. 4. A good description of the
Quaker method of worship is furnished in Chapter 2.
16
As all the world knows, the most significant feature
of the early religious meetings of Friends was their
silence. This silence, however, is not to be regarded as
a period of deadness or mental laziness, but rather as one
of spiritual creativeness when "the Holy Spirit speaks
directly to the human soul, and worship is a personal com
munion with God and a yielding of our wills to the Divine
will."^ It is thus related integrally to the mystical
conception of religion previously discussed and in par
ticular to the doctrine of the ’ ’inner light." This custom
of meeting in silence is still maintained in various
O A
meetings both in England and the United States.
The simple stone meeting-houses were unadorned without
and within, devoid of any musical instruments whatever,
with plain wooden seats, frequently unfurnished with
cushions. In former days the men sat on one side of the
center aisle, the women on the other. A low gallery,
usually consisting of two or three rox^s of seats at the
:front of the meeting, somewhat elevated above the others
and facing them, was occupied by the "head of the meeting,"
and other elders or ministers.
^ Faith and Practice of the Relig. Soc. of Friends,
p. xi.
26;gxamples of these silent meetings in Philadelphia
are the old Arch Street Meeting and the Twelfth Street
Meeting, both belonging to the Orthodox branch, and the
Race Street Meeting, belonging to the Hicksite branch.
171
While the absence of either instrumental or vocal
music comes as a surprise to many who first attend a
typical Friends’ meeting of the sort just described, this
omission is not to be wondered at when the original
conditions under which Quakerism arose are fully understoodI,
The early Friends not only were averse to ritual in worship
but especially to anything which savored of sham. Much of j
the formal singing, including the singing of the Psalms,
seemed to them hypocritical. William Densberry and George
Whitehead, both seventeenth century Friends, felt a keen
sense of guilt in singing the Psalms of David. Sewel
records that Whitehead suffered extreme scruples of
conscience on this score even before he joined the Society j
of Friends, lest he be telling lies unto God (I, 172).
Other procedures in the direction of simplicity in
worship were (1) the elimination of a priestly hierarchy
based upon the theory of the apostolic succession, and
(2) the doing away with a salaried ministry entirely. Both;
of these measures served to make the Friends' method of
worship exceptionally democratic in spirit.
One of the special aspects of Quaker simplicity which
has impressed itself upon the world at large is simplicity {
of dress. Much has been made of this in literature and art
and we shall refer to it many times in later chapters.
Basically, this custom sprang from a desire to get back to
18
the root ideas of Christianity and to protest against the
luxury and extravagance of seventeenth century England. In
the days of Queen Elizabeth "the dressing of a fine lady
was more complicated than the rigging of a ship." Quaker
simplicity of apparel is not to be conceived of as a goal
in itself, though some may have so considered it, but
rather as a concrete expression of an ideal of conduct--a
way of life. The early Friends felt that the principle
later enunciated by Emerson In the phrase "plain living and
high thinking" served the true aim of man. As Rufus Jones
has said, "the persistent aim of Quaker simplicity is to
put dress in proper subordination to life itself.The
sincerity with which the early Quakers regarded their
abstinence from worldly pomp and circumstance is well set
forth in the following brief comment in the "Advices" from I
the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1726, quoted by Amelia
Mott G-ummere in The Quaker: A Study in Costume:
If any who may conceive the Appearance of Plainness
to be a temporal Advantage to them do put it on with
unsanctified Hearts and Minds filled with Deceit . . . ®
Such as they are an Abomination to God and to good
Men.28
Mrs. Gummere has dealt not only with the technical aspects
of dress, both of the Quakers themselves and of the typical!
courtiers of the seventeenth century, but also with the
^ Faith &fl.d Practice, p. 96.
28(Philadelphia, 1901), pp. ip-5*
1 9 1
philosophical reasons motivating the attitudes of early
Friends. She admits frankly that the Quakers, willing to
go to any extreme to prove their martyr spirit, often fell
into foolish excesses, such as the attitude expressed in anj
old English minute on gardens, in which we find that
"turnips and cabbages tend to keep the mind humble, but the;
rose and the lily may prove a snare" (p. 2l\.) .
One of the most interesting examples of Quaker plain
ness in dress, because based so evidently upon conscientious
motives, is that of John Woolman, the well known anti
slavery exponent and missionary to the American Indians.
For several years during the latter period of his life
Woolman would wear nothing but ■unbleached and undyed suits
and hats because he had come to understand that the dyes
required in coloring clothing were made in part by slave
labor.^9
Ridicule and hostility greeted the followers of such
revolutionary doctrines--scorn open and secret was
frequently their lot; but with a tenacity which cannot but
arouse our admiration, the Quaker, like Bunyan1s Pilgrim,
trod alone his earthly journey clad in his plain-cut coat
and wide-brimmed hat of gray.
A third aspect of Quaker simplicity has to do with the !
attitude of the Society of Friends toward literature and
29Janet Whitney, John Woolman, American Quaker (Boston,
191+2), pp. 276-79.
2CH
4
art. As I have studied the three phases of this subject—
simplicity in worship, simplicity in dress, and simplicity :
in literary and artistic expression--I am convinced that
the same motivation underlies all three. They are but
three aspects of a single fundamental concept.
It is significant to note that early Quaker literature
fell into three main categories: apologetic, biographical,:
•30
and journalistic. Of these the latter two are, of course,
most closely related.
The apologists were the most learned of the group of
Friends’ writers in the early stages of their literature.
Barclay, Penn, and Pennington were all able and prolific
exponents of Quakerism and various lesser known authors
ihad their writings preserved for posterity through the care j
of the Morning Meeting. Howgill, Nayler, Burrough and
Pennington thus had their works collected (Russell, p. 166).
It may be mentioned in passing that William Penn's courtly
training both at Oxford University and at Saumur in France
had placed him in a position to know the best learning of
his day. Robert Barclay was educated in Scotland and at
the Jesuit College in Paris, and thus had a thorough ;
knowledge of the Calvinistic and Catholic theology of his
time. After he joined the Society of Friends in 1666, he
■^Luella Wright, The Literary Life of the Early Friends
(New York, 1932), pp. 193-97.
21
soon became-its foremost theologian. His chief work is the
Apology for the True Christian Divinity, where he formu
lated his contentions in sixteen theses or propositions,
later expanded into the famous Apology and published in
Latin in the year 1676. Barclay's method is to prove his
propositions first by Scripture, second by reason, and last
by citation from the early Church fathers. Even today
Barclay's Apology is referred to by Friends as one of the
ichief statements of their doctrinal position.
Luella Wright asserts that a marked homogeneity of
content and style characterized early Quaker literature:
The first generation of Friends, with little conscious
ness that it was producing a prose style, turned
spontaneously to the press and adapted to its needs
several guiding principles which the second generation
later recognized as loci critici for Quaker writings.
(p. 57)
This passion for simplicity of expression, as opposed to
the ornate style of much English writing before John Dryden,
was shown in all types of Quaker literature.
If simplicity was an ideal of Quaker literature, it
was even more emphasized in relation to artistic expression.
Utterly abhorrent of anything which savored of image
worship, some Friends even went to the extreme of pro
hibiting family portraits from appearing on the walls of
their private homes. Here again the conditions at the
infancy of the movement should be taken into account. The
ornate cathedrals with their stained glass windows and
22
richly ornamented interiors were scornfully referred to by |
the Quakers as "steeple-houses."
It is not then to be wondered at, that the Quaker
atmosphere was a pretty thin one in which to develop true
creative art. This is fittingly shown in the biographies
of two celebrated American artists, Edward Hicks and
Benjamin West. j
Edward Hicks (I78O-I8I 4.9), not as widely known to the
general public as West, was a cousin of Elias Hicks,
founder of the separation movement known as the Hicksite
■Movement, which had its origin in America in 1827. Edward j
Hicks, a conscientious preacher, farmer and painter by j
turns, at one period in his life became so obsessed with
the idea that painting was a worldly and hence unspiritual j
vocation that he said:
If the Christian world was in the real spirit of .
Christ, I do not believe there would be such a thing !
as a fine painter in Christendom. It appears clearly
to me to be one of those trifling insignificant arts
which has never been of any substantial advantage to
mankind. But as the inseparable companion of volup-
tousness and pride it has presaged the downfall of
empires and kingdoms; and in my view stands now
enrolled among the premonitory symptoms of the rapid !
decline of the American Republic.3l
Coming from the lips of a well-known folk painter and mysti-j-
cal artist, such an opinion as this is indeed startling. j
^ Quoted in an article on his painting called "The
Peaceable Kingdom" in -The Bulletin of the Worcester Art
Museum, XXV, I 4 . 7, Spring^ T93^
For a time Hicks gave up painting because of these scruples:
of conscience.
The case of Benjamin West, who before his death was
internationally acclaimed, particularly during the reign of
King George III in England, is also of special interest as
demonstrating the extreme reluctance of Friends to accept
painting as a legitimate vocation for a Quaker. In a
recent article by Horace Mather Lippincott we have a
detailed and stimulating presentation of Benjamin West's
youth and parentage and the origin of his career as a
painter.
When the artist was sixteen his father, being of
moderate means, wished to establish him in some lucrative
business. After consultation with various "weighty
Friends" it was decided to hold a meeting in the old
Springfield Meeting House to consider the advisability of
Benjamin's entering upon a career as a professional artist.
After some difference of opinion had been expressed, a
Friend by the name of John Williamson arose and delivered
an extraordinary speech for a Quaker. Affirming that God
from time to time had been pleased to bestow special gifts
upon mankind, he closed his address with the broad-minded
and tolerant assertion that God had manifestly bestowed
upon Benjamin West "a genius for that art, and can we
believe that Omniscience bestows gifts but for great
purposes? What God has given who shall dare to throw
2k
: away?"^ Thus admonished, the Friends at Springfield
;accepted the talented youth as a fully approved member and
with the laying on of hands Benjamin West entered upon his
career as an American painter. The modern attitude toward
art among Friends is well summed up by Hufus M. Jones:
There are no limits to the pursuit of culture so
long as it is sought in the spirit of consecration
and for ends of service. . . . Poetry, art, and
music belong to the simple life if they minister to
man's larger life, and if they do not belong there
they do not so minister. Beauty is as genuine a
reality as truth is and so is harmony.33
It is fair to state that next to their silent worship
no single aspect of Quaker belief has impressed itself more
■forcefully upon the world at large than that of pacifism.
Some attention, then, should be given to their refusal to
bear arms, though it is too well known to require elaborate
;treatment.
In the year 1660 we find the first official statement
by George Fox of the Quaker attitude toward war. It occurs
in a passage addressed to Charles II by Fox and five other
Friends, and contains the following uncompromising
declaration:
We utterly deny all outward wars and strife, and
fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or
op
^ Horace Mather Lippincott, "Benjamin West," The
General Magazine and Historical Chronicle of the University
of Pennsylvania, Autumn, 19kk, P*
^ Faith and Practice of the Quakers, p. 94.
25
pretence whatever; this is our testimony for the
whole world.34-
This refusal to take part in any war, defensive or offen
sive, became the consistent practice of Friends for over
two hundred years (p. 183). As William Wistar Comfort
remarks further, the testimony is essentially negative but
it was and still is sufficient for the requirements of a
great many people (p. 183).
Material dealing with the ’ ’peace testimony" of Friends
is abundant both in their own writings and more recently
in the secular press. In I80I 4. the London Yearly Meeting of
Friends in a formal epistle made a pronounced statement of ;
Quaker policy regarding participation in war by any of its :
members.
We feel bound explicitly to avow our continued
unshaken persuasion that all war is utterly incom
patible with the plain precepts of our Divine Lord
and Law-giver, and with the whole spirit and tenor
of His gospel, and that no plea of necessity or of
policy, however urgent or peculiar, can avail to
release either individuals or nations from the
paramount allegiance which they owe unto Him who
hath said 'Love your enemies.' To carry out such a
profession consistently is indeed a life attainment,
but it should be the aim of every Christian.35
3^-t-Quoted by Comfort in Just Among Friends, p. 182.
^London Yearly Meeting Epistle, l80i^., quoted in Faith
and Practice, a Book of Christian Discipline, p. 30. Among j
the classic extended and more formal utterances on the
subject of peace by early Quakers should be mentioned
Barclay's Apology for the True Christian Divinity, Jonathan:
Dymond's An Inquiry Into the According of War With the
Principles of Christianity, and William Penn's Essay
Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe and Frame of :
Government (for Pennsylvania)♦ ;
26
The application of these radical principles to
personal living has cost the followers of Pox untold
physical sufferings, indignities, and hardships, but until
very recent times the Quakers with few exceptions have
carried out their convictions as pacifists with unflinching
consistency. Their unwillingness to fight with outward
weapons and to take human life, has caused them to be the
butt of many a satirical joke both in literature and
ordinary life. John Dryden in The Hind and the Panther
symbolizes the Quaker by the figure of the timorous hare.
The Quakers are not the only religious group which has
refused on conscientious grounds to participate in warfare,
but Comfort is correct in his claim that the Society of
Friends has constituted a sort of "holding company” for
those minority groups which have dared to assert their
moral independence even in the actual conditions of inter
national conflict.36
Today the Quaker position has gained the respect of
many non-Quakers, largely through the positive efforts of
such agencies as the American Friends' Service Committee,
which performed such valuable service in the European
theater immediately after and even during the First World
War and is continuing its humanitarian activities today in
36The
Mennonites, Dunkards, Disciples of Christ, and
Jehovah’s Witnesses are other denominations opposing war
per se.
2?
1 various parts of the world. It Is probable that this shift;
i of emphasis from a mere negation of the moral necessity of ,
: war to a positive demonstration of constructive social
efforts for peace accounts for the increased regard in
; which Quakers are being held all over the world.
To illustrate concretely such a statement I wish to
quote in part an announcement of the American Friends’
Service Committee dated December 11, 19lf-0:
At the moment American Quaker workers in occupied
France are feeding more than thirty thousand children f
daily. These include ten thousand new-born Infants
that are given milk. About twenty thousand school
children receive milk and rice at schools to supple
ment their meager diet at home. Orphaned and
abandoned children of various nationalities, many of j
whom are in concentration camps, are wholly cared ,
for by the Committee’s representatives. . . . The
bulk of the foodstuffs used by the American Quakers
is purchased In Switzerland. . . , . We hope that we
may continue to receive generous support from
Americans of good will for the continuation and
expansion of this work.37
It is no far cry from the Friends' emphasis upon peace;
:and world brotherhood to their interest in philanthropy.
Believing, as the Quakers always have, in the dignity of
37a partial list of articles dealing with the Quakers
in non-Quaker periodicals between 1939-I|-9 includes the
'following: "Fighting Friends," Time, July 20, 19lf-2, p. I f . 6; i
"Great Experiment: Quakers' Supreme Loyalty," Survey
Graphic, August 19if-2, pp. 35If--55; "Onward Christian
‘Soldiersi" Saturday Evening Post, August 16, 19if-l, p. 27;
"Friends Indeed," Good Housekeeping, September, 1939,
; pp. 32-33; "The Quakers May Be Right." Saturday Evening
:Poat, February 17, 19if-0, pp. 11-15; Quakerism, Pacifism, j
and Democracy," Christian Century, 61:869, July 26, 19iflf-l ;
"Friends of the World," American' Magazine , lif-5:30-31, May,
19ij.8; "Award Richly Deserved: 19lf-7 Nobel Peace Prize to the 1
Quakers," Christian Century. 61|:1359, November 12, 19if-7«
28
the individual man, the sacredness of personality, they
naturally abhor those forces in the world which tend to
belittle the nobility of man as created in the image of God.
Hence the long struggle against slavery in the United
States by such outstanding leaders as Anthony Benezet, John!
Woolman, John Greenleaf Whittier, Levi Coffin (the so-called
president of the Underground Railroad) and many less-known j
members of the Society. Hence, too, their espousal of the
downtrodden classes of humanity through their activity in
prison reform and their interest in the welfare of the
American Indian.
In 1819 Powell Buxton, a member of the British House j
of Commons, stated that persons then living had seen the
capital offences in England quadrupled during their life
time--they had seen an act pass which bundled together
trivial and atrocious crimes.^ As Janet Whitney remarks,
"The idea that by the liberal killing off of criminals we
could stamp out crime was far older than the nineteenth
century” (p. 239). This and a multitude of other facts
demonstrate how wretched were the legal practices governing
the punishment of criminals of every type as late as the
first quarter of the nineteenth century. Buxton forcefully!
stated in Commons in 1821: ”Kill your father or a rabbit
in a warren, the penalty is the same” (p. 239). ■
38janet Whitney, Elizabeth Fry (Boston, 1936), p. 239. ;
29
Into this tangle of iniquitous procedures in January
;1817 a modest Quaker matron by the name of Elizabeth Fry
dared to intrude. The conditions of Newgate Prison at this:
time were black enough to arouse discussion in the leth
argic House of Commons. But it was to this gentle,
dignified Quakeress, more than to any other person then
living, that the reformation of prison conditions in
England was chiefly due.
Elizabeth Fry, wife of Joseph Fry, a London banker,
and mother of nine children, had first visited Newgate
Prison four years earlier. The impressions of despair and I
utter desolation had never quit her sensitive soul. Soon
after Christmas in 181? she determined to pay a visit in
person to the destitute women in the female wards of this
notorious place. Alone and unafraid Elizabeth Fry stood
among the rabble of sin-hardened females, clad in her
simple Quaker costume, her earnest face full of compassion |
for the fallen. Her first public gesture was a request to
;start a school for the children of the inmates. One third
of the women were unable to read at all; another third
could read only a little (Whitney, p. 219). In such an
:atmosphere of ignorance her experiment was launched. Mary
Connor, a former school teacher who had been committed to
prison for a trifling theft, was installed as teacher of
the prison school. Encouraged by the success of this
initial effort and deeply touched by the hopeless condition :
30
of the women prisoners— their enforced idleness, their evil
conduct--Elizabeth Pry set about remedying the deplorable
situation. With the aid of her loyal husband, she soon
organized a committee for the improvement of the women of
Newgate.
Backed by ten other ladies, she finally persuaded
Governor Newman and other officials to allow her to try her
experiment of instituting a work program for the female ,
;inmates of the prison. Sewing became the chief occupation,
under careful supervision. The success of the undertaking
soon brought the Lord Mayor of London and sheriffs and
aldermen to Newgate to observe. Reform after reform
followed. Elizabeth Pry’s name soon was known throughout
England.-^
The spirit of brotherly love which activated the
prison reform movement in England was demonstrated on the
American continent by the Friends' interest in the welfare
of the Indians. The concern of the Quakers for the
spiritual welfare of the American Indians dates as far back:
as the founder of the Society, for George Pox was respon
sible for the earliest missionary efforts to convert the
red man to Christianity. As early as I667 Pox admonished
-"The German sociologist, Jorns, attributes the
installment of matrons for women prisoners and of prison
overseers directly to Elizabeth Pry’s philanthropic efforts.
See Auguste Jorns, Studien iiber die Sozialpolitik der
Quaker, trans. Thomas Kite Brown, as The Quakers as
Pioneers in Social Work (New York, 1931), p. 193.
Friends in America to 1 1 go and discourse with some of the
heathen Kings," urging them to gather their pagan councils
together to hear the preaching of the gospel.^0 Shortly
after this he made a visit to America to carry out his
"concern" in person.
When William Penn was planning his "Holy Experiment on
the American Continent, he stated that one of his objects
was the conversion of the poor Indians to Christ's kingdom, :
by just and lenient measures" (p. 38). Although Pennsyl
vania was the most fertile soil for Friends to propagate
their fraternal attitude toward the Indians for a period of
at least seventy-five years, Quaker influence was strongly :
felt in New Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Island, and the
Carolinas (p. 38).
One of the most significant events in the entire
history of Anglo-Indian relationships is the now famous
treaty consummated beneath the elm tree at Shackamaxon in
1683, when William Penn and a small band of unarmed
followers stood in the presence of a formidable array of
rwarlike Delaware Indians to sign the treaty which was to
remain inviolate for a period of seventy years. Of Penn's
conduct on this historic occasion Clarkson states:
His religious principles, which led him to the
practice of the most scrupulous morality, did not
permit him to look upon the King's potent, or legal
^Rayner Wickersham Kelsey, Friends and the Indians
(Philadelphia, 1917),p . 19.
32
possession according to the laws of England, as
sufficient to establish his right to the country
without purchasing it by fair and open bargain of
the natives, to whom it properly belonged. He had
therefore instructed Commissioners . . . who had
arrived in America before him to buy it of the
latter, and to make with them at the same time a
treaty of eternal Friendship .4-1
■ The deep sincerity of Penn’s attitude toward the red men,
;whom he regarded always as brothers, is set forth in the
beautiful letter to the Indians dated October 18, 1681,
which was sent by three commissioners to the tribes in
Pennsylvania before Penn’s arrival in America.^
A later, and only slightly less renowned, apostle to
the American Indian tribes was John Woolman, the humble
tailor of Mt. Holly, New Jersey, whose spiritual and
humanitarian efforts among both the Indians and the Negroes
'have been recorded in one of the classic journals of
American literature.^ The account of Woolman's journey
by horseback up the Susquehanna River to Wehaloosing is
almost if not quite as gripping as that of the adventures
of Hawkeye and Uncas in The Last of the Mohicans.
Since 1795 when the first official standing committee
^Thomas Clarkson, Life of William Penn (London, 1813);
I, 337-38.
^-^See Remember William Penn by members of the William i
Penn Tercentenary Committee (Philadelphia, 19l|ij-), pp. 109-10i.
^-3The two earliest manuscripts of Woolman1 s Journal
are in possession of the Friends’ Library at Swarthmore
College, Pennsylvania. The most recent and one of the most,
popular biographies is Janet Whitney's John Woolman.
33
on Indian affairs was appointed by Philadelphia Yearly
(Meeting, Friends have gone forth to many different tribes
to perform religious and educational services. The
founding of Tuessassa School in western Pennsylvania was an
early result of such endeavors. The zeal with which
{Friends strove to bring about justice and honesty in
dealings with the Indians received official recognition
when President Grant in 1869 decided to put the adminis
tration of Indian affairs very largely into the hands of
Friends
Rufus M. Jones has stated that "the slave and the
prisoner were the two focal points of interest" in Quaker
k5
philanthropy.^ It cannot be maintained, of course, that
Friends were the sole agency for promoting anti-slavery
.sentiment in the United States. But that they showed a
zealous and active interest in the cause, even to the
{point of bringing upon themselves widespread persecution
:and open hostility, can easily be demonstrated.
As early as 1758 John Woolman had risen in Phila
delphia Yearly Meeting to protest against Friends’ buying
.slaves. During this and the following year he and his
{friends John Sykes and John Churchman made numerous visits
^See Kelsey, p. 162 ff., and Rufus M. Jones, Later
Periods of Quakerism, II, 625.
^ Faith and Practice of the Quakers, p. 132.
