American Communal Societies Quarterly American Communal Societies Quarterly
Volume 3 Number 1 Pages 27-38
January 2009
The Abuse of Spirit Messages during the Shaker Era of The Abuse of Spirit Messages during the Shaker Era of
Manifestations: “A hard time of it in this hurrycane of gifts, to Manifestations: “A hard time of it in this hurrycane of gifts, to
know what is revelation and what is not” know what is revelation and what is not”
Glendyne Wergland
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26
The Abuse of Spirit Messages during the Shaker
Era of Manifestations: “A hard time of it in this
hurrycane of gifts, to know what is revelation
and what is not”
By Glendyne Wergland
Spiritual revelation is the foundation of western religion. Consider, for
instance, the ten commandments Moses brought from Mount Sinai. Some
aspects of Moses’ story must have been hard to believe. Moses said God
called him up the mountain, warning him not to let others approach,
lest they die in the lightning and smoke. Even so, Moses was safe on the
mountaintop; Moses alone heard the word of God. Others might have
been dubious, just as some were when an angel predicted a virgin birth.
According to Matthew 1:19, Mary’s ancé Joseph had doubts, as Moses’
peers probably did. Nevertheless, Moses’ and Mary’s messages from unseen
beings created enduring religious traditions. Spiritual gifts are not to be
taken lightly in Judeo-Christian tradition.
Christianity’s offshoot, Shakerism, is also based on spiritual messages
from God and angels. Mother Ann Lee’s revelations were the foundation
of Shakerism. Her spiritual gifts exposed sin; Believers had to meet her
standards of virtue.
1
Ann Lee also allowed her followers to expel the
unworthy. Abijah Worster recalled, when young Polly Swan came to
the Shakers, “Elenor Pierce and Martha Prescot being full of zeal, and
lacking both wisdom & charity, began to war at her for her lust and pride,
and pushed her about.… Polly, when she got out of their hands, run.”
Questioned about the fray, Ann Lee said that Pierce and Prescot had
“received the power of God, and are full of zeal; but lack wisdom to know
how to improve their gifts.”
2
By allowing them to bully Swan, she set an
_____________________________________
An earlier versions of this talk was presented in 2008 at the Communal Studies Assocation
conference in Estero, Florida, and to Jane Crosthwaite’s Shaker seminar at Mount Holyoke
College. Material from audience suggestions has been incorporated. A more exhaustive
version will appear in Sisters in the Faith: Shaker Women, 1780-1890, forthcoming from
University of Massachusetts Press.
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unfortunate precedent.
After Ann Lee’s death, Shakers regulated morality in a more mundane
fashion. Their domestic surveillance turned up misbehavior, which Believers
were required to report to the elders, who tried to convince sinners to
repent and confess. The society’s leaders, a team of two brethren and two
sisters known as the Ministry, institutionalized procedures for repentance
and confession.
3
During the Era of Manifestations, however, that system
changed. Shakers tried to maintain a dynamic tension between gifts of
inspiration and their need for order and union.
4
But from 1838 through
1841, inspiration prevailed. Knowing that their followers prized spiritual
gifts, the Ministry and Elders gave visionists free rein, much as Ann Lee
had done with Pierce and Prescot. As a result, some instruments used spirit
messages to threaten, intimidate, and expel their peers. That is what befell
Sally Dean and Olive Gates.
Sally Dean’s Shaker life began normally enough with her arrival as a
young Believer. In 1821, Dean, then age twenty-one, followed her brother
John to the New Lebanon Church Family. She settled in and established
herself as a capable, responsible sister. Dean worked in the palm leaf bonnet
business that deaconesses Betsy Crosman and Semantha Fairbanks began
in 1835. She took her turn in kitchen, laundry, or dairy, as needed. For ve
years, she was the girls’ caretaker. In September 1837, she was promoted
to trustee (a deaconess who did business with the public).
5
Sally Dean was
evidently a good example of a Shaker sister — bright, personable, and
reliable enough to interact with the world’s people.
In 1834, twenty-three-year-old Olive Gates also joined the New
Lebanon Shakers. Like Dean, Gates t in. Her good voice put her at the
top of the rst class of singers, above Anna Dodgson and Miranda Barber.
