¹The number of slaves in New Jersey at the commencement of Woolman's labors for emancipation was undoubtedly large. As late as 1800 there were 12,442. Perth Amboy was a place of deposit for the newly imported Africans, and long barracks were erected for their accommodation. In 1734, when Woolman was a lad of fourteen, an insurrection took place, which had for its object the massacre of the masters, and an alliance with the Indians and French. Some years later a negro convicted of crime was burned alive at Perth Amboy. An immense number of negroes, gathered from all the neighboring townships, were compelled to be witnesses of the slow torment of the victim.

²This pamphlet bears the imprint of Benjamin Franklin, 1754.

³He seems to have regarded agriculture as the business most conducive to moral and physical health. He thought "if the leadings of the Spirit were more attended to, more people would be engaged in the sweet employment of husbandry, where labor is agreeable and healthful." He does not condemn the honest acquisition of wealth in other business free from oppression; even "merchandising," he thought, might be carried on innocently and in pure reason. Christ does not forbid the laying up of a needful support for family and friends; the command is, " Lay not up for YOURSELVES treasures on earth." From his little farm on the Rancocas he looked out with a mingled feeling of wonder and sorrow upon the hurry and unrest of the world; and especially was he pained to see luxury and extravagance overgrowing the early plainness and simplicity of his own religious society. He regarded the merely rich man with unfeigned pity. With nothing of his scorn, he had all of Thoreau's commiseration, for people who went about bowed down with the weight of broad acres and great houses on their backs.

⁴Christians refused to pay taxes to support heathen ternpies. See Cave s Primitive Christianity, Part III. p. 327.

⁵ Fox's Acts and Monuments, p. 233.

⁶ Whatever may be thought of these scruples of John Woolman in regard to inoculation, his objections can scarcely be considered valid against vaccination, which, since his time, has so greatly mitigated the disease. He almost seems to have anticipated some such preventive.

⁷There is a story told of his first appearance in England which I have from my friend, William J. Allinson, editor of the Friends' Review, and which he assures me is well authenticated. The vessel reached London on the morning of the fifth day of the week, and John Woolman, knowing that the meeting was then in session, lost no time in reaching it. Coming in late and unannounced, his peculiar dress and manner excited attention and apprehension that he was an itinerant enthusiast. He presented his certificate from Friends in America, but the dissatisfaction still remained, and some one remarked that perhaps the stranger Friend might feel that his dedication of himself to this apprehended service was accepted, without further labor, and that he might now feel free to return to his home. John Woolman sat silent for a space, seeking the unerring counsel of Divine Wisdom. He was profoundly affected by the unfavorable reception he met with, and his tears flowed freely. In the love of Christ and his fellow-men he had, at a painful sacrifice, taken his life in his hands, and left behind the peace and endearments of home. That love still flowed out toward the people of England; must it henceforth be pent up in his own heart? He rose at last, and stated that he could not feel himself released from his prospect of labor in England. Yet he could not travel in the ministry without the unity of Friends; and while that was withheld he could not feel easy to be of any cost to them. He could not go back as had been suggested; but he was acquainted with a mechanical trade, and while the impediment to his services continued he hoped Friends would be kindly willing to employ him in such business as he was capable of, that he might not be chargeable to any.

A deep silence prevailed over the assembly, many of whom were touched by the wise simplicity of the stranger's words and manner. After a season of waiting, John Woolman felt that words were given him to utter as a minister of Christ.

The spirit of his Master bore witness to them in the hearts of his hearers. When he closed, the Friend who had advised against his further service rose up and humbly confessed his error, and avowed his full unity with the stranger. All doubt was removed; there was a general expression of unity and sympathy, and John Woolman, owned by his brethren, passed on to his work. 

There is no portrait of John Woolman; and had photography been known in his day it is not at all probable that the sun-artist would have been permitted to delineate his features. That, while eschewing all superfluity and expensive luxury, he was scrupulously neat in his dress and person may be inferred from his general character and from the fact that one of his serious objections to dyed clothing was that it served to conceal uncleanness, and was, therefore, detrimental to real purity. It is, however, quite probable that his outer man, on the occasion referred to, was suggestive of a hasty toilet in the crowded steerage. 

⁸During the four months of his labors in England he visited the Quarterly and subordinate meetings of Friends in seven counties, and found time to write essays upon "Loving our Neighbors," "A Sailor's Life," and "Silent Worship." His mind seems to have been greatly exercised by a sense of the intimate connection of luxury and oppression; the burden of the laboring poor rested heavily upon him. In his lonely wanderings on foot through the rural districts (for he did not feel free to use the post on account of the hard treatment of the horses), or in his temporary sojourn in crowded manufacturing towns, the eager competitions and earnest pursuit of gain of one class, and the poverty and physical and moral degradation of another, so oppressed him that his health suffered and his strength failed. It is observable that, in his frequent mention throughout his Journal of inward trials and afflictions, he nowhere betrays any personal solicitude, any merely selfish anxiety, for his own soul. His singular conscientious scruples, his close self-questionings, are prompted by a tender concern for universal well-being; an earnest desire that no act or omission of his own should add to the evil and misery under which the creation groans. He offered no prayers for special personal favors. He was, to use his own words, mixed with his fellow-creatures in their misery, and could not consider himself a distinct and separate being. He left all that concerns self to the will of his Father in Heaven, trusting to find a place among the "many mansions," but never asking to see the title-deeds of his inheritance. His last public labor was a testimony in the York Meeting in behalf of the poor and enslaved. His last prayer on his death-bed was a commendation of his "fellow-creatures separated from the Divine harmony" to the Omnipotent Power whom he had learned to call his Father. 

Source: Overview by Bryan Wright