3k
to the houses of members of the Society, seeking to touch
their consciences in the matter of slave holding.^ Their
efforts proved to be successful, though not unopposed. In I
this same year the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting determined
to exclude all owners of slaves from the meetings ’ ’for
discipline" (Jorns, p. 207). In 1761 London Yearly. Meeting,
influenced by the example of the American Friends, took the |
decisive step of expelling all slave owners and slave
traders from the Society (p. 208).
A contemporary and intimate friend of Woolman1s was
Anthony Benezet. Born in St. Quentin in France in 1715 of
Huguenot extraction, Benezet was converted to the Quaker
faith at the age of fourteen. Four years later he came
with his family to America. In 1750 he was first awakened
to the evils of the slave traffic and the inhumanity of the [
system. From this date until his death he dedicated his
life to the anti-slavery cause.
Beginning as early as l8l6, Charles Osborn, a Quaker
minister who had moved to Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, from North
Carolina, started a journal known as The Phi1anthropist.
'This was the first American periodical to come out clearly
for immediate and unconditional emancipation. In 1821
Benjamin Lundy, a close friend of Osborn's, began publi
cation of his famous periodical, The Genius of Universal
^Whitney, John Woolman, pp. 2ij.0-lj.8.
35j
Emancipation. To this Quaker philanthropist belongs the
signal honor of awakening William Lloyd Garrison to the
full significance of the anti-slavery struggle. Lundy
sought out Garrison when the latter was but a youth of
twenty-four. So impressed was the elder Quaker aboli
tionist with the spirit of the young New England reformer
that he walked all the way from Boston to Bennington,
Vermont, through the winter snows, to enlist Garrison*s
services in behalf of his own journal, The Genius of
Universal Emancipation.^
The anti-slavery propaganda of these Quaker pioneers
was carried on vigorously by John Greenleaf Whittier in his^
polemic prose writings, his frequent addresses at abolition I
meetings, and in a number of dynamic poems attacking the
evils of slavery. A further reference to the Quaker part
in the abolition movement (especially to the work of the
Underground Railroad) as it manifested itself in fact and
fiction, will be made in Chapter IV.
; Consistent with the efforts of Friends to free the
Negro were their activities in behalf of the freedmen
immediately after the Civil War. The most fruitful period
of Friends’ work In this respect was the decade from 1865
to 1875 (II# 612). The Southern people soon realized the
great benefits which Friends* activities among the Negroes ?
^Jones, The Later Periods of Quakerism, II, 562-62p.
36
were accomplishing, and they furthered the Quaker attempts j
;at education and social betterment. General Armstrong, a
friend of many Quaker leaders, was demonstrating at Hampton;
Institute, Virginia, that education of the colored race was!
a practical procedure.
Gradually the different Friends' Yearly Meetings
assumed particular institutions as the responsibility of
their respective gatherings. Thus Indiana Friends took
the school at Helena, Arkansas, for their special charge
and Hew England Friends the school at Maryville, Tennessee.;
In this way a strong and flourishing work sprang up in
various parts of the South for the development of Negro
culture and practical vocational training. An outstanding
service to the Negro race was rendered by Elizabeth L.
Comstock, who undertook to relieve the extreme poverty and
physical wants of the large body of colored emigrants to
Kansas In 1879. Her work should probably take rank with
that of other outstanding Quaker philanthropists who have
contributed to the social betterment of the Negroes
,(II, 617).
It should also be stated that English Friends showed
a like interest with their American brothers in promoting
anti-slavery projects in various parts of the world. A
great English association, The Freedmen's Aid Society, gave
valuable assistance to American associations after the
Close of the Civil War (Jorns, p. 233).
37
The German sociologist Jorns has pointed out that the
'humanitarian efforts of Friends are based upon their con
ception of the close interdependence of the individual
members of the social group. Each human soul is regarded
as having a more than personal worth. The more wealthy
members of the Society are expected to share with the less
fortunate members. The Quakers do not acknowledge the
,right of the wealthy to make their wealth of service only
to themselves.
Social service, then, may be regarded as a fundamental
part of the Quaker philosophy. The sympathetic under
standing of other racial groups such as the American Indian
and the Negro, and of unfortunate war refugees in World War
I and World War II, is an illustration that the modern
■disciples of Fox and Penn have not forgotten the example of
their founders, but that they too may be rightly called
"Friends Indeed."
With the preceding summary of Quaker thought and
attitudes as a background, it is obvious that little of
the fiction xvith which this dissertation is concerned will
be the work of Quaker writers. This is not, of course, to
hold that there is not a wide field of expository, bio
graphical, and religious material written by Friends, but
rather that Friends have until comparatively recent times
demonstrated a conspicuous blind spot in the field of
38
fiction. Caroline Ladd Crew remarks:
Quakerism in its deep-rooted craving for the unadorned
realities of life and for deliverance from the mere
shadow world, has always frowned upon the literature
of romance. . , . The members of the Society of Friends
have been brought up to deny themselves the aesthetic
enrichment of life, the pleasures of art as expressed
through music, pictures, the drama, and the novel.
They have counted among their numbers prophets and
reformers, but not philosophers and artists. . ... In
a few instances where their own sectaries have
practiced the condemned art the results have been
destitute of literary importance. . . . The moral
purpose has always been too far In excess of the artis
tic to secure a public outside of the Friendly world.4°
This fact, previously discussed in relation to the typical
Quaker attitude toward the fine arts in general, is out
standingly illustrated in the Friends’ antagonism both to
the reading and writing of fiction.
Further testimony to this fact is found in an astute
article by the late Francis R. Taylor, a distinguished
collector of fiction dealing with the Quaker as character,
who asserts that Quakers with few exceptions have never
written fiction either about themselves or others.^
Nevertheless, the Quaker has played a rather important and
persistent role in American fiction from the time of Robert
Montgomery Bird to that of Theodore Dreiser. We have only
to call to mind such varied examples of fiction as
Melville's Moby Dick, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s
^Caroline Ladd Crew, "The Quaker in Fiction,” The
Dial, 35:251-53* October 1913.
^-9"The Cult of the Quaker Novel," Old York Road
Historical Society Bulletin, I: 111, October, 1937.
39
Cabin, and S. Weir Mitchell's Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker to
realize that, however treated, whether with marked admir
ation or undisguised scorn, the Quaker has moved in his
unassuming garb across the literary stage in a significant
and often impressive way. Thus Caroline Crew's comment is
to the point that "there is something of the perverseness
of fate in the fact that a people who have been taught to
look upon the reading of fiction as baneful should them
selves come to play a considerable role in imaginative
literature" (pp. 251-^3).
In more recent times there have sprung up a consider
able number of fiction writers bearing the Quaker stamp,
in the fields of the novel, short story, and fictionized
biography. Some of these, like Caroline Snedecker and
Marjorie Hill Allee, have devoted themselves especially to
juvenile fiction. Others, like Anna Braithwaite Thomas and
Janet Whitney, have explored the field of historical and
semi-biographical fiction, while such a contemporary writer
as Jessamyn West in The Friendly Persuasion has specialized
more in the informal sketch or short descriptive story of
local color.
The obvious deduction is that the majority of novels
and stories in which the Quaker plays a significant role
has been written either by non-Quakers or by authors who
may have had a Quaker background or ancestry, but who did
not remain as bona fide members of the Society of Friends.
CHAPTER II
THE QUAKER IN THE FICTION BASED ON THE
COLONIAL PERIOD
The earliest treatment of the Quaker in English
literature seems to be a satirical one. The Restoration
drama indulged in a continuous lampooning of the Friend
in his unaccustomed role as a minor character in several
comedies.1 The first Quaker in English prose fiction,
according to Francis Taylor (p. 15), is Friend William in
Defoe's novel, Captain Singleton. Defoe likewise satirizes)
the Friends for their complacency and smugness.
However, by the time the Quaker appears in American
literature the earlier vogue of presenting him as a stock
figure to be caricatured has pretty well subsided. Neither
James Fenimore Cooper nor Robert Montgomery Bird, for
example, show any disposition to ridicule him in their
novels.
As previously suggested, most of the American novels
containing Quaker characters are written by non-Quakers or :
by authors who may have had some Quaker upbringing. This
fact is illustrated by three early American novelists:
Charles Brockden Brown, James Fenimore Cooper, and Robert
-1-See William Wistar Comfort, "Some Stage Quakers,"
Bulletin of Friends' Historical Association, li^: 1:1-13,
Spring^ 1925?.
t
24.11
Montgomery Bird. Not only were both, of Brown* s parents,
Elijah and Mary Armitt Brown, Friends in good standing in
Philadelphia, but his paternal ancestor, the founder of the!
town of Burlington, New Jersey, in l677> actually preceded |
William Penn to the new settlements on the Atlantic
seaboard. A further influence was his Quaker schooling in :
the Friends* Latin School in Philadelphia. Howard Hintz
has pointed out that much of Brown's philosophy of life is 1
colored by this early training and appears notably in
certain of his works such as Edgar Huntley (1799), Clara
Howard (1801), and Jane Talbot (1801). The first of these !
works is of special interest as being the first American
novel to use the Indian and the frontier in a significant
2
;way.
The works of both Brown and Cooper reveal a con
siderable Quaker influence, more in the underlying
philosophy which subtly pervades their writings, and at
times colors the characters in their books, than by any
.direct explicit presentation of Quaker characters in their !
’novels.
The strong influence of Quakerism on Cooper’s frontier;
stories, particularly the Leatherstocking Tales, is stressed
by Henry Seidel Canby in his Classic Americans. The
character of Natty Bumpo, with his various other j
p
See Hintz, The Quaker Influence in American Litera-
,ture (New York, 19I 4O), pp. 3I4-38.
kz
pseudonyms, Deerslayer, Hawkeye, the Pathfinder, etc., is
largely conceived by Cooper as a result of his moral and
spiritual heritage from Quaker ancestry-and environment.
Canby goes so far as to call Natty Bumpo "the best Quaker
in American literature. He asserts that the numerous
references to Quakers and Quakerism in Cooper's earlier
works always display a respectful or affectionate attitude.
For example, Long Tom Coffin in The Pilot (1823) is a
Nantucket whaler and "therefore a Quaker by inference" and
his simple religion, says Canby, is essentially Quaker.^-
With these conclusions Howard Hintz is in full agree
ment, showing that the fundamental philosophy of Cooper's
great frontiersman is rooted deep in Quaker idealism and
Quaker ethics (pp. if.2-l|3).
The reliance upon the "inner light," which Friends
have always emphasized— the mysticism and simplicity of
Quaker tradition--is amply demonstrated in the words and
thoughts of the warlike scout. When he is urged to join
the Church of England, he replies:
"The 1arth is the temple of the Lord, and I wait
on Him hourly, daily without ceasing, I humbly
hope. No, no— I'll not deny my blood and color,
but am Christian born, and shall die in the same
faith. The Moravians tried me hard . . . but I've
-^Canby, Classic Americans (New York, 1931)» p. III4- .
^P. 112. A fuller discussion of the Quaker as a
maritime character will be presented in Chapter V.
k 3
had one answer for them all--1'in a Christian
already."5
This same spirit of racial tolerance and reliance upon
inner spiritual resources is seen in other characters in
Cooper’s novels, as for example in The Deerslayer and The
Last of the Mohicans. Admitting a degree of naivete on
the part of the scout of Cooper’s fascinating adventure
tales, Canby nevertheless asserts:
It is not difficult for the reader of the "Leather-
stocking Tales" to discover that Natty1s Christianity
is rudimentary Quakerism, with its sense of the
immanence of the Creator, Its non-aggression, its
distrust of intellect, its sense of self-respect,
its tolerance. (Pp. 112-13)
If Brown and Cooper displayed in a general way through;
their early training and heredity the somewhat unconscious
influence of the Quaker leaven at work in their writings,
one of their contemporaries, Robert Montgomery Bird, in his
novel Nick of the Woods or the Jibbenainosy (Philadelphia,
1837) produced in the character of Bloody Nathan, the
Quaker scout and Indian hunter, a figure both striking and
sinister, displaying at once the pacifist doctrine of
brotherly love and charity to all, and a demoniac blood
thirstiness toward the Indians.
Nathan Slaughter, a wandering Pennsylvania Quaker,
whose family had been ruthlessly murdered by ravaging
•^Cooper, The Pathfinder (New York, 1872), p.lj.76.
W \
Indians and who had himself miraculously recovered from a
scalping, was a veritable frontier representative of Doctor,
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In normal times a peace-loving, quiet;
individual seeking only to be left alone with his little
brown dog, Peter, he became at unpredictable moments a
superlatively vengeful creature whose chief delight was to
track down and murder any of the red-skin warriors he might:
find it in his power to discover. Stalking through the
woods at dawn or evening like a modern Grendel, bent on
dire revenge, he became the terror of the Indians of
Kentucky, for always after killing his victim he would
mutilate the body by inflicting a bloody cross on the
victim's chest. This was the gruesome sign of the
Jibbenainosy, the mysterious white hunter and warrior of
the Southern frontier. Modern psychology should find an
interesting case for psychoanalysis in such a double
personality--the kindly, if outwardly lax and slovenly
Quaker frontiersman, with no apparent reason for his exis
tence beyond that of his solitary wandering through the
forests, but inwardly a creature of spasmodic, manic
^violence and relentless energy bent wholly on destruction
;of his foes— a half-mad Captain Ahab of the wilderness.
From the opening scene of his spirited wrestling bout with
the boastful Captain Stackpole to the close of his strange
life, Nathan is a complex combination of Quaker pacifist
and human bloodhound, too clever to be apprehended, too
k 5 \
mysterious to be understood by the bluff and courageous
;frontiersmen who fought and killed their foemen in a free
and open-handed manner as a matter of ordinary protection
rather than preternatural hostility. The "fighting Quaker”!
to be developed later in various novels dealing especially :
with the Revolutionary War, seems to be anticipated by
Nathan Slaughter in this early romantic yet wholly
6
realistic story of Kentucky.
It is to the colony of Pennsylvania, however, that we
must look for the more lasting and significant activities
of the Quaker as pioneer. Hezekiah Butterworth's novel,
The Wampum Belt {New York, 1896), deals in a somewhat
idealized manner with Penn's treaty with the Delaware
Indians at Shackamaxon, the presentation to Penn of the
purple-beaded wampum belt as a symbol of peace between the
white man and the Indian, and the seventy-year period of
iunbroken peace during what has been well termed "one of the;
fairest pages of history." The benign influence of Penn
upon the savages, the Quaker doctrine of "the inner light"
of conscience which applies equally to white man and red I
man, the belief of the early Friends that to love was
6
The character of Nation Slaughter is drawn from real
life. See The Dictionary of^American Biography, II, 287-88.
See also Robert Montgomery Bird's preface to Nick of the
Woods (New York, I9i}-1), p. 9.
nobler than to hate and to slay, pervade the pages of this |
■novel. The character of Golden Heart, the charming naive
Indian girl who absorbed much of the white father's
teaching, dominates the book. Not a well-plotted or
dynamic story, it does throw light upon a great historical
character and depicts something of the beauty of the re
lationship between the early Quaker founder of Pennsylvania!
and the Indian tribes among whom they settled.
A more important work dealing with the early years of
ithe colony of Pennsylvania is Anna Braithwaite Lloyd Thomas'
fictionized biography Nancy Lloyd, The Journal of a Quaker
Pioneer (New York, 1927). This novel is a sequel to the
author’s earlier work, The Quaker Seekers of Wales (London, i
:192ij_), which traces the interesting if painful history of
the Lloyd family in Dolobran, Wales, recounting with much
vividness the turbulent days in the raid-seventeenth centuryj
when Quakers were regarded as rank heretics by the Anglican[
clergy and were persecuted with the same relentless crueltyi
that characterized the New England Puritans, who sought to
discover a new country where they might enjoy complete
liberty of conscience, but liberty for themselves alone.
Thomas Lloyd, who with his brother, Charles, has suffered
the miseries of confinement in Welshpool Prison in Wales,
finally decides to participate in Penn's "Holy Experiment"
and follows him, with most of his family, to the vast
itfj
wilderness in America granted by King Charles the Second to;
the youthful son of old Admiral Penn, to whom the King %fas
in some debt.
Leaving the shores of England In June, 1683, the Lloyd|
family reaches Delaware Bay the twenty-fifth of August,
I683. The primitive city of Philadelphia, sprawling along
the west bank of the Delaware River, its cave dwellers,
some of whom were ancestors of later distinguished families,
and the hardships of pioneering in a new country far from
the familiar homeland--all these are well depicted in this
novel. Nancy Lloyd relies on a genuine historical back
ground based on the journal of Hannah Lloyd, who is the
Nancy of the story.
The role played by Nancy's father as deputy governor
of Pennsylvania under William Penn, his fortitude under the!
railings of the erstwhile Friend, George Keith, and his
difficulties with Colonel Fletcher and the Assembly of
Pennsylvania about the military defense of the Infant
colony, are a significant and illuminating commentary upon
the political history of Colonial days and the part which
the Quakers played in the picture. Their refusal to bear
;arms against the Indians precipitates a serious situation
which threatens to disrupt the stability of the colony and
cause it to be attached to the adjacent colony of New
1 + 8
7
York. There is also the faithful setting forth of the
Quakers’ fair-play toward the Indians, their constant
insistence on the Christian principles of charity and
0
tolerance.
A further treatment of the period of the Penns is
Henry C. McCook’s colonial novel Quaker Ben (Philadelphia,
1911) focussing attention on the corrupt administration of ;
Thomas Penn (1737-17^-2), son of the great founder of the
colony of Pennsylvania. One of the most significant events,
mentioned in the book is the notorious Walking Purchase, in!
which the Delaware Indian tribes, with whom William Penn
had originally dealt in the most scrupulous honesty, are
shamefully fleeced of a large tract of desirable land
adjacent to the Delaware River by the machinations of a
greedy colonial governor. According to the novel, a
strapping young frontiersman named Ben-Thee is approached
by Thomas Penn and his paramour, Lady Jenks. Their aim is
to persuade the Quaker frontiersman to practice a deceit
upon the Indians in order to procure a section of fine
natural woodland for the growing colony of Pennsylvania.
!This piece of crooked business later came to be known as
7
‘William of Orange, who succeeded James II to the
British throne, was never the friend to William Penn that
James II had been. Hence there was frequent dissension
between the proprietor of the colony and the throne, result
ing in the actual imprisonment of Penn in England for a
time, largely because of his personal friendship with the
Stuart monarch.
k 9
"The Walking Purchase.” The whole affair cast a most
unfavorable light upon the sincerity of the white settlers
whom the Indians, since the days of William Penn, had been ;
8
growing more and more to trust.
It was this and other actions which inspired Dorothy
Owen's mission to the Delaware Indians, whom her tender
Christian spirit sought to convert. Also she hoped to
compensate, in a measure, for their justifiable loss of
faith in their white ’ 'brothers."
Other typically Quaker touches in the novel include
the mystical conversion of the popular Lieutenant Robin
Moore at the home of Hannah Coates near Chester. On this
occasion the stout-hearted soldier, fresh from the assault ;
on the Spanish fortress at Carthaginia, experiences a
^Quaker Ben, pp. 36-38. Of the "Walking Purchase"
Rufus M. Jones writes: "There was an old agreement, of
doubtful authenticity, made in 1686, which conveyed to
William Penn certain land in Bucks County and extending
northward as far as a man could walk in a day and a half.
With the understanding of the time, this would mean about
thirty miles, and would carry the purchase to the junction ;
of the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers where Easton stands. But
the land farther to the north between the rivers was greatly
desired by Thomas Penn,•the son and heir of the founder,
and then potent in the management of the executive branch
of the government. . . . The Mimisink tribe of the Delaware;
Indians, whose ancestral home was there, refused to sell,
and asked to have It secured from invasion. No one ques
tioned their right and so artifice had to be resorted to to
give an appearance of legality to the claim. The 'Walk'
would be taken. Two athletes were found and trained. . . . I
The runners covered sixty miles and at the end of the line !
the surveyors slanted the upper boundary, which was to
reach the Delaware River, far to the north so as to enclose
all the desired territory." The Quakers in the American
; Colonies (London, 1911), pp. f>01-02. See also Russell, The
History of Quakerism, pp.208-09.
50 j
profound spiritual upheaval, seeming to hear thrice
repeated the word "eternity." He forsakes his military
career and accepts, as a result of this "inner light," the j
Friends' way of life.^
The pacifistic views of Friends are clearly, if a bit !
didactically, set forth in conversations between Lieutenant
Moore and his hosts at their Chester County home. Even
defensive warfare is roundly attacked by Hannah Coates with
a good deal of verve and spiritual acumen (pp. 185-87).
Good accounts of the Friends’ worship and silent meetings
as well as a typical Quaker wedding are presented (pp. 208
ff). On the whole the novel is a valuable commentary on
the role which the Quaker played in colonial life, even to
the satirical descriptions of the mercenary business
partners, Windall and Bete (p. 138).
Another story portraying the colonization of the new
country by the Quakers deals with the life of Elizabeth
;Haddon, the Quaker founder of Haddonfield, New Jersey.
This fictionized account is entitled "The Youthful Emigrant"
^Such sudden conversions were perfectly familiar
experiences in the period immediately following the
founding of Quakerism in England and are by no means
infrequent in the history of the Society of Friends at
various times thereafter. See Quaker Ben, pp. 192-95. A
similar event actually took place in the life of the young
French noble, Stephen Grellet, after his migration to
America. See William Wistar Comfort’s Stephen Grellet
(New York, 191*2), p. 16.
51
in L. Maria Child's Fact and Fiction.10 The sketch opens
with a description of the heroine as a child on her
father's estate in England. Glimpses are given of the
girl's enthusiasm on hearing William Penn discuss the
romantic features of his new settlement on the banks of the
Delaware. The little girl's imagination is fired by these
first-hand reports of America. On a later occasion at the
Friends' Yearly Meeting the Quakeress hears John Estaugh
preach. ’ ’Something in his preaching arrested the child's
attention, and made a strong impression on her active
mind'.’ (p. i+J?) • Several years later this sermon bears fruit
in Elizabeth’s determination to visit the new country
herself and perceive at first hand this fascinating land of
: adventure. This she accomplishes in the year 1700. But
her purpose is deeper than that of a romance seeker. It is
based upon a growing inner conviction that she is ’ ’called"
to carry a spiritual message to the Indians and other
;dwellers on a foreign shore. One day she feels compelled
to tell her parents about this "concern" and in simple
straightforward manner explains her feelings as follows:
Dear parents and sisters, it is now a long time since
I have had a strong impression on my mind that it is
my duty to go to America. . . . It has even been
clearly pointed out to me what I am to do. It has
been lately signified that a sign would be given, when
the way was opened; and tonight when I heard thy
proposition to give the house and land to whoever
10Fact and Fiction, a Collection of Stories (Boston,
181+ 7) . . .' ; ’ “.... .... .
