Ringing in the New Year One Hundred Eleven Years Ago

The start of the new year, 1913, would have been a solemn one for the Shakers of Pleasant Hill. In that week they buried two members of the community; their numbers were quickly dwindling.

The sad occasion of Sister Jane Sutton's passing on December 29th (see the obituary) turned tragic with the passing of another beloved Shaker, John Pilkington, the next day. With two deaths so close together, the next and final day of 1912 was marked by their double funeral.

1912 - 1914 microfilm reel

As grim an occasion as that would have been, we should also consider that they had both been blessed with close to eight decades of life. More than that, they willingly and gratefully chose life as Shakers and died of natural causes having lived their utopian existence on Earth.  

Obituaries often contain clues that need to be followed-up and when I read that the Harrodsburg Herald, the paper that had covered the funeral, had also done an "extended sketch" on the life of Jane and that John Pilkington was "also mentioned" in the article, which reportedly appeared in the Herald two weeks earlier, I knew I had to track it down.

Over the course of two months, inquiries were made and a microfilm reel slowly made its way to me from the University of Kentucky, which I learned was the sole repository of the reel from 1912. While none of my nearby libraries maintain a microfilm reader any longer, I knew one still existed in my county's historical society research room. At last I was able to see for myself the "extended sketch." 

While I was hoping the article would reveal all sorts of Runyon / Sutton connections it does not. Rather, the article is more accurately described as an "extended sketch" on the life of John Pilkington that also mentions Jane Sutton. Still, it is genealogy gold and thrilling to find a description of a family member in print, beyond the details of occupation and when and where they were born or died. Jane -- the daughter of my first cousin five times removed -- was described as "loved by everyone" and a "natural leader" who "commands respect and a following."

Here is the complete article:

Three Shakers

Oldest in Village Are Very Ill and Facing the End.

Three of the oldest citizens of Shakertown are dangerously, ill, and for them life's shadows are growing long and purple, and it may be that soon the shadows will be blotted out altogether by the dark of eternity. The three who are facing the shadows are Sister Jane Sutton, Sister Sarah Nagel and Brother John Pilkington. Sister Jane is known and loved by every one. She has been one of the commanding figures of Shakertown for years, and is a natural leader who would command respect and a following no matter in what walk of life she had been placed.  There are many, even outside the Shaker village, who will grieve that her firm hand is beginning to tremble with the weakness of age. Sister Sarah Nagel is now ninety-seven. She joined the colony over sixty-eight years ago and her life has been a silent, simple benediction, just as even and peaceful as it is now that with resignation she is waiting for the end.

Brother John Pilkington is one of the most picturesque and interesting members of the shaker colony. He was formerly a thorough man of the world, highly educated for his day and at one time was the friend and private secretary of George D. Prentice. About the time of the Civil War ended he came to Shakertown, broken in health from the reckless life he had lived. In three years he was a different man, well poised, vigorous, clear of mind, and he went back to the world he had loved. But a year later the quiet village saw him again and took him once more to her peaceful bosom. He vowed never to leave the Shaker village again, and he never has. Later on his mother joined the colony and afterward died there. Brother John is well along in the seventies, now, and in spite of his secluded life he has always kept abreast of the times. He was a printer by trade, has been a great reader and a philosopher in his way, and even today his wit is keener than that of the average person. The history of Brother John's life there among the hills lying along Kentucky river, is touching in the extreme. From childhood he has always desired to be a great musician, yet his only audiences have been the quaint brother and sisters of the little colony. In the top drawer of the old bureau in his small bare room mare all the treasures that he brought from the outside world with him. They are his violin, his mother’s picture, and a faded daguerreotype that is never opened in the sunlight. It is the dearest of all his treasures for it is the likeness of the girl he loved many many years ago. "She was the sweetest girl I ever knew," Brother John would say when showing the picture, and his lips would quiver as he added, "She died." The violin is the second love of the aged Shaker, and despite his stiffened fingers he has never ceased to make his fiddle sing. Not the new songs - oh no! - but the sweet old melodies that will live in always in the human heart. "Annie Laurie," "Robin Adair," "Auld Land Syne" and "Ah, I Have Sighed to Rest Me!" Brother Pilkington will soon know the long long rest beside his comrades who are sleeping in the quiet God's Acre on the hill overlooking the peaceful village. At one time there were many to keep step beside him, but time and change and death have narrowed the little band to a mere handful, and soon there will not be one left to watch the sunset behind the green Kentucky hills along the river.

-published in the Harrodsburg Herald, December 13, 1912

Happy New Year everyone. May 2024 be a year of peace and contentment for you and your loved ones.