She, too, was a bonnet maker. In 1837, Gates assisted Zillah Potter, who
had replaced Sally Dean as the girls’ caretaker.
6
Occupational proximity to
Zillah Potter and Semantha Fairbanks was something Gates and Dean had
in common.
In late 1837, an outbreak of visions erupted at the Watervliet, New
York Shaker village. The Ministry tested the phenomena and validated the
manifestations.
7
Disturbing reports soon trickled back to New Lebanon;
visionists were exposing other Believers’ sins.
8
In early 1838, spirits revealed
the errors of several Canaan, New York Shakers. One brother’s sin “was
such that he could not be suffered to remain, & was peaceably persuaded
to go away.”
9
Thus the Era’s expulsions began.
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The Ministry’s village anxiously awaited the inspiration prevalent
elsewhere. In April 1838, Philemon Stewart brought New Lebanon a series
of spirit messages that took the elders to task. By early May, Stewart was
showing the strain. “Philemon is now almost constantly under the power
of inspiration,” wrote the scribe. “He hardly seems like himself any of the
time.”
10
Becoming an instrument changed a Believer, and not necessarily
for the better.
Within a month, other New Lebanon visionists began using spirit gifts
to manipulate their peers. One of Stewart’s messages forced Calvin Green
to make a public confession. A sister, perhaps Sally Dean, tried to smooth
things over with a new communication.
11
Using one gift to combat another
was an inspired response, whether spirits were involved or not. But it was
also evidence of visionists’ competing agendas.
Shakers did try to police the phenomenon. A scribe noted that some
gifts were “said to be real”; he thought he could tell the difference between
genuine manifestations and fraudulent ones.
12
Instruments were supposed
to ask for and receive the Elders’ permission to manifest a gift before
sharing it, but some did not. Hancock Elder Barnabas Sprague admitted,
“The elders have a hard time of it in this hurrycane of gifts, to know what
is revelation and what is not.”
13
The sheer number of inspired messages
overwhelmed the elders, who suspected that some were false.
In June 1838, a cascade of problems began with a case of fraud at New
Lebanon. The girls’ caretaker, Zillah Potter, reported that ten-year-old
Ann Eliza Goodwin had faked inspiration. The child was expelled — not
unusual for one who misbehaved.
14
In this little girl’s fall from Shaker
grace, however, was more than met the eye. Ann Eliza’s older sister, Harriet
Goodwin, remained a Shaker, and assisted Potter with the girls from 1839
until March 1840.
15
In July, 1840, Harriet reported a visionary dream that
charged Potter with child abuse and forcing someone out of the society
by false accusations.
16
Spirit gifts could be used to settle old scores. The
younger Goodwin’s expulsion and the older Goodwin’s retaliation — if
that’s what it was — foreshadowed coming events.
Even so, Goodwin’s exposure of Potter was a curious matter. Personal
attacks were contrary to union. If Goodwin had delivered that message in
her own voice, it would have shown unreconciled feelings prohibited by the
society’s Millennial Laws.
17
But spirits did not have to follow the same rules
that applied to mortal Shakers — a gap in the Elders’ control of the rank
and le. Some visionists took advantage of that gap.
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In 1839, the spirits ousted Richard McNemar, a Shaker leader in
the West. He was allowed to come to New Lebanon, so his case was well
known. If a spirit could expel one of the founders of western Shakerism,
though, no one was safe.
18
New Lebanon’s spiritual abuse escalated when Anna Dodgson began
“fanning away the chaff ” in mid-1840. She warned, “Woe, woe be unto
you that shall now slight my manifestation[,] saith Jehovah.… I will root
you out from among my people; yea, I will cast you far from me, saith the
Lord.”
19
Some Believers’ skepticism about spirit gifts must have been so
obvious that Dodgson was provoked to admonish them.
In worship on October 4, 1840, Eleanor Potter (sister of Zillah)
announced a spiritual “writing of excommunication.” In the persona of
Mother Ann Lee, Potter warned that sinners would be purged out of the
church. At that point, Olive Gates stepped forward to speak, but Potter
rebuked her, “Go back, go back, depart, I know you not, depart, how
dare you come forward.” Turning and “warring in powerful exercise,”
she ranted while Gates retreated into the ranks. Potter harangued, “Evil
doers could not be ownd, hypocrites, liars & deceitful workers … would be
exposed by the mighty powers of God.”
