The Lincolnshire Weaver Twice Taken by Privateers on the Lord's Errand
“I may in truth say, his name hath been to me a strong tower, and thither I have run and found safety.” — William Reckitt
Born 'at Lea, near Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire, about the year 1706, of parents professing truth'; the Wainfleet testimony gives the year as 1706 within the compass of Gainsborough Monthly Meeting. His mother died when he was young and his father was unable to support his children.
Bound by Friends 'at nine years of age until he arrived at twenty-one, as an apprentice to a weaver', a laborious servitude in which he was let out to harvest work and was reached 'through the ministry of a friend on a religious visit'; the year is approximate.
Having removed into Wainfleet Monthly Meeting and followed the weaver's trade, he 'entered into the marriage state with Ellen Maw, a sober and virtuous young woman'.
'About the thirty-sixth year of his age, he first appeared in the ministry to the satisfaction of friends'; the Wainfleet testimony dates his call 'about the year 1742'.
Visited the churches in Essex and, 'about the latter end of 1745', the city of London in company with Robert Kinsley; the following year he visited the west of England and part of Wales.
Visited Ireland 'in company with Samuel Stott, of Edmondsbury', returning 'with peace of mind'; in 1756 he visited Yorkshire and then felt engaged to visit the American plantations.
Sailed from Gravesend on the ship Lydia on the fifteenth of the tenth month; beyond Plymouth the ship was captured, he was stripped and searched, and carried into Morlaix and then thirty miles inland to Carhaix, where the kindness of the merchant Charles Sermanson and a member of the parliament of Brittany 'moderated his captivity'.
Freed after about five months, he reached the English coast on the twenty-eighth of the fourth month and home on the eleventh of the fifth; after London Yearly Meeting he left London again on the nineteenth of the sixth month, John Sherwin and Thomas Wagstaffe accompanying him to the Nore, and reached Philadelphia in ten weeks.
From the eleventh month 1757 travelled through Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, riding ninety miles through rivers and swamps to Core Sound with two young companions, and returning to Pennsylvania where John Churchman and his wife met him at Deer Creek; later he visited New York, Long Island, Rhode Island, Nantucket and New England.
Sailing from Chester on the nineteenth of the seventh month for Barbados, his vessel was taken by a privateer of Martinique and the company put in prison at St Peter's, upwards of twenty in a room about twelve feet square; landed at St Christopher's on the seventh of the ninth month, he held meetings there and at Nevis for eight weeks.
Back in Philadelphia at a conference with the Indians, he and Daniel Stanton with a few other Friends 'had a meeting with them at Philadelphia in the state house', Isaac Still interpreting and Tedeuscung and the Delaware chiefs present; he took leave at Pine Street on the sixteenth of the twelfth month.
After a difficult passage in the leaky ship Carolina, arrived at London on the twenty-ninth of the first month and returned 'to my dear wife and children, who, in my absence, with all that I had, had been kept, blessed, and preserved'.
'About the year 1764' embarked with Thomas Goodwin and William Horne and travelled through most of the provinces; his wife dying during his absence, he hastened home by way of Ireland, reaching London about the fourth month 1766.
By a note dated the eighth of the eighth month 1768 he asked that his letters be preserved for his children and 'that my Journal may be transcribed for their perusal', adding that 'the very fragments' should be gathered up; late that year he visited London, telling friends it might be the last time.
Taken with a fit of the ague at night, he 'departed this life, the 6th of the fourth month, 1769', about four in the morning, and was interred in Friends' burial-ground at Wainfleet on the ninth, 'aged about sixty-three years'.
Pemberton accompanied him into New Jersey in the ninth month 1757 to Haddonfield, Chester and Evesham, and again to Mount Holly and Moorestown in 1759; in Philadelphia Reckitt made his home with 'the widow Rachel Pemberton and her son John, worthy friends'.
Lodged at John Churchman's in 1757 before his meeting at West Nottingham; Churchman and his wife met him at Deer Creek on his return from the south, and at Concord Monthly Meeting in 1759 Churchman 'was very helpful to settle the minds of some, who had gone into jangling'.
At the Indian conference in Philadelphia in the twelfth month 1759, 'Daniel Stanton and myself, with a few other friends, had a meeting with them at Philadelphia in the state house'.
The testimony of Wainfleet Monthly Meeting, Thomas Wagstaffe's account of his early life and captivity in France (London, 1776), his own journal of the voyage of 1756, the American travels of 1757–1759 and the Martinique and Leeward Islands episode, and letters to his wife and children from Carhaix and America; reprinted in the Friends' Library, volume 9 (1845).