Happy Saturday. Not long ago, we read an email from listener Miranda about Judith Sargent Murray, who was a Universalist whose family had enslaved household servants, but as a denomination Universalists are usually more associated with the abolition movement. I said, this reminded me of Benjamin Lay, who was a Quaker at a time before the Religious Society of Friends became actively abolitionist, and was expelled from various Quaker meetings in part for his vocal opposition to slavery, including by prominent members of those meetings. We said at the time we might run our episode on Benjamin Lay as a Saturday classic, and here it is. The original came out on August twenty first, twenty nineteen. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and Welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Several times in previous episodes we have talked about the role of Quakers, who are also called Friends, in the abolition of slavery. We haven't, though, really talked about the Religious Society of Friends before it became such a visible part in the movement for abolition. Benjamin Lay was a Quaker and a radical abolitionist who lived in this period between when the Religious Society of Friends started and when it started formally banning slave ownership among its members. During that time, there were actually a lot of Quaker slave owners, especially among the more wealthy and more powerful members, and Lay was incredibly outspoken about this issue in an incredibly visible and memorable way. In the words of Robert's Vox, who wrote a brief biography of Lay in the nineteenth century, if the comparison be admissible, he appeared rather like the comet, which threatens, in its irregular course the destruction of the worlds near which it passes, than is one of those tranquil orbs which hold their accustomed place and dispense their light in the harmonious order of heaven. So because of this comet like behavior and this advocacy, Benjamin Lay was disowned from multiple Quaker meetings. He's been described as the most frequently disowned Quaker of his time. We're going to talk more about what that means and how that happened in a bit, and this is who we are talking about today. I like that there's a superlative of most disowned Quake Yes, like Who's number two. He was also the last Quaker known to be disowned for advocating against slavery and for the abolition of slavery, So he was not the only person to be disowned, but he was disowned a lot. He's the most last owned for this reason. Benjamin Lay He was born in Essex County, England, on April twenty sixth, sixteen eighty two. His parents, William and Prudence Lay, were of course Quakers, as were his grandparents, and Benjamin's father had a small farm, but his family did not have a lot of money, so Benjamin didn't really have much of a formal education. He did a lot of self study later in his life, though he liked to call himself just a poor, illiterate sailor. Eventually he was very widely and well read, and when he was in his teens, Benjamin went to live on his brother's farm, where he worked as a shepherd. This is something he seems to have really dearly loved, but his time as a shepherd was temporary. Eventually he was apprenticed to a glove maker, and that was something he did not enjoy at all. So, when he was about twenty one years old, he left and he went to London to become a sailor instead. Having made some gloves, I can understand if it's not for you, it's really not free. He did not like it one bit. This was an interesting choice for him to have made this move to become a sailor. He was expected to inherit a family farm and he was giving that up by becoming a sailor instead. He also had cayphosis, or an excessive front to back curvature of the spine, as well as some form of dwarfism, and this would have made some of the work on a ship far more challenging for him. But it also would have allowed him to maneuver into tight spaces and through the rigging in the ways that larger men really couldn't lay. Was a sailor for about twelve years, and during that time when he wasn't at sea, he usually lived in London. He also spent some time in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, visiting various sites that had been mentioned in the Bible. Otherwise, we don't have a whole lot of detail about these years at sea, but it is where Lay started learning about the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade. He heard these stories from men who had either worked on slave ships themselves or had heard about it from other sailors. At some point during these years, Lay met Sarah Smith of Debtford, England. Sarah had become a Quaker in her youth, and by seventeen twelve she was an approved minister. Sarah's late father had been a plasterer, and if her mother was still living when she and Benjamin met, she had died by the time that they married. Like Benjamin, Sarah had both Cayphosis and Dwarfism, and in their life together people sometimes commented on how much they resembled each other. Benjamin himself described them as quote being pretty much alike in stature and other ways. In seventeen sixteen, when he was thirty four and she was four or five years older, Benjamin started trying to get the necessary permissions to marry Sarah, but this presented a problem. In order to marry within the religious society of Friends, you had to be a member in good standing. But Benjamin had made some waves in his home congregation in London, which was Devonshire House. Monthly meeting. When the Quaker movement was very first evolving in Britain in the mid sixteen hundreds, a lot of the time it was really confrontational. One of the movement's core beliefs was that each person could have a direct relationship with God, and in terms of the movement's ideals, it didn't have any sort of hierarchy. Early Quakers also spoke out against established churches and their leaders, including during services, but by the time Benjamin Lay came along, the Religious Society of Friends had become much more conservative, speaking out against ministers and elders and weighty friends, which as a term for influential Quakers, was just not done. Benjamin did it, though we don't know what exactly he had been criticizing in Devonshire. He had a particular dislike for vanity, pride and covetousness, and he also didn't like preaching that seemed like the minister's own words rather than the word of God. Based on later incidents that were more well documented, it could have been any number of things, but whatever it was, he was in enough trouble over it that he did not go directly to Devonshire House Monthly meeting to ask for the certificate that he needed to marry his beloved. Instead, he worked on a ship that crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and in Salem, Massachusetts, he went to the local Quaker meeting house there and said that he wanted to marry Sarah Smith of Deptford. In seventeen seventeen, the Salem Congregation wrote to Devonshire House. After some discussion, Devonshire House wrote back that Benjamin was quote free and clear from all persons here relating to marriage, and also free and clear of debts so far as we know. But their letter went on to say that they thought Benjamin was quote convinced of the truth, but for want of keeping low and humble in his mind, hath by an indiscreet zeal, been too forward to appear in our public meetings, to the uneasiness of friends. Look, he's not in trouble, but he is a SaaS pants. Yeah, and it's possible that he may have been criticizing people who who were slave owners at this point. That seems to have come along much later into his line of thought. So I think this was more like if he didn't like your face, do you would tell you that he didn't like your face. If he didn't like your preaching, same deal. He's an upstart at heart. Once he got back to England with that somewhat reluctant approval, Benjamin continued to criticize ministers and others at Devonshire House and at other Quaker meetings in and around London, where he also worshiped. He roused enough rabble the Devonshire House refused to give him the formal certificate that he needed for marriage. He appealed their refusal to the London Quarterly Meeting, which investigated the situation and said that while it didn't approve of his behavior, it also did not approve of Devonshire House withholding his certificate. So although Devonshire House Monthly Meeting did issue the certificate, it also ultimately disowned Benjamin. It said something to the effect that couldn't consider him part of their number. That meant that he was allowed to still worship there, but he wasn't considered a member in good standing, and he wasn't allowed to take part in business meetings. Benjamin and Sarah did finally marry in Deptford on July tenth, seventeen eighteen. They left London shortly thereafter and moved to Barbados, which was also home to a Quaker community, and we're going to get into their time there after. We first paused for a little sponsor break. When