TITLE: Letter from Joan Brocksopp in Little Normanton, Derbyshire, to John Bowne
DOCUMENT ID: BFP 2018.1.02-09
DATE: 16 February 1666/7 (Old Style) / 26 February 1667 (New Style)
Joan Brocksopp expresses her great affection for her fellow Quaker John Bowne "in that which neither sea not land can separate us from." She reports the spread of the Society of Friends in Derbyshire, acknowledges the receipt of Bowne's letter from Shelter Island, asks after an undelivered missive that she sent him via Barbados through Margaret Fell, and sends love from Bowne's sister Truth.
Notes:
Shelter Island was a provisioning plantation off the coast of Long Island, New York, owned by Nathaniel Sylvester.
Margaret (Askew) Fell (1614-1702), Quaker preacher, pamphleteer, and wife of George Fox, acted as an unofficial secretary for the Society of Friends, routing letters internationally through a network of itinerant preachers.
John Bowne's sister, Truth or Troth Bowne (b. 1642), remained in England after her father and siblings emigrated to America in 1649, as she was just seven years old at that time.