USA > New York > Columbia County > Gazetteer and business directory of Columbia County, N.Y. for 1871-2 > Part 20
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appurtenances. The serenity which pervades this locality, where both nature and the habits of the people conduce to stillness and reflection, makes one long to rest awhile under the beautiful in- fluences which prevail here and with which the very atmo- sphere seems thoroughly impregnated. Speaking of this people, Prof. Silliman says :
" The utmost neatness is conspicuous in their fields, gardens, court-yards, out-houses, and in the very road ; not a weed, not a spot of filth, or any nuisance, is suffered to exist. Their wood is cut and piled in the most ex- act order ; their fences are perfect ; even their stone walls are constructed with great regularity, and of materials so very massive, and so well arranged, that unless overthrown by force, they may stand for centuries. Instead of wooden posts for their gates they have pillars of stone one solid piece, and everything bears the impress of labor, vigilance and skill, with such & share of taste as is consistent with the austerities of their sect. Their orchards are beautiful, and probably no part of our country presents finer examples of agricultural excellence. Such neatness and order is not seen anywhere on so large a scale, except in Holland, where the necessities of existence impose order and neatness upon the whole population; but here it is voluntary. *
* * They walk to the meeting house, in order, two and two, and leave in the same order. Men enter the left hand door of the meet- ing-house, and women the right hand. In each dwelling house is a room called the meeting-room, in which they assemble for worship every even- ing. The young believers assemble morning and evening, and, in the afternoon of the Sabbath, they all assemble in one of these rooms, in their dwelling-house, to which meeting spectators, or those who do not belong to the Society, are not admitted, except friendly visitors. * *
* The men live in their several apartments on the right, as they enter into the house, and the women on the left, commonly four in a room. They kneel in the morning by the side of the bed, as soon as they arise, and the same before they lie down ; also before and after every meal. The brethren and sisters generally eat at the same time at two long tables placed in the kitchen, men at one and women at the other; during which time they sit on benches, and are all silent. They go to their meals walking in order, one directly after the other; the head of the family, or elder, takes the lead of the men, and one called elder sister takes the lead of the women. Ser- eral women are employed in cooking and waiting on the table; they are commonly relieved weekly by others.
" It is according to the gift or order, for all to endeavor to keep all things in order ; indolence and carelessness, they say, is directly opposite to the gospel and order of God; cleanliness in every respect is strongly enforced -- it is contrary to order even to spit on the floor. A dirty, careless, slov- enly or indolent person, they say, cannot travel in the way of God, or be religious. It is contrary to order to talk loud, to shut doors hard, to rap at the door for admittance, or to make noise in any respect ; even when walking the floor, they must be careful not to make noise with their feet. They go to bed at nine or ten o'clock, and rise at four or five ; all that are in health go to work about sun-rise, in-door mechanics, in the winter, work by candle light ; each one follows such an employment as the deacon arpoints for liin. Every min and woman must be employed, and work steadily and moderately. When any ure sick they have the utmost care and attention paid to them. When a man is sick, if there is a woman among the sisters, who was his wife before he believed, she, if' in health, nurses and waits upon him. If any of them transgress the rules and
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orders of the Church, they are not held in union until they confess their transgression, and often on their knees before the brethren and sisters.
" Each Church in the different settlements has a house called the office, where all business is transacted either among themselves or with other people. Each family deposit in the office all that is to be spared for chari- table purposes, which is distributed by the deacon to those whom he judges to be proper objects of charity. He never sends the poor and needy empty away."
Ann Lee, or Mother Ann, as she is reverently called by her followers, in whom this order, in this country, has its rise, was born February 29, 1736, in Toad Lane, (now Todd's St.,) Manchester, England. Her father, John Lee, was a poor blacksmith, and with him she resided until she left England for America. Her mother was esteemed a very pious woman. Her parents had eight children who were brought up to work, instead of being sent to school; and though she thus acquired habits of industry, she could neither read nor write. During her childhood and youth, she was employed in a cotton factory, was afterwards a cutter of hatter's fur, and then a cook in an infirmary. She was in each calling noted for neatness, faith- fulness, prudence and economy.
