An English Ship at Sea Lying to in a Gale, Willem van de Velde, the Younger, mid 17th Century, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
It was a remarkable gang. Half of them would never again see England. Moreover, six of the eleven Friends had already been expelled from Boston:
Robert Fowler of Bridlington, a Quaker convert built the Woodhouse himself in order to have a ship to sail to New England.
Christopher Holder, “a well-educated man of good estate,” of Winterbourne in Gloustershire, had already been imprisoned in “ye gayle at Ilchester; in his subsequent missions on behalf of Friends, he would travel the American coast with Robert Hodgson, be branded, have an ear cropped off, and finally share imprisonment with more of Josephine Jones’ ancestors.
John Copeland, like Holder, was well-educated and in the early prime of his life. A native of Selby, Holderness, in Yorkshire, he would in the end settle in Chuchatuck, Virginia.
William Brend of London was “an ancient and venerable man” who had come to manhood in the days of Queen Elizabeth I. Though Boston authorities would flog him nearly to death, he would recover and live on to 1676.
Sarah Gibbons of Bristol would drown when her canoe sank at Providence, Rhode Island, 1659.
Mary Wetherhead, also of Bristol, would also drown with two of her Woodhouse companions in 1658.
Dorothy Waugh had been a serving-maid in the household of early Quaker minister John Camm in Preston Patrick, Westmorland; Camm had been a leader among the Westmorland Seekers, an important precursor to the Society of Friends. Before her Woodhouse voyage, Waugh had been imprisoned in many parts of England: Norwich in 1654; Basingsoke and Cornwall (jailed at Truro) in 1655; Berkshire (jailed at Reading, where Robert Hodgson was attempting to visit) in 1656, before her first visit to Boston, where she was also jailed and expelled, 1656. The presence of Dorothy Waugh both at Reading and aboard the Woodhouse has made me wonder whether there may have been a romantic attraction for Robert Hodgson. Because of the difference in social status – she had been a servant while he had, some suggest, been an officer in the New Model Army – may have presented barriers, although his possible training as a butcher casts a different light on the situation. At any rate, she would subsequently be jailed at New Amsterdam, return to Boston twice by way of Rhode Island and then Barbados (1658), before finally returning to England and marrying William Lotherington of Whitby, Yorkshire. Born in 1636, “She was not as well equipped intellectually as her companions were, and she was apparently not over judicious, but she had an intensity of zeal and considerable power in ministry,” Jones writes, citing a letter by Mary Prince to George Fox: “I was ensnared by D. Waugh, but I am out through the love of God.”
Joining them on the New England mission were William Robinson, from Cumberland but “bred up in London with a merchant”; he would be hanged in Boston, 1659. In addition to Humphrey Norton’s previously listed activities, he had performed service in Ireland, 1655; his New England Ensign of 1659 chronicles the voyage. Mary Clark, wife of London tradesman John Clark, had already suffered much for the faith; she would drown, with Sarah Gibbons and Richard Doudney, who is described as “an innocent man who served the Lord in sincerity,” though the rest of his background is obscure.
Robert Hodgson became one of the Woodhouse passengers, .
Two Dutch ministers, Joannes Megapolensis and Samuel Drisius, recorded the arrival of the Quakers:
On August 6th [or 12th] a ship came from the sea to this place, having no flag flying from the topmast, nor from any other part of the ship. … They fired no salute before the fort. When the master of the ship came on shore and appeared fore the Director-General, he rendered him no respect, but stood firm with his hat on his head as if a goat[!] … At last information was gained that it was a ship with Quakers on board. … They left behind two strong young women. As soon the ship had departed, these [women] began to quake and go into a frenzy, and cry out loudly in the middle of the street that men should repent, for the day of judgment was at hand. Our people not knowing what was the matter ran to and fro while one cried “fire” and another something else. The Fiscal seized them both by the head and led them to prison.
https://jmunrohodson.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/the-woodhouse-mission/