Issachar Bates: A Shaker’s Journey

Contents

contents Preface vii Acknowledgments xi Introduction: “Now here’s my faith I’ll speak it plain” xiii 1   “Signs and Wonders”: Early Life, Spiritual Preparation, and the Coming of the Shakers 1 2   “Take the bloody track of war”: A Fifer in the American Revolution 17 3   “I’m journeying with those who I love in the flesh”: Issachar Bates as Husband and Provider 36 4   “A testimony as hot as flames”: Shaker Conversion and Early Travels 61 5   “Like God’s Hunters”: Seeking Kindred in the West 82 6   “Thorns and thistles did abound”: The Growth of the Shaker West 104 7   “What trials yet before us lay”: Tribulation on the Wabash 130 8   “And with much animation we lived at Busro”: An Elder in Indiana 154 9   “Remnant of the tribe of Issachar”: The Bates Kinship Network in the Shaker East 177 10   “The Cockatrice still wants a place in Zion’s lovely regions”: Transformations in the Shaker West 202 11   “Tribulation Worketh Patience”: A Bitter Close in the West 228 12   “So I’ll relinquish all demands”: Journey’s End at New Lebanon 257 Epilogue: “Elder Issachar seems to be continually at hand” 284 Appendixes Appendix 1: A Bates Family Tree 308 Appendix 2: Songs and Poems by Issachar Bates 312 Appendix 3: Songs by Issachar Bates’s Children 343 Note on Sources 349 Notes 353 Bibliography 405 Index 415 ...