The Communistic Societies of the United States by Charles Nordhoff
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Charles Nordhoff >> The Communistic Societies of the United States
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[Illustration: VIEW OF A SHAKER VILLAGE.]
Mount Lebanon lies beautifully among the hills of Berkshire, two and a
half miles from Lebanon Springs, and seven miles from Pittsfield. The
settlement is admirably placed on the hillside to which it clings,
securing it good drainage, abundant water, sunshine, and the easy
command of water-power. Whoever selected the spot had an excellent eye
for beauty and utility in a country site. The views are lovely, broad,
and varied; the air is pure and bracing; and, in short, a company of
people desiring to seclude themselves from the world could hardly have
chosen a more delightful spot.
As you drive up the road from Lebanon Springs, the first building
belonging to the Shaker settlement which meets your eye is the enormous
barn of the North Family, said to be the largest in the three or four
states which near here come together, as in its interior arrangements it
is one of the most complete. This huge structure lies on a hillside, and
is two hundred and ninety-six feet long by fifty wide, and five stories
high, the upper story being on a level with the main road, and the lower
opening on the fields behind it. Next to this lies the sisters' shop,
three stories high, used for the women's industries; and next, on the
same level, the family house, one hundred feet by forty, and five
stories high. Behind these buildings, which all lie directly on the main
road, is another set--an additional dwelling-house, in which are the
visitors' room and several rooms where applicants for admission remain
while they are on trial; near this an enormous woodshed, three stories
high; below a carriage-house, wagon sheds, the brothers' shop, where
different industries are carried on, such as broom-making and putting
up garden seeds; and farther on, the laundry, a saw-mill and grist-mill
and other machinery, and a granary, with rooms for hired men over it.
The whole establishment is built on a tolerably steep hillside.
[Illustration: THE HERB HOUSE, MOUNT LEBANON]
A quarter of a mile farther on are the buildings of the Church Family,
and also the great boiler-roofed church of the society; and other
communes or families are scattered along, each having all its interests
separate, and forming a distinct community, with industries of its own,
and a complete organization for itself.
[Illustration: MEETING HOUSE AT MOUNT LEBANON]
The initiations show sufficiently the character of the different
buildings and the style of architecture, and make more detailed
description needless. It need only be said that whereas on Mount Lebanon
they build altogether of wood, in other settlements they use also brick
and stone. But the peculiar nature of their social arrangements leads
them to build very large houses.
Elder Frederick came to give me notice that I was permitted to witness
the funeral ceremonies of the departed sister, which were set for ten
o'clock, in the assembly-room; and thither I was accordingly conducted
at the proper time by one of the brethren. The members came into the
room rapidly, and ranged themselves in ranks, the men and women on
opposite sides of the room, and facing each other. All stood up, there
being no seats. A brief address by Elder Frederick opened the services,
after which there was singing; different brethren and sisters spoke
briefly; a call was made to the spirit of the departed to communicate,
and in the course of the meeting a medium delivered some words supposed
to be from this source; some memorial verses were read by one of the
sisters; and then the congregation separated, after notice had been
given that the body of the dead sister would be placed in the hall,
where all could take a last look at her face. I, too, was asked to look;
the good brother who conducted me to the plain, unpainted pine coffin
remarking very sensibly that "the body is not of much importance after
it is dead."
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF MEETINGHOUSE AT MOUNT LEBANON]
Afterwards, in conversation, Elder Frederick told me that the
"spiritual" manifestations were known among the Shakers many years
before Kate Fox was born; that they had had all manner of
manifestations, but chiefly visions and communications through mediums;
that they fell, in his mind, into three epochs: in the first the spirits
laboring to convince unbelievers in the society; in the second proving
the community, the spirits relating to each member his past history, and
showing up, in certain cases, the insincerity of professions; in the
third, he said, the Shakers reacted on the spirit world, and formed
communities of Shakers there, under the instruction of living Shakers.
"There are at this time," said he, "many thousands of Shakers in the
spirit world." He added that the mediums in the society had given much
trouble because they imagined themselves reformers, whereas they were
only the mouth-pieces of spirits, and oftenest themselves of a low
order of mind. They had to teach the mediums much, after the spirits
ceased to use them.