20
Potter singled out Gates when
Gates made herself conspicuous. If Gates had stayed in her place, she
might have been safe. Potter seized authority, and the elders let her do it.
Three days later, the Ministry, New Lebanon’s ultimate authority,
left on a trip, and their departure boded ill.
21
That day, “S.F.,” probably
Semantha Fairbanks, delivered a spirit warning, then asked “if any one
wished to speak, to seek for mercy.… [Here, erased but still legible, are the
initials O.G — Olive Gates] came forward & kneeled down … begged for
mercy & forgiveness, saying she was willing to confess all her sins … rather
than lose her soul’s salvation.” She acknowledged that she had doubted
“the gifts of God.” Eleanor Potter’s attack had made Gates conspicuous,
and Gates broke under the pressure. Perhaps she feared that her skepticism
was visible.
22
The following day, Zillah Potter nished the ouster of her former
assistant Olive Gates.
23
Potter spoke as Ann Lee’s spirit, saying, “And now
know ye concerning that woman, her day is past, & the time is come that
she must be separated … before the going down of another sun that woman
shall no longer be numbered among you.” “Look ye well into your own
hearts,” she said, and consider “a deceitful worker now cast out.” Olive
Gates, sequestered at the Ofce, departed before the Ministry returned.
24
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Her willing exit was taken as evidence of her guilt—but left many of her
peers uneasy.
In the normal course of events, confession and repentance were enough
to allow a transgressor to remain a Shaker. The New Lebanon village,
according to one account, had not expelled anyone for twenty years.
25
In
1840 and 1841, however, during the Ministry’s absences, visionists sent
several Believers packing and terried others.
Joseph Babe, a Second Order brother, wrote that the week of Gates’s
expulsion was “the most extraordinary” he ever witnessed.
26
He cut short
his journal entry. He may have feared revealing his own skepticism. Later
Babe said that another meeting “beggared description” with visionists
“rolling and spewing” on the meeting room oor, then added, “O — I must
quit.” He concluded, “Sufcient unto the day is the evil thereof, so rest,
reader, in all the gospel peace you can obtain.”
27
Joseph Babe was afraid to
be candid, but he believed that evil had crept in among the Shakers.
Some Believers tried to ameliorate the situation. In November 1840,
Calvin Green warned about spreading malice.
28
Others tried to smooth
things over with benign spirit messages.
29
The Potter sisters and Semantha
Fairbanks, on the other hand, spoke for spirits who were not humble or
kind—as did Miranda Barber, soon to come into her own as the voice of
Holy Mother Wisdom.
A number of Shakers were dubious. Even those who wholeheartedly
believed in divine revelation could be offended by abuse of their belief.
David Lamson called the Era’s spirit gifts “an outrage upon common
sense.” He thought that sisters pretended to be inspired, and was amazed
that no one else saw the absurdity of the situation. Hervey Elkins was
doubtful, too, but did not show his skepticism. Apostates were not the only
critics. At New Lebanon, several persisting Believers thought things had
gone awry, as did Joseph Babe. Isaac Newton Youngs later concluded that
the practice of “taking in the spirits” allowed evil to work through human
instruments. Believers relied too much on spirit gifts, he thought, rather
than relying on the elders. But during the Era of Manifestations, prudent
Believers did not show skepticism. Doubts were dangerous, and fear of
retribution inhibited dissent.
Sally Dean’s ordeal may have begun soon after Olive Gates was
expelled. Dean left her job as second Ofce trustee under Semantha
Fairbanks in December 1840. Eleanor Potter replaced Dean. Twice a
Potter had replaced Dean in temporal employment. In light of subsequent
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events, one has to wonder if “spirits” were already at work. A few families
formed power blocs in Shaker villages. Ethnographers and sociologists
describe how toxic cliques can form around participants’ shared desire
for power, often achieved through bullying, and those behaviors are not
limited to youth.
During another Ministry absence on May 22, 1841, spirits said God’s
judgment would “smite the hypocrite — none should be able to keep sin
concealed.” At their next meeting, Isaac Newton Youngs wrote, “Indications
of some soul’s being shut out for hidden sins not t to be spoken in this
place—Solemn disclosure! I must be silent. Z.P.”
