Notes and Queries

NOTES AND QUERIES. 63 NOTES AND QUERIES The Journal of the Friends' Historical Society.—The number for First month, 1915, like its predecessors, has many articles and items of much interest. That most attractive to American readers will doubtless be the paper by Ella Kent Barnard, of West Grove, Pa., on " The Real People of the House of the Seven Gables ." The Journal can be obtained of Friends' Book and Tract Committee, 144 East Twentieth Street, New York. Epistles of Early Friends.— It is welcome news that Supplement No. 13 to the Journal of the Friends' Historical Society will be a collection of about eighty letters of early Friends existing in manuscript in the library of Devonshire House. The whole collection of which the eighty are a part, will " be copied and printed verb, et lit.," and will be published as supplements to the Journal. The subscription price for No. 13 will be three shillings (75 cents), to be raised after publication to four shillings and six pence ($1.25). " Deed of Manumission to a Female Slave, 1826."—Know all men by these presents that I Wills Cowper, of the county of Nansemond , State of Virginia & at present in Emmittsburg in the county of Frederick, in Maryland, for and in consideration of faithful services rendered me by a certain female slave aged about 18 years of a very light complexion, with blue eyes and light hair, named Sally, and further, from considerations of Humanity, I the said Wills Cowper do manumit, liberate & set free the said above named slave. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal this 20th day of September. Upon this condition previously to be performed by her, that she binds herself, or is bound as an apprentice to some respectable person of the Society of Friends with the consent of Ellis Yarnall of the City of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania , and until said act of binding as an apprentice is performed by the female slave Sally this paper writing to be and remain an (illegible) in the hands of the said Ellis Yarnall before mentioned . Wills Cowper (Seal.) Test Henry G. Waters. The above and foregoing paper writing was duly acknowledged before me a Justice of the Peace for the town of Emmittsburg before mentioned by the Subscriber thereto Wills Cowper in proper person September 20th 1826.— Henry G. Waters. Ellis Yarnall (1757-1847) was a prominent and valued Friend of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The act of apprenticeship was doubtless needful as the slave was only eighteen. The fact that the manumission " paper writing " came down in the Yarnall family raises some doubt as to whether the stipulation mentioned in the deed was fulfilled. 64 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Yellow Fever in Philadelphia , 1793.—Extract from a letter of Thomas Say, of Philadelphia , dated 5th mo. 6th, 1794, and written to Alice Needham, Salem, Massachusetts, relating to the epidemic of Yellow Fever in Philadelphia, during the summer and fall of 1793. " We had an awful visitation of sickness in this city (the Yellow Fever) last Fall; it began in the 8th month, and continued till the beginning of the nth month; it appeared indeed, my dear friend, as if the Lord had given orders to the destroying Angel to go forth; during which time it was thought 5000 were removed thereby, of most ages and ranks of People, but particularly of the young and rising generation. . . . " My son Doctr' Say, after having attended a vast number of the Sick, was taken with the disorder himself, and was reduced so low that his life was dispaired (sic) of, but it pleased the Lord to restore him again, but his dear Wife and lovely daughter near 15 years of age were carried off by it during his sickness, which was truly a sore affliction to him and us. . . . " When I take a view of the world and contemplate the confusion which is therein, of wars and fightings, I am almost ready to conclude, that a great, a very great work is upon the wheel, and that something exceedingly important may soon come out of it, let us, therefore, stand still and see the...