We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, For auld lang syne.

Kentucky Biographies

Thanks to an edit request on one of my memorials on FindaGrave I recently became aware of a publication called The Biographical Encyclopaedia of Kentucky of the Dead and Living Men of the Nineteenth Century. It was published in Cincinnati in 1878 by J.M. Armstrong & Company and was digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016. 

In addition to 788 pages of biographical details, the book contains dozens of portraits, the publishers having gone "to great expense in inserting steel engravings" of the likenesses of many of the men included. 

Every historic building has a story to tell

If you have an interest in architecture, and Kentucky architecture in particular, you'll enjoy Gardens to Gables, a blog and website by architectural historian Janie-Rice Brother. Like me, Janie-Rice believes every historic building has a story to tell.
 

Photo by Janie-Rice Brother

Establishing Shawnee Run

On a site near the banks of Shawnee Run, a small communal family took shape...

In August of 1805, three Shaker missionaries to Kentucky were getting to know the northeastern portion of the state when an opportunity arose for them to preach to a group of potential converts that included three Kentucky residents - Elisha Thomas, and Samuel and Henry Banta. The Thomas and Banta families (along with the Monfort and Bruner families) were all related by marriage. Hearing their testimony, Elisha Thomas would become not only the first Shaker convert in Kentucky but instrumental in the creation of one of two Kentucky communities that would be established.

Where this meeting occurred is not clear. Sources say it happened at "Concord in Bourbon County." However, Concord, Kentucky is northeast along the Ohio River in Lewis County (which was formed in late 1806 from Mason County) and the Concord Christian Church in Bourbon County wasn't yet established. In any case, Shaker Benjamin Seth Youngs was subsequently invited to address a group in Elisha Thomas' barn at his farm along Shawnee Run in Mercer County. 

Map of the state of Kentucky with the adjoining territories, 1794

There, a large number of listeners converted, with Youngs reporting in January 1806 twenty-one "grown Believers on Shawnee Run."

In August, Elisha Thomas deeded his 140-acre farm to the Shakers and in December, forty-four men and women signed the first family covenant “dedicating themselves and their property to the material benefit" of the Society. The first permanent communal gathering of believers in Kentucky began to take shape with the name "Shawnee Run."  

A Map of the State of Kentucky by Elihu Barker, 1797

Infrequent visits by the eastern Shakers proved less than satisfactory for the new converts. Therefore, Elisha Thomas offered Elder John Meacham a horse, saddle, bridle, and spending money if he would come to live at Shawnee Run. Elder John told them if they would build a place for them to live, some among the "old believers" (those Shakers who had traveled from the east) would come. 

When the new ministry arrived (with only fifty dollars, two beds, bedding, and a few other items) a new log house was waiting for them and the center of the community had shifted to a nearby hilltop east of Elisha's original farm to the spot where today visitors can walk among the restored buildings.

Molly Goodrich and Peter Pease would become the appointed leaders for the new Kentucky societies. In the meantime some of the Shawnee Run converts were appointed by Elder Benjamin to assume certain responsibilities, with Elisha Thomas to "stand first in our absence." Isaac Dean was appointed to take charge of the farm. 

Beginning in 1809, the year Joseph Runyon became a Believer (his wife Jane/Ginney believed in February 1810), John Meacham, Samuel Turner, Lucy Smith, and Anna Cole composed the Shawnee Run ministry. As the organization of the community took place its name was changed from Shawnee Run to Pleasant Hill and the first permanent structure (the "First Stone House" - later to become the farm deacon's shop) was built to house the ministry.

By 1810, there were thirty-four Believers and "100 more not yet gathered." Joseph and Jane Runyon, with most of their children, arrived at Pleasant Hill on March 2, 1810. Three months later, their grown son Vincent arrived. Interestingly, Vincent and his sister Marcy were the first Runyon family members to sign the Church Covenant. They did so August 13, 1811. For both, this was the beginning of a life-long commitment. And for Vincent it was in celebration of his 22nd birthday which occurred August the 16th. 

The organization of the society at Pleasant Hill proceeded rapidly. To increase their land holdings, that began with the rich, fertile 140-acres given by Elisha Thomas, the trustees began purchasing adjoining acreage. 

By 1812 the East, Center, and West Families had been formed, and a fourth, the North Family, was established as a "gathering family" for prospective converts. In August of that year, Emley and Lydia Runyon arrived at Pleasant Hill with their children and during the autumn, they were joined by his parents Phineas and Charity as well as his sister Mercy Badgett and her husband John and their children. 

