Darrow School - Shaker Post Yearbook (New Lebanon, NY)

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1936 The Peg Board Machinery and resulting cheap production provided competition they could not meet, prosperity in the world fatally limited the quality of the applicants for membership and from 1875 on the process of decay is apparent. But they made a definite and, I believe, a permanent contribution in their 150 years of existence. No one can walk through their villages today with- out receiving the impression of the stability, the industry, the consecration of the hands and spirits that wrought these works. We who live amid such scenes and among the few survivors here feel very strongly this influence as we breathe in daily the spiritual atmosphere of these things that are the source of strength and power. C. H. 7. The Persecutions at New Lebanon HAT Ann Lee should have made enemies in this country among the very people from whom she waswinning converts to her religious views was almost to be expected. She was an English woman, and she arrived in America on the eve of the Revolution. Through its entire course she steadfastly preached the doctrine of peace. Quite naturally it was often diflicult for over-zealous patriots to understand that she was bearing testimony against war in general rather than against the American Revolution in particular. As a result, many viewed her with distrust and some even suspected her of being a British spy, despite the fact that she prophesied the success of the American cause! Sometimes, moreover, her sincere but none the less radical opinions on the subject of marriage caused disagreements in families when one party to a marriage contract wished to follow her and the other refused? Therefore the wonder of it all is not that she was persecuted, but that in such times and circumstances she succeeded in establishing the Shaker church. In New Lebanon there was, besides, a local reason for enmity towards her. In September 1776 she had removed from New York with a small band of followers and taken up her residence in the woods of Watervliet, near Niskayuna, about seven miles North-West of Albany. About three years later a great religious revival took place in the town of New Lebanon, and some whom it had stirred deeply visited Ann Lee and were won over to her. Others, however, remained loyal to their own churches and their own beliefs. Then, almost out of hand, this persuasive stranger from across the seas converted the chief leader of the revival, Joseph Meacham,3 and in June 1780 she also converted Samuel Johnson, who a few years before had been the Presbyterian minister in the town! The effect of these conversions on the pride of Ann Lee's opponents can easily be imagined, but the actual outbreak of violence did not occur until 178 3. So far as the writer of this article has been able to ascertain, the only complete account of the New Lebanon persecutions is that preserved in the Shaker records. Writing in June 1826, john Farrington, an early Shaker convert, maintains that the persecutors were already, for the most part, either dead or scattered far from New Lebanon? Nevertheless, some statements from partici- pants in the attack have come down to us. Of these the aiiidavit of Colonel William Lee, sworn to before a justice of the peace, March 22, 1826, is fairly typical. Lee declares that the Shakers had been responsible for continual confusion in New Lebanon, that the authorities accordingly thought it expedient to interfere, that he went to George Darrow's house with an officer and others in pursuit of Ann Lee, the leader of the sect, and that on their arrival they had diiiiculty in entering. He then goes on to accuse Mother Ann of drunkenness and to vilify her character in words which are not fit to print here? 1. See A Summary View ofthe Millenia! Church, Albany, 1848, p. 25, and Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations and Doctrines of Mother Ann Lee and the Elders with Her, Albany, 1888, p. 79 and p. 87. 2. A typical case was that of Sarah Tumer and Jude Carter. See the Testimonies cited above, pp. 114 ff. 3. Richard Treat, one of Ann Lee's early adherents, refers to Joseph Meacham as our principal leader in the revival. See Testi- monies concerning the Character and Ministry of Mother Ann Lee, Albany 1827, p. 39. For an account of Joseph Meacham's early conversion, see Anna White and Leila S. Taylor, Shalcerism Its Meaning and Message, p. 39. 4. Samuel Johnson was a well educated man, having graduated from Yale in 1769 and received his A.M. degree two years afterwards. In the 1827 edition of the Testimonies, on page 109, he tells of his first visit to Ann Lee and her companions. When I arrived at Watervliet where they lived, he says, I was received with great kindn . T e leader oi this people was Ann Lee, whom they called M other: and truly she seemed .like a mother. Her countenance, and the countenances of those who stood as witnesses with her, shone with brightness and glory, as evidently as the shining ol the sun upon clear water. This confirmed me that the glo oi God was u on them. The first words I recollect hearing from Mother Ann were, 'James, take this man and let him ogen his mind. 'This was just w at I desired: and by this I perceived that she knew the state of my mind. I opened my mind and confesse my sins. 5. See the 1827 edition of the Testimonies, p. 18. 6. M. M. Dyer, The Rise and Progress of the Serpent, Concord, N. Y. 1847, p. 30. 9

