Celebrating Our Heritage
The Loyalist Quaker Pennfield Colony
In life only two things are so great. One is love, the other is war.
My writings have often focused on the people and the events of history. My intent is to judge no
one, but rather to enlighten the present through a thorough understanding of the past. We are all
indebted to the early settlers of Canada who endured so much during the blood and suffering of
the Revolution.
The present is never qualified to condemn the past. We all share the responsibility to learn from
those who have gone before us.
Reading from the gospel of John, the 12th chapter, 36th verse; “While ye have Light, believe in
the Light, that ye may be the children of Light”.
There was a certain religious group known as the Society of Friends or the Quakers. They had
their origins in England in the 1650’s under the leadership of George Fox and at first were called
the Children of Light.
During the Monmouth Rebellion in England, the Quakers refused to bear arms against Catholic
King James II. They refused to pay taxes levied for the war effort. Many Quakers were thrown in
prison and they suffered great persecutions. This led many of them to leave England to settle in
the New World.
The famous Quaker, William Penn was expelled from Oxford University for his radical religious
views and was imprisoned for his public preaching. Penn did a lot of missionary work in
England, Holland, Germany and Russia.
William Penn petitioned King Charles II for a perpriotory colony in the New World. Penn’s now
deceased father had loaned the Crown £ 80,000. William wanted the loan repaid in land lot
currency. The request was granted in 1681 and the land eventually became America’s second
state, Pennsylvania.
The Quakers were liberal social activists. They were to become the first Civil Rights leaders in
North America. They were the first religious groups to publically renounce the grievous sin of
slavery. They formed and maintained the Underground Railroad which helped thousands of
fugitive slaves escape to freedom. They were against all war. They believed in gender equality.
This gave the Quaker women a voice in the home, community and church. Following Christ’s
example, they fed the hungry, clothed the naked and comforted those in distress. Prison reform
was demanded. To this day the John Howard and Elizabeth Fry societies are maintained by the
Quakers.
Education for all was strongly impressed. They were to open many schools that taught vocations,
as well as, academics and religious instructions. The Quakers believed that the Glory of God is
intelligence.
Both male and female missionaries came to New England, proselytizing. To the passive Quakers
who believed in non-violence, they were astounded that the puritans who had fled England, as
well as they, due to religious persecution had zero tolerance for the Quakers.
The Puritans accused the Quakers of being mentally unstable, of thefts, arson, fornication and
adultery, of being in league with the devil by practicing witchcraft. They were regarded as
heretics, unworthy of redemption. The Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Colonies felt it was a
very short route from being mentally deficient, to being criminal, to being evil. The missionaries
were publically stripped and searched for witches’ tokens. They were whipped, branded, ears
were chopped off, nostrils slit and tongues were bored and split with hot iron rods.
When the Revolutionary War started in 1773, the colonies were only 81 years removed from the
Salem Witch Hunts of 1692. Those accused of practicing witchcraft were tortured into
confessions. If you torture a person long enough they will confess to anything, witchcraft
included.
The colonial era was a very dark period in American history. The famous author, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, gives us an accurate description of life in colonial America in his novels, The Scarlet
Letter and Young Goodman Brown. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great grand-father, John Hawthorne,
was one of the judges in Salem that sentenced confessed witches to die on the gallows.
The American Revolution, from 1773 - 1783 was a long and bitter war. The Quaker Loyalists
endured many hardships. Private homes were ram-sacked and set ablaze. Estates were
confiscated. Well and livestock were poisoned. There was betrayal of friends, neighbours, even
family. There were many public hangings.
The Quakers became non persons in many states, including Pennsylvania. They could not legally
buy or sell land. They could not work for a wage. They could not speak nor write their opinions.
Debts could not be collected and there was no protection for them under the law. Quaker women
and children were publically stoned in the streets of Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.
The message was very clear. Leave the 13 colonies or die. Roughly 3000 Quakers were hounded
out of the colonies, with the vast majority of them settling in Nova Scotia of which New
Brunswick was then a part.
In 1783, Joshua Knight met with a group of Loyalist Quakers and together they made
arrangements to settle in Nova Scotia. Joshua Knight was a man of prominence from Abington,
PA, a suburb of Philadelphia. Born in 1731, he was the son of Isaac and Elizabeth JustasonKnight. He was descended from Elizabeth Shorter, wife of John Rush Sr., who was Captain of
The Horse, under Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England. Knight’s ancestors had come to
Pennsylvania with William Penn at a time when roughly 10,000 Quakers were imprisoned in
England. Joshua married Sarah Tyson whose grandfather was one of the original settlers of
Germantown, PA.
Joshua was a farmer and a blacksmith. He was disowned by the Abington, at a monthly meeting
on June 30, 1777, for repairing arms and performing other duties related to the war. He was
accused of treason by the rebels, and on May 8th, 1788, was ordered to surrender himself for trial.
Joshua and his family fled to New York to be under the protection of the British.
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In June 1783, a group of Loyalist Quakers met at Joshua Knight’s home and a month later the
following advertisement appeared.
