Most of the people eat meat, and drink tea and coffee. Some use tobacco, but this is discouraged.
They had formerly a good many colored members; and have still some, as well as several mulattoes and quadroons.
One colored sister is ninety years of age.
The members here have been long-lived; the register proves this: it shows deaths at ninety-seven, ninety-four, ninety-three, ninety, and so on. They are careful to have thorough drainage and ventilation, and pay attention to sanitary questions. They were formerly subject to bilious fevers; but since rejecting the use of pork, these fevers have disappeared.
They take a number of newspapers, and have a library of four hundred volumes, but the people are not great readers, and are fonder of religious books and works of popular science than of any other literature. There is a school; and the children are now to have instruction in music, as one of the families has bought an organ, and asked a musical brother from New Hampshire to come down and give lessons. Instrumental music, however, has been opposed by the older members, and here as in some of the other societies it has been introduced only after prolonged discussion.
This society has no debts, and has never suffered from the unfaithfulness of agents or trustees. It is in a very prosperous condition. Each family makes a detailed annual report to the presiding ministry, and a daily diary of events is kept.
They have baths in the dwellings, and well-arranged laundries.
The Watervliet and Mount Lebanon Societies have a number of members living in the outer world, but holding to Shaker principles, and maintaining by correspondence a connection with them. Some of these are inhabitants of cities, and "above the average in wealth and culture," I was told. The Watervliet Society has also a branch at Philadelphia, consisting of twelve colored women, who live together in one house under the leadership of an old woman, who was moved about twenty years ago to leave this society and go to Philadelphia to preach among her people. The members find employment as day servants in different families, going home every night. They mainly support themselves, and have never asked for help from the society; but this occasionally makes them presents, and keeps a general oversight over them.
Groveland.
The Groveland Society lies near Sonyea, in Livingston County, thirty-seven miles from Rochester on the Dansville and Mount Morris branch of the Erie Railway. This society Was founded at Sodus Point in 1826, and removed from there to its present location in 1836. They had at that time one hundred and fifty members; and were most numerous about twenty-five years ago, when they had two hundred members. At present they have two families, with fifty-seven members in all, of whom nine are children under twenty-one; of these last, six are girls and three boys. Of the adults, thirty are females and eighteen males.