USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume I > Part 12
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Of those qualities of mind which are thought to constitute character, we know something as they were possessed by Mr. Callister, unless
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his own letters misrepresent them. He was a man of nice sense of honor and of an integrity that scorned a personal advantage to the injury of another. This is said with the recollection of his information against Mr. Morris, imparted, however, after his death, when no harm could result to the object. He was liberal to brothers in England, giving them generous assistance when their circumstances became straightened, and aiding other kinsmen when they came to America.13 His open handed benevolence to, and his active sympathy with the French exiles cast upon our shores, as expressed in his prompt contribution of means and labor towards their comfort and protection, attests the possession of sensibilities keenly alive to the appeals of humanity. Though some- what self-concentrated and inclined to severe judgments of his fellow- men who made no appeal to his compassion, he was social in his disposi- tion, liking the companionship of the intelligent and virtuous. He evi- dently did not court the rich, and scorned the aristocratic pretensions of many who surrounded him. He was very impulsive and irritable- quick to take offense and ready to resent injury. These qualities be- came more prominently developed after he fell into pecuniary embarrass- ments. He was unable to bear "the wild blows and buffets of the world" with serene equanimity or bold defiance when he came to suffer the latter part of his life the mortification of failure, the loss of his means, and the consequent apprehensions of poverty; and he so gave expres- sion to this suffering in weak complaints and in bitter reproaches heaped upon those he conceived to be the authors of his misfortunes.
As has been before mentioned, he married in 1748, Miss Sarah Trippe, who bore to him five daughters, but no sons, who seem to have been left in dependent circumstances, and as they were well accomplished, they or some of them resorted to teaching for a livelihood. Whether any of them married is uncertain, but there are persons of this county in a very humble station, claiming property as the rightful heirs of Mr. Callister. A young lady bearing the name of Callista Callister inspired some elegiac verses, and perhaps ths amorous passion of Mr. John Leeds Bozman, and she is thought to have been a kinswoman of the sub- ject of this sketch, or possibly even one of his daughters.
Of the time and place of Mr. Callister's death nothing has been learned; but if there were those living whom pride of ancestry or hope of inheritance would stimulate to attempt the labor of research, there is
13 Francis, a nephew, son of Evan Callister, came to America and for him his uncle sought employment upon the ships of Col. Lloyd and in the counting house or ships of Mr. Robert Morris, of Philadelphia.
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little doubt that the records of either Kent or Queen Anne's county would reveal the day of his release, and the bed of his repose from care. His letters ceased about the middle of the year 1765, and it is presumed that broken in fortune and in spirit, he died near this time, in poverty and obscurity, upon his farm near Crumpton, and that there he is buried.
It will be thought more has been said of this worthy than he deserves. Although his services were not remarkably useful and not at all brilliant, it must be remembered that as some men are honored for what they tell, Mr. Callister's aid to the Acadians should cause his name to be admirably remembered by the people of Talbot and other counties: but his letters, written with no vain hope that they would perpetuate his memory to after generations, are such valuable memorials of personal, county and state history, that the poor tribute of this commemorative account of a hitherto unpraised and almost unmentioned man, will not be considered unmerited.
February 25, 1873. WENLOCK CHRISTISON THE QUAKER CONFESSOR
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE RELIGIOUS ANNALS OF TALBOT COUNTY, MD.
