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The Eddy Brothers and the Shakers

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The Eddy Brothers and the Shakers American Communal Societies Quarterly Volume 9 Number 3 Pages 200-222 July 2015 Light and Dark Sides of Spiritualism: The Eddy Brothers and the Shakers Christian Goodwillie Hamilton College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.hamilton.edu/acsq Part of the American Studies Commons This work is made available by Hamilton College for educational and research purposes under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. For more information, visit http://digitalcommons.hamilton.edu/about.html or contact [email protected]. Goodwillie: Light and Dark Sides of Spiritualism Light and Dark Sides of Spiritualism: The Eddy Brothers and the Shakers Christian Goodwillie Elder Henry C. Blinn In his 1899 work Manifestation of Spiritualism Among the Shakers Elder Henry Blinn reflected on the marvelous events that dominated life in Shaker communities from 1837 into the 1850s. Blinn lived through the entire period as a faithful Shaker, and as a printer he published newly received communications from God, Holy Mother Wisdom, and Mother Ann Lee. An active participant in what the Shakers called the “New Era,” or “Mother’s Work,” Blinn was optimistic that the countless spirits interacting with members of Shaker communities could reenergize and facilitate the progress of his millennial church. Looking back on these events fifty years later Blinn realized that what the Shakers experienced was but a precursor to the popular movement called Spiritualism that swept America and Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, whereas the 200 Published by Hamilton Digital Commons, 2015 1 American Communal Societies Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 3 [2015] Shakers’ experience with the spirits was primarily centered on engendering obedience, humility, and sharing simple gifts of love and spiritual objects, the non-Shaker Spiritualist movement comprised a wider array of purposes and experiences, and impacted huge numbers of people in many different ways. Blinn viewed Shaker spiritual practice as rooted in the body of the Shaker church, which constituted the living body of the second appearing of the Christ spirit on earth. As he wrote: “ ‘I am the way and the light,’ said Jesus, and it is in this light of the Christ life, that all spiritual influences should be tested.” Blinn also claimed that the “curiosities of spirit materialization” never become a phase of Shaker Spiritualism.1 Blinn’s fellow Shaker Frederick W. Evans would have disagreed with this statement since he was converted by a spiritual manifestation he experienced at New Lebanon, New York, and was an ardent public champion of the phenomenon.2 In fact, the experience of the Shakers as progenitors of, and then participants in, the Spiritualist movement, is far more complex than Blinn’s retrospective stated. This article will examine one dimension of that experience—the interaction of individual Shakers with the notorious Vermont mediums, the Eddy Brothers. This interesting episode in Shaker history involved both Blinn and Evans, as well as many other Shakers. The Shakers relationship with the Eddys provides substantial evidence of their attitude toward the Spiritualist movement as it evolved beyond the realm of the Shaker communities. Elder Frederick W. Evans 201 https://digitalcommons.hamilton.edu/acsq/vol9/iss3/8 2 Goodwillie: Light and Dark Sides of Spiritualism Elder Frederick Evans emerged—for better or for worse—as the public voice of the Shaker movement during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. He broadcast his strident advocacy of many causes, including Spiritualism, far and wide at public events and through pamphlets and newspapers. At the Shaker Convention held at New York’s Steinway Hall on Sunday, November 22, 1874, Evans staked the Shakers’ claim as the nursery of Spiritualism, declaring that “spiritualistic phenomena of a peculiar and striking character appeared in the Mount Lebanon society eleven years before the Rochester rappings, and they had fully developed mediums before the Fox girls were out of long-clothes.”3 The following day a reporter from the Daily Graphic interviewed Elder Evans at length about Spiritualism. Evans claimed to have defined Spiritualism as a science, and not a religion, at a meeting held in New York City in 1860. He believed that by classifying Spiritualism as a science it could be sheltered from the objections of religious critics. After recounting the advent of the Era of Manifestations in 1837 he discussed the inspired Shaker texts, Holy, Sacred, and Divine Roll and Book (1843) and Divine Book of Holy and Eternal Wisdom (1849). When the reporter inquired if he could obtain copies Evans replied “Nay … we do not allow them to get into circulation now … because they were published before we had learned to distinguish between different spirits. We learned by experience that the mere fact of being a spiritual manifestation does not prove that it