Her complexion was fair; she had blue eyes, and light chest- nut hair. Her countenance was expressive, but grave, inspir- ing confidence and respect. She possessed a strong and healthy physical constitution, and remarkable powers of mind. In childhood she exhibited a bright, sagacious and active genins. She was, unlike most children, serious and thoughtful. She was early the subject of religious impressions, and was often favored with heavenly visions.
As she grew in years, she felt an innate repugnance to the marriage state ; and, although she desired to be preserved from it, she was, through the importunities of her relatives, married to Abrabam Stanley, a blacksmith. The convictions of her youth, however, often returned to her, and at length brought her into excessive tribulation of soul, in which she earnestly sought for deliverance from the bondage of sin.
In 1758, she joined a society of Shakers, who were under the lead of Jane and James Wardley, formerly of the Quaker order, where she found that protection she so long desired. For nine years, while combating her worldly nature, she was. at intervals, subjected to the most agonizing mental and physical suffering, of which she thus spoke :
" Many times, when I was about my work, I have felt my soul over- wielued with sorrow. I u-ul to work as long as I could keep it concerted. and then would go out of sight, lest anyone should pity me with that pay which was not of God. In my travail and tribulation, my sufferings wie so great that my flesh consumed upon my bones, bloody sweat presse through the pores of my skin, and I became as helpless as an infant.
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when I was brought through, and born into the spiritual kingdom, I was like an infant just born into the natural world. They see colors and objects, but they know not what they see. It was so with me; but, before I was twenty-four hours old, I saw, and knew what I saw."
Says F. W. Evans, in his " Autobiography of a Shaker," " While Ann, for bearing her testimony against ' fleshly lusts, which war against the soul,' was imprisoned in Manchester, England, she saw Jesus Christ in open vis- ion, who revealed to her the most astonishing views and Divine manifesta- tions of truth, in which she had a perfect and clear sight of the 'mystery . of iniquity,' the root and foundation of all human depravity.
"From the time of this appearing of Christ to Ann, in prison (1770), she was received by the people as a mother in spiritual things, and was thence- forth by them called Mother Ann. *
"On the 19th of May, 1774, Mother Ann, with eight of her followers, embarked in the ship Mariah for New York, where they arrived on the 6th of August following. They proceeded to Albany, and thence to Water- vliet, which was at that time a wilderness, and called Niskeuna, where they remained very secluded for about three and a half years.
"Mother Ann, having finished her work on earth, departed this life, at Watervliet, on the 8th day of September, 1781, aged forty-eight years and six months."
Shakerism was permanently established as an organic move- ment in America in 1792, mainly through the exertions of Joseph Meacham and Lucy Wright, upon whom, at the death of Mother Ann, the government of her followers devolved. Joseph Meacham was a Baptist preacher in New Lebanon, and a prominent leader in the religious revival out of which the Society of Mount Lebanon originated. Lucy Wright belonged to one of the most wealthy and influential families in Pittsfield, Mass., and was a beautiful woman, possessed of extraordinary intellectual and moral endowments. They were among the first of those in America to accept a faith in the principles of Shakerism.
In speaking of these people, J. M. Peebles, in "The Seers of the Ages," says :
"Basing our opinions upon reliable testimony, these Shaker communities constitute a body of the neatest, healthiest, the most pure-minded and kind-hearted souls of earth. Certainly they are the only people on this continent, who have successfully maintained, for more than seventy years, a system of rational living, one of the fundamental principles of which is the Apostolic community of property."
The Shaker, " published monthly, by, and under the direction of the Mt. Lebanon Bishopric," was commenced in January, 1871. It is edited by F. W. Evans, and issued at Albany; and is devoted to the elucidation of the principles of Shakerism .*
* so little are the religious doctrines of the Shakers understood, and so illy have they
:: meeres upon this point, we have, at some pains, and by a personal visit to the Soci- + !: located here, obrained such information as enables us to present their distinctive reAgions belief, in a concise forus, and as defined by the First Elder of the Society, F. W. Evans, who is one of the abk st representatives of this Church.
