QUAKERS!

Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word ~ Isaiah 66:5 ~ inspiration for the name Quakers

The first Quaker Meeting House in Salem, est. ca 1680

the uncles

Our tame Grandpa Edward Phelps (9GGF) had two brothers who remained in Salem after his move to Newbury. Henry Phelps (10U) came to Massachusetts Bay in 1634 and his brother Nicholas (10U) probably sometime after that. Like their brother in Newbury, they stayed under the radar...for a time. Until their Quaker days began.

Lack of records makes it impossible to know when the three Phelps brothers were born. Henry (10U) had a son born to his first wife ca. 1645. Nicholas (10U) had a daughter born ca. 1653 and a son shortly afterwards. Grandpa Edward's (9GGF) eldest child was born ca. 1646. As they were most likely in their mid-twenties when these children were born, it seems safe to assume the the brothers were still teenagers when they sailed for New England.

What happened to Henry's first wife is unknown. Nicholas didn't marry until 1652 and it was around that time when things began to get dicey.

shipboard romance

Sometime before 1652, Henry Phelps (10U) evidently returned to England. He subsequently made the voyage back to New England and a dalliance on board the ship began a relationship that was to have a profound impact on his and his brother's lives. Whether Henry met Hannah Baskel on the ship or knew her previously in England is unknown. What happened on the ship, however, is public record from an undated deposition given by Jane Johnson much later during one of Hannah's Quaker trials.

According to Jane's testimony, "coming ov' in the ship with Henry Phelps and Hannah the now wife of Nich Phelps," Henry evidently went ashore and "Hannah wept till shee made herselve sick because mr Fackner would not suffer her to goe ashore with Henry Phelps. & Henry came aboard late in the night, the next morning mr Falckner Chid Henry Phelps & Hannah & said was it not enough for ye to let Hannah lay her head in y'lapp but must shee ly in ye Cabbin to..." The captain called Hannah a strumpet and the deponent further said that "she saw Henry Phelps ly in his Cabbin & Hannah Baskel the now wife of Nich Phelps came & iay down her head by him & pull her head up again often as he lay in his Cabbin: Y when he was smocking in the Cook roome tobacco Hannah tooke the pip out of his mouth, etc., etc."

Given the apparent strong feelings between Hannah and her shipboard lover, wedding bells might have seemed the appropriate next step for the two of them. But that wedding would have to be postponed. It's possible that Henry's first wife was then still living. That would be one explanation as to why it was Henry's brother Nicholas who ended up winning Hannah as his bride in 1652. Nicholas and Hannah had two children, Jonathan (1C10x) and Hannah (1C10x). When mother Eleanor (10GGM) died in 1654, Nicholas and Hannah moved with their two children into "The Woods," the house that Nicholas had inherited jointly with his brother Henry.

the Quakers

The Society of Friends, or Quakers, was founded in England in 1648 by a man named George Fox. A passage in a letter written in 1656 from Barbados by Henry Fell seems to be the earliest mention of Quakerism in Salem:

"In Plimouth patent . . . there is a people not soe ridged as the others at Boston and

there are great desires among them after the Truth. Some there are, as I hear, convinced who meet in silence at a place called Salem."

Cotton Mather, an influential Puritan minister (who later figured heavily in the Salem Witch Trials) didn't view the Quakers so kindly:

"I can tell the world that the first Quakers that ever were in the world were certain

fanaticks here in our town of Salem, who held forth almost all the fancies and

whimsies which a few years after were broached by them..."

The dim view held towards the Quakers by the Puritan government was made clear when, in 1657, a group of Friends visiting from England were promptly imprisoned upon their arrival. For this reason, the Quakers met "in silence" until Sunday 27 Jun 1658 when a public meeting of Friends was held at the home of Nicholas and Hannah Baskell Phelps.

Defiance

The Quaker meeting at "The Woods" was the first of record in the colony. Seven Quakers attending that meeting were sent to prison. Miraculously the hosts, Nicholas and Hannah, got off with only a fine. And in spite of the danger, Quaker meetings continued to be held at the Phelps house in opposition to the law.

