Prior (1868)
Next (1870)
For the year 1869
Prior (1868)
Next (1870)
21 Mar Hester Gustin of NF died on consumption.
2 Apr Edwin Male's brother arrived from England . . ."walked up here with a pack on his back. "
He was hired to work at CF and drive a team for the present.
6 Apr Stanton Buckingham gave up the farm and Daniel is to be in charge. The help is all hired.
12 Apr Three ox teams begin plowing "out east."
13 Apr Jesse took a calf he had just purchased "over the river where they met a man
who lives on one of their outfarms."
14 Apr Took garden seeds to Troy to distribute and pick up the old boxes.
15 Apr Took garden seeds to Albany. Men continually come for garden seeds "and
they weigh them "on a small scale for family use."
20 Apr Samantha (Bowie) ironed caps most of the day, Lydia finished some baskets -
large long ones, and put her things away preparing for house cleaning.
5 May A woman named Simpson from Orleans County came with a boy 10 years old to have
taken and they stay all night.
6 May Woman and boy go into Albany. Nehemiah went first; the boy is to be indentured
to him and he has to appear before a surrogate to have him bound.
8 May "A man came from the woods near land owned by G. Copley and C. Miller in Sara-
toga County to see them. He is engaged in surveying it." He stayed all night.
9 May Jesse starts with man at 6 a.m. intending to go as far as Jonesville or
Sun. * Balls ton with the man.
10 May Cows turned out to pasture for :the first time.
13 May Finally finished cleaning "pretty much."
15 May Visitors from Canterbury come - Bro. Nicholas Briggs, Sisters Asenath Stickney
and Angeline Clifford. They have been at Mt. Lebanon for' 13weeks teaching music.
16 May "The elders and singers of all the families come to meeting at 9 a.m. We
Sun. seated in order in our meeting room and our excellent friends from Canterbury
give us some lessons in singing. Very beautiful. We spend 1% hours."
18 May "We are having singing meeting every evening. All the families come. Bro.
Nicholas is a beautiful hand to impart knowledge as well as the sisters."
24-25 May James Irving is taking more pictures - some of the older part in a group.
24 May Canterbury visitors leave.
26 May Visitors frotnf'Mt. Lebanon Hill Family arrive.
30 May Singing meeting in a.m. with DABuckingham doing the instruction.
31 May "Katie Gilroy came up here on foot. She is very feeble and wants to stay. a
day or two."
1 June Jesse went to Albany and Katie went with him to see Dr. March.
2 June Ministry came and a lot of visitors from Hancock with them. Will stay at 2d
Order.
8 June Geo. (Price), Eldress Elizabeth and Caty (Ferguson) went to Troy after 3 girls.
10 June Ministry from Maine arrive.
14 June Ministry from Kentucky arrive.
15 June Maine visitors leave.
16 June Took Katie Bickford to Albany to go back to Baltimore.
22 June Kentucky visitors leave.. Canterbury Ministry arrive.
29 June Take Canterbury ministry to Albany and meet and bring back Ministry from Ohio.
1 July Geo. Price took to Albany the 3 girls Eldress Elizabeth went after on June 8.
Abbie, Catie H. *& Ella - they were dissatisfied and were taken home.
2 July Ohio ministry leave for home. "Charles Prater is going with them to Union
Village where he once lived some 25 years ago."
3 July Geo. went to Albany after some queen bees for Elder Giles. He is very much
engaged making a bee house on a large scale.
10 July Turnip seed mostly harvested and the ground set out with cabbage plants.
13 July Maria Ireadway is sick and gone, to 2d House (infirmary). She has a nervous
fever.
14 July Hired men finish hoeing on the hill - between 25-30 acres of corn & potatoes.
15 July Sarah Ann Male came and helped the girls clean.
17 July "Maria Treadway has veen very sick all week and this morning we were shocked
Sat. to learn she was not in her room. C. Miller went to the pond, saw something
apparently floating, came and got a company of brethren. Found she had drowned
herself. She had a very severe fever and it settled on her brain. It is thought
she did it not far from 4 a.m. C. Miller went after the coroner., He got here
before 10. They called a jury, examined those that took her fromthe water, went
to the pond where she went in, so that it might be done up according to law.
It was evident she was insane."
Funeral the next day. NF came. Sisters went to grave.
21 July In covered wagon,"took Bro. Charles Brackett, Caty Ferguson, Adelaide Ingham
and Samantha Bowie to Albany to take the day boat to New York (a great event in
their lives) :and anticipating a great deal of pleasure,"
26 July 75 loads of hay brought home from the river this week. "None of the brothers
are at work at the haying or harvestiing. It is all hired done."
29 July Daniel and the hands are working "at the Niskayuna corner lot." The mowing
machine broke so they will have to mow it by hand.
Bro. Charles and the sisters return from NY on the day boat.
31 July Have finished haying at river farm and Niskayuna - 176 loads on the two.
9 Aug Sarah Ann Welles was taken to Troy and put on cars for Bennington to go to
her father. "She does not want to be a Shaker."