Zillah Potter’s spirit persona threatened, then tried to justify her
actions. Youngs was intimidated, himself — never before had he feared to
describe what he saw. In meeting a few days later, “Sally Dean stepped
forward asked to speak — but said but little! — went back weeping. One of
the inspired sisters instantly fell to the oor, in great distress … after this
there was a solemn & powerful communication from the holy angel of God,
pronouncing wrath, indignation & nal separation of … the sinner, for the
hour was come & the soul of the sinner was rejected with an unalterable
curse.” The instrument denounced Dean with words of cursing shocking
to hear. This was only the start. The visionists employed the same methods
that workplace bullies use to isolate and exclude their targets: intimidation,
accusations, and public humiliation.
Dean’s weeping was unexplained. After months of warnings, she
may have burst into tears of anger or frustration because her religion had
become a trial rather than a comfort. At age forty-two, Dean also could
have been affected by menopause, which heightened her emotional state.
She had been a good Believer for more than twenty years, but was cursed
nonetheless. Isaac Newton Youngs wrote, “O what a solemn and distressing
scene is this for us to pass thro’.” His use of the plural “us” included the
whole family. Later he noted that the spirits said Dean could not stay, “tho
nothing denite [was] alleged against her.” Typically, when sinners were
brought to judgment, specic allegations were made. In Sally Dean’s case,
none were. She confessed nothing.
Even so, Dean was suicidal — and for good reason. She stood to lose
all she held dear — friends, home, livelihood, and support in old age. The
elders did not countermand the spirits. Dean had to go. So her brother
took her to stay with kin in Rhode Island.
Away from her attackers, Sally Dean quickly regained her emotional
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equilibrium. She kept her case before the Ministry. By late October 1841,
she was staying at the Church Family Ofce. On November 4, the Ministry
decided to reinstate her—but evidently feared the visionists’ response. The
Elders “warned all to be wise and careful … let our words be few and not
judge the matter: each one work in his own vineyard & keep the fear of
God in all they do & say.” Sally Dean moved back into the dwelling.
The visionists — or the spirits — were irate. Miranda Barber (as the
holy Angel of God) deed the Ministry. “I will not hold my peace,” she
thundered. “I will go forth in my fury, and will rend from before her face
the vail of her covering, and she shall appear naked in the eyes of thy
people. I will set upon her burning ames of re, and she shall burn and
burn in torment and vexation; — Heaven daring Mortal!” Barber vowed
wrath against the “hypocrite, the liar, the vain pretender,” and added,
“Woe unto her.”
The next three weeks were remarkably unpleasant. Scribes recorded
a hundred and fty pages of warnings. On November 11, Anna Dodgson
joined the campaign to force Sally Dean out. On November 13, “a great
commotion among the sisters,” was attributed to “the presence of evil.”
On November 15, Dodgson delivered a spirit message about “that wicked
woman … among you.” On November 17, Dodgson asked, “How long
are ye willing the Holy Temple should be polluted by … the unclean?”
The Ministry and elders caved in to the pressure, and sent Dean down
the road to live at the Second Order. That move did not satisfy the spirits;
they went on a rampage. On November 23, Miranda Barber delivered a
midnight message from God, threatening to sharpen a sword and send
it among Believers to “cut and slash [them] into atoms.” She raged, “I
will seek for your destruction.… I will curse your stock and herds … your
beautiful elds & pastures shall become as barren deserts; and your joy and
mirth shall be gone. In all my devices I will contrive against you, and will
be comforted in your afictions.” She ordered the family to fall prostrate
before her and kiss the dust — and they did. She mandated a day of fasting
on bread and water.
On November 29, a scribe wrote, “We hear some reading in relation
to Sally Dean. The First Order singing a song of cursing around the 2d
House.” The visionists had pursued Dean down the road. The situation
was untenable, not only for Sally Dean, but also for the Second Order. The
visionists’ bullying strategy was obvious as they humiliated and isolated
their victim. Because potential allies fear becoming the next targets, victims
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rarely receive support. Finally, Dean gave up. The visionists would not let
her be. She returned to her kin in Rhode Island.
