How a Quaker Woman Saved a Ship

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

 

 

 

 

This is an incredible true story about how a Quaker Woman saved a ship full of people on their way to Colonial America.

Mary Prior was a simple Quaker woman living in England who loved God. When she was young, a rich man asked her to become his wife, she refused. Her nurse chided her saying, “You might have eaten gold!”

Mary said “But I could not have digested it.”

Riches didn’t matter to her because she had determined to do only what God wanted. In 1760, she found the man God had for her and married John Pryor, a fellow Quaker.

In her lifetime of serving God, she became a prophet and went on evangelistic tours throughout England and Wales. After the birth of her last child, she felt called to travel to America and preach the Gospel. After a few years, her husband agreed but couldn’t go with her. She was 60 years old when she finally made the voyage.

Mary found the ship she believed God had told her to book passage to America with. It was called Fame and was in need of repairs. Her son, who worked for Lloyds Insurance Company warned her not to sail on the ship, but she knew God had told her to go on this ship.

During the voyage, the ship sprang a leak. Sailors and passengers worked pumps day and night to keep it afloat for several weeks, but they finally gave up.

At this point, Mary came from her cabin and announced that God had shown her they would all be rescued if they would continue to pump for two more hours. She even told the name of the ship that would rescue them, the Archibald.

The crew threw everything overboard they didn’t need and continued to pump. Two hours later, the Archibald, a sixty-ton fishing boat, showed up and rescued them. They had to reduce water ration and cram aboard the crowded ship, but they made the 600 miles left to America safely.

On March 15, 1798, the Archibald docked in Philadelpia without a single member of the crew or passengers lost.

Upon departing the boat, Mary immediately fell to the ground to thanked God. A friend who was meeting her there thought she’d stumbled, but another passenger, stopped him from disturbing her prayers. The captain, crew, and passengers gathered around her, removing their hat, and joined her in thanking God.

Because of her unusual story of rescue, Mary was able to preach the Gospel in America in a way that attracted many crowds.

Hannah Snell – Woman, Soldier, Sailor, Actress 1723-1792

 The more stories I read about women in the past, particularly in the Colonial period, the more I realize what a wimp I am!! Meet Hannah Snell. If I wrote a novel based on this woman’s life, no one would believe me. 

When Hannah’s husband left her penniless and pregnant, she did what any woman would have   After the child died, Hannah Snell disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the army as “James Gray”. Nobody suspected “James” of being a woman until, for neglect of duty, she was sentenced to receive 600 lashes. Being stripped to the waist to receive her punishment didn’t stop the officer meting out the lashes because she took nearly 500 of them before another officer interceded. Whether or not it was due to her gender is unclear, but apparently, she was a good enough soldier for she was allowed to remain in the army, but having not found her husband, she deserted a month later.

You would think that would have been enough of a lesson for the lady, but Hannah Snell turns up again in history. This time as a regimental marine. She was appointed assistant-steward and cook to the officers’ mess on the sloop ‘Swallow’, and sailed to the East Indies on attachment to Admiral Boscawen's fleet,

The officers were pleased with “James’s” skill at cooking, washing, and mending, but they soon discovered that she was equally good in battle. At the siege of Pondicheery, Hannah was part of a first invasion group which crossed a chest-high river while being fired on by the French. She was on guard duty in the picket ground for seven nights and in the trenches for two weeks. 

Eventually, however, Hannah was wounded—one shot in the abdomen and six bullets in her right leg and five in her left. She allowed the surgeon to repair her legs but kept her abdomen wound a secret and tended to it herself along with a black women who had become her friend.

After a full recovery, Hannah made Ordinary Seaman and set sail first aboard the Tartar Pink and then the Eltham. It was aboard the latter where she was suspected of stealing a shirt and spent five days in irons. Otherwise she got along well with the other sailors, who still not knowing her gender, teased her about her smooth face and called her “Miss Molly”.

Whilst in Lisbon, Hannah finally heard some news of her husband, but, unfortunately, he had been executed in Genoa. Her efforts to find him had been in vain, so in 1750, Hannah Snell retired from the navy and took to the stage where she was engaged to play various military and naval heroes. Afterward, she opened a Tavern called The Female Warrior

Wow, real life is indeed stranger than fiction sometimes, eh?

Fanny Campbell - Revolutionary War Pirate or Privateer!

When I came across the story of Fanny Campbell, I thought to myself, now this is the stuff of great romantic fiction!  Trouble is, the story is not fiction, it's true,! And I guarantee you'll find it as fascinating and romantic as I did.

Fanny Campbell was a young woman who lived in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1776.  She was just an ordinary colonial woman like any of us would have been. But she had a huge problem. Her childhood sweetheart and betrothed, William Lovell, was rotting in a jail in Cuba on charges of piracy.  His merchant ship had been captured by pirates and the crew forced into piracy against their will. Fanny couldn't stand the thought of never seeing her one true love again and especially the thought of him dying alone in a Spanish prison.

So what does she do? She dresses like a man and signed on to serve as second officer on a British Merchant Brig, the Constance!  (Yea.. just what I would have done) However, she had no idea how to get the captain to go rescue William from Cuba. But it would seem God was on her side because both the Captain and the first mate had secret intentions to sail the Constance to England and impress the entire crew into the Royal Navy!  When Fanny got word of this, she encouraged the captain to do just that while alternatively, she informed the crew of his plans and incited a mutiny!   

Fanny became the new commander of the Constance and headed for Cuba. Along the way they encountered a British bark, the George, the captain of which sensed something was not quite right on the Constance and open fired. Though the Constance was undergunned, they (under the leadership of Fanny) won the battle and took the George as prize. Now, they were officially pirates!

Fanny immediately sailed for Cuba, and with the help of her crew, rescued her betrothed and several other Americans!  Finally the happy couple was united, but they kept Fanny's gender a secret from the crew. (Can you imagine the look on William's face when he first saw his fiancee, dressed like a man, leading a charge of men to rescue him from prison?)

On the way home, the Constance and George, still under the command of "Captain Channing"  took another prize, a British merchant ship that had news that war had broken out between the colonies and Britain. Declaring both her ships privateers and no longer pirates, Fanny sailed back to Massachusettes where she obtained the proper papers commissioning the two ships as privateers.

Fanny and William went home to Lynn and were soon married. While William went off to privateer during the war, Fanny remained home and eventually became the mother of several children.
And they lived happily ever after!!!!

See what I mean? Wouldn't this make a GREAT book?  I just love that it's a true story!

Leave a comment to win a FREE ebook of my novel, The Red Siren, a tale about another colonial woman pirate!

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