New Sweden on the Delaware (review)

46 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION especially Friends of the last century, derived from ordering their thoughts into a narrative of the events of their lives. Mr. Lovell's Introduction , in fourteen pages, gives something of the background and genealogy of the family ; and the first narrative, that of Elizabeth Buffum Chace, written in her ninety-first year, tells in reminiscence of the childhood of this Rhode Island and Connecticut girl in a setting that reminds us of Whittier's Snowbound. The second part is more characteristically a diary, by Lucy Buffum Lovell, written under various dates from 1840 to 1843, and telling principally of the childhood illnesses and deaths of her three children—indeed a loving and pathetic narrative. The third part contains the reminiscences of Elizabeth Buffum Chace on the antislavery activities of her family and of the Quakers, beginning with the confession : "I am ashamed to say that my early Quaker ancestors in Newport, Rhode Island, were interested in the slave trade," continuing through the narrative of the opposition of Friends to antislavery activities, of the founding of the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832, of her experiences in connection with the underground railway, including a long interpolated narrative of the escape of James Curry, a Negro, from North Carolina to Canada, of her resignation from membership in the Society of Friends because of the Quaker proslavery attitude, of her visit to John Brown of Harper's Ferry, in prison, with a brief reference to the Civil War and the moral relations between the antislavery cause and the cause of woman suffrage. It is a personal narrative of extraordinary interest, and, like other diaries of persons who interested themselves in public questions rather than in introspection, a valuable representative of one of the best sources of historical research. New Sweden on the Delaware, by Christopher Ward. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1938. viii+160 pp. $1.50. '"PHIS retelling of the story of the Swedish colony on the Delaware River, from 1638 to 1655, consists of extracts, with some alterations, of the same author's larger book, The Dutch and the Swedes on the Delaware , 1609-64, reviewed in the Bulletin, Vol. 22 (1933), No. 1. It is issued in separate form with particular reference to the approaching celebration of the 300th anniversary of the first Swedish settlement, to be held in Wilmington, Delaware, on June 27, 1938. The story is prefaced by an analysis of conditions in Sweden which led to the colonizing impulse, including a brief sketch of the great warrior and statesman Gustavus Adolphus , and by an interesting account of the conditions in America to which the settlers came. The first struggles, the rule of the incredible Governor Printz and of his ¡successor Governor Rising, the opposition of the Dutch of New Amsterdam under the redoubtable Stuyvesant, and the final surrender of Swedish control to the Dutch (who themselves were obliged to surrender to the English a few years later) are narrated with spirit ITEMS FROM QUAKER PERIODICALS47 and humor. The lively interest which we of today have in the episode rises not because there was a Swedish government, for this passed entirely away, but because many of the Swedish settlers remained, and their descendants preserve the traditions of their time of ascendancy. The book will prove an interesting narrative and an appropriate memorial volume for the tricentennial celebration. H ITEMS FROM QUAKER PERIODICALS T. BUTCHER has a note on Quaker anniversaries for 1938 in L* the issue of the London Friend for 1 Mo. 28, pp. 78-80. They include centenaries of the death of Joseph Lancaster, founder of the "Lancasterian" system of education; of the publication of Henry Doubleday's A Nomenclature of British Birds; and of the disownment of Joshua Jacob of Dublin, who founded a short-lived group called the "White Quakers." Among the bicentenaries of the year are the birth of Benjamin West, the painter, and the retirement of James Logan as governor of Pennsylvania. JOHN COX, JR., submits excerpts from letters of Elizabeth Bunting of New York City, written in 1864. They describe a New York "Sanitary Fair," in which many Friends took part to raise funds...