Publications
History of the Shakers at New Lebanon by Isaac Newton Youngs, 1780-1861
By EDITED BY GLENDYNE R. WERGLAND AND CHRISTIAN GOODWILLIE
January 1, 2017
Tags Shaker Studies
Shaker Studies, no. 12. 277 pages, 2017.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-22-0 ($40)
Shaker Brother Isaac Newton Youngs served his community at New Lebanon, New York, as a tailor, clockmaker, mapmaker, mechanic, inventor, musician and hymn writer, lens-grinder, stonecutter, button maker, bookkeeper, journalist, tinsmith, printer, pipe fitter, joiner, and blacksmith. He built a sundial, made tools including a weaver’s reed, turned clothespins, made knitting needles, and laid floors. He was also an architect and roofer. Few aspects of life at New Lebanon were outside of Youngs’s sphere of activity. Therefore, it is fitting that he undertook to write a comprehensive history of his community, systematically treating all facets of Shaker life and culture. Youngs’s A Concise View Of the Church of God and of Christ, On Earth is printed here for the first time in unabridged form. The editors have carefully transcribed and annotated the text, and have selected illustrations to complement Youngs’s descriptive text. Additionally, appendices supplying vital statistics, and information on the occupations of New Lebanon Shakers (many of which were compiled by Youngs) are included. Finally, a selection of Youngs’s poetry rounds out a rich portrait of the lives and talents of Brother Isaac Newton Youngs, and his beloved Shaker brethren and sisters, as they labored humbly in the creation of a unique world where work was worship, and heaven was all around them.
