Mother Ann and The Shakers of Watervliet

Ann Lee

From Mount Lebanon we traveled west to Watervliet.  There, not far from what is now the Albany Airport, Ann Lee and her small band of Shakers came in 1784.  Born in Manchester, England, Ann arrived in New York with seven followers, including the husband who soon abandoned her, just as the American Revolution was breaking out.  Perhaps because of her eight children,none had  lived past six, Ann preached celibacy as a central tenet of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Reappearing. Rejoicing in their faith, which they expressed through ecstatic singing and dancing, Ann and her followers were pacifists and paid little heed to the war which raged with special ferocity in upstate New York.

Leasing a small piece of land in 1776, the first Shakers set to work draining the swampy  ground and creating a farm. In 1780 Ann made a missionary tour of New England , attracting new followers and taking in some of the many orphans whose parents were carried off by war and disease.

On the day we visited the Shaker Village at the intersection of Heritage Lane and Meetinghouse Road in Watervliet, the only visitors were a group of developmentally delayed adults who paid close attention to the tour guide as she explained to them the purpose of the various remaining buildings.

Restored interior of the 1848 Meeting House

19th century drawing of Shakers dancing in a meeting house

As we listened to the guide, we could almost hear the lively stamp of Shakers dancing in this very space, and perhaps felt just a bit of their inner joy and peace. 

Work was central to Shaker life, and their industriousness brought great prosperity to their communist societies during the first years of the American republic. Here at Watervliet, the Shakers specialized in the production of brooms and garden seeds. They also operated a cannery.

 The Great Barn

Brethrens Workshop

Wash House & Cannery

In 1926 the City of Albany purchased the property and demolished several buildings. The others, however, are in good condition structurally, although their interiors are in poor repair and not open to the public. 

Not far from the village, we found the cemetery where 400 of the Shakers rest eternally.  Walking slowly past the plain stones, many of which attest to the advanced age common to the Shakers, we found the slightly larger stone of Ann Lee among those of her devoted followers.

My interest in the Shakers has been an historical one and I found the sect to be of interest chiefly for its subsequent  influence on American life. Although the celibate group dwindled down over the years, their belief in an imminent Second Coming was shared by the Millerites, and those other uniquely American forms of millenarian Christianity like the Seventh Day Adventists, not to mention the Branch Davidians, and the Assemblies of God who play such a large part in religious and political life life today. The ecstatic form of Shaker worship, and the speaking in tongues, has also remained with us. Even the Shaker belief that the work of conversion continues on into the afterlife has long been shared by the Church of Latter Day Saints, whose origins coincided in time and place with the high point of the Shaker movement.

19th century drawing of a Shaker girl falling into a trance

 Mother Ann Lee and her followers also deserve much credit for their pioneering concepts of gender equality. Women held equal place with men among them, and their theology reflected this.  God is dual, male and female, both Father and Mother to mankind. In their view, Jesus was only one manifestation of the eternal "Christ of the Ages." For them,  Ann Lee was another such avatar of the Christ, the female counterpart of Jesus, as the official creed of the Shakers attests:

Jesus Christ not only foretold the falling away, the coming of antichrist, he also foretold a reappearing, a coming again to gather and save. In his last interviews with his disciples he uttered some mysterious words, over which theological quibbling has spent itself in vain. Not to the wise nor prudent of this world came the word of revelation, but to the child in simple trust with heart of faith. The apocalypse of mystery that descended from cloud to sea at Patmos opened its meanings, when to the child spirit of Ann Lee came the call of God. We have watched her follow that call. We have seen her wrestlings and conflicts as flesh strove with spirit, as the cross, heavy and death bringing, was taken bravely up. We have watched her. as she subdued and slew the weakness and sin of her lower nature. We have heard her cries and moans of agony as the weight of a world's woe pressed upon her heart. We have watched her in prison, every nerve throbbing with the torture of that forsaken, narrow cell, where for fourteen days she was nourished by God's gift, sustained by His power. We have seen her in the prison cell in Manchester, baptized with the Christ Spirit. From that time she never faltered in her calm assurance of knowledge that to her had been given the revelation of the Maternal Spirit of God. Ann Lee always acknowledged Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, the Head of the Church; but, when the two anointed leaders, before whom she had confessed her sins and whom she had obeyed as her spiritual guides, recognized in her a superior endowment of Divine Maternity, and with the rest of the little circle acknowledged her as now their Spiritual Mother, she did not refuse the recognition.

