The Harvard Society lies in Worcester County, about thirty miles northwest from Boston. It was founded in 1793; and had in 1823 two hundred members. It has now four families, containing in all ninety persons, of whom sixteen are children and youth under twenty-one--four boys and twelve girls. Of the seventy-four adult members, seventeen are men and fifty-seven women. The Church Family has fifty members, of whom forty-one are women and girls, and nine men and boys. It is usual among the Shakers to find more women than men in a society or family, but at Harvard the disproportion of the sexes is uncommonly great. The members are mainly Americans, but they have some Scotch, Germans, and Welsh. A considerable proportion of the present membership came in as adults, and these were, before becoming Shakers, for the most part Adventists, some however coming from the Baptist and Methodist denominations. The elder of the Gathering Family was a Baptist, and the leading minister was an English Wesleyan. The people are mostly in middle life. The health of this society has always been good; the _average_ age at death, I was assured, ranged for a great number of years between sixty to sixty-eight. One sister died at ninety-three, and other members died at from eighty to eighty-six. Their home farm consists of about eighteen hundred acres; and they have besides a farm in Michigan, and another in Massachusetts. Their living is made almost entirely by farming; and they have drained very thoroughly a considerable piece of swamp, which yields them large crops of hay. They make brooms, have a nursery, and press and put up herbs; and employ sixteen or seventeen hired laborers. They have a small library, but "do not let books interfere with work;" there is a school, but no musical instrument; most of the people eat meat, and drink tea and coffee; and a few are indulged in the practice of chewing tobacco. They are not very musical, but they take a great many newspapers. "Do you like to take children?" I asked; and an eldress replied, "Yes, we like to take children--but we don't like to take monkeys;" and, in general, the Shakers have discovered that "blood will tell," and that they can do much better with the children of religious parents than with those whose fathers or mothers were dissolute or irreligious. This society has no debt, and is prosperous, though its buildings are not all in first-rate order according to the Shaker standard, which is very high. It has suffered from one defalcation. The ministry among the Shakers usually occupy their spare time in some manual labor, as I have explained in a previous chapter. The leading minister over Harvard and Shirley makes brooms; his predecessor made shoes. The leading female minister is a dress-maker. _Shirley_.