52
would occupy it, I felt at once that thy words were
the promised sign. (P. lj-7)
When Elizabeth's father, John Haddon, hears this testimony ,
he feels afraid to oppose her, but with typical Quaker
caution he advises his daughter, now eighteen years of age,]
to wait three months before undertaking such a hazardous
;venture. To this the young woman readily agrees. When the;
period has elapsed, she feels more sure than ever of her
;inner light as being divine guidance, and accordingly in
the spring of 1770 Elizabeth Haddon, accompanied by a
widow woman as a companion, and two trusty servants, sets
sail for the American continent.
The intolerance of the Anglican Church and British
government toward the various sects springing up in
seventeenth century England was unfortunately to actuate
the policy of most of her colonial magistrates. The
sinister superstition which characterized our heresy-
seeking and witch-hunting Puritan forefathers was in no way I
less vicious than the intolerance from which the Pilgrims
fled in their little vessels, the Mayflower and the
Speedwell, in their efforts to seek out a place of religious
freedom for themselves and their children on foreign shores.]
Only in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania was there any degree
of religious toleration worthy of the name. Roger Williams !
and William Penn were statesmen far ahead of their time in
53
their sincere desire to provide asylums for all persecuted
peoples of every faith.
In his story ’ ’The Gentle Boy” Nathaniel Hawthorne has
singled out a specific character, Ilbrahim, as typical of
the persecuted sect of Quakers in the New England colonies.
Possibly the author, whose ancestors were of Puritan stock,
felt a degree of responsibility in composing the tale, to
atone in some degree for the injustices perpetrated upon
the Quakers throughout the New England colonies, and more
11
particularly in Massachusetts.
The pathetic story of the child, Ilbrahim, weeping
upon his father's grave, the amazing fidelity to inner
convictions and sense of duty in one so young, can be
verified from many instances of children carrying on with
touching sincerity the work which their persecuted parents
were too often prevented by force from accomplishing. The
following picture taken from the story itself will serve to
illustrate the intensity of hatred existing toward Quakers
when Tobias Pearson, a kind-hearted Puritan, seeks to bring
comfort to the destitute lad.
"I thank thee, friend, but though I be hungry and
shivering with cold, thou wilt not give me food nor
lodging, replied the boy, in the quiet tone which
USee note on "The Gentle Boy" in Nathaniel
Hawthorne (ed. Austin Warren /New York, 193]±/* p. 3*60).
In "The Maypole of Merrymount Hawthorne has given a vivid
picture of Governor Endicott's tyrannical administration in
Massachusetts.
5k\
despair had taught him, even so young. "My father
was of the people whom all men hate. They have laid
him under this heap of earth and here is my home."
(B. 123).
The unbelievable intolerance of the day is further mani
fested in the horrified glances bestowed upon the helpless
child when Tobias and Dorothy Pearson courageously usher
him into church on the Sabbath Day.
The strange compulsion of the spirit within and its
outward manifestations, unnatural though always brave and
unswervingly direct, are set forth in the incident of
Ilbrahim1s mother, clad in sackcloth, unexpectedly
appearing in the service and summoning woe and destruction j
to fall upon the astonished and unsympathetic audience.
The fierce human struggle between maternal affection for
her son and the unmitigated compulsion to carry on her
mission of spiritual reform at the expense of all personal
comfort and security are dramatically presented in the
scene in which Catharine, the Quakeress, agrees to bestow j
;the child upon its benign foster-parents.
A further testimonial to the prejudice of those in
authority toward the lowly Quakers is revealed in the pages j
of John Greenleaf In/hittier's Leaves from Margaret Smith's
Journal (New York, l8i)_9), the only prose work of substantial
length which he composed. Not too finished a work
artistically, it is valuable historically for its faithful
55
pictures of the conflict between the Puritan settlers and
their unwelcome neighbors in the colonies. In this same
work we have a somewhat fuller, if less dramatic, exposition
of the period of John Endicott's administration in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony than is presented in Hawthorne’s
"The Maypole of Merrymount." Although it does not have a
closely woven plot nor a particularly dramatic style,
Margaret Smith’s Journal nevertheless presents a realistic
survey of Puritan life in New England with the special
slant of the treatment of the despised sect of Quakers as a
major theme. Governor Endicott is referred to but casually
and with less opprobrium than in Hawthorne’s stories, but
is nevertheless described as a relentless enemy of the
1 Quakers.
The Puritan clergy, as represented by the Reverend Mr.
Norton and Mr. Richardson, are fully as bitter as the
magistrates against their helpless foes, apparently feeling
it their God-given task to bestow contumely upon those whom
they regard as sinister heretics. Mr. Norton is perhaps
less violent in his attack upon witchcraft than Mr.
Richardson, using for his text Deuteronomy 18:10-11 ("There
ishall not be found among you any one . . . that useth
divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a
witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits,
or a wizard, or a necromancer") as a springboard to launch
into a vituperative attack upon Eunice Cole (pp. 85-86).
5 6 j
Nurse Lake's account of the comely young mother, Hored:
Gardner, whose child was snatched from her and who was then
stripped naked in the prison and flogged mercilessly on the I
back, and of the two women, one aged, one younger, stripped;
to the waist and tied to the tail of a cart on the streets
of Salem, are no whit exaggerated and are tragic revelations
of the hidebound bigotry of the early Pilgrim settlers of
New England and of their cruelty to dissenters.
These incidents, together with the hanging of another
Quakeress in Boston and the pious defense of the act by Mr. j
Norton, let the modern reader catch a glimpse into the
world of religious bigotry of our forefathers (pp. 162-67)• ;
Mr. Norton's words on this occasion well represent the more;
moderate attitude of the pastors of the day:
"MadamI it may well befit your gentleness and
sweetness of heart to grieve over the sufferings
even of the forward and ungodly, when they be cut
off from the congregation of the Lord, as His holy
and just law enjoineth. . . . But as a watchman on
the walls of Zion, when I did see her casting poison
into the wells of life, and enticing unstable souls
into the snares and pitfalls of Satan, what should
I do but sound an alarm against her?" ■ (P. 165)
A superstitious attitude toward witchcraft was another
aspect of the violence of persecution which was visited
upon Quakers and non-Quakers alike. On one occasion,
according to the story, two Quaker women in Boston were
examined in the city jail to see whether any "witch marks"
were to be found on their bodies. One woman examiner
thrust a needle into the breast of the younger woman, who
5 7 :
: gave a sharp cry, and blood flowed. This satisfied the
I examiner that she was not a witch, or she would not have
felt the prick nor would the blood have flowed!
The Quaker insistence upon vocally denouncing the
; ecclesiastical authorities of the day and uttering woe upon1
the assembled congregations is also set forth vividly in
;the novel. The following excerpt from the journal dated
September 18, 1656, illustrates such an incident:
Meeting much disturbed yesterday--a ranting Quaker
coming in and sitting with his hat on in sermon time,
humming and groaning, and rocking his body to and fro
like one possessed. After a time he got up and
pronounced a great woe upon the priests, calling them
many hard names and declaring that the whole land
stank with their hypocrisy. (P. 59)
Such martyrdom-seekers, sincere or otherwise, usually i
provoked the vengeance of the authorities, whether ecclesi-
;astical or political, their persecutors always justifying
:any species of penalty which they chose to apply. A softer
• side of the picture is presented in the love affair between]
Margaret Smith’s brother and the charming, modest Quaker
(maiden, Margaret Brewster--their unflinching loyalty to
I I
•their faith while in Massachusetts and their subsequent
marriage and removal to the more tolerant religious climate;
]of Rhode Island (pp. 178 ff).
A second novel which deals realistically with the
;Puritan regime In New England during Governor Endicott’s
(severe rule, is Beulah Marie Dix’s The Making of Christopher
Ferringham (New York, 1915)• The events of the narrative
take place in Massachusetts shortly after the Puritan
victory over the Royalists. Christopher Ferringham, a
wild young Cavalier soldier, has been shipped from England j
to the town of Meadowcreek near Boston by his God-fearing
parents in the hope of redeeming him from his reckless ways.
He finds lodging at first with his austere Puritan uncle,
Nate Calderwood, who is magistrate of the village. The
tardy but genuine love affair between Christopher and the
strong-willed, pious Nan Calderwood, sister of the Puritan |
magistrate, is the motive for most of the exciting adven
tures. While shipping accidentally and unwillingly on a
pirate vessel the young Cavalier comes face to face with a ;
Quaker woman preacher and her shy little daughter,
Recompense. The Quakers feel themselves led to preach in
Boston, the Jerusalem of New England Puritanism. When the
pirates put them ashore they hasten to make their way to
;the Massachusetts capital. Later when Christopher and his
companion, Ryan Crozier, find the pitiful girl weeping
alone in the woods near Meadowcreek, Recompense sobs out
the cruel tale of her mother's martyrdom:
She will na vex thee ever again. . . . We came unto
Boston as the Light taught us. We went unto the
worship-house in sackcloth with ashes upon our heads.
They pelted us and dragged us unto their prison;
they said we should be whipped for that we came back
from banishment. . . . So I was to be whipped, even
this day. Blit the jailer's wife--methinks she had
compassion--the door stood unbolted and I fled.
(P. 235)
59
The few glimpses given of the sincere but fanatical Quaker
devotion to duty in the face of Puritan bigotry are not
overstated. No one was permitted even to give shelter to
this despised sect without incurring the most serious
consequences.
Rebecca G. Beach's novel, The Puritan and the Quaker
(1879), provides an adequate sequel to the preceding
stories of intolerance and persecution. The title of the
work gives the reader a clue to its theme--the bitter
conflict in seventeenth-century Colonial America between
the Puritans and their unwelcome fellow colonizers, the
Quakers. The portraits presented of Gabriel Harding, the
Puritan magistrate, the Reverend Mr. Mildman, the hypo
critical Puritan clergyman, the old Quaker John Morrison,
:and his lovely daughter, Edith--all are life-like figures
revealing the clashing ideologies of this stormy period.
One striking scene will suffice to indicate the
general tenor of this historical novel. As William Leddra
(an actual Quaker in Massachusetts) is being led forth from
a Boston jail to be executed, he boldly demands the reason
for such drastic treatment. One of the charges against
him is that he uses ,,theef,and ’ ’thou” in his ordinary
conversation.
"Will you put me to death for speaking English?"
he asked.
"A man may speak treason in English," was the
arbitrary reply.
60
"Is It treason to say 'thee' and 'thou' to a single
person?" answered Leddra. "Men commonly use the
singular number to beggars and servants, yea and in
their prayers to God. Thus the superior will speak
to his inferior, yet will not bear that his inferior
speak so to him, as judging it a kind of reproach
unto him. So hath the pride of man placed God and
the beggar on the same category.
Rufus M. Jones quotes the words of William Leddra,
facing his martyrdom on March lij., 1658:
I testify in the fear of the Lord and witness with a
trembling pen, that the noise of the whip on my back,
all the imprisonments, and banishments on pain of
death, and the loud threatenings of a halter did no
more affright me, through the strength and power of
God, than if they had threatened to bind a spider's
web to my finger. . . . I desire, as far as the Lord
draws me, to follow my forefathers and brethren in
suffering and joy.13
Against a spirit such as this neither the threats of the
magistrates, the whips of the jailers, nor the thundering
denunciations of the clergy had power to make headway.
A further example of the Invincible courage of the
Colonial Quaker is found in Caroline Dale Snedecker’s
Uncharted Ways (New York, 1935)* In the author's note
appended to the epilogue of this juvenile novel we find the
statement, "My first reaction in finishing this book is:
'I am not worthy to write of Mary Dyer1" (pp. 161-63). This
modest attitude perhaps suggests the author's own Quaker
-^The Puritan and the Quaker: A Story of Colonial
Times (New York, 1879), p. 380.
-*-3The Quaker in the American Colonies, p. 88.
61
background both in her estimate of her own abilities and
her sincere devotion to one of the best known American
Quaker martyrs.
Uncharted Ways should receive acclaim as a splendid
historical portrayal of the Quakers in the bigoted days of
Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts. Opening in Yorkshire,
England, the story soon finds its way into the American
wilderness and particularly into the colonial town of
Boston. The picture drawn of the high-minded Puritan
clergyman John Cotton in the earlier portion of the novel
shows the more liberal attitude of a truly great man who
seems to have been too tolerant for the stern pattern of
his theology. But the repeatedly harsh and even cruel
persecution of Marmaduke Stevenson and his niece, Margaret,
whom the writer has chosen to represent her older and more
matronly prototype, Mary Dyer, displays in no uncertain
terms all the self-righteous attitudes of the typical
Puritans toward the despised Quakers.
The conversion of Margaret Stev.enson in the forest
after her escape from the bondage of the miserable Whigpen
family is treated with insight and tenderness, showing how
truly the followers of George Pox believed in their special
doctrine of the inner light. The homeless girl receives a
spiritual comfort which no human benefactor has thus far
been able to administer, although the sweet influence of
the recent open-air meeting at Dover Point had drawn her
62 ;
hungry spirit toward a better comprehension of God.
The love between Jonathan Coleman and Margaret
Stevenson, whom he first meets in the Macys' house near
Boston, develops slowly and involves some rugged rebuffs
before Jonathan, the distracted Puritan lad, recently come
:from Nantucket Island, locates Margaret and her uncle In
Boston Jail the very night before their announced execution.
Margaret the following day walks shiningly toward the
scaffold, hand in hand with her fellow martyrs, Marmaduke
Stevenson and William Robinson, who are to meet their death
a few moments later by the hangman's hand. Margaret is
rescued at the last moment by a pardon from the governor's
hand.^
Many Quakers pass across the pages of this interesting I
story, some fictitious and some historical like Mary
Starbuck, who helped convert most of the Inhabitants of
Nantucket to Quakerism in 1701— Tristram Coffin, Edward
Starbuck, Thomas Mayhew, Thomas Macy, and others. All are
portrayed with sincerity and insight. The book offers many1
.valuable glimpses of the intolerant attitudes of the early
American settlers. Not unduly biased in favor of Quakerism!
or against Puritanism, it depicts by a legitimate exercise
Il+This scene is definitely suggested by the martyrdom j
of Mary Dyer, who walked hand in hand with William Robinson !
and Marmaduke Stevenson. See author's note, p. 3I 4.O.
William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson were hanged in
Boston December 27, l6f>9; see Alexander Starbuck, History
of Nantucket (Boston, 1921).), p. 16.
631
of the historical imagination many a character and scene
;which throw light upon the role which the Quakers played
in the establishment of a new civilization in New England. ;
A further and equally vivid account of the bitter
rivalry between Puritan and Quaker in Massachusetts occurs
in an anonymous serial story entitled f 'The Quakeress" in
The Southern Literary Messenger (6:ij.92-503, July, I8I 4 .O;
! 7:132-36, February, I8J 4 .I). Written in an overly sentimental
style, the tale nevertheless bears the hallmark of authen
ticity with respect to the clash of attitudes between the
colonizers. Evidently laid in Salem, Massachusetts (thoughj
the letter S alone is used for the town), this story
vividly depicts the famous trials of witches, the hysteria |
among the children at the time, the stern, uncompromising
character of Cotton Mather in the role of judge at the
trial of the Quakeress Rebecca Danvers, and the malign,
hypocritical attitude of some of the Puritan clergy in the
icharaeter of George Brown.
The deep-dyed bigotry of the early Puritan settlers is
strongly set forth, together with the patient nonresistance !
of the Friends, previously alluded to in Hawthorne's
"Gentle Boy" and Beach's The Puritan and the Quaker. j
Referring to this pronounced religious intolerance, the
author says:
61 f
With a holy horror at the superstitions of the Roman
hierarchy, or at what they deemed the superstitions
of the Episcopacy, they believed in witchcraft.
Fleeing from oppression and persecution with freedom
of opinion and liberty of conscience inscribed on
their banner; they persecuted the Quakers; and
strange as it may seem, in their treatment of the
aborigines of our country, they might have learned
a lesson of humanity from the father of the sect
they persecuted, the noble-minded William Penn.15
Hot wholly defending the fanaticism or apparent stubborn
ness of the Quakers, the writer yet acknowledges their
complete devotion to duty and unflinching purpose in
obeying their religious convictions, often at the cost
of great personal sacrifice and public scorn.
In the present chapter we have shown that the role of j
the Quaker in American fiction is primarily set for him by ;
non-Quaker writers. Some authors, like Charles Brockden
Brown and James Fenimore Cooper, show a Quaker influence
in their writings, but Robert Montgomery Bird is the first
novelist to portray a Quaker character in fiction, in his
novel Rick of the Woods.
Three novels, Hezekiah Butterworth’s The Wampum Belt,
Anna Braithwaite Lloyd Thomas's Raney Lloyd and Henry C.
l5vi, 491. Rufus M. Jones points out significantly
that there prevailed in Pennsylvania ”a certain sanity which
was the logical concomitant of liberty. . . . She had no
witchcraft crazes. The one trial held before William Penn j
himself in 1683, in Chester, when the usual charges of
injuring children and bewitching cattle were brought against
an unfortunate woman, simply resulted in a verdict of guilty
of the common fame of being a witch, but not guilty as indi
cated. Her friends took charge of her and no new cases
developed. It was in the next decade that witches were
being slaughtered with so much cruelty in Massachusetts”
;(in The Quakers in the American Colonies, p. I 4. 67) .
6£ I
McGook's Quaker Ben, deal with, the history of the colony of:
Pennsylvania under the administration of the Penn family.
The last-named work reflects the deterioration of friend
ship between the white men and Indians during the governor-!
ship of Thomas Penn. L. Maria Child* s "The Youthful
Emigrant" gives the story of Elizabeth Haddon*s childhood
ambition to migrate to the new country across the sea and
her founding the town of Haddonfield, New Jersey, some
twenty years after the coming of William Penn.
One of the most important aspects of Quaker history
throughout the Colonial Period is, of course, his almost
constant condition of persecution. The salient causes of
this have been alluded to in the previous chapter— his
refusal to bear arms, his refusal to take an oath before
the magistrates of the day, his abhorrence of sham, and his ;
unwillingness to grant even the ordinary amount of deference
to those in authority, whether in the mother country or in
her newly established American colonies.
t Several novels and shorter stories develop this theme
of Puritan persecution of the Quakers, especially in the
colony of Massachusetts Bay. Among these are Nathaniel
Hawthorne's "The Gentle Boy," the pathetic story of
Ilbrahim; Whittier's Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal;
Beulah M. Dix's The Making of Christopher Ferringham;
Rebecca Beach's The Puritan and the Quaker; Caroline
Snedecker's Uncharted Ways; and an anonymous story entitled ;
"The Quakeress" appearing in The Southern Literary
Messengera I8I 4 .O-I4 .I. In two of these stories, Leaves from
Margaret Smithes Journal and The Making of Christopher
Ferringham, the harsh Puritan administrator of the
Massachusetts colony, Governor Endicott, plays an active
part. Uncharted Ways relates with historical imagination
the martyrdom of Mary Dyer, Marmaduke Stevenson, and
William Robinson in Boston. References to witchcraft are
made in Margaret Smith's Journal, The Making of Christopher
Ferringham, and The Puritan and the Quaker.
The bigotry of the Puritans toward all other sects is J
stressed in the various stories reviewed in this chapter.
Quaker and non-Quaker writers alike join in condemning the j
cruel extremes to which the intolerance of these pious
founders of America led them. Only gradually did the
despised Quaker attain to a position of respect and recog
nized independence in society, which was later to lead him I
to lay aside his drab garments and to don the buff and blue j
regimentals of the Continental Army.
CHAPTER III
THE QUAKER IN FICTION BASED ON THE REVOLUTIONARY
WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH (1776-1797)
If the key theme in Chapter II is the persecution
suffered by the Quakers throughout the Colonial period in
America, the dominant idea in Chapter III must be the
militant reaction of an insurgent group within the Society,
which came to be called the Free Quakers. After first
giving a brief account of the origin of the Free Quaker
Movement as it developed in Pennsylvania, I shall discuss
a number of novels presenting the Friend as a soldier or
active participant in the Colonial cause. S. Weir
Mitchell's Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker and E. H. Williamson's
The Quaker Partisans are especially significant here. Two
novels deal with Betsy Ross as a member of the Free Quaker
party; these are Chauncey Hotchkiss's Betsy Ross: A
Romance of the Flag and Edwin Satterthwaite Parry's Betsy
Ross: Quaker Rebel. Such stories as George Morgan's John
Little.john of J and Henry Peterson's Pemberton show the
prosperous Quaker neutral offering secret aid to the
British. Certain stories of the post-Revolutionary period
like Weir Mitchell's The Red City and Bayard Taylor's
Story of Kennett deal with the time of Washington's second
administration, while such a short story as Weir Mitchell's
681
Hephzibah Guinness reveals the type of austere Quaker
: womanhood which repels from, rather than attracts young
people to, the Society of Friends. Thee and You, by the
same author, is a much less ambitious story than Hugh Wynne j
but effectively presents the perennial conflict of a Quaker
youth, here Richard Wholesome, forsaking his Friendly
pacifist principles in order to punish an unworthy rival
for the hand of his lover.
On February 20, 1781, an event took place in the city
of Philadelphia which was to have an important influence
upon subsequent Quaker history. This was the first regular;
business meeting of the "Religious Society of Friends, by *
some styled the Free Quakers," as the minutes of this
revolutionary body of Friends declared itself.^
The Free Quaker movement had its origin in those
turbulent years after the outbreak of hostilities between
3-See Charles Wetherill, History of the Religious
Society of Friends Called by Some Free Quakers (Philadelphia,
189I 4 -), in X8~ Wetherillfs account of the Free Quaker move- |
raent seems to be the leading historical work on this sub
ject. In addition to a summary of the causes leading up to
the schism within the Society of Friends, it contains eleven
valuable appendices, expanding on this historical separ
ation. Several of these constitute formal pleas from the
newly formed Free Quaker Society, to the Philadelphia j
Monthly Meeting of Friends, and to the Representation of the!
Freemen of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Appendices 3> !
if, 5, 6, and 7 a^e so addressed. Appendix 8 is a copy of
the deed from Samuel Wetherill and his wife granting their
property at Fifth and Arch Streets to the new society for
the erection of a meetinghouse for members of the Free
Quaker Society.
!the American colonies and the Crown. Although the Phila-
;delphia Yearly Meeting had issued a warning letter to all
"Meetings of Friends" in America as early as 177k> advising!
that no members participate in the political warfare then
in progress, the formal breaking away from the Society by
this smaller resurgent group did not occur until a few
I years later. It is significant, too, that the letter just |
■referred to supported the King's government, thus placing
!any Friends who decided to bear arms in the Colonial cause
under a two-fold stigma--political and religious.
When the die was finally cast separating these
military-minded Friends from the original Society with Its j
code of non-resistance, many high-spirited Quaker youths,
!as well as more experienced leaders, flocked to the
:standard of the Colonial Army. Some of these, such as
;Timothy Matlock and Clement Biddle, were to make a name for-
themselves as officers in Washington's army. John Clay-
poole, second husband of Betsy Ross, was likewise a member j
iof this secessionist group, as was his wife, the creator
of the first American flag (Wetherill, pp. 19-20).
