About "Two Elizabeths"

As you can tell from the other entries on this blog, I’ve been fascinated with New Jersey history ever since I moved here. Maybe it’s latently defensive, considering that mocking New Jersey is a minor national pastime, and one that I understand. There’s so much about the most traveled parts of the state that represents the worst in land management and zoning, or lack thereof, in the country. Much of the state serves mostly as a conduit between Philadelphia and New York, and another huge chunk is merely a suburb of one or another of those cities.
The part of New Jersey where I live, south of Philadelphia, is still mostly farmland, although developments of McMansions have encroached on the landscape in the last 20 years the way that kudzu has covered the southern mountains. The Pine Barrens, land that was purchased by Joseph Wharton in the 19th century to be an aquifer to serve Philadelphia, remains protected, one million unlikely acres of pristine forest in the most densely populated state in the Union.
The overdevelopment of the rest of the state, and the progressive degradation of the landscape only serves to make what remains more precious. Those remnants of the past that survive are more compelling because of the odds they've beaten. In many cases they have remained untouched not out of some concern for their preservation, but out of indifference.

My wife , Judy, has pointed out to me that other parts of the region, like Chester County and Berks County in Pennsylvania, are more untouched by time than this area. So I think it might be the contrast between a 1716 tavern next to a 1950's gas station that makes it more compelling to me, like a 1930's Rolls Royce would be, if parked in a lot full of Nissans. The part of my personality that had me scouring flea markets and yard sales, rarely buying but always searching for that rare treasure, might explain my interest in local history . I probably am well suited to panning for gold.

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Henry Carlton Beck wrote a series of books in the first half of the last century that are so well written and entertaining that I would recommend them to anyone, regardless of their interest in New Jersey. He wrote about towns that were once bustling centers of activity, many of them ghost towns now, because their business of extracting ore from the iron rich mud of the pinelands creeks was made unprofitable by access to the more easily mined iron of upstate Pennsylvania. His method, like Edith Hoele's method that I mentioned in the "Summertime" post, was drawing from personal interviews with people old enough to remember details of things which had disappeared before many of us were born, and so are unknown to us. I don't think we're doing enough of that now, but that might be because I'm rapidly approaching the age of interviewee. My guess is that it takes a lot of patience to draw out the useful information from the maudlin, nostalgic inventory of personal loss that older people need little prompting to share. Another kind of gold panning, for information.

One of his stories that captured my imagination was about Port Elizabeth. If you drive down Rt 55 all the way to the end, and the road turns into old Rt.47, you’ll almost immediately pass a bait shop and a tiny post office, that today are the major features of Port Elizabeth. But at one time, it was a major seaport, trading with the West Indies in competition with Philadelphia and New York, though its status as such was as short lived as the local industries that supported it.

The town was founded by Elizabeth Clark Bodly, whose remarkable story I had intended to research and tell. Legend was that she and Elizabeth Haddon were good friends, who traveled to each other’s town, but Beck thinks this unlikely, since they were 40 years apart in age, and at the time Mrs. Bodly conceived of her plan, it’s doubtful that Haddon did much traveling. But the influence of the latter on the former is indisputable, and although their personal backgrounds were very different, as were their fortunes, they both stand out as remarkable Quaker women of great faith whose achievements can’t be diminished
So it seemed I couldn’t tell the story of Bodly without prefacing it with the story of Haddon.
So we have: Two Elizabeths

Additional Notes:


There are many references in this story to the Quaker influence on each of the two Elizabeths. The Quaker tradition is such an important part of the character and history of this area, that it occurs to me that it might be helpful to explain Quaker tradition a little, in the unlikely event that someone might read this who lives beyond the sphere of Quaker influence.
Quaker worship, in practice more closely resembles Zen Buddhism than other Christian denominations. They don't have churches, they have Meeting Houses. There is no preacher or pulpit, each member is an equal participant in the meeting, which involves group meditation in search of a light of guidance, which the Quakers believe to be Divine Inspiration. The inner light desciption is used by Buddhists also, the difference being that they believe the light to be an eternal part of human nature. The Quakers, in their meetings, are seeking what the Buddhists would call kensho, a glimpse of the nature of existence and a harmony with the universe.
If someone at a Meeting feels inspired to speak, he or she stands and speaks, and gets the full attention of the congregation, with the assumption that the words were divinely inspired. It's a uniquely egalitarian approach to Christian worship.
I lean toward Buddhism in my own beliefs, and I also see the Amish tradition as being very similar to Tibetan Buddhism. Amish worship is a 24/7 endeavor,similar to the lives of Tibetan monks, but with women and children. Traditions become the rituals, and harmony with the universe is clearly the goal, even if not stated. Amish seek satori, or permanent harmony, by ritualizing work as representative of man's purpose. To them, they are doing what God intended them to do. To the Buddhists this would be called achieving harmony with the universe.
On a community level, however, the two religions, Quaker and Amish, are different. Amish society is closed off from the world, and patriarchal. One of the fundamental principals of Quakers is equality. Every human being is equal, without exeption. The king is equal to a beggar. It's no accident, to me, that the birthplace of American ideals of democracy came to be in an area heavily influenced by Quakerism, . But the other major tenet of Quakers is pacifism without exeption, so although their democratic ideals may have helped to inspire the revolutionary cause, they were not active participents , and despite what should have been a grudge against British rule for their persecution in England, they lent comfort and support to wounded of both sides.
It was probably unfortunate for the Native Americans in this area that the first Europeans that they encountered were Quakers. I have no doubt that William Penn had no ulterior motives in creating his treaty, and Elizabeth Haddon had great respect for the wisdom and knowledge of the indigenous people in her area, and several attended the modest wedding celebration she held at her house. It was unfortunate, because it gave them no warning of what would come from the next wave of immigrants.