wife and moved back to the South Family in May with his older son
and his chest of tools. Elder Giles Avery went to see him and,
in his journal, noted that Samuel "seems hardly sane." Two days
later Samuel ran away to Troy "in a delirious fit" and the family
looked for him but he returned in the evening. The next day,
Giles again visited him and declared him "quite out of his right
mind." Four days later on May 27th Giles records that Samuel "is
quite sick of brain fever, is considerably deranged" but says
nothing about any precautions'or treatment. On June 8th, Samuel
committed suicide by drowning in the flume of the South Family
sawmill.

Now let us look at the other Shaker communities. Alphabetically
we first visit

ALFRED, MAINE

This community had several fires which destroyed many of their
records. Brother Arnold says that two insane brothers were
housed in the Dwelling House, which burned in 1901. Hannah Pray
also suffered from insanity and was kept in a small building
behind the infirmary so the nurses could keep an eye on her. The
Ministry Journal for January 8, 1849 states "she is very
troublesome and requires two sisters to take care of her. It is
almost impossible to keep her from suffering this cold weather,
as they cannot in safety admit fire within the limits of her
cage, and she frequently tears her clothes all off." However,
eleven years later she succeeded in burning her building down.
1860. Later that year, at the age of 47, she pretended illness
and, while the family were at Christmas meeting, she hung herself
in the garret of the dwelling house,

Her natural sister, Theodocia, also committed suicide by hanging
herself in April 1859 at the age of 40. A third suicide was
Joseph Alonzo Gilmar, "a most troubled man," who "in a fit of
deep depression," drowned himself in Shaker Pond in 1884 at the
age of 58.

Next we go to
CANAAN, NEW YORK

for two brief entries.
On August 20, 1863, the Ministry Journal records that "an aged
woman named Betsy Scott, who appears to have been insane, com-
mitted suicide by cutting her own throat. She has attempted to
do this a number of times before." She was 75 years old.