USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Canterbury > History of the town of Canterbury, New Hampshire, 1727-1912, v. 1 > Part 33
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THE WORSTED CHURCH AT HILL'S CORNER.
Among these members was Gideon Ham, who was persuaded by Amos Cogswell to make provision in his will for the permanent support of Congregational preaching in this locality. Mr. Ham died a year later, and the society found itself endowed with a fund of $2,000. By his testament, Mr. Ham left his real estate to his family, while his bequest to the church was realized from the sale of his personal effects. These were disposed of at an auction sale which lasted three days. With the knowledge that the proceeds were to be devoted to the maintenance of the gospel in this part of the town, the attendance was large. The bidding was spirited and many of the articles offered for sale brought more than they were intrinsically worth.
Preaching was supported for a time by subscription, the Con- gregationalists and Baptists alternating in the use of the meeting house. The Rev. William Patrick, pastor of the Congregational Church at the Center, regularly officiated one Sunday each month. Occasionally students from the theological school at Gilmanton Academy occupied the pulpit. The Baptist preachers were more numerous. The best known were Elder John Harri- man, Elder Ezra Ham, the Rev. Edmund B. Fairfield, Dr. Joseph M. Harper, Elders Joseph Clough and Uriah and William P. Chase, both the latter being born and reared in this school district. The preaching of the Baptists was largely missionary labor without compensation, or partially requited by contri- butions taken at the time of the service. Mrs. Susan F. Perkins of Campton, daughter of Abiel Cogswell, writes of the early days of this church, "I never thought there was any scarcity of Free Baptist ministers when I was a young girl. As most of them were entertained at our house and I was always shy of 'the cloth,' their coming did not tend to increase my happiness or Sunday freedom."
Mr. Patrick's successors at the Congregational Church at the Center regularly supplied the church at Hill's Corner every fourth Sunday until 1871. With the death of Elder Jeremiah Clough, Baptist preaching was of rare occurrence.
Soon after the Chicago fire in 1871, when the whole country was asked to make contributions for the sufferers, Mrs. Sarah Elizabeth (Harper) Monmouth came to Hill's Corner on this benevolent mission. The people gathered at the church to
346
HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
hear her. She made such an eloquent appeal for the afflicted inhabitants of Chicago that not only was her immediate mission successful, but she was led to engage in a work of great good to this community. The people were moved by her earnestness and charmed by her personality. Remaining for a few days, she learned of the then almost perfunctory service held at the church once a month. Her inquiries and the responses of the people led to her offer to read on Sunday the published sermons of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and other eminent divines and to conduct a religious service if the Congregational Society would vote to give to her the income of the Ham Fund. This offer was immediately accepted and for nearly eight years Mrs. Monmouth ministered to the spiritual wants of this com- munity.
The church was immediately repaired. The interior was changed, the old singing seats removed and a room over the vestibule was fitted up for Mrs. Monmouth's occupancy during her weekly visits. The pulpit was also changed so as to place the choir back of the preacher. She used her own funds in improving the appearance of the building, and it is probable that during the time of her pastorate, if such it may be called, she spent more for the benefit of the people than she received for her services. Very early she began the work of decorating the interior of the church with worsted mottoes and trimmings. It was this handiwork of Mrs. Monmouth which created an interest in the edifice beyond the confines of the state. The following description of a visitor written twenty years ago shows how the church impressed a stranger at that time:
"The walls of the Church are covered with mottoes, emblems and other devices, all of cotton, paper or worsted. The pulpit is profusely trimmed and in the front and rear of the auditorium are immense floral arches, rising to the height of twelve feet from the floor and having a span of twenty feet. Standing on the platform and in corners are large vases, made of paper and filled with giant bouquets of artificial flowers. The eight long windows are curtained with what looks like richly figured lace, but which a closer inspection shows to be mosquito netting trimmed with designs cut from wall paper. In all of the work in the church the colors are so harmonious and the effects brought out so tasty that a first view gives the visitor the idea of Oriental
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THE WORSTED CHURCH AT HILL'S CORNER.
magnificence and suggests the outlay of large sums of money. But herein lies the most wonderful part of the decorations. The flowers are leaves, the mottoes are all made from paper and cotton with the exception of perhaps one hundred worsted flowers. The amount of work and patience required for this task may be partially appreciated when it is known that the decorations include more than a million pieces, the largest scarcely the size of a man's hand and all of this accomplished by one woman."
