peopleofphiladelphia-vs-edbacon:
Benjamin Lay, c. 1750-1758
Painting by William Williams Sr., commissioned by Benjamin Franklin, whose published one of Lay’s All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates. Lay stands in front of the cave dwelling he and his wife lived in. He holds Quaker philosopher Thomas Tryon’s treatise “On Happiness.“
A more furious figure than the gentle (John) Woolman was Benjamin Lay, who lived in a natural cave on the York Road above what is now Branchtown(now the Ogontz neighborhood). Water and vegetables were his only food and he refused to wear any garment or eat anything involving the loss of animal life or slave labour.
” Only four and a half feet high, hunch-backed, with projecting chest, legs small and uneven, arms longer than his legs, a huge head, showing only beneath the enormous white hat, large, solemn eyes and a prominent nose; the rest of his face covered with a snowy semi-circle of beard falling low on his breast, this fierce and prophetical brownie or kobold made unexpected dashes into the calm precincts of the Friends’ Meeting House, and was a gad-fly of every assembly.“ At one time, during Yearly Meeting, he suddenly appeared marching up the aisle in his long, white overcoat, regardless of the solemn silence prevailing. He stopped suddenly when midway and exclaiming, “You Slave-holders! Why don’t you throw off your Quaker coats as I do mine, and shew yourselves as you are?” At the same moment he threw off his coat. Underneath was a military coat and a sword dangling against his heels. Holding in one hand a large book, he drew his sword with the other. “In the sight of God,” he cried, “you are as guilty as if you stabbed your slaves to the heart, as I do this book!” Suiting the action to the word, and piercing a small bladder filled with the juice of the poke-weed which he had concealed between the covers, and sprinkling as with fresh blood those who sat near him. Though offensive and peculiar, he was one of the active forces which paved the way to decisive action and was the forerunner of many less rational agitators.
(from: Early Philadelphia: Its people, Life, and Progress by Horace Mather Lippincott)
LAY COMING OUT OF HIS WELL TO SHAME MANKIND
Mooncustafer 