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The Shakers in Knox County OLIVERW The Shakers in Knox County OLIVERW. ROBINSON Many people here in the Middle Wkst who maintain an interest in social experiments are familiar with the details of the New Harmony commune under the Rappites and later under the Owens, but few are aware that a somewhat similar commune under the Shakers existed at Busrol on the north- ern border of Knox County during the first three decades of the nineteenth century.2 Even the people who now live on the land still known as Shaker Prairie are for the most part vague as to who the Shakers really were and what they be- lieved.s The official name for the Shakers was the “United Society of the Believers in Christ‘s Second Appearing”. They were also known as “Aletheans”, or the “Millennia1 Church” ; but even the members of the society accepted the name “Shaker”, although it was originally applied to them in ridicule of certain spontaneous movements which formed a part of the ecstasy of their worship. Peaceful, idealistic, industrious people, they lived and worked together communistically in their thrifty little vil- lages, recognizing neither death nor marriage-all of which may seem extremely impractical and utopian. Yet in enforc- ing their opposition to marital love, the Shakers became real- istic enough to house the sexes in separate dormitories. The earliest cabins built by the Shaker apostles, who came from Ohio to the Knox-Sullivan County border in 1808, were arranged to encourage celiba~y,~,and the entire mode of living was planned accordingly. A few quotations from the “Rules of Propriety” will better develop this point: Brethren and sisters should not pass each other on the stairs . but when in company with each other, the brethren should go up- stairs first, and the sisters go down-stairs first. Brethren and sisters should not visit each other’s apartments late in the evening. When sisters walk in the fields, gardens, barns, or to the brethren’s *Located sixteen miles north of Vincennes and two miles east of the Wabash on Busseron Creek. The settlement was colloquially known a8 Shakertown. AUaa of Knox CuuRty, published ci~ca1880. PZbid. The lands on which the Shaker community was located were partb in Sullivan County. Only the Shaker name persists. 4Georee E. Greene, History of Vimennes and Knoz Count# (Chicago, 1911). 373. Shakers in Knox County 35 shops, there should be at least two in the company, and it is no less important when they ride in a carriage.5 Just how efficiently some of those Shaker precautions oper- ated at Busro we shall see later! The Shakers further believed in common ownership of property; in the dignity of labor for every member, regard- less of how high or how low his position might be in the re- ligious organization ; in complete abstinence from tobacco and liquor, except for medical use; in vegetarianism; and in a plain, uniform style of dress-subdued colors, with white handkerchiefs and caps for the women, and loose, coarse suits for the men, whose hair was usually worn long on the neck and cut off in short bangs across the forehead. The preceding summary of characteristics no doubt ap- pears simple enough, but actually to understand the Shaker conception of life it is necessary to go briefly into the history and tenets of their religion. The founder of the sect was Ann Lee, who was born in England on February 29, 1736. The daughter of a blacksmith who lived in Toad Lane, Manches- ter, she had little if any opportunity for education and went as a child to work in the cotton mills. Even so, in spite of her humble origin, she was able-through a strong will and an effective tongue-to exert a surprising amount of in- fluence over her associates. After marrying a blacksmith named Stanley and losing her four children in early infancy, she turned her at- tention to religion and became a believer in a certain Jane Wardlaw of Bolton-on-the-Moors, Lancashire, who was prophesying that Christ would soon return to earth in the form of a woman-as David had suggested in the Psalms. Immediately, Ann Lee began to preach the same doctrine in Toad Lane, and was so successful in collecting street crowds that she was arrested and imprisoned for two weeks at Old Bailey in Manchester, the charges being “dancing, shouting, and blaspheming on the Sabbath” and obstructing the thor- oughfare.e Upon her release, she reported that one night during her imprisonment her cell had been filled with heav- 6Quoted in The Literary Digest Sept. 30, 1922. The original Rules may be found in various editions of the dompendium of the Origin History Principles Rules and Regzrlations, Government and Doctrines of the United Societu ‘of Believer; in Christ’s Second Appearing. Other specimen rules are: “Shake your bed-clothes separately and air your bed every morning so that the effete matter that has been thrown off from the body may escape and not remain to he again absorbed by the imphatics . Never eat what you do not need because it pleases your taste. It is better to bear the cross and be saved from dyspepsia.” 