Mrs. Monmouth organized a Sunday School, the people cordially cooperating to make her work a success. Largely through her instrumentality, the social life of the community broadened. The years of her ministry are delightful memories to the people who then resided at Hill's Corner. In speaking of the years which she spent in this locality Mrs. Monmouth said, "They embraced the dearest work of my life." The loss of her property led her into retirement at the homestead of her father.
Sarah Elizabeth Monmouth was the only daughter of Joseph M. Harper. She was born in Canterbury, October 9, 1829, and was educated in the schools of that town, at Tilton Seminary and at North Scituate, Rhode Island. Early in life, she devel- oped a taste for literature and, when a mere girl, began to con- tribute poems and short stories to the Boston Cultivator and the Waverly Magazine under the nom de plume of Lil Lindon and Effie Afton. She published a book of poems called "Even- tide," which met with a large sale. Other of her publications were "Afton Ripples," "Half a Dime a Day," "The Abundant Entrance," "Rest Valley" and "The Worsted Church." In addi- tion to her writings, she prepared and delivered several lectures.
Mrs. Monmouth was a great traveler and made three trips to the far South, spending several winters with her brother Colonel Charles A. Harper in Texas. During her last trip, she met and married Jacques Eugene Monmouth. The Civil War breaking out soon after her marriage, her husband enlisted and was killed in one of the early engagements while serving as colonel of a Louisiana regiment of Zouaves. Returning home, she cared for her father until his death in 1865. She inherited from him a large share of his property which consisted of the Harper homestead and a well-invested personal estate.
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
Mrs. Monmouth's last years were truly pathetic. She was the victim of a clever swindler who induced her to loan him most of her personal property. The most remarkable portion of Mrs. Monmouth's life began when she was practically penni- less. She still had a farm on which there was a comfortable house, and she determined to live upon the income of the land, which averaged about forty dollars a year. The story of her economies and privations is told in some of her later publications. She lived the life of a recluse, refusing to see any but a few intimate friends.
The income from the farm she allotted as follows: periodicals $7, books $3, food $17, and fuel $13. For the first winter she had on hand sufficient fuel, but the second she bought wood and sawed it herself. To save expense, she would crawl into bed with a warm soapstone and read. The money thus saved she spent on books, never for food. No appropriation was made for wearing apparel. She made an every-day suit out of a straw bed tick, trimming it with strips of blue drilling cut from a pair of overalls which some former workman had left in the house. This suit was not unattractive and at a little distance looked like a neat striped gingham. For shoes she took the soles of old rubbers, lined them with flannel and laced them to her feet as sandals. Later she made shoes from a thick overcoat which had belonged to her father. Of these she was very proud. Unraveling a shawl and some homespun garments, she knitted herself stockings, which lasted her for several years. The garments she made always fitted, for she was skilful in her handiwork.
Mrs. Monmouth claimed that her food cost her only five cents a day, and the formula of her meals is set forth in her writings. It is probably true that this sum represents the aver- age of her daily expenditures for what she ate. But neighbors knowing her circumstances often made contributions to her larder. These offerings of provisions were placed under a win- dow of the chamber where she spent most of her time. She would let down a rope, without exposing herself to view, which the donor attached to a basket containing the gifts and then departed. Later Mrs. Monmouth would pull up the basket to her room. She decorated her house much as she had the Hill's Corner Church and made it so marvelously attractive
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THE WORSTED CHURCH AT HILL'S CORNER.
that it became an object of interest to summer visitors in Can- terbury. Charging a small fee for its inspection, she derived a little income from this source. This house she named "Rest Valley."
Failing health compelled her to accept the care of others and she went to reside with her niece, Mrs. John H. Huckins of Loudon, during the last few months of her life. She died January 16, 1887. At the probate of her will it was discovered that her property amounted to about $2,000, besides the real estate left her by her father. This she bequeathed to relatives and to charity.
After Mrs. Monmouth ceased her labors at Hill's Corner, there was no attempt to maintain preaching at this church except during the summer months and wholly from the income of the Ham Fund. The church is still an object of interest to visitors in Canterbury.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SHAKERS.1 MOTHER ANN LEE. COMING TO AMERICA.
SETTLEMENT IN NEW YORK. PROSELYTING IN NEW ENGLAND. FORMING COMMUNITIES. THE CANTERBURY SOCIETY. ITS EARLY MEMBERS. OBLIGATIONS AND COVENANT OF THE SHAKERS.
PRINCIPLES OF THEIR FAITH. EARLY FORM OF WORSHIP. DRESS. INDUSTRIES. EDUCATION. PROGRESS. RELATIONS
WITH THE TOWN.
