Philadelphia-born Quaker Minister Rebecca Jones 1739-1818

.
Rebecca Jones (1739-1818), Quaker minister, was born in Philadelphia, the only daughter of William & Mary Jones. Her father, a sailor, died at sea when she was too young to remember him, leaving 2 children, Rebecca & an older brother. Her mother, a loyal member of the Church of England, conducted a school for little girls in her home. Eager for Rebecca to become a teacher, her mother made sure that her daughter obtained a good education.

As a girl “romping Becky Jones” often attended Friends meetings with her playmates. The Quakers (or Religious Society of Friends) had formed in England in 1652, around a charismatic leader, George Fox (1624-1691). Many saw Quakers as radical Puritans, because the Quakers carried to extremes many Puritan convictions. They stretched the sober deportment of the Puritans into a glorification of "plainness." They expanded the Puritan concept of a church of individuals regenerated by the Holy Spirit to the idea of the indwelling of the Spirit or the "Light of Christ" in every person. Such teaching struck many of the Quakers' contemporaries as dangerous heresy.

Early Quaker Meeting

Quakers were severely persecuted in England for daring to deviate so far from orthodox Christianity. By 1680, 10,000 Quakers had been imprisoned in England; & 243 had died of torture & mistreatment in the King's jails. This reign of terror impelled Friends to seek refuge in New Jersey, in the 1670s, where they soon became well entrenched.

In 1681, when Quaker leader William Penn (1644-1718) parlayed a debt owed by Charles II to his father into a charter for the province of Pennsylvania, many more Quakers were prepared to grasp the opportunity to live in a land where they might worship freely. By 1685, as many as 8,000 Quakers had come to Pennsylvania. Although the Quakers may have resembled the Puritans in some religious beliefs & practices, they differed with them over the necessity of compelling religious uniformity in society.

When little Rebecca Jones began to refrain from such “ornamental branches” of her studies as music & dancing, her mother realized the that Quaker influence was striking deeper than she liked & sought to thwart it. The conflict wore heavily on Rebecca, who was also undergoing an intense inner struggle to surrender her own will to God’s. This she eventually achieved, aided by encouragements in 1755, from a visiting English Friend, Catherine Peyton.

After long hesitation Rebecca Jones in 1758, at 19, began to speak in the Friends meetings for worship, an open indication of her adoption of the Quaker faith. Two years later her gift in the ministry was “acknowledged” by her meeting, her mother thereupon becoming reconciled to the daughter’s decision.

Rebecca Jones thus became one of the laymen & women by whom the Quaker ministry has traditionally been performed. For over 20 years, she combined this ministry with teaching her mother’s school, which she too over upon her mother’s illness & death in 1761, though her inclination had been to find some other means of livelihood. She proved an able & respected schoolmistress.

Early Quakers

She was a devoted friend of the famous Quaker minister John Woolman, who once penned mottoes for her pupils’ writing lessons. She retained, in her unassuming way, a certain “queenly dignity,” as well as an easy & gracious manner. These qualities enhanced the effectiveness of her speaking. Among women of her time she stood out for her intellectual capacity, quick wit, strength of character, & “sanctified common sense.”

In 1784, while at the height of her power as a preacher, Rebecca Jones gave up her school & laid before her monthly meeting her wish to visit Friends in England, a concern she had long cherished. Credentials were granted, & she sailed with 6 other Friends from Philadelphia. So impressed was the captain, Thomas Truxtun, later a naval here of the war with France, that he declared in London he had brought over an American Quaker lady who possesses more sense than both Houses of Parliament.

On arriving, the Friends sent straight to the Yearly Meeting, where a petition, long endorsed by American Friends, to establish a woman’s meeting for discipline, with more powers that the women’s meeting had had previously, was about to be presented to the men’s meeting. Rebecca Jones was instrumental in securing its approval.

Silhouette of Rebecca Jones. Early Quakers objected to having their portraits drawn or painted, but likenesses drawn from tracing a shadow casting and trimming out the resulting shape were considered acceptable by the church.

During the next 4 years, with a succession of the ablest women Friends as companions, she traversed the length & breadth of England & also visited Scotland ,Wales, & Ireland. She impressed her hearers with the need for a revival of zeal & simplicity. Her memorandum of her tour enumerated 1,578 meetings for worship & discipline & 1,120 meetings with Friends in the station of servants, apprentices, & laborers (for whom she had a special concern), besides innumerable religious family visits. Her message particularly reached the young. Under a sense of “fresh & sure direction,” she returned home in the summer of 1788.

Having given up teaching, she now earned her living by keeping a little ship which her English friends kept supplied with “lawns & cambrics & find cap muslins.” She continued he preaching, frequently attending yearly & quarterly meetings in various parts of the Northeastern states, especially in New Jersey & New England.

She fell ill in the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, in which 4,000 Philadelphians died, but lived to resume herm ministry & the wide correspondence which was a major activity of her later years. In the mid-1790s, she contributed her knowledge of Friends education in England to the founding of Westtown (Pa.) School, a boarding school which opened in the spring of 1799, patterned after the Ackworth Friends School in Yorkshire.

