Stephen Grellet was a prominent French-born American minister of the Society of Friends, whose missionary itineraries covered practically all of Europe and the United States and reached up into Canada.
Background
Stephen Grellet was born November 2, 1773 in Limoges, France, the fifth child of Gabriel Marc Antoine de Grellet and Susanne de Senamaud. As a youth in his native country he was known as Etienne de Grellet du Mabillier. His father was a wealthy manufacturer of porcelain and proprietor of iron works, one-time comptroller of the mint, and an intimate of Louis XVI.
At the outbreak of the Revolution the family estates were confiscated, and his parents barely escaped the guillotine.
Education
Etienne was taught by tutors and attended several colleges, but received his principal scholastic training at the College of the Oratorians, Lyons.
Career
Grellet and some of his brothers joined the royal forces in Germany, and in 1792 as a member of the King’s Horse Guards, he entered France. Later he was made a prisoner of war and sentenced to be shot, but escaped to Amsterdam, from which place with his brother Joseph, he sailed for Demerara, South America, arriving in January 1793. Here they engaged in mercantile pursuits, but in 1795, upon a false report that a French fleet was approaching the coast, they fled to New York. By this time Etienne had become a disciple of Voltaire, but through associations formed in Newtown, Long Island, where he took up his residence, and the reading of William Penn’s writings, he was converted to the beliefs and practises of the Friends.
In the latter part of 1795 he went to Philadelphia and engaged in business. Here in the fall of 1796 he was formally received into the Society of Friends, and in March 1798 he was duly recorded as a minister of Christ by the Monthly Meeting of the North District, of which he was a member. During the yellow-fever epidemic of 1798, he visited the sick and dying, contracted the disease, and was so sick that his death was judged inevitable and actually reported.
In 1799 he removed to New York. From 1799 on, his career was a series of missionary and philanthropic journeys separated by intervals in which he was able to give sufficient attention to business to provide funds to support him in his far-reaching ministry.
In the South he held meetings among the slaves, and talked of the wrongs of the slave - system with their masters. Visiting Canada, he preached in his native tongue to Roman Catholics. He made four tours in Europe. The first was confined to France. The second included the British Isles, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain.
After ministering in Newgate, together with his friend, John Forster, he conferred with Elizabeth Fry and is credited with inspiring her work for the female prisoners there. He was received by the King of Bavaria, with whom he discussed the religious and social conditions of the kingdom, and in London after the “Peace of Paris, ” he pled with the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Russia for the spirit of peace in the future government of Europe.
In 1816 he made a trip to Haiti, and upon his return interested English philanthropists in effecting social improvements there. On his third European tour he was joined in London by William Allen. Besides countries already traversed he visited Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the Crimea, and Greece. Received by Alexander I of Russia, he reported the wretched conditions he had found in prisons and poorhouses. As a result of their discussion of educational methods, Scripture Lessons for Schools ( 1820), compiled by Grellet, Allen, and others, was adopted in Russia. He was also received by the Pope, to whom he suggested needed reforms. This third journey is commemorated by Whittier in his poem “The Christian Tourists”. During 1831-34 he was again abroad.
In his later years his activities were lessened by failing health. After 1823 with his wife and one daughter he made his home in Burlington, New Jersey, where just after the completion of his eighty-second year he died.
Achievements
Stephen Grellet has been listed as a noteworthy clergyman by Marquis Who's Who.
Religion
Grellet displayed keen religious sensibilities, but became skeptical regarding Roman Catholic dogmas.
Personality
He combined the grace, courtesy, and affableness of a French noble with Quaker simplicity, gentleness, sagacity, and calm reliance upon the Divine guidance, and was cordially received by all classes.
Connections
On January 11, 1804 he married Rebecca Collins, daughter of Isaac and Rachel Collins of that city.