Benjamin and Sarah Lay got to Barbados, Benjamin established himself as a merchant with a small shop that was stocked with provisions that he'd bought before leaving England. Before long, they experienced a series of small thefts from this store, and if Benjamin was able to catch the perpetrator, he'd punish them with a lash, which was a pretty common punishment for theft at the time. But soon Lay realized that the enslaved people who were stealing from his store were driven to it by absolutely desperate circumstances. They were either stealing food because they were starving, or they were stealing items that they could sell or trade for food. So upon this revelation, Benjamin was full of remorse for what he had done, and he and Sarah set up an informal ministry for the enslaved people of Barbados. They fed as many as they could with what they had, although it was often spoiled in the Caribbean heat, and they established a Sunday School, where Benjamin both taught and counseled enslaved people and listened to them as they talked about their own lives and experiences. So by listening to the words of the people around them and by their own observations, the Lays quickly learned that conditions in Barbados were really horrific. They repeatedly witnessed people collapsing from exhaustion and overwork. One enslaved man that Benjamin knew, took his own life rather than continuing to be subjected to regular beatings. At one point, Sarah was going to visit another Quaker who was living nearby, and on our way there she found a man hanging, in Benjamin's words quote stark naked, trembling and shivering, with such a flood of blood under him that so surprised the little woman she could scarce contain. So when Sarah got to the house the people she was visiting, she asked them what was going on, and they told her that this man was being punished for quote absconding. A day or two, this experience in Barbados influenced not only Benjamin Lay's views on slavery, but also his views on Africans and people of African descent in general. A lot of the other white abolitionists that we have talked about on the show argued that slavery was immoral, but they were also racist. But Lay really believes that all people were equal, later writing, for example, quote the many hundreds of thousands that are now in slavery, were they at liberty as we are had the same education, learning conversation books, sweet communion, and our religious assemblies. I believe many of them would exceed many of their tyrant masters in piety, virtue, and godliness, and their bright genius which I know they have, would be enlivened for I have conversed with many of them. For liberty is life and slavery is death. Yeah. One of the other things that gets pointed out about his writing a lot is that there were a lot of abolitionists that still talked about Africans and people of African descent as savages, and he reserved that kind of language for the people who owned slaves. He never used that sort of language about people who were enslaved or people who were of African descent. So Sarah and Benjamin only stayed in Barbados for about a year and a half. Their work with the enslaved population really, of course, drew the ire of the slave owning community. They faced harassment and threats over it. Sarah was also afraid that if they stayed there they would eventually become desensitized to what they were seeing, so in seventeen twenty they went back to London, where Benjamin seems to have re established his relationship with the Devonshire House Monthly Meeting. But soon Benjamin was once again speaking out against other Quakers. In September seventeen twenty, a complaint was recorded that he had disturbed Zachary Routh in his public testimony and also had called him a drunkard and a sinner. After some back and forth, a man named Joseph Norris brought Benjamin a notice from a meeting about his misbehavior, and Benjamin threw that notice out the window. He was disowned for a second time, and then he and Sarah moved to Colchester, which is northeast of London. And Colchester, Benjamin had a long, confusing and frankly pretty petty seeming dispute with the Colchester two weeks meeting. This dispute went on for years, with Benjamin criticizing people and then the meeting demanding that he apologized, and then he would double down or refuse to apologize or give kind of a non apology. Sometimes it seems as though Sarah tried to smooth things over here, especially at various times she was preparing to travel without him as a minister and to be gone for a long time. She was concerned about his being isolated from his religious community while she was gone. The Colchester Two Weeks Meeting wanted to disown Benjamin, but couldn't because he was still disowned from Devonshire House Monthly Meeting. He'd never formally become a member of Colchester Two Weeks Meeting. And then Benjamin and Sarah started attending a different Colchester meeting, the Colchester Monthly Meeting, which added another layer of strife thanks to an apparent power struggle between those two different Colchester meetings. In the middle of all this dispute, Benjamin and Sarah disappear from the record for about three years. It's possible that they moved somewhere else and became part of a congregation where Benjamin's behavior didn't draw any of this kind of notice or he might have gone traveling with her while she worked as a minister. Regardless, in seventeen twenty nine, they were back in Colchester trying to make arrangements to immigrate to Pennsylvania. The Colony of Pennsylvania had been founded by William Penn in sixteen eighty one in part to be a home for Quakers who were facing violence and persecution in Europe. He called it his Holy Experiment, and he wanted it to follow Quaker ideals. Penn wanted fair treatment of the native people, no military, and a government that ran on principles of freedom, including religious liberty, access to education, and universal suffrage for men. So this was an obvious place for the Lays to want to move. But once again, to immigrate to Pennsylvania, they needed a certificate from a Quaker meeting in England. Colchester Monthly Meeting may be motivated by the idea of Benjamin Lay living somewhere else, agreed to provide the certificate if Benjamin made amends with Devonshire House, which he did on November third, seventeen thirty one. Devonshire House sent a letter to Colchester Monthly Meeting clearing Benjamin of wrongdoing Colchester Monthly Meeting received Benjamin as a member and issued the certificate for him to move to Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the Colchester two weeks Meeting, still very mad at him, wrote letters ahead of him, warning Quakers in Pennsylvania about what they were in for. I'm wildly abused by all of the letters and the like. It's very ninth grade drama, and somewhat it is. Do you like, Benjamin? Yes? Box, no box. When the Lays got to Philadelphia, Benjamin opened a bookshop specializing in books by Quakers, as well as psalters, Bibles, and classical works of literature. But he and Sarah were dismayed to discover that, in spite of everything that they had imagined about Penn's Holy Experiment and its dedication to Quaker ideals, slavery was still practiced in the colony. About ten percent of the population of Philadelphia was enslaved, and about half the membership of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting owned slaves. Among the wealthiest and most powerful friends in the congregation that number was even higher. Rather than advocating the abolition of slavery, the religious Society of Friends was more likely to advocate treating enslaved people humanly, or freeing people after a certain number of years rather than enslaving them and all their descendants for life. Benjamin started criticizing slavery and slave owners right away. He also met other abolitionists, including fellow Quaker Ralph Sandeford, who by that point was in very poor physical and mental health, in part due to being harassed by other Quakers over his abolitionist beliefs, which had gone on for years. Sanderford died in seventeen thirty three, so when Ley met him it was toward the end of his life. After a couple of years of this, Benjamin and Sarah decided to move to Abington, about fifteen miles north of Philadelphia, and they may have chosen this location because Susannah Morris lived there. She and Sarah were friends and they had traveled together as ministers, including surviving as shipwreck together. But when the Lays tried to get their certificate from Philadelphia so they could join a meeting in Abington, Robert Jordan Junior objected, arguing that because of all of the content, like back in England, Benjamin's membership in Philadelphia was not authorized in the first place. Not long after they moved to Abington, Sarah Lay died at the age of about fifty eight. Her cause of death is unknown, it does seem to have been unexpected and pretty sudden. Benjamin also seems to have thought that Jordan's