Silhouette of Rebecca Jones.

For more than 50 years Rebecca Jones was a trusted counselor & informal almoner, “eminent for leading the cause of the poor.” Her home was always open to those in trouble or wishing her advice; possessing “singular penetration on discovering cases of distress, and delicacy in affording relief” (Allinson, p. 256), she was also a frequent visitor at Friends almshouses.

In 1813, she suffered an attack of typhus fever; & for the last 5 years of her life, she was confined almost entirely to her home, where she was devotedly card for by Bernice Chattin Allinson, a young widow whom she had taken in as a daughter. Rebecca Jones died in Philadelphia in 1818, in her 79th year. She was buried in the Friends ground on Mulberry (now Arch) Street on the morning of the yearly meeting of ministers & elders.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
.

Portraits of 18C American Woman

1773 Henry Benridge Mrs Chas Coteworth Pinckney Sarah Middleton Benbridge Gibbs

Charity Worker Isabella Marshall Graham 1742-1814

.Isabella Marshall Graham, (1742-1814), teacher & early charitable worker, the daughter of John & Janet (Hamilton) Marshall, was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, & grew up on an estate at Eldersley near Paisley. Her father, a landowner, raised Isabella & her brother in comfort, & a legacy from her grandfather, spent at her own request on a “finished education,” enabled her to attend the boarding school of Mrs. Betty Morehead for 7 years. The family was known for piety, in the stern tradition of Scottish Presbyterian Calvinism, & the child early manifested a religious interest. At 17, she became a communicant of the Church of Scotland under the ministry of Dr. John Witherspoon, later president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton).

Isabella Marshal Graham from the Library of Congress

She was married in 1765 to Dr. John Graham of Paisley, a widower & a “gentleman of liberal education, & of respectable standing.” Planning to settle in America, they sailed 2 years later to Canada, where Graham was physician to a British army regiment, the Royal Montreal, & Fort Niagara. They left behind in Scotland an infant son who died within the year; in North America their other 4 children were born: Jessie, (Mrs. Hay Robinson), Joanna Graham Bethune, Isabella (Mrs. Andrew Smith), & John. Mrs. Graham enjoyed life at Fort Niagara raising her babies, although she found the soldiers’ lack of religion appalling. Her own faith enabled her to accept with devout resignation the death of her husband in Antigua, where they had recently been transferred in 1773, just before the birth of their 5th child.

Left almost penniless, Mrs. Graham sailed with her large family back to the security of her father in Scotland, only to find that he, too, was in need. he was not prepared to support himself, much less his daughter I her 5 young children. For 3 years she lived in a thatched cottage at Cartside, in such poverty, that she & her children sometimes had only porridge & potatoes to eat. Unable to support her father & children on her meager widow’s pension, she opened a small school in Paisley. Around 1780, on the invitation of some “friends of religion,” she founded a boarding school for young ladies in Edinburgh. As her situation improved, she was able to indulge in charity, becoming “ingenious in contrivances to do good.” She used some of her income from tuitions to help people in small businesses, taking payment in their manufactured articles; she served as almoner for her friend Lady Glenorchy, a philanthropist & a patron of the school; & she organized a mutual-benefit Society for the Relief of the Destitute Sick.

David F. Bloom, ed. Memoirs of Eminently Pious Women of Britain and America (Hartford, 1833), detail

Her desire to return to America, which she thought “the country where the Church of Christ would eventually flourish,” was encouraged by Dr. Witherspoon & “many respectable persons” of New York. In 1789, she came to New York City with her daughters & established a girls’ school that soon had more than 50 students & a distinguished list of patrons. Uniting with the Cedar Street Scotch Presbyterian Church, Mrs. Graham found herself in a congenial religious & social climate. Her daughters all married New York merchants. Once they were comfortably settled, she retired from teaching, lived with one or another of them, & devoted herself to philanthropy.

In 1797, Mrs. Graham joined with her daughter Joanna & her friends Sarah (Ogden) Hoffman (1742-1821) & Elizabeth Bayley Seton, who later became a Saint in the Catholic church, in organizing the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children-one of the earliest charitable associations in the United States & one of the first instances of women taking organized action on their own. Mrs. Graham was chosen “First Directress” of the society supervising its board of managers. Under her frugal management, the society aided 98 widows with 223 children during the winter of 1797-98, & the number increased during the years following. With funds raised by subscription &, after 1802, when the society was given a New York State charter. With money from legislative grants, they purchased food & distributed it to needs widows; & gave direct financial relief. The society also sought employment for the widows. Buying a house for the purpose, Mrs. Graham & her associates took orders for needlework. During the winter of 1807-08, when work was scarce, they gave out flax & spinning wheels, & paid for the products. They employed widows to teach schools in different parts of the city. Some of Mrs. Graham’s former pupils, under her supervision, conducted a school for the widows’ children. The society also opened two Sabbath schools for the instruction of adults, one of which Mrs. Graham herself taught.

