The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God

"Back in the early 1980's, when my then wife Amy Stechler and I were driving through rural western Massachusetts, we came across a remarkable round stone barn on the side of the road whose shape and exquisite workmanship made me stop in my tracks...Who are the people who would make such a thing?  It turned out to be the religious converts at the Hancock Shaker Village." (Ken Burns)

After completing The Brooklyn Bridge, an urban based documentary, Ken Burns turned his attention towards a rural documentary, The Shakers:  Hands to Work, Hearts to God.  While their official name remained the "United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing", unofficially they were called the Shakers after the ecstatic dancing they performed.

Ken Burns came upon the Shakers by accident.  "Back in the early 1980's, when my then wife Amy Stechler and I were driving through rural western Massachusetts, we came across a remarkable round stone barn on the side of the road whose shape and exquisite workmanship made me stop in my tracks...Who are the people who would make such a thing?  It turned out to be the religious converts at the Hancock Shaker Village." (http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/shakers/shakers/)

The Shakers movement began with a former factory worker from England named Ann Lee who immigrated to America in 1774 with eight pilgrims on the eve of the American Revolution.  She practiced celibacy, never married and never had children as did all of the Shakers.  She told her followers to give up their families, property and ties "to know...the peaceable nature of Christ's kingdom" Quakers believed that Christ had come again in the form of "Mother Ann".  Soon, the religious movement was sweeping New England.  At its peak, in 1840, the Quakers included 6,000 people in 19 communal villages which stretched from New England to Ohio to Kentucky.

Shakers were passionate about their work which produced reliable goods and bounteous gardens.  Surplus food was given to the poor.  They were ahead of their time:  women were granted equal rights within the commune by 1787, the year that the United States drafted their Constitution.  In 1817, members who had joined the movement with slaves set them free.  The Emancipation Proclamation was not signed until 1863.  A Shaker owned one of the first automobiles in New Hampshire.  While the state capitol was burning gas, Shakers in the state already had electricity.  

Because the Shakers did not believe in procreation, they eventually died out.  At the time of Ken Burns' documentary debut, there was only a single village of Shakers remaining in Maine.

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/shakers/shakers/

The Mayflower

I remember two things about visiting the Mayflower in Plymouth, Massachusetts forty years ago:  my dad had to bend over on the decks because the pilgrims were significantly shorter than us and my mom bought me a silver pin of the ship at the gift shop.  Here is the history of the famous ship.

The Mayflower was a Dutch cargo fluyt that weighed 180 tons and measured 110 feet long.  It had four decks (main, gun, cargo) and three masts.  Square-rigged and beak-bowed, it had castle-like structures at its fore and aft, making progress slow against the prevailing winds.  Hence, the trip from England to America took over two months to complete.

Master Christopher Jones planned out the route of the Mayflower.  The ship first disembarked in July of 1620 filled with 135 people, both passengers and crew.  Many of the passengers were Separatists, wanting to separate from the Church of England.  However, hired hands and indentured servants were also on board, including four young children (long before the British Home Children came to Canada).

The Mayflower met up with another ship, the Speedwell, which sprang a leak and was abandonned, its passengers joining those on the Mayflower.  In September 1620, the ship disembarked from Plymouth, England to sail to the New World.  Its cargo deck held cannon, shot and gunpowder, just in case pirates were lurking in the Atlantic.  Its cargo hold held live sheep, poultry, pigs and goats along with food and supplies.  Its captain navigated using a compass and kept time with an hourglass.

 
With the voyage taking longer than expected, the food supply grew low.  Rather than risking drinking the untreated water, most drank beer on board the ship (although that seems hard to believe in case of the Puritans on board).  To entertain themselves, passengers played cards like Nine Men's Morris. Winds were strong resulting in many cases of seasickness.  Miraculously, only two deaths were reported on the voyage.

The Pilgrims' planned destination was the Virginia Colony.  However, in November 1620, with the winter approaching, they decided to dock at Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape Cod.  There, after stealing corn and getting in a skirmish with the Natives, they decided to flee.  In December, they reached Plymouth.  While still on board the ship, they signed the Mayflower Compact, a list of rules that they would follow in the new colony.

The first winter was cruel.  The Pilgrims stayed on board the ship since they did not have dwellings to live in yet.  In the closed quarters of the ship, scurvy, pneumonia and tuberculosis ran rampant. Half of the passengers and crew perished.

The following spring, the crew of the Mayflower returned to England, taking less than half the time thanks to the prevailing winds at their backs.  That fall, the Pilgrims, thankful for their bountiful harvest, celebrated the first Thanksgiving.  Three years later, the Mayflower was scrapped.