In what follows I give the substance, and often the words, of many
conversations with Elder Frederick and with several of the brethren,
relating to details of management and to doctrinal points and opinions,
needed to fill up the sketch given in the two previous chapters.
As to new members, Elder Frederick said the societies had not in recent
years increased--some had decreased in numbers. But they expected large
accessions in the course of the next few years, having prophecies among
themselves to that effect. Religious revivals he regarded as "the
hot-beds of Shakerism;" they always gain members after a "revival" in
any part of the country. "Our proper dependence for increase is on the
spirit and gift of God working outside. Hence we are friendly to all
religious people."
They had changed their policy in regard to taking children, for
experience had proved that when these grew up they were oftenest
discontented, anxious to gain property for themselves, curious to see
the world, and therefore left the society. For these reasons they now
almost always decline to take children, though there are some in every
society; and for these they have schools--a boys' school in the winter
and a girls' school in summer-teaching all a trade as they grow up.
"When men or women come to us at the age of twenty-one or twenty-two,
then they make the best Shakers. The society then gets the man's or
woman's best energies, and experience shows us that they have then had
enough of the world to satisfy their curiosity and make them restful. Of
course we like to keep up our numbers; but of course we do not sacrifice
our principles. You will be surprised to know that we lost most
seriously during the war. A great many of our younger people went into
the army; many who fought through the war have since applied to come
back to us; and where they seem to have the proper spirit, we take them.
We have some applications of this kind now."
A great many Revolutionary soldiers joined the societies in their early
history; these did not draw their pensions; most of them lived to be
old, and "I proved to Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton once, when we were
threatened with a draft," said Elder Frederick, "that our members had
thus omitted to draw from the government over half a million of dollars
due as pensions for army service."
With their management, he said, they had not much difficulty in
sloughing off persons who come with bad or low motives; and in this I
should say he was right; for the life is strictly ascetic, and has no
charms for the idler or for merely sentimental or romantic people. "If
one comes with low motives, he will not be comfortable with us, and will
presently go away; if he is sincere, he may yet be here a year or two
before he finds himself in his right place; but if he has the true
vocation he will gradually work in with us."
He thought an order of celibates ought to exist in every Protestant
community, and that its members should be self-supporting, and not
beggars; that the necessities and conscience of many in every civilized
community would be relieved if there were such an order open to them.
In admitting members, no property qualification is made; and in practice
those who come in singly, from time to time, hardly ever possess any
thing; but after a great revival of religion, when numbers come in,
usually about half bring in more or less property, and often large
amounts.
As to celibacy, he asserted in the most positive manner that it is
healthful, and tends to prolong life; "as we are constantly proving." He
afterward gave me a file of the _Shaker_, a monthly paper, in which
the deaths in all the societies are recorded; and I judge from its
reports that the death rate is low, and the people mostly long-lived.
[Footnote: In nine numbers of the _Shaker_ (year 1873), twenty-seven
deaths are recorded. Of these, Abigail Munson died at Mount Lebanon,
aged 101 years, 11 months, and 12 days. The ages of the remainder were
97, 93, 88, 87, 86, 82, six above 75, four above 70, 69, 65, 64, 55, 54,
49, 37, 31, and two whose ages were not given.]
"We look for a testimony against disease," he said; "and even now I hold
that no man who lives as we do has a right to be ill before he is sixty;
if he suffer from disease before that, he is in fault. My life has been
devoted to introducing among our people a knowledge of true
physiological laws; and this knowledge is spreading among all our
societies. We are not all perfect yet in these respects; but we grow.
Formerly fevers were prevalent in our houses, but now we scarcely ever
have a case; and the cholera has never yet touched a Shaker village."
"The joys of the celibate life are far greater than I can make you know.
They are indescribable."
The Church Family at Mount Lebanon, by the way, have built and fitted up
a commodious hospital, for the permanently disabled of the society
there. It is empty, but ready; and "better empty than full," said an
aged member to me.