When her daughter Joanna Bethune organized the Orphan Asylum Society in 1806, Mrs. Graham presided over the founding meeting & in 1810, became a trustee. With her daughter, she taught for a time at the asylum’s school, & she gave regular religious instruction at the school as well as to children in the public almshouse. She regularly visited needy families, helping them with her own money & with religious encouragement; often she would be away from home all day on various charitable missions. All kinds of destitute & unfortunate women came under her care. She called on female inmates of the Lunatic Asylum & sick women prisoners & served as president of the Ladies Board of the Magdalen Society form its organization in 1811, until her death. In her final year, at 71, she established an adult school for young people working in factories, which met on Sundays, & presided over the organization of her daughter’s society for establishing a female House of Industry to provide employment for needy women.

No longer strong enough for extensive visiting, Mrs. Graham spent much of her last 2 years in prayer & meditation. She died of “cholera morbus” in New York City at the home of her son-in-law Divie Bethune. A biography, The Power of Faith: Exemplified in the Life and Writings of the Late Mrs. Isasbella Graham, of New York (1816), published by the Bethunes, was widely circulated here & in Great Britain, with more than 50,000 copies printed in the United States before 1852 (Sarah J. Hale, Woman’s Record, 2nd ed., 1855, pp. 331-32). The widest circulation was in American Tract Society editions. In the text, her daughter & son-in-law recall her early efforts to encourage industry among the female poor:

“In the winter 1807-8, when the suspension of commerce by the embargo, rendered the situation of the poor more destitute than ever, Mrs. Graham adopted a plan best calculated in her view to detect the idle applicant for charity, & at the same time to furnish employment for the more worthy amongst the female poor. She purchased flax, & lent wheels, where applicants had none. Such as were industrious, took the work with thankfulness, and were paid for it; those who were beggars by profession, never kept their word to return for the flax or the wheel.” (p. 59)

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971

Portrait of 18C American Woman

1770 John Singleton Copley 1738-1815 Sarah Henshaw Mrs Joseph 1722-1822 Bayou Bend Houston

Male & Female Slaves - Life in the fields of Georgia and Carolina 1750

The Rev. Mr. Johann Martin Bolzius (1703- 1765) was a pastor who accompanied the Salzburgers from Rotterdam in their pilgrimage to England, and then on to Georgia in 1733. He wrote back to Rotterdam trying to explain the Atlantic coast colonies in the form of questions & answers. His 1750 letter remains at the Georgia Salzburger Society.

Question. What is the daily work of the Negroes on a plantation throughout the year?

Answer. If one wants to establish a plantation on previously uncultivated land, one orders the Negroes to clear a piece of land of trees and bushes first of all, so as to build the necessary huts on it at once.

2) Until March one has as much land cleared of trees and bushes and prepared for planting as possible.

3) The land which is to be cultivated must be fenced with split poles 12 to 13 feet long and nearly 4 inches thick. Every Negro must split 100 of such poles per day from oaks or firs. Others carry them together, and several make the fence. In this men and women are kept busy.

4) In the evening all the Negroes must occupy themselves with burning the cut bushes and the branches.

N.B. When the land is prepared for planting, the bushes must be cut down first and piled on heaps, and afterwards the trees must be felled. The Negroes must hack the branches off the trees, and also pile them in heaps.

Now when one observes that all branches and bushes are quite dry, one puts fire to them and lets them burn up. Since the land is full of dry leaves, the fire spreads far and wide and burns grass and everything it finds. One lets the felled trees lie on the field until they rot, for it would be a loss of time if one wanted to split and burn them.

The order of planting is the following,

1) The Negroes plant potatoes at the end of March unless the weather is too cold. This keeps all Negroes busy, and they have to loosen the earth as much as they can. The potatoes are cut into several pieces and put into long dug furrows, or mounds, which are better than the former. When the leaves have grown 2 or 3 feet long (which is usually the case at the end of May or early June), one piles these leaves on long hills so that both ends project and are not covered.

2) As soon as one is through with the potatoes, one plants Indian corn. A good Negro man or woman must plant half an acre a day. Holes are merely made in the earth 6 feet from one another, and 5 or 6 kernels put into each hole.

3) After the corn the Negroes make furrows for rice planting. A Negro man or woman must account for a quarter acre daily. On the following day the Negroes sow and cover the rice in the furrows, and half an acre is the daily task of a Negro.

4) Now the Negroes start to clean the corn of the grass, and a day’s work is half an acre, be he man or woman, unless the ground is too full of roots.

5) When they are through with that, they plant beans together among the corn. At this time the children must weed out the grass in the potato patches.

6) Thereupon they start for the first time to cultivate (behauen) the rice and to clean it of grass. A Negro must complete 1/4 acre daily.

7) Now the corn must be cleaned of the grass for the second time, and a little earth put around the stalks like little hills. Some young corn is pulled out, and only 3 or 4 stalks remain. A little earth is also laid on the roots of the beans, all of which the Negroes do at the same time. Their day’s task in this work is half an acre for each.

8) As soon as they are through with the corn, they cultivate (hauen) the rice a second time. The quality of the land determines their day’s work in this.

