Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/339

 The Canterbury Shakers.

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��The fields, pastures, orchards, and gar- dens, groves of trees, forests, farm-roads, woodland paths, a chain of miniature lakes or ponds, babbling streams, little canals, and waterfalls diversify the landscape all about. The houses are quaint and old-fashioned, but scrupu- lously kept in repair. They are con- nected one with the other by flag-stone paths, and are spotlessly neat and clean within and without. The meeting- house wherein they worship is in the midst of the village. It is the pivot around which the society revolves.

In times past the trustees viewed the growth of the West, and, instead of moving thither in a large body, pur- chased and cultivated, through agents, large tracts of wheat lands in Central New York. At home the little streams across their territory were bound to lend their forces to the industrious Shakers, and turbine wheels have long propelled their machinery. In one little mill they grind their corn and wheat ; in another they saw their lum- ber, and do the most exquisite lathe- work. In one shop they manufacture their far-famed washing-machines, used in so many great metropolitan hotels ; in another, the corn broom and brush, the original inventions of a Shaker family. In the great barn forty head of cows, and a hundred head of other live stock, are wintered, fed from the sweetest hay-mow, groomed and cared for ; while the dairy is a model of neat- ness. There are a number of hired men about the premises, whose labor is employed to maintain the estate ; and even the horses show the result of good keeping.

A visit to this community is a pleas- ant event to the denizens of the out- side world. The food on their hospi- table table is plain, but served with

��exquisite neatness. The air on the highlands occupied by their village is bracing; the scenery on every side is inspiring. We never refuse an invita- tion to call upon the Shakers. One of the ponds on the estate has been stocked with a very choice variety of pickerel, — a tempting morsel for the lazy fisherman, who, of an early morning, can catch them with great ease.

A few years ago I spent several weeks with the Shakers at Canterbury, survey- ing and plotting their extensive domain, and became very familiar with some of the brethren, and saw the gentle influ- ences exerted by their creed and man- ner of life. My testimony is not needed to make known their goodness of heart, their purity, their charity and benevo- lence, their efforts to follow humbly in the footsteps of the Great Master : wherever they go, they are known ; there is an atmosphere of sanctity about them. These few lines I have written to make known to the readers of The Granite Monthly that their friends in Canterbury are still manufacturing the best corn brooms and brushes in the world, the most perfect washing- machines, the nicest cider apple-sauce and Shaker sarsaparilla, — all of which, for their own prosperity and for the benefit of the people, they wish to widely advertise and sell.

For a number of years Weeks & Potter, the wholesale druggists of Bos- ton, handled their sarsaparilla ; but they have taken the business of its sale back into their own hands, and now deal directly with the apothecaries and inci- dentally with the public. Communica- tion should be directed to " Nicholas Briggs, Shaker Village, New Hamp- shire, U.S.A.," and will receive prompt attention.

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