The Canterbury society of Shakers dates from the last decade of the eighteenth century, and it was one of the early communi- ties in this country. Shakerism had its birth in England, where its foundress, Mother Ann Lee, was born February 29, 1736, in Toad Lane, Manchester. Her father was a blacksmith with a family of eight children. As was common then with poor people of manufacturing towns, the children were obliged to contribute to their own support as soon as they were old enough to work, instead of being sent to school. Therefore, while Ann acquired habits of industry, she could neither read nor write. During her youth she was employed in a cotton factory, next as a cutter of hatters' fur, and later as cook in the infirmary of her native town. As a child she was serious and thoughtful, subject to religious convictions and given to reveries and visions. When she grew older, she was deeply impressed with the wickedness of mankind and showed a marked repugnance to marriage. While under these exercises of the mind, she became acquainted with James and Jane Wardley and the religious society under their care. These people were a remnant of the "French Prophets," and Jane Wardley was regarded as the "spirit of John the Baptist operat- ing in the female line." They were called Shakers or Shaking Quakers, because, like the early Quakers, they were seized with violent tremblings and shakings when under the influence of
1 The authority for many facts in this chapter is found in various publica- tions of the Shakers, especially "A Summary View of the New Millennial Church," 2d edition, 1848, and "Shakerism, Its Meaning and Message," by Anna White and Leila S. Taylor, Mt. Lebanon, N. Y., 1904.
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THE SHAKERS.
strong religious emotions. In September, 1758, when twenty-two years of age, Ann united herself with this society.
In spite of her aversion to marriage, she was induced in 1762, by the importunities of her family, to become the wife of Abraham Stanley, a blacksmith, who deserted her after she came to Amer- ica. Of the four children born to them, three died in infancy and the other lived to the age of only six years. After the death of her children, Ann Lee gave herself wholly to religious thought, tak- ing the lead of the Shaker Society, to whom she promulgated the doctrine of celibacy.
Their previous instruction had led them to expect that the second coming of Christ would be in the form of a woman. As Eve was the mother of all living, so in their new leader, the Shak- ers recognized in Ann Lee "the first mother or spiritual parent in the female line."
Among the revelations which Ann claimed to have received from on high were these, "The duality of Deity, God both father and mother, one in essence-one God, not two, but God who pos- sessed the two natures, the masculine and feminine, each distinct in function yet one in being, coequals in Deity. The second was that the secret of man's sin, the hidden cause of man's fall from uprightness, his loss of purity, lay in the premature and self- indulgent use of sexual union."1
Suffering persecution and imprisonment on account of her reli- gious belief, Mother Lee sought an asylum in the New World. With eight of her disciples she set sail from Liverpool, England, May 19, 1774, and landed in New York the following August. The eight disciples were her husband, William Lee her brother, Nancy Lee her niece, James Whitteker, John Hocknell and his son Richard, James Shepherd and Mary Partington. For two years the little band remained in the vicinity of New York City. In the meantime, John Hocknell, who was the only one of the company possessed of means, bought a tract of land about seven miles northeast of Albany in the wilderness, called "Niskeyuna," now the town of Watervliet, N. Y. Here, in 1776, the Shakers made their first permanent settlement. For the next three years they lived the life of celibates in comparative seclusion, holding
1 Shakerism, Its Meaning and Message, page 19, by Anna White and Leila S. Taylor.
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
everything in common and toiling diligently to cultivate their land and provide suitable habitations.
In 1779 a remarkable religious awakening in the adjoining town of New Lebanon led to visitations by converts to the Shaker community. Tidings of this strange people and their peculiar religion soon spread far and wide. These reports were followed by inquiry and converts in large numbers were made, some re- maining with the community at Watervliet, while others returned to their homes. In May, 1781, Mother Lee and the elders who had been chosen for the church made a pilgrimage to Massachusetts and Connecticut to preach the gospel and to encourage those who had already embraced the faith. They were absent two years and four months, some of the elders visiting New Hampshire. It was a journey attended with much suffering and privation and with no little persecution.