9) Corn and rice are cultivated (hauen) for the third and last time. A Negro can take care of an acre and more in this work, and 1/4 an acre of rice. Now the work on rice, corn, and beans is done. As soon as the corn is ripe it is bent down so that the ears hang down towards the earth, so that no water collects in them or the birds damage them.

Afterwards the Negroes are used for all kinds of house work, until the rice is white and ripe for cutting, and the beans are gathered, which grow much more strongly when the corn has been bent down. The rice is cut at the end of August or in September, some of it also early in October. The pumpkins, which are also planted among the corn, are now ripening too. White beets are sown in good fertilized soil in July and August, and during the full moon.

Towards the middle of August all Negro men of 16 to 60 years must work on the public roads, to start new ones or to improve them, namely for 4 or 5 days, or according to what the government requires, and one has to send along a white man with a rifle or go oneself.

At the time when the rice is cut and harvested, the beans are collected too, which task is divided among the Negroes. They gather the rice, thresh it, grind it in wooden mills, and stamp it mornings and evenings. The corn is harvested last. During the 12 days after Christmas they plant peas, garden beans, transplant or prune trees, and plant cabbage. Afterwards the fences are repaired, and new land is prepared for cultivating.

Question. What is permitted to Negroes after they have done their required day’s work?

Answer. They are given as much land as they can handle. On it they plant for themselves corn, potatoes, tobacco, peanuts, water and sugar melons, pumpkins, bottle pumpkins (sweet ones and stinking ones which are used as milk and drink vessels and for other things).

They plant for themselves also on Sundays. For if they do not work they make mischief and do damage... They sell their own crops and buy some necessary things.

Question. How much meat, fish, bread, and butter do they receive weekly?

Answer. Their food is nothing but Indian corn, beans, pounded rice, potatoes, pumpkins. If the master wishes, he gives them a little meat when he slaughters. They have nothing but water to drink.

 Johann Martin Boltzius (sometimes spelled "Bolzius") was senior minister to the Salzburger community at Ebenezer, Georgia, for 3 decades (1735-65) & was largely responsible for its success. He was a staunch opponent of slavery during the formative years of the Georgia colony. Boltzius was born  in Forst, Germany, southwest of Berlin. His parents, Eva Rosina Muller & Martin Boltzius, earned a modest living as weavers. Young Boltzius won a theology scholarship to the University of Halle (later Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg) in Halle, Germany. There he studied Lutheran Pietism, which emphasized salvation by grace, strong ethics, vigorous pastoral leadership, & social compassion. Boltzius then briefly served as inspector of the Latin School of the Francke, or Halle, Orphanage Foundation, an institution that provided charitable services & encouraged Protestant education. Gotthilf August Francke, cofounder & professor of the school, selected Boltzius to serve as senior minister to the Salzburg Protestant refugees who journeyed to Georgia in the fall of 1733 to escape the repressive policies of Catholic archbishop Count Leopold von Firmian.

Portrait of 18C American Woman

1771-76 Henry Benbridge 1743-1812 Mrs Benjamin Simons Met

Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820), author & feminist

.
Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820), author & feminist, was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the eldest of the 8 children (4 died in infancy) of Winthrop & Judith (Saunders) Sargent. Her father was a wealthy shipowner & merchant, & both parents came from families long prominent in the town. Her brother Winthrop, Jr., born in 1753, served with distinction in the Revolutionary War, rising to the rank of major; he was later secretary of the Northwest Territory (1787) & first governor of the Mississippi Territory (1798). Another brother, Fitz-William, made a fortune in the China & India trade.

John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) Portrait of Mrs. John Stevens (Judith Sargent, later Mrs. John Murray) 1772

As a girl Judith showed such an intellectual bent, that she was allowed to share Winthrop’s lessons as he prepared with a local minister for Harvard, & during his college vacations he reportedly helped her continue her studies.

Judith Sargent was married at 18 to John Stevens, a sea captain & trader. The couple lived in the Gloucester mansion known today as the Sargent-Murray-Gilman-Hough House. It was probably built for them by her father. They had no children.

In her twenties, Mrs. Stevens was “seized with a violent desire to become a writer.” She began composing occasional verse, but as the American Revolution approached, she found her attention turning to social questions & adopted the essay form.

The talk of liberty & human rights that was rife in patriot families prompted her, like her contemporaries Abigail Adams & Mercy Warren, to challenge prevailing assumptions about the status of women. In 1779 she wrote an essay declaring that the sexes had equal minds & calling for more thorough education for girls; her first published piece was her “Desultory Thoughts of Self-Complacency, Especially in Female Bosoms,” which appeared in 1784 in the Gentlemen & Lady’s Town & Country Magazine, a short-lived Boston periodical, over the signature “Constantia.” A healthy self-respect, she argued, would prevent young women from rushing into marriage merely to gain status & avoid spinsterhood.

