WRITE IN THE THICK OF THINGS: My Quaker Ancestors, or why can't we all just be Friends?

(Posted by Mark Todd)

I've been reading Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Alan Taylor's American Colonies, a socio-political and economic account of the English colonies in the New World. Mainly I was prompted by wanting to know more about the forces that drove my seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ancestors to emigrate to and then often relocate within various colonies and colonial provinces in subsequent generations.

Some of my New England ancestors were protestants and separatists seeking religious freedom, and largely Puritans, Baptists, Anglicans, or Presbyterians. (For the record, they usually sought religious freedom for their own beliefs but rarely for the freedom of others who didn't conform to their own narrow-band convictions.)

Other ancestors were more southerly merchants and entrepreneurs motivated by opportunity and the promise of financial independence -- and usually at the expense of the pre-Columbian indigenous inhabitants as well as by the exploitation of imported slave labor. (These ancestral scruples deserve its own blog posting, but I'm still coming to terms with this dismaying heritage.)

But a number of my ancestors were also Quakers--in fact, some thirty or more (so far as I've been able to identify).

I'd like to share a few specific stories about selected Quaker ancestors, who fall within both my paternal and maternal lines, respectively, from Colonial Virginia, Colonial Maryland, and the colonial Province of West Jersey.

A bit of context

Quakers, or more properly the Religious Society of Friends of God, began in the mid-seventeenth century and largely founded by George Fox in Yorkshire, England, where a number of my ancestral branches originate.

Quakers tended to be pacifists who wouldn't bear arms, take oaths or swear allegiance to earthly authority, and they promoted gender equality, religious tolerance, the abolition of slavery, and true democratic principles within their communities. But such notions were not popular ideas--and certainly not ideals--during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries for both England and its American colonies, where Quakers were often persecuted.

My Paternal Quakers

My paternal line has revealed at least eight Quakers.

If you've read my three previous blogs, you know over the past year I've discovered through Y-DNA and autosomal DNA results that my genealogically documented third great-great grandfather Thomas Todd was the product of a liaison between a son of immigrant William Goforth and his wife Anne Skipwith and a daughter of immigrant Capt. Thomas Todd and his wife Anne Lovelace Gorsuch. Ironically, both of these grandmothers were daughters of Quaker converts, and both due to tragic circumstances.

Anne Skipwith's mother was Honora Saunders (1620-1679) of Yorkshire. Her husband Willoughby

York Castle's Clifford Tower Prison in the 17th Century

Skipwith, a Yorkshire lord, died in 1658 during the English Civil War. He'd backed the wrong horse and when the Stuarts were restored, his lands were confiscated. Honora petitioned and was granted the return of her estate. Four years later, she converted to the Friends in 1662. She must have been fervent in her new faith because, according to Quaker meeting records of Yorkshire, she died "a Prisoner for Truth" in York Castle prison on 15 April 1679, a prison known for housing political prisoners including such a prominent Quaker as George Fox himself for a time. Her daughter Anne and son-in-law William Goforth Sr would be early colonists in the Province of West Jersey, and their son, William Jr (who is the likely father of my own ancestor Thomas Todd) would later be denounced in a Quaker monthly meeting at Falls, New Jersey, in 1682 because of his alleged activities in connection with privateering.

Another Quaker ancestor is Anne Gorsuch's mother Anne Lovelace Gorsuch (1639-1752). Her husband Rev. John Gorsuch was a staunch English Loyalist and at odds with Oliver Cromwell, who had him falsely accused and charged among hundreds of other ministers. But shortly after Rev. John was "ejected" from prison, according to the Visitation of London, he was soon found "smothered in a Haymow" in 1642. His widow Anne immigrated to Lancaster County, Virginia in 1651 with her brothers and several of her children. Her sons, Richard, Charles, Robert, and Lovelace, joined the Society of Friends there and were with the group of Quakers driven out of Lancaster County, Virginia by Gov. Berkeley in 1660. When they moved to Baltimore, Maryland, so did Anne, and also to Baltimore, where her daughter Anne Gorsuch was already married to Capt. Thomas Todd (one of whose daughters is the likely mother to my own Thomas Todd).

My Maternal Quakers

My maternal grandmother's grandmother Lydia Hanna Jane Youngblood also descends from a line of at least sixteen Quakers on her great-great-grandfather's maternal line, also dating back to the 1600s origins of the Society of Friends.

William Coale Jr (1633-1678), was born in Jamestown, Colonial Virginia, and son of Quaker immigrant William Coale Sr, a famous Quaker preacher in the Colonies. William Jr also became an important Quaker minister. According to his WikiTree page biography, "He was instrumental in setting up the first Quaker meetings on the Western Shore of the [Chesapeake] Bay, at his home, West River Hundred in Anne Arundel County. In 1658 William refused to bear arms in the militia and was subjected to land penalties. In 1659, he and several other Friends challenged the provincial court by refusing to swear oaths to administer a Quaker orphan's estate. They lost their challenge, and the court stripped them of the estate to make an example of them. In 1660 William moved his family to the West River in Ann Arundal County, MD. West River is 30 miles south of Baltimore on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. He owned 150 acres called 'GreatBonnerston.' During the 1660's, William traveled throughout Virginia as an itinerant missionary with several other Friends. He was imprisoned for his efforts and one of his companions died in jail."

Thomas Thurston (1622-1693), born in Gloucestershire, England, emigrated to Colonial America, and was a well-known early Quaker missionary. According to his WikiTree biography, "While persecuted in several colonies[, he] was well-treated by the Native Americans who visited him while he was imprisoned in Virginia." According to the Maryland Historical Society, "[Thomas] was banished from Boston before his travel through Maryland ... in 1658" and "made a prisoner in Anne Arundel County for his efforts to seduce the people, and the Governor and Council of Maryland issued orders directing Justices of the Peace to seize any Quakers that might come into their districts, and to whip them from Constable to Constable until they should reach the bounds of the province. Anyone helping him would also be in trouble."

Thomas's daughter Elizabeth (born about 1650 in Dedham, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay Colony) would marry George Skipwith (1629-1683), a Quaker from Leistershire, England, who emigrated to Colonial Maryland probably in the late 1650s, but the life for Quakers in this colony were much improved by the 1670s: George was prosperous, and he and his wife established a plantation called Silverstone in the Herring Creek Hundred, where records describe him as "George Skipwith, Anne Arundel County, merchant," according to a deed of 7 April 1679. And a Third Haven Monthly Meeting of Friends refers to a meeting to be held at his home on 7 June 1679.

Clearly, true religious freedom was a hard-fought battle in the early days throughout the American colonies. One of the personal ironies is how many of my other ancestors--Puritans, Anglicans, Baptists, and Presbyterians--stood against the "heresies" of my Quaker ancestors. What would they have thought to know so many of these opposing bloodlines would later merge into the likes of me!

(Click here for the next post, which explores the French Huguenot immigration experience through ancestors on my maternal line by focusing on immigrants Mark Hardin and his wife Marie de la Chaumette.)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++