Briefer Notices

BRIEFER NOTICES By Henry J. Cadbury Ralph L. Ketcham has an article in William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, XX (1963), 416-439, on "Conscience, War, and Politics in Pennsylvania, 17551757 ." Over against many alternative appraisals of that much-debated period, he shows how complicated were the forces at work. As for the Quakers, he believes their resignation from the Assembly was done to prevent disunity among Friends and that, though not in office, they continued an effective political influence, "dominant until engulfed by the American Revolution." The Mason and Dixon Line: Storyfor a Bicentenary, 1763-1963, by Hubertis M. Cummings, is a well-illustrated record of the famous survey (Harrisburg: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1962, xii, 114 pp,). It conveniently includes a bibliography and whatever biographical information can be compiled of the two surveyors, including the English Quaker who gave his name to "Dixieland," Jeremiah Dixon (1733-1779).» * * Biographical Notices of Anthony Benezet are published in the Germanlowne Crier, Vol. XIV, No. 1 (March, 1962), pp. 19-21, taken from Friends Miscellany. * * * Among the recent local Quaker histories is one on the Friends Meeting House, Frenchay, by Dorothy Vinter (15 pages, including 4 pictures, 1963). The house dates back to 1809, but the meeting to the 1650's. Events and persons in its long history are appropriately mentioned in this pamphlet. The Story of Marsden Meeting by Edwin H. Alton (8 foolscap single-space typescript pages) was published in 1963, two hundred years after the date on the gable end of the meetinghouse. It goes back more than a century earlier, citing from Besse's Sufferings, the First Publishers of Truth, and finally the Preparative Meeting minute books up to the present time. It is the nearest meeting to Pendle Hill in Lancashire. A remarkable account of a striking personality is the book Isabel Fry, 18691958 : Portrait of a Great Teacher, edited with a memoir by Beatrice Curtis Brown (London: Arthur Barker, Limited, 1960, 166 pages). She came of Quaker background on both sides, but was not formally a member in later life, nor so well known as her parents, Sir Edward Fry and Mariabella Hodgkin, or her brother Roger, or her sisters Joan, Margery, and Ruth. The author and editor has succeeded in picturing a vivid and unique personality quite charmingly. 52 Briefer Notices53 Quakerism is modestly represented among the "300 influential works on which Protestant Christianity is grounded," presented in summary form in Masterpieces of Christian Literature (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), edited by Frank N. Magill. There are sections on Barclay's Apology, the Journals of Fox and of Woolman, and Practical Christianity by Rufus M. Jones. * * » A local history of some Friends groups in Erie County, New York, is published under the title Sesquicenlennial Collins Friends Meeting, 1813-1963, prepared by Levinus K. Painter and Lewis W. Hoskins (16 pages, illustrated). The early period is obscure. Separations and removals continue the confusion. These features, typical of American Quakers, and other later events make this a characteristic story of Friends in rural New York. The migration to the area followed the establishment of a Friends mission to the Indians nearby. Besides the authors of the pamphlet, the name of the first pastor (1879), S. Adelbert Wood, may be known to some readers of this notice. * » * Some Recollections, etc., by Harold B. Stabler, noticed in this department. Vol. LII, p. 50, has not only proved of more than local interest so that it has been reprinted, but is followed now by a sequel, by the same author, entitled Some Further Recollections (1963, 84 pages). It ends with an account of some homes at the Maryland Quaker community at Sandy Spring and its neighborhood and their former residents. Otherwise the miscellaneous contents of the two pamphlets are much alike. * * * An unfamiliar use of Quaker records is made by Emil Frederick Guba in Historic Nantucket, XI (1963), 5-17, in an article "Revolutionary War Service Roll." Nantucket, unlike other (mainland) towns and counties, had no muster rolls or enlistments, though many of its men were involved in military service in one form or another. This article has been compiled from indirect evidence. One is the records of Quaker disownments...