Friends in the Fleet Prison at Esopus

Abstract

FRIENDS IN THE FLEET PRISON AT ESOPUS By A. Day Bradley* The imprisonment of some of the representatives from Purchase Quarterly Meeting to New York Yearly Meeting in 1777 is briefly described in an historical summary prepared by a committee of the Meeting for Sufferings in 1787. This report was prepared in response to a request from John Gough, the Quaker historian.1 Purchase Quarterly Meeting, the first "on the Main" in New York Yearly Meeting, as opposed to Long Island, was established in 1745, and in 1777 included the Monthly Meetings of Purchase, Oblong, and Nine Partners, with particular meetings on both sides of the Hudson as far north as Easton Meeting, scene of the "Fierce Feathers" incident.2 The historical summary describes some of the difficulties in Purchase Quarter during the Revolution: To the Monthly [Meeting of Purchase] belonged the particular meetings of Westchester and Amawalk, the first within the British lines and the latter within the American. The Quarterly Meeting was composed mostly of meetings within the American lines, and as hath been observed passing and repassing through the lines of either Army was wholly forbid under very severe penalties, which rendered it still more difficult and hazardous for Friends within the limits of either of the contending parties to attend the meetings between the lines. . . . Yet amongst all these difficulties the Monthly and Quarterly Meetings were regularly kept up and Friends enabled to transact the business thereof without much interruption. When the representatives of Purchase returned through the British lines from the Yearly Meeting at Flushing, many of them were taken into custody by the American authorities at Poughkeepsie . The historical summary continues: * A. Day Bradley is a member of the Mathematics Department at Hunter College. 1 The original committee, appointed on March 8, 1785, included Henry Haydock, Elias Hicks, James Mott, Tripp Mosher, Isaac Underhill, Silas Downing , John Hoag, Joseph Delaplaine, and Edmund Prior. On January 9, 1787, George Embree, Henry Post, and Oliver Hull were added to make the report "more explicit." The final statement was approved on Janaury 9, 1787 and appears in the MS Minutes of the Meeting for Sufferings for 1758-1796, pp. 179188 . All minutes quoted in this article are in the Haviland Records Room of New York Yearly Meeting. 2 Easton Meeting, originally called Saratoga, is in Washington County. The name was changed when Saratoga, "west of the river," was established in 1783. 114 Notes and Documents115 Eight Friends belonging to Oblong Quarterly Meeting [i.e., Purchase Quarterly Meeting, held alternately at Purchase and Oblong] soon after their return from the Yearly Meeting were called to appear at P'keepsie before those termed the Commissioners for Conspiracy [The Commission for Detecting Conspiracies] by whom after examination the Friends were told that their going to Long Island was esteemed a capital crime. On June 7, 1777 one John Wood appeared before the Commission for Detecting Conspiracies at Poughkeepsie and informed them that he had taken prisoner, Benjamin Jeecocks [Jacokx], "one of the people called Quakers who had been to Long Island to attend the Yearly Meeting at Flushing." Shortly thereafter, Benjamin Jacokx gave the Commission a list of some twenty Friends who "were down at the General Meeting."3 On June 17, two of the Commissioners, Melancton Smith and Peter Cantine, ordered "Jonathan Dean, Zophar Green, Paul Upton, Tripp Mosher, Martha, the widow of Aaron Vail, and Martha, the wife of Parshall Brown, charged with having been to Long Island to attend the General Meeting of Quakers" to be confined to the limits of Poughkeepsie until further order.4 The Commissioners wrote to Pierre Van Cortlandt, President of the Council of Safety, stating that they had apprehended some twenty Quakers on their return from Long Island. The Commissioners noted in the letter that they had no evidence for or against the statement of the Friends that attendance at the Yearly Meeting was strictly for religious purposes.5 The Council promptly ordered the Friends "to be sent under guard to the Fleet Prison at Esopus Creek there to remain at their own expense until further order."6 The Fleet Prison, consisting of vessels anchored in the Hudson at Esopus Landing near...