They are first. That Christ has made his second appearance npon earth to a chosen female, named Ann Lee, as he mado his first appearance to a man, Jesus of Nazareth :
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Wyomanock Seminary was established about 1858, mainly through the generous efforts of Miss E. C. Hatch. It was in- corporated by the Legislature in 1865. The first small build- ing was enlarged in 1867, and the whole destroyed by fire, Jan. 6, 1869, since which time the school has found pleasant quarters in the Tilden mansion.
The first settlement was made about 1760, by immigrants mostly from Massachusetts and Connecticut. Among the first settlers were families named Gilbert, Cornell, King, Skinner, Mudge, Gurnsey, Jones, Waddams, Sanford and Patchin. An inn was kept for several years before the Revolutionary war, at Lebanon Springs.
From Anna E. Spencer's Historical Sketch of New Leban- on, we learn that the following named families were among the carly settlers: " Abbott, Adgate, Bailey, Bradley, Cole, Cornwell, Dean, Doubleday, Everest, Gay, Gillet, Grant, Hatch, Hitchcock, Horton, Murdock, Plum, Tilden, Van Deu- sen, Warner and Younglove."
Lebanon Springs, often called " Monte Poole," is supposed to be the first watering place in the United States visited by a white man. Capt. Hitchcock, a few years after his visit to the springs, of which we spoke in another place, became a resident of' the town. Says the author above quoted :
" Among the later settlers was a Rev. Mr. Kendall, who first came here from Canada on the trail of the Indians to whom he had gone as a mission- ary. He afterwards dwelt in the valley where his descendants still abide, and carry on an extensive business in the manufacture of thermometers and barometers. *
Christ being neither the man Jesus nor the woman Aun, buta spirit from the seventh, or resurrection heaven, who became incarnated in them in much the same manner that a child Is the incarnation of its parents, or a scholar, of its teachers ; the character of the one being transferred to and formed in the other. Revelation from the Christ heaven is, therefore, the rock upon which the Church of Christ, both in the first and second appearing, is founded. This Christ heaven, being the nearest to Deity, stands in the same relation to the inhabitants of all other globes that it does to those of the earth. An emanation from thence always commences the work of harvest, i. e. it begins to cut the inhabitants off from the ground and field of natural reproduction or generation ; this being the true resaprection. because it raises them from the natural to the spiritual order, by leading them to forsake earthly relatives, father, mother, brother, sister, &c .. and forming themselves into households of faith, where they have a hundred-fold of rel- atives of a spiritual character. all living on the basis of a celibate life. Holding that the work of God with humanity is progressive, from the beginning of creation to the end of the work of redemption. they claim that there has been seven successive churches. The first. the Apostolic, was hered upon zeven principles, Revelation, including Spirit- nalism, Community of Goods. Peace, or non-resistance, Repudiation of Oaths, Oral Confession of Sin, Health of Body and Celibacy. Only Jews whom Moses had disci- plined, as a school master, could become members of this Apostolical Church ; Second, the Gentile Church, founded by Peter and Cornelius. All its members bad been heath. en- or gentiles and there were shot to retain marriage and private property, aus con! senden of the Said to their low patate; the Third, or Miocene Church, war founded by the Emperor Con -weite. in addition to marriage and private property b added the element of war as a means to Christian conversion; the Fourth, or Roman Catholic, founded by Leo the Great, not only retained marriage, private property and war, but added the practice of legal oaths ; forbado marriage to the clergy and monastic orders; commanded to abstain from flesh-meat on certain days and occasione : and established the Inquisition, practicing persecution by tortnripg and putting to death heretics ; Fifth, or Protestant, founded by Luther and Calvin, denied the Spiritualism
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" About 1760 a house was erected near the Springs, and was doubtless the first one built in what is now called New Lebanon. This part of the town up to 1780 was considered a part of Massachusetts. Much ditli- culty existed at an early day between New York and the New England States in regard to their common boundary line. New York, indeed, ori- ginally claimed the Connecticut river as its eastern boundary. The general Court of Massachusetts made grants of land after the settlement of Pitts- field, extending nearly to the road which passes the dwelling of Dr. Bates ; and still farther northward, an old road formerly existed and can still be traced through an orchard now owned by the heirs of Naomi Clark, which was once considered to be on the line between the two States. The line was established in 1786, though not without a great deal of trouble and a disagreeable law suit. An anecdote was current in early times that a man named Wadhams, (one of the early settlers) after the Commissioners had fixed the State line, found his dwelling to be about four rods within the State of Massachusetts. Accordingly a day or two after, he called his neighbors together with their teams, and hitching the latter to the building, he moved it over the line into the State of New York. This building stood on the ground now occupied by the house of Elijah Bagg.
