The Belton Woman’s Commonwealth: A Different Commune of the Age
The Belton Woman’s Commonwealth, more commonly called the Sanctified Sisters, was a predominately women’s religious group established in central Texas during the Reconstruction era. The commune flourished until shortly after the turn of the century. The Shaker movement also started in America in the late eighteenth century in the northeast and continued to expand it’s religious villages until facing dwindling numbers in the early twentieth century. It should be noted that both of these movements gained momentum through the early leadership of women; Martha McWhirter for the sisters and Jane Wardley and Ann Lee for the Shakers. In this age of utopias, the sisters and the Shakers differed in many aspects. The Shakers represented the dogmatic religious communities of the North around the time of the Second Great Awakening, the religious revival that occurred primarily in the Northern United States beginning in the late eighteenth century. Conversely, the sisters represented an atypical frontier commune formed during the Third Great Awakening, the religious revival of the mid-nineteenth century that swept through the South. The similarities and differences between these two religious communities will be explored.
The organization of their respective communities represented one of the first major differences between the Sanctified Sisters and the Shakers. The women of Belton arranged their commune around its founder Martha McWhirter, and the movement resembled one single unified body.[i] Conversely, the Shakers’ movement included multiple leaders such as Jane Wardley, Ann Lee, James Whittaker, Joseph Meachem, and Lucy Wright. Furthermore, the typical Shaker village was divided into smaller groups with a “Church Family” acting as leader to other small satellite families. The Shakers also appointed a leadership team which contained two Elders (men) and two Eldresses (women). Another difference in structure was the Shakers more formally segregated men and women in the community; common examples included different areas for worship, different tables for meals, and even separate stairwells and doors. However, supervised socialization between the sexes did occur in union meetings and in carrying out some tasks around the community such as doing laundry and gathering firewood and food, although most labor was also divided.[ii] The Woman’s Commonwealth did not have such a formally structured environment, either due to a lower number of overall members or the significantly higher female to male ratio compared to the Shakers.
Another difference between the two movements was in their worship style. The sisters originally met in formal churches, even after sanctification. However they eventually split from the churches to worship on their own. This schism from the church seemed to occur due to a growing amount of sectarianism, while having little to do with the whole doctrine of sanctification. The growing rift between denominations in the Belton area did not appeal to the women since the original membership was composed of a diverse group of Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and one Campbellite. New denominations were expanding into frontier towns such as Belton, thus, igniting sectarian feuds and competing for members in their respective congregations. Following the split from the formal church, the sisters held their own worship services that resembled that of Unitarian Christians until 1891, when they eliminated services altogether in order to focus solely on their dreams and revelations.[iii] The Shakers’ earliest services differed greatly from their later services; what started off as unstructured, loud, chaotic, and emotional worship developed into choreographed dances, marches, and symbolic rituals including original songs and prayers.[iv] In regards to spiritual life there were several themes both groups shared, the most important of these being the shared belief in visions and revelations. The whole premise of the sisters was based off of visions and revelations McWhiter experienced, while the Shakers had a long history of intense spirituality which included these visions and revelations. The Shakers, however, believed in several other spiritual gifts given to Lee, or Mother Ann as she was affectionately known. The group attributed her with the ability to prophesize and heal, which included the “power of God” in her touch. In 1837, over fifty years after Lee’s death, the Era of Manifestations began which included visiting Lee in the spirit realm to receive instructions from her as well as speaking in tongues.[v] The focus on Lee in the Shaker community, even posthumously, might appear to be similar to the sisters' focus on McWhirter. However the Shaker focus on Lee went to a theological level. Shakers believed that Lee was the female manifestation of Christ, a belief that the sisters did not share about McWhirter.[vi]
