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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 June 2018
Those who have witnessed [the Shakers'] institutions, seen the neatness and economy … the sincere though singular ceremonies of their religious devotions, have feit an unwillingness to believe the slanderous representations of Mrs. Dyer.
—Newburyport Herald, April 27, 1824Suffice it to say that everything we saw and heard tended to confirm M. Dyer's assertions respecting them.
—Mary Clark to Francis Jackson, July 16, 1823When Mary Marshall Dyer, a vociferous and ambitious convert, departed the Enfield, New Hampshire, Shakers in 1815, the elders breathed a sigh of relief. Since joining the Community two years earlier, Dyer sought her own interpretation of Scripture, repeatedly questioned the eiders, and aggressively campaigned for a leadership position. When Mary left the Enfield Community, the elders felt relief—but it was momentary. Little did they realize that they would soon become embroiled in one of the most public and aggressive disputes to threaten Shakerism in forty years.
I would like to thank Cheryl Boots, Scott De Wolfe, Jona Hanson, Rebecca Noel, David Richards, and David Shawn for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I am grateful to the Pew Program in Religion and American History and the Winterthur Museum and Library for their generous fellowships in support of my research.
1. Mary Clark to Francis Jackson, Jury 16, 1823, Papers of Francis Jackson, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts.
2. Edward Deming Andrews provided a classic description of Dyer as “malicious [as a] Greek Fury” in The People Called Shakers: A Search for the Perfect Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953; repr., New York: Dover, 1963), 208. In the recent decade, Dyer has received more thoughtful consideration. See Brewer, Priscilla, Shaker Communities, Shaker Lives (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1986), 91–92 Google Scholar; Foster, Lawrence, Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 51–53 Google Scholar; Humez, Jean M., “A Woman Mighty to Pull You Down: Married Women's Rights and Female Anger in the Anti-Shaker Narratives of Eunice Chapman and Mary Marshall Dyer,” Journal of Women's History 6 (Summer 1994): 90–110 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stein, Stephen, The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 85–86 Google Scholar; and Elizabeth A. De Wolfe, “Erroneous Principles, Base Deceptions, and Pious Frauds: Anti-Shaker Writing, Mary Marshall Dyer, and the Public Theater of Apostasy” (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1996).
3. Dyer, Mary Marshall, A Portraiture of Shakerism, Exhibiting a General View of their Character and Conduct, From the First Appearance of Ann Lee in New-England, Down to the Present Time ([Haverhill, N.H.]: Printed for the Author [by Sylvester Goss], 1822), 410.Google Scholar
4. On women's legal and cultural position in the early nineteenth Century, see Basch, Norma “Invisible Women: The Legal Fiction of Marital Unity in Nineteenth-Century America,” Feminist Studies 5 (Summer 1979): 346-66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cott, Nancy, The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1780-1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Hartog, Hedrik, “Marital Exits and Marital Expectations in Nineteenth-Century America,” Georgetown Law Journal 80 (October 1991): 95–129 Google Scholar; and Salmon, Marylynn, Women and the Law of Property in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986).Google Scholar
5. On the process of apostasy, see Bromley, David G., ed., Falling from the Faith: Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1988)Google Scholar; and Wright, Stuart A., Leaving Cults: The Dynamics of Defection (Washington, D.C.: Center for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1987).Google Scholar An insightful analysis of how the deconversion experience influences the structure of autobiography is offered by Barbour, John D., Versions of Deconversion: Autobiography and the Loss of Faith (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994).Google Scholar
6. On the Millenial Laws, see Johnson, Theodore, ed., “The Millenial Laws of 1821,” Shaker Quarterly 7 (Summer 1967): 35–58.Google Scholar
7. Brewer argues that it is in this period we see a decline in commitment of individual Shakers and the beginnings of a decline in the quality of members, which would continue through the nineteenth Century. Brewer, , Shaker Communities, 87.Google Scholar
8. Ministry New Lebanon to Ministry Union Village, March 27, 1819, Shaker Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio, Microfilm Reel 4:A-33 (hereafter cited as OClWHi).
9. William Plumer, “Autobiography,” June 27, 1817, William Plumer Papers, Library of Congress (microfilm, New Hampshire Historical Society).
10. For example, Isaac Hill's July 1, 1817, report of the Dyer appearance before the legislature was reprinted in The Yankee (July 11), the Connecticut Courant (July 15), the Berkshire Star (July 24), the Baltimore Telegraph and the National Intelligencer (in July), and the Ohio Watchman (July 31). This dis- patched Dyer's story across New England and across the country.
