When I connected with my maternal grandmother's side of the family over 5 years ago, I found out that some of my maternal grandmother's ancestors were Quakers.
My Quaker ancestors lived in Bucks county, Pennsylvania.
William Cooper was my 10th Great Grandfather, and he was a Quaker that emigrated from Low Ellington, Yorkshire, England to Pennsylvania in 1699.
He arrived in Pennsylvania as a widower with a lot of children.
His daughter, my 9th Great Grandmother Elizabeth was married to my 9th Great Grandfather Henry Huddleston Sr who was a non-Quaker, and that marriage got William into trouble.
He got into more trouble after his daughter, my 9th Great Grandaunt Sarah had an affair and child with an African American slave and publicly received 21 lashes on her bare back as punishment for that!
Her original punishment was actually a fine. Her fine didn't get paid, and so she got whipped instead. Her lover received 21 lashes too.
No information about what happened to their child.
This pdf file has some information on Quakers in Masham , and it includes my Cooper ancestors
The Cooper family
• William Cooper, of Low Ellington, had been a member of the Anglican church, he
and his first two children were baptized in that church.
• His second wife, Thomasine Porter, was born about 1656 in Low Ellington,
Yorkshire, England, and was the daughter of Patrobus Robti Porter and
Thomazinae
• William's date of marriage to Thomasine is unknown. Since she is not listed as the
mother of Elizabeth and Henry in the Quaker birth records, they were probably
married in 1675.
• William and Thomasine’s children are recorded in the Quaker Register of Births
• William was fined 2/6d in 1690, probably for failure to pay a tax to the
established church. Nine years later he emigrated with his family from Low
Ellington to Pennsylvania, after obtaining a „certificate of removal‟ from the
Masham Monthly Meeting dated [first month/ March]1699.
The Sick Ship
• The ship Brittannia was commissioned by Lancaster Quakers to take Quakers to
Philadelphia in the summer of 1699
• William and Thomasine had with them their 8 children ages 13-26. This ship had
an outbreak of smallpox or typhus with 50 people dying on the trip over. The ship
was seriously overcrowded with a passenger list of over 200 and yet a safe load of
only 140.
• William may have lost his wife Thomasine on the ship since no later mention is
made of her in Quaker records or his will of 1709.
• When they arrived in Philadelphia, they were not allowed to disembark.
Philadelpha already had a yellow fever epidemic raging in 1699 (most deaths
were in Sept that year), so the ship landed across the river in Salem County, NJ.
• Christopher Atkinson died on board the ship and after his death his wife sold 500
acres in Buckingham township to William Cooper for £30.
New world settlers
• William deposited the Anglican and the Friends certificates at the
Middletown Monthly Meeting where he also entered the births of his
other children
• In 1700 The Quakers gave permission for the Buckingham Friends to hold a
weekly meeting at William Cooper’s house.
• In the Bucks Quarterly Meeting Register the actual certificate of removal
from the Middletown meeting to the Bucks county meeting for William
states:
"To the Monthly Meeting at the Falls in Bucks Co., Pa. Greeting. Whereas William Cooper
who hath been a member of our Meeting since his coming from the Old England and now
being desirous to join himself to your Monthly Meeting at the Falls hath acquainted us
therewith, requesting of us a certificate for his removal. We therefore after due
consideration of the matter do hereby certify that he hath been a laborious man amongst
his family since coming amongst us, and also hath been and is in unity with Friends."
This wasn’t the end for the Cooper’s
in America. Not only were the family
significant in the development of
Buckingham, Falls Meeting House –
one of the oldest in the US – their
descendants played a part in politics,
law and literature from the founding
of Cooperstown to James Fenimore
Cooper who wrote ‘Last of the
Mohicans’
www.mashamhistory.com/uploads/1/2/2/2/12227498/quakers_in_masham.pdfLink on info on 10th Great Grandfather William Cooper
wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=merrygo&id=I3765