Geography and Navigation Compleated: Being a New Theory and Method Whereby the True Longitude of Any Place in the World, May Be Found
by George Keith
| Geography and Navigation Completed | ||
 at the College of William & Mary. |
||
| Author | George Keith | |
| Published | London: printed for B. Aylmer, at the Three Pigeons in Cornhill | |
| Date | 1709 | |
| Language | English | |
| Pages | [2], ii, 19, [1] | |
| Desc. | 4to; illustrations | |
George Keith (1638/9 – 1716) was a prolific and outspoken Quaker missionary (and later, an Anglican priest), best-known for a sermon given at a Monthly Meeting in Philadelphia in 1693, "An Exhortation & Caution to Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes," and A Journal of Travels from New-Hampshire to Caratuck, on the Continent of North-America (1706).[1] Keith married Elizabeth Johnston in 1671, also a Quaker, who bore at least three daughters. They emigrated to America in 1684.[2]
Socially, Keith's writings, such as his 'Exhortation,' foreshadowed "the major religious themes of nineteenth-century abolitionism."[3] Keith traveled to New Jersey to take the post of Surveyor-General. [4] In 1686 he ran the first survey to mark out the border between West Jersey and East Jersey. [5]
It is for his disputes with the Quakers that Keith is best known.[6] Keith's suggested improvements to Gospel Order were rejected. Keith's intent had been to aid Quakerism against errors and to challenge the second generation Quakers who seemed to have lost their parents' fervor. [7] After Keith challenged Christian Lodowick's statement that the Quakers did not recognize the human Christ, he was charged with preaching two Christs by William Stockdale.[8] Keith demanded meetings be held to judge the issue yet no answer was achieved. In January 1692 Thomas Fitzwalter accused Keith of denying the sufficiency of the light within, a key Quaker doctrine. Keith's publication of "Some Reasons and Causes" made the dispute public, aggravating the issue and eventually Keith split from the Quakers.[9]
Keith went on a missionary journey around North America in 1702 disputing with the Quakers and Samuel Willard, the president of Harvard. He did not meet with major success. Quakers changed meeting places so he could not meet them or left when he began to speak.[10] Mr. Keith preached in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1703, and left behind his daughter, Anne. Anne remained in Williamsburg, marrying George Walker, a James River pilot and later a customs official and the Old Port Comfort fort.[11]Their daughter Margaret Walker later married plantation heir Thomas Wythe III with whom she had three children, Thomas IV, Anne, and George.[12]
Upon returning to England, Mr. Keith continued his ongoing preaching and took up a position at St Andrew's Church in Edburton Sussex in 1705, living in illness and poverty until he died in 1716. He continued to write against the Quakers even when his parishioners complained of neglect.[13]
"Geography and Navigation Compleated" was Keith's attempt to solve the longitude problem using geometry, the declination of fixed stars in the sky, and great circles.
Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library
In his biographical sketch of Wythe for the Virginia Reports (1833), Daniel Call mentions seeing a "folio volume" written by Keith in Wythe's library, containing "mathematical and other subjects."[14] The volume may have contained one or more of Keith's essays on Quakerism, but his only "mathematical" writings were "Geography and Navigation Compleated," and "An Essay for the Discovery of Some New Geometrical Problems" (1697), and its supplement.
See also
- An Essay for the Discovery of Some New Geometrical Problems
- History of Hampton and Elizabeth City County Virginia
- Wythe's Library
References
- ↑ George Keith, "An Exhortation & Caution to Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes" (New York: Printed by William Bradford, 1693); A Journal of Travels from New-Hampshire to Caratuck, on the Continent of North-America (London: Printed by Joseph Downing, for Brab. Aylmer, 1706).
- ↑ J. S. Chamberlain, "Keith, George (1638?–1716)" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed March 25, 2025.
- ↑ Keith, George (1693). An Exhortation & Caution to Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes.
- ↑ "George Keith Missionary," last modified August 16th, 2015, http://ca.wow.com/wiki/George_Keith_(missionary)
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ "George Keith," accessed October 22, 2015, http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/emforum/projects/brieflives/george_keith/
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Alonzo Gill, George Wythe, The Teacher of Liberty. Virginia Bicentennial Commission, 1979.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Daniel Call, "Judge Wythe," in Reports of Cases Argued and Decided in the Court of Appeals of Virginia, 2nd ed. (Richmond, VA: Robert I. Smith, 1833), 4:xi.