Mission with Prophetic Power: The Journal of John Woolman (SRSC 12)

Chapter 5: Looking Further (1760–1763)

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In the winter of 1762 I laid my prospects before my friends at our Monthly and Quarterly, and afterward at our General Spring Meeting; and having the unity of Friends, and being thoughtful about an Indian* pilot, there came a man and three women from a little beyond that town to Philadelphia on business. Being informed of it by letter, I met them in town in Fifth Month, 1763; and after some conversation, finding they were sober people, I, with the concurrence of Friends in that place, agreed to join them as companions in their return, and we appointed to meet at Samuel Foulk’s, at Richland, in Bucks County, on the seventh of Sixth Month. Now, as this visit felt weighty, and was performed at a time when traveling appeared perilous, so the dispensations of divine Providence in preparing my mind for it have been memorable, and I believe it good for me to give some account of it. [Woolman is now journeying to Wehaloosing.] This was the first night that we lodged in the woods, and being wet with traveling in the rain, as were also our blankets, the ground, our tent, and the bushes under which we purposed to lay, all looked discouraging; but I believed that it was the Lord who had thus far brought me forward, and that He would dispose of me as He saw good, and so I felt easy.* We kindled a fire, with our tent open to it, then laid some bushes next the ground, and put our blankets upon them for our bed, and, lying down, got some sleep. In the morning, feeling a little unwell, I went into the river; the water was cold, but soon after I felt fresh and well. About eight o’clock we set forward and crossed a high mountain supposed to be upward of four miles over, the north side being the steepest. About noon we were overtaken by one of the Moravian brethren going to Wehaloosing, and an Indian* man with him who could talk English; and