Notice is hereby given to those of the people called Quakers, who have entered into an
agreement to settle together in Nova Scotia. They are requested to meet at the home of Joshua
Knight, 30 Chatham Street, a little above the Tea-Water Pump, on the Seventh Day next, of the
5th of July at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, to conclude upon some matters of importance to them
and those who mean to join the above mentioned body. They are requested to call at 188 Water
Street, between the Coffee House Bridge and the Fly Market, and to have their names entered as
soon as possible. No slave master will be admitted.
Forty-nine persons were to sign this document, including the fifth generation great-grandfather,
Benjamin Brown. The place chosen for the settlement was modern day Beaver Harbour. There
were 15 streets and 800 residents when the town known as Bellevue was incorporated on June 4,
1785. The little Quaker colony became known as Penn’s Field Colony, in honour of William
Penn.
The Quakers were brought to Saint John by ship, under convoy. The Camel was a 298 ton barge
that arrived in Saint John, September 18, 1783. Their captain was William Tinker and their agent
was Samuel Fairlamb. The Camel carried 247 passengers including 104 men, 48 women, 30
children over the age of ten and 46 children under the age of ten, 7 indentured servants and 12
black settlers. The Camel’s passengers were at once taken by ship to Beaver Harbour.
The Quaker Loyalists were exiled into the unknown, with harsh climate conditions. They
experienced the sadness of many infant and elderly deaths during their first winter here and the
loneliness of starting over in a wilderness.
A young mother, upon arriving in Saint John, related years later. “I climbed to the top of
Chipman Hill and watched the sails disappear, and such a lonely feeling came over me that
although I had not shed a tear through the war, I sat down on the damp moss with my baby in my
lap and I cried”.
Settling the Pennfield Colony was more than difficult. Livestock consisting of horned cattle and
swine were devoured by wild animals shortly after their arrival. Scarcely had they began to build
their cabins when an early winter set in. The non-arrival of much needed supplies expected
before the close of navigation added much to their distress. The sufferings of these
people are almost unbelievable. Frequently, in the cold of winter, part of the family would have
to remain up during the night to keep the fires going, to keep from freezing. Boards were heated
and applied to the younger children for want of bedding. At one time, starvation stared them in
the face. Strong, proud men cried like children, exhausted by cold and famine. Many died.
Mothers clasped their little ones to their bosoms and tried by the warmth of their own bodies to
protect them from the bitter cold. Many of the weaker ones died and are buried in the old Quaker
Cemetery.
The First Nations people helped the colony ward off starvation by providing wild game. Scurvy
was thwarted by the natives supplying them with the meat of sea mammals, including; seals,
dolphins and walrus, whose fat is rich in vitamin C. The Quakers were taught the art of wild
crafting by the natives who were gatherers, as well as hunters. Maple syrup and salt was obtained
by boiling and evaporating sea water. All members of the colony were treated equally with the
distribution of food.
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Friends in Philadelphia, England and Ireland came to the colony’s reserve when they learned of
their plight. Philadelphia sent much needed food supplies, including thousands of pounds of
meat, flour and other staples. Friends in England also sent food, seeds, farming implements,
bedding and clothing. The Irish friends sent money to purchase whatever was needed. Such were
some of the hardships the Quaker settlers endured. Yet, they were grateful for peace, freedom,
religious tolerance, and the vast bounty of the land and sea. They were living on British soil and
God and England would protect them.
They managed to overcome some of their difficulties, cleared their land and built their homes. In
1785 a meeting house was erected. Together the Quakers, the Black settlers, the indentured
servants and the first nation people gathered at the meeting house on Sundays and Wednesday
evening. There were no clocks or watches in the colony, so they gathered at early candlelight,
which most people could judge within one hour. All were made to feel welcome. A missionary
from Philadelphia was in attendance one evening and asked a native, “Are you a Quaker”? “No”
was the reply “but I know that their beliefs make them good people”.
It is of great historical significance to note that the Pennfield Colony was the only place in
British North America at the time where slavery was not permitted. At the edge of town a large
wooden sign was erected stating, “No Slave Master Admitted”.
A forest fire in 1790, the second to hit the colony, destroyed every home but that of Elias Wright.
The colony scattered. Some families returned to Pennsylvania, to England, to Nova Scotia and
Upper Canada. It is interesting to note that the families who returned to Pennsylvania did not
remain there long and returned to Canada to live out their lives. The families of Joshua Knight
and Elias Wright remained. Joshua Knight, the leader of the Pennfield Colony died in Beaver
Harbour in 1806, aged 75 years.
The words of Beckles Willson, author of “The Romance of Canada” will form a fitting close to
this sketch.
“No one will ever know, because none has told all that those brave pioneers underwent for their
devotion and fidelity. You will see today on the outskirts of the older settlements little mounds,
moss covered tombstones that record the last resting places of the fathers of the hamlet. They do
not tell you of the brave hearts laid low by hunger and exposure of the girlish forms wasted
away, of the babes and little children who perished for want of proper food and raiment. They
have nothing to tell of the mothers, wives and daughters who bore themselves as bravely as men,
complaining never, toiling with men in the fields, banishing all regret for the life they might have
led, had they sacrificed their loyalty. No great monument is raised to their memory. None is
needed. It is enshrined forever in the hearts of every Canadian and of everyone who admires
fidelity, to principal, devotion and self-sacrifice”.
“May the Lord bless them all for paving the way for us to have such abundant lives in this
wonderful country of Canada”.
Deborah Coleman
634-7783
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