"The first frame house in the town of Canaan (of which Lebanon was formerly & part, and was called Kings District,) was erected by William Gay, on the hill near the Shaker grist mill. The second was built by Celah Abbot, near the Presbyterian church.
"The first church in the town of New Lebanon, was erected nearly oppo- site Mont Cemetery, on land now owned by the Gillets. It was con- structed of logs, and its worshipers were of the Presbyterian order.
" New Lebanon claims the honor of having been the first in instructing its Delegates in Congress to adopt a Declaration of Independence. Meck-
of the Catholic Church; substituted the Bible for the true word of God ; denied mod- ern miracles : abjured celibacy and oral confession of sin; retaining marriage, war. swearing, private property ; and claiming that all physical disease is from the Lord and must be borne with Christian resignation : the Sixth, the Infidel Church of America, whose civil government, founded by skeptics, such as Jefferson, Franklin and Thos. Paine, declares that all human beings are born equal, and possess an inherent right to land. In Theology, there being no inquisition and civil government to enforce it, all may believe what they please. This prepared the way for the Seventh, or Shaker Church of Christ's second appearing, in which are re-established all the elements of the first Pentecosta! church, viz :- Revelation, Spiritualism, Celibacy, Oral Confession. Cominn- nity of Goods, Non-Resistance, Gifts of Healing. Miracles, Physical Health, and Sepa- ration from the World. These they believe are the foundations of the new heavens, in which religion and science are inseparable friends forevermore : and the simple word of a believer is of equal force as the oath of a worldly gentile Christian, Catholic, or Pro- testant.
Jesus said few are saved, which the Shakers interpret to mean that only a certain per centage of the race are or ever will be called to live a pure celibate life while in the body. These will be ministers or saviors to the remainder of the inhabitants of earth, in the spirit world : they also act as a check to the principle of population, as a sub- stitute for war. famine and disease, or anything which tends to prevent the increase of the race. The lower classes of mankind are most prolific ; the most intellectual the least so. The Shakers do uot coudemn marriage per se, but they do hold that ander the law of use it should be restrained to the simple procrestion and rearing of off- spring, in accordance with the practice of animals.
They hold that the Deity is a dual being, the primary fountain of male and female. From this proceeds their dual order of government, which recognizes and secures equal rights to both sexes; aud it is their belief that the civil government is rapidly progressing toward the same order and that females will be recognized as human beings and possessed of all the intlienable richte so dear to the opposite "Px ; that. as they are equally subject to the action of laws with men, they will have at a qual voice in framing and Parenting those laws ; in other words the cat government of the I nied States is Providentially destined to become a dual government, a pattern for all the civil governments on the earth, a genuine republic. Then will wars begin to cease from the ends of the earth, for the social evil will be rooted out of the social system. They ask, with the Apostles, whence come wars and fightings? and believe that they proceed from physical and mental Inet, abnormal passions.
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lenburg, N. C., had previously declared itself absolved from its allegiance to Great Britain. * *
" The state of the country one hundred and fifty years ago. was striking- ly different from its present aspect. Then it was a vast swamp completely covered with large pine trees, rendering it well nigh impassable. The In- dians traveled across the mountain tops, but seldom venturing far into the wilderness of pines. The population fifty years ago was estimated to ex- ceed greatly the present number of inhabitants. At that time the people had begun to remove some of the pine trees, from the edge of the forests and to build near the foot of the mountains. After a time they left the heights altogether and settled in the valley."
The Lebanon Springs Baptist Church was organized in 1826, by Rev. Richmond Taggert, its first pastor, with 22 members. The church edifice was erected in the following year, and re- paired in 1868. It will seat 250 persons and its estimated value is $8,000. A. Waterbury is the present pastor. In seasons of its greatest prosperity its membership has numbered over a hundred, but owing to removals and deaths it is reduced to for- ty-nine.
