Part 17 (2/2)

They have a school, and a good miscellaneous library of about four hundred volumes, in a case in the dwelling-house of the Church Family.

They sing finely, but are opposed to the introduction of musical instruments. In some of their evening meetings they read aloud, and the last book thus read was Mr. Seward's ”Journey around the World.”

They do not adopt as many children as formerly, and experience has taught them the necessity of knowing something of the parentage of children, in order to make judicious selections.

”Formerly we had one or two physicians among our members, and then there was much sickness; now that we have no doctor there is but little illness, and the health of the society is good.”

One of the families is in debt, through an imprudent purchase of land made by a trustee, without the general knowledge of the society.

Moreover they have suffered severely from fires and by a flood. Once seven of their buildings were burned down in a night. In this way a fund they had at interest was expended in repairs. But the society seems now to be prosperous; its buildings are in excellent order, and the brick dwelling of the Church Family, built in 1857, is well arranged and a fine structure. They have a steam laundry and a fine dairy. In their shops they carry on blacksmithing, carpentry, tailoring, and dress-making.

They make a regular annual business statement to the presiding ministry.

At intervals they send out one or two brethren to preach to the outer world upon Shakerism.

There are four Shaker societies in Ohio: Union Village, near Lebanon; North Union, near Cleveland; Watervliet, near Dayton; and Whitewater, near Harrison.

_Union Village_.

The society at Union Village lies four miles from Lebanon, in Warren County, Ohio. It is the oldest Shaker settlement in the West; the three ”witnesses” sent out from Mount Lebanon in 1805 were here received by a prosperous farmer named Malchas Worley, who became a ”Believer,” and whose influence greatly helped to spread the Shaker doctrines among his neighbors. His small dwelling still stands near the large house of one of the families, and is kept in neat repair; it lies in the heart of the society's present estate.

The ministry of Union Village, while subordinate to that at Mount Lebanon, rules or has a general oversight of the western societies in Ohio and Kentucky; and in former times there has been a good deal of printing done there, a number of Shaker publications having been written and published at Union Village.

The society at Union Village consists of four families, containing at this time two hundred and fifteen persons, of whom ninety-five are males and one hundred and twenty females. Of the whole number, forty-eight are children and youth under twenty-one, and of these twenty are boys and twenty-eight girls. Between 1827 and 1830 it had six hundred members, and at that time there were six families. It had, however, about that time received sudden and considerable accessions from the dissolution of the Shaker Society in Indiana, which left that state on account of the unhealthfulness of the country, and whose members were divided among the Ohio societies. In the last ten years I was told there had been neither gain nor loss of numbers, taking the average of the year; for here, as elsewhere, there is usually a swelling of the ranks in the fall, from what are called ”winter Shakers.”

The society at Union Village was ”gathered” between 1805 and 1810. The oldest building dates from 1807, and others, of brick and still in excellent preservation, bear the dates of 1810 and 1811. All the buildings are in good order; and this society is among the most prosperous in the order. Its families own a magnificent estate of four thousand five hundred acres lying in the famous Miami bottom, a soil much of which is so fertile that after sixty years of cropping it will still yield from sixty to seventy bushels of corn to the acre, and without manuring. They have also some outlying farms. They have no debt, and one of the families has a fund at interest.

They let much of their land to tenants, having not less than forty thus settled and working the soil on shares. Besides this, the different families employ about thirty hired laborers. Their industries are broom-making, raising garden seeds and medicinal herbs, and preparing medicinal extracts. They also make a syrup of sarsaparilla, and one or two other patent medicines: they have a saw and a grist mill; the women make small fancy articles and baskets. But their most profitable business is the growth of fine stock--thoroughbred Durham cattle chiefly. They have, of course, shops in which they make and mend what they need for themselves--tailor's, shoemaker's, blacksmith's, wagon-maker's, etc. Formerly they manufactured more than at present--having made at one time, for the general market, steel, leather, hollow-ware, pipes, and woolen yarn. Prosperity has lessened their enterprise. Three of the families have very complete laundries.

They eat meat, but no pork; and only a very few of the aged members use tobacco. They have an excellent school, of which one of the ministry, an intelligent and kindly man, is the teacher. They have a small library--”not so many books as we would like;” and one of the sisters told me that she got books from a circulating library at Lebanon, and as a special indulgence was allowed to read novels sometimes, which, she remarked, she found useful to set her to sleep. They have two cabinet-organs, and believe in cultivating music.

The founders of this society were mostly Presbyterians. Their successors have been Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, and I found, to my surprise, several Catholics, one of whom was originally a Spanish priest. Almost all are Americans, but there are a few Germans and English.

They do not care to take children unless they are accompanied by their parents; and refuse to take any under nine years, unless they come as part of a family. Not more than ten per cent of the children they train up remain with them; but they said it was not uncommon to see them return after spending some years in the world, and in such cases they often made good Shakers. During the war a number of their young men went off to become soldiers. Several of those who survived returned, and are now among them.

They have no provision for baths.

In 1835 they suffered from the defalcation of a trustee, to the amount of between forty and fifty thousand dollars.

I looked over a list of deaths during the last thirty years, and was surprised to find how many members had lived to ninety and past, and how large a proportion died at over seventy.

”Are you all Spiritualists,” I asked, and was answered, ”Of course;” but presently one added, ”We are all Spiritualists, in a general sense; but there are some _real_ Spiritualists here;” and I judge that here as in some of the other societies Spiritualism is not much thought of. I saw the ”Sacred Roll and Book” on a table, but was told it was not much read nowadays, but that they read the Bible a good deal.

I found that for the last three years they have had here what they call a Lyceum: a kind of debating club which meets once a week, for the discussion of set questions, reading, and the criticism of essays written by the members. The last question discussed was, ”Whether it is best for the Shaker societies to work on cash or credit.”

This Lyceum has produced another meeting in the Church Family, in which, once a week, all the members--male and female, young and old--are gathered to overhaul the accounts of the week, and to discuss all the industrial occupations of the family, agricultural and mechanical, as well as housekeeping and every thing relating to their practical life.

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