Nicholas Upsall
In 1630, their population was increased when the ship Mary and John arrived in New England carrying 140 passengers from the English West Country counties of Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.
These included Nicholas Upsall, Roger Ludlowe, John Mason, Samuel Maverick, William Phelps, Henry Wolcott and other men who would become prominent in the founding of a new nation.
[1][2] The earliest record of Nicholas Upsall was on September 28, 1630, when he was impanelled on a jury by the Court of Assistants to look into the death of Austen Bratcher.
"It is ordered by the town of Dorchester," April 17, 1635, "that Nicholas Upsall and Matthew Grant shall p'ceed in the measuring of the great lotts as they have begun.
[2] Upsall apparently maintained an independent mind on political and religious matters, and was seen as man of "sober, and of unblameable conversation.
Upsall, "touched with compassion," gave their guard five shillings a week to permit him to bring food to the women.
At 60 years of age, Upsall abandoned the Puritan Church, giving up the rights and privileges accorded to him as a Freeman, and joined the Friends.
When the "Boston martyrs", Quakers Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson, were executed, their bodies were dumped in into a pit dug nearby without a marker.
The court record recounts, "Nicholas Vpshall being formerly sentenced to perpetual Imprisonment, & obteyning a Reprivall, hath greatly abused their lenity, do therefore Order him to be Confined again to ye house of John Capen."
"Reprivall" [i.e., a "reprieve"] still meant banishment, and his transfer to his brother-in-law John Capen's home stipulated that he may remain free, "provided he does not corrupt any with his pernicious opinions," or does not teach "the diabolical doctrines and horrid tenets of the cursed sect of Quakers.
His will specifically includes the Quakers: Item: I do order and give for the use of the such servants of the Lord as are commonly called Quakers, my new feather bed, bolster and pillows, with a good pair of-sheets and a pair of blankets, with the new rugg, and bedstead fitted with rope, Matt and Curtains, in that little room in my house, "the Red Lyon Inn," called the parlor or in the chamber over that parlor, during the life of my said wife, and after her decease to be then continued by my daughter [Susannah] Cook, within whose line that part of the house falleth.
[2] In 1694, Edward Shippen, the first mayor of Philadelphia under the city charter, gave a piece of land for a Friends Meeting House.
On Brattle Street, near the site of the Quincy House, the Friends recorded that the "money from Nicholas Upsall's Chamber to go towards it.
"[2] The records of the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England, dated April 7, 1694, contain the following: Whereas Nicholas Upsall of Boston did formerly bequeath unto us, the people of God, in scorn called Quakers, a chamber and furniture in Boston; but not having received the benefit of it, we do now give power and order our friends Edward Shippen and Edward Wanton to agree and sell the aforesaid privileges and right in the same for such sum of money as they shall agree for; and such discharge in their names shall be a sufficient discharge in the behalf of the rest of the body of Friends called Quakers.
