Genealogical Gems

Many came to America to escape religious persecution. William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, were two of those persons. They fled England in 1656 for just that reason. Massachusetts was not as welcoming as, for example, Pennsylvania was. In fact Massachusetts actually banned Quakers, also known as the Religious Society of Friends, from the colony! The penalty for being a Quaker there was death and in fact, On This Day in 1659, Massachusetts executed two Quakers for their religious beliefs.   Source Quakersexecuted for religious beliefs . 27 October 1659. History.com.      On This Day is a prompt to further explore historical events.                  © Jeanne Ruczhak-Eckman, 2015

Having grown up in Chester County , the Quakers just always were there. I never really thought about how they got to Chester County or where they came from. They were just always such a big impressive historical influence on the area, its people and her history. However, they – like the rest of us – had to have come at some time and from some where, right?    It was On This Day though that the first Quaker colonists landed at Boston in 1656, according to History.com.   Ann Austin and Mary Fisher were two Englishwomen who came from Barbados , where the Quakers were active in missionary work. Austin and Fisher, in 1656, then were the first two Quakers to immigrate to America . Their ship landed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.   The ladies did not have an easy time here in America and in fact they were arrested, jailed and deported to Barbados . They left such an impression, with their liberal teachings, on the Puritans that the Massachusetts government ...