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Epilogue On October 9, 1772, Woolman’s body was buried in York. William Tuke made the arrangements, doing his best to follow the deceased’s instructions. Woolman had wanted his clothing traded away to defray the costs, and although Tuke had tried to exchange Woolman’s hat, shirt, and trousers for a coffin and a shroud, there had been little time. The carpenter and the clothier he approached made it clear that they preferred money, so at that point Woolman ’s former student John Bispham intervened. Bispham paid the two tradesmen cash and arranged to have Woolman’s peculiar costume shipped back to America. The gravedigger agreed to work in exchange for Woolman’s shoes.1 The grave was left unmarked because the Quakers associated tombstones with idolatry. As a matter of principle they would not build monuments to themselves. Nonetheless, many of those who came to the Friends burial ground that Friday afternoon felt no qualms about exalting Woolman. A Methodist preacher attended, and to the surprise of the Quakers he spoke at the graveside .2 The non-Quaker apothecary was also there. He kept silent through the burial, but after returning home he wrote a poem proclaiming that Woolman was more worthy of celebration than many “kings and heroes” who had been honored in verse. It would be wrong, the apothecary thought, for Woolman to “die in oblivion.” Referring obliquely to the patch of ground where the body lay buried, he called on the muses to provide a “protectress” for Woolman’s “hallowed shrine.” He declared that in his lifetime Woolman had exhibited “unbounded love” embracing “all sects, all nations.” There were “thousands” who could testify that “his words were powerful and divinely sweet.”3 Within days of the burial the apothecary’s poem joined a stream of laudatory pieces circulating in manuscript form around England. Thomas Priestman and Esther Tuke wrote extended accounts of Woolman’s final week. A 224 Epilogue woman named Mary Barnard wrote a poem emphasizing his Christ-like habit of self-denial and suggesting that his travels on foot had reenacted the last walks of Jesus. Enclosed with private correspondence, preserved and recopied, these writings passed from household to household. William Tuke sent a copy of Priestman’s report to John Elliot in London.4 At that time, the English had only fragmentary information about Woolman . None of his essays had ever been published in England, although individual copies of a few pieces, including his pamphlets Considerations on Pure Wisdom and Considerations on the True Harmony of Mankind, had made their way across the ocean. Less than a month after Woolman’s death the printer Mary Hinde, who regularly published pamphlets and books for London Yearly Meeting, took those two essays to the Overseers of the Press and requested permission to print them “at her own risk.” Four days later she received a copy of Woolman’s Epistle to the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings, which John Pemberton in Philadelphia had sent Joseph Row. Hinde asked if she could add that essay to her booklet, and the Overseers approved. On his deathbed Woolman had made arrangements for Eliot to receive unpublished manuscripts of essays he had written on “two or three different subjects” since his arrival in England. Woolman expected those essays, on the Golden Rule, the slave trade, unnecessary commerce, the sailors’ life and silent worship, to be forwarded to Philadelphia along with the last chapters of his journal. There is no evidence that Elliot sent those manuscripts to America. Instead, he showed them to several Quakers in London including Hinde, who brought them to the Overseers of the Press. In November they agreed that she should include them in her everexpanding collection of essays. Finally, in December, she obtained permission to add an edited version of Priestman’s account of Woolman’s death. Her booklet was now 137 pages long. It appeared in spring 1773 as Serious Considerations on Various Subjects of Importance.5 In June 1773, London Yearly Meeting received a copy of Woolman’s essay on spoken ministry, and responded by subsidizing a second publication. The meeting authorized Hinde to produce 1,500 copies of that essay, which were then distributed free of charge to all the Quaker Meetings in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.6 Over the winter of 1772, Thomas Priestman, William Tuke, and three other Quakers in York drafted a statement about Woolman that was read at London Yearly Meeting the following June. Their statement briefly mentioned...

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