Drawing of the USS Quaker City by Clary Ray. Photo: Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection, Washington DC via Wikimedia Commons.
Eye - 04 January 2013
A Friendly city and ordinary joy
A Friendly city?
Friends have been riffling through the pages of their bookshelves for curiosities to share. This week with we have literary finds on a historical theme.
Jill Allum, of Beccles Meeting, raves about Jerusalem, the Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore, which she describes as ‘a tour de force’. However, she was prompted to write to Eye when she ‘was truly surprised to find the word Quaker on page 429, referring to a sidewheel steamship named Quaker City. Montefiore here is writing about Jerusalem in 1867, when Mark Twain was on this steamboat…on a pilgrimage’.
The book states that ‘Twain, celebrated as the “Wild Humorist” was on a pilgrim cruise called the Grand Holy Land Pleasure Excursion, which he renamed the Grand Holy Land Funeral Expedition.’ His time aboard resulted in the Quaker City being used for several scenes in The Innocents Abroad.
Whilst the name may conjure the image of a vast ship jam-packed with Friends bobbing about the high seas (or is that just Eye?), Jill posed the question ‘however did the name Quaker get into the naming of USS steamships?’ Well, Eye was inspired to investigate.
The name of USS Quaker City refers back to the city in which the ship was built in 1854: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The state was founded by William Penn and the city laid out by his cousin as a haven for Quakers to worship freely and to govern themselves.
Prior to the Quaker City being commissioned, Philadelphia served as the capital of the United States (from 1790 until 1800) and was the location for both the First and Second Continental Congresses at the latter of which the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed.
Originally a civilian ship, she was converted into a warship in 1861 for use in the American civil war.
In her seventeen-year career she bore a number of names; from the Quaker City (1854 to 1869) she was renamed three times in as many years – becoming the Columbia, the Mont Organisé and the République before being lost at sea in February 1871.
Ordinary joy
Harry Holloway, of Chesterfield Meeting, found an interesting tale of Friend-related life in The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally.
The novel is based on the true story of a group of convicts and their captors uniting to stage a play, The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar, the playmaker in question being lieutenant Ralph Clark.
Harry writes: ‘We may assume that all the people mentioned are historical… the actual dialogue, of course, we may assume is fiction. But I think the author is to be congratulated in giving Mary Brenham such a magnificent exit line!’
In the extract Mary Brenham, transported to Australia for theft, relates her history – and Stepney Friends make an appearance.
‘Brenham’s mother began to attend Quaker Meetings in Stepney, perhaps because the Quakers were well known for their charity. And so she found work on the fringes of benevolence, as a cook and housekeeper for the Society for the Ruptured Poor, a Quaker house of charity which took in and nursed those whose frames had been broken in mills and factories and who could therefore no longer work.
‘“She found me my position at the Kennedys and I repaid her miserably,” said Brenham flatly…
‘“And does your mother still work in that Quaker house?” he asked.
‘“At the time my ship left the Thames, yes. My trial confirmed her position there, making her doubly unfortunate and so doubly worthy with the Brethren. I could say my crime confirmed her imprisonment with the Quakers, just as it assured my transportation.”
Ralph laughed. “You do not like the Quakers?”
‘“Away from them, my mother may have found a new husband.”
‘“And may have starved on the other hand,” said Ralph.
‘“I do not think I could be a Quaker,” said Brenham. “It seemed to me they were very severe on ordinary joy.”’