treatment of the two of them contributed to it, maybe by causing them both a lot of stress. A notice from the Abington Monthly Meeting mentioned Sarah's quote gift of ministry and her travels through England, Scotland and Ireland and some parts of the continent as a minister. It's very likely that Sarah had been a tempering influence in Benjamin's life, not just smoothing things over with the various Quaker meetings that they were part of, but also in reigning in his more radical impulses. And without her, he dedicated himself to aggressively speaking out against slavery. And we're going to get to that after we have another sponsor break. Some of the chronology of Benjamin Lay's life is a little bit fuzzy, so it's possible that some of the things we're about to talk about happened before his wife died. Even if that's the case, though, after Sarah's death Benjamin became known as an increasingly eccentric figure. He was heavily influenced by the Cenic philosophers, particularly Diogenes. If you need a refresher on that, we just re ran our episode on him as a Saturday classic. But in general, the Cynics were in favor of living with nature, abandoning social conventions, and living in an acetic, minimal existence. Lay started living in a cave in Abington, which was spacious enough that he had an extensive library there. It was also big enough for a spinning wheel, which he used to spin flax. He made all of his own clothes from undyed toe linen because he didn't want to wear any material that harmed animals or was connected to slavery. He would use other from animals that had died naturally, but he would not use it from ones that had been slaughtered or hunted. Ley had also become a strict vegetarian, although he did drink milk and he ate honey that was made by bees that he raised himself, taking care not to harm any of them when he harvested it. He didn't drink tea because of the abuses in the tea industry in Asia, and he didn't eat sugar because it was grown, harvested, and processed by enslaved Africans. He also went everywhere on foot because he didn't want to exploit the labor of horses. He started publicly condemning slave owners, especially Quaker slave owners, including during meetings, and he became increasingly dramatic in his protests. After interrupting someone in a meeting, he was forcibly carried out into the rain, and he lay in the MUDs so that the whole congregation had to step over him as they left. On another occasion, he stood outside the meetinghouse in the snow with one boot off and the leg of his pants rolled up. When people asked what he was doing, or said that he should go inside because he might get sick, he answered, quote, you pretend compassion for me, but you do not feel for the poor slaves in the field who go all winter half clad. To protest the use of slave labor in the tobacco industry and tobacco's unwholesome effects on health, Lay took three pipes to an annual Quaker meeting, and he smashed each of them, one among the ministers, one among the women, and one among the men, a lot of Quaker congregations at that point, separated by gender. He did a similar demonstration against the tea industry, protesting the conditions in the tea and sugar industries and the luxury that was associated with tea, by smashing his late wife's tea set with a hammer in a public square. Ley also tried to convince some neighbors to free a young girl that they were enslaving as a household servant. He had also made friends with their child. In some accounts this was a son, and others it's a daughter. One day he convinced this child to come stay with him for the afternoon, and when he saw the parents that evening, distraught over their missing child, he said, quote, your child is safe in my house, and now you may conceive of the sorrow you inflict upon the parents of the Negro girl you hold in slavery, for she was torn from them by avarice. At one point, Lay traveled to Philadelphia to visit another Quaker family. He arrived as they were having breakfast, and he asked them whether the person who was serving their meal was enslaved. When they answered that yes, he was, Ley said quote, then I will not share with THEE in the fruits of thy unrighteousness. And he left. There's so many points in his story where I want to yell right on, yea, Benjamin Lay is putting the rest of us to shame completely. Ley's most famous anti slavery demonstration took place at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting on September nineteenth, seventeen thirty eight. This was an annual meeting of all the Philadelphia area Quaker meetings held in Burlington, New Jersey. Lay walked about twenty minsles to get there, wearing a military uniform with a sword belted to his hip under an overcoat. He also carried a hollowed out book in which was concealed a bladder filled with bright red pokeberry juice. During this meeting, he stood up and said, quote, Oh, all you Negro masters who are contentedly holding your fellow creatures in a state of slavery during life, well knowing the cruel sufferings those innocent captives undergo in their state of bondage, both in these North American colonies and in the West India Islands, you must know they are not made slaves by any direct law but are held by an arbitrary and self interested custom in which you participate, and especially you, who profess to do unto all men as you would they should do unto you. And yet, in direct opposition to every principle of reason, humanity, and religion, you are forcibly retaining your fellow men from one generation to another in a state of unconditional servitude. You might as well throw off the plain coat as I do. He unbuttoned the one button of his coat and let it fall on the ground, and then went on quote, it would be as justifiable in the sight of the Almighty, who beholds and respects all nations and colors of men with an equal regard, if you should thrust a sword through their hearts as I do through this book. In some accounts he also said, thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures. So then he drew the sword, stabbed it through the book and the bladder that was concealed inside of it, let the fake blood drip out of it, and flung drops of it all over the slave owners who were around him. He was like an early performance artist. I kind of love it. These demonstrations unsurprisingly angered these slave owning members of the Quaker community. They were personally offended, and his aggressive confrontations ran against the Quaker values of peace and unity. In that Pokeberry juice demonstration, Lay had also walked into a Pacifist congregation wearing a military uniform and carrying a weapon. On top of all that, in seventeen thirty eight, Lay also published a book without the authorization of the church's overseers of the press, who were supposed to approve all published material by Quakers. This book was called and Just Buckle Up, because this is I think the longest title we've ever read. All slave keepers that keep the innocent in bondage, apostates pretending to lay claim to the pure and holy Christian religion of what congregations soever, but especially in their ministers, by whose examples the filthy leprosy and apostasy is spread far and near. It is a notorious sin which many of the true friends of Christ and His pure Truth, called Quakers, has been for many years and still are concerned to write and bear testimony against, as a practice so gross and hurtful to religion and destructive to government. Beyond what words can set forth or can be declared of by manner aim angels, and yet lived by ministers and magistrates in America. The leaders of the people caused them to air written for a general service by him that truly and sincerely desires the present and eternal welfare and happiness of all mankind, all the world over, of all colors and nations as his own soul. Benjamin Lay. That was the title name of Band Pissy. Most historians referencing this work just call it all slave keepers that keep the innocent and bondage apostates, or even just all slave keepers dot dot apostates. You know you can't blame anyone for that abbreviation. No, you really can't. This book was really scathing in its discussion of slavery and of slave owners, especially those who claim to be people of faith. Here's a passage quote, Now, dear friends, behold a mystery these ministers that be slave keepers and are in such very great repute, Such eminent preachers, given to hospitality, charitable to the poor, loving to their neighbors, just in their dealings, temperate in their lives, visiting of the sick, sympathizing with the afflicted in body or mind, very religious, seemingly and extraordinary, devout and demure, and in short, strictly exact in all their decorums except slave keeping. These these be the men and the women too for the devil's purpose, and are the choicest treasure the devil can or has to bring out of his lazaretto to establish slave keeping. By these satan works wonders many ways. Yeah, so even if you are that great