)[1]– October 7, 1772) was an American merchant, tailor, journalist, Quaker preacher, and early abolitionist during the colonial era.

Based in Mount Holly, New Jersey, near Philadelphia, he traveled through the American frontier to preach Quaker beliefs, and advocate against slavery and the slave trade, cruelty to animals, economic injustices and oppression, and conscription.

Beginning in 1755 with the outbreak of the French and Indian War, he urged tax resistance to deny support to the colonial military.

John Woolman was born in 1720, originally from Rancocas, New Jersey, into a family who were members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

[4] Woolman married Sarah Ellis, a fellow Quaker, in a ceremony at the Chesterfield Friends Meeting, and they had a daughter whom they named Mary.

He refused to write the part of another customer's will which would have bequeathed or transferred the ownership of a slave, and instead convinced the owner to set the enslaved person free by manumission.

He wrote that he took up the trade of tailor in order to have more free time to travel and witness to fellow Quakers about his concerns.

He addressed issues of economic injustice and oppression in his Journal and other writings, and knew international trade had local effects.

Despite supporting himself as a tailor, Woolman refused to use or wear dyed fabrics, because he had learned that many workers in the dye industry were poisoned by some of the noxious substances used.

He refused to be served with silver cups, plates, and utensils, as he believed that slaves in other regions were forced to dig such precious minerals and gems for the rich.

In one of his prophetic dreams, recorded in his Journal, Woolman negotiated between two heads of state in an effort to prevent an outbreak of war.

There is no known depiction of John Woolman but the authentic silhouette of his brother Uriah shows a very different face to this elderly, wizened subject.

In 1790, after the American Revolutionary War, the Pennsylvania Society of Friends petitioned the United States Congress for the abolition of slavery.

In addition, in the first two decades after the war, they were active together with Methodist and Baptist preachers in the Upper South in persuading many slaveholders to manumit their slaves.

The percentage of free people of color rose markedly during those decades, for instance, from less than one to nearly ten percent in Virginia.