On December 21, 1813, Martin Runyon, his wife Patience Baxter, and their children arrived. The following spring, June 2, 1814, Martin was among those Believers of legal age to sign the covenant. In fact, one hundred twenty-eight men and women bound themselves together, establishing the community in the pattern of the Shaker Ministry at New Lebanon, New York. Included also were: Joseph Runyon, Emley Runyon, Phineas Runyon, Marcy Runyon, Charity Badgett, Vincent Runyon, William Badgett, George Runyon, John Badgett, Sr., Ginney Runyon, Sally Runyon, Lydia Runyon, Charity Runyon. 

More opportunities to sign at Pleasant Hill would come after May 1815, on June 10, 1830 and again on April 9, 1844. Many of the younger generation would make that commitment. Many would depart. But that core group who signed in 1814 did remain committed and were Believers for life.

A Field Ripe for Harvest ~ Shaker Missionaries to Kentucky

What caused the Ministry in New York to set their sights on establishing new communities of Believers out west? News of the "Second Great Awakening" camp revival meetings held in 1801 at Cane Run, Kentucky, made its way north to the Shakers in New Lebanon, New York via The Albany Gazette. "No doubt, the Shakers in New England saw the phenomena as a fulfillment of Mother Ann's prophesy that 'the next opening of the gospel will be in America's 'southwest'," writes Carol Medlicott in her book Issachar Bates, A Shaker's Journey. By this time, Ann Lee had been dead for twenty-five years. Mother Lucy Wright, now head of the Ministry, decided the timing was right to send a small reconnaissance group to the area. Three Shaker men - two unmarried elders, John Meacham, Benjamin Seth Youngs, and one new convert, a married father of nine, Issachar Bates set out with only a vague idea of where to go.

The three men, with their one horse, left early on New Year's Day, 1805 during what was to be a particularly harsh winter. Although his wife Lovina and he were living a Shaker life of celibacy by this point, Issachar would continue to show affection for both her and his children, despite their great distance during the decades that followed.

The believers slowly made their way south, covering sometimes thirty miles in one day. As they traveled through the Shenandoah Valley, they began looking for signs of people who might be receptive to their message but were disappointed by those who were "lost in sin" and "the same carnal creatures in all their conversation and conduct." 

After passing through the Cumberland Gap into Tennessee they were shown a new map of the United States and decided to turn northwest into Kentucky. Here, they undoubtedly were following in the footsteps of the Runyon, Badgett, Parks, and other settlers who entered Kentucky from North Carolina and Virginia along the Wilderness Road, famously pioneered by Daniel Boone.

The group was welcomed at Crab Orchard and later Paint Lick in Garrard County by preacher Matthew Houston. Houston introduced them to Barton Stone, the famed Cane Ridge preacher. They went on to Turtle Creek (what would become Union Village) across the river in Ohio and by then had walked over 1,200 miles in two months and twenty-two days.

In the spring of 1805 Barton Stone was still organizing revivals and Issachar Bates returned to Bourbon County to speak at his invitation. He proved outspoken, openly challenging Stone's preaching about Christ's second coming. Cleverly, Issachar put an emphasis on spiritual value rather than doctrine. Medlicott explains: "He was harking back to the first followers of Christ, who had used the inspired teachings of Jesus to free them from adherence to hidebound Jewish law. This would have been a potent argument for a frontier revival crowd ... a needed correction to the doctrinal strictures of America's large, established church institutions." My hunch is that these arguments must have been quite appealing to Joseph Runyon and others in the family who were the first in the family to convert.

Additional eastern Shakers arrived the following year, including six women. Issachar wisely requested that the Ministry send women specifically to counsel the female frontier converts not only in spiritual matters but in the ways of collective childcare and in appropriate dress. For many potential converts the sticking point was celibacy. A majority of the newly-converted believers were husband and wife still living in close quarters. Issachar once again had the wisdom and experience to counsel in these matters. Over the coming years he would become somewhat of a father figure to new converts (the "young believers") throughout the west.

In November 1806 a large group of Kentucky converts, including Henry Banta, visited Turtle Creek, bringing gifts of food, wool, and cotton. By 1810 a settlement along Shawnee Run in Mercer County had been launched by sending a team of old believers (Shakers from the east) to serve as elders. This settlement would come to be called Pleasant Hill.

Parks to Preble ~ All in the Family

Samuel Parks and his wife Charity Runyon undoubtedly were aware of, and may even have attended, the revival meetings at Cane Ridge in their home county in 1801.  What planted a seed for the Shaker movement likely also contributed to their family's migration north into Ohio, to Preble County.