The Free Quaker, who represents that liberal body of
men and women among Friends whose consciences urged them to!
a militant position in this struggle with the mother
country, occupies a very significant role in the fiction ofj
I
the Revolutionary period. Reflections of this struggle are [
found in a considerable group of historical novels or j
70
stories, few of them familiar today to the average reader
!of American historical fiction.
Perhaps what grips the reader's attention most
strongly in these novels is the element of conflict, the
;inevitable clash of loyalties involved in the two opposing
groups--one the traditional conservative and non-resistant ;
body of Friends, who in their desire to follow to the limit I
their spiritual loyalties frowned upon any hint of
revolution; the other the resurgent group of liberal
thinkers who were ready to fling off old bonds in a
passionate desire for freedom, political and moral, and
who felt it incumbent on them to defend the colonies
against the tyranny of the mother country. Francis Taylor
has stated that "no other romantic possibility has so
frequently appealed to the novelist portraying Friends, as
the ancient dilemma, constant throughout our history, of
the impact of War upon individual Quakers.'
The critical situation of the Free Quaker during the
period of the Revolutionary War is forcibly set forth in
two novels, The Quaker Partisans- ^ and Hugh Wynne: Free
^"The Cult of the Quaker Novel," p. 16. Taylor ranks
Hugh Wynne as "probably the best Quaker novel, artistically I
speaking, so far written in America," but asserts that
Olivia Prideaux in Amelia Barr's Friend Olivia, dealing with
the period of the Commonwealth in England, "is to date the I
only satisfactory Quaker character of war time."
3 E. H. Williamson (Philadelphia, 1869).
71
Quaker.^- In the former novel the author states:
The most perplexing part of the business was that the
idea of fighting had actually found its way Into the
Society itself, and the echoes of the popular voice
were making themselves heard within the walls of the
quiet meeting from the lips of the younger and more
hot-blooded members in tones which startled the grave
conservative leaders. (P. 37)
: The novel focuses on the military exploits of an indepen
dent cavalry detachment called Clayton’s Rangers, which is i
loosely attached to the Colonial Army under Washington.
The escapades of Clayton's Rangers are at once unusual and ■
exciting. The circumstance of Quaker horsemen attacking
British regulars and on numerous occasions defeating them
with their hit and run tactics, adds interest to this novelf
;of brave actions. A high sense of honor always character
izes these fighting Quakers, who, though ferocious in
battle, seem ever ready to be friends with any worthy
conquered foe. British officers were frequently astonished
to hear their bold captors addressing them in the tra
ditional Quaker language.
Historical personages such as Washington, Anthony
Wayne, and General Paoli are prominent in the story. The
Paoli Massacre is described in the novel, but in the main
it is the action of the irregular "rangers" in various bold I
cavalry raids and unsung skirmishes which occupies the
Weir Mitchell, Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker, Sometime
Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on the Staff of His Excellency
General' Washington (Hew York. 1897). ~ \
72
lively pages of this off-the-beaten-track story. The
patriotism of such little-known Friends as Thomas Sanbourne
and his family (real people who appear in this fictional
story) reveals a significant side of the great struggle for;
freedom in the American Colonies that has not always found
a place in the historical fiction of the period--the
obscure supporters of the Colonial cause whose names are
g
not in the military annals.-'
In S. Weir Mitchell's Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker (c. 1896)
we have the best known fictional treatment of the role of
the fighting Quaker. The conflict between the old-line
traditional Friend and the resurgent element who wished to
join the Colonial forces is spotlighted in the tragic
differences between Hugh and his uncompromising father,
similar group of fighters to Clayton's Rangers is
pictured in Frank 0. Hough's more recent story of the well- j
known Westchester Guides, If Not Victory (1939), in which
Abe Kronkhyte and his stern father are both Quakers. Abe
Is a further example of the Free Quaker type, who, at first
reluctant to break away from parental and church authority,
finally plunges wholeheartedly into the conflict as it rages
around such towns as White Plains or Westchester in Hew
York. Little of Quaker tone is apparent in the story and
nothing of special Quaker interest is included other than
the picture of a highly austere father who scarcely deigns
to welcome home his military-minded son, even at such a
sacred time as the Christmas season. A considerable amount
of profanity and barrack room language is scattered through
the novel. The book does have the advantage of a more
realistic approach to war than the definitely romantic
treatment in The Quaker Soldier. It calls to mind such a
contemporary drama as Maxwell Anderson's Valley Forge.
73
: John Wynne.
John Wynne represents the strict, letter-of-the-law
religionist, a stalwart follower of the pacifistic creed of
Pox and Penn, moral to the point of harshness, and com
pletely unable or unwilling to make allowance for any
divergence by his son from his own austere way of life.
The father, like many another well-to-do Friend of the timej
favors the Tory cause as opposed to that of the rebelling
young colonies and treats his son with a degree of coldness
and even contempt which seems to be at variance with the
attitude of love so strongly urged by the early Friends.
Hugh, on the other hand, together with his friend,
Jack Warder, well portrays in his energetic youth and
strong militant attitude the philosophy of the secessionist 1
group of Free Quakers, who, while holding to the outward
form of Quaker worship and practice, felt bound to differ
with the long established creeds of his forefathers.
Unquestionably Hugh's political views are largely influenced
by his provocative Aunt Gainor, an opulent and rather
worldly lady, who is ardent in the Whig cause in politics
and does not hesitate to impart her doctrines to her robust ;
and aggressive young nephew (pp. 197-98).
But Hugh Wynne for all its popularity at the time of
publication--and its popularity was sensational— aroused a
veritable storm of indignation among members of the Society
of Friends, certain of whom he professed to describe in the ;
7k
characters of this novel. The attack on Mitchell took the
form of editorials and letters to the editor of such a
well-known Quaker journal as The Friends1 Intelligencer,
which offered some caustic criticism of his interpretation
of Friends' views, and also of his historical accuracy in
various instances.
The editorial for January 1, 1898, published shortly
after the novel's first printing, while stipulating with
fairness and restraint the writer's wide reputation as a
physician and as a writer of fiction, nevertheless opposed
him vigorously for misrepresenting Friends' views on war.
According to Mitchell--this editorial maintained--"the
Quaker system is not one to be enjoyed or e n d u r e d . Hugh
Wynne is not only a novel but "a polemic," the editors
held, and hence must be considered by the reader from that
point of view.
^That the author, though not a Friend himself, has 1
presented in this novel and its sequel, The Red City, a true
picture of the Free Quakers of the Revolutionary period,
heems altogether possible. Perhaps he is seeking to express
through Hugh in the former novel and the young Count de
Courval in the latter, his own attitude toward the age-old
problem of conflict and submission to the law of love as
set forth by the Founder of the Christian faith. For
Mitchell, according to his most recent biographer, was a
religious man, a frequent attender of St. Stephen's and
Christ Church in Philadelphia, and a close personal friend
of Phillips Brooks. See Ernest Earnest, S. Weir Mitchell,
Novelist and Physician (Philadelphia; 1950)> PP. 6!p*66, 236.
"^Friends' Intelligencer and Journal, 55:2, January,
1898. '
75
Indignation was especially aroused by Mitchell’s
portrait of John Wynne, father of Hugh, as a typical
Quaker parent. The editorial maintained that such an
abnormal and highly austere character as that described in I
:the novel is far from being a typical father in a Quaker
I home.
In addition to the adverse criticism of the novel as
an interpretation of Quaker ideals and philosophy the same ;
■ editorial points out a number of historical inaccuracies
:such as that in which Hugh speaks of James Logan calling
at his father's home, James Logan having died in 1751» two j
years before Hugh’s birth (p. 9). Since the novel is
written in the first person the editor's point is well
:taken. Various inaccuracies regarding the Quaker form of |
business procedure and government are also noted and must
be admitted as betraying a lack of information of some of
the ways of Friends. Perhaps in Mitchell’s defense it may j
;be remarked that minor historical inaccuracies need not
detract from the imaginative lustre of the novel any more
than Shakespeare’s reputation has suffered from the
"seacoast of Bohemia"I Mitchell did feel the point of
these criticisms enough, apparently, to attempt a defense
in the preface to the later edition of Hugh Wynne.
An entirely different criticism is presented in the j
recent biography of Mitchell by Ernest Earnest, who asserts ;
Mitchell's debt to two earlier and less-known novels of the |
76
Revolutionary period, The Quaker Soldier and Pemberton.
Earnest points out that Mitchell is by no means original in
his portraiture of certain characters in his novel, among
whom he cites John Wynne, Hugh himself, and his lover,
^Darthea Penniston.
Mitchell's close friend, Sarah Butler Wister, sent the
author an advertisement of The Quaker Soldier, by John
Richter Jones, published in 1858, while Mitchell was
: working on Hugh Wynne. In The Quaker Soldier we have a
prototype of John Wynne in the wealthy, austere Caleb
Hazelwood, father of the militant young hero, Charles
Hazelwood, elsewhere called Colonel Linsford. In this
novel, as in Hugh Wynne, the father turns to a rakish young
Q
relative in preference to his own son. Complacency and
utter intolerance toward his son seem to be the leading
traits of the elder Hazelwood. How much is original in the
character of Hugh and how much was borrowed, it is impos
sible to say, but the character of the shy yet courageous
Charles Hazelwood--shy with his lover but utterly fearless
.in battle--bears a striking resemblance to Hugh in some
respects. If anything, Hugh is the more dashing and less
; nQuakerly" of the two men.
The quality of Quaker poise in emergencies is brought
out in Charles Hazelwood's affair of honor with the
®Earne s t, p. 11|2.
77
braggadocio British officer, Harris. It is agreed that the
iwinner of a rapier duel, if unhurt, should have the right
:of cudgeling the other, and Charles, the winner, insists on
this right of belaboring his opponent, even before the
surprised gaze of Lord Howe. The American's courage never
; falters in the face of the repeated and unlooked for crises
which the story contains.
There is much that is appealing about Charles Hazel
wood, and in spite of his ambitions to become the shah of
Persia--an episode which mars the unity of the story--he is
:on the whole a level-headed gentleman who owes many of his
personal character traits to his early Quaker home atmos
phere and training.
Mitchell's dependence on Pemberton is less important
:than it is on The Quaker Soldier. Pemberton is not so
impressive a figure as Charles Hazelwood and far less
impressive than the bold, soldierly Hugh Wynne.
The Quaker elements in Henry Peterson's Pemberton
(Philadelphia, 1873) are rather overshadowed by the
dazzling figure of Major Andre, the bluff but ambitious
Benedict Arnold, Colonel Musgrave, defender of the Chew
mansion in the Battle of Germantown, and other military -
figures. Mrs. Pemberton, mother of the somewhat colorless
hero of the novel, seems to display more of genuine Quaker
poise than any other character. She belongs to the upper
crust of Philadelphia and leans toward the Tory camp, and
78
she professes a certain horror with warfare and proper
aloofness from the vital issues at stake. Poise and per
sonal dignity are the dominating features of this aristo
cratic lady, who for original portraiture does not compare j
with Aunt Gainor in Mitchell’s novel. Yet such a descrip
tion as the following does suggest a rather definite outline
of the more wealthy, aristocratic type of Friend in this
setting.
Mrs. Pemberton presided at the head of the table.
She was a rather large, and for her years, quite a
comely woman, with something of the air of a queen
about her, notwithstanding the simplicity of her
Quaker attire. The smooth and unruffled serenity
of her face told of feelings kept habitually under
control. It was doubtful that she could be easily
wounded by any assault of fate that did not touch
the weak point in her smooth shining armor--her love
for Arthur, her only remaining child. (P. 87)
Vivid descriptions of the plight of Washington's army
at Valley Forge in 1777 are found in George Morgan's John
Little.john of J (Philadelphia, 1897)* Francis Taylor's
comment on the novel is pertinent:
To those who like fast action, involving a man and a
maid, and a great horse, let me recommend this novel,
if for no other reason than the account of Mary Truax's
great ride, on a winter night on Top Gallant, the great
black horse with the blood red nostrils. It's a
thrilling bit of writing in a most readable romance of
Quakers in the midst of war and intrigue. (P. 17)
The story depicts Quaker characters in minor roles
except in the case of Mary Truax, the lover of the soldier
and adventurer, John Littlejohn of J. Many Quakers in
Revolutionary days sided with the Tories, as illustrated by
Mrs. Pemberton, already referred to, and by John James in
; the present novel. John James, the Quaker ally of
Fitzpatrick, leads a party of Continental soldiers into a
British trap. Quaker Hall, near Valley Forge, is a sort of]
meeting-piace to which various military elements gravitate.^
! In the beginning of the story a group of discontented
; soldiers are here in a parley regarding the Conway defec
tion. Among them are the mysterious John Littlejohn (going
by the name of Ortolan) and the- female British spy, Alicia ;
G-aw. The proprietor is Fairlamb, apparently a neutral
Quaker politically, who runs Quaker Hall as a kind of inn.
Mary Truax, not too significant in the over-all plot j
iof the novel, is pictured as an ardent patriot, as is her
father, Caleb. Little of significant character development:
involving the Quaker as Quaker is seen in the story. The
book is primarily a thrilling romance of military actions,
told with lusty vigor and brilliant handling of details.
!Yet the off-hand references to such Quakers as the pros
perous farmer John James so definitely aligning himself
with the Tory cause, carry a good deal of significance,
9
: revealing the political trends of the day.
^Elbert Russell gives historical information on the
Friends’ Tory sympathies: ’ 'After the British occupation of
Philadelphia was over, the radical revolutionists sought
vengeance on all suspected Tories including some Quakers, j
Two Quakers were hanged on a slightly supported charge of •
;treason; moderates like Robert Morris, James Wilson and
Thomas Mifflin barely escaped with their lives, and a mob
broke Quakers’ windows and hooted them in the streets..”--
fThe - History of Quaker!sm, p. -2 l\$) . .... J
80
While Aunt Gainor in Mitchell’s Hugh Wynne and Mrs.
Pemberton in Peterson’s Pemberton are well-drawn Quaker
women, perhaps the most impressive Quakeress in novels of
this period is Betsy Ross. Ghauncey Hotchkiss’s well
plotted novel entitled Betsy Ross: A Romance of the Flag
:(New York, 1901) presents the celebrated "free Quakeress"
:first as a spirited girl and later as a modest Friendly
matron keeping a dressmaker's shop on Arch Street, Phila
delphia. Betsy Ross, however, is not so much a Quakeress
as a woman in this Revolutionary War story. Her modest,
well-kept shop is a focal point in the setting and action
of the novel.
The Quaker element in the story is in Betsy Ross and
her father, Samuel Griscom. The latter figure must be
aligned with the unfriendly, harsh, and worldly-minded
followers of Fox and Penn. They may be called the mercan
tile Quakers, whose chief aim was gain.^^ Other examples
of this type are John Wynne and Charles Hazelwood, already
l^An interesting comment on the mercantile ambitions
of many members of the Society of Friends is found in
Frederick Tolies’ book,, Meeting House and Counting House
(Chapel Hill, I9I 4. 8), pp. i j - 9 ffT Tolies has quoted from
various old writings to show that even before the death of
George Fox a definite trend toward wealth was evident. He
cites statistics to show that in Philadelphia in 1769
"although at this period the Quakers probably constituted
no more than one-seventh of Philadelphia's population, they
accounted for more than half of those who paid taxes in
excess of one hundred pounds." Such a condition is more
than accidental, according to this writer--it is a con
comitant of basic Friends conservatism and thriftiness,
growing out of their way of life. To a degree, at least,
it is related to the tenets of the Quaker faith.
81
; mentioned, and Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad in
[Melville's Moby Dick.
Considerable light is thrown upon Betsy Ross: A
Romance of the Flag by Edwin Satterthwaite Parry's Betsy
f Ross: Quaker Rebel (Philadelphia, 1930), a story which
! should be rated today as fictional biography. This
iinteresting account of the charming girl who was to be the
maker of the first American flag, lays more stress upon her
[childhood and early Quaker training. The details of her
!disownment by her denomination for marrying "out of
meeting'1 1 ' are presented with vividness. The abrupt tran-
:sition from the non-ritualistic worship of the Friends to
[the more formal Episcopal service at Christ Church is
[revealed in the following passage:
Christ Church, with its tall steeple, had been a
familiar sight to her from her earliest recollections,
as indeed to the oldest inhabitant. As a child,
walking to the silent Meeting House on the river bank
with the plain-garbed Friends, She had marveled at
the very different procession turning into Second
Street. For the Sabbath there brought a peal of
bells and the rustle of silks and a parade of finery
which had given her a glimpse of a new and strange
world. . . . Little did she dream that one day she
would be a part of that Episcopal promenade. (P. 53)
In the novels considered above--The Quaker Partisans,
Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker, The Quaker Soldier, Pemberton,
.John Llttle.john of J, Betsy Ross: A Romance of the Flag,
and Betsy Ross, Quaker Rebel— we have glimpsed the Quaker
[primarily in the role of an active participant in the
[Revolutionary War. Two or three characters, like John
82!
Wynne, John James, and Mrs. Pemberton, are pictured as Tory;
sympathizers. Others like Clayton's Rangers, Hugh Wynne,
and Betsy Ross belong to the Free Quaker movement.
In.three other stories--one written after Hugh Wynne— ■
Weir Mitchell has presented Quaker characters which reveal
different aspects from those portrayed in his masterpiece.
These stories are Hephzibah Quiness (1880), Thee and You
(1880), and The Red City (1907).
In The Red City we have a sequel to Hugh Wynne laid in
the period of Washington’s second administration. Both
Hugh and the redoubtable Aunt Gainor are still living, but
the hero of The Red City is a French e m ig r e , and its
heroine, Margaret Swanwick, a less sophisticated Quakeress
than Darthea Penniston. The true Quaker element is more of!
a by-product and not so basic as in the Revolutionary story.
The Vicomte de Courval and his aristocratic mother are not
in true sympathy with the Quaker pacifistic principles;
hence, we lack the fierce clash of loyalties implicit in
Hugh Wynne. It is not the hero of this story but the
heroine who demonstrates the Friendly traits of meekness,
self-control, disapproval of physical combat, etc.
Certainly Margaret lacks some of the dash and glamor
of Darthea Penniston and some of her headstrong quality.
She is, however, a loyal, sincere girl, highly conventional
toward the opposite sex, and well able to curb any youthful ;
exuberance which might overtake her. She is not so much
shocked at the youthful vicomte ’ s vengeful attitude toward ?
the villain, Carteaux, as gently reproving. In the scene,
reported by her mother, of Friend Howell’s visit, Margaret j
quite abruptly denounces the astonished elder by defending !
her lover for his duel with the detestable Jacobin,
Carteaux. Mrs. Swanwiek is portrayed as a thrifty Quaker
widow, altogether respectable and charitable, but not of
particular force. One gets the impression that her
Friendly convictions though sincerely held were somewhat
conventional rather than deeply personal in character.
Witness her excusing of Pearl for daringly retorting to \
Friend Howell on the occasion of that gentleman’s rebuke
concerning her prospective marriage to the French vicomte,
referred to above.
Aunt Gainor, though more advanced in years, retains
the verve and irrepressible faculty for match-making which (
she displayed in Hugh Wynne--her special protege" in this
novel being the demure Margaret Swanwiek instead of the
dashing Darthea Penniston.
The historical treatment of the background— the
political feud between the Federalists and the Democrats,
and the French element, represented by both R e n e de Gourval I
and his bitter opponent, Cartreaux— probably constitutes i
the most important aspect of the novel, but it is not of
primary concern here.
Mitchell’s interest in Quaker materials extended
i further than the Revolutionary War and its immediate
I aftermath. Certain domestic stories like Hephzibah
Quiness and Thee and You reveal a subtle psychological
; approach to the problem of the Quaker’s role in fiction,
! quite different from the more romantic approach displayed
i in the two adventure novels.
In Hephzibah Qulness (1880), *^ Mitchell has made use
: of his wide experience in psychology to portray a complex
|character, who, manifestly conditioned by the more austere |
|aspects of Friends' doctrines, has impoverished her
personality beyond all normal bounds. Consumed with the
: idea of Quakerism as being the only true rule of life, not j
for herself alone but for others, she seeks by every means,;
both fair and foul, to compel Marguerite, her ward, to join
the Society of Friends and to give up all worldly ambitions.
The clash of personalities in the characters of Elizabeth
Howard, the attractive Episcopalian matron, and Hephzibah,
•the rigorous Quaker, forms a leading theme in this story.
Emotional relief is afforded by the love Interest involving
the handsome young French Baron de Vismes and Marguerite.
Arthur Guiness is pictured as a great, strapping fellow who:
^follows the Friendly doctrine of peace but who is likewise
^ Hephzibah Guiness? Thee and You; and A Draft on the ;
Bank of Spain (Philadelphia^ i860).
85
a virile and stalwart man of impeccable integrity and
courage.
The chief value of the story would seem to be as
revelation of the unhealthy effects of too rigid a self-
control and too introspective and impractical a philosophy
of life. The mysticism of Fox and Penn is changed into a
i misguided and abnormal introspection and morbidness of
character. Hephzibah is a Pharisee of the Pharisees,
: unhappy yet unrelenting. In describing Hephzibah and her
brother, Arthur, the author comments with insight, ’ ’For
i earnestly believing people are themselves and a creed, or
a creed and themselves— and she was a creed and herself-- i
i
and he was himself above all and a creed” (p. 23).
The rigidness of life to 'which Hephzibah devotes
;herself affects her attitude toward the lively Marguerite.
Frowning on all that is ’ ’worldly” the spinster goes so far
as to condemn her young ward for liking flowers and gayety j
of dress and other ’ ’ worldly” objects. Witness the
reproving visit of the two elders, who demand access to
-Marguerite's room and condemn the French mirror there ’
(p. 39). That such strict and even harsh discipline was
■exercised by some members of the Society of Friends cannot
be denied. Mitchell seems to make much of such idiosyncra-
cies in certain of his works. The extreme austerity of
Friends is shown in the following passage:
: 86|
At the time of which we speak there had arisen
among Friends what were then termed ’great searchings
of heart’ concerning the preservation of discipline
in the matter of dress and furniture. Mirrors were
taken down; brass clocks received a coat of drab paint; ;
in one case two aged Friends, on paying a visit to a
rather lax member of the Society, were shocked to find
on her floor the rare luxury of a dark carpet with red
spots, over which they stepped and picked their way in
grim reprobation. This is said to have so much amazed
their hostess that when they left she bore her testi
mony by carefully inking out all the offending spots
of red. (P. 39)
The militant philosophy of the Free Quakers in Hugh
Wynne and The Red City is likewise apparent in the shorter
I Thee and You which appeared in the little volume containing!
