Visiting the Shakers

During the second half of the nineteenth century, visitors to Shaker villages were numerous and various, quite various. In 1865, a New York Times reporter offered these observations: “Not a smile illumines the hard, wrinkled features of male or female Shaker. The youngsters ... must enjoy the gymnastics [the Shakers' dancing], but their enjoyment has little opportunity for display. Solemn old heads frown down the slightest demonstration of nature, (wicked human nature), and so the boys' faces are almost as expressionless as their own” (216–17). Just two years later, another observer visiting the same New Lebanon community, with presumably most of the same inhabitants, perceived something quite different: “The people are like their village; soft in speech, demure in bearing, gentle in face.... Life appears to move on Mount Lebanon in an easy kind of rhythm. Order, temperance, frugality, worship—these are the Shaker things which strike upon your senses first; the peace and innocence of Eden, when contrasted with the wrack and riot of New York.” Likewise, the New Lebanon children that this second visitor observed showed no resemblance to the ones described by the Times reporter: “Look at these cheery urchins, in their broad straw hats and with their drooping sash, as they leap and gambol on the turf, laughing, pulling each other, filling this green hill-road with the melodies only to be heard when happy children are at play” (231–32).Those hoping to discover details about the Shaker life and beliefs will find much to satisfy their curiosity in Glendyne Wergland's Visiting the Shakers: 1850–1899, but they will have to gather their information circumspectly. As Wergland cautions in her introduction, “Visitors ... were not authorities on the Shakers, so we have to separate fact from opinion” (1). Although visitors' accounts make up 95 percent of Wergland's compilation, a companion piece to her earlier volume, Visiting the Shakers: 1778–1849, Wergland does indeed in her general introduction and her prologues to each visitor's account assist readers with that separation of “fact” from “opinion.”Considering the drastically different descriptions presented above, readers of Wergland's Visiting the Shakers might expect to encounter opinion more often than fact. However, both the skeptical interlopers and the enthusiastic guests of the Shakers agree in many of their observations, thus assuring readers that beneath the starkly contrasting opinions lie some underlying certainties about Shaker life. Visitors who wrote positive accounts and those who responded negatively offer many similar observations, in particular about three aspects of Shaker life: their prosperity, their plentiful and hearty fare, and the orderliness of their buildings and lands.Most authors concur that the communities displayed affluence, a result of their inhabitants' industry, thrift, and honesty. A group visiting Hancock village in 1864 recorded the following: “We are struck by the evident wealth of the people” (92). A Scottish minister touring the same village five years later wrote that “if you buy a Shaker brush or cart or chair ... or preserved fruit, you may rely on it being the best. Hence Shaker goods are everywhere in demand” (101). Twenty-five years hence, another visitor amplified that same view: “The honesty of the Shakers is proverbial” (111). In the early 1860s a man shown New Lebanon's agriculture remarked on the amazing fecundity of the community's pear orchard. All the trees “exhibited such a burden of fruit as we had never seen before,” because, he concluded, the Shakers were extremely “thorough in whatever they undertake” (207). The well-known observer of communal societies in the second half of the nineteenth century Charles Nordhoff wrote in 1874 after visiting New Lebanon that “a farmer who is in the employ of the Shakers is considered a fortunate man, as they are kind and liberal in their dealing ... and have the reputation of being strictly honest and fair in all their transactions with the world's people” (268).Sojourners who stayed long enough to share a meal also generally agreed that the Shakers belonged to no ascetic sect, at least when it came to food, and that the Believers and their visitors ate well, no matter what the village or the decade. A visitor to Watervliet, New York, in 1868 exclaimed that “a Shaker meal is a wholesome feast” (34). In 1865 a visitor's account was published, as Wergland informs readers, in the Shaker-owned Shaker Manifesto, presumably because he so exuberantly described the lunch he received for just “twenty-five cents!”: “Cold beef, Potato cake, White bread, Apple pie, Brown bread, Milk, Butter, Pickles, Boiled rice, Cream cheese, Baked beans, Cottage cheese, Blackberry jam, Cake, Blackberry pie, Doughnuts” (113). Even a visitor who derided as “deluded” the Shakers' dance and strange gesticulations, the “throwing out ... hands in all directions” (212), agreed with “the oft repeated testimony to the superior quality and excellent preparation of their food” (209). An Englishwoman