11. Dyer, Mary Marshall, A Brief Statement of the Sufferings of Mary Dyer, Occasioned by the Society Called Shakers… (Concord, N.H.: Printed by Joseph C. Spear, 1818).Google Scholar Dyer composed A Brief Statement and distributed copies to each legislator in advance of her second petition. Elaborating upon one's petition in pamphlet form was not an uncommon strategy to gain the attention of the legislature. Philip Carrigan, an attorney who helped write Dyer's second petition, may have assisted in the publication and distribution of A Brief Statement. Shortly after the legislative Session opened, Joseph Spear published A Brief Statement for sale to the public. See advertisements for A Brief Statement in the New Hampshire Gazette (Spear's newspaper) and the New Hampshire Patriot (Isaac Hill's newspaper) in June and Jury 1818, respectively. Joseph Spear assisted Dyer in enlarging her audience when his family connection to Boston publisher William Spear resulted in a Boston 1818 edition of A Brief Statement as well as supportive newspaper articles. See, for example, the July 23, 1818, Boston Commercial Gazette, which praised Dyer as an “intelligent female.”
12. Dyer, Joseph, A Compendious Narrative, Ellucidating the Character, Disposition and Conduct of Mary Dyer, from the time of her marriage, in 1799, till She Left the Society called Shakers, in 1815 … (Concord, N.H.: Printed by Isaac Hill, for the Author, 1818).Google Scholar Although 1818 is given as the publication date, Shaker correspondence indicates that, during the winter of 1818-19, Hill's family became ill, and the work was not completed until February 18, 1819. Hill advertised the eighty-eight-page pamphlet under the headline “Hear Both Sides” in his New Hampshire Patriot. The New Hampshire Ministry's explanation for the delay is found in New Hampshire Ministry at Canterbury to Ministry New Lebanon, February 19, 1819, OClWHi 4:A-3.
13. Joseph described Mary as a “capable creature” in his testimony to the New Hampshire legislature. A summary of the testimony appeared in the New Hampshire Patriot, Jury 1, 1817.
14. Willis's 1819 lawsuit grew out of a meeting between the Shakers, Mary Dyer, and Enfield town members following a mob event (May 1818) at the Shakers. When Joseph declared he would not support Mary, Judge Blaisdell, who oversaw the meeting, suggested that James Willis sue Joseph to en- force support. Mary, because of the doctrine of coverture, was prevented from suing her own husband. See Mary's description in Portraiture, 398-400.
15. Shaker Richard McNemar used the term to refer both to Joseph and Mary Dyer's and Eunice and James Chapman's marital difficulties. McNemar, Richard, The Other Side of the Question… (Cincinnati: Looker, Reynolds, and Co., 1819), 3.Google Scholar
16. New Hampshire permitted divorce in cases of impotence, incestuous marriage, adultery, extreme cruelty, and when a husband abandoned his wife for three years without provisions. Mary attempted to persuade the legislature and the public that her Situation fell under the latter two circumstances. On divorce in New Hampshire, see Laws of New Hampshire, vol. 5, First Constitutional Period, 1784-1792 (Concord, N.H.: Evans Printing Co., 1921), 732-73 [chap. 94: “An Act to Prevent Incestuous Marriages and to Regulate Divorces”]; Laws of New Hampshire, vol. 9, Second Constitutional Period, 1821-1828 (Concord, N.H.: Evans Printing Co., 1921), 357 [“An Act in Addition to an Act, Entitled an Act to Prevent Incestuous Marriages …”]; and New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated (Oxford, N.H.: Butterworth Legal Publishers, 1992). See also Phillips, Roderick, Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Phillips, Roderick, Untying the Knot: A Short History of Divorce (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; and Riley, Glenda, Divorce: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).Google Scholar
17. Ministry Canterbury to Ministry New Lebanon, December 14, 1818, OClWHi 4:A-3.
18. Dyer, Mary Marshall, The Rise and Progress of the Serpent, from the Garden of Eden, to the Present Day: with a Disclosure of Shakerism, Exhibiting a General View of Their Real Character front the Appearance of Ann Lee… (Concord, N.H.: Printed for the Author, 1847), 233.Google Scholar
19. Although the title page indicates 1822 for the publication date of Portraiture, Shaker correspondence and newspaper advertisements indicate that Portraiture was not completed until June 1823. See the Shakers' report on the progress of Portraiture in Ministry New Hampshire to Ministry New Lebanon, March 12, 1823, OClWHi 4:A-3. Dyer's announcement of the completion of Portraiture, “To the Public,” appeared in the New Hampshire Intelligencer and Grafton & Coos Advertiser, June 11, 1823.
