Community
The Shakers, who believed that spiritual ties were more significant than blood relationships, organized the community at Watervliet into four, large "families," each of which formed an independent, self-supporting unit with its own buildings, although all members worshiped in the same meetinghouse. They were known as the "Church," "North," "West," and "South" families. At its high point, the community had 350 members and 2,500 acres (10 km2) of land.
In the early 19th-century, a custody battle involving a father who had gone to live at Watervleit with his minor child was widely publicized. The negative publicity caused the Shakers to establish a rule that married persons would not be accepted into Shaker communities unless both partners agreed to enter.
Read more about this topic: Watervliet Shaker Historic District
Famous quotes containing the word community:
“when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest
grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky!
And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him
When are you going to stop people killing whales!”
—Gregory Corso (b. 1930)
“When a language creates—as it does—a community within the present, it does so only by courtesy of a community between the present and the past.”
—Christopher Ricks (b. 1933)
“It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)