Chapter I: Front Matter

_Frontispiece._] [_See p. vi._]

ELIZABETH HOOTON
FIRST QUAKER WOMAN PREACHER
(1600-1672)

BY
EMILY MANNERS

WITH NOTES, ETC., BY
NORMAN PENNEY, F.S.A., F.R.Hist.S.

London:
HEADLEY BROTHERS, Bishopsgate, E.C.

American Agents:
DAVID S. TABER, 144 East 20th Street, New York.
VINCENT D. NICHOLSON, Earlham College, Richmond, Ind.
GRACE W. BLAIR, Media, Pa.

1914.

This volume is issued
as Supplement 12 to
THE JOURNAL OF THE
FRIENDS HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Preface

The Notes collected by the late Mary Radley, of Warwick, for her contemplated “Life of Elizabeth Hooton” seem to indicate a work of much wider scope than I have attempted. Since her research commenced many notable works on the rise of the Society of Friends have been issued which cover the investigations made by her. I have therefore endeavoured to bring together in a collected form the scattered fragments of Elizabeth Hooton’s history, which are to be found up and down, together with many of her letters, or extracts from them, which I believe have never before been published.

Many kind friends have materially assisted in the work, and I desire gratefully to acknowledge their services here: to Norman Penney, F.S.A., and the staff at Devonshire House, London, without whose invaluable help I could not have compiled the little history; to Mrs. Dodsley of Skegby Hall, for her search of the Skegby Manor Rolls, and the Church Registers, also for the illustration of the village which she kindly lent for reproduction; to A. S. Buxton, Esq., for various notes connected with the history of the district and for his unfailing help and interest in the work; to Mrs. Mary G. Swift, of Millbrook, New York, for notes of various authorities; to my cousin, Ethel Barringer, for her sketch of Lincoln Castle Gateway; and to my daughter, Rachel L. Manners, for her photograph of Beckingham Church and her suggestions and advice generally.

For New England History I have drawn largely on Dr. Rufus M. Jones’s recent book, _The Quakers in the American Colonies_, and for the account of the Quaker persecution in that country my authority has been _New England Judged_, 1703 edition.

EMILY MANNERS.

_Edenbank, Mansfield._

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I.—EARLY SERVICE IN ENGLAND 1

II.—FIRST VISIT TO NEW ENGLAND 18

III.—SECOND VISIT TO NEW ENGLAND 35

IV.—CLOSING YEARS 53

ADDENDA:

The Husband of Elizabeth Hooton 77

Noah Bullock 78

Commitment to Lincoln Castle 78

Unketty 79

A Young Man out of the North of England 79

Hooton Descendants:

Samuel Hooton 80

Elizabeth Hooton, Jr. 82

Oliver Hooton 83

Martha Hooton 84

Thomas Hooton 84

John Hooton 85

Josiah Hooton 86

Judge Endicott 86

BIBLIOGRAPHY 87

INDEX 91

Illustrations

SKEGBY VILLAGE prior to 1897 _Frontispiece._

Photograph by the Sherwood Photographic Co., Mansfield.

The tall house on the extreme left of the picture is standing
to-day. It was the property of the Society of Friends until
1800, when it was sold, with the adjoining Burial Ground, now
a garden, the proceeds going towards the re-building of the
Meeting House at Mansfield. The house is considered by some
to have been the home of Elizabeth Hooton. It is probably of
seventeenth century construction.

LETTER FROM ELIZABETH HOOTON TO GEORGE FOX, 1653 [?] 12

Photograph by Henry G. Summerhayes.

This is probably an autograph letter. It is endorsed by Fox:
“e houton to gff 1655.”

BECKINGHAM CHURCH 14

Photograph by Rachel L. Manners.

The village of Beckingham is about five miles south of
Newark-on-Trent. The church has a fine Norman porch and
the churchyard is remarkable, being the shape of a coffin.

HEADING OF THE TRACT “FALSE TEACHERS,” ETC. 17

Photograph by Humphrey L. Penney from the original. See p. 11.

SIGNATURE OF JOHN ENDICOTT 34

Photograph by Walter J. Hutchins from a facsimile in _Annals
of Salem_.

ENDORSEMENT BY GEORGE FOX 52

Photograph by W. J. Hutchins from an early copy of a letter
from Elizabeth Hooton to Oliver Cromwell. See p. 10.

A PORTION OF A PAGE OF THE EARLIEST MINUTE BOOK OF
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE QUARTERLY MEETING 75

Photograph by Sherwood Photographic Co., Mansfield, from the
original. See p. 81.

LINCOLN CASTLE GATEWAY 78

Original drawing by Ethel Barringer.

This, with some fragments of the old wall, and a small,
strongly-built structure, supposed to have been a dungeon and
known as Cobb’s Hall, is all that remains of the old Castle.
The area of the fortress is now occupied by the County Hall
and a building now disused, which was the County Gaol.

Key to Abbreviations

=D.= = The Friends’ Reference Library, at Devonshire House, 136, Bishopsgate, London, E.C.

A.R.B. MSS. = A collection of two hundred and fifty Letters of early Friends, 1654 to 1688, so named because worked over by Abram Rawlinson Barclay in 1841. In =D.=

Camb. _Jnl._ = _The Journal of George Fox_, Cambridge ed., 1911.

_D.N.B._ = _Dictionary of National Biography_, 68 vols., 1885-1904.

_F.P.T._ = “_The First Publishers of Truth_,” being early Records (now first printed) of the Introduction of Quakerism into the Counties of England and Wales. Edited for the Friends Historical Society by Norman Penney, with Introduction by Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L., D.Litt., 1907.

_Jnl. F.H.S._ = The quarterly Journal of the Friends Historical Society, commencing 1903.

Spence MSS. = A collection of seventeenth century MSS. belonging to Robert Spence, of London. 3 vols. Deposited in =D.=

Swarth. MSS. = A Collection of about fourteen hundred letters, papers, etc. of the seventeenth century. In =D.=