of a person, you are owning slaves, You are doing the devil's work. Per Benjamin Lay, this book wasn't just about slavery. There were also snippets for Malay's own life, kind of little autobiographical sketches, including references to that whole dispute with Colchester twice weekly meeting. There are also selections from other works that he found me meaningful in some way, including a couple of chapters of the Book of Revelation along with Lay's commentary, and a chunk of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Basically, it doesn't read as though Lay sat down intending to write a book. It's more like he wrote things from time to time as different ideas came into his mind, without really a cohesive through line through all of it. The writing style you might conclude based on the title is also pretty rambling, even when it's not jumping from one topic to another. Lay's friend, Benjamin Franklin, published the book. Although Franklin left his name off the title page in the spot where the publisher's name would normally go. Franklin knew that Lay was not approved to have it published, and he knew that it was kind of a disjointed mess. Franklin had even pointed that out to Lay, who told him that it didn't matter and to print it in whatever order that he thought best. In the words of the third Benjamin in this paragraph, physician and educator Benjamin Rush quote, even the address and skill of doctor Franklin were not sufficient to connect its different parts together so as to render it an agreeable or useful work. As a side note, although Benjamin Lay often refused to associate with slave owners in any way, he seems to have made an exception for Benjamin Franklin. Franklin later did become part of the movement for abolition, but when he was working on Lay's book, he was also enslaving at least two people. Franklin's own views on slavery at the time, may have been another reason why he left his name off of the book, although he did print other abolitionist tracts. Franklin's views may have also influenced the visual representations of Benjamin Lay that we have today. Most of them come from a portrait that was done by William Williams that was commissioned for Benjamin Franklin by his wife Deborah. This was probably done like not with Benjamin Lay sitting for a portrait that doesn't seem like a thing he ever would have done. Was. William Williams was probably familiar with Benjamin Lay from having seen him around town, but this portrait has no indication of Lay's work as an abolitionist. Instead, it shows Lay holding a book labeled Tryon on Happiness, which was a reference to the Way to Health, long Life and Happiness, or a Discourse on Temperance and the Particular Nature of all Things Requisite for the Life of Man by Thomas Tryon. We do know that Benjamin Lay loved this book and apparently carried it with him a lot of the time, but this was not nearly as big of a part of his life as his abolitionist work. After the poke Bury demonstration and the publication of the book. The Philadelphia Monthly Meeting disowned Benjamin Lay on September twenty sixth, seventeen thirty seven, saying that the certificate that he had presented from Colchester when joining the church had been quote irregularly maintained that his conduct was disorderly, and that quote we have therefore sought fit to give public notice that we do not esteem the said Benjamin Lay to be a member of our religious community, but a disorderly and obstinate person, one who slights the advice of friends, imposes on them in his preaching, that he disregards the peace of the church. The Abington Monthly Meeting disowned Lay as well, even though he was not actually a member there. It was like a just to be safe, prophylactic disowning. I guess yeah. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting also took out advertisements denouncing Lay's books, saying it quote contains gross abuses not only against some of their members in particular, but against the whole society. Even after being disowned from these congregations, Lay continued to attend services and to speak and write against slavery at every opportunity, and he did that for the rest of his life. He spoke out on other issues as well, including denouncing the death penalty. He also visited Quaker schools and brought books with him to give out his prizes. He also gave money charitably, although while he gave money to poor people who needed it, he criticized beggars who he thought were able to work. In seventeen fifty eight, as Benjamin Lay's health was declining, a friend visited him and told him that the Philadelphia Annual Meeting had decided to start disowning members who were part of the slave trade. Lay answered his friend that he could now die at peace. He did die on February third, seventeen fifty nine, at the age of seventy seven. Almost twenty years later, in seventeen seventy six, the Philadelphia Annual Meeting bands slave ownership among its members, and then other annual meetings followed from there. Because he had made some money during his lifetime but had spent almost nothing in his last years, Benjamin Lay left behind in a state that was divided up among family members and charitable institutions, along with forty pounds to the Society of friends at Abington for the care of poor children in the congregation. He was buried in an unmarked grave at the Abington Burial Ground, although the registry there did not list him as a member. He had asked a friend to arrange for his body to be cremated and his ashes thrown into the sea, but cremation was not really practiced among Quakers at that point, and his friend refused. For a few decades after his death, Benjamin Lay continued to be well known, especially in the area where he lived. In the words of Benjamin Rush we mentioned earlier, these were written in seventeen ninety quote, there was a time when this celebrated Christian philosopher was familiar to every man woman, in to nearly every child in Pennsylvania. Lay was particularly remembered among abolitionists, but eventually he seemed to just disappear from history, and the historians who did mention him often dismissed him as kind of an eccentric crank, rather than as somebody who paved the way for later abolitionists. The erasure was widespread enough that when Dave Wermaling, a caretaker at Abington Meetinghouse, found an etching of Lay, in the nineteen nineties. He didn't know who it was, neither did any of the older members Wrmaling asked about it. It remained a mystery until Marcus Rehticker visited the meeting house in twenty fourteen while researching his book The Fearless Benjamin Lay, the Quaker dwarf who became the first revolutionary abolitionist. That book was one of the sources for this episode. It is very good and also not particularly long if folks are interested in picking it up. Rehdticker's work brought new attention to Benjamin Lay's life and work, and based on his research, Rehticker also encouraged Quaker congregations to revisit those past decisions to disown him. Eventually, the four congregations that had disowned Lay or their successors issued statements about it, and as one example, on November twelfth, twenty seventeen, the Abington Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends issued a statement that it quote recognizes Benjamin Lay's dedication to equality and his willingness to repeatedly speak his messages of truth to a society that was in denial about the evils of slavery. We acknowledged that Benjamin Lay used radical activism and his attempts to teach his peers to recognize the equality before God of all people, regardless of race or gender. He lived his life with integrity according to his Quaker beliefs, and he called others, especially slave owners, to accountability. The statement went on to say, quote, we now recognize the truth behind Benjamin Lay's abolitionist efforts. Although we may not reinstate membership for someone who is deceased, we recognized Benjamin Lay as a friend of the truth and as being in unity with the spirit of our Abington Monthly Meeting. Yeah, the statements from the other congregations that had disowned him during his life had very similar tones and in some cases issued joint statements about it. In addition to all of these statements, a stone commemorating Sarah and Benjamin Lay was placed in the Abington Burial Ground on April twenty first, twenty eighteen, and a historical marker a state historical marker was dedicated on September twenty second, twenty eighteen. So he has become a little more well known over the last couple of years. We love it. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive, if you heard an email address or a Facebook RL or something similar over the course of the show, that could be obsolete now. Our current email address is History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can find us all over social media at misst Dhistory, and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. 