tion of the Meeting House in 1848 and in building the great Stone
Sisters Shop, as wel1 as other foundations throughout the com-
munity. (It was also the location of at least two suicides of
Shakers by drowning.) It is now a pond on the left as you enter
the grounds of the Shaker Ridge Country Club. ,^~
:/--i-'i\&.<- ty* 'v'x>
' ;-,
/*v-..-';^,*-*'^'/4 # ,\f/v ** 1-**'*' '
In 1834 Erpegift Jnado a trip to the new Shaker community at Sodus
by packet boat on the Erie Canal, Jla}'*left a delightful record of
all that he saw along the way. He traveled with Ruth Johnson
from Watervliet and the Canterbury Ministry, which included Elder
Benjamin, Eldress Esther and Brother Joseph. The men ate on the
boat with the other passengers; the sisters, Freegift says, chose
"to refresh themselves in their own way." His comments are defi-
nitely planned to be read later to the Shakers at Watervliet and
possibly at other villages. For instance, he likens the country
just beyond Utica as resembling New Lebanon Hollow "along by
Bigelows except the stumps are much thicker." But it is his inte-
rest in everything and everybody he sees that makes his travel
journals so intriguing. He comments on the variety of trees, the
fertility of the farms, the appearance of the various towns they
pass. Just pasy Verona, they are "amused by the approach of
Indian boys apparently 11 or 12 years old who commenced to trot
abreast of our boat and it was some time before we understood
what it meant... One of the steersmen told us that they were
after money... The passengers soon discovered the runners and,
opening the cabin windows, commenced throwing out cents into the
rnud. The boys would claw them up with a handful of mud and then
start with all speed to catch up with the boat. So they
continued for perhaps half a mile."
At Sodus he was particularly pleased because they were fed fish
from the lake and he commented on a meal served at the Second
House "serv^ehby a colored sister named Nelle, a celebrated
cook." On their last day they visited a glass factory at Clyde
and this he describes in detail. By Weedsport they observed a
family moving in what he calls "a cheap way", since it was by
boat with the motive power supplied by family members. But,
Freegift adds, "the boat was small and probably he changed his
team often." At Syracuse, they were held up by a breach in the
canal so he had an opportunity to visit the salt works at Salina
and, again, he describes how they work^ size of equipment and
operation.
Polly Vedder, in a journal she kept at the Church Family for some
years, in 1835 comments "I understand Freegift has quit chewing
tobacco. This I call good news." But then, on January 12,
1836, she records "this evening it was concluded for Brother
Freegift to go to Ohio, sad news to us all, you may depend." On
20 January Freegift went to Albany to buy things for his journey;
on January 31 Polly says she has been making him 1 shirt, 2 pairs
of drawers, 7 white handkerchiefs and "had a great many things to
fix and help make his frock." In March she was cutting out bon-
nets by the new patterns that Freegift had made. On Sunday,
13 March, the Church Family had "a sorrowful union meeting e>^~
pecting it to be the last we should have with our good brother