Domestic Broils: Shakers, Antebellum Marriage, and the Narratives of Mary and Joseph Dyer

Notes

¬ 143 ¬ notes preface 1. The text of the Concord edition was reset for the Boston edition. The pagination of the two editions is the same, with only occasional minor differences in the last word in a line of text. There are slight differences in punctuation and capitalization, and typesetting errors vary between the two editions. The Concord edition uses f to represent the letter s when it appears within a word; the Boston edition uses only s. There were at least two printings of the Boston edition with two variant title pages marked by differences in font size and italicization. To compare the Concord and Boston editions, see both at the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester , Mass.). To compare the two Boston editions, compare the copy in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society with that held in the Burke Library of Hamilton College (Clinton, N.Y.). 2. The 1818 and 1819 editions of A Compendious Narrative are identical and likely indicate that the printer reset the date to account for the unexpected delay in publication. The text in this volume was transcribed from a copy with the 1818 title page date. On the publication delay, see a letter from the Ministry at Canterbury, N.H., to the Ministry at New Lebanon, N.Y., February 19, 1819, microfilm reel IV:A-3, Shaker Manuscripts, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio. introduction 1. Mary Marshall Dyer to Mills Olcott, August 1819, MS. 819490.1, Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, N.H. 2. On the early years of Shakerism see Stephen Stein, The Shaker Experience in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); population statistics are found in Priscilla J. Brewer, Shaker Communities, Shaker Lives (Hanover , N.H.: University Press of New England, 1986), 215. For detailed treatments of the religious context of Shakerism, see Clarke Garrett, Spirit Possession and Popular Religion: From the Camisards to the Shakers (Balti- 144 ¬ more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), and Stephen Marini, Radical Sects in Revolutionary New England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982). 3. Dartmouth Gazette and Grafton and Coos Advertiser, February 18, 1815. An original of the newspaper with this notice survives in the archives of the State of New Hampshire, Division of Records Management and Archives, Concord, N.H. 4. Ibid., March 21, 1815. 5. Hanover, New Hampshire, is eight miles west of the Enfield Shaker community and home to Dartmouth College (founded 1769). 6. Joseph Dyer, A Compendious Narrative, 85. All page references to A Compendious Narrative refer to the text reprinted in the present edition. For details about the original edition, see my preface, together with note 2. 7. For the official record of her petition for assistance, see Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of New Hampshire. June 1817 (Concord, N.H.: Isaac Hill, 1817); and Journal of the Senate of the State of New Hampshire. June 1817 (Concord, N.H.: Isaac Hill, 1817). 8. “The Shakers,” New Hampshire Patriot, July 1, 1817. 9. On the challenges of marriage in this period see Mary Beth Sievens, Stray Wives: Marital Conflict in Early National New England (New York: New York University Press, 2005). On New Hampshire divorce law see First Constitutional Period, 1784–1792, vol. 5 of Laws of New Hampshire (Concord , N.H.: Evans Printing Co., 1921), 732–33 (An Act to Prevent Incestuous Marriages and to Regulate Divorces); Second Constitutional Period, 1821–1828, vol. 9 of Laws of New Hampshire, 357 (An Act in Addition to An Act, Entitled An Act to Prevent Incestuous Marriages); and State of New Hampshire, Revised Statutes Online, Section 458:7, Absolute Divorce , Generally, www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/XLiii/458/458-7. htm. For a history of marriage and divorce see Norma Basch, Framing American Divorce: From the Revolutionary Generation to the Victorians (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Nancy Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002); Hendrik Hartog, Man and Wife in America: A History (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 2002); Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder : A History of Divorce in Western Society (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988); and idem, Untying the Knot: A Short History of Divorce (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 10. On Willis v. Dyer, see Elizabeth A. De Wolfe, Shaking the Faith: Women, Family and Mary Marshall Dyer’s Anti-Shaker Campaign, 1815–1867 (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 99–103. notes to pages 5–9 [3.129.211.87] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 17:50 GMT...