stopping at New Lebanon in 1866 stated that they “keep a good table,” which she detailed: “home-made bread, butter, coffee, cheese, pies, puddings, cake and preserves—also meat and potatoes, which they eat in moderation” (227). William Hepworth Dixon, who wrote one of the most positive accounts in the compilation, presumably because, as Wergland notes, he “spent more time at Mount Lebanon than the average tourist” (228), described with enthusiasm how Shaker agriculture and food accord with their social and religious “theories”: a Shaker “looks at the face of nature with a lover's eyes, and the great passion of his heart, directed from his money, from his wife, now turn upon the garden and the field” (241). In a less philosophical strain, Dixon described the Shakers' fare, which he connects, with Elder Frederick Evans's urging, to the Shakers' good health: “The food, though it is very good ... and very well cooked, is simple; being wholly, or almost wholly, produce of the earth: tomatoes, roast apples, peaches, potatoes, squash, hominy, boiled corn, pies, tarts, candies, dried fruits and syrups” (235).Many visitors enjoyed partaking of this simple yet bountiful fare, but the most frequently repeated observation made by them concerned the cleanliness, order, and neatness of the villages. While their opinions of the effect of Shaker orderliness varied greatly, visitors to each village in various decades reached a remarkable consensus on the village landscaping and the buildings. Among the more positive visitors, some focused on a particular structure, as did a visitor to Watervliet in 1879 who described “the school-house ... [as] perfectly neat” (42). But most saw order throughout the village and were thus more sweeping in their description, as was a visitor to Hancock in 1860: “Everything [was] neat and Shaker-like” (86); and another to the same village twenty-five years later: if one “visit[s] their rooms, the perfect cleanliness and order so characteristic of the Shakers will everywhere be observed” (111). Observations of Shaker tidiness seem endless: “If the neighboring farmers who smile at them would only emulate their care and cleanliness, they would be happier and richer” (197); “no [Dutch] Haarlem vrouw ever scraped her floor into such perfect neatness” (233); “the floor of the assembly room was astonishingly bright and clean” (280); “the huge stone barn ... is wonderfully clean and neat” (308); “ventilation, dry cellars, pure water, perfect cleanliness of rooms, beds and clothing, and careful removal of all refuse ... [was] likely to exhale the germs of disease” (316); “he ... waved me into a room [Frederick Evans's] plainly furnished and of absolute cleanliness” (346).As to the effect of this order and spotlessness, however, two almost opposite reactions arose. A relative few observers saw it as connected to the Shakers' theology, a sign of inner contentment, their establishment of a heaven on earth, and a following of “Mother Ann's edicts about cleanliness,” as one of Wergland's prefatory notes clarifies when the “poet, travel writer, and journalist Bayard Taylor” mistakenly believes that the Shaker orderliness was designed to increase their lands' value (83). Other visitors saw the opposite effect of this unflagging order, something repressive and at times even ominous: an indication that Shaker life was darkly restricted by inviolable rules and structure. An insistence on a pristine and hygienic environment might have led to gains in physical health, but it also led to losses in psychological well-being. In short, the Shakers' obsession with neatness created a village full of tense and high-strung inhabitants, at least so thought many observers. One writer described the Watervliet meeting house floor as “polished as smooth as glass, and a positively uncomfortable air of neatness prevailed here and everywhere about the establishment” (33). This 1868 report published in a Kenosha, Wisconsin, newspaper article was, as Wergland notes, “plagiarized” from a Troy, New York, newspaper and was probably “reproduced elsewhere” (32). Such a wide distribution of this opinion, that Shaker orderliness produced deleterious effects, probably prompted other visitors to reach similar conclusions. A group touring New Lebanon in the early 1860s found the Shakers' desire for uniformity oppressive. Their spokesperson related that they “were struck with the ridiculous aspect” of much of the worship service and would have “whispered some things derogatory” but that “the slightest irregularity has the effect to call down a torrent of wrath on the head of the offender.” To amplify this sense of repressive regularity that hovered over them in the meeting house, the author surveyed a similar mood of deadening homogeneity throughout the village: “What struck us more forcibly than any thing else ... was the perfect uniformity that prevailed in everything. Stoves are cast alike; wagons are built alike, rooms are furnished alike; in a word, there is upon everything the stamp of sameness” (212). A journalist visiting the same village about