3
winding stream along which was a tangled swamp of huge bogsy wild grass
and weeds... From the first it was a continuous struggle to make this ter-
rain fit for cultivation, since it required straightening of the stream, con-
stant drainage, endless filling, etc. " As late as 1788, the Niskayuna Shakers
2
nearly starved. This was a year of famine in the area around Lake George.
The principal food was rice and milk, occasionally fish from the river. On
Sundays, the Shakers sometimes omitted dinner, as it was not a working day.
Their buildings were small and inadequate; they had no beds and little bed-
ding, but slept on the floor in rows. In the fall when crops began to ripen and
the potatoes were harvested, they lived better. Throughout, they gave thanks
3
for what they had and shared it with those needier.

Organization
What was the religion that so held them and ordered their lives? It
was startingly radical, repudiating all the fundamental tenets of orthodox
Protestantism. They did not believe in predestination to sin and damnation
as did the Puritans, for example, but held that God was too just and good
to condemn all men because of Adam's original sin. They did not believe
in the infallibility of the Bible; it was all right as far as it went, but they
did not think it was God's final revelation to man. They felt it was absurd
to have a three-fold male God when male and female were the order of
nature; they believed there were both father and mother elements of God.

2. At first called "Niskayuna" from the nearest settlement to the north,
which was settled about 1650. Later changed to 'Watervliet. "
3. Ibid., p. 54