6 Encyclopaedia Britannia (eleventh edition), 36 Indiana Magazine of History enly light and Christ had united with her both in form and in spirit and was thereafter to reign on earth through her- Ann Lee. This story, regardless of her previous success, was too great a taxation on the faith of Toad Lane. Consequently, after considerable jeering and mud-throwing had been direct- ed toward her, she had another vision in which she was advised to go to America. Accompanied by seven disciples-two women and five men besides her husband-she reached New York shortly before the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Not liking the city, she moved into the country, and with her disciples founded the settlement of Watervliet, near Albany, New York. There, for three and a half years, she waited passively for converts. In the meantime her husband left her, when she began to enforce celibacy on the grounds that men must live as the angels live without any form of earthly love. Ap- parently Mr. Stanley was only a blacksmith with little ap- preciation of angelic conduct. In other respects, the long period of waiting was success- ful. Finally, as the result of a religious revival in the vicinity of Albany, Joseph Meacham, a Baptist minister from En- field, Connecticut, and Lucy Wright came to Watervliet to see what Ann Lee had to offer in the way of spiritual satis- faction. They immediately became converts and in turn won other converts so that a second settlement of the followers of Ann Lee came into existence at Mount Lebanon, which is now considered the parent colony. By this time Ann Lee was known as “Mother Ann” and her followers as “Shakers.” During the Revolution, since she denounced war, refused to take the Colonial oaths, and forbade her men to serve on juries,? she was for several months imprisoned in Pough- keepsie under suspicion of being a British spy. This circum- stance, though at first discouraging, really turned out to her great advantage-for much publicity was attached to the imprisonment of “the female Christ”.* After her release in 1780, she made a rather successful missionary and faith- healing tour through New England which resulted eventually in the formation of eleven additional societies. That tour proved to be the climax of Ann Lee’s career. In 1783, she returned to Watervliet, and about a year later 7 Even in recent times Shakers declined the privilege of voting. 8 Dictionary of Ammimn Biography. Shakers in Knoz County 37 died there. Many of her followers were somewhat surprised, for they had expected Mother Ann to live forever, but Joseph Meacham and Lucy Wright-to whom Ann Lee had given over all authority shortly before her death-ably explained that Mother Ann had not ceased to live among her people but that clothed in new glory she was still visible to those who had attained the proper degree of grace. Meachani and Miss Wright then proceded to draw up a definite covenant concerning the beliefs and social system of all Shakers. Nany of the tenets of the covenant appear to have originated directly from Ann Lee’s life, her ministry, and her theories: namely, that the godhead is both male and female; that Christ in the person of Mother Ann has returned to earth to establish a kingdom of heaven; that the believer -after confessing his sins-is already in heaven, where there is no death and no marriage; that the body is not resurrect- ed but that those who “have passed from sight” are still in communion with all believers; that active evangelism is un- necessary since God will attract converts when they are needed ; and that labor is a sacred privilege.9 In 1796, Joseph Meacham died, but Lucy Wright and others of the faith efficiently carried on the organization and promulgated the doctrine as opportunity presented itself. Soon after 1800, Archibald Meacham and Issachar Bates, as missionaries, came to Ohio and organized several societies, the most important of which was at Union Village in Warren County.lo In 1808, they visited Knox County, Indiana, where they purchased 1300 acres of land, mostly in Busseron Town- ship, from Robert Huston and Joseph Worthington.ll The ori- ginal group of Shaker colonists at Busro-as the settlement was officially named-numbered only two dozen, but their ag- ricultural success soon attracted several local residents,I2 and, finally augmented in 1811 by a substantial influx of members of the society from Eagle Creek, Adams County, Ohio, the total number at Busro reached 300.1a BEncr~clopaedia Britannfca.
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