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Chronology of Shakers

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Shakers
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The early chronology of Shakers is a list of important events pertaining to the early history Shakers, a denomination of Christianity. Millenarians who believe that their founder, Ann Lee, experienced the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the Shakers practice celibacy, confession of sin, communalism, ecstatic worship, pacifism, and egalitarianism. This list cover the periods from 1747 to 1836. This spans the emergence of denomination in the mid-18th century, the emigration of the Shakers to New York on the eve of the American Revolution, and subsequent missionary work and the establishment of nineteen major planned communities.

Chronology

Emergence in England

Precursor movements

Circa 1650

1706

  • Elie Marion leads a group of millenarian group of Camisards, also known as the "French Prophets", into London from France. Known for visions and prophetic sermons, their activities and writings influence the religious and political thought for many in England.

1729

Emergence of the Shakers

1736

1747

  • Jane and James Wardley, residents of Manchester, form a house church at the residence of John Townley in Bolton, where the attendees practice ecstatic worship. Reportedly, they are former Quakers who dissent from the quietism - solemn, quietly meditative worship - in that denomination, instead desiring a more expressive form of worship. This and subsequent house churches elsewhere in Manchester, as well as in Meretown and Chester, become known as the "Wardley Society", and soon also become known as "Shaking Quakers" or "Shakers" due to the physical trembling when the congregants are overcome with religious ecstasy.

1758

  • Ann Lee joins the Wardley Society.

1761

  • January 5: Lee marries Abraham Standerin.[1]

1766

  • John Hocknell, after initially being drawn to Methodism, joins the Wardley Society.[2] Around this time, the Partington family also starts hosting church meetings.[3]

Circa 1768

  • John Hocknell brings his daughter, Mary, to live with Ann Lee and her brother William, in the house of their father, John Lees.[3]

1769

Circa 1770

  • While in prison for "disturbing the peace", Lee receives a vision and is convicted of the need for universal celibacy among all Christians. The Shakers later believe that she experienced the Second Coming of Christ.

1772 through 1774

  • By this time, the Shakers have become disruptive, and Ann Lee and others are jailed more than once.

Formative years in the United States

1774

  • May 19: Nine Shakers emigrate from England to the Province of New York, financed by John Hocknell. These are Ann Lee, Abraham Standerin, William Lee, Nancy Lee (a niece of Ann), James Whittaker, John Hocknell, Richard Hocknell (a son of John), James Shepherd, and Mary Partington.[5][6][7]
  • August 6: The Shakers land in New York City.[8]
  • Nothing more is known of the Townleys and Wardleys after this point. They are reported to have gone bankrupt and relocated to a poor house in the summer of 1774.[8][9]

1775

1777

1778

  • The first new members recorded as joining the Shaker community.
  • Shadrack Ireland dies. His followers await for his resurrection that he predicted, but this resurrection does not occur.

1779

1780

  • March: Joseph Meacham and Calvin Harlow, Baptist ministers from Columbia County, New York, and leaders in the recent New Light revival, investigate the Shakers, are convinced of their message, and return with the news to their respective congregations.
  • May 19: The "Dark Day", when much of the Northeast and parts of Canana are shrouded in darkness throughout the day, despite the sky being clear. On or just after this day, Lee opens her gospel to the public. Residents from Albany and Columbia Counties in Upstate New York and Berkshire County, Massachusetts, begin converting to the Shakers. The newfound popularity attracts the attention of the New York state government.
  • Because of the avowed pacifism and British origin of the Shakers at a time when the American colonies are at war for independence from Britain, New York arrests and imprisons Lee and several of her followers on suspicion of espionage. They are released later that year.[11]

1781 through 1783

  • Ann and William Lee and James Whittaker, along with some of their followers, travel on an extended missionary tour of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Upstate New York, gathering converts and establishing a network of followers throughout the Northeastern United States. In several localities, mobs attack them, and the Shakers are whipped, beaten, and assaulted.[12] The center of operations for the missionary work is the late Ireland's "Square House" in Harvard, Massachusetts, where the Shakers attract a devoted following.