It was early in 1781 that Benjamin Thompson, an itinerant peddler, became acquainted with the Shakers near New Leba- non, and coming to Canterbury later, his account greatly inter- ested members of the Freewill Baptist Church of that town, then under the ministration of Rev. Edward Lock. Among those in whom the tidings caused an awakening and further inquiry were Benjamin Whitcher and Henry Clough. The former was one of a committee appointed to visit the Shakers at Harvard, Mass., where Mother Lee and the elders were preaching, and to investi- gate the new religion. Following this visit, two Shaker preachers, Ebenezer Cooley and Israel Chauncey, appeared in Canterbury and the surrounding towns. By them the Shaker testimony was first given in New Hampshire in the church at Loudon Center in September, 1782.1 Whitcher and Clough immediately became converts and others soon followed in their footsteps, including Ezekiel Morrill of Loudon.
Henry Clough was the son of Capt. Jeremiah Clough, the elder, and he originally owned the farm that Joseph Ayers bought in 1784 of Ezekiel Morrill when he settled in Canterbury. The buildings were destroyed by fire several years ago, but the land is still in the possession of Joseph Ayers' descendants. The house at that time was a long, one-story building, which Mr. Ayers used as a dwelling until he built for himself, and then it was attached to the new building as an ell. It was here that Elder
1 Shakerism, Its Meaning and Message, pages 90, 92.
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THE SHAKERS.
Henry Clough,-later he became an elder in the Shaker Church,- assembled the believers. This was before the formal gathering of the Shakers at New Lebanon in communal relations. It is prob- able that within two years the Canterbury followers of Mother Ann Lee were transferred to Benjamin Whitcher's farm, which is a part of the present Shaker Village.
Elder Clough was one of the early converts to the Freewill Baptist faith and he was a zealous worker and earnest preacher. Embracing the Shaker gospel, he at once became an efficient missionary in the cause. In 1788 he was called to New Lebanon to be the assistant to Father Joseph Meacham, then the leading elder of the Shakers, and the organizer of the followers into socie- ties. Here Elder Clough resided until his death March 12, 1798. In the ministry of the order he was a trusted counselor and a most effective exponent of its principles. "He was not considered eloquent in the common acception of the term," says Elder Henry Blinn, "but he abounded in that spiritual pathos which seldom failed to meet the state of his hearers. The divine spirit which he was blessed to receive, in connection with his unwavering integ- rity as a natural man, made him a powerful preacher."1
Benjamin Whitcher was born in Stratham, March 8, 1750. His father, whose name was also Benjamin, bought for him a tract of land in the eastern part of Canterbury about the year 1774. That section of the town was then a wilderness. After clearing some of the land and building a house and barn, the son, in 1775, moved his family to their new home. Accompanying Benjamin and Mary, his wife, was her brother, Joseph Shepherd. The near- est neighbor of the new settlers was several miles distant, and it was five or six years before settlements were made north of them at Hill's Corner. Benjamin Whitcher was an early convert to the Freewill Baptist faith and continued a member of that church until he joined the Shakers in 1782. With generous enthusiasm he opened his doors to the faithful, and his home soon became their rallying point in Canterbury. On the Sabbath meetings were held there, or at Ezekiel Morrill's on Clough's Hill in Loudon, for nearly a decade before the Canterbury Shaker Society was organ- ized in 1792. The United States census of 1790 shows that Ben- jamin Whitcher had thirty-five persons dwelling under his roof,
1 Shaker Manifesto, Canterbury, October, 1883.
24
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
and two years later the number had increased to forty-three. Then it was that he donated his farm of one hundred acres, valued at that time at more than two thousand dollars, to the Shaker society.
Until 1785, there was no distinct Shaker community except that at Watervliet, converts from a distance for the most part continuing to reside at their homes and making visits to the society at Watervliet or receiving visitations from Mother Lee and the church elders. Adherents of the new faith had now be- come so numerous in New Lebanon that a church was built and dedicated in 1786. In 1787, the elders notified all those who had accepted the Shaker doctrine that the time was ripe for the for- mation of a church society and that all who desired and were qualified might come into the association. The first formal organ- ization was that at New Lebanon, N. Y., which later took the name of the Mount Lebanon Society, from the post office established for their benefit in 1861. The Watervliet community was similarly organized soon after and these two societies formed what was called a bishopric under the immediate jurisdiction of the ministry at Mount Lebanon. Here was concentrated at this time nearly all the talent of the church, and from the Mount Lebanon Society was issued a few years later the first publication of the Shakers. Thus the Mount Lebanon community became the parent society of the Shakers and with its governing board originated the move- ment of planting colonies or communities in other states.