The persecutions of the Quakers by the authorities and people of New England have long afforded a favorite theme for two classes of people: for certain religionists who think they enlarge the excellencies of their own peculiar sect when they magnify the imperfections of others, and think they hide the faults of their own church when they point to the foibles of what they call in derision the conventicle: for certain patriots who think they can best show a love for their own country by an exhibition of hatred to other lands, and fancy they can manifest a due appreciation of the worth of their own State or section only by denying merit to all beyond its bounds, or at least by a due appreciation of a neighboring country's deficiencies. To hate Massachusetts, with some intense lovers of their State is thought to be the best devotion to the interests of Carolina-to be the equivalent of wisdom in council and fidelity in service; while the man of the North has not been inapt to reciprocate these feelings towards the men of the South, and to misapprehend the nature of patriotic devotion. Now these perse- cutions by men who had left their old homes to find in the wilderness "freedom, to worship God," were certainly a sad and mortifying exhi- bition,-sad, that men could be so cruel, mortifying, that they could be
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so weak-and deserving our condemnation: but this condemnation will be mitigated in its intensity when we reflect that the atrocities that were practised upon the Quakers were not the result of Puritan, but of Human nature, and that they were not peculiar to New England, but that George Fox was imprisoned and whipped, and Ann Downer beaten in Old England before William Leddra and Mary Dyer were hung at Boston. In America, Round Head and Cavalier, Massachu- setts and Virginia united in these persecutions, and even Maryland, with her noble charter of religious toleration, of which we are so proud, has not wholly escaped the foul blot. The laws of Virginia, against these people, were almost as severe as those of Plymouth or Boston, though they were certainly not enforced with nearly so much fierce vigor; while we must blush to read that the council proceedings of the 23d July, 1659, of the province of Maryland contains an order directing all
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.
It is not certain that any Quaker was ever whipped, though one historian of the society states that three were fined for extending hospi- tality to one of the preachers who had been ordered to leave the province, and whipped for refusing to assist the Sheriff in arresting the same per- son, who was imprisoned for a year and a day, and then sent away to New England, whence he returned to Maryland again to give much trouble to his own friends the Quakers, and finally to be "disowned" by them. There were a few other cases of fines, imprisonment and banishment, beside these of Thomas Thurston and those who gave him hospitality. Unless we accept these instances as veritable, there is no other in our State records of any corporal punishment having been inflicted upon a Quaker-no instance of mutilation by "cutting off the ears" or "branding in the hand"-no instance of the barbarity of being tied to a "great gun," flogged through the town, and turned adrift in the woods-no instance of hanging by the neck until dead, followed by the stripping of the body, and the refusal of decent burial, such as occurred in New England. It is indeed gratifying to know that after a very short interval of the predominance in the State of a spirit of intolerance to these people, Maryland resumed her early sentiment of freedom of worship, and that she who from the first was the refuge of the persecuted, became again the sanctuaryof the Friends. From a libertine King, a papistical proprietary, and a prelatical assembly,
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these people received an indulgence not vouchsafed by a sanctimonious Protector, an evangelical governor, and a general court, one of the quali- fications of whose members was church fellowship. Our books of laws indicate, and history records, that our provincial authorities, Governor, council and legislature, after the short period of persecution, became not simply tolerant, but solicitous to protect the Friends in all their rights and privileges, even so far as to modify the statutes so as to humor, as it were, their peculiarities. To be sure the property of Friends who would not "train with the militia," or contribute to the support of war by personal service or payment of taxes, or who would not pay the assessment of "church rates," was seized and sold by the Sheriff, and continued to be: but they were exempt from personal violence, and their rights of worship were scrupulously guarded by special statutes. A thorough examination of the records of the court of Talbot, and an equally thorough examination of the "minutes" of the meetings of Friends in Third Haven, have revealed not a single instance of personal violence inflicted upon a Quaker, on account of his religion, in this county, and it is to be noted that our court records extend back to 1662, a period when persecution was rife in New England, and the minutes of the meetings commence with 1676 a period when Friends were still emulous of martyrdom, and would have been sure to record any case of "suffering." The only instances of persecution for religious opinion, or seeming persecution, in all our local annals are the disbarring of one John Walker, an Attorney, in 1689, on account of his being a Roman Catholic, and refusing to take the oaths of supremacy and abhorency, and the arrest and imprisonment in the Easton jail (not the jail now standing-as some think) of Joseph Hartley, a Methodist preacher, in 1779, on the "charge for preaching and teaching the Gospel contrary to the act of assembly, entitled an act for the better security of the State"-to use the words of his recognizance. But in both these instances, political rather than religious intolerance was the motive of the laws under which the persons named were punished, and it will be observed they both occurred at periods of political revolution-the one at about the accession of William and Mary and the other at about the overthrow of the English rule in the colonies.1
1 What is here said must not be understood to mean that there were no religious disabilities in Maryland. The existence of a State church necessarily involves religious disability in dissenters of all sects. It is proper to say also, that at the period when the intolerant laws against Quakers in Virginia and Maryland were in operation the Puritans were either dominant in those States, or largely influential.