Fortunately, the sad exile of Sally Dean had a happier ending years
later. By 1857, the Ministry was new. Semantha Fairbanks had died. The
other visionists were at New Lebanon, but times had changed. The new
Ministry decided Dean could return. When the elders announced it,
though, opposition erupted. Polly Reed wrote:
And alas, what a conagration it kindled. We were positively told that there
was not money enough … to bear our expenses [to bring her back]; & then
to have both of the Elder Sisters gone at once & the Ministry [away] was
considered very imprudent indeed. And another thing it had fallen to my
lot to be gone considerable of the summer past, while it was the privilege
of others more worthy than myself to stay at home & do the hard work.
The nancial objection was surely made by a deaconess. The other
objection tacitly admitted that things had gotten out of hand before, when
the Ministry were absent. The tirade degenerated into a personal attack on
Polly Reed, who was Dean’s advocate. The Ministry compromised. Dean
would not live at New Lebanon; she would start fresh at Watervliet. And
so she did.
In 1868, however, the ailing Sally Dean returned to New Lebanon.
In 1874, Anna Dodgson mentioned “Mother Sarah D.” The statement
was signicant: one of the visionists who had expelled Sally Dean in 1841
called her “Mother.” Moreover, Dodgson may have enjoyed the older
woman’s company, because in another entry, she wrote, “Sarah D!! and
writer go south Blackberrying!!! Lucky.” Whether Dodgson’s luck involved
the blackberries or the good time she had with Dean, we don’t know — but
Dodgson felt fortunate. She later called Dean “our beloved sister,” a term
of endearment she rarely used. Dodgson was older, wiser, and more
generous than she had been thirty years earlier. And Sally Dean nally
received a share of Shaker love.
* * * * *
We can draw several conclusions from the exiles’ stories. Perhaps most
important is that by allowing Sally Dean to return, the new Ministry indicated
that her expulsion may have been unjust. When the dynamic tension
between gift and order lost its balance during the Era of Manifestations,
visionists were unfettered, and several Believers fell casualties. Ironically,
Shakers recognized the problem of unsubstantiated allegations; several of
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their poems, such as “The Tale Bearer,” describe Believers who would lie,
and when caught, seek revenge.
59
Calvin Green, himself a target, wrote,
“I’ve had many a serious tho’t / Upon a slanderous tongue. / How many
evils it hath bro’t / Upon both old and young.”
60
Hindsight is always better than foresight, and Believers learned from
their errors. In 1853, the Shakers published twelve tests for distinguishing
between valid and spurious spirit messages. One of those tests is useful in
Sally Dean’s case. Frederick Evans wrote that warriors cannot be Christ’s
servants, whatever their profession, because Christ’s precepts rebuked
war and bloodshed. Evans quoted Jesus, “Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called the children of God.”
61
Applying that standard,
Miranda Barber’s warlike threat to slash her peers with a sword was not
divinely inspired. The Ministry nally recognized that some visionists were
suspect. Henry Blinn’s comments about the “unsubdued nature” of certain
instruments points to their belated understanding.
62
Anyone could slander, but women were the ones who expelled their
peers. And why? Was it only a bid for power? The two sisters who stepped
out of the ranks in meeting appear to have been “targets of opportunity.”
Perhaps anyone who moved forward would have been attacked. We cannot
be certain, but sometimes a clique will exercise power just because it can.
Anthropologists recognize spirit possession as a path to power — and the
spirits undoubtedly gave the Potters, Dodgson, and Barber authority that
they otherwise lacked. Even a deaconess such as Fairbanks, already near
the top of the hierarchy, might use a spirit gift for her own purposes.
Moreover, these sisters appear to have been working together toward a
shared goal, using criticism, ostracism, and public ridicule, just as bullying
cliques do. Competition among women is often expressed by exclusion from
the group — and what is expulsion if not exclusion? Maybe the visionists
realized that their excesses provoked doubt, and sought to consolidate their
power by eliminating skeptics who might undermine their authority.
We have to wonder, though, if something more was going on among
these women. Were sisters getting rid of someone because she might have
reported their misbehavior? Both Gates and Dean had worked with Zillah
Potter as girls’ caretakers. What might they have known about the abuse
Harriet Goodwin reported?