Meanwhile Judith Sargent Stevens, like her father, had been attracted to the liberal religious doctrines of Universalism. The Sargents had first heard of these beliefs from an English seaman who visited Gloucester in 1770. Four years later, when the itinerant preacher John Murray (1741-1815), now known as the founder of the Universalist Church in America, arrived in town, they offered such support that he decided to settle there. Murray gathered a congregation which, after being expelled from the First Parish Church, in 1780 built the first Universalist meetinghouse in America, on land donated by Winthrop Sargent. Apparently, Judith Sargent Stevens was also attracted to the preacher himself.

High-style Georgian domestic architecture, the house was built in 1782 for Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820) The Sargent House Museum, 49 Middle Street, Gloucester, Massachusetts. Her husband left her only 4 years later, sailing for the West Indies.

The war years brought hard times to Gloucester; & in 1786, to avoid imprisonment for debt, John Stevens fled to the West Indies, where he lived only briefly before dying on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius. In 1788, his widow married her pastor, John Murray.

In her new marriage, Judith Sargent Murray had 2 children, George, born in 1789, who lived only a few days, & Julia Maria born in 1791. And, the author “Constantia” began to renew her literary efforts. Her poems, pre-Romantic in feeling & couched in Popean couplets, began to appear in the new Massachusetts Magazine, & in February 1792 this literary monthly inaugurated an essay series by “Constantia” entitled “The Gleaner.” Writing in the person of an imaginary “Mr. Vigillius,” the author expressed her opinions on religion, politics, education, & the manners & customs of the day, illustrating her points with fictional narratives. The series was a favorite with the magazine’s readers & continued until August 1794.

A frequent Murray theme was the upbringing of girls. Mrs. Murray’s longstanding opinions on this subject had been strengthened by reading the Englishwoman Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s French Revolutionary fervor did not sit well with Judith Murray, a staunch Federalist who believed that her own country’s Revolution had carried it far enough toward democracy. She nevertheless heartily approved the Vindication’s plea that women be educated to be the “sensible & informed” companion of man & the even more radical demand that she be equipped to earn her own living. Certainly Mrs. Murry understood this need in her own marriages.  In the United States, Mrs. Murray felt, “the Rights of Women’ begin to be understood;” she was encouraged by the many female academies being established & looked forward to seeing the present generation of girls inaugurate “a new era in female history.”

In 1793, the Murrays moved to Boston. The lifting that year of the Revolutionary ban on dramatic performances gave Mrs. Murray a new outlet for her literary ambitions. Her play The Medium was probably the Federalist Street Theatre’s first production by an American author, but it played only one performance (Mar. 2, 1795). The critic Robert Treat Paine, Jr., attacked her The Traveller Returned, produced on Mar. 9, 1796, as pedantic & tedious, & it fared little better.

Once again, Judith Sargent Murry began to experience financial worries. Preacher John Murray had little head for practical affairs, & his health was failing. To increase the family income he proposed that his clever wife’s essays be published.  He guessed correctly.  More than 750 subscribers were secured, headed by George Washington, & The Gleaner appeared in 3 volumes in 1798, with an elaborate dedication to President John Adams. The series today holds a place as a minor classic in the literature of the young republic, bearing comparison with the essays of Mrs. Murray’s contemporaries Joseph Dennie, Philip Freneau, & Noah Webster.

A few of her poems were published in Boston periodicals in the early years of the new century, under the pen names “Honora-Martesia” & “Honora;” but most of her energies went into caring for her husband, who suffered a stroke in 1809, & was thereafter paralyzed, until his death in 1815.

Their financial straits were relieved by the marriage of their daughter in 1812, to Adam Louis Bingamon, son of a wealthy planter in the Mississippi Territory, whom she had met while he was a student at Harvard.

Mrs. Murray organized & edited her husband’s Letters & Sketches of Sermons (3 vols., 1812-13) & his autobiography, published in 1816, as Records of the Life of the Ref. John Murray, written by Himself, with a Continuation by Mrs. Judith Sargent Murray.

In 1816, she moved to live with her daughter in Natchez, Miss., where she died in 1820, aged 69. She was buried in the Bingamon cemetery on St. Catherine’s Creek, overlooking the powerful & poetic Mississippi River.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
.

Portrait of 18C American Woman

1770 John Singleton Copley 1738-1815 Relief Dowse Mrs Michael Gill Tate London

Portrait of 18C American Woman

1770 Cosmo Alexander (1724-1772).  Mary Jemima Balfour.  Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

In Business - Martha Daniell Logan (1704-1779) South Carolina Gardener & Teacher

Richard Houston (Irish printmaker, c.1721-1775) An image of an 18C woman gardening

Martha Daniell Logan (1704-1779), colonial era teache, gardener &plant collector,was born in St. Thomas Parish, S.C., the 2nd child of Robert Daniell and his second wife, Martha Wainwright.  Her father, who may originally have been a Virginian, had arrived in South Carolina from Barbados in 1679; already propertied, he increased his holdings in real estate, slaves, and ships over the years. In 1704 and 1705, he had a stormy term as lieutenant governor of North Carolina; and he served twice in the same capacity in South Carolina from 1715 through 1717.

