On This Date in 1846 ...

from "The Shaker Spiritual" by Daniel Patterson

Lucinda Shain (Schoen) received her song -- a typical Shaker gift --on March 22, 1846, from "Br. Vincent Runyon and others of our deceased friends, who played it on their instruments of music." Vincent, a believer of British and Huguenot stock, had died only five days before, at the age of fifty-six. Both he and Lucinda, who was then 44, had come to Pleasant Hill with their parents and their siblings in its first wave of converts. Through most of Lucinda's life, William [Runyon] was the dominant musician at Pleasant Hill. In the gift of singing he had no equal there. For more than fifty years his "shrill, melodious voice rang with clarion tones, through the consecrated halls & sacred sanctuaries of this holy hill, cheering the minds & thrilling the hearts of the pious worshippers & beholders."