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A Note on John Woolman's Paternal Ancestors: The Gloucestershire Roots; The West New Jersey Plantation James Proud* I. Introduction The name of John Woolman, the American journalist, is renowned among Quakers both in the United States and abroad. The model simplicity ofhis life, the steadfast faithfulness ofhis witness to justice for slaves and the poor in the American colonies, as well as the missionary zeal by which he personally manifested the spiritual strengths cultivated within the Society ofFriends, are known both through his Journal1 and his other preserved public writings.2 These works reveal the man and his manner oflife. Behind the man are the less revealed lives of his paternal forebears.While the journalist does notrecordthe stamp andtenor ofhis ancestors' lives, he does provide this near poetic account of their Quaker contemporaries leaving a familiar world in England and, "going beyond the seas," becoming planters in the unknown land of West New Jersey: If we call to mind our beginning, some of us may find a time wherein our fathers were under afflictions, reproaches, and manifold sufferings. Respecting our progress in this land, the time is short since our beginning was small and number few, compared with the native inhabitants. . . . The wilderness and solitary deserts in which our fathers passed the days of theirpilgrimage are now turned into pleasant fields. The natives are gone from before us, and we establish peaceably in the possession ofthe land, enjoying our civil and religious liberties. And while many parts of the world have groaned under the heavy calamities of war, our habitation remains quiet and our land fruitful.3 In search of some revealing evidence of the pilgrimage of Woolman's forefathers and ofhis own spiritual patrimony, this note looks to the known record, sparse as it is, ofthe paternal generations preceding the journalist. The discussion frames the lives of: • William Woolman (1632-1692), the great-grandfather; • John Woolman (1655-1718), the grandfather; • Samuel Woolman (1690-1750), the father4; and • John Woolman (1720-1772), the journalist. * James Proud is an attorney, now retired, and a priest ofthe Episcopal Church. He is also aWoolman descendant inthathis paternal grandfather's maternal grandmother was the daughter of the journalist's brother Asher's daughter Rebecca and of the journalist'sbrotherAbraham's son Eber. RebeccaandEberelopedfromtheir respective first day meetings. After their marriage she was disowned, on November 5, 1792, by the Burlington Monthly Meeting for being "married contrary to discipline." A Note on John Woolman's Paternal Ancestors29 II. Taynton, Gloucestershire William Woolman most probably was born in the Parish of Taynton, Gloucestershire, England, in 1632. At that time England was embarked upon one ofthe most tumultuous periods in its history. William's birth year markedthe seventhanniversary ofthe reignofCharles I as King ofEngland, Scotland and Ireland, a reign which was to end in the blood ofthe oncoming EnglishCivil Warof1642^18. InWilliam's birthyearOliverCromwellwas thirty-threeyears old, amemberofParliamentinoppositionto theKing, and the future Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. Also in William's birth year, George Fox, founder ofthe Society ofFriends, was eight years old and fifteen years away from commencing his life's work of preaching that Christianity is not so much an outward profession offaith as an inner light by which Christ directly illumines and moves the believing soul. Taynton is a farming hamlet of over 2200 acres lying seven miles west ofGloucester and about 105 miles westbynorthwest ofLondon. To the east is the River Severn and to the southwest is the Forest ofDean. In its wooded past Taynton had been a part ofthe Forest. Dean, a royal forest from before Domesday, was an important source of timber for the English navy in the seventeenth century. William Camden, humanist, antiquarian, and annalist of the reign of Elizabeth I, in 1607 described the Dean residents as independent and unruly, and the country as covered with "irregular tracks and horrid shade so dark and dreary as to render its inhabitants more fierce and audacious in robberies."5 Even as late as 1875 the quality of life in Taynton was being harshly described thus: "Cottages in Taynton are deficient in almost every requisite that should constitute a home for a Christian family in a civilised society."6 Before occupation...

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