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The Peg Board 1936 On the 6th of August in the same year they arrived in New York and the little company separated to find employment. Mother Ann remained in New York, as did her husband, Abra- ham Stanley, who, however, in the course of the year, married another woman and left Ann Lee free to pursue her calling. It appears that John Hocknell was a man of some means and not only assisted the little group in other ways, but enabled them all to cross the Atlantic and secured for them after a time a little holding at Niskayuna, now Watervliet, New York, across the Hudson River from Troy. Here in due time the members of the group, minus Abraham Stanley, gathered and were largely occupied with their own affairs for something over three years. In the spring of 1780, however, our little village comes into the picture. At the time -of a religious revival in New Lebanon, interest in Ann Lee was aroused and representatives of the various religious denominations in the village visited the Shakers, some uniting with them and others carrying back the Shaker gospel to their communities. Among the latter was Joseph Meacham, the Baptist pastor in the village, of whom more later. Ann Lee and her followers visited New Lebanon, were ridiculed and persecuted as is indicated elsewhere in this publication and finally, under the guidance of Mother Ann and of her staunch supporter and convert, Joseph Meacham, founded on the slope of the hill where now the school is located, the first Shaker community, dedicated to loyal service to God and to one another. They took as their motto and as their creed the words of Ann Lee which the school has been privileged to adopt, Hands to Work, and Hearts to God. From this original settlement and from Ann Lee's journeys in Eastern New England arose the other Shaker communities-at Watervliet and Groveland in New York, at Hancock just over the mountain from New Lebanon, Tyringham, Harvard, Shirley in Massachusetts, at Enfield Connecticut, at Canterbury and Enfield, New Hampshire, at Alfred and New Gloucester, Maine. Other communities were established in Ohio and Kentucky. Now there remain small groups at New Lebanon, New York, and Hancock, Mass., and communities of somewhat larger size in Canterbury, N. H. and Sabbathday Lake, Maine. The establishment of the New Lebanon community in 1783 about a year before Ann Lee died was due to the desire to separate themselves from the world and practice their religion in peace and in those difficult times by united effort to ease the problem of living. How much their desire to separate themselves from the world was due to theological causes cannot be asserted. It would seem not unreasonable to suppose that their theology was the outgrowth of their experience rather than that their religious beliefs determined their course of action. But it is only proper to say that certainly at a date later than the founding of this community their reason for separat- ing from the world was their belief that Mother Ann embodied the Second Appearing of Christ and that their communities were portions of Christ's Kingdom on earth. For the Shaker belief as we read it today postulated a two-fold God, a principle which they carried throughout all the Crea- tion. God was Male and Female-Father and Mother. God created Man in his own image, male and female, created he them. Christ was the human representative of the F ather-God, Ann Lee, the Messiah in the Female line. As Father, God is the fountain of intelligence and the source of all power ...... but as Mother, God is Love and tenderness. The Second Coming of the Messiah brought Heaven down to Earth where the members of the Shaker community were the sons and daughters of God, where there was no marriage, and no giving in marriage, where all lived a sinless, blameless life and kept themselves unspotted from the world. How they continued for ISO years, how they worked and worshipped is all told in the literature they have left behind them and is briefly outlined in other articles in this issue of the Peg Board. The reasons for their decline and their present almost total eclipse are to be found on almost every page of human history. Certainly they produced great souls, great spirits, who left an indelible impression upon our region and others. Under adversity they prospered, and under prosperity they declined. There seems little doubt that the prosperity which they attained in the middle of the last century was the primary cause of their dissolution. They found a ready market for their produce among the world's people or Adam's kind as they still call us. It appears that their leader- ship changed from a spiritual leadership to a leadership that was at least partly commercial. 8