This movement began in 1790 when those of the Shaker faith residing about Hancock, Mass., were brought together as a society. The next year another Shaker community was started at Har- vard in the same state. February 10, 1792, the fifth society in this country was organized at Canterbury, under the guidance of Elder Job Bishop, Edmund Lougee, Hannah Goodrich and Anna Burdick. The following year the Shakers at Enfield were gath- ered into one fold. Elder Bishop was given authority to unite the two societies at Canterbury and Enfield into the bishopric of New Hampshire.
Associated with the early history of the Canterbury Shakers were such men as Zadoc Wright and Josiah Edgerly, by whose direct management and counsel the temporal concerns were gradually and harmoniously regulated, also Peter Ayers from Mount Lebanon, N. Y., Elder Henry Clough, John Wadleigh,
View of Shaker Village.
Shaker Barns.
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THE SHAKERS.
Francis Winkley and Joseph Sanborn. John Wadleigh and Peter Ayers were both Revolutionary soldiers. True to the Shaker faith which he espoused after the war was over, Mr. Wadleigh refused to apply or to receive a pension for his service in the army. Peter Ayers was thirty-two years of age when he came to Canterbury, and there he spent the remainder of his long and use- ful life, dying an honored member of the Shaker fraternity in 1857 at the advanced age of ninety-seven years.
The order of elders and elderesses was established January 1, 1794, by the appointment of Benjamin Whitcher, William Lougee Mary Hatch and Molly Drake. Mary Whitcher was chosen one of the directors of the secular interests of the society.
Three families were formed in process of time and were called the Whitcher, Wiggin and Sanborn families after the men who donated land to the community.1 Later they were known as the Church, the Second or Middle and the North families.
The covenant, which constituted the membership contract, was at first oral, but in 1796 it was committed to writing and signed voluntarily by every adult in the ranks. The first signa- tures were appended on May 12th and 16th and they were as follows:
Benjamin Whitcher
Elizabeth Avery
Ezekiel Stevens
Anna Carr
Francis Winkley
Sarah Beck
Micajah Tucker
Molly Drake
John Bishop
Molly Cotton
Josiah Corbett
Hannah Beck
John Fuller
Nellie Tibbetts
Jonathan Lougee
Sarah Wright
Peter Ayers
Johanna Fletcher
Timothy Jones
Martha Wiggin
William Lougee
Abigail Sanborn
James Fletcher John Wadleigh James Daniels
Mercy Elkins
Samson Merrill
Comfort Smith
Jeremiah Sanborn
Abigail Wiggin
Elijah Fletcher
Molly Chase
Zadock Wright
Lydia Wright
Josiah Edgerly
Zilpha Whitcher
Nathaniel Sleeper
Rhoda Mills
1 Benjamin Whitcher, Chase Wiggin and Joseph Sanborn.
Daniel Fletcher
Sarah Gowen
Amey Beck
Betty Muffett
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
Benjamin Sanborn
Lydia Sanborn
Moses Stevens
Sally Sanborn
Elijah Brown
Dolly Lougee
John Beck
Michal Parker
Calvin Goodell
Lydia Lougee
Jesse Wright
Lucy Williams
Ezekiel Stevens, Jr.
Anna Merrill
Benjamin Whitcher, Jr.
Elizabeth Cowden
William Fletcher
Ruth Stevens
Josiah Lougee
Betsey Lougee
Clement Beck
Rachael Parker
James Johnson
Lovey Muffett
Israel Sanborn
Tabitha Williams
John Whitcher
Betty Lougee
John Jewett
Sally Fletcher
John Sanborn
Hepzibah Williams
Joseph Sanborn
Mahala Sleeper
Mary Hatch
Hannah Muffett
Sarah Winkley
Hannah Merrill
Mary Whitcher
Sarah Drake
Mother Ann Lee died in 1784, before there had been any formal organization of her followers. Her life had been too brief and her missionary labors too arduous to admit of her giving attention to such details, but she had gathered about her those who were abundantly equipped for this work. Upon Father Joseph Meacham this duty devolved. Having created the societies at Mount Lebanon and Watervliet, N. Y., he divided each community into orders or classes. The first or non-communal were those who received the faith and came into a degree of relation with the soci- ety but chose to live in their own families and manage their own temporal concerns. They were regarded as brethren and sisters in the gospel so long as they lived up to its requirements. Members of this class were not to be controlled by the society with regard to their property, families or children. They could act as freely in all these respects as members of other religious bodies. More- over such persons were admitted to all the privileges of religious worship and spiritual communion belonging to this order and also received instructions and counsel according to their needs when- ever they expressed a desire for it, and they might retain their union with the society, provided they did not violate the faith and the moral and religious principles of the institution.
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