Among the members they have people who were formerly clergymen, lawyers,
doctors, farmers, students, mechanics, sea-captains, soldiers, and
merchants; preachers are in a much larger proportion than any of the
other professions or callings. They get members from all the religious
denominations except the Roman Catholic; they have even Jews. Baptists,
Methodists, Presbyterians, and Adventists furnish them the greatest
proportion. They have always received colored people, and have some in
several of the societies.
"Every commune, to prosper, must be founded, so far as its industry
goes, on agriculture. Only the simple labors and manners of a farming
people can hold a community together. Wherever we have departed from
this rule to go into manufacturing, we have blundered." For his part, he
would like to make a law for the whole country, that every man should
own a piece of land and work on it. Moreover, a community, he said,
should, as far as possible, make or produce all it uses. "We used to
have more looms than now, but cloth is sold so cheaply that we gradually
began to buy. It is a mistake; we buy more cheaply than we can make, but
our home-made cloth is much better than that we can buy; and we have now
to make three pairs of trousers, for instance, where before we made one.
Thus our little looms would even now be more profitable--to say nothing
of the independence we secure in working them."
[Illustration: SHAKER TANNERY, MOUNT LEBANON]
In the beginning, he said, the societies were desirous to own land; and
he thought immoderately so. They bought to the extent of their means;
being economical, industrious, and honest, they saved money rapidly, and
always invested their surplus in more land. Then to cultivate these
farms they adopted children and young people. Twenty years ago the
Legislature of New York had before it a bill to limit the quantity of
land the Shakers should be allowed to hold, and the number of
apprentices they should take. It was introduced, he said, by their
enemies, but they at once agreed to it, and thereupon it was dropped;
but since then the society had come generally to favor a law limiting
the quantity of land which any citizen should own to not more than one
hundred acres.
[Illustration: SHAKER OFFICE AND STORE AT MOUNT LEBANON]
He thought it a mistake in his people to own farms outside of their
family limits, as now they often do. This necessitates the employment of
persons not members, and this he thought impolitic. "If every out-farm
were sold, the society would be better off. They are of no real
advantage to us, and I believe of no pecuniary advantage either. They
give us a prosperous look, because we improve them well, and they do
return usually a fair percentage upon the investment; but, on the other
hand, this success depends upon the assiduous labor of some of our
ablest men, whose services would have been worth more at home. We ought
to get on without the use of outside labor. Then we should be confined
to such enterprises as are best for us. Moreover we ought not to make
money. We ought to make no more than a moderate surplus over our usual
living, so as to lay by something for hard times. In fact, we do not do
much more than this."
Nevertheless nearly all the Shaker societies have the reputation of
being wealthy.
In their daily lives many profess to have attained perfection: these are
the older people. I judge by the words I have heard in their meetings
that the younger members have occasion to wish for improvement, and do
discover faults in themselves. One of the older Shakers, a man of
seventy-two years, and of more than the average intelligence, said to
me, in answer to a direct question, that he had for years lived a
sinless life. "I say to any who know me, as Jesus said to the Pharisees,
'which of you convicteth me of sin.'" Where faults are committed, it is
held to be the duty of the offender to confess to the elder, or, if it
is a woman, to the eldress; and it is for these, too, to administer
reproof. "For instance, suppose one of the members to possess a hasty
temper, not yet under proper curb; suppose he or she breaks out into
violent words or impatience, in a shop or elsewhere; the rest ought to
and do tell the elder, who will thereupon administer reproof. But also
the offending member ought not to come to meeting before having made
confession of his sin to the elder, and asked pardon of those who were
the subjects and witnesses of the offense."
As to books and literature in general, they are not a reading people.
