“A power sent forth from the invisible world”: The Shakers’ investigation of a famous haunting

In September of 1850, three Shakers from the Mount Lebanon North Family visited the house owned by the Phelps family in Stratford, CT, where a variety of paranormal phenomena allegedly took place. Dr. and Mrs. Phelps had visited the North Family a few weeks before; according to a family journal entry dated August 18, “The Brethren & Sisters assemble in the meeting room where we have a correct & faithful account given us by Dr. Phelps & his wife of the work of departed spirits in his family. Truly it was a marvellous [sic] & astonishing relation, and a work which is spreading in many places.” After they left, the North Family’s Elder Richard Bushnell, Eldress Antoinette Doolittle, and Sister Jane Knight sought permission from the Ministry to visit the Phelps’ home and experience the phenomena first hand, which was granted in a letter dated August 27: “We fully feel united with your proposal in going – nay more, we desire that you would go, and make them a suitable visit.”

For the Shakers, spiritualism and séances were not just matters of sensationalistic curiosity. Indeed, in a letter written on November 11, 1888 to the editor of the Albany Journal, Elder Frederick W. Evans declared, “Spiritualism is a Shaker product. Eleven years before the ‘Rochester Rappings’ [a hoax perpetrated by sisters Margaret and Kate Fox] began, it was originated in one Shaker family, & then spread gradually over the seventy families in the Shaker order. It is not a religion, but a science.”

In about 1890, the Mount Lebanon Shakers published “Liberalism, spiritualism, and Shakerism : an address” by Elder Frederick W. Evans, pictured here in 1871. Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon 1962.13951.1

Belief in a spiritual existence after death was always an aspect of the Shaker religion. In his 1875 work Communistic Societies in the United States, journalist Charles Nordhoff wrote that he was permitted to observe a Shaker funeral during which “a call was made to the spirit of the departed to communicate, and in the course of the meeting a medium delivered some words supposed to be from this source.” After, he wrote that Elder Frederick Evans told him, “‘spiritual’ manifestations were known among the Shakers many years before Kate Fox was born; [and] that they had had all manner of manifestations, but chiefly visions and communications through mediums.”  The output of the period of religious revival known as the Era of Manifestations or what was called “Mother’s Work” during the 1840s was divinely inspired: the gifts of verbal messages, writings, songs, and drawings were all received by Shakers known as “instruments” from heavenly spirits, particularly Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee.

Gift drawing, vision from Mother Ann to Amy Reed, January 7th 1848, attributed to Sarah Bates. Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon 1960.11520.1

Long after that revival subsided, the Shakers received visits from mediums and attended gatherings of spiritualists. Another blog post noted the close friendship between Elder Frederick and physician James Peebles, both of whom had a keen interest in spiritualism. In 1881, Sister Anna Dodgson wrote in a Church Family journal that a “Spiritualist Medium” named Anna Johnson visited Mount Lebanon, although Sister Anna added, “We have tried to make her visit pleasant but have not money to spend in such enterprises, since they do not appear to benefit us much.” On multiple occasions, Shakers from the Mount Lebanon North Family attended spiritualist camps and meetings, such as the one held for several years at Lake Pleasant, Montague, MA. In 1880, a North Family journal noted, “Company of 35 go to Lake Pleasant cost about 5. apiece $75. Have a good meeting.”

Broadside from the 1875 Spirirtualist and Liberalist Camp Meeting, Lake Pleasant, Montague, MA. Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon 020892