GLR November-December 2023

questioned Elder Hezekiah Rowley on that point, and though Rowley at first repeatedly denied that naked dancing ever oc curred, he eventually admitted that years ago, during the time of Mother Ann Lee, such events did take place. He related to Brown an incident that included Lee’s own brother William (an amateur boxer described by one former Shaker as “a man of great personal beauty”). Recalled Rowley: One day, in the afternoon, William Lee, having drank very freely, fell asleep; when he awoke, he ordered the brethren (in number about twenty) to be assembled, I being one with them. William Lee then informed us, that he had a gift [i.e., a divine revelation] to rejoice—and ordered us to strip ourselves naked; and as we stood ready to dance, Mother Ann Lee came to the door of the room with one of the sisters. William Lee requested her to stay out, as he had a gift to rejoice with the brethren. Still she persisted. He said to her again, Mother, do go out—I have got a gift to rejoice with the brethren; and why can’t you let us rejoice? you know if any of the sisters are with us, we shall have war , that is, have to fight against the rising of nature. Ann Lee refused to go away, eventually attempting to climb in through a window. The confrontation with her brother turned physical: “I immediately stepped in between them, and cried out, for God’s sake, Father William, don’t strike Mother! I had rather you would strike me. The brethren, who had stood [naked] waiting the event, then gathered round and prevented are physically diminished with every ejaculation. Masturbation was seen as the major culprit leading to masculine enfeeble ment, but women bore a large share of the blame. Despite being a religion founded by a woman, and one based on the principle of the equality of the sexes, the Shakers could not resist the cor rosive force of misogyny in American culture. In time, women were portrayed as lustful Jezebels bent on luring innocent men to their doom. When, in 1819, Joel Wood and Clarissa Cogswell fled their Shaker community in the middle of the night, the eld ers were glad to get rid of Clarissa, for “she was never a good Believer—she was considered a very disorderly, insinuating witch of a woman and proved to be Joel’s ruin.” Joel, on the other hand, they would miss. The Shakers saw their strict separation of the genders as a path to salvation for weak-willed men, and as an aid to women to control their unruly concupiscence. A man who gave in to his sexual desires was labeled as “effeminate,” as he was taking on the characteristics of a lustful female. Outsiders who opposed the Shakers were denounced as “boogers [buggers], devils and Sodomites.” The entire structure of Shaker belief system rested on the suppression of sexual desire, and homosexuals—who en gaged in sex that was doubly forbidden—were doubly damned. Still, there were queer Shakers. Rebecca Cox Jackson, a free woman of color, and her partner Rebecca Perot were active in 30 further blows. There was a hard threaten ing on both sides. Thus ended the gift of rejoicing.” The Shakers’ sexual theology did not re main static, and after the death of Ann Lee in 1784, it began to incorporate some of the be liefs of the general American public, espe cially the concept of “spermatic economy.” In this conception of human sexuality, men

the Shaker community at Watervliet, New York, and later in Philadelphia. When Thomas Munson and Alexander McArthur left the Mount Lebanon Shakers in 1837, Munson was de nounced as an unfaithful “cross-bearer” and McArthur as a “cider toper [drunkard] & corrupter of the simple.” In his jour nal (some of which is written in a private code), Shaker Isaac Newton Youngs denounced Munson as a “fleshmonger” and recorded his distress on learning that Munson and McArthur were “very much married together.” Most homosexual desire, however, was ultimately subli mated into what the Shaker elders denounced as “special love”—intimate feelings directed toward a particular individ ual rather than a shared affection for the entire community. Such attachments—even though they were not overtly sexual—were rooted out whenever they were discovered, so same-sex cou ples needed to keep their special love a secret. In an 1853 mem oir about his fifteen years spent among the Shakers, Hervey Elkins wrote of his particular friendship with Francis Lupier. “[T]he intimacy between Francis and myself soon became so strong, that each felt the indispensability of the other’s society. This intimacy was soon transformed into an almost indissoluble tie of friendship. We felt ourselves one in spirit, reciprocally blended like two diverse atoms, in nature, by chemical affinity, and which by the combination are transformed into a substance unlike either of the separate elements.” But the young men needed to keep their love hidden. Wrote Elkins: ardent friends;—and I now had a friend, of near my own age, from whom I could not bear the idea of being separated. This love was not universal, therefore it was not owned. The young couple eventually parted and lost contact with one another, but years later, in his book about the Shakers, Elkins included a touching message to his lost friend: “Fran cis has since left the Society; and should a copy of this little recital fall into his hands, he will recognize these truthful statements, and, we hope, address a letter to his quondam friend and brother. —Hervey Elkins, Hanover, N. H.” For Elkins, it was like a note in a bottle tossed into the sea, with the hope that Lupier, wherever he might now be, would dis cover the book, read the passage, and know that his special love was still strong. R EFERENCES Goodwillie, Christian, ed. Writings of Shaker Apostates and Anti-Shak ers, 1782-1850 . Routledge, 2013. Kern, Louis J. An Ordered Love: Sex Roles and Sexuality in Victorian Utopias . Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1981. Stein, Stephen J. The Shaker Experience in America . Yale Univ. Press, 1994. Wergland, Glendyne R. One Shaker Life: Isaac Newton Youngs, 1793 1865 . Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 2006. For who could tell ... subjected to that regime which has for its object the dissolution of the most powerful affections of our nature, how long we should be permitted to thus enjoy each other’s society—a love which had al ready become as powerful as our religious en thusiasm. It was now that I first began to dread that system of religion to which I had been so attached. For it separates warm and

The Shaker belief system rested on the suppression of sexual desire, and homosexuals were doubly

damned. S ti ll, there were queer Shakers.

TheG & LR