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Happy Saturday. Not long ago, we read an email from listener Miranda about Judith Sargent Murray, who was a Universalist whose family had enslaved household servants, but as a denomination Universalists are usually more associated with the abolition movement. I said, this reminded me of Benjamin Lay, who was a Quaker at a time before the Religious Society of Friends became actively abolitionist, and was expelled from various Quaker meetings in part for his vocal opposition to slavery, including by prominent members of those meetings. We said at the time we might run our episode on Benjamin Lay as a Saturday classic, and here it is. The original came out on August twenty first, twenty nineteen. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and Welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Several times in previous episodes we have talked about the role of Quakers, who are also called Friends, in the abolition of slavery. We haven't, though, really talked about the Religious Society of Friends before it became such a visible part in the movement for abolition. Benjamin Lay was a Quaker and a radical abolitionist who lived in this period between when the Religious Society of Friends started and when it started formally banning slave ownership among its members. During that time, there were actually a lot of Quaker slave owners, especially among the more wealthy and more powerful members, and Lay was incredibly outspoken about this issue in an incredibly visible and memorable way. In the words of Robert's Vox, who wrote a brief biography of Lay in the nineteenth century, if the comparison be admissible, he appeared rather like the comet, which threatens, in its irregular course the destruction of the worlds near which it passes, than is one of those tranquil orbs which hold their accustomed place and dispense their light in the harmonious order of heaven. So because of this comet like behavior and this advocacy, Benjamin Lay was disowned from multiple Quaker meetings. He's been described as the most frequently disowned Quaker of his time. We're going to talk more about what that means and how that happened in a bit, and this is who we are talking about today. I like that there's a superlative of most disowned Quake Yes, like Who's number two. He was also the last Quaker known to be disowned for advocating against slavery and for the abolition of slavery, So he was not the only person to be disowned, but he was disowned a lot. He's the most last owned for this reason. Benjamin Lay He was born in Essex County, England, on April twenty sixth, sixteen eighty two. His parents, William and Prudence Lay, were of course Quakers, as were his grandparents, and Benjamin's father had a small farm, but his family did not have a lot of money, so Benjamin didn't really have much of a formal education. He did a lot of self study later in his life, though he liked to call himself just a poor, illiterate sailor. Eventually he was very widely and well read, and when he was in his teens, Benjamin went to live on his brother's farm, where he worked as a shepherd. This is something he seems to have really dearly loved, but his time as a shepherd was temporary. Eventually he was apprenticed to a glove maker, and that was something he did not enjoy at all. So, when he was about twenty one years old, he left and he went to London to become a sailor instead. Having made some gloves, I can understand if it's not for you, it's really not free. He did not like it one bit. This was an interesting choice for him to have made this move to become a sailor. He was expected to inherit a family farm and he was giving that up by becoming a sailor instead. He also had cayphosis, or an excessive front to back curvature of the spine, as well as some form of dwarfism, and this would have made some of the work on a ship far more challenging for him. But it also would have allowed him to maneuver into tight spaces and through the rigging in the ways that larger men really couldn't lay. Was a sailor for about twelve years, and during that time when he wasn't at sea, he usually lived in London. He also spent some time in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, visiting various sites that had been mentioned in the Bible. Otherwise, we don't have a whole lot of detail about these years at sea, but it is where Lay started learning about the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade. He heard these stories from men who had either worked on slave ships themselves or had heard about it from other sailors. At some point during these years, Lay met Sarah Smith of Debtford, England. Sarah had become a Quaker in her youth, and by seventeen twelve she was an approved minister. Sarah's late father had been a plasterer, and if her mother was still living when she and Benjamin met, she had died by the time that they married. Like Benjamin, Sarah had both Cayphosis and Dwarfism, and in their life together people sometimes commented on how much they resembled each other. Benjamin himself described them as quote being pretty much alike in stature and other ways. In seventeen sixteen, when he was thirty four and she was four or five years older, Benjamin started trying to get the necessary permissions to marry Sarah, but this presented a problem. In order to marry within the religious society of Friends, you had to be a member in good standing. But Benjamin had made some waves in his home congregation in London, which was Devonshire House. Monthly meeting. When the Quaker movement was very first evolving in Britain in the mid sixteen hundreds, a lot of the time it was really confrontational. One of the movement's core beliefs was that each person could have a direct relationship with God, and in terms of the movement's ideals, it didn't have any sort of hierarchy. Early Quakers also spoke out against established churches and their leaders, including during services, but by the time Benjamin Lay came along, the Religious Society of Friends had become much more conservative, speaking out against ministers and elders and weighty friends, which as a term for influential Quakers, was just not done. Benjamin did it, though we don't know what exactly he had been criticizing in Devonshire. He had a particular dislike for vanity, pride and covetousness, and he also didn't like preaching that seemed like the minister's own words rather than the word of God. Based on later incidents that were more well documented, it could have been any number of things, but whatever it was, he was in enough trouble over it that he did not go directly to Devonshire House Monthly meeting to ask for the certificate that he needed to marry his beloved. Instead, he worked on a ship that crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and in Salem, Massachusetts, he went to the local Quaker meeting house there and said that he wanted to marry Sarah Smith of Deptford. In seventeen seventeen, the Salem Congregation wrote to Devonshire House. After some discussion, Devonshire House wrote back that Benjamin was quote free and clear from all persons here relating to marriage, and also free and clear of debts so far as we know. But their letter went on to say that they thought Benjamin was quote convinced of the truth, but for want of keeping low and humble in his mind, hath by an indiscreet zeal, been too forward to appear in our public meetings, to the uneasiness of friends. Look, he's not in trouble, but he is a SaaS pants. Yeah, and it's possible that he may have been criticizing people who who were slave owners at this point. That seems to have come along much later into his line of thought. So I think this was more like if he didn't like your face, do you would tell you that he didn't like your face. If he didn't like your preaching, same deal. He's an upstart at heart. Once he got back to England with that somewhat reluctant approval, Benjamin continued to criticize ministers and others at Devonshire House and at other Quaker meetings in and around London, where he also worshiped. He roused enough rabble the Devonshire House refused to give him the formal certificate that he needed for marriage. He appealed their refusal to the London Quarterly Meeting, which investigated the situation and said that while it didn't approve of his behavior, it also did not approve of Devonshire House withholding his certificate. So although Devonshire House Monthly Meeting did issue the certificate, it also ultimately disowned Benjamin. It said something to the effect that couldn't consider him part of their number. That meant that he was allowed to still worship there, but he wasn't considered a member in good standing, and he wasn't allowed to take part in business meetings. Benjamin and Sarah did finally marry in Deptford on July tenth, seventeen eighteen. They left London shortly thereafter and moved to Barbados, which was also home to a Quaker community, and we're going to get into their time there after. We first paused for a little sponsor break. When