Perhaps competition was the issue.
Cliques can promote upward
mobility in the workplace.
63
When Sally Dean left a position of authority,
that job opened up — and twice, Potters stepped into the vacancies. In a
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family with about twenty women in the same age bracket, the selection of
two Potters seems more than a coincidence. In another venue, when Olive
Gates left the rst sister’s position in the choir, Dodgson and Barber moved
up in the hierarchy of singers. Or perhaps someone coveted Gates’s or
Dean’s union meeting partner. In a society where women outnumbered
men, such things could happen. Jealousy is a powerful motivation. These
“spirits” had remarkably human characteristics.
This is not to shortchange inspiration. Did Moses actually hear the
voice of God, or did the commandments come from his own imagination?
Did Anna Dodgson hear spirits speak, or did she take the initiative to
resolve a conict between visionists and their target? We cannot know for
sure. Revelation, whether it originates within the human imagination, or is
sent from the heavenly sphere, can be a source of religious revitalization,
as the Era of Manifestations certainly was for the Shakers. But inspiration
can also be misused by all-too-human instruments. With access to an
unlimited source of power, someone will take advantage of it.
Notes
1. Rufus Bishop and Seth Youngs Wells, Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations and
Doctrines of our Ever Blessed Mother Ann Lee (Hancock, Mass.: J. Talcott and J. Deming,
Junrs., 1816), 226.
2. Abijah Worster, Sayings of Mother Ann, Thomas Hammond, comp., 1-2, WRHS 54,
VII:B-22.
3. 1821 Millennial Laws, in John T. Kirk, Shaker World (New York: Henry Abrams, 1997),
261.
4.
Stephen Stein, “Shaker Gift and Shaker Order: A Study of Religious Tension in
Nineteenth-Century America,” Communal Societies 10 (1990): 102-13.
5.
Isaac Newton Youngs, Domestic Journal (1834-46), March 10, 1834, March 26, 1836,
and caretaker list at end, NYSL 10; [Semantha Fairbanks] journal (1835-36) at end of
John DeWitt journal (1824-25), October 14, 1836, WRHS 33, V:B-92; Rufus Bishop
et al., Records Book No. 2 (1825-1929), 36, NYPL 2:6.
6.
Shaker names index, WRHS 123; Betsy Bates, Journal of Events (1833-35),
September 13, 1835, WRHS 35, V:B-128; Youngs, Domestic Journal March 26, 1836,
September 14, 1837, January 1, 1840, NYSL 10.
7.
Bishop, Daily Journal (1830-39), October 1 and 8, and November 5, 1837, NYPL
1:1; Glendyne Wergland, “Validation in the Shaker Era of Manifestations: A Process
Analysis,” Communal Societies 26.2 (Fall 2006): 121-40.
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8.
Youngs, Sketches of Visions (1838), January 1838, 7-8, WRHS 75, VIII:B-113.
9.
Youngs, Sketches of Visions, n.d., 32, WRHS 75, VIII:B-113.
10.
Youngs, Sketches of Visions, May 1838, 43, WRHS 75, V:B-113.
11.
Youngs, Sketches of Visions, May 11, 1838, 47, WRHS 75, VIII:B-113; Bishop, Daily
Journal, May 9, 1838, NYPL 1.1. Before the Era, Calvin Green was accused of “that
which led to the esh.” Youngs, Private Journal (1837-59), July 23, 1837, SM 10,509.
12.
Records Kept by Order of the Church (1780-1850), January 30, 1842, 191, NYPL
2:7.
13.
David R. Lamson, Two Years’ Experience Among the Shakers (West Boylston [Mass.]: for the
author, 1848), 41, Google Books, accessed November 22, 2007.
14.
Isaac Newton Youngs suspected that children’s gifts were only “childish fancies.”
Youngs, Sketches of Visions, June 8 and 14, 1838, 62-63, 67, WRHS 75, V:B-113.
15.
Caretakers of Children (1787-1850) list at end, Youngs, Domestic Journal, NYSL 10.
16.
Jean Humez, Mother’s First-Born Daughters: Early Shaker Writings on Women and Religion
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 213, 238.
17.