Hephzibah Guiness. The story deals with a spirited youth
by the name of Richard Wholesome, who wears the Quaker
gray and conforms outwardly, it is maintained, to the true |
!Friendly conduct. He is a boarder in the home of a young
I woman named Priscilla White, who is a regular member of
the Society of Friends. Wholesome, however, is far from
being a loyal, convinced follower of Fox and Penn, as is
demonstrated by his violent encounter with John Oldmixon,
ia renegade Quaker, who has gone to sea and dropped all
profession of his early pious training. Priscilla feels
herself bound by a promise to marry Oldmixon, though the i
'latter has practically forsaken her. In the meantime
Richard falls in love with his charming hostess. The
result of this triangle situation is that another boarder, ;
a German named Schmidt, finds the situation so intolerable
ithat he encounters the dissolute Oldmixon in a duel and !
87
kills him. Schmidt dies soon afterward for his heroic
self-sacrifice in behalf of Wholesome.
Mitchell's anti-Quaker attitude develops in various
speeches and implications, such as Schmidt's comment to
%
young Henry Shelbourne, another guest of Priscilla White's: ^
“I like not that sect. . . . It does make nicer
women than men. Should there be two religions for
the two sexes? And do you think Penn and Mr. Pox
did take among the women a vote when they went to
the queerness of robe which is theirs? (P. 132)
Fighting and duelling seem to belong very definitely to
Mitchell's code of manhood--those who oppose these methods
of settling disputes are thought of in an unfavorable
light. In commenting on Wholesome's sudden assault on
Oldmixon at the wharf, the author speaks out through the
mouth of Shelbourne:
"... but now I said indignantly, 'If it be Friends'
creed to see the poor and old and feeble hurt without
raising a hand, let us pray to be saved from such a
religion.'" (P. 120)
One further novel of the period pictures the pacifistic
Quaker in the midst of war. Mary Hallock Foote's stirring
frontier novel, The Royal Americans (Boston, 1910), deals
primarily with the destiny of the unconquered territory of
northeastern Canada. Various historical characters move
across its pages--Montcalm, General Schuyler, Ethan Allen,
Sir William Johnson, and others. The bluff military figure
of Colonel Yelverton occupies an important role in the
88;
romance--together with his vivacious daughter, Catherine.
On the male side, in addition to Colonel Yelverton, a Tory
sympathizer, two sturdy sons of the frontier play the most
prominent parts in the unfolding drama— Bessie Dunbar and
the Quaker youth Francis Havergal.
The spontaneous love affair between Catherine and
Francis, begun in the sailing vessel going north along the
shores of the Hudson, develops quickly into a strong mutual;
passion. Francis, the independent, obstinate Quaker youth
of twenty-two, falls deeply in love with the high-strung,
attractive soldier's daughter of seventeen. Francis,
strong and well built physical^, obdurate in will, yet
tender, makes a quick conquest of the romantic yet equally
independent girl's heart. Possessing as he does a domin
ating Quaker conscience, coupled with a degree of personal
stubbornness, he fails to pluck the rich fruit of Catherine's
love when it is so ingenuously offered him. His father
dead, financial matters as yet unsettled, he feels bound as |
a conscientious son of the great frontier to make his own
way in the world before claiming so lovely a treasure. Cut
to the quick, her heart's love untactfully though honestly |
rejected, she withdraws with true maidenly dignity from her !
lover's grasp--never to return.
One of the most typically Quaker scenes occurs in
Chapter XXV when the bereaved family are assembled on a
First Day morning after the body of the beloved father has ;
89
been laid in the grave. The stricken family are gathered
in the plain farmhouse worshipping in silence. David, an
i elder brother, delivers the solemn message of the morning
hour.
When he spoke at last, the words followed each other
continuously in a voice of tender resonance. Its
volume filled the room, yet it was far from loud,
especially at the beginning of each paragraph or
division. He opened quietly, in the manner of prose,
and mounted soaring into a form of recitative
peculiarly objectionable to Francis.. (P. 213)
Thus in sombre resignation the sturdy Quaker Havergal
:family bears the loss of its honored head.
j One novel, although laid in Washington’s second
1 administration, ignores the whole tense atmosphere per
vading the United States after the great events of the
Revolutionary War. Bayard Taylor's The Story of Kennett
(New York, 1866.) presents, instead, a well-told Quaker love
story in the serene Tuffkenamon Valley in Chester County,
Pennsylvania. This idyllic tale happily blends a peaceful
rural atmosphere with the quiet ways of Friends. Kennett
Square, the scene of most of the events of the story, is
today a small suburban town about thirty miles west of
Philadelphia close to the Delaware line. Some of the old
homesteads like the Potter and Barton farms are still
;pointed out to the interested visitor.
The most important Quaker characters are six in number:
;Martha Deane; her father, Doctor Deane; Gilbert Potter and f
90
his mother, Mary Potter; Alfred Barton, legal husband to
Mary Potter; and his testy old father, Abiah Barton.
Around the tangled circumstances of these lives the plot of:
the novel gradually evolves.
Kennett Meeting is well described in Chapter VII— the ;
sombre, mystical atmosphere revealed in many a story and
poem. Something of the piety and emotional restraint
nurtured by the simple worship in these unadorned Friends'
meeting houses gets into the inner consciousness of the
worshippers themselves, guiding and controlling their
conduct.
Such characters, schooled to self-control and used to
sacrifice for the sake of duty, are Gilbert Potter and his
mother, Mary. A blemish on the name of Mary Potter in her
youth, though wholly undeserved, has haunted both mother
and son for years. The cruel implications in the popular
mind that Gilbert is a bastard create a feeling of shyness
and resentment which is only gradually dissipated by the
sincere admiration and growing affection of Martha Deane.
All the traditional Quaker independence of outward worldly
convention coupled with a fine womanly Intuition causes
Martha to defy her prudish father, Doctor Deane, and give
her love unfalteringly to Gilbert Potter. Doctor Deane's
smugness stands in direct contrast to the more honest,
forthright character of his daughter.
911
Abiah Barton, mean and stingy to the end, is perhaps
; as disagreeable a figure as any Quaker character in
American fiction. His detestable selfishness is unredeemed
^ by any mitigating circumstances and he totters to his grave
;with no show of repentance and with less sympathy from the i
;reader than is bestowed on most old scalawags in fiction.
Henry Seidel Canby, himself a lover of the Brandywine |
;country, pays high tribute to The Story of Kennett as being;
| "the best Chester County novel." He calls Bayard Taylor's ;
!story "a good novel quiet in its setting in spite of its
I melodramatic plot." Canby says further,
If the reader wishes to know how life went for the J
; middle Brandywine toward 1796, he will get a better
idea from The Story of Kennett than from any other j
book I know.
i A review of this chapter will show that the greater
;part of the fiction portraying the Quaker during the period]
;of the Revolutionary War and its aftermath is concerned
with the "Free Quakers"--those restless youths who threw in
]their lot with the Colonial Army, even at the displeasure
of their parents and friends. This unorthodox stand caused:
many military-minded individuals to be "read out of meeting1 !
I by their pacifist brethren. A sharp conflict of loyalties {
{developed among Friends, resulting in a definite schism in ]
the Quaker sect. The Free Quakers established their own
18The Brandywine (New York, 1941), p. 230.
921
meeting-house on the corner of Fifth and Arch Streets in
Philadelphia hard by the home of Betsy Ross, one of their
most prominent members.
Of those novels using the Free Quaker in leading roles>
the most significant is undoubtedly S. Weir Mitchell's
Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker. The hero, Hugh Wynne, becomes an
officer in the Colonial Army, taking part in various
battles, including the Battle of Germantown, and is a
trusted subordinate to the commander-in-chief. His father,
John Wynne, represents the rigid, legalistic type of Friend;
in religion, and the definitely materialistic, tight-
fisted type of Friend in business. In this latter aspect
he bears comparison with Caleb Hazelwood in John Richter
Jones's The Quaker Soldier and with Samuel Griscom, father
of Betsy Ross, in Chauncey Hotchkiss's Betsy Ross: A
Romance of the Flag.
Three or four well-drawn Quaker women characters
appear in various novels of this period. Aunt Gainor in
Mitchell's Hugh Wynne and its sequel, The Red City, repre
sents the more worldly-wise type of Quaker woman whose
religious opinions are kept strictly subordinate to her
love for a game of cards or a tea party for the prominent
politicians in the new Colonial government. Mrs. Pemberton i
in Henry Peterson's Pemberton likewise belongs to the social^
aristocracy of Philadelphia. There is considerable
evidence brought out in the novel to suspect her of Tory
93
sympathies, for example in the matter of signal flags
raised above the mansion by an old Negro servant. Aunt
Hephsibah, however, in Mitchell’s Hephzibah Guiness, is a
portrait of a neurotic and utterly uncompromising Quaker
spinster, whose sallow face casts gloom over the cottage
where Marguerite strives to maintain some measure of
youthful happiness in a densely morbid environment. One of
the most attractive Quaker women depicted is of course
Betsy Ross, nee Elizabeth Griscom, in two stories, Betsy
Ross: A Romance of the Flag and Betsy Ross: Quaker Rebel.
Both novels bring to life the Quaker patriot in the modest
setting of her Arch Street home, with its dressmaker’s shop
in front of the dwelling facing on the street. She shows
more high spirit than her fellow townswoman, Margaret
Swanwiek, in The Red City. The Royal Americans is an off-
the-beaten-track novel laid in the great Canadian northwest
in the pioneer days of the mid-eighteenth century. Francis
Havergal is the hero and leading Quaker character in this
tale of military action.
Perhaps the finest picture of Quaker manhood and
womanhood in the fiction of this period is presented in
Bayard Taylor’s novel of the Brandywine country, The Story
of Kennett. Quiet, self-reliant characters are painted
against a peaceful landscape in Pennsylvania's beautiful
Chester County. This novel and Max Adler's The Quakeress.
dealt with in my next chapter, ignore the exciting politi
cal events at the close of two wars and give the reader
sincere accounts of true Quaker characters amidst lovely
rural environments.
CHAPTER IV
THE QUAKER IN FICTION BASED ON THE PERIOD 1797-1865
In the period between Washington’s second adminis
tration and the close of the Civil War, one theme is
predominant in fiction dealing with the Quakers. This is
the theme of the abolition of slavery. First, I shall
point out that the efforts of Friends such as Woolman,
Benezet, and Whittier had much to do with the ultimate
freeing of the slaves, through their philanthropic efforts
previous to the War Between the States. An understanding
of this Quaker concern is necessary as a background for the
treatment of the Quaker as he appears as a character in
mid-nineteenth-century fiction. Second, I shall consider a I
group of novels which focus on the practical altruistic and
philanthropic work of the Society of Friends in furthering
abolition through the Underground Railroad. I have chosen
the historical figure of Levi Coffin for special attention
both because of his known acts in helping the anti-slavery
cause and because of his importance as a leading figure in
several novels, including Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which deal with!
the freeing of the slaves. The role of the conscientious
objector in this period is presented in two novels: The
Haydocks’ Testimony and Cud.jo’s Cave. Two novels, The
Quakeress, by Max Adler, and A Windflower, by Caroline
96]
Atwater Mason, bypass the war and the slavery issue
altogether to describe moving love scenes in rural Pennsyl
vania. Both of these stories reveal true insight into
Quaker ways and ideals.
It would be beyond the scope of this chapter to
attempt a complete treatment of the abolition movement in
the United States, but something may be said of the con
tribution of the Society of Friends to this cause. Such
names as Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison are,
of course, familiar to every student of American history,
and so is the name (if not the Quaker personalities behind !
it) of the Underground Railroad, but not so well known are
the preparatory labors of a small group of eighteenth
century Quaker pioneers. George S. Brookes in his biography
of Anthony Benezet names four Quaker leaders who paved the
way for the abolition cause both in England and America.
These early crusaders are Ralph Sandiford, Benjamin Lay,
John Woolman, and Anthony Benezet.
Woolman, through the moving pages of his Journal, and
Benezet, through several notable epistles, have become more
widely known than any other eighteenth-century Quaker
abolitionists. Each played a role in bringing about a
militant anti-slavery feeling among Quaker slaveholders in
Pennsylvania.
■^George S. Brookes, Friend Anthony Benezet
(Philadelphia, 1937)* p 77•. ......
97
In his celebrated Journal, which Henry Seidel Canby
calls "the best expression in English of the Quaker spirit,"
and also in the essay "Considerations," Woolman lifts up a j
strong though kindly voice in denunciation of the evils of :
the slave trade.^ Canby asserts, "His was, as is moder
ately well known, the first effective voice against
slavery" (p. 31)*
It is not surprising that the tender conscience of
this Quaker saint should have been stirred to the depths by,
the injustices done to the African Negro in the Southern
states. But slavery was not confined to the South, for as
far north as Newport, Rhode Island, the holding of slaves
was generally practiced. Woolman1s chief concern was with |
members of the Society of Friends who held slaves. The
earlier pages of his Journal relate the well known incident!
of the bill of sale:
My employer having a negro woman, sold her, and
desired me to write the bill of sale; the man being
waiting who brought her. The thing was sudden; and
though I felt uneasy at the thoughts of writing an
Instrument of slavery for one of my fellow creatures,
yet I remembered that I was hired by the., year, that
it was my master who directed it; and that It was an
elderly man, a member of our society, who bought her,
so through weakness I gave way, and wrote It; but at
the executing of it, I was so afflicted in my mind,
that I said before my master and the friend, that I
believed slave-keeping to be a practice inconsistent
with the Christian religion. This in some degree
abated my uneasiness; yet as often as I reflected
seriously upon it I thought I should have been clearer
^Henry Seidel Canby, Classic Americans (New York, 1931)>
p. 30. !
98
if I had desired to be excused from it. as a thing
against my conscience; for such it was.3
The strenuous endeavors of Woolman in the abolition
cause did not cease until he had preached his convictions
before the Friends’ Yearly Meetings at Newport and
Philadelphia, ridden On horseback to the slave owners of
the Southern seaboard, and issued his vie^■J•s in various
moving pamphlets and essays.^
Woolman died in 1772. The next important voice of
■protest against slavery in America after his passing was
that of the country farmer of Haverhill, Massachusetts,
John Greenleaf Whittier. From the standpoint of active
literary and political participation in the abolition
cause, Whittier far surpassed Woolman, for in Whittier's
day events were moving faster toward their tragic culmin
ation in the Civil War.
Although Whittier is best known to the general reader
today for his folk poems of New England such as "Snowbound"
or "Telling the Bees" and his poems of spiritual medi
tation, he is now being recognized in a more emphatic way
than before as a prophet and crusader for the cause of
abolition.
i }
-The Journal of John Woolman. with an Introduction by
John Whittier (Boston, 1871) , pp. 6J 4.-65»
^•For example his "Considerations on Keeping Negroes"
published by Benjamin Franklin and Hall in 1762.
99
Albert Mordell, who had access to more letters than
any previous biographer, has laid much stress on this more
masculine aspect of the gentle Quaker poet. Mordell calls
Whittier "one of the truly heroic radical American writers
it £
in the cause of human freedom.
Such poems as ’ ’Massachusetts to Virginia," "Ichabod,"
"Toussaint L1 Ouverture,’ ’ "The Song of the Free," "The
Moral Warfare" and several of the "Songs of Labor" directly
or indirectly denounce the whole philosophy underlying
slavery and uphold the dignity of the individual--a belief
which was as old as the founders of Quakerism.
One of the most fascinating and spectacular outgrowths
of the whole abolition movement is the Underground Rail
road. This term apparently had its inception in an offhand
comment by a Southern slaveholder, but was capitalized on
freely by the Quakers north of the Mason and Dixon Line,
who for several decades were active participants in evading
the fugitive slave laws and in rendering invaluable aid to
the escaped Negroes seeking asylum in Canada. Many and
thrilling are the accounts of these actual escapes, some of
them reading like bizarre incidents in the notorious "dime
novels" which were soon to put in an appearance in America.
-^Quaker Militant, John Greenleaf Whittier (Boston,
1933), P. xiv.
100
In Indiana the "president" of the Underground Railroad
was a highly respected Quaker named Levi Coffin, staunch
Ifriend of the lowly black man. The Reminiscences of Levi
Coffin is as exciting reading as the fiction which deals
with the subject of slavery. The book contains many a
|harrowing tale of courage and suffering on the part of the
I desperate black men and women who were eager to seize any
7
means to escape from their harsh servitude.
Levi and Catherine Coffin rank among the most illus
trious benefactors of the slaves throughout the whole Civil
War period. Levi was descended from Tristram Coffyn, one
iof the nine original purchasers from the Indians of the |
Island of Nantucket.® He was born of Quaker parents on a t
ifarm at New Garden, North Carolina, in 1789. Soon after his
imarriage to Catherine White in l82if, he and his wife moved |
;to Newport, Indiana, where for the succeeding twenty years
he was an active leader In the Underground Railroad.^ In
lQk-7 Levi and Catherine Coffin moved to Cincinnati, Ohio,
where he continued his philanthropic work with as much zeal
^Cincinnati, 1876.
good idea of the plight of the fugitive slaves is
I shown in the painting by C. T. Weber of a wagon-load of
slaves arriving at Levi Coffin’s home. See Henrietta Buck-!
master, Let My People Go (New York and London, I9I 4 .I), p. 193.
: ®See below Chap. V, p. 123.
^ 9”Levi Coffin," Dictionary of American Biography, II,
101
: as he had shown for a score of years in Indiana.
In his own Reminiscences he relates that his first
interest in the abolition cause dates from his seventh or
eighth year (p. 221). When he became a business man in
; Indiana and Ohio these early sympathies with the slaves
I bore fruit in his astonishingly courageous efforts to do
all in his power to aid them to find their freedom at
;whatever personal cost to himself. It is said that he was
: personally responsible for the escape of more than 3*000
:slaves. Of his unremitting efforts on behalf of the black
men, Henrietta Buckmaster writes:
Fugitives were sent to him from Cincinnati, from
Madison and Jeffersonville, Indiana. A week seldom
passed without travelers on this invisible road.
The Coffins never knew at what hour of the night
they would be wakened by a knock at the door— the
signal to build a roaring fire and heat a meal for
fugitives huddled in the wagons outside. But the
Goff in "station*1 was used to large numbers. It was
the converging point of several lines.3-1
The Underground Railroad was primarily a Quaker
iinstitution. Illegal though it was, the Quakers almost
juniversally defended on ethical grounds the rights of the
.black man to freedom, and hence did not hesitate to employ
any reasonable means to succour the pitiable fugitives.
Rufus M. Jones writes:
lOReminisconces of Levi Coffin (Cincinnati, 1876),
p. 297.
3-3-Let My People Go, p. 78*
102
There was no fame or public glory in what they were
doing. 'Fame' would have instantly defeated all
their endeavors. They did not let their left hand
know what their right hand was d o i n g . 1 2
As the emotions of the opposing sections were more and
more fanned into flame--as Stephen Douglas and Abraham
Lincoln stumped the country in their increasingly virulent
debates--the abolition cause was suddenly strengthened from
another quarter. For almost a year after Garrison
rejected it, Gamaliel Baileyfs National Era had been
running a serial story by a little known author, one
Harriet Beecher Stowe. By the end of the eleventh week of
the serial Mrs. Stowe was famous. Men who had not read a
book in years propped up their feet on their grocery
counters and settled their spectacles. Women neglected
their washing and the darning of socks. "Who is this Mrs.
Stowe?" they began to ask (p. 221).
The moral impact as well as the entertainment value of
Uncle Tories Cabin was tremendous. People began to
inquire into the credibility of the characters. Mrs. Stowe
told how the Underground Railroad had run through her
Cincinnati home— that the people of her novel were real
people.
1 ?
-^Quoted by Anna L. Curtis, Stories of the Underground
Railroad (New York, I9I 4 .I), p. v.
13stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life Among the Lowly
(Hartford, 190TT7-
103
Mrs. Stowe described her meeting with Uncle Tom.
The great black slow-speaking Josiah Henson in Boston
on a mission from his institute in Canada, told her
of his father who, with his ear nailed to a post,
had been beaten into stupefication, of his mother
sold to another master. He confirmed the story of .
Eliza and her husband--he knew them well in Canada.
Other significant characters in the book apparently
were based on contemporary figures. Henrietta Buckmaster
finds numerous instances bearing out this statement,
notably the Quakers Simeon Halliday and Rachel Halliday,
who were drawn from Levi Coffin and his wife, Catherine
Coffin (above, p. 90).
Mrs. Stowe’s description of these veteran Quaker
philanthropists in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is altogether a
favorable one. They are introduced to the reader as the
Quakers who save George and Eliza Harris after her thrilling
escape across the frozen Ohio River. Rachel Halliday,
quietly rocking in her flag-bottomed chair in the large
"neatly painted kitchen" and speaking comforting words to
the desperate young mother, seems to epitomize the gentle
yet strong Quaker womanhood in America of that day. The
serenity of Rachel Halliday's face and manner did much to
calm the frightened slave girl and win her confidence.
Simeon Halliday, "a tall, straight, muscular man in
drab coat and pantaloons, and broad-brimmed hat," is
pictured as a warm-hearted host to the refugees, deeply
-^Buckmaster, p. 222.
10k
interested in their plight and standing ready to help them
in every practicable way.
As George and Eliza and their child listen to the
kindly Quaker accents--to the simple phrases, ’ ’Hadn't thee
better?” or "Thee had better” uttered in a controlled and
gentle tone of voice (in contrast to the harsh voices of
the white men they had known)— they feel that they are
indeed among friends. This friendly atmosphere is enhanced I
by the arrival of ”a little round, pin-cushiony woman"
named Ruth Stedman, who is overjoyed at being able to aid
poor Eliza with her baby. She is like a ray of sunshine
entering the room. "Thee uses thyself only to learn how
to love thy neighbor," said Simeon Halliday to Ruth
(p. 154).
But there are more than words of comfort in this
disciplined Friendly household. There is fortitude and
there is faith--and there is a capacity for effective
action. When Phineas Fletcher, a Quaker friend of the
family, brings the startling news that George and Eliza are 1
being hotly pursued by the slave trader, Tom Loker, every
thing is business and dispatch. A wagon and fleet horses
are prepared, word is sent ahead to the next "station" of
the Underground Railroad, and Phineas Fletcher engages to
drive the refugees there himself.
In the exciting description of the refugees' escape
from their pursuers by climbing to a rocky ledge difficult
105
J to scale, we have the rather amusing picture of Phineas
:Fletcher, a "convinced Friend,” boldly pushing the slaver,
:Tom Loker, down the chasm. As he does so he calmly
remarks, "Friend, thee isn't wanted here" (p. 221).
The Christian charity prompting the distraught Negro
I slaves and their Quaker guide to help the unscrupulous
Loker into their wagon and drive him to Grandma: Stephens,
a nurse on a nearby farm, is typical of the Quaker belief
! that men should do good to those that hate them (p. 22i{.) .
The propaganda impact of Uncle Tom was tremendous.