Samuel and Nancy had both been born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey and were brought by their parents to North Carolina. The two married there in 1792 and soon after headed into Kentucky, settling in Bourbon County. Samuel's sister Nancy Ann Parks married Charity's brother Bafford "Barefoot" Runyon in North Carolina and eventually they too made their way into Kentucky, choosing Barren County, about 100 miles southwest of Lexington.

After the revival meetings at Cane Ridge in Bourbon County, Samuel and Charity with family and neighbors migrated yet again, spreading their own religious beliefs and traditions farther into the frontier. This time it was north, into Ohio, which was admitted to the Union on February 19, 1803.

Six years after the Cane Ridge revival was held near the town of Paris, Kentucky, a preacher by the name of David Purviance, raised a Presbyterian and having embraced the New Light, or Christian faith while in Kentucky, was establishing a church at New Paris, Preble County, Ohio. A great proportion of Ohio's new arrivals were coming in from Kentucky.

Robert Runyon (son of Bafford and Nancy) was among the earliest settlers of Gaspar Township, near Sugar Valley, arriving 1808.  Over the next seven years Samuel and Charity Parks, Bafford and Nancy Runyon, Josiah Conger and his wife Catherine Runyon (Robert's sister), William Gray, and the Rhea family were among the incoming settlers to the area. Most seem to have laid down roots southeast of the county seat of Eaton, in either Gasper or Dixon Townships. Also included was Revolutionary War veteran John William Runyon, another son of Phineas and Charity Runyon, brother of Bafford and Charity Parks. He arrived from Madison County, Kentucky.

The original family members who settled in Preble County are buried in Friendship Cemetery and Gard Cemetery.

Eighty years later when this land ownership map of Preble County was drawn, the impact of their settlement can still be seen in the landowner names, which include Parks, Runyon, Conger, Railsback, Lewellen, Thomas, Huffman, Wilkinson, and Gray.

1887 Preble County, Ohio land owner map

Two sources referenced include:

History of Preble County Ohio: Her People, Industries and Institutions by R. E. Lowry, 1915

History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches by H. Z. Williams & Brothers, 1881

Cane Ridge Meeting House ~ Sowing the Seeds

August 1801 - Bourbon County, Kentucky

The 'Second Great Awakening,' a series of religious revival meetings was punctuated by one particularly large and exuberant meeting that took place in early August 1801. The location was the Cane Ridge Meeting House in Bourbon County, about twenty-five miles northeast of Lexington. It must have been a well-planned and well-advertised event to have drawn such a large crowd from the sparsely populated surrounding frontier. Two hundred years later, the site remains rural and agricultural.

The organizer was Presbyterian preacher Barton W. Stone.  During the event, which lasted several days, an estimated ten to twenty thousand people converged on Cane Ridge. Stone had arranged for dozens of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist preachers to speak. Rousing sermons are said to have induced shrieks, cries, dancing and jerking, trance-like states, barking, speaking in tongues, and visions among the huge crowds. Communion was given, confessions were heard, and hundreds, if not thousands, were saved.

Cane Ridge Meeting House - LOC collection

In less than a decade, Pleasant Hill would be one of several established frontier outposts of Shakerism. All the pieces were falling into place at just the right time.

Bourbon County is the very county that Charity Runyon and her husband Samuel Parks had migrated to from North Carolina seven or eight years before the Cane Ridge event. Mercy Runyon and her husband John Badgett had also made the trek from North Carolina about 1787, settling in nearby Fayette County. By the turn of the century, family patriarch Phineas Runyon and his wife Charity had settled along Otter Creek in Madison County.

We can only speculate about whether any Parks, Badgett, or Runyon family members attended the revival meetings at Cane Ridge. They were certainly influenced by them and the change they sparked over the coming years. As congregations and churches sprang up as a result of the revivals, so did Shakerism.

The Parks family would move on to Preble County Ohio while the Badgett and Runyon families stayed put and would soon make the pivotal decision that would change their lives and the lives of their children forever.

Society of "Harmless, Dreamy Enthusiasts"

THE MILLENNIAL CHURCH [SHAKERS.] 

The implantation of this society of harmless, dreamy enthusiasts, on the soil of Kentucky, and in the Mississippi Valley, generally, was a result of the Great Revival ... an ultimate outgrowth of the Presbyterian church. But little need be said about it. It has done no good, and comparatively but little harm, religiously. It was, especially during its early and medieval history in the west, of no small advantage to the agricultural, horticultural and mechanical interest of those neighborhoods in which its societies were located. The Shakers, wild and vague in their religious notions, but wise and practical in their management of their material resources, were the fore-runners in the improvement of live stock, agricultural and mechanical implements, and the methods of farming and gardening. On this account, if for no other reason, they deserve a brief notice. 

