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(This book, "Autobiography of a Shaker, and Revelation of ...)
This book, "Autobiography of a Shaker, and Revelation of the Apocalypse (1869)", by Evans, F. W. (Frederick William), 1808-1893, is a replication of a book originally published before 1869. It has been restored by human beings, page by page, so that you may enjoy it in a form as close to the original as possible. This book was created using print-on-demand technology. Thank you for supporting classic literature.
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William Frederick Evans was born in Leominster, Worcestershire, England, the son of George and Sarah (White) Evans. His father was of English middle-class stock and held a commission in the British army; his mother appears to have been of somewhat better family.
When Frederick was four years of age his mother died, and the boy was cared for by her relatives who sent him to school at Stourbridge.
In 1820 with his father and his brother he sailed for the United States; they settled in Binghamton, New York, already the home of two of Frederick’s uncles. Here he remained, with apparently little profit to himself, until he was eight years old, when his formal schooling came to an end and he joined his aunts and uncles at Chadwick Hall, a large, well-ordered, and successful farm near Worcester.
The rugged, bright, but rather illiterate country boy felt sorely the need of a better education, and eventually removed to Ithaca, where the Episcopal minister became his friend and teacher.
From Ithaca he went to Sherburne Four Corners, New York, and apprenticed himself to a hatter.
Life could not have been very stimulating intellectually at Chadwick Hall, but it did develop in young Evans a vigorous and sturdy body, together with an understanding of farm management which he was able to put to use in after years. In 1820 with his father and his brother he sailed for the United States; they settled in Binghamton, New York, already the home of two of Frederick’s uncles. The rugged, bright, but rather illiterate country boy felt sorely the need of a better education, and eventually removed to Ithaca, where the Episcopal minister became his friend and teacher. From Ithaca he went to Sherburne Four Corners, New York, and apprenticed himself to a hatter. Here he had access to more books, and the character of his reading inclined him to materialism. He was, therefore, a ready convert to Owenism, and in his enthusiasm actually walked eight hundred miles to join an Owenite community at Massillon, Ohio. The community failed, however, and in the spring of 1829 Evans went back to England where he remained for nearly a year. Returning to New York City in January 1830, he joined the little group of freethinkers and reformers gathered about Fanny Wright, Robert Dale Owen, Robert L. Jennings, and his brother George Henry Evans, with whose views he heartily sympathized. All of these publications were devoted to radical reform in one field or another, but the brothers put most emphasis upon labor, educational, and land reform. In the midst of this activity Evans visited the community of the United Society of Believers, the Shaker community, at Mount Lebanon, New York. So impressed was he with what he saw and learned of Shaker life and doctrine that, after a lengthy visit, to the utter astonishment of his fellow freethinkers in New York City, he joined the society. His final conversion was due, he says, to the spiritual manifestations made to himself alone during several weeks. There was, in truth, no little of the mystic in Evans’s character, and to this the element of spiritualism in Shakerism made a strong appeal. Evans’s conversion proved thoroughgoing and permanent. For sixty-three years he remained with the North Family at Mount Lebanon and for fifty-seven years presided over the Family as elder. In 1871 and again in 1887 he visited England in the role of Shaker missionary, on the last occasion also visiting Scotland. Evans died at Mount Lebanon in his eighty-fifth year.
Combining his means with those of his brother, he assisted him in editing and publishing successively the Working Man’s Advocate, the Daily Sentinel, and Young America, as well as a great variety of other publications including the Bible of Reason. “A born leader and a natural orator, ” he became in time one of the most prominent of the Shaker leaders in the country, and, through his preaching and writing, did much to clarify and shape Shaker doctrine and practise.
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
(This book, "Autobiography of a Shaker, and Revelation of ...)
In the midst of this activity Evans visited the community of the United Society of Believers, the Shaker community, at Mount Lebanon, New York.
There was, in truth, no little of the mystic in Evans’s character, and to this the element of spiritualism in Shakerism made a strong appeal.
Compendium of the Origin, History, Principles [etc. ] of the United Society of Believers; Celibacy from the Shaker Standpoint (1866); Shaker Communism (1871); The Universal Church (1872).
The character of his reading inclined him to materialism. As might be expected from his interest in reform, his was “a nature susceptible to the weal or woe of mankind, ” while “indomitable will, perseverance, persistency, and a determination to carry out what he believed to be his duty to God and humanity, gave him great force of character and made effective his efforts for good” (Immortalised, p. 15).
Shaker community, at Mount Lebanon, N. Y.
In person he was tall, strong, and vigorous, with “regular and systematic habits. ” He was a vegetarian for nearly sixty years. Elder Rayson added, however, in his remarks on the death of Elder Evans: “Though firm and uncompromising when principle was at stake, and firm in his adherence to right, yet he had a tender and loving nature, and his love was reciprocated by those who knew him best” (Ibid. , pp. 26-27).