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There are reasons to believe, at least there are some circumstances that render it probable, that Maryland, and Talbot county itself, where almost from the very first foundation of Quakerism in America, there was a society near the head of Third Haven Creek, afforded an asylum for many of the persecuted and harassed Friends of Old England, New England, Virginia and other colonies. We have or had families in this county, the representatives of which bore the names, Christian or sur- name, or both, of some of the very earliest and most prominent- prominent for labor and suffering-of the Friends, and these families, as far as we have evidence were of the society. For instance: There was John Burnyeat, who lived at "Killingsworth" on Bugby creek near Choptank river, Bullingbroke Hundred, and died about the year 1726. Although said to be the son of William Burnyeat, is it not prob- able he was connected with that John Burnyeat, who travelled and preached in Maryland, and, in all likelihood, here in Talbot, before Fox himself came over, and who was one of the earliest apostles of Quakerism, and organizers of the society? There was John Edmondson one of the first Quakers in Talbot,-first in regard to time, and in regard to prominence-a large merchant, who lived at "Cedar Point," the pres- ent residence of Jos. R. Price, Esq., at whose house George Fox, in the year 1672, tarried while he attended a five days meeting at the meeting house at Betty's cove, upon the land that now belongs to Robert Dixon, still a worthy follower of that George Fox, as he followed the right. Was not this John Edmondson related to that William Edmundson, who was the companion of Fox, and who abode with him at 'Cedar Point?' There was William (?) Crouch, who gave name to that island in the mouth of Wye river, now improperly called "Bruff's Island," and which is occasionally used for purposes that good Quaker, if he was a Quaker, would not probably have approved.2 Was he descended from that William Crouch, who is spoken of in the Quaker annals as "a remarkable example of Christian meekness and fidelity," and who in England "suffered imprisonments for not swearing, scoffs and revil- ings of men, loss of goods by distresses, for a good conscience towards God, for not paying to the hireling priesthood, and for meeting with
2 William (?) Crouch sold his Island to Capt. Peter Sayer, who was a Roman Catholic, and devised by his will, dated Aug. 29, 1697, 5 pounds sterling to every Priest in the Province, and also gave one-ninth of his estate to "ye Benedictine nuns of Paris," and another ninth to "ye Benedictine monks of Paris, and another ninth to the English Fryars." Capt. Peter Sayer sold the Island to Thomas Bruff in 1762, and from him it derives its name.
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the people of God to worship Him?" There was Thomas Taylor, who when George Fox was in Talbot lived upon Kent Island, and there entertained that apostle, but subsequently moved up into the Chapel district, near King's creek, and afterwards into Baily's Neck, and who was appointed on the 8th day of the 7th month, 1676, the first Secre- tary of the meeting at Third Haven, or as the minutes of the meeting put it, characteristically disdaining to use any title-to "Keepe Friends' Books, and write the concerns of Friends in their men's meeting." Was this Thomas Taylor, the son and biographer of that Thomas Tay- lor, who surrendered his benefice at Richmond in Yorkshire, to become an unpaid minister among the dispised Friends, and who rather than take an oath, suffered an imprisonment of ten years and a half, the loss of his real estate for life, and his personal forever, and the deprivation of the protection of the law? Besides these there are numerous other names borne by Quaker families in Talbot that are distinguished in the annals of the society by having been the names of Friends who suffered for conscience sake, or labored to propagate the doctrine of the "inner light." The Birkheads, the Dickinsons, the Richardsons, the Harwoods were Talbot Friends and these names stand high in the roll of Quaker hagiology, as those belonging to departed saints and confessors. Doubt- less there are or were representatives in this county of other more ob- scure but not less holy personages, who sought and found a sanctuary within our bounds. But without resorting to conjecture, there is one instance well authenticated, of a person who suffered much persecution for his profession and practice as a Quaker, and who, after being beaten, imprisoned, banished and even condemned to death, from which he narrowly escaped, came to Talbot, here settled, married, and died. This was Wenlock Christison, of whom it is now proposed to give an account.