The Church of the Immaculate Conception, (Catholic,) located at New Lebanon, erected its house of worship in 1871, and it was consecrated June 18th of that year, when Rev. J. J. Moriar- ty became its pastor. Its erection is largely due to the untiring efforts of the pastor. After the Mass, the Bishop administered the right of confirmation to 144 candidates who, during the Mass, had partaken of their first Communion.
STOCKPORT, named from Stockport, England, the native place of Mr. Wild, the former proprietor of the mills at Columbiaville, was formed from Hudson, Ghent and Stuy- vesant, April 30, 1833. It lies upon the Hudson, north of the center of the County. The surface consists of a high table land, rising from the Hudson in bluffs and descending with a moderate slope toward the east. Slightly elevated ridges traverse the town in a north and south direction, and afford an excellent view of the gently rolling country on either hand. The whole town partakes largely of the general attractiveness which characterizes most of the County. Kinderhook Creek, flowing south, and Claverack Creek, flowing north, unite near the center of the town and form Stockport (formerly Major Abraham's) Creek. These, with a small.creek which discharges its waters into the Claverack from the east, near its junction with the Kinderhook, the two former having, in breaking through the high bank of the Hudson, within three miles, several falls, amounting to about 160 feet, furnish many ex- cellent mill sites whose occupation and improvement have given rise to the flourishing manufacturing villages named
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below. The valleys of these streams are narrow and their banks often steep and rocky.
Near Stottville are four mineral springs, known as the Columbia Springs. A hotel and bathing houses have been erected near them. The medicinal properties which these waters combine, together with the unusually attractive natural scenery of the locality, have tended to make it a much frequented resort, not only by those who suffer from cutaneous, rheumatic, or other physical ills, but by those who seek pleasure or relaxation from the mental strain imposed by business cares. To those suffering from despondency or ennui and its concomitant evils, we could not recommend a more pleasing or efficaceous antidote than the society of the genial, kind-hearted host, who, says "Eula Lee" in The New York Evangelist, "is blind [*] to all things but the comfort and welfare of his guests, and his cheerfulness and good humor seem to fill the house with sunshine, giving us lessons in content that can- not fail to prove salutary."
Though incapacitated himself to enjoy the beauties of nature which have hero been supplemented by those of art, and the as- perities of the former softened and harmonized thereby, he has not been unmindful of the æsthetic tastes and comfort of his patrons.
The house stands on a beautiful elevation, surrounded by a fine hickory grove. It is in the town of Ghent, though the springs are in Stockport. The line dividing these two towns runs through the grounds connected with the house, and which cover an area of twenty acres. The springs are about four miles north-east from Hudson, and were formerly known as the " Hudson Medicinal Waters."
The following extract from the Balance, which was com- municated to that paper soon after the discovery of the springs, will prove of interest, not only from its description of them, but also, to some extent, of the geological formation of this section of the County :
" The soil in and about Hudson consists for the most part of clay, with which are intermixed, mechanically, large portions of calcareous and mag. nesian earths, and everywhere are to be found traces of iron and sulphuric acid; these are sometimes discovered chemically combined in various min- eral substances ; especially a fine specimen of pyritons stone, termed bris- tered marcasite, is often found washed out by the rains in deep gullies at this vicinity. That hepatic waters should result from the decomposition of such materials, and that Epsom waters should abound in such a soil, might naturally be expected. We accordingly find here with some inter- ruption, a continuation of those springs, some partaking more of one Quality and some of the other, for miles in extent ; they are to be met with equally on both sides of the river, and are seen bursting through its bed
*The proprietor, C. B. Nash, is totally blind.
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below high water mark, and trickling down the sides of the high clay banks called the Clavers, about two miles to the north of this city, leaving behind them a very austere and bitter salt, which during the summer sea- son, in dry weather, gives these banks at a distance, a white appearance. Although these waters are characterized principally by the sulphurated hydrogen gas and the sulphit of magnesia, yet some of them possess other qualities in an inferior degree; but one or two excepted, none of them appear to be highly charged with those materials.
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