Benjamin and Sarah Lay got to Barbados, Benjamin established himself as a merchant with a small shop that was stocked with provisions that he'd bought before leaving England. Before long, they experienced a series of small thefts from this store, and if Benjamin was able to catch the perpetrator, he'd punish them with a lash, which was a pretty common punishment for theft at the time. But soon Lay realized that the enslaved people who were stealing from his store were driven to it by absolutely desperate circumstances. They were either stealing food because they were starving, or they were stealing items that they could sell or trade for food. So upon this revelation, Benjamin was full of remorse for what he had done, and he and Sarah set up an informal ministry for the enslaved people of Barbados. They fed as many as they could with what they had, although it was often spoiled in the Caribbean heat, and they established a Sunday School, where Benjamin both taught and counseled enslaved people and listened to them as they talked about their own lives and experiences. So by listening to the words of the people around them and by their own observations, the Lays quickly learned that conditions in Barbados were really horrific. They repeatedly witnessed people collapsing from exhaustion and overwork. One enslaved man that Benjamin knew, took his own life rather than continuing to be subjected to regular beatings. At one point, Sarah was going to visit another Quaker who was living nearby, and on our way there she found a man hanging, in Benjamin's words quote stark naked, trembling and shivering, with such a flood of blood under him that so surprised the little woman she could scarce contain. So when Sarah got to the house the people she was visiting, she asked them what was going on, and they told her that this man was being punished for quote absconding. A day or two, this experience in Barbados influenced not only Benjamin Lay's views on slavery, but also his views on Africans and people of African descent in general. A lot of the other white abolitionists that we have talked about on the show argued that slavery was immoral, but they were also racist. But Lay really believes that all people were equal, later writing, for example, quote the many hundreds of thousands that are now in slavery, were they at liberty as we are had the same education, learning conversation books, sweet communion, and our religious assemblies. I believe many of them would exceed many of their tyrant masters in piety, virtue, and godliness, and their bright genius which I know they have, would be enlivened for I have conversed with many of them. For liberty is life and slavery is death. Yeah. One of the other things that gets pointed out about his writing a lot is that there were a lot of abolitionists that still talked about Africans and people of African descent as savages, and he reserved that kind of language for the people who owned slaves. He never used that sort of language about people who were enslaved or people who were of African descent. So Sarah and Benjamin only stayed in Barbados for about a year and a half. Their work with the enslaved population really, of course, drew the ire of the slave owning community. They faced harassment and threats over it. Sarah was also afraid that if they stayed there they would eventually become desensitized to what they were seeing, so in seventeen twenty they went back to London, where Benjamin seems to have re established his relationship with the Devonshire House Monthly Meeting. But soon Benjamin was once again speaking out against other Quakers. In September seventeen twenty, a complaint was recorded that he had disturbed Zachary Routh in his public testimony and also had called him a drunkard and a sinner. After some back and forth, a man named Joseph Norris brought Benjamin a notice from a meeting about his misbehavior, and Benjamin threw that notice out the window. He was disowned for a second time, and then he and Sarah moved to Colchester, which is northeast of London. And Colchester, Benjamin had a long, confusing and frankly pretty petty seeming dispute with the Colchester two weeks meeting. This dispute went on for years, with Benjamin criticizing people and then the meeting demanding that he apologized, and then he would double down or refuse to apologize or give kind of a non apology. Sometimes it seems as though Sarah tried to smooth things over here, especially at various times she was preparing to travel without him as a minister and to be gone for a long time. She was concerned about his being isolated from his religious community while she was gone. The Colchester Two Weeks Meeting wanted to disown Benjamin, but couldn't because he was still disowned from Devonshire House Monthly Meeting. He'd never formally become a member of Colchester Two Weeks Meeting. And then Benjamin and Sarah started attending a different Colchester meeting, the Colchester Monthly Meeting, which added another layer of strife thanks to an apparent power struggle between those two different Colchester meetings. In the middle of all this dispute, Benjamin and Sarah disappear from the record for about three years. It's possible that they moved somewhere else and became part of a congregation where Benjamin's behavior didn't draw any of this kind of notice or he might have gone traveling with her while she worked as a minister. Regardless, in seventeen twenty nine, they were back in Colchester trying to make arrangements to immigrate to Pennsylvania. The Colony of Pennsylvania had been founded by William Penn in sixteen eighty one in part to be a home for Quakers who were facing violence and persecution in Europe. He called it his Holy Experiment, and he wanted it to follow Quaker ideals. Penn wanted fair treatment of the native people, no military, and a government that ran on principles of freedom, including religious liberty, access to education, and universal suffrage for men. So this was an obvious place for the Lays to want to move. But once again, to immigrate to Pennsylvania, they needed a certificate from a Quaker meeting in England. Colchester Monthly Meeting may be motivated by the idea of Benjamin Lay living somewhere else, agreed to provide the certificate if Benjamin made amends with Devonshire House, which he did on November third, seventeen thirty one. Devonshire House sent a letter to Colchester Monthly Meeting clearing Benjamin of wrongdoing Colchester Monthly Meeting received Benjamin as a member and issued the certificate for him to move to Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the Colchester two weeks Meeting, still very mad at him, wrote letters ahead of him, warning Quakers in Pennsylvania about what they were in for. I'm wildly abused by all of the letters and the like. It's very ninth grade drama, and somewhat it is. Do you like, Benjamin? Yes? Box, no box. When the Lays got to Philadelphia, Benjamin opened a bookshop specializing in books by Quakers, as well as psalters, Bibles, and classical works of literature. But he and Sarah were dismayed to discover that, in spite of everything that they had imagined about Penn's Holy Experiment and its dedication to Quaker ideals, slavery was still practiced in the colony. About ten percent of the population of Philadelphia was enslaved, and about half the membership of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting owned slaves. Among the wealthiest and most powerful friends in the congregation that number was even higher. Rather than advocating the abolition of slavery, the religious Society of Friends was more likely to advocate treating enslaved people humanly, or freeing people after a certain number of years rather than enslaving them and all their descendants for life. Benjamin started criticizing slavery and slave owners right away. He also met other abolitionists, including fellow Quaker Ralph Sandeford, who by that point was in very poor physical and mental health, in part due to being harassed by other Quakers over his abolitionist beliefs, which had gone on for years. Sanderford died in seventeen thirty three, so when Ley met him it was toward the end of his life. After a couple of years of this, Benjamin and Sarah decided to move to Abington, about fifteen miles north of Philadelphia, and they may have chosen this location because Susannah Morris lived there. She and Sarah were friends and they had traveled together as ministers, including surviving as shipwreck together. But when the Lays tried to get their certificate from Philadelphia so they could join a meeting in Abington, Robert Jordan Junior objected, arguing that because of all of the content, like back in England, Benjamin's membership in Philadelphia was not authorized in the first place. Not long after they moved to Abington, Sarah Lay died at the age of about fifty eight. Her cause of death is unknown, it does seem to have been unexpected and pretty sudden. Benjamin also seems to have thought that Jordan's