twenty years later came away with the same dread of a monochromatic life: “It was a characteristic Shaker dwelling, severe plainness and neatness being everywhere apparent. Indeed the neatness was painful to the eye, which almost longed to see a fly-speck or finger print, to break the dreadful monotony of cleanliness” (336). The unfailing order unsettled many: a woman visiting New Lebanon in 1874 felt threatened by the orderliness of “about a hundred women” she met in one of the community's families: “The women were all of that class that would make every article shine until it was almost painfully forbidding in its accusing, self-righteous purity” (285). Even in a generally positive description of one of the smaller villages, Tyringham, Massachusetts, a visitor found some of the “rooms so very neat that they have an achey look that makes me wish half a dozen youngsters would rush in and turn things over a little” (124).Thus readers of Wergland's compilation will come to understand that the general public harbored some deep misgivings about the Shakers. Even such generally agreed-upon positive attributes of the sect, its villages' invariably clean dwellings and orderly appearance, were turned to disadvantages by suspicious visitors. In a of an early Shaker Shaker to to some of these that until to on “the of in particular would and to a and religious order, ... the of the will be A Shaker both of Wergland's Visiting the Shakers, in accounts by those who only a few in a we see this to the Believers to Wergland's general introduction to the and her prologues to the accounts make readers of many of visitor visitors, for who just a meeting and that and never to one ... of as Wergland that have made the of life Wergland also notes that many male visitors to the ... to Shaker however, the female observers a few male who the with the a about which Wergland is quite and at the time her in the which she as in a of Visiting Wergland clarifies for readers who mistakenly about the Shakers and that they a and by their that of Shakers the nineteenth and that the Shakers had a of public such by the general public did not after many villages to in the early As and Shakers and in social and with the of the Shakers that had in the public were in and and about the One of the most of Wergland's Visiting is that her of visitors' descriptions the and of these but of the Shakers that readers see in about the are more than of by and the the general many of the authors in Wergland's compilation were or published in these misgivings were these skeptical visitors or that they three in Shaker women Shakers were invariably almost the Shakers were never to but to and children in a Shaker village led a similar to visitors, many of only a worship service and described as extremely because they are and Indeed many them as so that they have the a that about the Shakers has for from “The Shaker and William The of their to The Believers and The of the early the visitors' or the who the village that prompted the published likely it was a but one of the in Wergland's the both to authors of and to the a Shaker woman a because in the of ... to most must the she must but her New York Times readers in a similar of at a of the which made them look as if they were so many come up to Shaker meeting in their A Wergland as a did discover when she met some New Lebanon that they were and enjoyed a but her with that of who the Shaker women a service in the meeting was, on by the of a of female almost like ... and as as observed that were very much which more the of the that the Shakers ... had a of public is in two different accounts by a and who in wrote of how “the Shakers were in of In his however, he that no of a happier than the Shaker women and is less than their and does not Shaker from a observation on their his was on these and when just after their faces he how the and the more like a of This in an The Wergland as a who “the Shakers' religious [as] of focused on the “The women for the most and and with their more like thus a of of of Shaker however, even after in only the the in his description of a Shaker “It was as if had his over just one little only the women had heard and of us so so so for their Charles and with of The described a Watervliet in 1879 as “a little woman ... with a from which all curiosity and had long for a if that such a to all Shaker women in in particular of the by which the that is in so that would be a in the of so many visitors, a Shaker village was no for women to or even was this that the New York of and the Shakers as a for any he of the many Shaker at various villages, not to who was the of the for a Other accounts indeed the women in all the villages. As Wergland even some male visitors, such as “the Shaker of the of as male and Shakers, male and are in another often but of the Shakers: the Believers led such a on all by that the villages only those of who were the Shakers, so many and because it visitors' accounts about Shaker about the Shakers from early in the nineteenth century the from and to by the and The about the