Part 25 (1/2)
The _Shaker and Shakeress_, a monthly journal, edited by Elder Frederick Evans and Eldress Antoinette Doolittle, is the organ of the society; and in its pages their views are set forth with much shrewdness and ability. It is not so generally interesting a journal as the _Oneida Circular_, the organ of the Perfectionists, because the Shakers concern themselves almost exclusively with religious matters, and give in their paper but few details of their daily and practical life.
POPULATION RETURNS OF THE SHAKER SOCIETIES.
I give here, in a convenient tabular form, figures showing the present and past numbers of the different Shaker Societies--males, females, and children--the amount of land each society owns, and the number of laborers, not members, it employs:
______________________________________________________________________ | |No. of Families| Adults. |Youth Under 11.| | Society. | or Separate |______|________|_______|_______| | | Communities. | Male.| Female.| Male. |Female.| |____________________|_______________|______|___ ____|_______|_______| | Alfred, Me.........| 2 | 20 | 30 | 8 | 12 | | New Gloucester, Me.| 2 | 20 | 36 | 4 | 10 | | Canterbury, N.H....| 3 | 35 | 70 | 14 | 26 | | Enfield, N.H.......| 3 | 29 | 76 | 8 | 27 | | Enfield, Conn......| 4 | 24 | 48 | 18 | 25 | | Harvard, Ma.s.s......| 4 | 17 | 57 | 4 | 12 | | s.h.i.+rley, Ma.s.s......| 2 | 6 | 30 | 4 | 8 | | Hanc.o.c.k, Ma.s.s......| 3 | 23 | 42 | 13 | 20 | | Tyringham, Ma.s.s....| 1 | 6 | 11 | 0 | 0 | | Mount Lebanon, N.Y.| 7 | 115 | 221 | 21 | 26 | | Watervliet, N.Y....| 4 | 75 | 100 | 20 | 40 | | Groveland, N.Y.....| 2 | 18 | 30 | 3 | 6 | | North Union, O.....| 3 | 41 | 44 | 6 | 11 | | Union Village, O...| 4 | 75 | 92 | 20 | 28 | | Watervliet, O......| 2 | 16 | 32 | 3 | 4 | | White Water, O.....| 3 | 34 | 51 | 6 | 9 | | Pleasant Hill, Ky..| 5 | 56 | 114 | 25 | 50 | | South Union, Ky....| 4 | 85 | 105 | 15 | 25 | |____________________|_______________|______|_______ |_______|_______| | || | | | | Eighteen Societies.| 58 | 695 | 1189 | 192 | 339 | |____________________|_______________|______|________|_______|_______|
______________________________________________________________________ | | | | Acres | | | Society. |Total Population,| Greatest | of | Hired | | |1874.| 1823. |Population.| Land. |Laborers.| |____________________|_____|___________|___________|________|_________| | | | | | | | | Alfred, Me.........| 70 | 200 | 200 | 1100 | 15-20 | | New Gloucester, Me.| 70 | 150 | 150 | 2000 | 15-20 | | Canterbury, N.H....| 145 | 200 | 300 | 3000 | 6 | | Enfield, N.H.......| 140 | 200 | 330 | 3000 | 20-35 | | Enfield, Conn......| 115 | 200 | 200 | 3300 | 15 | | Harvard, Ma.s.s......| 90 | 200 | 200 | 1800 | 16 | | s.h.i.+rley, Ma.s.s......| 48 | 150 | 150 | 2000 | 10 | | Hanc.o.c.k, Ma.s.s......| 98 | -- | 300 | 3500 | 25 | | Tyringham, Ma.s.s....| 17 | -- | -- | 1000 | 6 | | Mount Lebanon, N.Y.| 383 | 500-600 | 600 | 3000 | -- | | Watervliet, N.Y....| 235 | 200 | 350 | 4500 | 75 | | Groveland, N.Y.....| 57 | 150 in | 200 | 2280 | 8 | | | | 1836. | | | | | North Union, O.....| 102 | -- | 200 | 1335 | 9 | | Union Village, O...| 215 | 600 | 600 | 4500 | 70 | | Watervliet, O......| 55 | 100 | 100 | 1300 | 10 | | White Water, O.....| 100 | 150 | 150 | 1500 | 10 | | Pleasant Hill, Ky..| 245 | 450 | 490 | 4200 | 20 | | South Union, Ky....| 230 | 349 | 349 | 6000 | 15 | |____________________|_____|___________|___________|________|_________| | | | | | | | | Eighteen Societies.|2415 | -- | -- | 49,335 | -- | |____________________|_____|___________|___________|________|_________|
The returns of land include, for the most part, only the home farms; and several of the societies own considerable quant.i.ties of real estate in distant states, of which I could get no precise returns.
THE PERFECTIONISTS OF ONEIDA AND WALLINGFORD.