16 Aug "G. Miller went to West Troy to see the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The
authorities have decided not to exempt;by $1000 for each family or society at the
most. We must pay 5< on every $ we receive to the government one side of the
town and county tax. Sisters not excepted after deducting what we pay out to
get the supplies to carry on such work."
23 Aug C.M. goes to Mt. Lebanon to see the Ministry and "what is concluded about the
revenue tax." Get ready for painting at the Office, put up scaffolding.
25 Aug Painting begins - Philip Wiseman and John Burk are first and highest.
DABuckingham, STaunton Buckingham and 3-4 of boys also work on painting.
Sarah Ann Male comes topelp since all the blinds have to be washed and oiled.
28 Aug Outside has been painted over 3 times so scaffolding taken down on north side
Sat. and put on south end.
29 Aug "Tremendous rush of outsiders to see a little handful of Shakers."
Sun.
31 Aug Lydia and Ruth are washing & oiling window sash on outside. "Office is in quite
a broken state, not a window in it."
1 Sept Benjamin Chick came and canning commenced. "Philip Wiseman is the engineer,
Hubert Gilroy and James Tribley help solder, and Staunton is the chief cook."
4 Sept Windows are back in and "office begins to look like a house to live in again."
16 Sept Quite a large company from Greenbush came and had dinner. They are the ones
that tan our leather.
17 Sept Gaol- Price went to Albany to get some of brethren and sisters from Ohio but
home about 8 pm and had heard nothing from them. "The Office was all "lighted
up, supper cooked and partly on the table, all the ministry and elders and the
Office sisters were in the Office and on the steps watching for them."
18 Sept Geo. went into Albany in morning to get Ornjdo friends but no one came and he
came home about 10 a.m. Geo. went
W*"
again in afternoon but was a little too
late. Bro. Benjamin Gates happeol to be there by the boat when they landed so he
hired a carriage. Geo. brought their trunks. Nearly retiring time when they
arrived."
20 Sept Wash, iron, can tomatoes and "do up the visitors1 clothes."
Mon. CC & CM go to their woods in Saratoga County. Home on 21st.
24 Sept Visitors to get an early start so Office sisters are up about 3 a.m., sat
down to breakfast a little after 4, visitors left at 5.
"Matilda came and helped Lydia clean up the visitor apartments which was a
free will offering and thankfully received." (Lydia is author of journal now.)
25 Sept Chas. Brackett, Catherine V. & Matilda went to Niskayuna after milk weed
or silk grass.
They have canned every day except Sunday for the past two weeks.
28 Sept Canned 210 doz. tomatoes today - the most ever done in a day.
4 Oct Raining very hard. "About 9 a.m. the SF bell rang for a long time denoting
trouble. Their mill and dam came near going off. Our attention was called
home for before 10 a.m. the water was running over our dam. We at the Office made all
the preparations we could by taking up all the carpets, mats, jugs, preserves of all
kinds. Jesse and Staunton brought the sugar barrels out in the hall and set them up on
the sink and table and by 10:30 the water was 8" on the kitchen floor and
20\t in the cellars. Hired men all went to the dwelling house to dinner
and supper. CM went and got some dinner for us at the house and brought it
to the Office for we could get nothing from the kitchen without wading in
8" of water. It began to go down about 2 p.m. and by 3 we went to work with
brooms, mops, etc. 5 or 6 of the sisters came to help which we were thankful
for. The village was all afloat, the grea^t stone brid^ge by the bee house
was carried off or destroyed and all", the wooden ones ruined as it were."
14" of rain in 36 hours.
8 Oct Nehemiah took a boy on trial.
Have dried over 20 bbls of sweet corn in new kiln this week.
9 Oct Put up 16% doz. gallon cans of tomatoes.
16 Oct G. Miller took two of the little boys and went to West Albany after some
sheep. Boys to drive sheep home. Sheep are Lester breed from Canada. Cost
$284.40 for 30 of this year's lambs. Wool is beautiful and fine.
Lydia works every day on "picking out" corn husks.
17 Oct Bro. Albert Lomas spoke at meeting as he has most of the summer except when
Sun. there has been a visiting elder.
Zeviah Spier dies, aged 89, "The last of what is called the ""first born.1
She has been to the dwelling house for her meals twice a day until the
last two months."
19 Oct Her funeral. "The elders from all the families came by invitation and
some of the 2d Family brethren and sisters besides the 2d Order. Sisters
walked to the grave what was able and the families rode that way and stopped."
21 Oct Daughter of Thurlow Weed, Harriet Barnes, came out with some friends from
Nan tucket, her husband, son and daughter.
29 Oct Daniel and the men are trying to harvest the corn as fast as they can. They
have a great deal to harvest - from 15-20 acres of turnips mostly for the stock.
30 Oct Albert Lomas's stepmother and. her son came from Newtonville. She is the
aunt of Mary Camel.
1 Nov "All hands are flying around hurrying to get in the things and have them
secured for winter."
Philip Wiseman and John Burk are making extract. Dan McCarty and John
Dyer are digging roots at Niskayuna. Patrick Dyer is plowing in the swajnP
with the oxen and will until snow comes.
