The ministry among the Shakers usually occupy their spare time in some manual labor, as I have explained in a previous chapter. The leading minister over Harvard and Shirley makes brooms; his predecessor made shoes. The leading female minister is a dress-maker.
Shirley.
The Society of Shirley lies about two miles from Shirley Station, on the Fitchburg Railroad. It was gathered in 1793, the meeting-house having been built the year before. Mother Ann Lee passed nearly two years among the people in this vicinity, preaching to them; and this accounts for the early building of the meeting-house. In 1823 the Shirley Society had one hundred and fifty members. At present it has two families, numbering altogether forty-eight persons; of these twelve are children and youth under twenty-one—eight girls and four boys. Of the adults, six are men and thirty women. Until a year ago there were three families, but decreasing numbers led them to call in one; and they now let the buildings formerly used by that one. Thirty-five years ago this society numbered one hundred and fifty persons; twenty-four years ago, seventy-five; twenty years ago it had sixty. As the old people, the founders, died off, new members did not come in. They have not now many applications for membership; and of the children they adopt and bring up, not one in ten becomes a Shaker.
The society owns two thousand acres of land, which includes several outlying farms. They employ nine or ten hired laborers; and their main business is to make apple-sauce, of which they sell from five to six tons every year. One family makes brooms; and they all preserve fruit, make jellies and pickles, dry sweet corn, and in the spring make maple-sugar. The women make fancy articles for sale. Farming is also a considerable business with them, and they have good orchards.
Most of the members grew up in the society, and the greater number of them are, I believe, past middle age. Like all the Shakers, they are long-lived—one sister, a colored woman, is eighty, and another eighty-eight—and their mortality rate is low. Most of the members are Americans, but they have a few Nova-Scotians. Most of them eat meat, and drink tea, but no coffee; and they are especially fond of oatmeal. One old member both smokes and snuffs, but none others use tobacco in any shape. They are fond of flowers, but do not cultivate any; have "plenty" of books and newspapers, but no regular library; like music, but have no musical instrument; and they are fond of the Bible. Among their meetings is one for singing.
Their buildings are not so large as those of a Shaker settlement usually are, but they are in excellent order, and include an infirmary, a house for aged and feeble members, a nice school-room, and a laundry. They have the reputation in the neighborhood of being wealthy; and had the enterprise once to build a large cotton factory, on the shore of a pond which they then owned. This building they have sold. It ran them into debt; and this they did not like. They were poor at first; have never had any defalcation; have no debt now; and make no regular business statement, trusting to the ministry to keep a proper oversight of their accounts.
In the school at Shirley physiology was taught, and with remarkable success as it seemed to me, with the help of charts; the children seemed uncommonly intelligent and bright. The school is open three months in the summer and three in the winter—two hours in the forenoon and two in the afternoon; and the teacher, a young girl, was also the care-taker of the girls. Singing-school is held, for the children, in the evening.
The societies at Hancock and Tyringham lie near the New York State line, among the Berkshire hills. They are small, and have no noticeable features.
There are three Shaker societies in New York: at Mount Lebanon,
Watervliet, and Groveland.
Mount Lebanon.