Memoir of Benjamin Lay (1842)

AUTHOR: Child, Lydia Maria

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen)

As the subtitle suggests, Child compiled this short biography of Benjamin Lay, “one of the founders” of “the great work of reformation” (35), from various sources, notably Roberts Vaux's 1815 Memoirs of the Lives of Benjamin Lay and Ralph Sandiford; Two of the Earliest Public Advocates for the Emancipation of the Enslaved Africans, as well as “anecdotes and particulars obtained from Friends' Miscellany, and traditions handed down from authentic sources to Isaac T. Hopper and his wife” (5). The text traces Lay's life from his early days in England to Barbados to Philadelphia to rural Pennsylvania, focusing on his Abolitionist activism. It is in this context that Child emphasizes his simple lifestyle, including his ethical veganism:

He drank nothing but water and milk, and often subsisted entirely on acorns, chesnuts [sic], and cold boiled potatoes. The reason of his abjuring animal food was said to be as follows: A ground-hog often came into his garden, and destroyed his vegetables. Vexed beyond what was usual with his loving nature, he slew the troublesome animal, and nailed its quarters at the four corners of the garden. This hasty proceeding so deeply affected the good man's conscience, that he never after would use any article for food or clothing, that was procured at the expense of animal life. He went barefooted after this, and used to wear a tow coat and trowsers [sic], of his own spinning, of the natural color, often very much darned (14).

The passage not only emphasizes Lay's morality but Child immediately describes a similar practice of abstention in the context of his Abolitionism: “Nothing could induce him to use any article that was, in the remotest degree, the product of slave labor. Thus purified, by what he conceived to be obligatory and necessary to qualify him for the great duty assigned him, he went forth with fresh animation to disseminate his principles” (14). Child also reports on his Temperance (targeting the use of tobacco and tea, 23-23; and targeting alcohol abuse, 27), his prison reform advocacy (26), and his friendship with, among others, Anthony Benezet and Benjamin Franklin.