In the years Immediately following its publication a number
■ of rebuttal novels appeared, seeking to defend the hard-
1E>
pressed institution of slavery. ^ One of these rebuttal
Jnovels clearly aiming to belittle the far-reaching effects
:of Mrs. Stowe's popular arraignment of slavery in Uncle Tom
is entitled The Olive Branch or White Oak Farm, published
anonymously in 1857* White Oak, a Virginia plantation
■^Jeanette Reid Tandy throws light on this subject in
Jan article entitled "Pro-Slavery Propaganda in Americ'an
jFiction of the Fifties" (The South Atlantic Quarterly,
21:ij.l-5l> 170-78). Her comment follows: "Perhaps the most
interesting and varied group of purpose-fiction In mid-
:century America is composed of the replies to Uncle Tom's
Cabin. In 1852, In response to the emotional appeal of
:Mrs. Stowe, the South began what would now be called a
;literary propaganda. Besides the numerous controversial
pamphlets and articles in periodicals there were no fewer
than fourteen pro-slavery novels and one long poem pub
lished in the three years (1852-5^-) following the appear
ance of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Evidently there was a
spontaneous movement to combat Mrs. Stowe's fire with fire."
(P. lj.l)
106 j
owned by a lovable Irishman named Colonel Lawrence, is a
veritable Virginia Utopia for the Negro slave. Everyone
from the lame overseer, Basil, to the mischievous Turvy, is :
depicted as dwelling in a state of bliss that savors rather |
too strongly of the Garden of Eden in its superhuman,
harmony. Slavery is pictured as not only a happier state
than freedom for the Southern Negro, but one which bears
the authority of Scriptural sanction as well.
The Quaker characters are few. Uriah Sneckman and his
wife, Priscilla (a rather un-Quakerly name), shelter the
Negro, Tip, who has requested his freedom from the master
of White Oak and gone to Philadelphia. Friend Uriah is
glad to offer the former slave occupation as a house servant
for regular wages. Later he journeys to White Oak in
company with Tip and there beholds plantation life at its
best and is agreeably impressed with the colonel, his
charming daughter, Jeannie, the idol of the colored folks,
and the kindly treatment accorded the large retinue of
slaves held in a state of willing servitude. Later Uriah
purchases a tract of land from Colonel Lawrence and moves
to Virginia.
Some of the debates between the freed slave Tip and
his new Northern master in which the colored man defends
slavery and the Quaker master attacks it, are humorously
l^See The Olive Branch or White Oak Farm (Philadelphia,,
1857)> Preface, p. i j . ; pp. 30, 6 > I p , 108.
107
presented, as for example the following piece of dialetic
[from the mouth of Tip:
"Now, I's serus, massa. De f ac' am dis yer. De
Lor* never meant dat all people was to have 'quality
in every respec'. If dey had, dar could be no
masters and no servantsj and den what is de folks to
do dat isn't fit to be masters? Dey'll jes' loaf
about like de culled members of s'ciety sich as I has
seen about Baker Street and dat neighborhood. . . .
Dey's too pore to live and too lazy to work." (P. 305)
Had the Southern plantation life at large actually
been as idealistic as is portrayed in White Oak Farm, there
iwould surely have been little occasion for the stirring
;speeches and writings of the abolitionists previously
referred to, nor indeed for the dynamic attacks on the
evils of the institution in Uncle Tom's Cabin. It is,
however, interesting to note that although there is con
siderable pro-slavery prejudice in the author's treatment
of the whole slavery issue, his portrayal of Uriah as a
friend to the freedom-loving Tip is in no way satirical or
unfair.
; An anti-slavery novel in which Uncle Tom's Cabin helps
:to provide motivation for the events of the narrative is
;Rhoda of the Underground (New York, 1909), by Florence
;Finch Kelly, who comments concerning the far-reaching
• influence of Uncle Tom:
«
The influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin upon the eourse :
of events preceding the Civil War is proof of how much
more ready we Americans are to be moved by our emotions
than by argument, of how much more willing we are to
108
think with our hearts than with our heads (p. 30).
Dr. Amos Ware, an Ohio abolitionist doctor, casually
places a copy of* the inflammable story in the hands of his
daughter Rhoda, whom he hopes to win to the anti-slavery
cause. The idea soon bears fruit, although as a result
the Ware family becomes divided on the crucial issue of
slavery. Rhoda’s ardent Southern lover, Jeff Delavan,
represents the more honorable type of plantation owner who
was kind to his slaves. Rhoda's Puritan conscience,
however, will not permit her to accede to his proposals of
marriage on account of. her deep-dyed convictions of the
moral evil of slavery. She is strengthened in her
resolution by the Quakers Daniel and Rachel Benedict.
Rhoda, having thrown herself wholeheartedly into the
anti-slavery movement, even to the point of aiding her
father in his sacrificial participation in the Underground
Railroad, finds herself on a steamboat on the Ohio River
protecting a fugitive slave, Mary Ellen. The woman is
captured on the wharf and Rhoda Ware is thrown into jail.
Here her Quaker friends promptly call on her, attempting
to administer comfort and to offer advice. Daniel Benedict
manages to extricate the slave girl from the mob which has
gathered near the jail, and ultimately spirits her away
from the slave agents and puts her on the secret grapevine
route toward Canada. Rhoda's intense self-blame for her
carelessness in allowing Mary Ellen to be captured on the
1091
wharf is answered by the Quakeress, who declares more in
Roman Catholic than in Quaker terms: "We have got to sweat
and suffer stripes ourselves for the evil that is in us if j
we are to be purged of our sins" (p. 301).
Another novel which is strongly suggestive of Uncle
Tom's Cabin is Ellwood Griest's John and Mary (l873)."*~^
While there is nothing in the story quite to match Eliza's
flight across the frozen Ohio River, there is an exciting
adventure of the Negress Mary Evans in her escape from her j
cruel owners, and after her temporary capture on the banks
of the Octorora River in Chester County, Pennsylvania, •
close to the Maryland line.
The two elderly Quakers, Billy and Margaret Brown, who:
shelter Mary and her husband and infant son, Charlie, are
well portrayed. Their house by Brown's Ford was in reality
one of the many secret stations of the Underground Railroad*
which passed through this southern section of Pennsylvania.;
Except for the Browns, husband and wife, the Quaker
character element in the story is slight. Some casual
reference is made, however, to the well known Orthodox-
Hicksite controversy of 1827» the latter faction being !
spoken of as the more "liberal" branch of the Society of
Friends.
• ^ - 7 john and Mary, or the Fugitive Slaves (Lancaster,
Pa., 1873) t Preface, pi 5"!
no :
The anxiety with which these isolated Friends received j
the runaway slaves is emphasized. They seem less audacious
than Simeon and Rachel Halliday in Uncle Tom, but Billy
Brown and his courageous spouse do not seriously hesitate
to incur personal risk in sheltering the two Negro fugi
tives. The conviction that they were doing right is
sufficient to persuade them to accept instantly their new
and dangerous responsibility.
This attitude is typical of the Friends throughout the
whole Civil War period. It demonstrates one of their noble j
characteristics— the willingness to suffer for conscience1
sake.
Another aspect of the Quaker way of life set forth in ;
this Civil War novel is asceticism. Whereas this almost
monastic attitude toward all that was beautiful and particu
larly colorful in the world was characteristic of some
members of the Society of Friends, others, especially the
youth of the Society, frequently rebelled against the
stern restrictions of the more austere members. The
following passage in John and Mary expresses this rigidness
of viewpoint:
In those days the members of that society were much
more exacting than at the present time. Music was
forbidden in their families, and dancing was a sin
scarcely to be atoned for. Any appearance of gayety
in dress was frowned down as a sin that should receive
no quarter. The elderly Friends wore their clothes of
their plainest cut and color, and while to the younger
members were allowed some latitude in this respect,
there were certain bounds beyond which they were not
I l l
permitted to go. The young men were permitted to
wear coats of soft brown or dark color; but they did
not give to the elderly members that supreme satis
faction they enjoyed at seeing a youthful Friend
clad in drab. Any color, however, could be better
tolerated than blue.l°
An excellent juvenile novel of the Underground Rail
road, written with verve and considerable realism, is
Marjorie Hill Allee1s Susanna and Tristram (1929). The
events of the story are chiefly focussed around Levi Coffin.
Some of the thrilling incidents which the novel relates are
without doubt based upon events in the life of this quiet
man, who was a thorn*in the side of many a Southern slave
owner.
The heroine of the novel is a pretty young cousin of
Levi's named Susanna Coffin, who migrates from North
Carolina to Ohio with her young brother, Tristram. They
soon find lodging and work with a good German woman named
Rammelsberg, whose name they temporarily assume as a
disguise, in order that Susanna may more successfully
assist her cousin in passing on the slaves through his
Cincinnati "station” to points of greater safety farther on.
To this exciting career the Quaker lass devotes herself
eagerly.
iSp. 26. Cf. Marguerite's reaction to her Aunt s
Hephsibah in Weir Mitchell's Hephsibah Guinness (above),
and Dencey Coffin's rebellious feelings in Snedecker's
Downright Dencey (below).
112 :
The picture of Levi and Catherine Coffin presented in
Susanna and Tristram is like the previous descriptions
presented in this chapter. Levi is pictured as a prosperous
business man whose greatest interest centers around the
philanthropic endeavors of the Quakers engaged in the Under
ground Railroad. Although he fears at first to compromise
the safety of his young cousin from North Carolina, he soon;
abandons these scruples because of his fervent interest in
the anti-slavery movement. Thinking that a newly arrived
girl from another state could be little suspected by the
slavery men, he engages Susanna more and more in the
process of helping to pass on the fugitives to the Canadian
border. In one such adventure Susanna is wounded by a
rifle shot by a slave trader, but quickly recovers from the I
effects,
A rather digressive novel which gathers together
various episodes of fact and tradition under the guise of a ;
fictionized biography is The Entailed Hat (1881}.), by George ;
Alfred Townsend. It is a tale of old Maryland aristocracy
strangely blended with the story of Patty Cannon, a
legendary female kidnapper of Negroes.
A Quaker appears in one dramatic scene only. This is
an assault upon Cowgill House by Van Dorn and his ruffian
gang of Negro stealers. Van Dorn, working hand and glove
with the notorious Patty, has led a well planned attack on
the Delaware mansion, with the intention of kidnapping a
113;
large group of free Negroes. But the kidnappers are
suddenly surprised by a volley of bullets from the aroused
Negroes within and Van Dorn is seized in the vise-like grip
of the Quaker, Jonathan Hunn, who hurls him through an
upstairs window.
When the Delaware magistrate Clayton and Judge Curtis
hear of this exploit from the mouth of the militant Friend
himself, Clayton exclaims, "Goyl Quakers will set other
people on, won’t they?""^
Some casual references to the Underground Railroad
occur in the novel, and in one place the Quaker Thomas
Garret of Wilmington, Delaware, is briefly mentioned for
his philanthropic interest in helping the black men to
achieve their freedom (pp. l\.02, .
An anti-slavery novel filled with excitement and local
color interest is J. T. Trowbridge’s Cud.jo’s Cave (New York,
186L|_). The story deals with the mountainous country of
Tennessee at the time of the Civil War. It concerns a
Quaker schoolmaster, Pehn Hapgood, his lover Virginia
Villars, her aged blind father, a pair of escaped Negro
slaves named Pomp and Cudjo, and several low white charac
ters, mostly masquerading as Confederate soldiers and
sympathizers. Opposed to these is a small band of
^George Alfred Townsend, The Entailed Hat, or Patty
Cannon’s Times (New York, 1884) > p4"35’.
I l k
Unionists led by a sturdy fellow named Stackridge.
The story, according to the preface, purports to be
founded on fact except for various minor alterations. Its |
setting is the small town of Curryville, Tennessee, and its
environs, where Penn Hapgood, a young Pennsylvania Quaker, ■
has gone on the philanthropic errand of teaching the poor
and ignorant "mountain whites." At the opening of the tale
the well-meaning youth is set upon by a band of ruffians,
who tar and feather him for his Quaker convictions and his
Unionistic leanings. This Penn bears with true Christian
fortitude, but later when he sees the lengths of brutality I
to which Silas Ropes and his gang will go he modifies his j
extreme pacifism and assumes a moderate or middle ground
position regarding the right to resist .unprovoked aggres
sion. This change of conviction is expressed in the
following passage:
"I know," he said, "that it is still the highest
doctrine. But am I equal to it? Can I under all
circumstances live up to it? I have seen something
of the power and recklessness of the faction that
would destroy my country. Would I wish to see my
country submit? Never. (P. 110)
The evolution of Penn Hapgood's concept of Christian
duty in war time constitutes the chief Quaker element in
the story. I consider that Penn is a far more convincing
Quaker in the earlier part of this novel when he courag
eously submits to physical insult than after he has modified
his philosophy. It has been shown earlier in this study
n 5 i
(Chapter III) that there is a definite "fighting Quaker"
category. Penn seems to belong to no genuine branch of
Quakerdom.
Lydia C. Wood’s The Haydocks’ Testimony (London, 1907)
deals primarily with the "conscientious objector" in the
state of North Carolina during the period of the Civil War.;
Slavery is to some extent an issue in the story. The slave
girl Rosa, and Dan, her husband, formerly owned by the
Haydocks, play a minor role, as does Jingo, the little
colored waif rescued through the generosity of Molly
Ilaydock. But the slavery issue is subordinate here to the
: issue of pacifism.
The dominant characters of the book are James and
Prances Haydock--both convinced Friends— who consistently
adhere to the Quaker doctrine of non-resistance. The
former bears his cross into the battle of Petersburg in
Virginia. Refusing to bear arms or to purchase his
redemption with cash, he suffers the slander of the Con
federate officers, one of whom, a Colonel Preston, is
finally converted to Christianity through the testimony of
the Quaker prisoner. Various instances of actual perse
cution of non-combatant Friends in North Carolina by
Southern military men are cited in an appendix to the novel.:
The long discussions on such subjects as the inspir
ation of Scripture carried on by James Haydock and his
1 1 6 (
future son-in-law in the Confederate Army, seem to be
stretching a point, even for Quaker testimony. Historical ;
instances of imprisoned Friends testifying to their
captors are more concerned with the evils of war or the
taking of oaths than on such a question as the plenary
inspiration of the Bible.
Henry Ward Beecher’s New England idyll, Norwood (1868),
presents a delightful picture of the elm-guarded Connecticut
village, full of honest, thrifty Yankee citizens who are
contrasted with the pleasure-loving, leisurely Southern
aristocrats.*^ This is pointed up through the acquaintance
at Amherst College of the ambitious young farmer's son Biah;
Cathcart and the well-to-do Virginian Tom Heywood.
The favorable description of the typical Quaker home
of Dr. Wentworth's friends, the Hetheringtons, constitutes
the chief touch in the novel specifically bearing on the
present subject. The sensitive and cultured Dr. Wentworth
is strongly impressed by the genuine beauty, devoid of
outward ostentation, of the comfortable house of his Quaker
friends, the Hetheringtons. His comments upon neatness are;
especially significant with regard to a dominant virtue of
Quaker character. Also Mr. Hetherington's argument against'
color as being of worldly origin must be accepted as
20j|orwood or Village Life in New England (New York,
1868).....................
1 1 7 i
inherent in the austerity of the Quaker faith. This
Quaker quarrel with color crops up from time to time in
various stories. It is, of pourse, a left-over from the
early Quaker protest against ritualism in church worship
together with the quest for simplicity in all aspects of
daily life.
In any period of national storm and stress there are
usually some writers who are more concerned with the
everyday happenings of human existence or with the perennial
beauties of nature than with the violence of clashing
ideologies often resulting in bloodshed or war. Such a
writer was Robert Herrick In his Devonshire manse at the
time of the struggle between the Royalists and the Puritans i
In seventeenth century England. Herrick's poems speak
eloquently and simply of the village life of rural England-4
not of the Civil Wars.
Bayard Taylor's The Story of Rennett (dealt with in
Chapter III) and The Quakeress (Philadelphia, 1905) by
Charles Heber Clark (Max Adler) are in much the same vein.
Ignoring the provocative issue of slavery altogether, the
latter novel, whose story commences in 1861, is a splendid
picture of rural Pennsylvania and Maryland at the critical
hour of the life and death struggle of the forces of the
Union and the Confederacy. The war does play a part in the
novel, for it presents the climactic scene of the battle of
Antietam, in which Clayton Harley, one of the principals in ;
1181
the story, is killed.
The Quakeress, however, is primarily a well-told rural
tale with a tragic triangle composed of the charming Quakerj
girl Abby.Woolford, the sturdy Quaker farmer George
Potherly, Abby’s lover from childhood, and the attractive
and somewhat unscrupulous Marylander, Clayton Harley. Many;
elements of Quaker faith and practice come out in this
story. The peaceful and comfortable Quaker home belonging
to Isaac and Rachel Woolford, close by the Episcopal
rectory, forms the basic setting of the novel. Its calm
atmosphere helps to shape the character of Abby Woolford.
But underneath the mild Friendly exterior Abby possesses a I
keenly-alive woman’s heart too easily swayed from the
conventional pattern in which she was nurtured. George
Fotherly represents the conscientious and well-disciplined
type of Quaker manhood, at once thrifty, cautious, mystical,
and deeply emotional. The description of.his sermon or
message at Plymouth Meeting demonstrates his profoundly
mystical side. The scene of his horseback ride with the
scintillating and coquettish Dolly Harley, his dangerous
approach to an infatuation for the Southern belle, illus
trates his genuine emotional nature and humanity. The
inward struggle to overcome this ’ ’worldly passion” likewise |
is true to the more austere aspects of Quaker restraint.
Basically George’s deep unselfish love for Abby Woolford is
the dominating force in his life and overcomes all in the
The sincerity and pathos of the novel elevate it for
;its universal human traits as much as for its genuine
description of a Quakeress. The author has grasped many of
the deepest feelings and aspirations of the Society of
Friends— its profound mystical approach to life, its stern
:self-discipline, its simplicity, and its moral integrity.
The theme of the novel is the clash between the natural
love of Abby Woolford for Clayton Harley and her conviction
of right based upon her Quaker belief in the inward
guidance of God in the human heart.
Another novel based on rural Pennsylvania environment
is Caroline Atwater Mason’s A Windflower (Philadelphia,
:l899). This story, praised by Caroline Crew (p. 252) as
one of the best pieces of fiction in its true Quaker
character delineation, deals with domestic life in the
village of Coalport, presumably Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
It presents a well drawn contrast between Quaker simplicity!
I and Episcopalian sophistication in such characters as Moses
Herendean and his daughters, Mary and Eunice, on the one
ihand, and Father Norman and the Barringer family on the j
other.
The author is evidently familiar with the deeper j
significance of Quakerism. Mary Herendean best illustrates
this through the high seriousness of her life, her mystical:
120
cast of mind, her abhorrence of sham and also of all
superfluous (to her) ritual in worship. An exceptionally
good description of an old-fashioned Friends meeting is
given in this novel, with the impressive scene of white-
haired Moses Herendean delivering his message to the silent;
worshippers. In contrast to this is the cultured Father
Norman in his priestly robes ministering to the sophisti
cated congregation in the aesthetic surroundings of St.
Cuthbert1s Episcopal Church.
The fiction dealing with the Civil War period, as
might be supposed, is chiefly centered around the theme of
slavery. The Underground Railroad plays a prominent part
in the action of several of the books. Uncle Tomrs Cabin
is a prominent example of such novels. It also forms a
link with other Civil War stories. For example, we find
Florence Finch Kelly’s Rhoda of the Underground and Ellwood I
Griest's John and Mary both referring specifically to
Uncle Tom. George Alfred Townsend’s The Entailed Hat and
Marjorie Hill Allee’s Susanna and Tristram, a girls’
juvenile, also deal with various aspects of the Underground i
Railroad. The figure of Levi Coffin plays a prominent role j
in three novels— Uncle Tom's Cabin, Rhoda of the Underground;,
and Susanna and Tristram. White Oak Farm, although dealing
with slavery, is to be regarded as a propaganda novel of the
pro-slavery group seeking to undermine the popularity of
121 |
Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom.
Two stories, J. T. Trowbridge's Cud.jo's Cave and L.
C. Wood's Haydock&1 Testimony, give some idea of the perse-!
cution of the Quaker conscientious objector in the Civil
War period. Penn Hapgood in the former novel represents
the more timid and at the same time more open-minded Friend,
while James Haydock typifies the uncompromising Quaker,
thoroughly convinced of the evil of all warfare, who
cannot participate in any form of military service.
Max Adler's moving rural novel, The Quakeress, almost
entirely ignores the stirring events of the Civil War,
except in one passage dealing with the Battle of Antietam.
;Its concern is with a pathetic love triangle between a
Quaker girl, Abby Woolford, a Quaker farmer, George
Motherly, and a young Maryland plantation owner, Clayton
Harley. The emphasis here, as well as in Henry Ward
Beecher's Norwood, is on domestic problems growing out of
a Quaker environment. Of the two The Quakeress is by far
the more effective.
It is obvious that the role of the Quaker in the Civil
;War fiction is closely related to the dynamic role which
the Quaker played historically in helping bring about the
■ultimate destruction of slavery in the United States. Both
;in fact and in story the Friends have had a prominent part j
in the freeing of the slave and establishing him as an j
honorable member of American citizenry. |
CHAPTER V
THE QUAKER AS A CHARACTER IN CERTAIN SPECIFIC TYPES
OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
In the present chapter, which is concerned with post-
;Civil War fiction, it seems advantageous to consider
certain specific fictional uses of the Quaker as a charac
ter under four headings. After calling attention to the
historical significance of Nantucket and New Bedford as
whaling ports, I shall discuss the Quaker characters in
Melville's renowned novel Moby Dick. Next, I shall con
sider the Quaker in the new popular genre of the juvenile
as it has developed in the United States since 1889.
Several of these stories have their setting in the salty
atmosphere of Nantucket Island. Also, I have investigated
the Quaker in the dime novel, showing that even in this
more limited field of sensational fiction the Quaker plays
a definite although a minor role. In addition, I have
attempted to state the significance of the diverse
materials presented in this chapter.
I. THE QUAKER IN NANTUCKET
The history of New Bedford, Massachusetts, is
definitely related to the story of the great whaling fleets
■which sailed from this port to visit the seven seas in
123!
their search for maritime riches. Both Hew Bedford and
Nantucket Island are rich in the lore of old salts’ tales
of sea adventures, of hazardous exploits in cannibal
islands, and ships which failed to return. In the
fictional accounts of the whaling days, the Quaker appears :
again and again as a character.