Despite some differences, the two movements did share several economic traits in common. The sisters ran several successful businesses in order to reach one of McWhirter’s ultimate goals, making their own money achieving economic independence from their husbands. The women started by selling bread, dairy products, and firewood; the proceeds of these goods all went into a communal pot, which McWhirter controlled. The women later began to do day jobs as housekeepers, while working on opening a laundry facility. Ultimately their most successful business venture was the Central Hotel, which enabled them to expand their businesses to Waco, Texas, and New York. The sisters later decided to sell their businesses at the turn of the century and relocate to Washington D.C.[vii] The economic route of the women shared some similarities with that of the Shakers. The Shaker villages ran highly successful farms in order to be self-sustaining and control their own food and livestock source. When not working in the farms, Shakers worked at a variety of trades and craftwork. Many villages sold handmade baskets, brushes, brooms, as well as other small goods and hand-spun fabrics. Other well-known products included their medicinal herbs, applesauce, and knitted garments. The most popular of their products, furniture, was well known for the quality of the craftsmen’s work. The renowned Shaker craftsmen produced plain, durable, and functional furniture, the most popular of which was chairs.[viii]
The two movements did have many other notable[1] similarities and differences. One notable difference between the two groups was the lack of men in the Belton community, compared to the Shakers. The members of the Sanctified Sisters frequently divorced their husbands, whereas Shakers did not believe in divorce, although there is at least one well-known case of divorce and child custody involving the Shakers and Eunice Chapman in 1818.[ix] Ironically, the accusations came from Mrs. Chapman against the Shakers and Mr. Chapman who held her children, in contrast to every case involving the sisters which featured the group and a wife against an enraged husband. Another feature between the two was the sisters actively practiced celibacy with non-believers, usually their husbands. The Shakers did not engage in procreation at all and only added children through adoption of orphans, which came in the form of infants anonymously left on Shaker doorsteps.[x] The two groups both allowed young adults to choose to stay in the community or leave, although Shakers had to wait until age twenty-one. In many cases, most were unable to resist the outside world and decided to leave.[xi] Ultimately the two groups faced the problem of dwindling memberships. Due to lack of producing offspring, temptations to leave, and growing cities, the sisters and Shakers popularity and appeal faded with their population size. The last sister died in 1983, thus, ending the movement, and there is currently only one active Shaker community in the world, which only has five members.[xii]
At their respective peaks, the sisters contained over fifty members while the Shakers numbered over six thousand. [xiii] Although their communities fizzled out, the legacy of each group remains. While the Central Hotel still stands as a testament to the sisters and authentic handcrafted Shaker chairs are still highly sought after, the principles behind each group are more important to their impact. The sisters could be considered pioneers of the feminist movement and the Shakers are well known for establishing equality of the sexes dating back to 1780 and pioneering several ideas of a religious community in the United States. The two movements represent the two classes of communistic experiments in early America. The first, the Shakers, were dogmatic groups of men and women that contained extreme tenets resulting in a lack of appeal. The sisters differed from this idea by having religious tolerance and a lack of males. But both groups suffered from a lack of growth and proselytizing which, as previously stated, resulted in their decline. While the communities do not remain, the impact and legacies of them are still evident to this day. And while the communities had many similarities and differences, they remain a testament to the early American experiments with religious communities.
Endnotes
[i]George P. Garrison, “A Women’s Community in Texas,” Charities Review of New York, Vol. 3, No. 1 (November 1893), 26.
[ii]Stephen J. Stein, The Shaker Experience in America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 7, 13, 15, 23, 37.
[iii]Sally Kitch, This Strange Society of Women: Reading the Letters and Lives of the Woman’s Commonwealth (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1993), 6.
[iv]Glendyne R. Wergland, Visiting the Shakers, 1778–1849 (Clinton, N.Y.: Richard W. Couper Press, 2007), 274-78.
[v]Stein, 165–74; Edward D. Andrews and Faith Andrews, “The Shaker Children’s Order,” Winterthur Portfolio 8 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 201–14.
[vi]Stephen J. Stein "A Candid Statement of Our Principles: Early Shaker Theology” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Vol. 133, No. 4 (Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 1989), 513-18.
[vii]Garrison, 23, 35-38, 42, 44-45.
[viii]Metin Coşgel, Thomas Miceli, and John Murray, “Organization and Distributional Equality in a Network of Communes: The Shakers,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology Vol. 56 No. 2 (1997): 129–37.
[ix]Kitch, 322; Ilyon Woo, The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times (New York ,NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010), 4, 340.
[x]“Shaker Baby," Pittsfield Sun, September 3, 1873, 1.
[xi]Glendyne R. Wergland, “Our Shaker Ancestors,” New England Ancestors, (Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2006), 21–27
[xii]“The Shakers,” Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, (PBS.org, September 17, 2010); Lois Geer, “The Sanctificationists: A Feminist Revolt on the Texas Frontier,” 1995, Sanctified Sisters file, Bell County Museum, Belton.
[xiii]Stein, 343; Eleanor James, “The Sanctificationists of Belton: A Woman’s Community in Belton,” The American West Vol. 2 No. 3, (1965), 72.