The records of the Third Haven meeting of Friends, if not the earliest, are the most complete of any relating to this county. Commencing with the year 1676 they continue down to this date, with only here and there a small hiatus from negligence of registers. With the permission of Friend James Dixon, to whom no other title of curtesy is here given because he wishes no other, and because in the revolutions of years, that which was designed to be no title, has become one of high distinc- tion, these records have been placed in the hands of the compiler of these memoranda for examination. They are full of information, valuable and curious to the antiquarian and annalist-so valuable and curious that they ought to be placed beyond the reach of fire, that
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malign demon that seems to delight in the destruction of all memorials of the past, and to satisfy whose appetite all records seem destined first or last. The first minute in these records is in these words:
Att our men's meeting at Wenlock Chrystison's the 24th day of the first month 1676 [i.e. 24th of March, 1676]. It was concluded by the meeting that the meeting house att Betty's Cove should be finished as followeth; viz't To seale the Gable end and the Loft with Clapboard, and make a partition betwixt the new roome and the old, three foot high, seiled, and with windows to lift up and down, and to be hung with hinges, according to the direction of Bryan O'Mealy and John Pitt, who are appointed by the meeting to have oversight of the same, and to be done with what conveniency may be.
This minute refers to the repairing or completion of the first meeting house that was erected in this county, namely, that upon the creek making in from St. Michaels river, between the lands of Friend Robert Dixon and William Hayward, Esq. It was at this house George Fox attended in 1672, and not at Third Haven meeting house, that now stand- ing near Easton, as is commonly supposed. The Third Haven meet- ing house was not erected until 1682, when the land was purchased, though it was not completed in 1684. It was called the "Great meet- ing house at Trade Haven Creek," and was built larger than would otherwise have been necessary, to accommodate the half-yearly meetings held here and West River, on the Western Shore alternately. The John Pitt named as one of the supervisors of the improvements at Betty's Cove, was that John Pitt who gave name to the bridge above the town of Easton (near the slaughter houses) from which bridge the Court House erected near, received its name, and was designated in the court records as the "Court House near Pitts his Bridge." Even after the Friends had one meeting house, and until others were built in various parts of the county, it was customary for them to hold their meetings at private houses-as for instance at Howell Powell's, John Edmondson's, Will Stevens, Wenlock Christison's, Thomas Taylor's, and others. The present concern is with Wenlock Christison himself. Some other circumstances hereafter to be mentioned, concerning this man, mentioned in the records of the meeting, arrested attention, and upon glancing over Janney's History of the Friends, in order to satisfy some other inquiries, it was found that this Wenlock Christison was a notable personage. Mr. Janney drew his information about him from a rare and most curious book, which after much trouble the writer has been able to procure, through the courtesy of the Cherry Street
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monthly meeting of Friends in Philadelphia, and of which this is the grimly quaint title:
New England Judged, Not by Man's, but the Spirit of the Lord: AND The SUM sealed up of New England's PERSECUTIONS.
BEING
A Brief Relation of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers in those Parts of America, from the beginning of the 5th Month, 1656 (the time of their first Arrival at Boston from England) to the latter end of the 10th Month, 1660.
WHEREIN
The Cruel Whippings and Scourgings, Bonds and Imprisonments, Beat- ings and Chainings, Starvings and Huntings, Fines and Confiscation of Estates, Burning in the Hand and Cutting off Ears, Orders of Sale for Bond-men and Bond-women, Banishment upon pain of Death, and putting to Death of those People, are shortly touched: With a Relation of the Manner, and some of the other most Material Pro- ceedings; and a Judgment thereupon.
IN ANSWER
To a certain Printed Paper, Intituled, A DECLARATION of the General-Court of the Massachusetts, holden at Boston, the 18th of October, 1659. Apologizing for the same.
By GEORGE BISHOPE.
Therefore, also saith the Wisdom of God, I will send them Prophets, and Apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: That the Blood of all the Prophets that was shed from the Foundation of the World, may be required of this Generation. From the Blood of Abel, to the Blood of Zacharias, who perished between the Temple and the Altar. Verily, I say unto you, it shall be required of this Generation.