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The Peg Board 1936 All such charges are fiatly contradicted by the testimonies of many Shakers who were closely associated with Ann Lee during her ministry in America and of some who were present with her on the day of the attack. And the unprejudiced student of history will at the outset be inclined to put more faith in what the Shakers aliirmg for if Mother Ann was a woman of bad character, why did men like Joseph Meacham and Samuel Johnson-men of education and intelligence who were leaders in their respective churches-not only become her disciples, but even endure mob violence for her sake? The Shakers themselves admit that once, at least, they disturbed the unbelievers by their enthusiastic singingg' but no such minor offence could possibly justify the treatment they received, and as for the more serious charges, it seems reasonably clear that they were merely utrumped up as an excuse for driving Ann Lee out of town. That Mother Ann was assailed by a mob at the house of George Darrow, that she was hauled before a magistrate, that she furnished bondsmen to guarantee her appearance before the county court, and that she was then driven by the same mob to the Rensselaer Countyline, all the sources agree. In matters of minor detail the Shaker account may contain exaggerations, but even by the most skeptical it may certainly be considered more trustworthy than any such billingsgate as that handed down by the accusers. Let us then tell the story of what happened by using ex- tensive quotations from the vivid, coherent, and complete narrative of the Shakers. On Saturday, August 23, 1783 Ann Lee with some of her followers reached the house of John Bishop in New Lebanonf They were on their way back to Niskayuna after an absence of two years, in which time they had visited many New England towns. In the course of the ensuing week they were not molested by their enemies, but a storm of opposition to them was gathering. The last day of August they spent in Stephentown, where signs of open hostility began to appear, a number of young people jesting at them and mocking them. On the first day of September they returned to New Lebanon and stopped at Isaac Harlowe's. There until very late at night they were engaged in their characteristic religious exercises. Towards dawn Mother Ann, accompanied by the elders and some of the sisters, proceeded to George Darrow's house, which occupied the spot where the Shaker meeting house, now part of the Lebanon School, stands today. Shortly after daybreak a mob attacked them. The mob was composed of two parties which had advanced on George Darrow's house from opposite directions. The first act of its leaders was to arrest the owner, George Darrow, and also David Meacham, charging that they had abused David Meacham's own daughterf The two men prepared to follow their captors to the residence of the magistrate, Eleazer Grantg but be- fore leaving, Darrow put his property under the protection of his brother David, ' who lived just across the road. Meanwhile the friends of Mother Ann were also gathering and entering the house to protect her. Darrow and 'Meacham having been marched away, the mob began to assail the doors ofthe house in order to lay hands on Ann Lee, but here let us turn to the statement of an eye witness, Rachel Spencer: A I was very early in the morning employed in the kitchen, with a number of the sisters, in preparing breakfast and putting the house in orderg and we had nearly finished our work when the mob came. The house was at that time clean and decent, and all was still and quiet, when suddenly we were beset on every side by a large gang of unprincipled wretches in mob array. The principal rooms below were nearly filled with the brethren and sisters, who endeavored to keep the mob out, but regardless of remonstrances or en- treaties, they rushed in like furious tigers. A number of them burst into the kitchen and furiously assaulted the sisters who were collected there. We strove with all our strength 7. Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations and Doctrines of M other Arm Lee, Albany, 1888, p. 143. 8. John Bishop's house was incorporated in one end of the South Family's dwelling house in New Lebanon. This building stands on the old road to Pittsfield not very far from the Lebanon School. See the illustration in Anna White and Leila S. Taylor, Shaksrism Ita Meaning and Message, opposite page 73. 9. See Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations and Doctrines of Mother Ann Lee and the Elders with Her, Albany 1888, p. 145. 10. David Darrow had formerly been a lieutenant in the American army. 10