Publications

• From the Editor
• Excelsior Beneath the Water: Spiritualism, Socialism, Flood and Tragedy in Utopia, Ohio 1847 by Mitchell K. Jones
• “Whatever is in you has to come out”: An Individual’s Journey through Bhagwan’s Communes and Beyond by Kate Biedermann

Front cover illustration: Sarita Akin, sister of Madhuri, dancing in meditation. Communal Societies Collection, Hamilton College. Back cover illustration: Arthur Rothstein, photographer. Untitled photo, possibly related to: Melting snow, Utopia, Ohio. United States Ohio Utopia, 1940. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017726788/.

• From the Editor
• The Factory Debacle: the Shirley Shakers Seriously Overextend Their Talent and Financial Capability by Stephen J. Paterwic
• Using the Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations, and Doctrines of Mother Ann Lee to Recover Forgotten Shaker History: a Case in Point from Enfield, Connecticut by Stephen J. Paterwic
• Document: A. J. MacDonald’s Visits to the Shakers

Front cover illustration: Detail of Shirley, Massachusetts, from Henry Francis Walling, Map of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, 1856. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, G3763.M5 1856 .M3 Back cover illustration: The Phoenix Mill in 1883 from Seth Chandler, History of the Town of Shirley, Massachusetts. Communal Societies Collection, Hamilton College

• From the Editor
• Priests and Martyrs: The Second Engraved Title Page of Ephrata’s Martyrs Mirror by Jeff Bach
• Document: Ein kleiner Abriss von denen Irr- und Abwegen, derer von Gott gerufenen Seelen by Ezechiel Sangmeister
• “Eat, and drink, and be merry”: A Clash Over the Opening of a Benedictine Brewery in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America by Philip Chivily
• The Unfortunate Shaker Cemetery at Watervliet, Ohio  by Richard Spence

Front cover illustration: The second engraved title page of the Martyr’s Mirror. Courtesy of the Muddy Creek Farm Library. Back cover illustration: Detail from the second engraved title page of the Martyr’s Mirror. Courtesy of the Muddy Creek Farm Library.

• From the Editor
• Brother Philemon Stewart as Church Family Physician: Re-imagining a Portion of His “toiling, stormy, industrious, valuable life” by Kerry Hackett
• First in the West: The Shaker Experience of Visionary Malcham Worley and His Family by Christian Goodwillie
• Motive, Means, and Opportunity: Ayer Shutterbugs Shoot the Shakers by Ned Quist
• The Changing Face of Shaker Life: How Pictorial Images in the Popular Press Reflect the Growing Acceptance of the Shakers in Nineteenth-Century America by Robert P. Emlen

Front cover illustration: Charles Kennison, photographer. Rural Home, 1896. Courtesy of the Ayer Library.
Back cover illustration: “Main House at Shaker Village, KY,” in Collins’ Historical Sketches, 1847.

Shaker Studies, no. 18. 242 pages, 2022.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-30-5 ($65)

In the mid-nineteenth century, both Shaker sacred texts and gift drawings were rich with theological arguments for the millennial vision of a heaven celebrating the Heavenly Father and Holy Mother Wisdom and of a communal society embodying its teachings in celibacy and peace. This richly-illustrated, full color volume, explores these Shaker visions of the divine. (Click title for more)

• From the Editor
• An Uncharted Union: The Shakers and the Amana Inspirationists by Peter Hoehnle Shaker Correspondence with the Amana Society: Charles Julius Preter and Ezra T. Stewart
• Mother Elinor and the God House by Julienna Frost

Front cover illustration: Ann O’Delia Diss Debar, who used various aliases during her life of crime, including “Mother Elinor.” Back cover illustration: Middle Eben-Ezer, one of the four communal villages established by the Inspirationists in New York State, as it appeared around the time of their first contact with the Shakers. Hand colored lithograph by Joseph Prestele, Sr. (Amana Heritage Society)

• From the Editor
• Earliest Known Photograph of Zoar Separatists by Wm. B. Becker
• Facsimile: The Childhood Days of Salwt, the Messenger to the 7th Church in Israel, and the Only 7th Messenger in the World by Daniel Salwt, [ca. 1925]

Front cover illustration: Unidentified photographer, Michael, Joseph, and Johanna
Miller, Zoar Separatists. Sixth-plate daguerreotype (2.75 x 3.25 inches), Wm. B.
Becker Collection Back cover illustration: J. C. Haring (active Masillon, Ohio), Michael J. Miller
late in life, reading. Cabinet card, 1880s. Courtesy Ohio History Connection,
number 3236.

• From the Editor
• Reconsidering the Shaker Tree of Life: Cultural Antecedents & Fresh Interpretations by Carol Medlicott
• An Attempt to Have a Law Enacted by the General Court in Boston to Allow Heirs to Inherit Property Previously Dedicated to the Shakers by Stephen J. Paterwic
• Document One: Citizens of York County, Maine, Petition to the General Court of Massachusetts, May 1817
• Document Two: Sabbathday Lake, Maine, Shakers’ Letter to the General Court of Massachusetts, January 2, 1818
• Document Three: Massachusetts’ Shaker Communities’ Letter to the General Court of Massachusetts, January 1818

Front cover illustration: The Tree of Life (New York: Kelloggs & Thayer, 1845 or 1846). Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Back cover illustration: “Central Part of Pittsfield, Mass,” Drawn by J. W. Barber, Engraved by S. E. Brown, Boston. From John Warner Barber, Massachusetts Historical Collections (Worcester: Published by Dorr, Howland & Co., 1839).

• From the Editor
• The Harvard Shakers’ Mill on Bennett’s Brook by Ned Quist
• Shaking the Faith at Twenty-Five: Reflections on Shaker Research in the Digital Age by Elizabeth DeWolfe
• The Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. the Harvard Shakers by Cynthia Barton
• The South Family of the Hancock Shakers, circa 1818-1849 by Stephen J. Paterwic
• Elwin E. Damkohler’s Account of the Koreshan Unity

Front cover illustration: Bennett’s Brook Mill in 1896. Detail of photo by William A. Wright, April 6, 1896. Courtesy of the Trustees of Reservations, Archives and Research Center. Back cover illustration: The Bennett’s Brook Mill looking northeast from the Mill Pond's south shore. Photo by Harrison E. Evans, June 1, 1907. Courtesy of the Ayer Library, Ayer, Mass.

Beech Hill traces the Elkins family's forty year Shaker journey using newly discovered journals and letters. Apostate Hervey Elkins is best known for publishing Fifteen Years in the Senior Order of Shakers, an insider's account of life at Enfield, New Hampshire. Although relations between the Shakers and apostates were often quite contentious, the Elkins family papers reflect a different reality. Out of sixteen members of the Elkins family who joined the Shakers eleven apostatized, while five died in the faith. Beech Hill examines the enduring bond between the Elkinses and the Shakers- within the community, and beyond Enfield’s boundaries- recounting the Shakers’ continued relationships with apostate Elkinses, welcoming their visits, lodging with them while traveling, and writing letters providing support and advice. Combining the official Shaker record with intimate details of one family’s interactions with the Shakers affords a more positive view of relations between Shakers and apostates.