Bromfield High School - Beacon Yearbook (Harvard, MA)

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arnmsaeta Beacon THE SHAKERS The Shakers, a religious sect, came from England to America on August 7, 1774, to seek religious freedom. Their founder, Ann Lee, came from Manchester, England. She believed she had received special spiri- tual gifts from God and that the Lord Jesus had become one with her in form and spirit. The Shakers are a peculiar people, as they will themselves admit, but their habits and ways, although they may be amusing and interesting, certainly are far better than many of the ordinary living habits of the world , as the non-Shakers were called. The Shakers worked earnestly from dawn to dusk. They rose at 4:30 a.m. and proceeded to work until six when they ate breakfast. At the table they stood behind their chairs and said a few silent prayers. After break- fast they toiled at their tasks until the lunch bell rang at 11 130. This meal and the evening meal, eaten at six, were conducted in the same manner as the breakfast. The Shaker religion forbids the eating of any flesh meat or fish. It is believed that their long and healthy life is due to the absence of meat and rich foods from their diet. Their plain customs are carried through to their meals. The work the Shakers did is most amazing. We find that they depended largely upon the goods they produced and made themselves. It is indeed striking to find that all the clothing, food, utensils, and furniture used by the colony were made by the Shakers themselves. Their simplicity is evi- dent in all their manners, clothing, and furniture. This simplicity is part of their religion. They believed that simplicity and suiering brought them closer to God. Their industry was also a part of their belief. They thought that if one worked all the time he would have no time to do or think evil. This, if one stops to think, is quite logical. The men in the Shaker Village attended to all the heavy work such as the farming, building of the houses, and manufacturing their machinery and tools. The w-omen did all the house-hold chores and made the clothes worn by the Shakers. The young boys made the door mats and did other little chores about the house, but, like all young boys, they would much rather have been out in the fields with the men driving the oxen. The Sha- ker men went out to the surrounding towns to build for the people of the world . They built many houses and barns around Shirley and Harvard. The women made and sold capes, baskets, brooms, mats, and other articles that any housekeeper would need. The Shakers living in Harvard were treated very cruelly - merely because they were not understood by the people. I will relate a few in- stances where the mobs of t-ownspeople attacked the Shakers. When the Shakers were driven out of Harvard, they were usually driven away to Lancaster. Upon one occasion the townspeople broke in upon the Shaker meeting. The Shakers were whipped and pushed about and were made to walk, at a lively pace, to Still River and then to Lancas- ter. The mob, because they rode on horses, were able to keep the pace, but the walking Shakers often lagged behind. Page Twenty-four

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Br-om?ieLcl Beacon Party in 1773, the closing of Boston Harbor, and other infringing acts by the British added greatly to the starting of the Revolution. After the Revolutionary War, came social and economic problems which were remedied by a constitution, supplementing the Provincial Con- gress. This constitution, drawn up mainly by John Adams, was ratified by the people on June seventh, 1780. To this very day the original frame of this masterpiece is used here and was used as a model for the nation. Next came the Federal Constitution and Washington's presidency. General prosperity followed the economic depression that came as a result of the war. In Jefferson's second term came the Embargo Act to stop France and England from interfering with American shipping. Massa- chusetts suffered heavily, and Mr. Madison's War made things worse by stopping all trade from Boston until 1815. As a result of the embargo, industries were started to supplement pre- vious imports. The year 1816 gave us a protective tariff to shield the infant industries from foreign competition. Abundance of water power, other natural resources, and money aided in the rapid growth of textiles and other enterprises. The Erie Canal in 1825 turned much of the farming population to industry as competition from the West grew. The growth of the West necessitated a general liberalizing of the Constitutiong thus re- forms were carried out in 1820 to hold the people from westward migration. Then in 1833 church and state were completely separated. Universal education led by Horace Mann and a movement to aid the insane led by Dorothea L. Dix portrayed the start of social progress made in the early nineteenth century. William Lloyd Garrison in 1831 started His weekly The Liberator which under him was directed to inform the pub- lic about slave conditions. The Anti-Slavery Society and the Underground Railways show a reforming intent prior to the Civil War. Industrial expansion, increased volume of imported raw materials, and considerably larger income from Boston and Gloucester fishing indus- tries made the state prosperous following the Civil War. Out of the major industries grew demands for others, and in 1937 an industrial survey showed Massachusetts to be first in twenty-five manu- factures. The state has kept abreast of the nation in its legislation improv- ing labor conditions concerning w-omen and minors in industry. The state has greatly improved its public school system and is noted for its colleges and universities. Now in the years following World War 11, Massachusetts is faced with many serious problems. Many of her industries are migrating to other parts of the country because of unfavorable tax conditions hereg her penal system has long since been outmoded by those of her sister statesg her land suffers from erosion and unscrupulous removal of top soil, her rivers are polluted by industrial waste, and her system of roads leaves much to be desired. The future of our state can be what we make it. We, as her citi- zens, must do our part in solving these problems. Francis Lennihan, Jr. Pccre Tvle-nty-three

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Br-om?ieLcl Beacon When crossing Jeremiah Willard's pasture, Abijah Worster, a Shaker, called to James Shepherd, another Believer, and they embraced each other. At this the mob became furious and began beating Abijah. When the group came upon a level plain in Still River, they ordered the Believers to stop, and they beat James Shepherd with sticks gathered from the woods. After this was done, they c-ontinued driving the Shakers to Lancaster. Upon their return to Still River, the mob still held Abijah Worster in captivity. They proceeded to tie him to the big tree in front of the house of Thaddeus Pollard, now the home of Mrs. Hortense Hull. A small group of the mob was selected to get sticks, and each man in his turn whipped their victim a certain number of strokes. When riding by and seeing this, James Haskell, a respected citizen of Harvard, stopped, removed his coat and told the mob that he would rather receive some of the blows himself than for Abijah to receive them all. Hearing this remark, the mob, stricken with fear, rode off. The Shaker furniture was a symbol of the Shaker customs and further carried out their belief in simplicity. The furniture was all light weight but very sturdy, the heaviest chair weighing not more than ten pounds and the lightest weighing not more than five pounds. The wood was well seasoned, and the chairs were well constructed with hardwood pegs and dowels. Examples of Shaker furniture are armchairs, side chairs, rocking chairs, kitchen tables, dining tables, trestle tables, tripod stands, linen chests, chests of drawers, lap desks, and cabinet desks. The wood used in this furniture was of the type most easily obtained. The Shakers preferred using the lighter weight woods. Paint or stains were never used in finish- ing the pieces. The Shakers later adopted a method whereby they dipped the chairs and other light pieces in vats filled with a dye made from butter- nut bark and sumac, which gave a cherry color. The Shaker ingenuity gave to this modern world a great many new inventions. It gave us the disk harrow, circular saw, washing machine, horse collar, clothespin, and the apple parer and corer. The Shakers are steadily diminishing in numbers. Their population at the peak of their prosperity was 4,8695 now their colony consists of 500 souls. These Shakers are now residing at Mount Lebanon, New York. Although the Shaker sect is dying away, the lesson of self-sacrifice and diligence, which they taught, will live long after they are n-o more. Jane Waters lk Ik 214 A FORESTRY Forestry is the art or science of forming or cultivating forests. Its purpose is to develop a forest so that it will yield the biggest crop possible. The timber may be in the form of lumber, poles, trees, pulp wood, Christmas trees, -or even fuel. Forestry is a form of agriculture inasmuch as it con- cerns the raising of a crop, but the forest takes so much longer to grow, and the soils upon which it grows are so different from those on which other Page Twenty-five