Women of the Shaker community on the bridge in the Watervliet settlement

from the collection of the Watervliet Shaker Village

Although I am not usually given to any kind of mysticism, I did feel an unusual sensation when I placed my hand upon Mother Ann's stone, perhaps a presence or simply a reassurance that the divine principle of the universe is indeed a loving and maternal one.

The Shakers of Mount Lebanon

 

Most people who are interested in the Shakers know of Hancock Shaker Village, a well preserved settlement near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. A visit there is  a definite must for anyone who wants to explore the Shaker heritage.

 

 

 

Views of Hancock ShakerVillage



 

However, many visitors miss another important Shaker site only a few miles west over the Ndew York State line. Mount Lebanon was the real motherhouse of the Shaker world in the 19th century and promises to offer an even fuller vision of that world.

 

 

 Shaker woman in the 1870s

from the collection of the Shaker Museum and Library

The Shaker Museum and Library in Old Chatham is in the process of moving to Mount Lebanon. This is the world's most complete collection of  Shaker artifacts and documents,  and owes its existence John S. Williams, a great friend of the last few Shakers. The museum's new location will be a few miles away at  Mount Lebanon, the spiritual center of Shaker life from its founding in 1787 until 1947.

  Shaker Eldresses from about 1890-1910

from the collections of The Shaker Museum & Library

We visited Mount Lebanon as par tof a project to more deeply explore the effects of this Christian sect upon American life. The Shakers are best remembered today for the  fine quality of their workmanship and for the commitment to celibacy which, in contrast to other native forms of Christianity,  doomed their denomination to extinction. The United Society of Believers in Christ's Reappearing, as they called themselves,  shared many practices and beliefs common to the still thriving Mormon and Pentecostal traditions and were pioneers in practicing the gender and racial equality that is  so fundamental to our contemporary political and cultural life. They were also, however, rare among Protestants in the creation of celibate brotherhoods and sisterhoods similar to the monastic orders of the Roman Catholic faith.

Elderly remnant of the Shaker community, in the 1920s

from the collection of the Shaker Museum & Library

Mount Lebanon is located on Shaker and Darrow Roads in New Lebanon, near the intersection of routes 20 and 22, on a mountainside near the Massachusetts border. Our first stop was  on Cherry Lane at The Inn at the Shaker Mill Farm, a pleasant hostelry  in a renovated grist mill built by the "Church Family" in 1824. According to Peter Stott, this mill served to grind grain for the entire New Lebanon community, Shaker and non-Shaker alike. (The celibate Shakers arranged themselves in working communities they called "families," such as the Church Family, the Center Family, the North Family and so on.)

The Inn at Shaker Mill Farm

 A little farther up the western slope of the Taconic Range we found the many remaining buildings of the North Family. The buildings are now largely the property of the Darrow School, and many are in active use.  The entire area is listed as a National Historic Site and major preservation work has been ongoing, although not during our visit.

ruins of the Great Stone Barn at Mount Lebanon

Built in 1859, the Great Stone Barn burned in 1979. The structure, like others at Mt. Lebanon, is now being stabilized, thanks to funding from the New York State Department of Transportation, the Federal department of Housing and Urban Development, the World Monuments Fund and private donors.

North Family Wash House (1854)

The exterior of the communal wash house is also undergoing preservation effports, while other nearby Shaker structures such as the Meacham Dwelling House  are private residences.

The Meacham Dwelling House (1818)

There still remain many buildings used by the industrious Shakers to manufacture products for local use and for sale to the public, including The Forge and The Brethrens' Workshop.

The Brethrens Workshop (1825)

 The Forge, built between 1825-1828

According to Peter Stott, the  Brethrens Workshop was the principal manufacturing building among a small group of shops drawing on a common source of water power. Carpentry, broom-making and washing machines were driven by water power, which also provided power for the bellows and triphammer in the adjacent forge.

