Eli Yarnall, The Seer

ELI YARNALL, THE SEER73 ELI YARNALL, THE SEER. Charles Yarnall. [The following account is from the papers of the late Charles Yarnall (1800-1877), the author of "John Bowne of Flushing," Bulletin, vol. 2, No. 2, and is dated by him, First Month 23rd, 1870.] This person, who in his youth was believed to possess a remarkable faculty of seeing what was existing in distant regions, or rather of seeing wholly irrespective of distance, was the son of George and Mary Yarnall. He was born about the year 1788 and was a descendant of Francis Yarnall, a highly respected Friend, who, in 1684, emigrated from Claynes, in the County of Worcester, England, and became a prominent citizen of Chester County, a member for several years of the Legislature of the Province of Pennsylvania, the holder of an important trust under the Provincial Government. In the early years of this century* Eli Yarnall removed to Red Stone, now Brownsville, Pennsylvania. Having heard of one extraordinary instance of the exercise of this faculty, I was particularly desirous of availing myself of an opportunity of testing the evidence on which the narrator rested. In the year 1843 I was attending the Yearly Meeting of Baltimore. At the house of a friend I was introduced to EH Haines, a remarkable elder, and was struck by the simplicity of his character together with plain good sense. I soon found that my excellent Friend was from Brownsville, and was accompanying a minister then attending the Yearly Meeting. I asked him of a boy named Eli Yarnall. He promptly replied that he had known him, and was present at a remarkable interview between him and John Hall, from England, then traveling in the ministry in America, and accompanied by Stephen Grellet. I asked him to relate the story without suggesting anything that could recall any part of it. The narration interested me greatly; [also] the [fact] that the remarkable *This should probably read, In the latter years of the Eighteenth Century.—Ed, 74BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL SOCIETY and sagacious narrator had no theory whatever by which to explain the wonderful features of his narrative. He was evidently absorbed in the memory of what had passed, and told it with the utmost simplicity. On the following day, if I remember rightly, I found myself seated in the railroad car next to my long-known and beloved friend, Stephen Grellet. I asked him if he remembered anything of this occurrence. "Oh, yes," he said, and proceeded to tell me of what took place, in entire agreement with what Eli Haines had related a few hours previously. On my return to the city [Philadelphia] I was inpressed with the desirableness of obtaining from Eli Haines the statement in writing. But some years were permitted to pass before I wrote to him to favor me with his narrative in writing. In the meantime some of the incidents mentioned by the dear old man had passed from my memory, though the particulars of the "seeing" remained quite clear. Soon after I received from my friend a letter, which I think it best to record at length correcting only a few errors in the spelling.* Brownsville, 3rd mo. I1-12, 1863. Dear Friend Charles Yarnall:— Thy kind letter came to hand in due time; the contents rather amused me than other ways, respecting some conversation that passed between us while in Baltimore. In the first place thou says, the occurrence took place at my house, which is a mistake, for I was then young and lived with my father in Virginia near Winchester. John Hall and S. Grellet on their way from the South [ 1800] attended our Quarterly Meeting, held at Hopewell, and at the close of the meeting S. G. arose and said they were on their way over the mountains, and would like some young man to accompany them. It [was] then the commencement of harvest, a busy time. I felt willing, and my friends also (I went with them something like a waiting boy), and when we arrived at Red Stone** we made ?The original letter is in the possession of the Editor of the Bulletin. **Red Stone belonged to...