1783

  • September 3: Effective end of the American Revolutionary War when the Treaty of Paris is signed.

1784

  • After returning to Watervliet, William Lee dies on July 21, and Ann Lee dies on September 8. Their deaths are attributed to the after-effects of the hardships and assaults they endured during their missionary tour.[6]
  • James Whittaker takes over leadership of the society.
  • James Shepherd and John Partington renounce the Shakers.[7]

1787

  • James Whittaker dies, and Joseph Meacham becomes the first American-born leader of the Shakers.[13]
  • Meacham introduces the concept of communalism and begins "gathering into order" the scattered Shaker Believers, bringing them together into collectivized villages which are sub-divided into smaller communities called "families".[14] The village organized by Meacham at New Lebanon becomes the headquarters.
  • John Hocknell is appointed First Elder of Watervliet Church Family.[15]

1788

  • Joseph Meacham brings Lucy Wright, from nearby Pittsfield, Massachusetts, into the New Lebanon Ministry to serve with him as a co-leader. Together they establish an administrative structure that promotes equality of the sexes.

1790

1792

1793

1794

  • Sabbathday Lake, Maine, Shaker village is formally organized, the next-to-last, and last 18th century, major community to be formed in the Northeast.[14] There are now twelve Shaker communities in the United States, all in the Northeast.

1796

  • Joseph Meacham dies. Lucy Wright continues as the sole primary leader for the Shakers.

1787

  • October 18: Hannah Hocknell dies.[15]

1798

  • Theodore Bates, of Watervliet Shaker Village, invents the broom vice, used create broom brushes that are flat rather than rounded.

1799

  • February 27: John Hocknell dies.[15]

Community growth and Western expansion

1800

1801

1805

  • Wright sends John Meacham, Benjamin Youngs, and Issachar Bates to proselytize in Ohio and Kentucky, having heard of the revivals in those states. The mission is a success, and Union Village is organized in Ohio.

1806

1807

  • Shaker villages organized at South Union, Kentucky, and Busro, Indiana. The latter village becomes known as West Union.[16]
  • James Shepherd returns to Watervliet and is placed in the order established for members who have left the faith but then returned.[17]

1808

1810

1811

  • Conflicts between the United States and Tecumseh's Confederacy result in multiple raids from both the United State and the Confederacy on West Union Shaker Village.
  • Prime Lane, a black man who joined Watervliet Shaker village with his two daughters in 1802 and later, in 1810, renounced the faith, sues for custody of his daughters, arguing that they are his slaves. The New York State Court of Appeals rules that the daughters, Phebe and Betty, are free to choose whether to stay with the Shakers or with Lane.[18][19] They choose to remain at Watervliet. Prime and Hannah Lane then attempt to remove Betty by force, but fail to do so.[19]
  • December 16: The first of the New Madrid earthquakes and its aftershock inflicts minimal damage to West Union.

1812

  • January 23: The second of the New Madrid earthquakes.
  • February 7: The third of the New Madrid earthquakes. While the earthquakes themselves only slightly damage West Union, they induce flooding of the Wabash River on which the community is situated. The resulting wet floodplains and swamps ground breed malaria and other insect-born diseases.
  • The first written collection of Shaker hymns, Millennial Praises, is published. The attempt to form a commune at New Canaan is abandoned. Enfield remains the only Shaker community in Connecticut.
  • June 18: the War of 1812 breaks out between the United States and the United Kingdom and their respective allies.
  • September 1812: the Shaker community at West Union, Indiana, in order to escape the turmoil of the war, is temporarily disbanded and its membership takes shelter in the Ohio and Kentucky villages.
  • A branch of the New Lebanon Shaker Village, consisting of two families, is established in Canaan, New York.

1814

  • March 1814: Shakers start returning to West Union, Indiana.