An interesting description of this community at its height can be found in the report of Charles Nordhoff who visited Mount Lebanon in 1875 and found  "all or nearly all the Shaker people—polite, patient, noiseless in their motions except during their "meetings" or worship, when they are sometimes quite noisy; scrupulously neat, and much given to attend to their own business." Elder Frederick Evans informed Nordhoff that the society no longer took in orphans "for experience had proved that when these grew up they were oftenest discontented, anxious to gain property for themselves, curious to see the world, and therefore left the society." The recent Civil War had also led to reduced membership since some of the young Shaker men, although raised as pacifists, had acceded to the pressures of conscription and gone off to war.

The survival of so many of the original buildings of Mount Lebanon owes much to establishment of the Darrow School at the site in 1932.A decade before the last elderly Shakers left Mt. Lebanon in 1948, they set in motion plans for a school to inherit their property. The private co-ed boarding school currently enrolls about 100 students and employs 30 teachers.

The Darrow School makes active use of Shaker buildings

Gazing across the fields once tilled by Shakers, we tried to imagine the lives they must have led, working so hard and yet denying to themselves earthly love and family.  Their joys we know of, from the many witnesses whom they invited to watch their ecstatic dancing and singing, but what of their sorrows, their doubts, their despair?

Our curiosity about these influential and unusual Americans still unsatisfied, we visited the set out for the first of the Shaker villages some thirty miles to the west, where the founder of this sect, Mother Ann Lee, was revered as a female Christ.

A Visit to Steepletop, home of Edna St. Vincent Millay

When we read in the Albany Times Union that Edna St. Vincent Millay's home was now open to the public, we decided that we had to visit. Located in the Harvey Mountain State Forest, Millay's farmhouse home can be reached by taking a dirt road just south of the intersection of NY state routes 22 and 203 in eastern Columbia county.

Visitors approaching the shrine

Edna St. Vincent Millay, or Vincent as she liked to be called, was "a rock star of her day and very much a diva," according to Peter Bergman, director of the Millay Society. The society's many volunteers have worked hard to restore the house and grounds and provide very informative and candid tours of the house.

Vincent , after living  in Paris and Greenwich Village, bought this former blueberry farm  and an additional 400 acres in 1925 for $9000. The poet and her husband Eugen Boissevain enjoyed company and had frequent visitors from the literary world of the 1920s and 1930s.

  View of Vincent's pool, where skinny-dipping was mandatory

 Restored arbor, where Vincent's poolside bar was located

When not entertaining, Vincent insisted on a strict schedule for her writing. In warm weather, she repaired to her writer's hut and was not to be disturbed.

The writer's hut

 Interior of writer's hut

 Eugen was extremely, some would say pathologically, devoted to Vincent. He not only served her breakfast in bed- he also vacated the bedroom whenever Vincent needed to entertain lovers of either sex.

The study, where Vincent was not to be disturbed

 The tiny bedroom to which Eugen was banished when 

Vincent's lovers came to call

Vincent's poetry, which followed traditional rhyme and meter in contrast to Eliot, Pound, Auden and the other poets of her era, was popular and she made frequent tours promoting her books and giving readings. Eugen and the servants continued to wait on her until he died in 1949.  Vincent was lost without her devoted spouse and evidently her drinking and drug use, always a problem, increased.  In 1950, while climbing the narrow staircase with a glass of wine in hand, Vincent fell to her death.

 The fatal staircase: The rung on far right broke as Vincent grabbed 

for it before tumbling to her death

Following Vincent's death, her sister Nora Millay Ellis and her husband continued Eugen's tradition of devotion to Vincent, or in this case to her memory. They kept the house unchanged for the next quarter century. On Nora's death, Vincent's youngest sister Norma donated the property to the Millay Society, whose volunteers  set about the challenging task of restoring the house and grounds. The sisters also donated 250 acres to the adjacent Millay Colony for the Arts, a retreat for artists.

A quarter mile up the road from Steepletop can be found the Millay Poetry Trail, which leads a half mile through the forest to the graves of Vincent and Eugen.

