FREEGIFT WELLS
The Shakers were especially fortunate in their early days that
whole families w'.io joined were composed of intelligent, talented
people who were totally committed to the Shaker way of life.
At Watervliet one such family was the Wells. The parents, Thomas
and Abigail , with nine of their children, joined on June 1, 1802.
Abigail was a sister of Benjamin Youngs and Isaac Newton Youngs,
the clockmakers, and they were the children of Seth Youngs whose
family had been in Southold, Long Island since the mid 1600s.
The oldest of Thomas and Abigail's children was Seth Y. Wells
(the Y stood for Youngs, of course) and he had been an instructor
in the public schools in Albany and then at Hudson Academy. it
was when he was at the latter place in the fall of 1799 that Seth
went to the New Lebanon Shakers to visit his uncle, Benjamin
Youngs, who had converted during the first gathering. Seth went
home to Long Island and told his family of his wish to become a
Shaker. He must have been extremely persuasive "because his
parents and eight siblings all joined." At least ten other
relations also converted, although four of them later
apostasized.

Seth, therefore, was 35 when he joined, Thomas 34, Calvin 30 and
he brought his wife Betsy and three children, Luther 29, Stephen
27, Hannah 26, Jesse 24, Abigail Jr. 22, and Freegif t the
youngest at 17, Another son, Benjamin had married but his
wife died in 1828 and he also then joined the Shakers in 1830
when he was 60 years old and brought along his four youngest
children, including Thomas, 12, who was apprenticed to his uncle
Freegift, and Nancy whoyonly 9 years old.

Journals and accounts are scarce for these early days and we know
little of Freegif t's early years. Edward Deming Andrews
credits Freegift with inventing perhaps about 1813 the circular
buzz saw which was in operation at least by 1817. We do know
that in 1813, with two others, Freegift was making a carding machine
and in 1814 was repairing a threshing mill; so he had the me-
chanical knowledge and skill to have invented the saw. But he was
also trained in carpentry and joinery and in 1817 at the age of
32 was making the stairs in the Church Family new dwelling. The
construction of stairs is a job that would be given only to one
with proven talent. He also began keeping a work journal and
records making chairs in 1819, making a sizable number between
1818 and 1820, 1824 to 1825 and in the early 1830s before going
to Ohio.
In May 1817 he was appointed an Elder Brother. Three years later
he wrote an account of his business in silver pens which had
apparently been going on for some time. He explained "when I made
silver pens for sale, I kept an exact account of all stick which I
used, even to files and sand paper. I also kept an exact account
of the pens which I made and delivered for sale at the wholesale
price; and in one year I cleared $530... And I did this while ser-
ving as Elder Brother and with many jobs in joiner work; and while