treatment of the two of them contributed to it, maybe by causing them both a lot of stress. A notice from the Abington Monthly Meeting mentioned Sarah's quote gift of ministry and her travels through England, Scotland and Ireland and some parts of the continent as a minister. It's very likely that Sarah had been a tempering influence in Benjamin's life, not just smoothing things over with the various Quaker meetings that they were part of, but also in reigning in his more radical impulses. And without her, he dedicated himself to aggressively speaking out against slavery. And we're going to get to that after we have another sponsor break. Some of the chronology of Benjamin Lay's life is a little bit fuzzy, so it's possible that some of the things we're about to talk about happened before his wife died. Even if that's the case, though, after Sarah's death Benjamin became known as an increasingly eccentric figure. He was heavily influenced by the Cenic philosophers, particularly Diogenes. If you need a refresher on that, we just re ran our episode on him as a Saturday classic. But in general, the Cynics were in favor of living with nature, abandoning social conventions, and living in an acetic, minimal existence. Lay started living in a cave in Abington, which was spacious enough that he had an extensive library there. It was also big enough for a spinning wheel, which he used to spin flax. He made all of his own clothes from undyed toe linen because he didn't want to wear any material that harmed animals or was connected to slavery. He would use other from animals that had died naturally, but he would not use it from ones that had been slaughtered or hunted. Ley had also become a strict vegetarian, although he did drink milk and he ate honey that was made by bees that he raised himself, taking care not to harm any of them when he harvested it. He didn't drink tea because of the abuses in the tea industry in Asia, and he didn't eat sugar because it was grown, harvested, and processed by enslaved Africans. He also went everywhere on foot because he didn't want to exploit the labor of horses. He started publicly condemning slave owners, especially Quaker slave owners, including during meetings, and he became increasingly dramatic in his protests. After interrupting someone in a meeting, he was forcibly carried out into the rain, and he lay in the MUDs so that the whole congregation had to step over him as they left. On another occasion, he stood outside the meetinghouse in the snow with one boot off and the leg of his pants rolled up. When people asked what he was doing, or said that he should go inside because he might get sick, he answered, quote, you pretend compassion for me, but you do not feel for the poor slaves in the field who go all winter half clad. To protest the use of slave labor in the tobacco industry and tobacco's unwholesome effects on health, Lay took three pipes to an annual Quaker meeting, and he smashed each of them, one among the ministers, one among the women, and one among the men, a lot of Quaker congregations at that point, separated by gender. He did a similar demonstration against the tea industry, protesting the conditions in the tea and sugar industries and the luxury that was associated with tea, by smashing his late wife's tea set with a hammer in a public square. Ley also tried to convince some neighbors to free a young girl that they were enslaving as a household servant. He had also made friends with their child. In some accounts this was a son, and others it's a daughter. One day he convinced this child to come stay with him for the afternoon, and when he saw the parents that evening, distraught over their missing child, he said, quote, your child is safe in my house, and now you may conceive of the sorrow you inflict upon the parents of the Negro girl you hold in slavery, for she was torn from them by avarice. At one point, Lay traveled to Philadelphia to visit another Quaker family. He arrived as they were having breakfast, and he asked them whether the person who was serving their meal was enslaved. When they answered that yes, he was, Ley said quote, then I will not share with THEE in the fruits of thy unrighteousness. And he left. There's so many points in his story where I want to yell right on, yea, Benjamin Lay is putting the rest of us to shame completely. Ley's most famous anti slavery demonstration took place at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting on September nineteenth, seventeen thirty eight. This was an annual meeting of all the Philadelphia area Quaker meetings held in Burlington, New Jersey. Lay walked about twenty minsles to get there, wearing a military uniform with a sword belted to his hip under an overcoat. He also carried a hollowed out book in which was concealed a bladder filled with bright red pokeberry juice. During this meeting, he stood up and said, quote, Oh, all you Negro masters who are contentedly holding your fellow creatures in a state of slavery during life, well knowing the cruel sufferings those innocent captives undergo in their state of bondage, both in these North American colonies and in the West India Islands, you must know they are not made slaves by any direct law but are held by an arbitrary and self interested custom in which you participate, and especially you, who profess to do unto all men as you would they should do unto you. And yet, in direct opposition to every principle of reason, humanity, and religion, you are forcibly retaining your fellow men from one generation to another in a state of unconditional servitude. You might as well throw off the plain coat as I do. He unbuttoned the one button of his coat and let it fall on the ground, and then went on quote, it would be as justifiable in the sight of the Almighty, who beholds and respects all nations and colors of men with an equal regard, if you should thrust a sword through their hearts as I do through this book. In some accounts he also said, thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures. So then he drew the sword, stabbed it through the book and the bladder that was concealed inside of it, let the fake blood drip out of it, and flung drops of it all over the slave owners who were around him. He was like an early performance artist. I kind of love it. These demonstrations unsurprisingly angered these slave owning members of the Quaker community. They were personally offended, and his aggressive confrontations ran against the Quaker values of peace and unity. In that Pokeberry juice demonstration, Lay had also walked into a Pacifist congregation wearing a military uniform and carrying a weapon. On top of all that, in seventeen thirty eight, Lay also published a book without the authorization of the church's overseers of the press, who were supposed to approve all published material by Quakers. This book was called and Just Buckle Up, because this is I think the longest title we've ever read. All slave keepers that keep the innocent in bondage, apostates pretending to lay claim to the pure and holy Christian religion of what congregations soever, but especially in their ministers, by whose examples the filthy leprosy and apostasy is spread far and near. It is a notorious sin which many of the true friends of Christ and His pure Truth, called Quakers, has been for many years and still are concerned to write and bear testimony against, as a practice so gross and hurtful to religion and destructive to government. Beyond what words can set forth or can be declared of by manner aim angels, and yet lived by ministers and magistrates in America. The leaders of the people caused them to air written for a general service by him that truly and sincerely desires the present and eternal welfare and happiness of all mankind, all the world over, of all colors and nations as his own soul. Benjamin Lay. That was the title name of Band Pissy. Most historians referencing this work just call it all slave keepers that keep the innocent and bondage apostates, or even just all slave keepers dot dot apostates. You know you can't blame anyone for that abbreviation. No, you really can't. This book was really scathing in its discussion of slavery and of slave owners, especially those who claim to be people of faith. Here's a passage quote, Now, dear friends, behold a mystery these ministers that be slave keepers and are in such very great repute, Such eminent preachers, given to hospitality, charitable to the poor, loving to their neighbors, just in their dealings, temperate in their lives, visiting of the sick, sympathizing with the afflicted in body or mind, very religious, seemingly and extraordinary, devout and demure, and in short, strictly exact in all their decorums except slave keeping. These these be the men and the women too for the devil's purpose, and are the choicest treasure the devil can or has to bring out of his lazaretto to establish slave keeping. By these satan works wonders many ways. Yeah, so even if you are that great