TITLE: Letter from John Hodson to John Bowne "at prison at Manathane" [Manhattan]
DOCUMENT ID: BFP 2018.1.02-02
DATE: “1st Day of the Week” [Sunday] Autumn 1662
DESCRIPTION & NOTES
Quaker John Hodson sends John Bowne an undated message of encouragement and shared religious conviction during Bowne's three-month period of imprisonment in Manhattan for religious non-conformity during the autumn of 1662. Hodson, who traveled from Maryland with his young son to visit Bowne in jail in late November, makes clear that both Quakers and their opponents in the wider world were following the case and wondering what precedent it might set: "...the eyes of many are on thee, some for evil and some for good; therefore be staid in thy mind and freely given up in all things."
Notes:
John Hodson settled in Maryland in the 1660s and became a leading member of the Dorchester Quaker Community. It is currently unknown how he became friends with the Bownes.