Quakers are prominent in the lists of early settlers
in these two Hew England localities and were connected with:
the mercantile as well as the religious life of the inhabi
tants. Joseph Anthony's diary entitled Life in Hew Bedford:
a Hundred Years Ago^ contains much valuable information on i
the former port, while Alexander Starbuck’s History of
Nantucket gives a detailed account of the history and
2
government of the latter. Starbuck's volume also contains!
interesting genealogies of the early settlers, in which the:
names of prominent early Friends appear. In 1659 Tristram
Coffin (a name which was to become notable in later Quaker
history and in literature even in our time) together with
nine other proprietors purchased Nantucket Island from
Thomas Mayhew. In May, 1660, the Indian sachems, Wanach-
mamaeh and Nichanoose, also granted a formal deed to the
~ * ~ Life in New Bedford a Hundred Years Ago: A Diary Kept j
by Joseph R. Anthony, Zephaniah W. Pease, ed., published
under auspices The Old Dartmouth Historical Society, by
George H. Reynolds (New Bedford, Mass., 1925), pp. 5-lo.
2
The History of Nantucket County. Island, and Town
(Boston^ 192lf)‘ , pp • IB-21. See also Russell, 'The History
of Quakerism, pp. 200-01.
12k
same ten proprietors as further confirmation of the rights j
! of transfer. Edward Starbuck, Isaac Coleman, Richard Swain
; and Peter Polger were among the early Quaker settlers of
the island. Thomas Macy, although at this time probably a j
Baptist, appears as a character in Caroline Snedecker1s
: juvenile novel, Uncharted Ways (above, Chap. II, p. 52).^
In her novel A Quaker Girl of Old Nantucket (Boston
and New York, 1925), Mary Catherine Lee makes the following;
; pertinent comment on these well-known Quaker families:
It is impossible for a transplanted offshoot of an
old Nantucket family to remain transplanted long
enough to find himself without relationship in the
island. A little genealogical research will supply
him with a large family connection with blood some
what mixed and diluted, it is true, but while one
has a single drop of the original current in his
veins, he Is analytically a Macy, a Starbuck, a
Coffin, a Swain, a Gardner or a Folger. (P. 305)
The two old ports vied with each other for a number of
years for the leadership in the whaling industry. For many
years Nantucket maintained the supremacy, but in 1829 New
I Bedford, by then a rising commercial city of 12,000
inhabitants, passed its older rival and became recognized
as the world's largest whaling port. In 1838 there were
170 whaling vessels owned by New Bedford parties.^- Never
theless, Nantucket has appealed more to the writers of
^fiction as a locale than its more prosperous successor.
I :
■^Starbuck, p. 17.
^-Emma L. Gartland, A Brief History of New Bedford !
;.(New Bedford, Mass., 193^), p. 7. ~ ' _ I
125
It is only natural that the whaling enterprises of the
mid-nineteenth century, fraught as they were with a spirit
of romantic adventure, should lead to the writing of some
£
descriptive fiction on this subject.
II. THE QUAKER IN MOBY DICK
Among those stories which relate, with authentic
detail and magnificent description, the lives of the New
Bedford and Nantucket whalers, Herman Melville's Moby Dick
(1851) is, of course, the greatest. This novel, however,
with its great originality of thought and astonishingly
vivid descriptions of all types of whales and other inhabi
tants of the sea, gives very little space to the Nantucket
Quaker. Only two retired sea captains, Captain Peleg and
Captain Bildad, definitely represent the maritime Quaker of
Nantucket Island. These two worthies with their crass
materialism are a far cry from the traditionally altruistic
Friend. They display all the provincial New England
prejudices of the local islanders, who were suspicious of
anyone hailing from any region farther away than Cape Cod
or Martha's Vineyard. It would not be too difficult a feat
of the imagination to transplant these rascally Quakers
£
■^The history of such famous New Bedford whaling fleets
as the Wing Fleet, the Stone Fleet, and the Arctic Fleet,
is related with much detail in Pardon B. Gifford's and
William F. Williams' account entitled Famous Fleets in New
Bedford's History (New Bedford, Mass., no "'"date) ' ”
from the deck of the Pequod to the deck of the Hispaniola,
for the ship owners and the competitive merchants of
whaling New England appear to have as much of Long John
Silver as of Woolman in their natures. Of the pair, Bildad|
is the more unscrupulous in his religious hypocrisy, and it
is only because of some latent strain of Quaker fairness on
the part of Peleg that poor Ishraael on his first voyage on ;
a whaling ship receives any adequate sort of terms. A
glimpse into Bildad's character is afforded in the following
description:
Now Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of
being an incorrigible old hunks and in his sea-going
days, a bitter hard task-master. They told me in
Nantucket, though it certainly seems a curious story,
that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his
crew, upon arriving home ware mostly all carried
ashore to the hospital, sore exhausted and worn out.
For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, he was
certainly rather hard-hearted to say the least.°
The usual Quaker gentleness of demeanor was completely
replaced by the miserly acquisitiveness and hardness of
manner which have appeared in some characters previously
treated, such as John Wynne and Caleb Hazelwood.^
Yet Melville, with his wide experience in observing
character under many strains and stresses, appears to make
room in his thinking for even these inconsistencies. In
^Melville, Moby Dick or the White Whale (New York,
1925), p. 67.
^See above, Chap. Ill, pp. 65 and 68.
127!
;such comments as the following, something of tolerance for [
human frailties is evidenced: ;
So that there are instances among them /the Quakers/
of men who, named with Scripture names--a singularly
common fashion on the island--and in childhood
naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou
of the Quaker idiom; still from the audacious, daring,
and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives,
strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities,
a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a
Scandinavian sea-king or a poetical Pagan Roman. (P. 66)
With regard to the authenticity of such strange
characters in the Nantucket of Melville's day Van Wyck
Brooks offers this pertinent comment:
There were actually to be seen in the Nantucket of
the forties such figures as Queequeg and Fedallah,
just as there were old fighting Quakers with a o ;
vengeance, lords of whales like Bildad and Peleg.
Over against such strangely blended characters as
;Captains Bildad and Peleg we have the more stable, consis
tent personality of Ahab's first mate, Starbuck. As I have
I just pointed out in this chapter, the Starbuck family were
I among the earliest Quaker settlers in Nantucket. While it
is nowhere stated that Starbuck is a Quaker, there are
sufficient minor details and incidents in the novel
revealing Quaker character traits to suggest that this
possibility may have been in the author's mind. In one
instance Starbuck, a serious-minded man, chides Stubb for
singing during the typhoon; Starbuck deems such behavior
Q
"Notes on Herman Melville," in Emerson and Others
(New York, 1927), p. 203.
128
unworthy of a brave man (p. I4J4.7).
A short time later when the courageous mate stands
uncertainly before Captain Ahab's cabin door, debating
within himself the advisability of taking a loaded musket
and shooting the monomaniac Ahab in his bed, it is the
imperious voice of conscience that forbids the act--an
inner light from within the sailor's soul (p. i|_5>7) • The
scene is a powerful one, suggesting almost inevitably
Macbeth's tense moment of indecision before the murder of
Duncan.
Regarding Starbuck, Lewis Mumford comments:
The chief mate, Starbuck, is a Quaker by descent, a
’ ’long earnest man, and though born on an icy coast
seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes.” . . .
Starbuck is conscientious, prudent, inclined to
respect outward portents and inward presentiments:
above all the memory of his young Cape wife and child
bent the welded iron in his soul.9
Less convincing is C. L. R. James' assertion that Ahab
is a sort of renegade Quaker. The same writer holds that
Ahab is likewise the prime symbol in Moby Dick of totali
tarianism as conceived in the present day and his religion
is the religion of his age--materialism.
In view of the subtlety of some of the symbolism which
pervades Moby Dick the question naturally arises whether
^Herman Melville (New York, 1929), p. 162^.
IQMariners, Renegades and Castaways: the Story of
Herman Melville and the World We Live In (New York'. 1953) >
pp." 1 +, 6, 77.
129
there may be any hidden meaning to Melville's descriptions i
of the Quaker characters in his novel germane to the over
all theme. Verna Iris Gale, in a recent study of Melville's
heroes, observes that the obscurity of many of the allego
ries results from the fact that the author himself seems
not to have worked them out in final detail before, he
11
wrote. This view is substantiated by a letter from
Melville to Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne, written January 8,
185> 2, in which he writes:
I had some vague idea that while writing it /Moby Dick/'' j
the whole book was susceptible of an allegorical con
struction and also parts of it were--but the specialty
of many of the particular subordinate allegories were
first revealed to me after reading Mr. Hawthorne's
letter.12
Perhaps sufficient reason for the extraordinary
character portrayal of Bildad and Peleg is found in the
fact that Melville was passing through a mood of deep
despondency at the time of writing Moby Dick. He would
therefore be more alert to observing the sham piety rather
than the true virtues of humanity. It seems evident that
the vices Melville is striking at in Bildad and Peleg are
religious hypocrisy and an unbecoming materialistic phil
osophy wholly out of keeping with the tenets of the FriendsJ
ll"Herman Melville and His Heroes," unpublished
Master's thesis, Occidental College, 19J|8, p. 6L f . .
l^An unpublished Letter from Herman Melville to Mrs.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, in Herman Melville: Representative
Selections, ed. by Willard Thorp (New York, 1938), p. lxxii.^
130
For with all his skepticism Herman Melville had a basic
sincerity of character which was closely akin to religious
fervor. Hawthorne, who last visited with Melville in
Liverpool in 1851, writes in his Journal on November 30 of
the same year:
He can neither believe nor be comfortable in his
disbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not
to do one or the other. If he were a religious man
he would be one of the most truly religious and
reverential. 13
Whatever his religious bias or his motive in spot
lighting the special idiosyncracies of Bildad and Peleg, it;
should always be held in mind that Herman Melville is at
heart a great story-teller, and no one can deny that in the:
Nantucket of the 'lj:0's and '50's there was rich material
for exploitation as romantic adventure.
III. THE QUAKER IN THE JUVENILE NOVEL
In addition to Melville's renowned masterpiece there
are two lively boys' juvenile novels of the sea, both of
•^Quoted in Raymond M. Weaver, Herman Melville,
Mariner and Mystic (New York, 1921), p. 336* Lawrence
Thompson in his recent book, Melville's Quarrel With God
(Princeton, 1952), goes so far as to charge Melville with
a hidden attack on Christianity in White Jacket. Thompson
says: "I have suggested that Melville's development of
allegorical insinuations in White Jacket was designed to
achieve an ironic and satirical effect; that he permitted
his narrator to speak in pious praise of certain familiar
Christian concepts; but that Melville contrived to endow
these passages, and to endow the entire allegorical
structure, with a covert and sinister meaning which is
essentially anti-Christian" (p. 112).
1311
which contain Quaker sea captains who play minor roles.
These stories, both appearing in 192£, are George F.
Tucker's The Boy Whaleman and Henry A. Pulsford's Old Brig's:
Cargo. I find no fiction dealing with the Quaker in the
role of mariner or ship owner published after l8j?l and
before 1925-
The Boy Whaleman is filled with descriptions of the
whaling industry that are appealing to the mature reader
as well. Some of these, such as the detailed account of
three major types of whales in the third chapter of the
story may, without much apology, be compared with the
descriptions of the sperm whale and the right whale in
Moby Dick. New Bedford-born in 1852 of a long line of
Quaker ancestry, Tucker had opportunity to learn first hand:
the ways of clipper ships and whaling vessels and to hear
the tales of old salts who were familiar with the far
corners of the earth where the ever-eager captains sought
their strange treasures of the sea.1^
As in Melville's novel, the Quaker element in The Boy
Whaleman is rather slight. The Quaker merchant is a stern :
but kindly man, who at first demurs about hiring so young
a seaman as the inexperienced Homer Bleechly. He decides
to accept Bleechly chiefly because of his physical size and j
fitness to be a sailor.
-^i-See The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography
(New York, 1909) , XI, pTlBl. ’ .'..'..I
132;
When the Seabird has returned to New Bedford after her-
three years' voyage through the seven seas in search of
whale oil and whale bone, the crew appear before the Quaker
merchant. Lucky beyond ordinary vessels, the Seabird has
brought back a three hundred pound lump of ambergris. An
insight into the fairness and also stubbornness of the
Quaker character is afforded in the Quaker merchant's
bargain when this valuable substance is sold. Addressing
himself to a lawyer apparently representing the captain
:and demanding an exorbitant amount for the treasure, the
Quaker rejoins in positive manner:
We have had no trouble in agreeing on the value of
the oil and bone as a basis of settlement and now the
only difference relates to this lump of ambergris
weighing three hundred pounds. . . . The highest price
it is likely to bring is not three hundred thousand
dollars but seventy thousand dollars. I naturally
assume some risk as to quality and price. I will
settle on the basis of sixty-five thousand dollars,
and, if that isn't satisfactory, thee may bring suit
or do anything else thee pleases.15
This decisiveness of character settles the question on the
spot. The lawyer and his client accept the amount offered
without more ado. The wealthy ship-owner of The Boy
■ Whaleman possesses as much business acumen as the retired
mariners of Moby Dick, but there is blended in this
gentleman more refinement of manner and genuine sense of
fair play.
^ The Boy Whaleman (Boston, 1925), p. 277.
133
A good boys’ adventure tale of pirates and treasure
troves is Henry A. Pulsford's sea story, Old Brig’s Cargo
(Boston, 1925). This buccaneer novel commences in a quiet j
little New England village but takes in a broad scope of
thrilling adventure and is comparable in places to Treasure
Island. As in its celebrated prototype, much of the
narrative is told in the first person, the hero of the
story being young Will Slocumb, son of a well-to-do Quaker ;
shipbuilder in a Rhode Island port. j
The elder Slocumb is described as an alert business
man, prosperous but not acquisitive, and interested in the |
welfare of his fellow men. This fact is illustrated early i
in the novel when he and his son stop their horse in the
lonely road to rescue Cocky Ellwood, a mariner, from
Portuguese seamen who are beating him by the highway. He
gives the stranger shelter in his own home, and the next
day takes him to a Quaker meeting, finally offering him a
job as sailmaker in the Slocumb shipyards. The scene which
throws some light on the father’s humanitarian character isj
described in the following paragraph:
My father who, though he never struck a blow in his
life, was one of the bravest men I have ever known,
pulled up the horse without a thought to himself or
to me or to the bloodthirsty scoundrels who were
doubtless lurking in the next thicket. Springing from
the carriage, he made a hasty examination of the
fallen man, picked him up bodily— for he was of no
great weight— and in a trice had the limp form wedged '
in between us on the seat. (P. I 4 .)
134]
The senior Slocumb's remarkable Quaker poise is
further shown when his son returns home after his adven
turous voyage only to find the Slocumb shipyards in flames.)
Although the father's means of livelihood appears to be
ruined, his staunch Christian character averts despair.
Ultimately this fortitude is rewarded through a generous
division of the treasure discovered on the remote island
by young Slocumb and his seafaring partner, Cocky Ellwood. !
The novels just discussed might be labelled simply
"boys' juveniles." After 1889, various women writers of
the juvenile novel made use of the Quaker as a character
in stories addressed to girls. In his critical survey
entitled "The Cult of the Quaker Novel," Francis Taylor
mentions several of the more significant of these
novelists. This is so succinct and informative that I
quote it at lengths
The last, and in many ways the most attractive
category into which these Quaker stories fall, is the
Juvenile group. This classification has had con
siderable growth of recent years. As far back as
1889, Mary Catherine Lee caught the spirit of Quaker
childhood in her Quaker Girl of Old Nantucket, redolent
of the salt sea and the whaling industry. . . . Several
books of recent years have given us some delightful
little Quaker girls, a bevy of juveniles to which each
Christmas season adds one or more. Of these the most
satisfactory are headed by Caroline Dale Snedecker's
Downright Dencey (1927), another tale of Nantucket;
Susanna and Tristram (1929), by Marjorie Hill Allee,
the first of several juveniles of high merit from her
pen; Tilly-Tod (1929), an account of two lovable little
Quaker twins, by Elizabeth Janet Gray (p. 21).
1351
The special Quaker interest in A Quaker Girl of Old
I Nantucket centers around the character of Miriam Swain.
The author introduces her as a rather demure little girl,
;brought up amid the quiet atmosphere of a Nantucket Quaker |
(family. Her father belongs to the austere type of
jprovincial Quakerdom, a man of sterling integrity but
;limited imagination. He is altogether shocked on finding
(his small daughter participating in a "worldly” party at
I the "Astor Vinton's" ball in Newport, Rhode Island. Miriam:
(herself is described as a normal, vivacious girl chafing
under the restrictions placed upon her by her pious elders.!
; The following incident illustrates this rebellious j
;adolescent spirit, who is distressed that no inner Quaker
j"leading" is granted to her:
Miriam shut the 'Life of Ann Millet' with a dis
couraged sigh and wondered why it was necessary to be
so dull and sickly in order to be good. It wasn't
altogether her fault, she reasoned, if those wonderful
leadings hadn't come to her; it was a matter quite out
of her control, like the trouble about her hair, that
would crimble and fly out into loose locks round her
face, in spite of all Aunt Hepsy could do by brushing
and combing and straining it back tighter and tighter
s every day.1^ s
! A further and more amusing example of Miriam's reaction
to her Quaker up-bringing is seen in the conversation
(between Miriam and Peltiah in the graveyard. The converted)
(Methodist grave-digger discourses authoritatively on the
*^Mary Catherine Lee, A Quaker G-irl of Old Nantucket
(New York, 1889), p. 9.
136
topic of dancing. The Quaker girl, who had been taught to
consider all such entertainment as "pomps and vanities," to
quote Peltiah, urges her aged friend to show her how such
a worldly pastime was executed.
"I could show you the steps," Peltiah exclaims.-
But after observing a brief demonstration, the
Quakeress rejoins, "Is that all? . . . I should
think a person wouldn’t need to go to school much
to learn that I" (P. 117)
In her splendid portrayal of Dionis Coffyn in the
Nantucket juvenile Downright Dencey (1927), Caroline Dale
Snedecker has shown genuine understanding of the problems
confronting a Quaker girl in the curious little cosmos of
this island community. This vivacious child, brought up
in a strict but kindly Quaker home, while betraying
frequent signs of rebellion, demonstrates a true Quaker
"concern" for the soul of an unfortunate waif, Sammie
Jetsam. Early in the story the dark-skinned Quaker lass
hurls a stone at the unfortuhate Jetsam for calling her
"nigger skin." Conscience-smitten over her violence in
hurting the frail lad, Dencey seeks to atone for her un-
Q,uakerly act by offering to teach Jetsam to read. With
Quaker "concern" for his soul, Dencey frequently steals
away from home, bearing with her a much-prized copy of
Pilgrim’s Progress. The unflinching devotion with xfhich
Dencey pursues this "conviction" is characteristic of this
child of a disciplined Friends’ family.
137 i
The later conversion of wild Sammy Jetsam, as a
result of a spiritual revival in the village, is in keeping
with evangelical belief held by Friends ancient and modern. ;
This religious awakening resulted from a confession of
inward guilt by Martha White, widow of a Nantucket sea
captain, who had been bitter over the loss of her husband
and material provider. "Then, suddenly, Martha White was
’tendered to the Lord.’"^
Further glimpses into the "concerns" of these Nantucket
Friends are afforded in the strange leadings of Aunt
Lovesta. The Committee on Sufferings has visited this
devout lady, charging her with "going before her Guide." i
In other words, the committee felt themselves capable of
deciding for the good woman whether or not she had been
truly led in her various spiritual exhortations in the
meeting-house. The situation is pictured in the following
dialogue between Lydia Coffyn and her sister.
"Yes, they visited me this morning, the whole
Committee on Sufferings. Susanna is very severe.
She says--they all sav," she choked a little, "that
I go before my Guide. . . . "How can they dare I"
broke out the indignant Lydia. "Thee with thy
power of the Spirit. It is outrageous I" (P. 2ip6)
It fell to this same redoubtable Committee to disci
pline Lydia Coffyn herself for her worldly ways in the
matter of the crimson carpet. This beautiful adornment— a
rarity in the island community and given to her by Tom
17Caroline Dale Snedecker, Downright Dencey (New York, I
19.29), . p . . .29 .2. ,............... . !
Coffyn, her husband— she stoutly refused to give up. "In
;almost every Quaker household," the author declares, "is to
be found one person who hungers for color--just physical
bright color which Quakerism denies its devotees" (p. 266).
Such scenes as these demonstrate a certain inconsis-
:tenoy among some types of Friends in presuming to determine
for another soul the genuineness or fallacy of the "inner
light" moving it toward some particular action. An even
more striking illustration of these mystical leadings is
jshown in the subsequent scene in which Aunt Lovesta is
:awakened in the middle of the night with the strong com
pulsion that she should go out to minister to some hungry
family, who or where she does not know. Believing firmly
in her sister's inward leadings, Lydia Coffyn also arises
and helps her cook a chicken and provide food for a
hitherto unknown destitute family. As Jetsam and Dencey,
filled with youthful curiosity, accompany Aunt Lovesta on
this midnight errand of mercy, their neighbors are aroused
by the unusual activity in the quiet village. The scene is
described as follows:
An upper window was thrown open and Mr. Joy's
nightcapped head popped out. "What's all the noise?"
he shouted. "is there a fire? Wait, I’ll get my
bucket." "Wo," called Aunt Lovesta's rich voice.
"I have a concern, that's all." The window banged
down againj but not before the neighbor was heard to
mutter, "Thee and thy concerns! Don't see why thee
couldn't have 'em by day." (P. 251i)
139:
; Undaunted, by these objections, Aunt Lovesta drives on until!
: she Teels drawn to turn off the highway to a humble cottage.
— where in confirmation of her ”leading" she actually finds
a family in dire need of food.
Kindly inclined as the Coffyns are, a certain feeling ^
;of social superiority bordering on snobbishness is
evidenced in their condescending treatment of Jetsam in
placing him in the Fragment Society School. It is Dencey* s
unswerving charity for the lad that finally melts this
:un-Christian aloofness and helps to secure him a place in
;the Coffyn School— generally regarded as of a social caste j
superior to that of the public charity school.
But Quaker childhood was much more than a stern
repression of all natural juvenile desires and yearnings.
Even boisterous Dencey Coffyn, so bitterly complaining
;against her lot to her friend, Hopestill, that she did not ;
possess her pious chum's leadings of the Spirit--even
Dencey loved to sit quietly by the fire and listen to the
adventures of traveling Friends' ministers from
;Philadelphia or North Carolina. In these days before
modern forms of entertainment such innocent diversions
|constituted one of the few exciting moments in a Quaker
child's limited way of life (p. 79).
These juvenile stories of Nantucket girls not only
smack of the salty atmosphere of the now famous island off ,
ithe New England coast, but reflect in their highly
li+O I
localized atmosphere the essential solitariness of such an ;
isolated community. Undoubtedly the naivete and quaintness
exemplified in Miriam Swain and Dencey Coffyn are due in
part to environmental causes other than their Quaker up
bringing. Those elements of self-discipline, however, and
those mystical revelations here depicted, are peculiarly
nQuakern in origin.
The sunnier side of Quaker childhood is stressed in
Elizabeth Janet Gray's delightful juvenile Tilly-Tod (New
York, 1929). The story deals with a lovable pair of twin
girls who lived on a big farm in west Jersey toward the end:
of the Civil War. The narrative centers around the domes
tic life of a Quaker farm rather than the war itself.
