The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and ObservationNordhoff, Charles
History
The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observation
Nordhoff, Charles
Collective settlements -- United States
The Watervliet and Mount Lebanon Societies have a number of members
living in the outer world, but holding to Shaker principles, and
maintaining by correspondence a connection with them. Some of these are
inhabitants of cities, and "above the average in wealth and culture," I
was told. The Watervliet Society has also a branch at Philadelphia,
consisting of twelve colored women, who live together in one house under
the leadership of an old woman, who was moved about twenty years ago to
leave this society and go to Philadelphia to preach among her people.
The members find employment as day servants in different families, going
home every night. They mainly support themselves, and have never asked
for help from the society; but this occasionally makes them presents,
and keeps a general oversight over them.
_Groveland_.
The Groveland Society lies near Sonyea, in Livingston County,
thirty-seven miles from Rochester on the Dansville and Mount Morris
branch of the Erie Railway. This society Was founded at Sodus Point in
1826, and removed from there to its present location in 1836. They had
at that time one hundred and fifty members; and were most numerous about
twenty-five years ago, when they had two hundred members. At present
they have two families, with fifty-seven members in all, of whom nine
are children under twenty-one; of these last, six are girls and three
boys. Of the adults, thirty are females and eighteen males.
They own a home farm of two thousand acres, and an outlying farm of two
hundred and eighty acres, mostly good land, and very well placed, a
canal and two railroads running through their home farm. They have a
saw-mill and grist-mill, which are sources of income to them; and they
raise broom-corn, make brooms, and dry apples and sweet corn. The women
make fancy articles for sale. They also keep fine cattle, and sell a
good deal of high-priced stock. Farming and gardening are their chief
employments, as they have a ready sale for all they produce. They employ
eight hired laborers.
The members are mostly Americans, raised in the society; but they have
French Canadians, Dutch, German, Irish, and English among them. The
French Canadians were Catholics, and some of their other members were
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists. Most of those who came in
as adults were farmers. They are long-lived--living to beyond seventy
in a considerable number of cases.
They eat meat, drink tea and coffee, and some aged members who came in
late in life, with confirmed habits, are allowed to use tobacco. One
sister smokes.
They have a school, and a good miscellaneous library of about four
hundred volumes, in a case in the dwelling-house of the Church Family.
They sing finely, but are opposed to the introduction of musical
instruments. In some of their evening meetings they read aloud, and the
last book thus read was Mr. Seward's "Journey around the World."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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