In 1956, a Mayflower II was built.  It sailed to America the following spring, following a similar route to that of the original ship.. The Mayflower II docked at Plymouth, Massachusetts where it became a floating museum.  In 1970, marking the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's landing, the ship was taken over by the Natives to protest their poor treatment.  The issue was resolved and the Mayflower II still floats at Plymouth Rock.

Mayflower II courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower.

The House that Peter Tufts Built

I was tutoring my friend's son last night.  He was reading an excerpt about the Pilgrims and the Puritans.  It turns out that the Pilgrims, who sailed to America in 1620, wanted to separate from the Church of England.  The Puritans, who sailed to America in 1630, wanted to remain part of the Church of England, albeit with some changes.

Peter Tufts, whom I mentioned in my last blog, is believed to have come to America from England in 1632, possibly aboard the Griffin.  Given the date, I wonder if he was one of the Puritans.  He settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts, outside of Boston.  A multi-talented man, one of his jobs was to run a penny ferry on the Charles River.

Perhaps his biggest claim to fame, however, was the house he built in Medford, Massachusetts around 1677.  Now a museum, it is believed to be the oldest brick house in America.  Originally,the colonial home was known as the Cradock House, after one of the founding members of the Massachusetts Bay Company.  However, it was later discovered that Cradock only owned the land and had never even visited the area.  Later, Peter Tufts purchased the land from Richard Russell and built the house.  He hired brick mason William Bucknam from England to do the work.

The house, built in the American colonial design, is known as the "fort" or "garrison house" due to its thick walls and portholes.  I remember visiting the site when I was a little girl.  Our tour guide explained to us that, given that the house was built during the American Revolution, the designers were of a wartime mentality.  The portholes could be used to poke a rifle through.  The thick walls, of course, would serve as a good resistance to enemy fire.

Captain Peter Tufts sold the house to his son, Peter Jr., in 1680, who resided there for many years.  In 1728, the eastern side of the house was sold to Edward Oakes.  In 1887, the house was scheduled for demolition.  However, Samuel Lawrence saved it from such a fate by purchasing it as a wedding gift for his daughter.  At that time the house was remodelled in the Colonial Revival style.

In 1892, when the city of Medford, Massachusetts was incorporated, an image of the house was placed on its seal.  In 1932, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities bought the house to open it as a museum.  Almost 50 years later, it was purchased by the Medford Historical Society.

Peter Tufts house courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Tufts_House.

Falling for Picture Books

Here are recommended picture books for fall:

1.  Thanks for Thanksgiving (Julie Markes)

2.  One Little Two Little Three Little Pilgrims (B.G. Hennessey)

3.  I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie (Alison Jackson)

4.  Turkey Trouble (Wendi Silvano)

5.  Apple Pie that Papa Baked (Lauren Thomspon)

6.  Pumpkin Soup (Helen Cooper)

7.  Too Many Pumpkins (Linda White)

8.  Seed by Seed:  The Legend and Legacy of John "Appleseed" Chapman (Esme Codell)

9.  Apple Picking Time (Michele Benoit Slawson)

10.  One More Acorn (Don Freeman)

http://www.amazon.ca/Too-Many-Pumpkins-Linda-White/dp/0823413209

Ten Things You Didn't Know About Thanksgiving

1.  Algonquian Indians were among the first to harvest wild cranberries.  They used them as food, medicine and a symbol of peace.

2.  Although pumpkin pies are a staple of North American Thanksgivings, they did not become popular until the early 19th Century.

3.  Oktoberfest, which is celebrated in Kitchener, Ontario, originated in Germany in 1810 after King Ludwig I married Therese.

4.  Canadians purchased 3 million turkeys in 2011 which accounts for 32% of yearly sales.

5.  Thanksgiving is a statutory holiday in most Canadian provinces with the exception of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and P.E.I.

6.  Martin Frobisher held the first Canadian Thanksgiving in 1578 to celebrate his safe arrival to the new land.

7.  In 1953, Swanson, after overestimating the need for Thanksgiving dinner, had 260 tons of frozen turkeys to get rid of.  They ordered 5000 aluminum plates with separated sections and filled them with turkey, cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes and peas, creating the first TV dinners.

8.  Only about half of the 102 people aboard the Mayflower that sailed to America in 1620 were actually Pilgrims.  The other half were "Strangers", simply people wanting to come to the New World.

9.  The average weight of turkeys purchased for Thanksgiving dinner is 15 pounds.  Turkeys will have 3500 feathers at maturity.

10.  The first Thanksgiving, celebrated by the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts, lasted three days.

http://www.centralpark.com/news/636/start-making-your-thanksgiving-day-parade-plans-with-jw-marriott-essex-house