Preview

 A few of her poems:

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.

Witch-Wife
She is neither pink nor pale, And she never will be all mine; She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine. She has more hair than she needs; In the sun `tis a woe to me! And her voice is a string of coloured beads, Or steps leading into the sea. She loves me all that she can, And her ways to my ways resign; But she was not made for any man, And she never will be all mine.

I shall forget you presently, my dear

I SHALL forget you presently, my dear,

So make the most of this, your little day,

Your little month, your little half a year,

Ere I forget, or die, or move away,

And we are done forever; by and by

I shall forget you, as I said, but now,

If you entreat me with your loveliest lie

I will protest you with my favourite vow.

I would indeed that love were longer-lived,

And oaths were not so brittle as they are,

But so it is, and nature has contrived

To struggle on without a break thus far, --

Whether or not we find what we are seeking

Is idle, biologically speaking.

Public tours

of Steepletop will be available Fri - Mon at 11:30, 12:30, 2:30 and 3:30. Each tour is limited to six people so call ahead: 518-392-3362. The Millay Poetry Trail is always open.

For more on Vincent's life, the best source is the 2001 biography, Savage Beauty by  Nancy Milford.

Public Access to Nutten Hook Shoreline Threatened

The Ferry Road crossing

Residents of Ferry Road in Nutten Hook are outraged by New York State's plan to close the Ferry Road Amtrak crossing and demolish five homes, including two on the National Historic Register. The closing will also block public access to one of the most unspoiled sections of shoreline on the Hudson River.


On May 13, 2010, the Hudson, NY  Register-Star reported:

Residents of Ferry Road heard directly from the state agencies that control their fate on Thursday morning. As in the past, they came away with more questions than answers. While holding court in Stuyvesant Town Hall, Administrative Law Judge Peter Loomis of the state Department of Transportation swore in three witnesses from his agency, along with one official from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Other officials and interested parties were also allowed to enter unsworn statements into his record.


The hearing re-opened a 1996 legal decision which declared the gated rail crossing at Ferry Road unsafe, and ordered it closed. An updated ruling in 2006 added that the crossing would remain open until a connector road was built to Ice House Road, a short distance to the north. Without a connector, three occupied homes on Ferry Road would be unreachable by emergency vehicles, and subject to purchase under eminent domain by the state.

This beautiful section of the Hudson River, once the scene of thriving industries, has long been of interest to us, and previous postings at Upstate Earth have focused on the ruins of the R&W Scott Icehouse and the Cary Brickyard . In the late 19th and early 20th century barges carried bricks and ice south to New York City, while a ferry plied back and forth to Coxsackie on the opposite shore.

Originally called Nutten Hoek, or "nut-tree point,"  by the 17th century Dutch, the bedrock promontory now known as Newton Hook may contain undiscovered artifacts of the Paleo-Indians whose presence has been documented at Tivoli Bay and other spots along this part of the Hudson estuary. The entire point is an undeveloped Department of Environmental Conservation site and included within the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve.


As soon as we read of the state's sudden rush to close off the area, we went down to the river to take a look for ourselves. Our first stop was at Icehouse Road, where another open rail crossing will, according to the state, be improved with new safety features. From here we saw the wetlands across which a road was promised in 1996. Now, however, the state's Department of Environmental Conservation has changed its position. The wetlands, according to DEC's Betsy Blair, contain federally and state protected wetlands and any road, even a single lane along the dry land at the base of the Nutten Hook peak, is no longer acceptable.

View  from IceHouse Rd. of  Nutten Hook and wetlands

We walked south on 9-J for half a mile to the Ferry Road crossing, where an Amtrak passenger train was racing by. Crossing the tracks, we soon encountered a local resident who provided us with many details about the current struggle. Among the most interesting was that buying and destroying the houses on Ferry Road would cost more than $900,000 while building a half-mile long single lane road connecting Icehouse and Ferry Roads would cost, at most, a third as much.