Nothing is known of his daughter Martha’s education, but she could read, wrte, & do needlework. . In May 1718, when she was 13, her father died; and on July 30, of the following year she was married to George Logan, Jr. At about the same time her mother married the senior Logan, an Aberdeen Scot who, like Daniell, had held offices of trust in the province. 

Martha Daniell Logan was the first person to publish a gardening calendar in colonial British America. The daughter of Landgrave and Deputy Governor Robert Daniell and his wife Martha, Martha Daniell Logan maintained a well-known garden on the “Green, near Trott’s Point” in Charles Town. Logan’s ” Gardener’s Calendar” or “Directions for managing a kitchen garden every month of the year done by a lady” was first published in the 1752 South Carolina Almanac. Logan slightly changed and enlarged the calendar over subsequent decades. Her byline did not appear until after her death, although the calendar was published intermittently for over fifty years in various almanacs.

The younger Logans spent their early married years on a plantation some 10 miles up the Wando River from Charles Town, on land which Martha had inherited from her father. There, between 1720 and 1736, at least 8 children were born to them: George, Martha, Robert Daniell (who died as a child in 1726), William, John, Frances, Anne, and finally another Robert who also died before reaching adulthood.

As early as Mar. 20, 1742, Martha Logan advertised in the South Carolina Gazette that she would board students who would be “taught to read and write, also to work plain Work Embroidery, tent and cut work for 120 l. a year,” at her house up Wando River.  

She had removed to Charles Town, the Gazette of Aug. 4, 1754, carried her proposal for a boarding school in which a master of writing and arithmetic would supplement her instruction in reading, drawing, and needlework. Tradition had it that she also managed the Logan plantation, though this is less certain, as her husband did not die until July 1, 1764.  Her first advertisement for a school did, however, offer for sale the home estate and other properties, an offer which she repeated on Mar. 13, 1749, when she announced that she acted as attorney for her son George Logan of Cape Fear.

 

Nicolas Bonnart I (French printer, c 1637-1718) An image of a 17C lady interested in gardening. Her cat guards the watering can, as she carries a rake and a spade sits behind her.

She is best known for her interest in horticulture. She is assumed to be the “Lady of this Province” whose “Gardener’s Kalendar” was published in John Tobler’s South Carolina Almanack for 1752, according to the South Carolina Gazette of Dec. 6, 1751.  Here is her Kalendar from 1756.

Tobler's South Carolina Almanack of 1756.

Directions for Managing a Kitchen Garden every month of the year Done by a Lady

January
Plant peas and Beans: Sow Spinage for Use and for Seed: that which is preserved for Seed must never be cut: a small Quantity will yield plentifully in rich ground. 
Sow Cabbage for Summer Use, when they are fit transplant them into rich Earth. 
Sow Parsley. Transplant
Artichokes into very rich mellow Ground and they will bear in the Fall. 
This month all kinds of Fruit-Trees may be Transplanted.
February
Sow Celery, Cucumbers, Melons, Kidney-Beans, Spinage, Asparagus, Radish. 
Parsley, Lettice, to be transplanted in shady Places: they must be moved young and watered every Morning: Pond or Rain Water is the best. 
If the season does not prove too wet, this Month is best for
planting all Sorts of Trees, except the Fig, which should not be moved 'til March, when the suckers may be taken from the Roots of old Trees. The Fig will not bear pruning. 
The middle of this Month is the best for Grafting in the Cleft. 
If Fruit-Trees have not been pruned last Month, they must not be delayed longer. 
About the Middle of this Month, sow Spinage, Radish, Parsley and Lettice for the last time. 
Plant Dwarf and Hotspur Pease.
Sow Onions, Carrots and Parsnips; and plant out Carrots, Parsnips, Cabbage and Onions, for Seed the next Year. 
Plant Hops, Strawberries, and all kinds of aromatic Herbs
March
Whatever was neglected last Month, may be done in this, with good Success, if it is not too dry; if it be, you must water more frequently. 
Now plant Rounceval Pease and all manner of Kidney Beans.
April
Continue to plant aromatic Herbs Rosemary, Thyme, Lavender etc. and be careful to weed and water what was formerly planted. Lettice, Spinage and all kinds of Salading may be
planted to use all the Summer but they must be frequently watered and shaded from the Sun.
May
This month is chiefly for weeding and watering: Nothing sown or planted does well.
June
Clip Evergreens, and Herbs for drying, Thyme, Sage, Carduus, Rosemary, Lavender, etc. 
Sow Carrots, Parsnips and Cabbage. 
If the Weather is dry and hot the Ground must be well
watered, after being dug deep and made mellow. 
Straw or Stable Litter well wetted and laid pretty thick upon the Beds where Seeds are sown, in the Heat of the Day, and taken off at Night is a good expedient to forward the Growth.
July
What was done last Month may also be done this. Continue to water, in the evening only.
The latter end of this Month sow Pease for the Fall. 
Water such things as are going to seed, is being very needful to preserve good Seed. 
Turnips and Onions may be sown; 
Leeks, scallions and all of this Tribe planted.
August
Sow Turneps and another crop of Hotspur or Dwarf Pease. 
Still Continue to weed and water as before.
September
Showers of Rain will be frequent. 
Now prepare the ground for the following Seeds viz.
Spinage, Dutch brown Lettice, Endive, and other crop of Pease and Beans. 
Now you may inoculate with Buds.

