On June 17th he raked hay nearly all morning in the dooryard. In
the afternoon he hoed his potatoes the second time. And in July
he again went to Long Island, this time accompanied by Elder
David Hawkins, Mariah Treadway, Mercy Hayward and Almira
Treadway. As he says, they went "for our health, releasement for
a season from our burdens at home and every other good reason
which sound judgment may suggest or justifiable anxiety may
crave." This time they went by boat to New York City and stayed
overnight at the Pacific Hotel, where supper, lodging and
breakfast cost $1.25 each. Then across the harbor by ferry and
the train to Cutchogue. The next day at 11 am they went swim-
ming but "poor Almira could not enjoy it all all, the rest made
out very wel1."
(Doesn't this change your perception of the Shakers completely?
I don't know what the Shakers wore as bathing costumes in 1863
but just imagining these six Shakers, whom we have come to
envision as unbending, prim and proper, almost un-human, gam-
boling on the beach really stretches your imagination. David
Hawkins was the Elder at the 2d Order or North Family and was now
76 years old, Mariah Treadway was 53, Mercy Hayward (or Harwood)
was 71, and Almira Treadway, the youngest, was 50.
They took walks on the beach and to the old Wells' house but
the weather was very windy so they could not go sailing or fish-
ing. Two days later they went swimming again, except Almira, and
then Freegift and David went fishing off the pier for black fish
untdil evening when "we thought it was time to go home and
shave." On Sunday, it was still windy, so the men and Almira
stayed home but Mariah and Mercy accepted an invitation for a
carriage ride and went to church. On Monday, they got someone to
take them over to the ocean 6 miles away. Here they saw rolling
surf which Freegift termed "fully equal to that of Cohoes Falls",
walked on the beach, saw the wreck of a ship and gathered some
shells. On Tuesday they went swimming again. The journal leaves
off there but they were gone 13 days altogether.
In September he spent several days splitting oak to make eel
pots, but it caused so much pain in his hands and arms that he
had to go to the infirmary for six days. On October 1st he
noted spending the morning and part of the afternoon "recording a
drearn. " But he also set his eel pot for the first time, "baited
with chicken inwards," and made a last for stretching muskrat
skins for lining Indian rubber boots.
Early in 1864 he is working on his cherry tables, eventually
making four for the dining room. But serious illness also set in
and on February 29 he records the first of his attacks of what he
calls cholic (could they be gall bladder attacks?) This started
in the morning and before noon he says he was "extremely
distressed and concluded my hours in this life were very few.
Had 9 or 10 spells of puking, went to the 2d house and took
physick and an injection and got released from pain." He did not
return to his shop for two weeks, and then was in and out of the

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