THE PERFECTIONISTS OF ONEIDA AND WALLINGFORD
I.--HISTORICAL.
The Oneida and Wallingford Communists are of American origin, and their members.h.i.+p is almost entirely American.
Their founder, who is still their head, John Humphrey Noyes, was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1811, of respectable parentage. He graduated from Dartmouth College, began the study of the law, but turned shortly to theology; and studied first at Andover, with the intention of fitting himself to become a foreign missionary, and later in the Yale theological school. At New Haven he came under the influence of a zealous revival preacher, and during his residence there he ”landed in a new experience and new views of the way of salvation, which took the name of Perfectionism.”
This was in 1834. He soon returned to Putney, in Vermont, where his father's family then lived, and where his father was a banker. There he preached and printed; and in 1838 married Harriet A. Holton, the granddaughter of a member of Congress, and a convert to his doctrines.
He slowly gathered about him a small company of believers, drawn from different parts of the country, and with their help made known his new faith in various publications, with such effect that though in 1847 he had only about forty persons in his own congregation, there appear to have been small gatherings of ”Perfectionists” in other states, in correspondence with Noyes, and inclined to take him as their leader.
Originally Noyes was not a Communist, but when his thoughts turned in that direction he began to prepare his followers for communal life; in 1845 he made known to them his peculiar views of the relations of the s.e.xes, and in 1846 the society at Putney began cautiously an experiment in communal living.
Their views, which they never concealed, excited the hostility of the people to such a degree that they were mobbed and driven out of the place; and in the spring of 1848 they joined some persons of like faith and practice at Oneida, in Madison County, New York. Here they began community life anew, on forty acres of land, on which stood an unpainted frame dwelling-house, an abandoned Indian hut, and an old Indian saw-mill. They owed for this property two thousand dollars. The place was neglected, without cultivation, and the people were so poor that for some time they had to sleep on the floor in the garret which was their princ.i.p.al sleeping-chamber.
The gathering at Oneida appears to have been the signal for several attempts by followers of Noyes to establish themselves in communes. In 1849 a small society was formed in Brooklyn, N.Y., to which later the printing for all the societies was entrusted. In 1850 another community was begun at Wallingford, in Connecticut. There were others, of which I find no account; but all regarded Oneida as their centre and leader; and in the course of time, and after various struggles, all were drawn into the common centre, except that at Wallingford, which still exists in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition, having its property and other interests in common with Oneida.
[Ill.u.s.tration: J H NOYES, FOUNDER OF THE PERFECTIONISTS]
The early followers of Noyes were chiefly New England farmers, the greater part of whom brought with them some means, though not in any single case a large amount. Noyes himself and several other members contributed several thousand dollars each, and a ”Property Register”
kept from the beginning of the community experiment showed that up to the first of January, 1857, the members of all the a.s.sociated communes had brought in the considerable amount of one hundred and seven thousand seven hundred and six dollars. I understand, however, that this sum was not at any one time in hand, and that much of it came in several years after the settlement at Oneida in 1848; and it is certain that in the early days, while they were still seeking for some business which should be at the same time agreeable to them and profitable, they had sometimes short commons. They showed great courage and perseverance, for through all their early difficulties they maintained a printing-office and circulated a free paper.
At first they looked toward agriculture and horticulture as their main-stays for income; but they began soon to unite other trades with these. Their saw-mill sawed lumber for the neighboring farmers; they set up a blacksmith shop, and here, besides other work, they began to make traps by hand, having at first no means to buy machinery, and indeed having to invent most of that which they now use in their extensive trap shop.
Like the Shakers with their garden seeds, and all other successful communities with their products, the Perfectionists got their start by the excellence of their workmans.h.i.+p. Their traps attracted attention because they were more uniformly well made than others; and thus they built up a trade which has become very large. They raised small fruits, made rustic furniture, raised farm crops, sold cattle, had at one time a sloop on the Hudson; and Noyes himself labored as a blacksmith, farmer, and in many other employments.
Working thus under difficulties, they had sunk, by January, 1857, over forty thousand dollars of their capital, but had gained valuable experience in the mean time. They had concentrated all their people at Oneida and Wallingford; and had set up some machinery at the former place. In January, 1857, they took their first annual inventory, and found themselves worth a little over sixty-seven thousand dollars. Their perseverance had conquered fortune, for in the next ten years the net profit of the two societies amounted to one hundred and eighty thousand five hundred and eighty dollars, according to this statement:
Net earnings in 1857.....$5,470.11 ” ” 1858..... 1,763.60 ” ” 1859.....10,278.38 ” ” 1860.....15,611.03 ” ” 1861..... 5,877.89
Net earnings in 1862....$9,859 78 ” ” 1863....44,755.30 ” ” 1864....61,382.62 ” ” 1865....12,382.81 ” ” 1866....13,198.74