Possum hunts in the autumn, sledding on the frozen meadows
in winter, and fun in the spacious barns and open fields in
spring and summer are realistically pictured through the
imaginative eyes of childhood. A visit to Fanny's cupboard;
with its wealth of curios, interesting to children, occupies
a whole chapter.
The restlessness of two little girls trying to
maintain the self-discipline of a reverent Quaker rural
family is portrayed in the following scene.
In a moment Mother came in and took her regular
place on the second bench from the front. She
looked around for Tilly-Tod before she sat down.
Tod wanted to smile at her, but of course that
would not have been proper in meeting; so she kept
her lips steady and tried to make her eyes smile.
(P. 106)
All through the war, the little Quaker girls yearned j
for a flag like those carried by the other children in the j
village. The children’s longing for a flag is at first
considered too worldly, particularly in war time, but when
; their father rides back from Woodstown on his horse, Black j
Star, to announce the happy event of the close of the Civil
iWar, he presents his twin daughters with their cherished
flags (p. 173). The cheerful wedding of Tilly-Tod's Aunt
:Lyddy to the fighting Quaker Samuel Forsythe is presented
! with accurate details. In the true Friends’ marriage the
bride and bridegroom stand together hand in hand before the;
I meeting and themselves speak the sacred ceremonial words.
Samuel and Lydia accordingly perform their marriage vows
in simple Quaker fashion:
"In the presence of God and this assembly,” began
Aunt Lyddy, ”1, Lydia, take thee, Samuel. ...”
Her soft voice went off as if she were speaking to
Samuel alone. Samuel answered, ”1, Samuel, take
thee, Lydia. . . (Pp. I6I 4.-65)
,Such things as the description of a typical Quaker meeting ■
;and a Quaker wedding add realism and adult interest to this
;otherwise light-hearted and trivial juvenile story.
IV. THE QUAKER IN THE DIME NOVEL j
Soon after the close of the Civil War a new popular
jliterary form made its appearance in the United States, a [
type of fiction later to be known as the "dime novel."
Although the term is not entirely accurate, it was soon
accepted by the mass of its readers and about l8?0 came
”1
into general popular usage. The dime and nickel novels,
dime libraries, and half-dime libraries, and similar
innovations, with their offering of violence, mystery,
heroism, villainy, and romance--all calculated for popular
appeal— rapidly captured the public imagination, performing ^
in the late nineteenth century much the same office which
the mystery and detective stories do today.
It is surprising to note that among the various lurid
titles of these sensational stories a number refer directly;
or indirectly to the Quakers. As examples of these may be
cited the following: Wide Awake Len, the Quaker City Crook,
Quaker City Ferret, Quaker Detective, Quaker Among the Red
19
Skins, and The Fugitives, or the Quaker Scout of Wyoming. 7
Others like Saul Sabberday, the Idiot Spy make interesting
use of the Quaker as a character.
As examples of this type of fiction employing Quakers
in melodramatic roles we may choose Ned Buntline's Saul
Sabberday, the Idiot Spy, and Edward S. Ellis's The Fugi
tives, or the Quaker Scout of Wyoming.
-*-®See Albert Johannsen, The House of Adams and Beadle
and its Dime and Nickel Novels (Norman, Okla., 1950), T~, J•
-*-9Johannsen, II, 393-
3 4 3
Jay Monaghan In his dashing biography of Ned Buntline
declares that a review of the first fifty years of
Buntline’s life is the story of the rise of cheap liter-
20
ature in America. His books were read by countless
thousands who probably knew little of the vagaries of the
author's life. Probably Buntline's short period of
residence in Philadelphia acquainted him with the ways of
Friends.
8aul Sabberday, the Idiot Spy is a specimen of the
Beadle Dime Library novels. It belongs to the category of
Revolutionary War stories, the hero being an eccentric
young Quaker lad who plays the role of a spy in Washington's
army. Saul might be classed with the fighting Quakers
21
previously described. His brothers, Seth and Simeon,
occupy respectively rather prominent positions in the small
colonial navy and in Washington's army. All three were
sons of a Quaker widow, who appears to subscribe to Quaker
pacifist principles. An attempt is made by the author to
illustrate these principles but in an unconvincing manner.
;The widow, for example, makes little effort to restrain her
half-witted son, Saul, from his ambition to "wear a real
20
The Great Rascal, the Life and Adventures of Ned
Buntline (Boston, 1952), p. 33” .
^See above, Chap. Ill, Hugh Wynne, The Quaker
Partisans, The Quaker Soldier.
1^4
sword." and join his loyal brothers in defense of his
22
country.
Later in the narrative when Benedict Arnold is
attempting to abduct Sabberday and Lizzie Hall, the
infuriated widow seizes a chair and attempts to hurl it at
the general and his attendant, Captain Crabtree (p. 10).
This melodramatic scene hardly strengthens the reader’s
faith in her pacifist convictions nor, indeed, in the
:author's historical integrityl
As if to bolster up the rather weak characterization
;of the Sabberday family as Quakers, the author makes
frequent use of the Friendly "thee" and "thou." He inserts
several comments into the narrative, intended to convince
the popular reader that the different members of the
Sabberday household are Friends. When Washington comes to
visit the Sabberday farm the widow and her daughter, Ruth,
are dressed in "plain but elegant" material. The aging
widow addresses the renowned commander as "Friend George"
(p. 8). On another occasion when Simeon Sabberday vows
vengeance on the British for hanging young Nathan Hale,
whose mother was a Quaker, the Widow Sabberday rebukes him
for his oath with the words, "Thee must not swear, Simeon!
Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord" (p. 5).
22see Ned Buntline, Saul Sabberday, the Idiot Spy,
in Beadle's Dime Library (New York, ), X, 122, p. 2.
ibS\
It is evident that the author possesses at least a
; superficial knowledge of the ways of Friends, but I find
little to show that he understands those deeper sources of i
spiritual motivation which sent so many of them to prison
or the gallows for their religious convictions*
The story is primarily a melodramatic adventure tale
| displaying some acquaintance with the leading military
figures and campaigns of the Revolution. The author
possesses a flare for the dramatic in life, but little of
■ solid character portrayal can be claimed for such a tale.
His Quakers are ’ ’stock Quakers,” displaying minor character-
;istics of the Friends with little of their more basic and j
significant qualities. Caroline Ladd Crew asserts:
Too often his /the Quaker's/7 " portrayors seize merely
upon the striking or picturesque externals, use
excessive daubs of gray in the portraiture of bonnet |
and waistcoat, and drag in with unnatural frequency
the "thou” and "thee.” The result is a caricature
rather than a character. (P. 2J?1)
Edward S. Ellis's The Fugitives,.a tale of the Wyoming!
massacre in Pennsylvania in 1778, lays considerably more
emphasis upon the Quaker traits of the leading character.
:The story purports to be a true account of the massacre
iand does contain some fairly vivid descriptions. The hero |
of this pamphlet-novel is the Quaker "scout,” Stoddard
Franklin. Previous to the ravishing of the Wyoming Valley !
by the red men, Stoddard had been a preacher who lived near
li+6
Forty Fort and was in love with Annie Abingdon, the color- ;
less heroine in this melodrama.
He was looked upon askance by his neighbors because of
his pacifist principles, many declaring that he would not
fight, even to protect the family of the girl he loved.
The chief aim of the novelette is to demonstrate that under;
such severe provocation as the cruel and supposedly
unwarranted attack on innocent women and children by the
Wyoming Indians, even the peace-loving Quaker must and
would fight I
A stilted and Inaccurate "Quakerly" jargon is employed I
throughout the story to indicate that the hero is a genuine!
member of the peace-loving sect who called themselves
Friends. There are some genuine touches of characterization
in Stoddard Franklin, however, such as his refusal to take
vengeance upon the Indian captors of Annie Abingdon and her
mo ther.
"It does not become us to entertain revenge toward
these heathen,” pursued the Quaker. "They had the
power to do incalculable harm to their captives but
refrained. When one1s life depends upon it,
perhaps--perhaps resistance may be justifiable.
Complete self-mastery is also asserted to be a character
istic of the Quaker scout, involving at times great coolness:
in danger (p. 99). The closing statement, that the hero
suffered no diminution of respect or prestige from the i
^3;Edward S. Ellis, The Fugitives, or the Quaker Scout
of Wyoming, a Tale of the" Massacre of 1778 (Hew York, 1865), ■
P. 99. ...................... ...........
3 4 7
Society of Friends, would seem to be unconvincing (p. 100).
As demonstrated in an earlier chapter, military service was
one of the foremost issues confronting the "Free Quakers"
and frequently led to the forced withdrawal from the
Society of Friends of those whose consciences permitted
them to fight in the Colonial Army.
My impression of the treatment of the Quaker in the
dime novels studied is that the authors in the post-Civil
War period realized that in these independent, eccentric
figures there was good story value which could be
capitalized on. It is the minor traits often that are
stressed, although the pacifism of the Friends is too
obvious a feature to be overlooked, especially in the years
following the Civil War. Hence, writers like Buntline and
Ellis, with an eye to profits, made use of the Quakers as
they did any other unusual characters calculated to arouse
public interest.
V. SUMMARY
In the preceding pages three different categories
have been presented: sea stories like Moby Dick, and the
juveniles, The Boy Whaleman, and Old Brig's Cargo; girls’
juveniles like A Quaker Girl of Old Nantucket, Downright
Dencey, and Tilly-Tod; and finally the dime novel, repre
sented by Saul Sabberday and The Quaker Scout of Wyoming.
l l | _ 8 j
All of these types of fiction made their appearance in the j
years immediately after the Civil War.
Those Quakers who played a part in the sea stories
were prevailingly shipowners .or sea captains. In Moby Dick! ,
as already pointed out, Peleg and Bildad were both retired i
sea captains, thoroughly familiar with the ways of whaling
ships. Both were shrewd to the point of acquisitiveness.
The ship owner in The Boy Whaleman, equally alert as a
business man, is far more humanitarian and shows genuine
concern for the welfare of young Bleechly, the boy whaler,
when he first puts out to sea, and when he is given a gold ]
watch on his return from a three year's voyage. Pair play ;
is a characteristic of this Quaker merchant.
Similar character traits are portrayed in the elder
Slocumb, the New England shipbuilder in Old Brig's Cargo.
The generous rescue of Cocky Ellwood, the one-eyed sailor,
from the Portuguese ruffians demonstrates the typical
Quaker concern with the unfortunate and down-trodden.
Captain Tom Coffyn, who first espoused the beliefs of
Friends from his love for Lydia Coffyn in Caroline
Snedecker's Downright Dencey, is another mariner with fine
Quaker traits, although his role is a minor one in this
juvenile novel of Nantucket Island. With the exception of
Peleg and Bildad, such Quaker mariners as appear in fiction •
of this period seem to demonstrate a combination of keen
business ability and a desire for fair play. Tom Coffyn
149;
reveals the most human interest in his love for his
daughter, Dencey, and in his charitable interest in the
little waif, Jetsam.
Of the three girls’ juveniles discussed in this
chapter, Downright Dencey seems to reveal the keenest under-,
standing of the heart-of a Quaker girl. Miriam Swain in
A Quaker G-irl of Old Nantucket is a genuine Quaker but she
lacks the more basic Quaker motives of Dionis Coffyn shown
in Downright Dencey. The poignant feeling of guilt that
overwhelms Dencey Coffyn after her cruelty in hurling the
stone at Jetsam; the open-hearted and sincere attempt to
mitigate her sin by teaching the little homeless waif to
read; and finally the conversion of Jetsam--all go to
reveal the heart of childhood influenced by Quaker training.
Sometimes these red-blooded children chafe under the
repressions of Friendly discipline; yet underneath is the
strong Quaker character training founded on integrity and
concern for one's fellow man.^
In view of the practical difficulties of obtaining
copies of the dime novels, I have selected only two examples
from the Huntington Library collection of Beadle novels
which may serve to illustrate this type of fiction. These
^Further examples of the leading of the Spirit in
children's lives are found in the experience of Elizabeth
Haddon (see above, Chap. II, p. £l) and Ilbrahim in
Hawthorne’s The Gentle Boy (see above, Chap. II, p. 53).
i5o
sensational stories made their debut immediately after the
< ?
close of the Civil War, their melodramatic style and
cheaper format both helping to stimulate popular interest.
The fact that Quakers should appear at all in this type of
literary innovation is surprising— yet it goes to show that
they had sufficient intrinsic interest as a type to be
treated in the popular fiction of such an adventure-writer
as Ned Buntline.
The treatment of Quakers in these two representative
dime novels is superficial and somewhat inaccurate in minor
details such as the pseudo-Friendly terminology employed.
Yet in such particulars as the emphasis on self-control and
sense of fair play in Ellis's The Fugitive, or the Quaker
Scout of Wyoming there is a fair degree of genuineness of
characterization. Also the historical pacifism of Friends
is referred to in both novels, and no slurs on their
sincerity are cast by either Buntline or Ellis.
It is curious that the fullest portrayal of typical
Quaker characters in American fiction since the Civil War
should be contained in the juvenile novel written about,
and particularly for, girls. And the milieu in which these
juvenile stories seem to find their most natural and
significant development is the quiet little Quaker com
munity on Nantucket Island.
CHAPTER VI
CONCLUSION
A recapitulation of the investigations presented in
this dissertation shows that the four significant features
of Quaker thought and attitudes discussed in the first
chapter are reflected in the various novels presenting the
Quaker as a character in American fiction.
First, Quaker mysticism, as revealed in the emphasis
;upon the "inner light," is illustrated most clearly in the
novels and stories dealing with the Colonial period. Such |
works as Henry McCook's Quaker Ben, Hezekiah Butterworth's
The Wampum Belt, Whittier's Leaves from Margaret Smith's
Journal, Hawthorne's "The Gentle Boy," Beulah Marie Dix's
The Making of Christopher Ferringham, and Caroline Dale
Snedecker's Uncharted Ways, contain many examples of Friends
of this period following the dictates of this inward leading
with as much fidelity as Galahad's following the gleam.
Such a novel as Caroline Snedecker's Downright Dencey,
treated in Chapter V, is equally clear in its use of the
intuitional or mystical guidance from a light within the
human soul. At times, as in the case of IIbrahim's
eccentric mother in "The Gentle Boy," these inner com
pulsions led to strange actions. But in such instances as
the martyrdom of Mary Dyer and her friends on the scaffold
152 j
in Boston Common, so vividly pictured in Uncharted Ways,
this light was indeed a radiant beam shining into the soul
of these early Quaker saints and reflected in a joyous
willingness to meet their fate with true Christian triumph j
of spirit. In the case of Elizabeth Haddon, described in
L. Maria Child's "The Youthful Emigrant.” the experience of;
the "inner light" is one of calm conviction to follow a
well defined path of duty, which in her special calling led'
her directly to the American wilderness to help found a new
village in a pioneer settlement.
Second, Quaker simplicity is a feature often illus
trated in the fiction of all the periods dealt with. It is
shown in the silent meetings for worship described in
Quaker Ben, in "The Gentle Boy," in Margaret Smith's
Journal, in Bayard Taylor's The Story of Kennett, and in
some other novels. It is also apparent in the unadorned
meeting-houses in which the simple Friendly weddings occur
in Tilly-Tod, Quaker Ben, A Windflowert and other novels
and stories. The Quaker practice of simplicity in dress is I
also frequently manifested in fiction. The drab clothing
of Simeon Halliday and the neat bonnet of Catherine
Halliday in Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin are typical.
Betsy Ross's envy of the gaily clad young ladies emerging
from Christ Church in old Philadelphia reflects a frustrated
desire for finery. Margaret Swain's rebellion against the
too plain fashion of doing one's hair in Mary Catherine
Lee's A Quaker Girl of Old Nantucket is a further example.
Her youthful longing to he like her rich little girl
friends at the fashionable Vintons' ball in Newport hints
clearly of the unsatisfied desire in many a Quaker maiden's
heart after worldly adornment. The severity with which
older Friends imposed outward simplicity upon younger
members of the Society often constituted an element in the
conflict in stories dealing with Quaker practice.
Quaker simplicity is likewise associated with the
istern asceticism which has been mentioned in discussing the
sinister Aunt Hephzibah in Weir Mitchell's story Hephzibah
G-uinness. Such an outstanding exception as Aunt Gainor in
Mitchell's Hugh Wynne serves to substantiate rather than to
disprove the general rule. The frustrated love for natural
beauty and especially for color is shown in a number of
books and stories. The ’ ’plain language" of Friends, which
was a matter of conscientious scruple, appears in many
novels. Even the rough sea captains, Bildad and Peleg, who
had forsaken the more significant elements of Quakerism,
still retained this traditional feature.
So well known, indeed, is the Quaker plainness of
,dress and of speech that even the two dime novels, Ned
Buntline»s Saul Sabberday and Ellis' The Fugitive, or the
Quaker Scout of Wyoming, depend upon, this trait more than
any other to identify their leading characters as Quakers.
i5k\
The essence of Quakerism is that it is primarily a
spirit and hence needs little of outward ceremony or ritual
to express its inner and mystical feelings. Coupled with
this simplicity is a rigid self-discipline which if carried;
to an extreme easily leads into a fanatical asceticism.
In its more wholesome aspects Quaker mysticism and
simplicity produced a John Woolman or an Elizabeth Fry; in j
its fanatical aspect it produced a Hephzibah Guinness.
The third recurrent quality of the Quaker, as was said;
in Chapter I, is pacifism. The pacifism of Friends in war ;
time has always set them apart from the majority of
religious denominations in America. The fiction dealing ;
with the Revolutionary War and Civil War periods has a good;
deal to say on this subject. Different writers handle the
subject differently, but I find that prevailingly the
Quaker convictions are treated with respect. On this point
of pacifism we have a strange contradiction during the
period of the Revolution in the case of the Free Quakers.
iMany youths whose names were on the registry of local
monthly meetings defied their elders by enlisting in the
Colonial army. Hugh Wynne by S. Weir Mitchell and The
Quaker Partisans by E. S. Williamson illustrate this
secession from orthodox Quakerism. On the other hand, two
Civil War novels, L. C. Wood’s The Haydocks’ Testimony and
J. T. Trowbridge's Cud.jo’s Cave, present the sincere
conscientious objector to war. James Haydock in the former;
novel and Penn Hapgood in the latter portray the Quaker
playing the difficult part of a loyal citizen suffering for
his convictions--being called a coward, and bearing abuse
because he honestly felt that all military service was a
sin. The pacifist plays a less important role in American
;fiction than does the fighting Quaker.
Phi1anthropy is the fourth of the typical Quaker
qualities. The philanthropic activities of Friends occupy ;
a prominent place in their history, I have previously
traced their social work historically in Chapter I. The
particular aspect that finds the fullest treatment in I
American fiction before 1925 is concerned with the part
played by the Quaker in the .abolition movement. In
Chapter IV I have discussed several anti-slavery novels
such as Mrs. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with its vivid and
accurate portrayal of Levi Coffin and Catherine Coffin
under their fictional names Simeon and Rachel Halliday;
Florence Finch Kelly’s Rhoda of the Underground; Ellwood
Griest’s John and Mary; Marjorie Hill Allee's girls’
juvenile Susanna and Tristram; and George Alfred Townsend's I
The Entailed Hat. All of these stories deal specifically
with the philanthropic work of Friends in promoting the !
Underground Railroad. One of the dominant figures portrayed
is that of Levi Coffin, the so-called president of the
156!
Underground Railroad in Indiana, whose aggressive activi
ties helped 3,000 slaves to gain their freedom. Even in
the one pro-slavery novel treated in this dissertation,
White Oak Farm, the chief Quaker character, Uriah Sneckman, j
receives unbiased treatment by the anonymous author.
Trowbridge's Cud.jo's Cave describes the efforts of a Quaker,
idealist, Penn Hapgood, as a teacher of the ’ ’ mountain
whites” in the state of Tennessee during the Reconstruction:
period. It would probably be accurate to say that the
courageous stand taken by Friends in helping to bring about|
the emancipation of the slaves and aiding them in the
Reconstruction period gradually won the respect and
approval of most fair-minded American authors not specifi
cally involved in slavery as an economic pursuit.
One type of Quaker not belonging to any category so
far discussed in this chapter is the mercenary or material
istic Quaker. So far from conforming to the traditional
pattern of the followers of Fox and Penn is this renegade
Friend that he may well be called a pseudo-Quaker. "Thee"
and "thou" on a man's lips or the wearing of a drab coat
are not enough to guarantee that the man is truly a Quaker. :
Among the more prominent fictional characters of this type
may be mentioned John Wynne, the austere father of Hugh, in |
Mitchell's Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker; Caleb Hazelwood, the
harsh, materialistic parent of Charles Hazelwood in John
157
Richter Jones’ The Quaker Soldier; and Samuel Griscom, the j
stern and uncompromising father of Betsy Ross in Chauncey
Hotchkiss' Betsy Ross: A Romance of the Flag. The best
known of all such renegade Quakers are undoubtedly Captainsj
Bildad and Peleg in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Melville,
himself a man of the world, seems rather shocked at the
combination of religious hypocrisy and crass materialism
represented by these Quaker seadogs.
I have suggested above that such authors as Ned
Buntline and Edward Ellis, writers of the sensational
fiction later to be called dime novels, have in the novels
studied drawn a superficial type of Quaker character. Both-
authors are well acquainted with such customs as plainness
of dress and language. Ellis' The Fugitive, or the Quaker |
Scout of Wyoming lays more stress upon significant Friendly;
characteristics in portraying Stoddard Franklin, the Quaker;
hero of the story, than does Buntline in Saul Sabberday,
the Idiot Spy. Stoddard Franklin's refusal to take
vengeance upon two defenseless Indian captives does reflect :
the genuine spirit of early Friends, who took literally the
Scriptural injunction, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." I
In conclusion I wish to name a small list of novels
and stories which impress me as presenting the most
accurately drawn Quaker characters in American fiction
written between 1825 and 1925. In such a list I should
158
name Whittier’s Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal,
Hawthorne's "The Gentle Boy," Weir Mitchell's Hugh Wynne:
Free Quaker and Hephzihah Guinness, Chauncey Hotchkiss'
Betsy Ross: A Romance of the Flag, Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom' s
Cabin, Bayard Taylor's The Story of Kennett, Max Adler's
The Quakeress, Caroline Atwater Mason's A Windflower,
Caroline Dale Snedecker's Downright Dencey, and Herman
Mellville's Moby Dick.
Taken together, these novels reveal the many-sided
aspects of Quaker character discussed in Chapter I and
illustrated in succeeding chapters. They leave with the
reader a clear-cut impression of the sober, high-minded
Friend— mystical yet practical, peace-loving yet
courageous— as he moves quietly across the pages of the
American novel. To such a description Moby Dick must stand
as an exception, but what would any rule of life or letters
be without its exceptions? Undoubtedly the Quaker with all
his vagaries has unwittingly gained for himself a position
uniquely his own among the characters who people the world
of American fiction.
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University of Southern California

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