[Indexed as: Chapman, Eunice, letter dated Feb. 1819, published in, Dyer, Mary Marshall (as “Mary Marshall”), excerpt from Preface to A Portraiture of Shakerism … , Jun. 1823 (”1822″), book]

NOTE: Eunice Chapman’s children were parentally kidnapped by her husband and turned over to the Shakers (the cult formally called The United Society of Believers). The Shakers believed familial love was evil and that children should “hate” their parents and vice versa, so that only God would receive and give love (God being embodied by the deceased cult leader and messiah, Mother Ann Lee, as well as the ranking leader of any particular Shaker village).

After the chains of wedlock were rent asunder, and I possessed my agency; and could protect and defend myself, I resolved to go in pursuit of my children. That mysterious providence, which casts a veil over future events, kindly and in a remarkable manner suffered me a short time previous to be informed where they were carried, when first taken from Niskeuna. Consequently I to accomplish my purpose, had to proceed in all the subtlety and intrigue, which the Shakers possess. I first sent my books to Enfield, New-Hampshire, then dismissed my school. A friend settled my first stage fare, who gave me a fictitious name; and on the 9th of May, 1818, at 2 o’clock in the morning, I mounted the stage in a dismal thunder storm: When my most intimate friends in Albany, thought I had gone to visit my parent. As I traveled, it appeared as though there was no bottom to the mud. I crossed the green mountain from Bennington to Brattleborough, when it was said, the roads were never so bad. On one side, the snow was three feet deep; on the other was mud and water. – For safety we took an open wagon, yet it would toss and slide and sink into the mud.

I was fearful of being dashed in pieces against the steep ledges of rock near us. I can give but a faint description of my fatigue and feelings at that dismal period, with no friend to whom I could communicate my troubles. At 2 o’clock on the morning of the 10th, I put up in Battleborough, 76 miles from Albany, where I had one hour to rest. On the 10th, there fell torrents of rain, and with a crouded stage, which came to a poise of upsetting, I fainted with fear. At evening, I arrived in Hanover, N. Hampshire, on the plains of Dartmouth College, where I was close questioned by the landlady, (an old maid,) and much prepared to answer. On the 13th, I took the stage and traveled to Enfield, in N. H, and stopped at the stage house, two miles beyond the Shaker village.

I complained of being unwell, and much fatigued, and unable to travel; thus made an excuse to stop a few days to rest. I soon found I had landed in one of the best of families, who suspecting my business privately sent for Mary Dyer, who hastened to my apartment, and introduced herself, by exclaiming “Mrs. Chapman, can this be you?” We met like two unfortunate sisters.

By using shaker’s subtlety and intrigue, I ascertained that my children were in that Shaker village; meanwhile, I kept in close concealment. Mrs. Dyer and myself, were plotting for her to go with a few women and get admittance to see her children, and then the privilege of seeing mine; and I ten be prepared, and take a post, and enter their village by surprise, and rescue the little captives! It was necessary for us to make some confidents; consequently, on the 24th, the Shakers got word that I was in town,* [* It was no doubt communicate to them by some of those false friends who value a dollar more than the happiness or lives of their fellow creatures.] the Shakers were then in as much consternation as though they had heard the din of war against them, and the sound of the drum beat to arms! The inhabitants took a deep interest in my behalf, and much more so, because I had traveled such a distance, after I had experienced so much trouble and fatigue in this state.

I was fearful that the Shakers would remove my children that night. The inhabitants arose to my assistance, kept a guard around the Shaker village, and prepared a civil officer to seize them in case they attempted to carry them off. Meantime the Shakers were under fearful forebodings, and to appease the inhabitants, they, on the 25th, sent word that I might seem my children. A member accompanied me thither; we were seated in the Shaker’s office. After waiting some time George, my eldest child came into my sight. I stood and gazed at the little stranger, but could recognize no appearance of my son.

He said, “Eunice how do ye do?” I wept over him, but he appeared inflexible, undutiful, and unnatural, though I imagined that I saw the stifled tear startle in his eye. I shewed him his little pocket book with a dollar in small specie, which he had collected before he was carried to the Shaker’s: and his last words were “I shall leave my money for my mother.” I told him how carefully I had kept that to remember him by, he laughed at mew. I handed him a tablet to date the year in which he was taken from my protection; he wrote, “when I was kindly taken from my mother!!” My daughters, and some of Mrs. Dyer’s children were secured in one of their Bastiles, which contained a large number of Shakers.

A town officer and a member of the Legislature of that State, with their wives, were admitted with me and Mrs. Dyer to see them. Susan (my next eldest, being now 12 years of age) came into the room: I gazed at her in silent amaze. She appeared like a shadow, with a countenance pale and depicted and features emaciated, while pining away under her confinement. She gently approached me and said “Eunice, how do ye do?” I dropped my face upon her pale sallow cheek, and involuntarily exclaimed; Oh! Can this be my Susan, my dear Susan!!”