In September of 1658, however, Nicholas Phelps' luck ran out. He was arrested and sent to prison. There he was "cruelly whipped three times in five days," evidently for refusing to work. When he was called before the court again a few months later, he was banished from New England on pain of death. He was given two weeks to settle his affairs and, in the spring of 1659, he sailed for England. Nicholas did not return to Massachusetts until late 1661.

trouble at home

Fines, imprisonment, whippings and banishment were not the worst punishments the Puritans meted out to the defiant Quakers. In the fall of 1659 Hannah and five other women traveled to Boston. Their mission was to comfort two Friends from England who had been sentenced to death for their beliefs. While in Boston, Hannah and her group were also arrested and imprisoned. In November, two weeks after the execution of the condemned Friends, the Salem women were sentenced for "adherence to the cursed sect of the Quakers" and "theire disorderly practises & vagabond like life in absenting themselves from theire family relations and runing from place to place wthout any just reason." They were admonished, whipped, and sent home.

There was more difficulty upon Hannah's return to Salem. She found that her house and land had been seized by the Salem Court for fines levied against her and Nicholas for church non-attendance. Hannah's first love, brother-in-law Henry to the rescue! He argued to the court that half the house belonged to him and somehow managed to obtain control of the entire farm. It seems he must have had ulterior motives for helping Hannah because, soon afterwards, Henry moved into "The Woods" with his sister-in-law.

Henry, seemingly a respectable citizen up until this time, now began to find his own share of woe. In June of 1660, Major William Hawthorn was sent to investigate Henry on allegations of "misuse" of his son John Phelps (1C10x) among other sundry transgressions:

"Henry Phelps, of Salem, was complained of at the county court at Boston, July 31, 1660 for beating his son, John Phelps, and forcing him to work carrying dung and mending a hogshead on the Lord's day, also for intimacy with his brother's wife and for entertaining Quakers. It was ordered that John Phelps, the son, be given over to his uncle, Mr. Edmond Batter (brother of Henry's first wife, now obviously deceased), to take care of him and place him out to some religious family as an apprentice...Henry, the father, to pay to Mr. Batter what the boy's grandmother left him, to be improved to said John Phelps' best advantage. Said Henry Phelps was ordered to give bond for his good behavior until the next Salem court, and especially not to be found in the company of Nicholas Phelps' wife, and to answer at that time concerning the entertaining of Quakers."

Nick returns...briefly

Meanwhile, turmoil in England! In the blink of an eye, the Puritans were out and a government more sympathetic to the Quakers was in. The new king, Charles II, issued an order to the Massachusetts Colony that the persecution of Quakers must cease. Samuel Shattock, along with Nicholas Phelps (10U), was appointed to take the "King's Missive" to Boston. According to historian Sydney Perley, “they returned together, but Mr. Phelps, being weak in body after some time died.”

Hannah and Nicholas were together in 1662, but the yearly fine for church non-attendance was sent to Hannah alone in 1663. After Nicholas' death, his brother Henry and Hannah were clearly ready to be done with the colony that had caused them such grief. Some of their Quaker friends had made their way to far-off North Carolina, where a new settlement was beginning in Albermarle County. Henry sold the "The Woods"and left Massachusetts, along with Hannah and her children. Presumably, the plucky "strumpet" Hannah and her first love, Henry, were finally united in marriage at a Quaker meeting before setting off by ship with their few remaining possessions.

Note: It's possible that in North Carolina, Henry and Hannah might have come across some of our Southern kin. The Clothier, Thomas, Kemp, Roe and Covington families from Maryland and North Carolina all had strong Quaker factions.

On the map below, the red marker shows where Henry and Hannah settled in North Carolina on the Albermarle Sound. The orange marker on the far top left is Mt. Airy where Andy Griffith was born! The dark blue marker is the Pee Dee River where most of our North Carolina relatives settled. The light blue marker on the far right is Kitty Hawk, of Wright Brothers fame.

afterword

Sometime between 1672 and 1676, Henry died and Hannah married a man named James Hill. But she did not go gentle into that good night. Feisty as ever, in 1689 she fought her daughter's husband for her grandson's inheritance. Then, she went back to court in 1694 to fight for the land rights of her son, Jonathan's (1C10x) children. Hannah proved rights (remember the headright system in south) for fifteen persons transported from Massachusetts into Albermarle, NC. These fifteen rights amounted to 750 acres. Hannah assigned six rights to her grandson Jonathan Phelps (2C9x), age seven, and eight rights to her grandson Samuel Phelps (2C9x), age eight.

The Reverend William Gordon, a Church of England missionary wrote that the Quakers in Albermarle were "very numerous, extremely ignorant, insufferably proud and ambitious, and consequently ungovernable."

Proud, ambitious and ungovernable fit Hannah to a tee. She defied the government for her beliefs, she outlived three husbands and two children, she fought for her land and she helped to ensure a prosperous future for her grandchildren.

Note: The land Hannah fought so hard to keep is now the town of Hertford, NC on the Perquimans River.