Bromfield High School - Beacon Yearbook (Harvard, MA)

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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

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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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Er-om?iel.d. Beqgrcon crops are raised that its methods and problems are different from those known to the farmers. Preservation of the forest is important to all citizens. It is so impor- tant that national and state governments have taken charge of much of the forest land, and they are planting new forests. Some cities have pur- chased land outside their boundaries for the planting of forests. Thus foresters are now employed by some branch of government. We of America think of forestry as a science that has just been devel- oped during the present century, but the science of forestry is much older than any of us now living. Forestry is an art that was known to ancient people but was lost in the decline of civilization during the Dark Ages. Germany has much the greatest advance in modern forestry system. She squandered her wood supply till the time of the Crusaders, when there was a threat of a wood famine. Then Germany began to forbid wood- cutting for fuel, or wood-burning for the potash it contains. The German forests are now large. The chief types of trees are either oak, beech, spruce, fir, or pine. However, during the present century more work is beingdone to protect our greatest gift of nature - the tree. In the early days of America, efforts were made to protect the forests even though such forests were often deemed a waste of land. In the year 1682 William Penn stipulated in every deed that one acre of forest land should be preserved out of every five acres cleared. Twenty years later the state of Maine made similar requirements. Dr. Franklin B. H-ough 118713 was the first to begin the real practice of forestry. Three years after he began his forestry work, he was appoint- ed Forest Agent. He did his work so excellently that he laid the foundation for subsequent governmental work in this field. In 1891 the first Forest Reserve Law was passed. During all this time the forest situation was becoming so serious that even the most reckless wasters were very much worried. Most of the clamor that now arose demanded that the government buy back land from private owners and replant new forests. The demand improved in tone gradually, and the forest agencies worked out forest policies for permanent use, but they still have to labor against the amazing idea that it is the government's business to provide the forests for others to exploit. If this theory holds in the popular mind or in the political mind, private forestry has little chance of surviving. In spite of good profits made in forestry care and management, pri- vate invest-ors feel that they cannot make profits in competition with the government. The long time they must wait for the first crop helps to hide the value of the crop when it is ready for harvesting. The failure to realize these facts has handicapped the United States in trying to develop a good forestry system. A few large private forests and many small woodlots have been preserved. Some have been under skillful and profitable forest managementg but these have been thought of more as parks than forests. The fact that the United States Government is talking of planting one million acres of trees is convincing many that such planting is a good idea, so that others may follow suit. - Page Twenty-six