Jenings, Samuel

Jenings, Samuel a distinguished minister of the Society of Friends, was born at Coleshill, Buckinghamshire, England, about 1650, and emigrated to New Jersey in 1680, having for some time been an approved minister in his denomination. Soon after his arrival he was appointed by governor Bylliige, of New Jersey, as his deputy, This position he occupied until 1683, when the Provincial Assembly chose him governor of the colony for one year. Up. to the time of his removal to Philadelphia, in 1692, he occupied the highest offices in the province. In Pennsylvania his abilities were highly appreciated, and he was nominated to the commission of the peace. When the controversy arose with George Keith (q.v.) he became one of his most zealous and active opponents, and in the early part of 1694 sailed for London as respondent in the appeal of Keith to the London Yearly Meeting, where he ably vindicated the cause of his American brethren from the aspersions of their detractor. On returning from England lie removed from Philadelphia to Burlington, his former home in New Jersey. In 1702 he was appointed a member of the Provincial Council, and in 1707 was elected speaker of the assembly, "in which station he. distinguished himself by a bold and fearless opposition to the arbitrary misrule of the bigoted lord Cornbury."' In his spiritual vocation we are told that he was "an able minister of the gospel, and labored much, therein, to the comfort and edification of many people, both in the province of New Jersey and other places. He was one of those rare individuals in whom was concentrated a variety of qualifications and mental endowments, by which, under the sanctifying power of truth, he was made eminently useful to his fellow- men, both in his ministerial and civil capacity." He died at Burlington in 1708. See Bowden, Hist. of Friends in America, 2:254. (J.C.S.)