Amtrak train at Ferry Road crossing

Activists' signs on Ferry Road

Now a private residence, the 1881 Lynch Hotel

is on the National Historic Register

We moved on to the point to enjoy once more this shoreline so popular with local fishermen, hikers, and picnickers. This is just about the only spot in the county where people can find easy access to the Hudson, which is almost everywhere else blocked by the railroad line. The boat access at nearby Stockport Creek has no access to the shoreline  and  high speed trains make it unsafe for children. And the one state park in the area which offers river access, Schodack Island State Park, is set to be closed on May 16 due to the state's budget shortfall.

View of Coxsackie waterfront from site of the old ferryboat pier

Ocean-going freighter bound for the Port of Albany

Hudson River beach at Ferry Point

Still puzzling over why state agencies would join forces to close off this shoreline, we followed the trail leading from Ferry Rd to Ice House Rd.  This level route along the eastern edge of Nutten Hook hill is on dry ground and it seems clear that a single lane road could be constructed on this route at minimal expense and without any significant damage to the wetlands.

This trail between Ferry and Icehouse Roads could be 

converted to a single lane road

View of Catskill Mountains from the peak of Newton Hook

Ruins of the R& W Scott Icehouse, built in 1885

What can be done to preserve access to Nutten Hook?

The residents of Ferry Road have created a website, Save Ferry Road, which explains the whole situation in detail and provides a list of officials in the state Department of Transportation and the state Department of Environmental Conservation who have joined forces to destroy this small community and block public access to the river.

The site also provides contact numbers for  the local representatives for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congressman Scott Murphy, both of whom have written letters of support for saving Ferry Road. 


I am in the process of contacting these people and will post updates as to their response. I urge you to do the same.

Update June 10, 2010

DEC's Gene Kelly has written back saying that "the development of a connector road from Ice House Road to Ferry Road across the Reserve would impact the sensitive wetlands, archeological artifacts, and important wildlife habitat found at this site," without mentioning any post-1996 study substantiating the claims. He adds that: "assuming the state's fiscal climate improves, the Department anticipates building  a parking area and handicapped accessible trail to the Hudson River at the end of Ice House Road."

Congressman Murphy's assistant Rob Scholz said that the Nutten Hook issue was one for state representatives. None of the other officials whom I contacted have responded.

Update May 29, 2011 Newton Hook Rail Crossing Gets a Reprieve

The Albany Times Union carried a report today that "a  DOT administrative law judge ordered that the crossing remain open and be improved with federal stimulus funding while DOT studies long-term safety improvements. DOT has to file its report by June 30, 2012."



Report from Schodack Island State Park

Schodack Island State Park is one of 91 state parks and historic sites being closed May 16 as part of Governor Patterson's budget cuts, thus cutting off one more public access to the Hudson in our area. Fred Lebrun has excellent analysis of the politics behind this decision in  Padlocked Parks Lock Out Sense in the Albany Times Union.

The park already shows signs of neglect as the shutdown process gets underway. I biked along the extensive trail system, surprised to see no other bikers or hikers. Then I realized why. The trails are blocked in many places by fallen trees that would ordinarily be quickly  removed by park employees.

 Trails are blocked by fallen trees

 Idled State Park Police boats

The park was once three islands, before being combined into one by dredging, and is believed to be the place where Henry Hudson was welcomed by the Mohican people. Archeologists have done little work at this site, but it is known that the aboriginal people maintained corn fields in the rich alluvial soil of the island. Artifacts from this forgotten culture have been dated back to 5000 years ago, and there is doubtless much that we could have learned from them about living in harmony with the natural world.

Replica of Henry Hudson's Half Moon at Albany

Although they welcomed Hudson and his crew with a friendliness that was in sharp contrast to the more warlike peoples encountered near the river's mouth, their fate was not a happy one. Decimated by European diseases, the Mohicans lost several wars to the Mohawks, who adopted firearms and dominated the violent struggle for the furs in such demand by the European market.

 The 18th century Mohican Chief  Etow made
his home on this island or the nearby shore.

Update on Schodack Island

Schodack Island State Park was briefly closed, along with many other state parks, and then reopened to the public after additional funds were voted in Albany.

Update on Newton Hook

After many years of attempting to close the Ferry Road Crossing, State Department of Transportation finally gave up in september, 2012.