6 Nov DAB is confined to sick house and Adolphus, the yftoung Believer, has been
there most of the week.
13 Nov * Geo, Muddle helps Patrick Dyer plow land "that has never been plowed or at
least not for the last 20 years or more - north of us. Continue to do so
1 until Nov. 27 when the ground was frozen too hard.
15 Nov Two girls from Vischers Ferry came. The older wanted her sister to have a
home with us as she had no mother living and a drunken father that was
worse than nothing. The eldresses concluded to take her on trial and the
older girl got a chance to ride part of the way home.
16 Nov Mary Call's mother came with some people she is working for in a nice carriage.
They spent an hour or so and seemed much pleased.
18 Nov We have our meeting in the morning as usual, after dinner go to work.
T1 giving Not one of the hired men go away, not even the shoemaker.
19 Nov C. Miller went to Albany and vicinity to see if he could raise some money
from the gardeners. He called on 13 of them and two paid him, the rest were
not ready. It is very hard time about getting money. '
22 Nov Taken 10 pigs to James Stark's to be butchered - 2285 Ibs.
Hired men working on pulling turnips and picking popcorn.
(Popcorn had to be husked, so they did this in the field. It was now getting
cold so they wound (c)ucputting stalks around in a circle as a windbreak,
and building a fire in the center to give them some warmth. This went well
for some time, but %iear the end caught fire.)
24 Nov Sisters have to cut the pork fat, clean souse, grind 215 Ibs. sausage meat.
29 Nov James Irving and his wife called, had dinner, he brought 30 nubias that had
been ordered, cost $20.58.
Getting broom corn from Henry Ward.
1 ec
ec
Dr. Wade came, had dinner, went to see Adolphus & opened his sore.
4 Dec CM brought home a span of mules from West Troy, named Tom and Jule. Will
keep them through the winter for their use. They are very small.
6 Dec Lydia picked out a lot of baskets and CM packed them to send to Spelman &
Son in Brooklyn for a fair, and all that are not sold are to be taken back.
19 Dec "This is one of the solemn days to be remembered. It is the day we all are
Sun. to come to judgment but we did not fast, neither rise till the common time.
Have no meeting. Have union meeting in evening.
21 Dec "A man from Oneida came, had dinner. He wanteddto talk with some of the
head ones about the internal revenue tax."
24 Dec Jesse went to Albany, bought some raisins and candy for all the family to
have on Christman. Two of our boys ran away.
25 Dec Having morning meeting at 9 a.m., union meeting at 2:30, short evening
Christmas meeting. The boys came back and were sent to the Office to stay all night.
28 Dec' Mother of the Turk girls came to see them.
It took Lydiia all day -to fix and repair the baskets returned from NY yesterday.
1870
4 Jan CMiller goes to Albany, trying to raise money for the tax but no one can
give him any yet. Tax day draws nigh.
7 Jan Ruth is finishing her peacock dusters, Samantha weaving straw bonnets.
Men are each supposed to draw two loads of manure from West Albany every day.
9 Jan Brethren have a meeting to learn to labor, to take the step right, so there
Sun. was no other meeting this morning.
13 Jan Jesse paid the yearly tax $1163.52.
15 Jan "Ministry all attended meeting this evening. We have an old fashioned meeting
full of life and a powerful testimony."
16 Jan Brethren have laboring meeting in morning and sisters hear some reading.
Sun. "Ministry all had meeting in the afternoon and there was considerable speaking
among the brethren and sisters and powerful operations."
29 Jan Woman named Louisa Bennet from':Charlton came to have her daughter, Anna,
about 11 years old, live with us. They walked from depot.
31 Jan Louisa Bennet taken to depot; also Clara Vickry, the girl brought by her
sister. She did not prove to be what we want for Shakers. Was taken to
Vischers Ferry and the man ferried her over.
1 Feb CM went to the South Farm to meetaa man who is to rent the farm for a small
milk concern, from 10-12 cows. From there he went to Albany to make out
the papers.
2 Feb James Irving came, spent the day and stayed all night.
A young man about 19 came to get Employment, had no friend near here so he
stayed all night. "We advised him to join our Society."
3 Feb Jesse brought home from Albany 18 yards of "opera flannel" at 5/ per yd. for
linings for the capes.
7 Feb. "No company but plenty of beggars."
10 Feb G. Miller goes to Illinois "where we have some land." Home on Feb. 19.
17 Feb James Irving came this afternoon "with the intention of taking some inside
views.''
18 Feb James Irving could not make much headway for it was so very foggy. He managed
to take one view of baskets in the store and one up in the front visitors'
room on the sisters' side.
19' Feb "James took one or two inside views in the front room'.' Went home in p.m.
20 Feb Sun. "Elder Austin has a new form for us to exercise in and we practice in it."
25 Feb Jesse brought from Albany a man named Hill and two children (boy and girl)
from Williamsburgh. Want them to take the children. They have both mother
and step-mother living.
For the year 1869
Prior (1868)
Next (1870)