Maps of the Shaker West: A Journey of Discovery

Boice, Martha H.; Covington, Dale; Spence, Richard

ISBN 10: 0965501817 ISBN 13: 9780965501811

Publisher: Knot Garden Pr, 1997

Synopsis

Few people realize that the Shakers or the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing is the longest lasting communal group in Ohio as well as the nation. Mother Ann Lee brought a small group of followers from Manchester, England, in 1774. The group is still represented by a small society at Sabbathday Lake, Maine. Because the Eastern communities survived into the twentieth century, they are better know than the societies established in the Midwest and Upper South, known in the early nineteenth century as the West..

The book, Maps of the Shaker West, started as a 12-page compilation of maps of Shaker sites in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. It was a cut-and-paste job financed by the Western Shaker Study Group for the participants of the Berkshire Shaker Seminar coming "west" in the summer of 1993. The seminar, sponsored by the Berkshire Community College, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, visits a different Shaker site each summer and many of the participants live in the East.

The booklet was well received. A few extras sold at the Pleasant Hill (Kentucky) Shaker gift shop. It was enough encouragement for us consider doing a more professional job.

As the proprietor of the Shaker Map Company, we thought of Richard Spence of Cincinnati to create directional maps. As we thought about the site maps, we found a computer generated map of South Union near Bowling Green, Kentucky, which Dale Covington of Marietta, Georgia, had created. We asked him if he would be willing to help with a few site maps. Dale was eager to assist, bringing not only his mapmaking skills, but his critical eye for editing text and checking every quotation for accuracy.

We started out by approaching the subject chronologically. Three missionaries from the lead Eastern community at New Lebanon, New York, started west on New Years Day, 1805. They had heard reports of the Great Kentucky Revival and visited many of the churches effected by this religious outpouring. The Kentucky Revival sites which the Shakers visited provide the setting for the coming of the Shakers.

Union Village in Lebanon, Ohio, was the first village established by these missionaries in 1805 and became the lead community for the West. Eagle Creek and Straight Creek Shakers were gathered, too, the result of the same early missionary effort, but the scattered community lasted just six years. Watervliet near Dayton formed in 1806, followed quickly by the two societies in Kentucky: Pleasant Hill (1806) and South Union (1807), as well as a short-lived community in Indiana: Busro or West Union (1809).

It was missionary work in the 1820s by the Shakers at Union Village which produced an affiliation with a group in the Darby Plains area near Marysville and later Urbana. Union Village also worked with the White Water Shakers during the same period and eventually combined these two groups. North Union, now Shaker Heights, was also established in the 1820s.

The final story in the book unfolded as we studied properties in four locations purchased or improved by various Shaker communities in the 1850s. Activities related to the Underground Railroad seemed to account for the Shakers' acquisition of these properties.

This framework of Shaker outreach in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan provided the scope of the book

About this title

About the Author

Martha H. Boice provided the research for the lesser known Shaker sites and kept the project focused on the finish line. She lives with her husband Bill in Dayton, Ohio, where she became fascinated by the number of Daytonians who were unaware of the Shaker community in their midst called Watervliet. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the University of Michigan School of Social Work, Martha's particular pleasure is getting all the puzzle pieces to fit into place. Her family includes three grown children and two grandsons who encourage her with her projects. Historic preservation and herb gardening are her two areas of expertise.

Dale W. Covington's "gift" is his ability to use his computer in creative ways, putting facts and figures together in unique combinations. Educated in the disciplines of electrical engineering and nuclear engineering, Dale earned a B.S.E.E. from Vanderbilt University, a D.A.S.S. from Manchester University [Fulbright Scholar], an S.M. from M.I.T. and a Ph.D from Georgia Tech. As a senior research engineer at Georgia Tech, Dale conducted contract sponsored research. He has written over 40 publications in the fields of electromagnetics, solid state physics, and Shakers in the west. Dale resides in Marietta, Georgia, and has a consummate interest in the Shaker outreach at White Oak, Georgia.