I could discover none of that sprightly activity, and engaging sensibility, which once made her the pride of her mother. – Even her dialect had changed! I tore off her ghostly cap, hoping to recognize the features of my Susan: She was so much grieved that I hastened to put it on again; I saw the tear of filial affection started her eye. My Julia came next, which excited painful, though pleasing sensations, the reflection of which now stops me to weep! I gazed a moment upon my Julia in silence; she also said “Eunice how ye do!” I fell upon her face, and while bathing her with my tears, in my interval of sighs and groans, said, Oh! My dear Julia, my long lost babe! Have I once more clasped thee in these wishful arms! But she had become a stranger to those endearing caresses, which were once the joy of my heart. I seated her in my lap, but she fled from me and said, “It is against order to sit in lap!” I handed her a fine dressed doll, she said, “It is handsome, but I do not want it here,” though she eagerly gazed at it.

Without my asking them any questions, they like two parrots, prattled over what shakers had previously told them to say to me, (how much better they were than with me.) In the heights of my groans and tears, Mr. Chapman said, “Eunice, don’t make such a racket, you disturb the brethren and sisters.” When such a scene, called forth, and put to the test, every feeling of a parent, and even those gentlemen who accompanied me wept. At the same time, there stood a Shaker elder, (like an emblem of Satan) behind Mrs. Dyer’s two children, pushing them forward, to abuse their mother, until they tore her youngest child from her arms, and with it fled from her sight. The ghastly visage of Mr. Chapman, indicated that his heart was the seat of remorse. I exclaimed, “James Chapman can you remain insensible through all this!” As I was returning to my lodgings, James Chapman said that I must not trouble them by coming the next day to see my children, for the brethren and sisters had been in a perfect hell all day and wanted some rest.

The Shakers, under their shroud of sanctity said, that they had no control over the children, that they were not bound – that they would be glad to seem me take them away, and if I would come in a peaceable manner and ask for them, I could have them.

Accordingly on the 27th, I took proper evidence, and went in a peaceable manner, and asked to see my children, but they would not let us come even within their door yards. A large number of the inhabitants who were prepared to assist me, then came and demanded sight of the children, and an interview with Mr. Chapman, and said they were unwilling to protect a people, who would harbor a villain who had fled from the justice of the laws of his own state, &c. &c. After several hours solicitations and threats J. C. appeared. Proposals were made for him to give me all or a part of the children.

Being counseled by the Shakers J. C. attempted to impeach my character, and that of my deponents in my book and the respectability of the families to which I belonged, and said he would sooner tie his children to a log and set them adrift in the river, than to give them to a crazy woman who was wandering from town to town, among strangers and unprotected &c. &c. The inhabitants told him that they were not ashamed to accompany me thither, and they believed my statements and that my deponents in my book were correct, and the Legislature of the state of New York would not have been imposed upon by a woman, and in case they had not good cause to pass that law it would not have been passed.

I, with tears in my eyes replied, ‘Mr. Chapman when I was married to you, you was respectable; your relations are still so. I am now an unprotected wanderer, and expect to wander until I obtain my children, though I ought and might have been under the protection of a kind husband. Though may have some claim to the son, can you withhold my daughters, my dearest self from me? James remained inflexible when the spectators could no longer endure the scene. The sheriff seized him with a criminal writ, and thrust him under keepers. It was then strongly impressed upon my mind that some of my children were hid in a barn which stood upon the mountain, half a mile from any house. Merely to gratify me my friends went in search, not thinking it possible. There they found my son in a rough Shaker dress buried in the hay, and without eating his supper. It was then 12 o’clock at night. They brought him to me, he trembled as though he had been taken captive by the savages.

The Shaker Elders followed us with their lawyer, and demanded sight of Mr. Chapman and a copy of the writ, but could obtain neither. As I took my son into a carriage to carry him away, he sprang to leap out and run back to the Shakers. I seized him in my arms, he came near to dragging me out head first upon the ground, but I did not quit my hold. I had to hold him in the carriage as we traveled. I had to lay my commands upon him, told him he must go with me and stay until he was 14, he could choose for himself he yielded. I traveled several miles, hid him, returned back for my daughters; but the situation of things were such it was expedient for me to hasten out of the state with the one I had. For 40 hours I was in constant agitation and fatigue, did not close my eyes to sleep nor rest my weary limbs nor eat my regular meals.