1821 Millennial Laws, Kirk, 261.
18. McNemar was at New Lebanon in May 1839. Rufus Bishop, Daily Journal of Passing
Events (1839-50), May 30, 1839, NYPL 1:1. Stein, “Shaker Gift and Shaker Order,
102-13; Stein, Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believers (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 187-88. According to Jean Humez, instrument
Margaret O’Brien may have ousted McNemar. Humez 215.
19.
Anna Dodgson, Prophetic Warning Concerning Reprobates, June 1, 1840, 45-46, SM
12,341.
20.
Derobigne Bennett and Isaac Newton Youngs, Journal of Inspirational Meetings
(1840-41), October 4, 1840, WRHS 77, VIII:B-138 corroborated by Joseph W. Babe,
Journal of Inspirational Meetings (1840-41), October 4, 1840, WRHS 77, VIII:B-139.
21.
Rufus Bishop, Daily Journal of Passing Events (1839-50), October 7, 1840, NYPL 1.2.
Such divisiveness during Ministry absences suggests that the 1840 Ministry (Ebenezer
Bishop, 72, Rufus Bishop, 66, Ruth Landon, 65, and Asenath Clark, 60) inuenced
visionists as the Church Family’s Elders (David Meacham, 63, Daniel Boler, 36, Betsy
Darrow, 63, and Betsy Bates, 42) did not.
22.
Bennett and Youngs, October 7, 1840, WRHS 77, VIII:B-138. In a separatist group,
doubt invites criticism. Old Order Amish teenager Ruth Garret didn’t show skepticism
because she feared excommunication. “Thinking aloud too much, analyzing too
much, would raise suspicions. … The Amish are always watching to see if a person
appears vulnerable to doubt.” Garrett, Crossing Over: One Woman’s Escape from Amish Life
(San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2003), 43.
23.
Youngs, Domestic Journal, September 14, 1837 and January 1, 1840, NYSL 10.
24.
Bennett and Youngs, October 8-9, 1840, WRHS 77, VIII:B-138.
25.
Archibald Montgomery Maxwell, in Wergland, Visiting the Shakers, 1778-1849 (Clinton,
N.Y.: Richard W. Couper Press, 2007), 277.
26.
Babe, October 25, 1840, WRHS 77, VIII:B-139.
27.
In their November 7 meeting, “l.t.” delivered a message that she would “spew out”
anyone who did not accord with Ann Lee’s precepts, “spew them out of my mouth,”
then gagged and vomited. Babe, November 1 and 7, 1840, WRHS 77, VIII:B-139.
“Sufcient unto the day:” Matthew 6: 34. Physician Leah Taylor was the only “l.t.”
over age six listed in Youngs, Domestic Journal, January 1, 1840, NYSL 10.
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28.
Calvin Green, instrument, A Prophetic Warning, November 9, 1840, 8-9, WRHS 66,
VIII:A-34.
29.
Babe, July 5, 1840, January-February 1841, WRHS 77, VIII:B-139.
30.
David R. Lamson, Two Years’ Experience Among the Shakers (West Boylston [Mass.]: for the
author, 1848), 66-67.
31.
Hervey Elkins, Fifteen Years in the Senior Order of Shakers (Hanover, N.H.: Dartmouth,
1853), 42.
32. Records Kept by Order of the Church, November 1842, NYPL 2:7.
33.
Dean’s reassignment may not have been signicant because turnover was normal and
she had served three years. Potter lasted only two. Bishop, Records Book No. 2 (1825-
1929), December 17, 1840, 36-37, NYPL 2.6; Ministry Sisters’ Journal, December 19,
1840, WRHS 32, V:B-60.
34.
Deborah E. Burns, Shaker Cities of Peace, Love, and Union: A History of the Hancock Bishopric
(Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1993), 41, 180.
35. Patricia Zavella, “Abnormal Intimacy: The Varying Work Networks of Chicana
Cannery Workers,” Feminist Studies 11.3 (1985): 541-57, JSTOR, accessed November
22, 2007; Sonia Salari, Barbara B. Brown, and Jacqueline Eaton, “Conicts,
friendship cliques and territorial displays in senior center environments,” Journal of
Aging Studies 20.3 (Sept 2006): 237-53. Adult women query advice columnists: Leslie
Parrott, “How do I handle cliques at my church?” Today’s Christian Woman 29.3 (May-
June 2007): 16.