is divine.” Evans described the Shakers’ progress through three phases of interaction with the spirits: an initial test phase wherein the reality of the manifestations was ascertained, a secondary judgment phase where spirits reproved and purified the Shakers, and a third missionary phase wherein enlightened Shakers served as missionaries to “lower spirits,” hearing their confessions in the same way they would have heard the confession of a person joining the sect. Through this process, according to Evans, many Shakers became spiritual mediums.4 After years of working with spirits in their own communities Shakers began to question the veracity of the entire phenomena. They viewed the advent of the Rochester rappings, therefore, with great relief. To confirm the work Shakers traveled to New York City to witness the Fox sisters, where overjoyed spirits greeted them.5 Evans told the reporter of the Daily Graphic that he first visited the Eddy brothers in early November 1874 with fellow Shaker John Greaves, a blacksmith born in England who had lived at New Lebanon’s North Family with Evans since at least 1850. Over the course of three nights Evans and 202 Published by Hamilton Digital Commons, 2015 3 American Communal Societies Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 3 [2015] Greaves witnessed the apparition of nearly thirty spirits. Although the entities did not include Shakers, and Evans was not individually acquainted with any of them, he was able to converse with them and attested to the genuineness of what he observed. Finally, he stated that the rapid growth of the Spiritualist movement was the “descent of Spiritualism from the Shakers to the world. We had the manifestations first; but we kept quiet about it. But the spirits promised us that there should come a time of manifold spiritual revelations to the world, and here they are.”6 Ever the publicity hound, Evans followed up with the New York Tribune. In the December 26, 1874, issue he published a strong statement on behalf of the Shakers in support of Spiritualism, and the physical materialization of spirits, declaring “As an order of people, we, the Shakers, do have established connections ‘with the outlying ghostly world.’ ” Evans noted that he had studied Spiritualism since his conversion to Shakerism forty years prior, and acknowledged that “by it I was converted to Shakerism.” He deemed his experiences at the Eddys “to be as true and real—as genuine—as are any facts in agriculture or chemistry that I have ever witnessed. I fully realize the responsibility I assume with this statement.”7 Evans’s strong public stance begs the question: why did a Shaker elder and practicing Spiritualist of many years’ experience feel the need to travel to Vermont to interact with the spirits? And, who were the controversial Eddy brothers? 203 https://digitalcommons.hamilton.edu/acsq/vol9/iss3/8 4 Goodwillie: Light and Dark Sides of Spiritualism Henry Steel Olcott William Eddy and his brother Horatio G. Eddy lived in rural Chittenden, Vermont (ten miles north of Rutland), in a simple farmhouse that also served as lodging for travelers under the name Green Tavern. Their mother Julia (died 1873) was a clairvoyant, and the brothers were supposed to have inherited her psychic powers, demonstrating them from a very young age. The Eddys held séances for visitors within their home. They came to national attention through the reportage of Henry Steel Olcott. Olcott was a New York City reporter who wrote for the New York Tribune in the 1850s before serving in the Civil War. Following the war he practiced law and resumed journalism. Olcott traveled to Chittenden in 1874 to meet with the Eddys and investigate the fantastical claims circulating about their abilities. His report was published in the New York Sun. Olcott came away from this experience a committed believer in the spiritual and mediumistic powers of the brothers. He described them for his readers: “There is nothing about the Eddys or their surroundings to inspire confidence on first acquaintance. The brothers Horatio and William, who are the present mediums, are sensitive, distant, and curt to strangers, look more like hard-working rough farmers than prophets or priests of a new 204 Published by Hamilton Digital Commons, 2015 5 American Communal Societies Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 3 [2015] dispensation, have dark complexions, black hair and eyes, stiff joints, a clumsy carriage, shrink from advances, and make newcomers feel ill at ease and unwelcome.”8 Following this rather unflattering description Olcott noted how they were on bad terms with their neighbors and the surrounding region at large. His visit at the Eddy’s overlapped with that of Evans, and the two became fast friends during their shared immersion in occult happenings at the farmstead. Following their visit, Olcott wrote Evans pressing him for further observations on the happenings at the Eddy home. Olcott asked Evans if, as a medium, he could see the spirits controlling the manifestations they had both witnessed.
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