of a person, you are owning slaves, You are doing the devil's work. Per Benjamin Lay, this book wasn't just about slavery. There were also snippets for Malay's own life, kind of little autobiographical sketches, including references to that whole dispute with Colchester twice weekly meeting. There are also selections from other works that he found me meaningful in some way, including a couple of chapters of the Book of Revelation along with Lay's commentary, and a chunk of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Basically, it doesn't read as though Lay sat down intending to write a book. It's more like he wrote things from time to time as different ideas came into his mind, without really a cohesive through line through all of it. The writing style you might conclude based on the title is also pretty rambling, even when it's not jumping from one topic to another. Lay's friend, Benjamin Franklin, published the book. Although Franklin left his name off the title page in the spot where the publisher's name would normally go. Franklin knew that Lay was not approved to have it published, and he knew that it was kind of a disjointed mess. Franklin had even pointed that out to Lay, who told him that it didn't matter and to print it in whatever order that he thought best. In the words of the third Benjamin in this paragraph, physician and educator Benjamin Rush quote, even the address and skill of doctor Franklin were not sufficient to connect its different parts together so as to render it an agreeable or useful work. As a side note, although Benjamin Lay often refused to associate with slave owners in any way, he seems to have made an exception for Benjamin Franklin. Franklin later did become part of the movement for abolition, but when he was working on Lay's book, he was also enslaving at least two people. Franklin's own views on slavery at the time, may have been another reason why he left his name off of the book, although he did print other abolitionist tracts. Franklin's views may have also influenced the visual representations of Benjamin Lay that we have today. Most of them come from a portrait that was done by William Williams that was commissioned for Benjamin Franklin by his wife Deborah. This was probably done like not with Benjamin Lay sitting for a portrait that doesn't seem like a thing he ever would have done. Was. William Williams was probably familiar with Benjamin Lay from having seen him around town, but this portrait has no indication of Lay's work as an abolitionist. Instead, it shows Lay holding a book labeled Tryon on Happiness, which was a reference to the Way to Health, long Life and Happiness, or a Discourse on Temperance and the Particular Nature of all Things Requisite for the Life of Man by Thomas Tryon. We do know that Benjamin Lay loved this book and apparently carried it with him a lot of the time, but this was not nearly as big of a part of his life as his abolitionist work. After the poke Bury demonstration and the publication of the book. The Philadelphia Monthly Meeting disowned Benjamin Lay on September twenty sixth, seventeen thirty seven, saying that the certificate that he had presented from Colchester when joining the church had been quote irregularly maintained that his conduct was disorderly, and that quote we have therefore sought fit to give public notice that we do not esteem the said Benjamin Lay to be a member of our religious community, but a disorderly and obstinate person, one who slights the advice of friends, imposes on them in his preaching, that he disregards the peace of the church. The Abington Monthly Meeting disowned Lay as well, even though he was not actually a member there. It was like a just to be safe, prophylactic disowning. I guess yeah. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting also took out advertisements denouncing Lay's books, saying it quote contains gross abuses not only against some of their members in particular, but against the whole society. Even after being disowned from these congregations, Lay continued to attend services and to speak and write against slavery at every opportunity, and he did that for the rest of his life. He spoke out on other issues as well, including denouncing the death penalty. He also visited Quaker schools and brought books with him to give out his prizes. He also gave money charitably, although while he gave money to poor people who needed it, he criticized beggars who he thought were able to work. In seventeen fifty eight, as Benjamin Lay's health was declining, a friend visited him and told him that the Philadelphia Annual Meeting had decided to start disowning members who were part of the slave trade. Lay answered his friend that he could now die at peace. He did die on February third, seventeen fifty nine, at the age of seventy seven. Almost twenty years later, in seventeen seventy six, the Philadelphia Annual Meeting bands slave ownership among its members, and then other annual meetings followed from there. Because he had made some money during his lifetime but had spent almost nothing in his last years, Benjamin Lay left behind in a state that was divided up among family members and charitable institutions, along with forty pounds to the Society of friends at Abington for the care of poor children in the congregation. He was buried in an unmarked grave at the Abington Burial Ground, although the registry there did not list him as a member. He had asked a friend to arrange for his body to be cremated and his ashes thrown into the sea, but cremation was not really practiced among Quakers at that point, and his friend refused. For a few decades after his death, Benjamin Lay continued to be well known, especially in the area where he lived. In the words of Benjamin Rush we mentioned earlier, these were written in seventeen ninety quote, there was a time when this celebrated Christian philosopher was familiar to every man woman, in to nearly every child in Pennsylvania. Lay was particularly remembered among abolitionists, but eventually he seemed to just disappear from history, and the historians who did mention him often dismissed him as kind of an eccentric crank, rather than as somebody who paved the way for later abolitionists. The erasure was widespread enough that when Dave Wermaling, a caretaker at Abington Meetinghouse, found an etching of Lay, in the nineteen nineties. He didn't know who it was, neither did any of the older members Wrmaling asked about it. It remained a mystery until Marcus Rehticker visited the meeting house in twenty fourteen while researching his book The Fearless Benjamin Lay, the Quaker dwarf who became the first revolutionary abolitionist. That book was one of the sources for this episode. It is very good and also not particularly long if folks are interested in picking it up. Rehdticker's work brought new attention to Benjamin Lay's life and work, and based on his research, Rehticker also encouraged Quaker congregations to revisit those past decisions to disown him. Eventually, the four congregations that had disowned Lay or their successors issued statements about it, and as one example, on November twelfth, twenty seventeen, the Abington Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends issued a statement that it quote recognizes Benjamin Lay's dedication to equality and his willingness to repeatedly speak his messages of truth to a society that was in denial about the evils of slavery. We acknowledged that Benjamin Lay used radical activism and his attempts to teach his peers to recognize the equality before God of all people, regardless of race or gender. He lived his life with integrity according to his Quaker beliefs, and he called others, especially slave owners, to accountability. The statement went on to say, quote, we now recognize the truth behind Benjamin Lay's abolitionist efforts. Although we may not reinstate membership for someone who is deceased, we recognized Benjamin Lay as a friend of the truth and as being in unity with the spirit of our Abington Monthly Meeting. Yeah, the statements from the other congregations that had disowned him during his life had very similar tones and in some cases issued joint statements about it. In addition to all of these statements, a stone commemorating Sarah and Benjamin Lay was placed in the Abington Burial Ground on April twenty first, twenty eighteen, and a historical marker a state historical marker was dedicated on September twenty second, twenty eighteen. So he has become a little more well known over the last couple of years. We love it. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive, if you heard an email address or a Facebook RL or something similar over the course of the show, that could be obsolete now. Our current email address is History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can find us all over social media at misst Dhistory, and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. 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