The the calendar and a variant version appeared often in South Carolina and Georgia almanacs into the 1780’s. The Pennsylvania botanist John Bartram met Martha Logan briefly in 1760; and, at least through 1765, they carried on an eager exchange of letters, seeds, and plants. “Her garden is her delight,” wrote Bartram to his London correspondent Peter Collinson.

It was also a source of income. The South Carolina Gazette of Nov. 5, 1753, gave notice that her son Daniel (Robert Daniell) Logan sold imported seeds, flower roots, and fruit stones at his “mother’s house on the Green near Trotts point,” but after his death the nursery business soon passed into Martha Logan’s hands, as a diary reference of 1763, and a newspaper advertisement of 1768 attest.

Martha continued her plant & garden business for the rest of her life. She wrote a treatise on gardening at the age of 70. She advised local women, who were responsible for her familys' health, wwhich medicinal herbsd & plants to growb & use for different ailments.

Martha Logan died in Charleston in 1779. Martha Logan was buried in the family vault, since destroyed, in St. Phillip’s churchyard, Charleston.  

Forty years after Martha died, a Charleston physician David Ramsay (1749–1815) who was also a atate legislayor and historian, described her as “a great florist, and uncommonly fond of a garden,” and claimed she “reduced the knowledge she had acquired by long experience, and observation, to a regular system which . . . to this day regulates the practice of gardens in and around Charleston.”

Ramsey wrote of Marta Logan that she and her friend Sarah Ward Hopton (1715-1801) had “cultivated extensive gardens” in the city of Charleston. Sarah was married to William Hopton, Esq (1710-1786).

Portrait of 18C American Woman

1770 John Singleton Copley 1738-1815 Mrs. William Coffin Ann Holmes MFA (2)

John Adams on author Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

Mary Wollstonecraft, An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution and the Effect it Has Produced in Europe (London: J. Johnson, 1795).

John Adams wrote in his copy of this book,

"This is a lady of a masculine, masterly understanding. Her style is nervous and clear, often elegant: though sometimes too verbose. With a little experience in public affairs and the reading and reflection which would result from it, she would have produced a history without the defects and blemishes pointed out with too much severity perhaps and too little gallantry in the notes.
The improvement, the exaltation of the human character, the perfectibility of man, the perfection of the human faculties are the divine object which her enthusiasm beholds in beatific vision. Alas, how airy and baseless a fabric!

Yet she will not admit of the only means that can accomplish any part of her ardent prophecies: forms of government, so mixed, combined, and balanced as to restrain the passions of all orders of men."      (Inscribed on page [iv])

John Adams (1735-1826) by Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) 1826

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1759-1797), better known as just Mary Wollstonecraft, was an 18th-century British writer, philosopher, & advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, & a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men & women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

In the 1780s, life was more rigidly stratified than it is today: people knew where they belonged, & law and custom kept them there. Women labored under special disabilities. Politically disenfranchised, they also could not join the professions & were barred from many jobs. Married women had no rights to property or even to their own children. Centuries of common sense claimed that women were less than men in every way except in their ability to bear children. But, in the wake of the American & French Revolutions, political equality & something like a sexual revolution for women seemed possible. Moreover, thanks partly to Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), the legal & social restrictions under which women lived were briefly but hotly contested into the early 19th-century.

Portrait of 18C American Woman

1770 John Singleton Copley 1738-1815 Mrs James Russell Katherine Graves Pvt

Quaker Pioneer Prophet Jemima Wilkinson 1752-1819

Jemima Wilkinson (1752-1819), religious leader, founder of a pioneer community in western New York, was born in Cumberland, R.I., the 4^th of 6 daughters & 8th of 12 children of Jeremiah & Amey (Whipple) Wilkinson. She was of the 4th generation of her family in America, descended from Lawrence Wilkinson, an early freeman & colonial leader, who settled in Rhode Island about 1650. Her father, a successful farmer & orchardist, was a 1st cousin of Stephen Hopkins, several times governor of the colony & a signer of the Declaration of Independence, & of Esek Hopkins, 1st commander of the American navy. An older brother, Jeremiah, was a noted inventor in Cumberland. The Wilkinsons were Quakers.

Jemima Wilkinson (1752-1819)

It is difficult to separate fact from folklore in the story of Jemima.  Little dependable information exists about Jemima’s childhood. Undoubtedly an influence on her development was the death of her mother, worn out by childbearing, when Jemima was only 12 or 13. Deeply interested in religious ideas, the girl read the standard works of Quaker theology & history & so thoroughly absorbed the King James version of the Bible, that scriptural phrases became an integral part of her spoken language. She also was caught up in the religious excitement that accompanied George Whitefield’s last visit to New England &, in August 1776, was dismissed from the Society of Friends for attending meetings of a New Light Baptist group in Cumberland.