To prevent the Shakers pursuing after me, and let them know what they might expect in case they should I hired a man to go to the Shaker village and discharge a rifle for several nights successively. I hired another man to protect us, and a private carriage, and traveled through private roads much out of my way, which cost me several dollars a day. On the third of June we safely arrived in Albany to the joyful surprise of all my friends, where we received congratulations from every class; though I first had to hide my son until I could get him a decent suit of clothes. I employed all my leisure hours in shewing my son the different curiosities in the city, indulged him in innocent luxuries and amusements. With regard to education, his time while among the Shakers was lost. I strove by every means I was capable of, to awaken his sensibility and regain his affections. But for several weeks he behaved as though I was a stranger, and did not call me mother. I was fearful he would leave me and go to the Shakers in Niskeuna. I trembled whenever he went out of my sight, and the sight of a Shaker was a demon before me. After he became more natural, he acknowledged that he had at first intended of leaving me and going back to the Shaklers.’

He stated that ‘the Shakers had imprinted a prejudice on his and his sister’s mind, against me, by telling them I had become a common and very base woman, so that people would not admit me into their house, and that people in the world were generally no better, &c. They implant a prejudice and contempt in the minds of children, against our ministers, churches, and the true doctrines of the gospel. I would observe that Elder Seth Y. Wells, and Joseph Hodgson, who were summoned to appear before the hon. Committee, to whom was refered my petition before the senate of 1816, and who testified before them, as stated in my first publication thus:

Q. by Committee. Where is Mr. Chapman? And where are the children?

A. by Wells. I cannot say.

Q. How did Mr. Chapman and the children go away?

A. I cannot say.

Q. Did he take wagon and horses, or sleigh?

A. I cannot say.

Q. How could Mr. Chapman take the children and go from your house, without your knowing it?

A. I cannot say.

My son states that this same Seth Y. Wells, wrote directions where Mr. Chapman should carry them, and he read them, and saw it was Enfield, N. H. and they were taken out of S. Y. Wells’ house in a severe cold night – in the presence of S. Y. Wells and Joseph Hodgson, and two Shaker women and put into a sleigh, and J. Chapman and Joel Wood, (a Shaker) drove them to Enfield, and Joel Wood returned to Niskeuna. That the Shakers read before the family, the memorial [pamphlet] of James Chapman against me, but did not let them know I had published a book or got a law passed, only a divorce, and they believed I was married again.

That after the Shakers in Enfield had heard I was in town, the elders called on him and his sisters, out of bed at midnight, and took them into a mountain, hid them in a barn, half a mile from any house! And towards day they took them out of the barn, dragged them three quarters of a mile father up the mountain where they lay upon the ground until mid day! And for three or four nights successively, mine and Mrs. Dyer’s children were scattered in different parts of the mountains and lay upon the ground, when the health of my Susan was such that she ought to have been under the care of a doctor.
Here I must stop to acknowledge, that I cannot thank the Shakers, for their kindness and tenderness to children, especially young females: for it evidently and conclusively appears, that they will sacrifice even the life of a child to gratify their will.

He [source?] states, “that among the Shakers of Enfield there was a child, whose senses were injured, and the Shakers acknowledged that it was occasioned by their beating him on the head! That a man became insane, and would rave every night excessively, and say “I am the Lord’s anointed,” so that the family could not sleep. He fell into a stupor, and died very suddenly. Immediately after his death, the elder men and women held a meeting, and there was great lamentations among them; soon after the Elders spake of him in their family meetings, and said it was not the medicine they gave him that caused his death, but it was an epileptic shock, and forbid any of the family speaking of him to each other, which was not generally the case.

That the elders often read to them their book “Mother Ann’s sayings.” It contains an account of the disasters, and the timely and unnatural deaths which have befell those who have persecuted, those that have left them, and what shall befall those who will leave them: warns them not to be disobedient to the Elders, &c. and not to play with cats and dogs for they fill them with evil spirits, together with some very vulgar sayings.” That he “has heard the Shakers laugh and boast how they had cheated the world’s people in the time of the war, by going to Canada after some boxes (which they had previously left there with garden seeds,) and purchasing a quantity of goods, wrapped some about their wastes, filled several boxes and put thewm below the empty ones, and our custom house officers slightly examined their load, and observed ‘the Shakers are so honest they will not cheat’ and let them pass.

In two months after I arrived in Albany, Mr. Chapman came in pursuit of his son. He counseled with the Shaker’s lawyer what he should do; he told them he would be exposed to the penalty of the law, which was passed in the session of 1818, if he attempted to take the child, he must wait until next session to get it repealed. Mr. Chapman is now in Niskeuna; it is supposed by some, that the Shakers are prepared to petition for a repeal of that law, and suggested by others, their best friends dare not render themselves so unpopular as to present a petition for them. My son is now 14, and I can boast he is much attached to me, and detests the name of Shaker.

The inhabitants of N. Hampshire, are ready to assist me whenever I go after my daughters, but my sources are exhausted, and I have not the means. I must leave them at present, trusting that he who brings to pass all events, will provide a way and means to rescue them from heathenish bondage.

E. CHAPMAN

Albany, Feb. 1819

NOTES:

Paragraph breaks have been added here. Original spelling and punctuation has been retained.