Shakers visitors' in a village might have their their and in turn their published in and probably the same in and An account about a to Watervliet and published in 1868 stated that “the Shakers are and simple (34). A in 1864 after a to Hancock the the have seen are of and few the stamp of much a Scottish minister visiting Hancock in the children only to for he he received this ... does not for much care about and up the with the of other in for the Even as in the century as a visitor to the same village on the Shakers' of the of the most will more than a of an or and a of Shaker and (111). in to his that Shakers were the Shakers' on it with their on Although Wergland that his and description have by and that both ... a his of the Shakers' on the with what many other “The Shakers ... to a of and by which they are into have of and on is more or Their little enough and not to be in their with the they have no or the is to a few of that Shakers were to a strange was by in particular by in an account published a after New Lebanon as “the which a more over the of than ever visitors of the of and ever as Wergland notes, that a of might not an to a over ... but might be the result of the Shakers' for not being were to a not visitors a that the Shakers their on another more the children who in the they were or of who Shaker were from as children would because, in the of one visitor old heads frown down the slightest demonstration of (216–17). visitors felt that the children were Such a is a of the general by the and published throughout the of the Shakers. The of the or even Shaker for the time in “The Shaker but it is in and early for The of and accounts the in these Charles in 1879 that a Watervliet life was about in an of but of was pulling up and from the In all these children there was the air of and from that their of came from a visitor to New Lebanon in 1860: are almost no Shaker children to be seen in the them and them for of or of them more of the and An who recorded positive about his at New Lebanon in a at a that probably many who it that the Shakers were and the children related that he was for his a and a of about years of in Shaker The the that she was away from the and had after many they the of two Shaker the minister and other the not to and the into his and later with a did discover that the was probably to [the in a kind of and that ... in for the they were to to his a however, to even more about the Shakers' of many of the other were probably not to the information about and children by the to the other which not even have this to an the Shakers of some and into his description of a dance a quite about Shakers' “It was a all in two the of both following one another in the and the children children they like the of in the Such an must be what Wergland is to when she that a writer who a the Shakers the of some and to the published in in with its wide in New York and must have also the even though in it the Shakers of the children The William after touring New wrote that the Shakers from the from which they the children and them that if they Shaker the will and described how one some of her to with her to the of the she the for and life and the other children her to see the and the that it did one the children and his or his no indication as to he saw the or just heard about a the Shakers: “Mother the but ... us that in happy they are and are such little as they that the to children who are from so and a of nature ... as that which the Shaker in her general introduction that one for in her compilation that the account had to have enough details to that the author had a Shaker a that of account though it is that he his the described such accounts are very for both the and the Shaker Wergland's of these accounts in this is to be for they and of the Shakers how turn to and how fact and when observers are about a sect, to that has to some of these however, careful readers, with the of Wergland's and in out many about Shaker life. of the readers to these and and and Shaker In short, they are for by that at least a of would and to a and religious Among these more visitor is the one by Hepworth Dixon, who presented a of a who that she with but who also makes neat and description by us to a a who is of great described and a few of his Shakers as upon and than those who ... be account readers the exuberantly of a who for some time with us in and by her information of the and life of this and short, there is little to in Wergland's compilation and much to her down these accounts in many of and of Shaker and in One might for a few more that the of some made by the Shakers or visitors, but that would have a that would have to this such a is probably when a the for Frederick Evans's to and “the was a to a in which an was to to be a Wergland has indeed enough on both that readers will come away with a that the Shakers but to her to each her and her readers will also with a both of the about the and of the of Shaker life some of the more accounts of skeptical visitors

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