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CHALKLEY, THOMAS 1675-1741
Thomas Chalkley was born in England, near London. He was a Quaker missionary who worked among the Mennonites in Holland and the Rhineland, at a time when closer contacts between Quakers and Mennonites were being sought both in Germany and in Pennsylvania. In 1709 he visited Northwest Germany and noted in his journal, "There is a great people which they call Menonists who are very near the truth, and the fields are white unto harvest among divers of that people, spiritually speaking." After the turn of the century he lived in Philadelphia, and traded chiefly to the West Indies, captaining his own ship. He made preaching tours as a missionary "minister" of the Monthly Meeting of the Friends in Philadelphia in the colonies from New England to the Carolinas, and also in England, Scotland, and Wales. He died in Tortola, September 4, 1741. His Journal, published in 1747, was widely read by generations of Quakers, who appreciated its simple style and elevated thought.
ECCLES/EAGLES, SOLOMON 1618-83 [dates not confirmed] English composer and teacher of virginals and viol. On becoming a Quaker in middle age, he publicly burned his instruments and music on Tower Hill and took to shoemaking.
To show his contempt for 'steeple-houses' he for two Sundays running insisted on making shoes in the pulpit of a London church during service, and had to be removed by the constable. During the plague of London he ran about the streets stripped to the waist and with a burning brazier on his head, warning men to repent. Later he accompanied George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, to the West Indies, and also went to New England. He wrote a wild book against music, A Musick Lector, which appeared in 1667.
[Here of a Sunday Morning]An interview with Justin Champion 'JC: Who was Solomon Eagle? JCh: Solomon Eagle – or Solomon Eccles as I prefer to think of him – is one of the great figures in [Daniel] Defoe's Journal of a Plague Year [1722], which was an amazing reconstruction of what it may have been like to live in urban London. You know, Defoe's work is based on historical sources. It's not just a work of fiction. It's a very clever synthesis of contemporary records. [Defoe wrote: 'I suppose the world has heard of the famous Solomon Eagle, an enthusiast. He, though not infected at all but in his head, went about denouncing of judgment upon the city in a frightful manner, sometimes quite naked, and with a pan of burning charcoal on his head. What he said, or pretended, indeed I could not learn.'] Solomon Eccles was a Quaker, a man prosecuted numerous times during the Restoration for civil disobedience. He would worship with other Quakers. The law that was passed in the early 1660s said that, if more than three people got together in a room for religious worship, this was a seditious, wicked activity. In May 1665, Solomon Eccles was arrested in Southwark, even though he probably lived in the middle of the City of London, and was put away in prison – probably in the Clink on the South Bank – for about two to three months. .... Defoe conjures up an image of 'Solomon Eagle' walking round with a burning brazier of coals on his head. A lot of 18th-century representations show him Christ-like with his burning coals. I found no contemporary record ascribing this to Solomon Eccles, but it's the sort of thing that went on quite frequently. We have to remember that the early 1660s was a very apocalyptic time.' [This interview with Justin Champion (JCh) was carried out by Juniper Communications (JC) for the Channel 4 programme The Great Plague. Justin Champion is a reader in the history of early modern ideas at Royal Holloway College, University of London.] Channel 4 There seems however no evidence for this interesting legend - 1665 With the Black Plague in full force, Quaker Solomon Eccles terrorized the citizens of London yet further with his declaration that the resident pestilence was merely the beginning of The End. He was arrested and jailed when the plague began to abate rather than increasing. Eccles fled to the West Indies upon his release from prison, whereupon he once again exercised his zeal for agitation by inciting the slaves there to revolt. The Crown fetched him back home as a troublemaker, and he died shortly thereafter. [BACK]
EDMUNDSON, WILLIAM 1627-1712 William Edmundson was born in Westmorland, and was apprenticed as a carpenter and joiner in the city of York. He served in the army of Cromwell in the campaigns in England and Scotland. In 1652 he came to Ireland and opened a shop in Antrim. On hearing the preaching of the Quaker James Naylor, he was convinced of the worthiness of his doctrine. In 1654 he and other members of his family held at Lurgan, County Armagh, the first regular meeting of the Quakers in Ireland. Subsequently meetings were established at Dublin, Derry, Cork, Waterford and other commercial centres. Because of the unorthodox doctrines which the Quakers practised, they were persecuted, and William Edmundson was imprisoned seven times without charge. He visited the West Indies and America on three occasions, on the first of which he was accompanied by George Fox. During the war of 1689-91 the Friends in Ireland were victimised. William Edmundson appealed to James II to relieve the suffering in Ireland. He died at Rosenallis, near Mountmellick, and his Journal was published in 1715. [BACK]
HOOTON, ELIZABETH 1601-71 Testimony concerning Elizabeth Hooton by George Fox:
She was a serious, upright-hearted woman to the Lord and received his Truth several years before we were called Quakers... She was moved of the Lord to go to New England, taking her daughter with her, to desire the persecuting priests and magistrates (Puritans) to take away the laws for imprisoning, spoiling of goods, whipping, branding with hot irons and cutting off the ears of Friends and putting them to death; and instead of that they whipped her and her daughter very cruelly and put them out of their jurisdiction. And she was moved of the Lord to go again, and then the magistrates of Boston passed sentence of death upon her and about 27 or 28 more, and kept them close prisoners, and we got an order from King Charles the Second and hired a ship to carry it over that they might have a trial before the king, upon which they set them at liberty though they did not take away the persecuting laws...
Many prisons this poor Elizabeth Hooton was cast into only for serving and worshipping God and declaring the Truth, and about the year 1671 she traveled with me and others to Barbados and ... to Jamaica and being a weak ancient woman and zealous for the Lord and his Truth, she died in the Lord and is blessed and at rest from her labors and her works follow her.
She was convinced at Skegby in Nottinghamshire and held meetings at her house where the Lord by his power wrought many miracles, ... confirming people of the Truth which she there received about 1646, and fulfilled her ministry and finished her testimony about 1672...
She was a godly woman and had a great care laid upon her for people to walk in the Truth that did profess it, and from her receiving the Truth she never turned her back on it, but was fervent and faithful for it till death.
George Fox, 1690
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