36.
Bennett and Youngs, May 22, 23 and 26, 1841, WRHS 77, VIII:B-138.
37. Charlotte Rayner, “The Incidence of Workplace Bullying,” Journal of Community and
Applied Social Psychology 7 (1997): 199-208.
38.
Bennett and Youngs, May 26, 1841, WRHS 77, VIII:B-138.
39.
Youngs, Domestic Journal (1834-46), May 27, 1841, NYSL 10.
40.
Giles Avery, Journal of Times, Rhymes, Work & Weather (1836-47), June 4, 1841,
WRHS 34, V:B-107.
41.
Bennett and Youngs, October 23 and November 4, 1841, WRHS 77, VIII:B-138.
42.
Records Kept by Order of the Church, November 6, 1841, NYPL 2:7; Ministry
Sisters’ Journal, November 6, 1841, WRHS 32, V:B-60.
43.
A True Record of Sacred Communications, v. VII, 163-67, November 6, 1841,
WRHS 76, VIII:B-122.
44.
Anna Dodgson, From Father William to the Elder Sisters, November 11, 1841, 28-29,
Book of Rolls, Letters, Messages, and Communications to the Ministry and Elders
(1840-43), v. 15 (hereafter Book of Rolls), SM 12,332.
45.
Bennett and Youngs, November 13, 1841, WRHS 77, VIII:B-138.
46.
Anna Dodgson, Mother Lucy’s Word to Betsy Bates, November 15, 1841, 43-45, Book
of Rolls, SM 12,332. I have not found such a message attributed to Sally Dean.
47.
Anna Dodgson, Words of the Holy Angel, November 17, 1841, 45-46, Book of Rolls,
SM 12,332.
48.
Bennett and Youngs, November 17, 1841, WRHS 77, VIII:B-138.
49.
Miranda Barber, instrument, Words of solemn and weighty truth, November 23,
1841, True Record, v. VIII, 96-103, WRHS 76, VIII:B-123; Bennett and Youngs,
November 23, 1841, WRHS 77, VIII:B-138.
50.
[New Lebanon] Church Order Journal (November 1841-46), November 29, 1841,
WRHS 35, V:B-135.
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51. Rayner, already cited.
52. Bennett and Youngs, November 30, 1841, WRHS 77, VIII:B-138.
53.
Bishop et al., Records Book No. 2, 18, NYPL 2.6.
54.
Polly Reed, Journal of Miscellaneous Items Kept by the Elder Sisters (1855-64),
November 11, 1857, SM 10,452.
55.
New Lebanon Church Family deaconesses in 1857: Betsy Crosman (served 1837-72),
Matilda Reed (served 1854-75), Jane Blanchard (served 1854-58). Records Book No. 2
(1825-1929), 43-47, 388, NYPL 2.7.
56.
Isaac Newton Youngs [and John M. Brown], Domestic Journal (1856-77), November
16, 1857, WRHS 32, V:B-71. New Ministry: Amos Stewart, Daniel Boler, Betsy Bates
and Eliza Ann Taylor.
57.
Ann Buckingham diary (1864-78), April 3-4, 1868, NYSL 2, called her Sarah and
Sally.
58.
Anna Dodgson, Domestic Journal (1873-79), May 28 and June 26, 1874, August 31,
1875, November 1, 1878, SM 10,462.
59.
[Untitled book of verse] (1820-30), 24-25, WRHS 91, IX:B-41.
60.
Henry Youngs’ book of writings (1835-57), 4-7, WRHS 56, VII:B-72.
61. Frederick W. Evans, Tests of Divine Inspiration; or, the Rudimental Principles by which True and
False Revelation, in all eras of the world, can be unerringly discriminated (New Lebanon: United
Society called Shakers, 1853), 93-94. My thanks to Larry Foster for pointing out this
source.
62. Henry C. Blinn, Manifestation of Spiritualism Among the Shakers, 1837–1847 (1899), 61.
63. “Cliques give white staff advantage in getting top jobs,” Nursing Standard 22.7 (October
24, 2007): 8-9, Gale General OneFile, http://nd.galegroup.com/itx/start.
do?prodId=ITOF, accessed 23 March 2008.
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