In 1776, the 23-year-old woman became ill with a fever; the doctor who attended her later testified that the fever was “translated to the head.” In the course of this illness, she had a vision that convinced her, that she had died & had been sent back from the dead to preach to a sinful & dying world. From that moment, she refused to recognize the name of Jemima Wilkinson, calling herself instead the Publick Universal Friend; & for more than 40 years she firmly adhered to her belief that she was an agent of the Lord.

She began her ministry in southern New England. During the years of the American Revolution she traveled & preached in Rhode Island, eastern Massachusetts, & Connecticut, & after 1782, she made four visits of increasing duration to the vicinity of Philadelphia. Everywhere she attracted followers-both men & women-many of them persons of wealth & social distinction. Most important of these was Judge William Potter of South Kingston, R.I., who freed his slaves because of her teaching & gave up his political career; he also built a 14-room addition to his already spacious mansion for the Universal Friend to use as her headquarters in New England. A wealthy farmer, David Wagener, of Worcester, Pa., was another convert, whose home she used while in Pennsylvania. Meeting-houses were built for her in in East Greenwich, R.I., & New Milford, Conn. Although these were help by trustees in the name of a society of Universal Friends, the Universal Friends was a personal following of Jemima Wilkinson rather than an organized church or sect. Membership apparently was contingent solely upon acceptance of her requirement that “Ye cannot be my friends except de do whatsoever I command you.” The only printed guide for he followers was a small pamphlet entitled The Universal Friend’s Advice to Those of the Same Religious Society, first published for her in Philadelphia in 1784, & later reprinted, after her death, in Penn Yan, N.Y., in 1821 & 1833. This consisted almost entirely of seemingly unrelated quotations from the Bible.

Carriage of Jemima Wilkinson (1752-1819)

As the Publick Universal Friend, Jemima Wilkinson preached no new or original theological concepts. Repent & forsake evil was the essence of her message; prepare for a future judgment, & “Do unto all men as you would be willing they should do unto you.” Nearly all of the practices she advocated, such as the use of plain language & clothing, opposition to war & violence & to Negro slavery, were standard Quaker beliefs. Celibacy was enjoined as a higher state of grace which she herself practiced & urged, although married couples who joined her society continued to live together & marriages took place among her followers. In this she was much less rigid than her contemporary ANN LEE, founder of the Shakers, with whom she was often compared. There is no indication that the women ever had any contact with each other, & the similarities between them probably stem from their common debt to Quakerism. The Universal Friend’s attraction was based on the emotional impact of her personality & the aura of mysticism that surrounded her. She apparently did little to discourage those of her followers who believed her to be a Messiah capable of performing miracles, although by he frequent denial of divine powers & her ambiguous description of her mission she avoided offending those who did not see in he the second coming of Christ. Several attempts at faith healing were recorded during her early ministry in New England, & she made prophecies & interpreted dreams throughout her life.

Jemima Wilkinson was described in her forties as “of middle stature, well made, of a florid countenance,” with “fine teeth, & beautiful eyes. ….Her black hair was cut short, carefully combed, & divided into three ringlets.” (Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Travels through the United States of North America, 1799, I, 112). Her manners of dress, however, was decidedly masculine. She customarily wore a flowing black robe patterned after a clergyman’s garb. Her followers referred to her, not as “she” or “her” but as “the Friend.”

Jemima Wilkinson (1752-1819)

She conceived the idea of a settlement where the faithful could be free from the temptations of the “wicked world” as early as the winder of 1786-86, when scouts were sent to explore the Genesee country of western New York, publicized by the veterans of Gen. John Sullivan’s expedition during the Revolution. In 1788, followers of the Universal Friend began to clear the land o the west side of the Seneca Lake, the first important American outpost in this area. The “Friend’s Settlement” already had a population of 260 when the Universal Friend herself arrived 2 years later. Though the land was purchased by a common fund, common ownership of property was never practiced; each contributor was to received title to a tract of land proportionate to his investment. In practice this proved difficult to arrange, & disputes over land titles caused the defection of some important members, including Judge William Potter & his son. Jemima Wilkinson moved a few miles farther west in 1794, to the vicinity of Crooked Lake (now Keuka Lake), where, with many of the faithful, she established Jerusalem township. She called their settlement on Outlet Creek "Hopeton". She later purchased a tract near Branchport "and we shall call this place "The City of Jerusalem."

She herself owned no land but lived on the proceeds of an estate held in trust for he by a follower. Her home was always open to offer hospitality to travelers in the wilderness & to the Indians, with whom she had a cordial relationship. Not the least of her significance is the role she played in encouraging the settlement of western New York.

House of Jemima Wilkinson (1752-1819)

During the last few years of her life she suffered from dropsy, & she succumbed to that illness in her 67th year at her home in Jerusalem township. Her body was placed in a stone vault in the cellar of her house but later was buried in an unmarked grave by 2 of her followers. Two of her disciples attempted to carry on the society after her death, but the group gradually disintegrated & within 2 decades had all but disappeared.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971

Portrait of 18C American Woman

1770 John Durand  Mrs John Lothrop Nat Gal Art