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Miller, Killian. Letter: Hudson, NY, to Jonathan Wood, New Lebanon, NY, 1845 August 20.

Title: Letter: Hudson, NY, to Jonathan Wood, New Lebanon, NY, 1845 August 20.

Letter concerns two eleven-year-old twin sisters, Catherine and Lavena Traver, residents of the New Lebanon, NY, Shaker community. Miller writes Wood that their brother, Norman, was planning a visit to ask that the children be returned to their parents, David H. and Amanda, who had left them at New Lebanon when they apostatized from the Shaker sect sometime during the early 1840s. David and Amanda had signed the sacred roll in 1842 when they were, respectively, 44 and 41 years of age. Norman, born in 1827, was himself a Shaker for a time, leaving on August 16, 1844 when his father took him away. In his book on the Shakers, Stephen Stein writes that "he [Norman] was denounced by the Believers as a 'youth having despised his birthright' in the church and as 'a very ungrateful & unthankful creature,'" Another Traver, Thaddeus Mortimer, most likely a member of this family, died at New Lebanon in 1846 at the age of 21; he had been admitted to the sect in 1839. Apparently, the Travers had left their children with the Shakers when they departed, but later decided to take back their younger son and twin daughters. Miller ends his letter by saying: "my anxiety is to have this matter amicably settled."

ArchivalResource: 1 item (2 leaves) ; 26 cm.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80066317 View