1815

  • Mary Dyer renounces the Shakers and attempts to regain custody of her children, whom she had signed over to the community.
  • February 7: The New York State Legislature takes up the case of Eunice Chapman, who seeks a divorce and custody of her children after her husband, James Chapman, joined the Shakers at Watervliet and secretly took their children into the community.[20]
  • February 17: Ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, officially ending the War of 1812.

1816

  • The first major Shaker writing, and their official biography of Ann Lee, Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations and Doctrines of our Ever Blessed Mother Ann Lee, is published.
  • February 16: After the failure of her previous petition, Chapman appeals to the New York legislature to grant her a legislative divorce rather than one obtained through the court.

1817

  • A Shaker village is formed at Savoy, Massachusetts.[21] The number of Shaker villages in Massachusetts (of which Maine is a part) now reaches its highest point, with eight communities.
  • A non-violent "Shaker slave revolt" occurs at South Union, Kentucky. Although the Shakers hold to equality and egalitarianism as an ideal, and numerous enslaved peoples were liberated once their legal owners joined South Union or other Shaker villages, many black members of South Union were still legally enslaved to Shakers who joined with them as their legal property and had yet to release them.[22]

1818

  • March 14: Eunice Chapman is finally granted relief from her marriage and given custody of her children. The law also grants a spouse of either gender whose partner has joined the Shakers the right to request custody of any underage children. The Shakers are also prohibited from transporting children across state lines.[23]
  • May 9: Chapman travels to Enfield Village in New Hampshire where her children are held by the Shakers. Aided by mobs and fellow anti-Shaker activist Mary Dyer, she eventually obtains her son, George, and returns to Albany by June 3.[24]
  • Dyer publishes A brief statement of the sufferings of Mary Dyer occasioned by the society called Shakers, an anti-Shaker work that further publicizes her custody dispute with the Enfield Shakers.

1819

  • The Shaker community at Gorham is dissolved and its members relocated to Poland, Maine, where they reform into Poland Hill, a branch of the nearby Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village.[25] The number of Shaker villages in Massachusetts is reduced from eight to seven.
  • The two remaining children of Eunice Chapman held at Enfield, New Hampshire are returned to Chapman.[26]
  • Mary Dyer raises a mob to reclaim her children from Enfield, but this effort fails.[27]
  • South Union and Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, officially begin a program of manumission for any remaining enslaved members within their villages.[22][28]

1820

  • Maine, after long-standing disagreements with, and growing secessionist sentiment against, Massachusetts, breaks away from Massachusetts to become its own sovereign state as part of the Missouri Compromise. This reduces the total number of Shaker villages in Massachusetts from seven to five, as Alfred and Sabbathday Lake Villages are now in a separate state.

1821

  • Lucy Wright dies.
  • The Shakers codify their rules for the first time as the Millennial Laws of 1821.[29]
  • The Shaker community at Savoy is disbanded and the membership relocated to New Lebanon, New York and Hancock, Massachusetts. The number of Shaker communities in Massachusetts now totals four.

1822

  • The final two Shaker communities in Ohio are formed: North Union and Whitewater, bringing the total number of Shaker communities in Ohio to five. The seventeenth and eighteenth communities overall, these are the last Shaker communities established in the Midwestern United States.
  • Shakers start gathering at Darby Plains, Ohio.
  • Mary Dyer releases a second anti-Shaker book, A portraiture of Shakerism.

1823

  • The Shakers at Darby Plains abandon their attempts to form a community there and instead relocate to Whitewater.

1825

  • April 14: Mary Hocknell, a daughter of John Hocknell, dies.[17]

1826

  • A Shaker village formed at Sodus Bay, New York, bringing the total number of Shaker village in New York to its highest point of three communities.

1827

  • West Union, Indiana, is dissolved after years of continued trouble with external conflict from non-Shaker neighbors, internal disputes, and disease. It never fully recovered from the ravages of Tecumseh's War, the earthquake-induced floods and resulting fevers, and the War of 1812. It is the first major Shaker community to permanently disband, and the only major community to do so before 1875. Its closure also marks the end of any significant Shaker presence in the state of Indiana.