"Though a man should gain all the natural knowledge in the universe, he
could not thereby gain either the knowledge or power of salvation from
sin, nor redemption from a sinful nature." [Footnote: "Christ's First
and Second Appearing"] Elder Frederick's library is of extremely limited
range, and contains but a few books, mostly concerning social problems
and physiological laws. The Swedish brother, who had been a student,
said in answer to my question, that it did not take him long to wean
himself from the habit of books; and that now, when he felt a temptation
in that direction, he knew he must examine himself, because he felt
there was something wrong about him, dragging him down from his higher
spiritual estate. He did not regret his books at all. An intelligent,
thoughtful old Scotchman said on the same subject that he, while still
of the world, had had a hobby for chemical research, to which he would
probably have devoted his life; that he still read much of the newest
investigations, but that he had found it better to turn his attention to
higher matters; and to bring the faculties which led him naturally
toward chemical studies to the examination of social problems, and to
use his knowledge for the benefit of the society.
The same old Scotchman, now seventy-three years old, and a cheery old
fellow, who had known the elder Owen, and has lived as a Shaker forty
years, I asked, "Well, on the whole, reviewing your life, do you think
it a success?" He replied, clearly with the utmost sincerity:
"Certainly; I have been living out the highest aspirations my mind was
capable of. The best I knew has been realized for and around me here.
With my ideas of society I should have been unfit for any thing in the
world, and unhappy because every thing around me would have worked
contrary to my belief in the right and the best. Here I found my place
and my work, and have been happy and content, seeing the realization of
the highest I had dreamed of."
Considering the homeliness of the buildings, which mostly have the
appearance of mere factories or human hives, I asked Elder Frederick
whether, if they were to build anew, they would not aim at some
architectural effect, some beauty of design. He replied with great
positiveness, "No, the beautiful, as you call it, is absurd and
abnormal. It has no business with us. The divine man has no right to
waste money upon what you would call beauty, in his house or his daily
life, while there are people living in misery." In building anew, he
would take care to have more light, a more equal distribution of heat,
and a more general care for protection and comfort, because these things
tend to health and long life. But no beauty. He described to me
amusingly the disgust he had experienced in a costly New York dwelling,
where he saw carpets nailed down on the floor, "of course with piles of
dust beneath, never swept away, and of which I had to breathe;" and with
heavy picture-frames hung against the walls, also the receptacles of
dust. "You people in the world are not clean according to our Shaker
notions. And what is the use of pictures?" he added scornfully.
[Illustration: A SHAKER ELDER.]
They have paid much attention to the early Jewish policy in Palestine,
and the laws concerning the distribution of land, the Sabbatical year,
service, and the collection of debts, are praised by them as
establishing a far better order of things for the world in general than
that which obtains in the civilized world to-day.
They hold strongly to the equality of women with men, and look forward
to the day when women shall, in the outer world as in their own
societies, hold office as well as men. "Here we find the women just as
able as men in all business affairs, and far more spiritual." "Suppose a
woman wanted, in your family, to be a blacksmith, would you consent?" I
asked; and he replied, "No, because this would bring men and women into
relations which we do not think wise." In fact, while they call men and
women equally to the rulership, they very sensibly hold that in general
life the woman's work is in the house, the man's out of doors; and there
is no offer to confuse the two.
Moreover, being celibates, they use proper precautions in the
intercourse of the sexes. Thus Shaker men and women do not shake hands
with each other; their lives have almost no privacy, even to the elders,
of whom two always room together; the sexes even eat apart; they labor
apart; they worship, standing and marching, apart; they visit each other
only at stated intervals and according to a prescribed order; and in all
things the sexes maintain a certain distance and reserve toward each
other. "We have no scandal, no tea-parties, no gossip."
Moreover, they mortify the body by early rising and by very plain
living. Few, as I said before, eat meat; and I was assured that a
complete and long-continued experience had proved to them that young
people maintain their health and strength fully without meat. They wear
a very plain and simple dress, without ornament of any kind; and the
costume of the women does not increase their attractiveness, and makes
it difficult to distinguish between youth and age. They keep no pet
animals, except cats, which are maintained to destroy rats and mice.
They have, of course, none of the usual relations to children--and the
boys and girls whom they take in are in each family put under charge of
a special "care-taker," and live in separate houses, each sex by itself.
Smoking tobacco is by general consent strictly prohibited. A few chew
tobacco, but this is thought a weakness, to be left off as standing in
the way of a perfect life.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF SHAKER CHILDREN]
[Illustration: SHAKER DINING HALL]
The following notice in the _Shaker_ shows that even some very old
sinners in this respect reform:
OBITUARY.
