Mary (Peisley) Neale (1717 - 1757)

Born 19 Nov 1717 in Mannin, Queen's County, Ireland

Ancestors

Wife of Samuel Neale — married 17 May 1757 in Mountrath, Queen's County, Ireland

Died 20 May 1757 at age 39 in Queen's County, Ireland

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Biography

Mary was a Friend (Quaker)

This profile is part of the Peasley Name Study.

Mary Peisley (1717-1757) was a Quaker minister and missionary.

She was born on 19 November 1717 in Manin, Queen's County, Ireland^[1] and was educated in the Society of Friends (the Quakers), but she turned her back on the faith in her youth. She had a religious awakening after a near death accident, when she fell from a horse, and she embraced the Quaker faith in 1744.

She became a minister around 1744 and travelled to meetings around Ireland, despite ill health. She toured England in 1748. In 1753, in company with the minister Catherine Payton, she went to the American colonies. They landed in Charleston, North Carolina and spent the next three years preaching throughout the colonies.

In this province likewise, we met with abundant hardships and sufferings of body, as we were drawn in the love of God, to visit many of the back inhabitants, where I suppose, no European had ever been on the like errand: by lodging in the woods in cold frosty weather, on damp grounds with bad firing, I got a rheumatic pain in my jaws and head, by which I suffered much, and often lost my rest after had travelling; yet through it all, the Lord was pleased to support my spirit in a good degree of cheerfulness, without murmuring or repining, though my weak constitution often deeply felt the effects of those bodily hardships; yet by the goodness and healing virtue of the Lord, I was often made to forget my bodily infirmities, and to see and feel that His strength was made perfect in weakness.

After her return to Ireland in 1656, she married the minister Samuel Neale on 17 May 1757. Only three days later, on 20 May, she died after a short illness and was buried in Mountrath, Queen's County.^[2][3]

Sources

1. ↑ Ireland, Society Of Friends (Quaker) Family Lists, image, FindMyPast (https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FMMVM-2%2F0044&parentid=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FBIRTH%2F18175 : accessed 31 August 2020), birth of Mary Peisley in Manin Queen's Co on 19d 9mo (Nov) 1717, father: Peter, mother: Rachel; citing Mountmellick MM family list 1641-1798, Religious Society Of Friends In Ireland Archives.
2. ↑ “Ireland, Society Of Friends (Quaker) Deaths,” database with images, FindMyPast (https://www.findmypast.co.uk/transcript?id=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FBURS%2F42593 : accessed 31 August 2020), death of Mary Neale on 20d 3mo (Mar) 1757, buried in Mountrath; citing Register of deaths, MOUNTMELLICK, 1859, Religious Society Of Friends In Ireland Archives.
3. ↑ https://davidcecelski.com/2018/08/11/the-lawfulness-of-women-preaching-mary-peisleys-journals-letters/

See also:

• Marty Peisley Neale (1717-1757), The Life and Letters of mary Peisley Neale, Frields Library Publishing.
• Neale, Samuel. Some account of the life and religious exercises of Mary Neale, formerly Mary Peisley. Principally compiled from her own writings. Dublin : printed by John Gough, successor to R. Jackson, No. 20, Meath-Street, 1795.[1]
• "Ireland, Society of Friends (Quaker) Yearly Meeting Testimonies to Deceased Ministers," image, FindMyPast (https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record/browse?id=ire%2fquaker%2fymf-1%2f0165&parentid=ire%2fquaker%2fymf-1%2f0165 : accessed 31 August 2020), testimony to Samuel Neale, citing YM Sufferings Testimonies to Deceased Ministers 1661-1933, Religious Society Of Friends In Ireland Archives.
• Wikisource (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Neale,_Samuel_(DNB00) : accessed 31 August 2020), biography of Neale, Samuel (1829-1792), citing Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 40.
• HERBERT, AMANDA E. “Companions in Preaching and Suffering: Itinerant Female Quakers in the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World.” Early American Studies 9, no. 1 (2011): 73–113.