Author: Weekes, Refine
Biography:
WEEKES, Refine (1759-1823: ancestry.com)
His parents, Augustin (or Augustine) Weekes and his wife Elizabeth Parish, were Quakers who owned land in Long Island NY. Refine Weekes, born at Oyster Bay, seems to have been well educated and well provided for. In 1786 he married Margaret Tobias (1766-1813) and went on to have a large family: by some accounts ten children, by others eighteen. About 1810 the family moved to Vermont, where Weekes became involved in business ventures, notably a carding mill near Middlebury, with a dishonest partner who ruined him. The partnership was dissolved and the business sold in 1815-16. Weekes appears to have spent two years in prison but was released on petition. His plea in court was published after his death in the first and only volume of Collectitia (York [UK] 1824), a collection of unpublished mss and ephemera intended for a Quaker audience. After his release he attempted to earn enough to pay off his creditors as a travelling salesman of tracts and his own volumes of poetry, but died at Kennet Square PA before achieving his purpose. (ancestry.com 15 Jan. 2021; Collectitia [1824]; Friends' Books) HJ