They are a frugal, industrious people, and have acquired considerable wealth. Their religious tenets are too silly and absurd to be worth studying.

this description comes from History of Kentucky Baptists From 1769 to 1885 by J.H. Spencer, publication date 1886

A Mysterious Visitor

In early August of 1847, Brother Zachariah Burnett wrote in his journal that "Visitor Tuntstill West from Monticello, Ky came to see his relations viz Runyons, Suttons, & Ryons."

I have not yet been able to discover the connection between Tunstal West and the Runyons but the year of his visit, Jane Runyon (who with her husband and children were the first of the Runyons to join the Shakers) would have turned 80 years old. Her husband Joseph had been dead for two years. Her son Vincent, a devout Shaker, had died the previous year.

Zachariah mentions Runyons, Ryans, and Suttons, but not Badgetts, Baxters, or Burtons, so unless the connection goes farther back to Phineas and Charity (who are both long dead by this visit), the relation does seem to be with Joseph's line. 

Pleasant Hill is about an 80 mile wagon ride from Wayne County where Tunstal Quarles (T.Q.) West lived, so it would have been a significant trip, especially for a farmer during the growing season. According to his Find a Grave memorial, Tunstal Quarles "T.Q." West was born Jan 10, 1806 to Isaac West and Margaret Russell. 

Tunstal's first wife was Sarah Elizabeth Wray West. The two  had several children together before Sarah's death in November 1841. Less than a year after his 1847 visit to Pleasant Hill, Tunstal married a second time. On March 31, 1848 in Wayne County, Kentucky, he wed Sophia Wilson, 13 years his junior. Sophia may have been a widow, and her maiden name was possibly Wright.

Shaker records tell us that Jane "Ginny" Runyon was born in Fairfax County, Virginia. Isaac West's father Soloman was reportedly born in Virginia and migrated to North Carolina. 

Margaret Russell's parentage is a bit fuzzier but they are in South Carolina or North Carolina, before Margaret ends up in Wayne County, Kentucky. 

Joseph Runyon migrated from New Jersey to Rowan County, North Carolina with his parents. There, he marries Jane about 1784, and their first four children are born there before they migrate to Fayette County, Kentucky.

Could Shaker Jane, wife of Joseph, have been a sister of either Isaac West or his wife Margaret Russell?

If so, Tunstal would have been able to visit his Aunt Jane, cousins Charlotte, Vincent, George, William, and Matilda Runyon, cousin Nancy Runyon Ryan, and his cousin Polly's children, Jane and James Sutton.

A Village of Rare Beauty and Neatness

"Pleasant Hill is a small village of rare beauty and neatness situated on a commanding eminence about one mile from the Kentucky River, on the turnpike road from Lexington to Harrodsburg and seven miles from the latter place. It belongs exclusively to that orderly and industrious society called 'Shakers' and contained in 1870 a population of 362, divided into families from sixty to eighty each. Their main edifice is a large, handsome and costly structure built of Kentucky marble, the others, generally, are built of brick and all admirably arranged for comfort and convenience. The external and internal arrangement and neatness of their dwellings, the beauty and luxuriance of their gardens and fields, the method and economy displayed in their manufacturing and mechanical establishments, their orderly and flourishing schools, their sleek and well fed stock are all characteristic of this singular people and evidence a high degree of comfort and prosperity."

This is how, according to History of Kentucky, Vol. 5 (published 1922, Chicago) by Charles Kerr, a Kentucky historian writing circa 1870, described Pleasant Hill in his write-up of long time resident Dr. Pennebaker. Pennebaker was brought to the society as a boy by his uncle, Dr. Shain, after his parents both died within a week of each other. 

History of Kentucky expands on the description with: Outside of Mercer County this unique settlement is seldom heard of by Kentuckians, though at one time it was a thriving and prosperous community ... The first house was built in this settlement in 1805. The community supported its own flour, flax and saw mills, and was practically independent of the outside world. It was a community undertaking, and all the lands were owned and operated in common, and the products from the mills and looms were of a fine quality of wool, linen and cotton cloth. Today only a few of the old sect remain, the mills and shops having long gone to decay, though the houses of the village were built so substantially that they stand as firm as 100 years ago. 

Aliens from the Sheepfold

I've often wondered what neighboring villages and farmers thought of the society of Shakers at Pleasant Hill. I found one reference while researching a different branch of the family who lived in Garrard County, southeast of Mercer County. It comes from "The song of Lancaster, Kentucky, To the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard county," written by Eugenia Dunlap Potts in 1874.

Page 14 of The song of Lancaster, Kentucky, To the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard county.
Eugenia Dunlap Potts, May, 1874.