Ploughs and Politicks: Charles Read of New Jersey and His Notes on Agriculture, 1715-1774 (review)

40 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Ploughs and Politicks: Charles Read of New Jersey and His Notes on Agriculture, 1715-1774, by Carl Raymond Woodward. Rutgers University Studies in History, Number Two. New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1941. 468 pp. $5. IN Ploughs and Politicks Dr. Woodward has made an important contribution to the agricultural history of pre-Revolutionary America. The book is divided into two parts, preceded by a Foreword which gives a fascinating account of the discovery of the agricultural notes and the steps which led to the identification of Charles Read as the author. The first part of the volume is a biography of Read, telling of his varied activities as customs collector for the port of Burlington, land speculator, countryman, ironmaster, jurist, Secretary of the Province, and other political offices. Part II consists of the agricultural journal, with full explanatory notes, followed by a bibliography, glossary, and index. The book is attractively illustrated, and there are a number of charts and maps. While Read was not a member of the Society of Friends, he was closely associated with such leading Quakers as Samuel Allinson, John Bartram, Peter Collinson, James Logan, Richard Partridge, Israel "Pemberton , and James Pemberton. In 1769 he joined with sixty-nine persons, mostly Friends from New Jersey and Pennsylvania to form the "Burlington Company" for the purchase and development of lands in Otsego County, New York. In the public mind, Charles Read was usually regarded as a member of the "Quaker party," probably because he joined in their opposition to military conscription and agreed with their attitude of justice and fairness to the Indians. This book will be of great interest to the general reader as well as to the student of agricultural history. A. B. H.«PDWARD T. STOTESBURY" by Horace Mather Lippincott, Old *"* York Road Historical Society Bulletin, 6 (1942) : 3-23, tells the life story of the famous Philadelphia banker (1849-1938), whose mother was a Friend, and who attended Friends' schools in his youth. "Although he never affiliated with any church," the author says, "he remained at heart a Quaker with the characteristics of their way of life—diligence, thrift, integrity, and conservatism." "CMERSON B. ROBERTS contributes another of his biographical articles on Friends in early Maryland to the Maryland Historical Magazine, vol.39 (1944), pp. 335-344, under the title "Among the 'Meeters at the Bayside'." The families discussed are those of Kemp, Webb, and Stevens of Talbot County. Cf. this Bulletin, vol. 32 (1943), p. 32. TN THE 1944 Minutes of Indiana Yearly Meeting (General Conference) is a list (pp. 4-9) of the manuscript records of the Meeting in the safe at the Friends' Home at Waynesville, Ohio. Vol. 34, Spring 1945 ...