OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 30B ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 April 7, 2005 ************************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio by Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits - part 30 B. notes from S. Kelly ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ part 30 B. [ continuation of Shaker Heights, Ohio -- North Union Shaker Community ] The financial distress of 1857 in the outside world no doubtedly had something to do with these troubles by shortening the markets and income. The withdrawal of Samuel Russell, like that of his uncle Ralph, the founder is interesting. They were quite different types of men. Ralph was the flaming leader, inspired, like Paul, by a vision -- a bright beam of light which came from Union and stopped on the spot, where later stood the building of the Middle Family, becoming a piller of light, whic turned his vision, into a beautiful tree. His withdrawal, like his entrance to the Society, only five years earlier, seems to have been on religious grounds. Samuel had been a member some time before his election to the Presiding Eldership. He was a competent and foreseeing builder and organizer. It is likely that he began to be conscious of dissatisfaction on the part of some of the more mystical members with his large attention to practical matters, and he left the scene of his labors disillusioned and unhappy by what would seem to him ingratitude of whose bread and butter he had been insuring. The Mary and Martha types of minds are found in all walks of life. Both are necessary to a well balanced society, but neither ever understands the other. The extraordinary thing about Shaker history is not that there were disagreements among members or withdrawals from community, but that disagreements and withdrawals were so few, peace was the most part so all prevailing, and the inner harmony of spirit so well reflected in the outer pleasantness of the Shaker faces, their kindness to each other and to outsiders, their integrity of life and real happiness. By 1870 the menbership had dwindled to 125 brothers and sisters, counting all three families. In 1889 the community came to an end. Among the sisters still livng in 1870, Maclean names: Lucy Cooper, than aged 97, Arabella Shepard, Phila Copley, Mariah Pilot, Hannah Addison, Laura Russell, Ruth Butson, Melinda Russell, Rhoda Watson, Jane Bearse, Harriet Shepard, Margaret Sawyer, Harriet Snooks, Elizabeth Deree, Laura Houghton, Sylvia Tyler, Emma Phillips, Henrietta Wallace, and Harriet Snyder. The holding places of care and trust among the sisters of that year were Prudence Russell, Abigail Russell, Candace Russell, Prudence Sawyer, Lisette Walker, Clymena Miner, Temporance Devan, Lydia Ann Cramer, Mary Pilot, Charlotte Pilot. Hannah Addison was the mother of H.M. Addison, of Cleveland called " Father Addison" because of his interest in providing fresh air camps for the children of the poor. The brothers holding places of care and trust in 1870 were Freeman Phillips, Samuel S. Miner, Charles Sweet, Joseph Montgomery, Charles Taylor, George Hunt, Henry Summerfield, Sewell G. Thayer, Jacob Walker, Jacob Kimball, Curtis Cramer, Cornelius Bush, Christain Lyntz, and Thomas Giles. When the society of North Union was disolved in 1889, the members surviving at that time were transferred, accoring to their own choice, to the communities at Watervliet, near Dayton, Ohio, or Union Village, near Lebanon, Ohio. Canoes now dot the summer waters around which the busy Shakers once farmed and fabricated. Beautiful homes house a population which knows not Mother Ann. Dancers of today do not dance unto the Lord with hands streched outward and downward, tat their sins may be shaken off through their finger tips. They may , like the Shakers, be dancing sometimes between two or three in the morning, but they have probably not had five or six hours of solid sleep before being invited by a friendly knock at the door to to join the sin releasing figure marching , nor after they have returned to bed will they be obliged to arise before the crack of dawn, the men fed the stock and the women prepare a hearty farm breakfast before starting a long day of prayer and labor under conditions hardly realized nowadays. Life moves on, and today's conditions are different. The Shakers of North Union have become but an atmosphire and a memory. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++= Note+++ A syndicate bought the North Union land in 1892 for $ 316,000. In 1905 Oris P. and Mantis J. Van Sweringen purchased the property for $1 million and developed it into a residential community of Shaker Heights. All the old structures, then derelict, were torn down. Although physically only two dams and a few gateposts remain, the North Union and other Shakers left a rich legacy. Ahead of their time, they practiced both racial and sexual equality and cared for orphans and homeless children. Shaker furniture endured as strong functionable, simple, and beautiful. Shakers invented hundreds of labor saving devices, They produced much enduring folk music, their progressive methods of animal and plant husbandry, influenced agricultural development, and their ideals of simplicity, orderliness, pacifism, equality, cleanliness, and industriousness, still envoke admiration. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid Bits continued in part 31.