“The Good Works of the People”
The following is the first of a two-part story written in the early 2000s by Darryl Thompson of Canterbury, who lived with the Canterbury Shakers for three decades.
“The Good Works of the People”
The Shakers as Neighbors, Philanthropists and Social Service Providers
“I never hear this characteristic of the Shakers emphasized in current interpretations of them,” the caller’s voice said through my earphones.
I was in the studio of public radio station WEVO in Concord, N.H., where Laura Knoy’s discussion show “The Exchange” is daily recorded. Across the table sat Dr. Scott Swank, the eminent president and director of Canterbury Shaker Village, Inc., the non-profit organization that administers the restored Shaker community at Canterbury where I work as a historical interpreter, historical researcher, and administrator. Scott and I nodded in agreement as the elderly caller continued. His words were food for thought.
“I knew the Canterbury Shakers for decades,” he said. “Their kindness is what I remember most about them. Yet it seems to be the least discussed aspect of their lives whenever presentations of Shaker history are given.”
There is much truth in his statement. Images of the Shakers come in a rainbow of colors. Students of art, music, and comparative religion recall the members of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (the Shakers’ official name) as mystics who had visionary experiences and recorded these in the form of beautiful “gift drawings” and “gift songs.” Today’s tinkerers and technologists remember the “Believers” as ingenious, practical-minded innovators who devised numerous inventions and improvements ranging from a steam-run washing machine to the nation’s first use of paper packaging for garden seeds. Historians honor the Shakers as pioneering social reformers who sought to attain sexual and racial equality within their own ranks and thereby prodded the conscience of American society on these issues. Sociologists proclaim the United Society to be the longest-lasting and most successful communal organization in American history and point out that their success helped to trigger the formation of other communal movements in the first half of the 19th century. The general public knows them as the originators of a style of furniture that has influenced both the Scandinavian Modern and Modern American furniture styles and has spawned a whole industry dedicated to reproducing Shaker furniture and objects.
The Shakers were all these things and more. Yet little attention is paid to the “caregiving” roles the Shakers played as neighbors, philanthropists and providers of social services.
Throughout my childhood, youth and young adulthood I personally witnessed the last Canterbury Shaker Sisters still trying as best they could to provide these functions.
The Shakers as Philanthropists
My father, Charles “Bud” Thompson, was a close friend of the Canterbury Sisters who came to live with and work for them. He founded the museum at Canterbury Shaker Village with Eldress Bertha Lindsay, Sister Lillian Phelps, and Eldress Marguerite Frost. I lived at Canterbury Shaker Village for six years full-time and (following my parents’ divorce) part-time for another 25 years, becoming a museum tour guide at age 13 and continuing in that occupation into my adulthood. My brother, Dayne Thompson, and my stepbrothers, David Lamb and Steven Lamb, also spent significant slices of their lives living in the village.
There were 11 Sisters when I first came to the village (the community’s Brethren having all passed away by this time). Over the years two other Sisters moved up from two other villages (one living in a nearby nursing home but spending holidays at Canterbury, the other living full-time in the village), so I knew 13 Shaker women at the colony. I thus had 15 grandmothers—two by blood, 13 by “adoption.”
Throughout my childhood, youth and young adulthood I encountered stories of how the Shakers had aided people in the wider world that lay outside their villages. Not all 19th-century Shaker communities enjoyed prosperity, but those that did generously gave of their surplus to a variety of charities and good causes. Even the poorest Shaker communities often displayed a spirit of charity that was even more touching because of the sacrifice entailed. Canterbury, which ranked among the prosperous villages throughout most of its history, had a long and honorable tradition of generosity. I found evidence of this all around me.
Residents of the area told my father and me how the Shakers on a few occasions had provided loans at no interest to individuals seeking to start businesses. We, in fact, knew one businessman who had been helped in this way.
A member of a family that had owned a mill in the area once told us how the Canterbury Shakers had done their part to help the mill stave off bankruptcy and thereby save local jobs. The Canterbury Shakers were famous for their “Shaker-knit” sweaters. They let the mill produce a portion of the sweaters and sell them under the Shaker label. All profits from the sweaters produced by the mill went to the mill.
A local farmer told the most touching story about Canterbury Shaker philanthropy. His father, a man with respiratory complaints, had been advised to move to the country where the air would be better for his lungs. He bought a farm and entered into agriculture with little knowledge of the realities of the business. He was soon facing failure. Turning from growing crops to dairy farming seemed to be a wise business move that could enable him to financially survive, but he had no capital with which to start a herd.
One day the woman of the house suggested to her husband and son that they try to forget their troubles by taking a picnic lunch and embarking on a hike. The man and boy took a walk to Canterbury Shaker Village to observe the dairy operation there. They arrived at the village and, after finding a seat on a stone wall, proceeded to eat their lunch and admire the grazing Guernseys. They eventually fell into conversation with a Shaker Brother who passed by. The boy (who was now the grown man who was telling us the story) poured out to the Shaker the whole story of their financial predicament—much to the dismay of his father who was upset by his son’s willingness to share private family matters with a total stranger. The Brother said nothing and went about his business but later returned with the news that the Elder would like to speak to both the father and the son. The two of them, although nervous about the possibility that they might be reprimanded for trespassing, complied with the Elder’s wish.
To their surprise they found their reception to be a very cordial one. A Sister sat them down at a table and brought them cookies and a pitcher of cold milk to enjoy while they waited for the Shaker leader to make his entrance. Soon a dignified, distinguished-looking older gentleman appeared and introduced himself as Elder Henry Blinn. He said that the Brother had told him of the family’s situation and that the Society would like to help. He offered to let the family take stock from the Shaker herd to begin a dairy business. The Elder told them that they didn’t have to begin repaying the Shakers until they were showing a profit. Furthermore, he said that they could pay the Shakers back on a “as much as you can, when you can” basis. On top of all this, the Elder dispatched some brothers to the farm to help the family with some badly needed house repairs. “Thanks to those wonderful people,” the storyteller told us, “we were able to financially survive and our father lived a long life.”
Next month: The Shakers as providers of social services and as good neighbors.
What a gift we have been given in Darryl’s retelling of his experiences growing up at Canterbury Shaker Village. I’m glad to have him share this story of their compassion and empathy for their Canterbury neighbors. Their largesse did not just apply to humans. As I’ve heard the story, probably from Bud originally, but confirmed in a conservation with Eldress Bertha, the Shakers would plant extra rows of crops like corn to share with the birds. I suspect their charity to wild creatures did not stop with the birds, for they were famous for their stewardship of their herds and other livestock.