The Quaker Apostle’s Bare-Footed Journey

Robert Barrow was one of two candidates for the father of two boys kidnapped from England. Prior research showed that at least one of the boys was a Quaker in a high position in government in North Carolina with connections in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Robert evidently travelled to America on several occasions and had an impeccable Quaker pedigree, being at the side of George Fox in 1652 on his walk up Pendle Hill Lancashire when Fox experienced an “Inner Light” from God, as he told his flock on Firbank Fell. It was then that Robert became ‘convinced.’

We located birth, marriage and burial records for Robert, his family, wives and children between Cartmel and Kendal, Westmoreland. We also found evidence of his physical endeavours in a slate stone wall in Kendal and a Quaker meeting house in a 1656 book of Westmoreland Quarterly Meeting accounts. Robert and friends had purchased ground for £2from Roger Baccus [Backhouse] to create a graveyard surrounded by a large slate wall on Sepulchre Lane. Robert and friends also built the Height Meeting House known as “Barrow Wife.” This name could have been a tribute to Robert’s wife whom he left when he sailed to the Americas but that is mere speculation. Other Barrow wives may have had a similar claim but Robert did probably more than any other Barrow to further the Quaker cause dear to the hearts of him and his fellow builders.

There are many instances of Robert and his Quaker friends and family being persecuted in England where he was fined for offences which grew in severity over the years until he was imprisoned with his family, friends and in-laws several times. He was associated with another branch of the client’s family who married the Barrows in Virginia and related through marriage to others who had probate dealings with Thomas Barrow in England and Virginia.

In 1678 he was imprisoned for rioting, although he had only been preaching at a meeting. In 1683 he was imprisoned again, for preaching at a meeting along with Margaret Fox, wife of George.

We were able to monitor Robert’s progress overseas by associating his name with some of the friends he knew from England. In 1683 stonemason Barrow, now a Quaker minister bought 300 acres according to William Penn who wrote to him ‘I have little more to add but my love to you and yours.’

He had also been at George Fox’s side throughout his Quaker journey from 1652 to 1690 and he wrote the following eulogy to him:-

He died as he lived, a lamb, minding the things of God and His Church to the last in an universal spirit.

London, 13th of the 11th Month, 1690.

Dear Friends, — Before this come to your hands, I know you have an account of the departure of our ancient friend and honourable Elder in the Church of God, who was this day buried amongst a large and living assembly of God’s chosen people, who did accompany him to the ground, was supposed to be above four thousand. The meeting house at Gracious Street could not contain them nor the court before the door many that could not get to within the hearing of the testimonies; and many living, open, powerful testimonies were published in the meeting house and many in the graveyard amongst many tender hearts and watery eyes, and contrite spirits.
I was with him most of the time, wherein he spoke many living, powerful sentences to the tendering of the company present. There was no sign , of any great pain upon him, neither did he ever complain. He shut up his eyes and mouth himself and his chin never fell again nor needed any binding up, but lay as if he had been as if fallen asleep.
Well, friends, about two hours or less before he died he took me by the hand and bid me remember his love to Friends where I travelled. I am glad to see such a heavenly, harmonious conclusion as dear G, F. made, the sense and sweetness of it, I believe will never depart from me. In the heavenly virtue of which I desire to rest and remain your brother,

Robert Barrow. London, the fifth of the ninth Month, 1690. (5 Nov 1690)

By this time, Barrow should have been ready to retire with his elderly wife Margaret in the beautiful Lake District, which is now a national park. But he felt his calling was to continue Fox’s work. He helped to highlight the unfair treatment of non-Conformists and religious toleration improved substantially, especially after the Puritans’ execution of Quakers in Boston Common. The Boston Martyrs were hanged and the British authorities were shocked at this maltreatment sufficiently for laws to be passed, giving religious freedom to virtually all English Protestants. He left his wife for London in 1690 for Scotland in 1691; Ireland in 1691 and 1693; North America and West Indies in 1694; back to London in 1695; and the West Indies between 1695 and 1696. On 23 August 1696 he alighted on the Reformation, sailing from Port Royal, Jamaica knowing that he was unlikely to see his wife ever again:

“I married her for the truth’s sake – she was God’s gift to me – when I left her, it was as if I was going to my grave, neither gold nor silver, riches nor honour, should have parted us – nothing but that I might be obedient to the Lord, and keep my peace with God.”

What has never been realised before our research – as far as we are aware – is that his wife had died the month before Robert set sail from Jamaica. She had been buried back in England on 19 July 1696.

Barrow believed that God communicated directly with ordinary believers via an “inner light” and some claim that this was an early influence towards the American way of life.

On September 24 the Reformation was in the straits between Cuba and Florida trying to avoid ships of the French fleet when it was caught in a hurricane, was forced onto a reef and then onto shore on Jupiter Island, Florida. All of the ship’s party survived the shipwreck, but ‘ancient’ Robert Barrow and others were sick. Despite this, he travelled bare-foot on hot sand, encountering so many obstacles that ‘his feet had holes in them, that one might have put the top of one’s thumb in.’ In order to stay alive and for their own personal protection, the entire group claimed allegiance to Spain except for Robert Barrow. Facing almost certain death and the cannibalism, he resolutely stood strong and did not yield and earned the respect of the Spaniards and Indians he faced along the way.

Eventually on 18 March 1696 they reached a boat in Charles Town on which they made a 14 day voyage to Philadelphia. Barrow was eventually assisted to land where he was carried to the house of a man named Samuel Carpenter. His last words on 4 April 1697 were: “The Lord hath answered my desire, for I desired content, and that I might come to this place, to lay my bones amongst you.” He had achieved his last wish, to die amongst his old friends.
On April 4, 1697, three days after reaching Philadelphia, Robert Barrow died.

A very rare genealogical finding was located in a Quaker meeting account from Philadelphia: £2 was paid by the Quakers to Abraham Hooper for the construction of the coffin of Robert Barrow.

The last Words of Robert Barrow

ROBERT BARROW (-1697) was a waller and minister, of Kendal.
He travelled extensively in the British Islands and American Colonies.
The following account of the closing scenes of his life is taken from the Minutes of London Y.M. 1698:

“An Account from Pensilvania concerning Robert Barrow and Robert Wardell’s Travells and Exercises and great Hardships and dangers they Endured … Robert Barrow Travelled till he had holes in his feet & was left behind, but after gote to them again and gote Strength in his Travells. Afterwards Robert Barrow was taken sick of the flux & in his Weakness declared his heart was strong, his Memory mind and Understanding good and the Lord was with him, and his presence attended him, .. he had been with him and supported him, and of his being a prisoner seven Times. Exhorted friends to love one another, to meet often together and Added neither Gould or Silver nor any Earthly things could have prevailed with him to have left his wife who was God’s Gift to him and he was God’s Gift to her, and he only left her in obedience to the Lord, and his last words were God is good.”