LONDON, Printed in the Year 1661 And now Re-printed, 1703.
The above is the title of the First Part. The following is the title of the Second:
New England Judged. The second Part BEING,
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A Relation of the Cruel and Bloody Sufferings of the People called QUAKERS, in the Jurisdiction, chieffly, of the Massachusetts: Begin- ning with the Sufferings of William Leddra, whom they murthered, and hung upon a Tree, at Boston, the 14th of the first Month, 1660-1, barely for being such a one as is called a Quaker, and coming within their Jurisdiction: And ending with the Sufferings of Edward Wharton, the 3d Month, 1665. And the remarkable Judgments of God, in the Death of John Endicot, Governour; John Norton, High-Priest; and Humphrey Adderton, Major-General.
By George Bishope.
Fill ye up then the Measure of your Fathers ye Serpents, ye Generation of Vipers, How can ye escape the Damnation of Hell?
Wherefore, behold I, send unto you Prophets, and wise men and Scribes, and some of them shall you scourge in your Synagogues, and persecute from City to City.
That upon you may come all the righteous Blood, shed upon the Earth, the Blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the Temple and the Altar.
Verily, I say unto you, all these things shall come on this Generation, Mat. 23, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36.
LONDON, Printed in the Year 1667. And now Re-printed, 17003
This book constitutes one of the most terrible indictments ever issued against any people, and though written by a Quaker, with which char- acter we are accustomed to associate all that is gentle and mild, it must be regarded as perfectly ferocious in its language, and vengeful in spirit, as the title pages will alone sufficiently indicate. But George Bishope was one of the sufferers, and much may therefore be forgiven him. Among those who endured persecution of whom this book gives account, Wenlock Christison was not the least conspicuous. The first notice that is given of him is when he with many others was in prison in Boston on the 13th of the 10th month (December) 1660. Among the prisoners was William Leddra, who was destined to suffer death by hanging. It would appear that W. Christison had no settled home, but wandered from place to place preaching. At this time he seems just to have come from Salem. It is not clear what was the particular charge against him, if there really was any other than his being a Quaker and in Boston, contrary to law. He was released, how- ever, with numerous others, including William Leddra, his dear friend, without undergoing any other suffering, or indignity, and ordered to leave the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, under penalty of death if he
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should return. But apparently this was not his first imprisonment in New England, nor indeed in Boston, for Bishope in recounting the sufferings of two other faithful servants, mentions that they went to "Plimouth Patent," a settlement not within the jurisdiction of Massachu- setts at that time, nor until 1692, "where Wenlock Christison had been imprisoned and suffered Twenty seven cruel stripes, on his naked body, at one time, laid on with deliberation, (so was the order of the magis- trates, who stood to see it) in the cold Winter season, who bid the Jaylor lay it on; who did as hard as he could, and then robbed him of his wastcoat (though in that cold time of the year he was to pass through the wilderness,) and his Bible the Jaylor took for fees, who came about midnight, much in drink (so depriving him of the scriptures) and then turning him out in the morning, having not clothes sufficient left to keep him warm, keeping him without food, from the time of his cruel whipping, to his turning out, (he was five days upon his first commit- ment not suffered to have food for his money) the Jaylor stopping up the holes saying, That at such places he might be supplied with provisions; keeping it so, until he asked them, Whether they meant to starve him? After which they allowed him provisions of three pence a day, for five weeks, such as the Jaylor would give him; blood thirsty Barloe [marshal of three towns Sandwich, Plymouth and Yarmouth] having also robbed him of his two other coats, and hat and bag of linen, with upwards of four pounds, when he apprehended him at Sandwich, after ye had ban- ished him upon pain of death, and kept him fourteen weeks and two days, in the coldest time in winter. And thus was he whipped, Robb'd and turned out, after Tho. Prince, the Governour and magistrates, had caused him to be tied neck and heals, for speaking for himself in the Court, who denied him the satisfaction for his goods, robb'd by Barloe, as aforesaid, when he was had to the Whipping-Post, and with much ado, he obtained so much moderation of the Governour as to hear him, who said in answer 'That he must first pay for his Preaching. * *
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