Notes
{ 353 Notes Introduction 1. Recent critical scholarship by American historians has resulted in reconsideration of the use of such terms as “frontier” and “wilderness.” The North American landscape of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was of course a “frontier” and a “wilderness ” only for the Euro-American inhabitants and not for native peoples. Throughout this work, therefore, I use such terms to represent the perspectives of Issachar Bates and his Euro-American contemporaries, rather than my own. 2. Glendyne Wergland, One Shaker Life: Isaac Newton Youngs, 1793–1865 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006), p. x. 3. AIB-ODa, 64. 4. These recollections of an unidentified Union Village sister are recorded in “Miscellaneous writings . . . 1813–1892,” Item 353d, Shaker Collection, DLCMs. 5. AIB-ODa, 93. This passage is drawn from a section of reflections by Moses Eastwood , the copyist. 6. “Record of Ancient Songs” by Paulina Bryant, Item 361, p. 76, DLCMs. 7. “Tribe of Issachar,” in Geoffrey Wigoder, ed., New Encyclopedia of Judaism (New York: New York University Press, 2002). 8. These spellings of Issachar Bates’s first name are found throughout “Diary of Nathaniel Taylor,” MSS 119, Box 3, Folder 3, OHi. 9. This song was recorded in July 1833 in a South Union, Kentucky, music manuscript, OClWHi, IX.A.3, item 88. 1. Early Life, Spiritual Preparation, and the Coming of the Shakers AIB-ODa, 1–2. 1. AIB-DWint, 1. 2. George Lincoln, History of the Town of Hingham Massachusetts, Historical Genealogy, A–Lincoln vol. 2, (Hingham, MA: Published by the Town of Hingham, 1893), 40. 3. I am grateful to Cohasset town historians for this insight, which is based on the recorded weight of David Bates’s fishing boat (seven tons), as well as historical knowledge of the local fishery. 4. Victor E. Bigelow, A Narrative History of the Town of Cohasset Massachusetts (Cohasset , MA: Committee on Town History, 1898). 5. George Lyman Davenport and Elizabeth Osgood Davenport, The Genealogies of the Families of Cohasset Massachusetts (Cohasset, MA: Committee on Town History, 1909). 6. Thomas W. Baldwin, Vital Records of Cohasset, Massachusetts to 1850 (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1916). 354 } notes (pages 3–5) 7. By far the most dominant school text of colonial New England for more than a century was the New England Primer (Boston: Edward Draper, 1777 edition). It lists about 110 male names “to teach children to spell their own.” The text would naturally have been a source that generations of parents would have used in selecting names for their children, helping to account for the popularity of many biblical names that today are very obscure. “Issachar” is not among the names listed in the Primer. 8. Baldwin (1916). 9. AIB-KyBgW-K, 7. 10. Bigelow (1898), 378. 11. Davenport and Davenport (1909), 22–23. The second wife of David Bates, and William Bates’s stepmother, was a widow with ten children. After David’s death in 1760, she married again for a third time. David Bates’s sheer number of children and stepchildren suggest that after his death William had little prospect of inheriting any property, which could have had bearing on why he moved his family away from Cohasset. 12. William Biglow, History of Sherburne, Massachusetts, From Its Incorporation, 1674, to the End of the Year 1830 (Milford, MA: Ballou and Stacy, 1830), 12. 13. Samuel Adams Drake, History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, vol. 1 (Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1880). 14. The Boston Evening Post, February 15, 1768, 3. 15. I am grateful to Sherborn, Massachusetts, town historian Betsy Johnson for the information about the historical absence of brick houses in Sherborn. 16. Issachar Bates identifies eleven children in his family: Mercy, Noah, Hannah, Issachar , Sarah, Theodore, Olive, Molly, Dolly, Caleb, and William. Massachusetts town birth records reflect two Noahs and two Olives born to William and Mercy Bates. But no record has been located for a Molly Bates. Assuming that Issachar’s naming of his siblings reflects their correct birth order, Molly would have been born between 1765 and 1768, when the family was living in the Sherborn area or nearby Southborough. 17. Betsy Johnson, town historian, Sherborn, Massachusetts, related this information from tax records kept in Sherborn. 18. James G. Carter and William H. Brooks, A Geography of Massachusetts for Families and Schools (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins, 1830). Issachar Bates records that the family moved to Southborough when he was “about eleven.” Issachar turned eleven in January 1769. 19. AIB-DWint, 1...
OR