Richard B. Spence has been creating maps and drawings of Shaker buildings for many years. He has B.S. and M.B.A. degrees from Indiana University and augments his artistic and historic pursuits with his job as Human Resources Manager for United Air Specialists, Inc. in Cincinnati. Richard spent two years performing basic historical research for the Hamilton County Park District on the White Water Shakers. For the Warren County Historical Society, he created a panoramic sketch of Union Village which is displayed in the Robert and Virginia Jones Shaker Gallery at the museum. Richard, who lives with his wife Suzy in Cincinnati, indicates his ongoing interests are White Water and Shaker agricultural architecture.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

During the 1850s many Shaker communities acquired property at some distance from their primary sites. Although there are many reasons why this surge of land ownership might have taken place, one possibility which has not been explored is that the Shakers were part of the Underground Railroad. The urgent secrecy of the enterprise and perhaps its intentional omission in the Shaker journals make it difficult to prove this thesis. Let's look at the acquisitions.

Union Village, a stop on the Underground Railroad, began purchasing land in Clinton County, Ohio, late in 1856 from a man known as "a staunch Abolitionist." Then White Water acquired two nearby tracts in April 1857. In August of that same year, Union Village purchased another farm along the Kankakee River in northern Indiana, an area where the river was utilized to transport slaves toward Canada. Daniel Brainard acquired two small lots in Henry County, Ohio, along the Maumee River in 1824 before joining the Watervliet, New York, Shaker community in 1827. In 1857 he sold both tracts for one dollar to the Watervliet Shakers. Henry County families have an oral tradition linking their families and the Shakers in their area with the Underground Railroad along the Maumee River and the Miami and Erie Canal.

In April 1859, New Lebanon, New York, joined this program of outreach, purchasing a farm along the St. Joseph River in Berrien County, Michigan. The story that the barn, enlarged by the Shakers, sheltered escaped slaves circulates in that county.

The Shakers at Watervliet, New York, owned land in Illinois given to them by Reuben Treadway in the late 1820s or early 1830s. The farm was located near the community of Hudson. After looking over the property in 1855, the Shakers had a house and barn built there, then hired a tenant farmer to run the farm.i Underground Railroad paths crossed Illinois from Missouri and other states, focusing on Chicago and from there to Canada via the Great Lakes.

The Underground Railroad was in existence as early as 1815,ii but its activity greatly increased after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. That law made it possible for slave hunters to come into free states and to take blacks back into slavery. The act placed the full power of federal law enforcement behind the apprehension of slave runaways. The Underground Railroad was dangerous business and those who cooperated in the enterprise would not share information about their involvement with others. Participants might know only the next stop north, about 20 miles away. Then they would not be able to answer too many questions. Severe fines and even imprisonment were the penalty if one were caught by the authorities. The communities of free blacks were the primary source of assistance to escaping slaves, but others also provided "safe houses."

Religious communities played a significant role in transporting slaves northward. John Rankin of Ripley, Ohio, kept twinkling lights in the windows of his hilltop home overlooking the Ohio River, guiding many slaves in their eventual escape to Canada. This Presbyterian minister was fined and imprisoned for his activities.

S.W. Gilliland's home in Brown County was on the path northward beyond Ripley. He was the minister for the Red Oak Presbyterian Church, having taken John Dunlevy's place after the latter became a Shaker.iii Wesleyan Methodists, these Presbyterians, and especially the Quakers were the known driving forces in the Underground Railroad. Levi Coffin, called the president of the Underground Railroad, used his home in Fountain City, Indiana, to expedite the movement of slaves from Cincinnati to Lake Michigan. Coffin was a Quaker.iv

Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan were all admitted to statehood as "free states." The Ohio River formed a circuitous and undulating path between free and slave states. Perhaps the Shakers played a role in the network of routes that developed north of this river which took slaves to Great Lakes ports or from Michigan via Detroit or Port Huron directly into Canada--and freedom.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knot Garden Pr
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0965501817
• ISBN 13: 9780965501811
• Binding: Map
• Number of pages: 140