Circa 1830

  • The program of manumission of enslaved persons at South Union is completed.[22]

1833

  • September 10: Mary Partington, the last living and faithful member of the first band of nine English Shakers to arrive in America, dies.[17][30]

1836

  • The Sodus Bay Shaker community, dismayed at a proposal by New York State to build a canal near the village, is dissolved and relocated to Groveland, New York. Groveland is the last of nineteen major Shaker communities to be established. The net total of Shaker communities in New York remains at three, and the total number of existing Shaker communities in the country is eighteen.

References

  1. ^ MS 13/3, Manchester Cathedral Archive
  2. ^ Goodwillie 2016, p. 78
  3. ^ a b Goodwillie 2016, p. 79
  4. ^ Goodwillie 2016, p. 80
  5. ^ a b Edward D. Andrews, The People Called Shakers (1963), p. 13.
  6. ^ a b c Manca, Joseph (2015-08-12). "The Shakers and the American Revolution". Journal of the American Revolution. Retrieved 2019-09-04.
  7. ^ a b c Humez, Jean M. (1993-04-22). "General Introduction". In Humez, Jean M. (ed.). Mother's First-Born Daughters: Early Shaker Writings on Women and Religion. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. pp. xxxi, note 3. ISBN 9780253114525.
  8. ^ a b "Ann Lee: Her Work, her People, and their Critics - Third Paper". The Manifesto. 8 (1): 85. January 1878.
  9. ^ Goodwillie 2016, p. 83
  10. ^ J.E.A. Smith, History of Pittsfield, vol. 1 (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1869), 453.
  11. ^ Stein, The Shaker Experience in America pp. 13–14.
  12. ^ There's a map of the tour in Stein, Shaker Experience in America, pp. 20–21.
  13. ^ Andrews, People Called Shakers, chapter 3.
  14. ^ a b Andrews, People Called Shakers, p. 290.
  15. ^ a b c Goodwillie, Christian (2016-04-29). "Believers in Two Worlds: Lives of the English Shakers". In Lockley, Philip (ed.). Protestant Communalism in the Trans-Atlantic World, 1650–1850. London: Springer. p. 101. ISBN 9781137484871.
  16. ^ Andrews, People Called Shakers, p. 290-91.
  17. ^ a b c Goodwillie 2016, p. 102
  18. ^ "Living Black and Free in 18th and 19th Century Albany, New York". Albany County. p. 16. Retrieved September 4, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  19. ^ a b Wergland, Glendyne R. (2011). Sisters in the Faith: Shaker Women and Equality of the Sexes. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 56. ISBN 9781558498631.
  20. ^ Blake, Nelson M. (1960). "Eunice Against the Shakers". New York History. 41 (4): 366. ISSN 0146-437X – via JSTOR.
  21. ^ Murray 1994, p. 95
  22. ^ a b c "South Union, KY - Shakers, Slaves, and Freemen". Notable Kentucky African Americans Database. Retrieved September 4, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  23. ^ Blake 1960, pp. 371-372
  24. ^ Blake 1960, pp. 374-377
  25. ^ Murray, Stuart (1994). Shaker Heritage Guidebook: Exploring the Historic Sites, Museums & Collections. Spencertown: Golden Hill Press. p. 35. ISBN 9780961487669.
  26. ^ Blake 1960, p. 377
  27. ^ Elizabeth De Wolfe, Shaking the Faith: Women, Family, and Mary Marshall Dyer's Anti-Shaker Campaign, 1815-1867 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002): 86-97.
  28. ^ Neal, Julia (January 13, 2015). The Kentucky Shakers. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. p. 61. ISBN 9780813148670.
  29. ^ Theodore E. Johnson, ed., "The Millennial Laws of 1821," Shaker Quarterly 7.2 (1967): 35–58.
  30. ^ Goodwillie, Christian; Wergland, Glendyne R. (2017-07-05). "Mary Partington". In Goodwillie, Christian; Wergland, Glendyne R. (eds.). Shaker Autobiographies, Biographies and Testimonies, 1806–1907. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. p. 114. ISBN 9781351548854.
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