User:EE Project/Benjamin Furly

Benjamin Furly (1636–1714), English merchant, author

Son of John Furly (c. 1590–1673) and his wife, Ann; he married Dorothy Graigne (d. 1691); they had five children. After her death, in 1693 he married Susanna van der Tijt, née Huys (b. 1644). He became a Quaker in 1655; he moved to Amsterdam, and after a brief visit to England in 1659 he returned to the Netherlands where he settled in Rotterdam as a flourishing businessman. He wrote and translated a number of works, mainly related to the Quakers. He was an important figure in the emigration of Quaker and other dissenter groups to Pennsylvania. A friend of the philosopher John Locke, he corresponded with him over a number of years. He left the Quakers in 1691, after his first wife's death.