Come early and enjoy dinner at MaGerks before our meeting!!

Live Meeting at MaGerks Fort Washington – 582 S. Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington, PA 19034

We recommend that you get here before 6:30pm to order your food and drinks before the lecture.  Bring $1 or $5 cash for our used book raffle and you could win a Revolutionary War book!!  Program begins around 7:15pm, Lecture around 7:30pm.

In 1777, Congress labeled Quakers who would not take up arms in support of the War of Independence as “the most Dangerous Enemies America knows” and ordered Pennsylvania and Delaware to apprehend them. In response, Keystone State officials sent twenty men—seventeen of whom were Quakers—into exile, banishing them to Virginia, where they were held for a year.

Prisoners of Congress reconstructs this moment in American history through the experiences of four families: the Drinkers, the Fishers, the Pembertons, and the Gilpins. Identifying them as the new nation’s first political prisoners, Norman E. Donoghue II relates how the Quakers, once the preeminent power in Pennsylvania and an integral constituency of the colonies and early republic, came to be reviled by patriots who saw refusal to fight the English as borderline sedition.

Surprising, vital, and vividly told, this narrative of political and literal warfare waged by the United States against a pacifist religious group during the Revolutionary War era sheds new light on an essential aspect of American history. It will appeal to anyone interested in learning more about the nation’s founding.

 

Book Purchase: To purchase this book please click on this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0271095075

About Norman E. Donoghue II

Ned Donoghue is a retired lawyer and charity fundraiser, now a historian/writer. Educated at Williams College and Duke Law School, Ned practiced law for 34 years in Philadelphia with an international firm, after which he spent 5 years as a professional fundraiser for The Philadelphia Orchestra Association. He served for 40 years as a board member and officer of Princess Grace Foundation-USA, a nonprofit arts organization. He also co-founded Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts and was a leader in Citizen Diplomats International of Philadelphia. History is his current passion and his research has been in the era of the American Revolution among the pacifist sects of Pennsylvania and Maryland. His lives with his wife and they have two daughters.