On Tuesday, Feb. 20th, 1873, _Died,_ by the power of truth, and for
the cause of Human Redemption, at the Young Believers' Order, Mt. Lebanon,
in the following much-beloved Brethren, the aged respectively.
No funeral ceremonies, no mourners, no grave-yard; but an honorable
RECORD thereof made in the Court above. Ed.
In D.S. .............. 51 years' duration.
In C.M. .............. 57 "
In A.G. .............. 15 "
In T.S. .............. 36 "
In OLIVER PRENTISS ... 71 "
In L.S. .............. 45 "
In H.C. .............. 53 "
In O.K. .............. 12 "
Reviewing all these details, it did not surprise me when Elder Frederick
remarked, "Every body is not called to the divine life." To a man or
woman not thoroughly and earnestly in love with an ascetic life and
deeply disgusted with the world, Shakerism would be unendurable; and I
believe insincerity to be rare among them. It is not a comfortable place
for hypocrites or pretenders.
The housekeeping of a Shaker family is very thoroughly and effectively
done. The North Family at Mount Lebanon consists of sixty persons; six
sisters suffice to do the cooking and baking, and to manage the
dining-hall; six other sisters in half a day do the washing of the whole
family. The deaconesses give out the supplies. The men milk in bad
weather, the women when it is warm. The Swedish brother told me that he
was this winter taking a turn at milking--to mortify the flesh, I
imagine, for he had never done this in his own home; and he used neither
milk nor butter. Many of the brethren have not tasted meat in from
twenty-five to thirty-five years. Tea and coffee are used, but very
moderately.
There is no servant class.
"In a community, it is necessary that some one person shall always know
where every body is," and it is the elder's office to have this
knowledge; thus if one does not attend a meeting, he tells the elder the
reason why.
Obedience to superiors is an important part of the life of the order.
Living as they do in large families compactly stowed, they have become
very careful against fires, and "a real Shaker always, when he has gone
out of a room, returns and takes a look around to see that all is
right."
The floor of the assembly room was astonishingly bright and clean, so
that I imagined it had been recently laid. It had, in fact, been used
twenty-nine years; and in that time had been but twice scrubbed with
water. But it was swept and polished daily; and the brethren wear to the
meetings shoes made particularly for those occasions, which are without
nails or pegs in the soles, and of soft leather. They have invented many
such tricks of housekeeping, and I could see that they acted just as a
parcel of old bachelors and old maids would, any where else, in these
particulars--setting much store by personal comfort, neatness, and
order; and no doubt thinking much of such minor morals. For instance, on
the opposite page is a copy of verses which I found in the visitors'
room in one of the Shaker families--a silent but sufficient hint to the
careless and wasteful.
Like the old monasteries, they are the prey of beggars, who always
receive a dole of food, and often money enough to pay for a night's
lodging in the neighboring village; for they do not like to take in
strangers.
The visiting which is done on Sunday evenings is perhaps as curious as
any part of their ceremonial. Like all else in their lives, these visits
are prearranged for them--a certain group of sisters visiting a certain
group of brethren. The sisters, from four to eight in number, sit in a
row on one side, in straight-backed chairs, each with her neat hood or
cap, and each with a clean white handkerchief spread stiffly across her
lap. The brethren, of equal number, sit opposite them, in another row,
also in stiff-backed chairs, and also each with a white handkerchief
smoothly laid over his knees. Thus arranged, they converse upon the news
of the week, events in the outer world, the farm operations, and the
weather; they sing, and in general have a pleasant reunion, not without
gentle laughter and mild amusement. They meet at an appointed time, and
at another set hour they part; and no doubt they find great satisfaction
in this--the only meeting in which they fall into sets which do not
include the whole family.
TABLE MONITOR.
GATHER UP THE FRAGMENTS THAT REMAIN, THAT NOTHING BE LOST.--Christ.
Here then is the pattern
Which Jesus has set;
And his good example
We cannot forget:
With thanks for his blessings
His word we'll obey;
But on this occasion
We've somewhat to say.
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