20. Dyer advertised the Coming work as early as 1821 and used these claims in her sales pitch. Advertisement, The Grafton and Coos Intelligencer, July l8, 1821.
21. Dyer learned of the death of her daughter from the newspaper while selling books in Massachusetts. This sad event formed the basis of an 1848 petition to the New Hampshire legislature that sought to force the Shakers to notify non-Shaker relatives upon the illness or death of a biological relative.
22. Dyer, , Rise and Progress, 258.Google Scholar
23. Dyer's meetings with ministers and area women illustrate her use of “networking.” Two Methodist ministers with whom she spoke were neighbors of a Mrs. Sutherland, one of a group of women who met Dyer and presented her with gifts. Mrs. Sutherland, the wife of a jeweler, presented Dyer with a friendship ring. Dyer also spoke with a Mrs. Willis, whose husband was the editor of the Boston Recorder. Dyer's description of her Boston meetings is found in Rise and Progress, 256-58, and in Dyer, Mary, Reply to the Shakers' Statements, Called a “Review of the Portraiture of Shakerism,” with an Account of the Sickness and Death of Betsy Dyer; A Sketch of the Author: and Testimonies from Several Persons … (Concord, N.H.: Printed for the Author, 1824), 78–80.Google Scholar Individuals and their house locations were identified with the 1823 Boston City Directory.
24. In the summer of 1818, Dyer collected affidavits in the towns surrounding Canterbury, including four from Freewill Baptists. Dyer then continued her journey to Weare, where she was introduced [by one of her Canterbury Freewill Baptist affiants?] to Judge Joseph Philbrick, a Freewill Baptist leader and town historian. The Weare town history reports that, in 1823, there was a small revival among area Freewill Baptists and one of the visiting preachers was Mary M. Dyer. I am grateful to Catherine Brekus for alerting me to Dyer's preaching activities in Weare. See Little, William, The History of Weare, N.H., 1735-1888 (Lowell, Mass.: Published by the Town of Weare, 1888), 342, 357.Google Scholar
25. Catherine Brekus, “Let Your Women Keep Silence in the Churches: Female Preaching and Evangelical Religion in America, 1740-1845” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1993).
26. June 15, 1824, OClWHi 4:A-34; July 30, 1825, 4:A-35; December 12, 1825, 4:A-1.
27. On Dyer's activities in Maine, see Ministry Alfred to Ministry New Lebanon, September 12, 1825, and December 12, 1825, OClWHi 4:A-1.
28. Dyer, , A Brief Statement, 13.Google Scholar
29. Dyer, , Portraiture, 85.Google Scholar
30. Smith, James, Remarkable Occurrences Lately Discovered Among the People Called Shakers; Of a Treasonous and Barbarous Nature, of Shakerism Developed (Carthage, Tenn.: Printed by William Moore, 1810)Google Scholar; Rathbun, Daniel, A Letter from Daniel Rathbun of Richmond in the County of Berkshire, to James Whittacor, Chief Elder of the Church, called Shakers (Springfield, Mass.: Printed at the Printing Office Near the Great Ferry, 1785)Google Scholar; and Chapman, Eunice Hawley, An Account ofthe People Called Shakers … (Albany, N.Y.: Printed for the Authoress at 95 State Street, 1817)Google Scholar, and Chapman, Eunice Hawley, No. 2 Being the Additional Account of the Conduct of the Shakers … (Albany, N.Y.: Printed by I. W Clark for the Authoress, 1818).Google Scholar Dyer's network extended into the western states, and it was from western anti-Shakers that she received a copy of Smith's work. Dyer and Chapman had an extensive relationship that included correspondence, a sharing of apostate resources, and co-leading a mob action against the Enfield Shakers.
31. Daniel Rathbun in Dyer, Portraiture, 85.
32. Dyer, , Portraiture, v.Google Scholar
33. Ibid., 446.
34. On captivity narratives, see Namias, June, White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993).Google Scholar On captivity in northern New England, see Calloway, Colin G., “An Uncertain Destiny: Indian Captivities on the Upper Connecticut River,” Journal of American Studies 17, no. 2 (1983): 189–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In his study of deconversion narratives, Barbour identified the captivity narrative as the literary ancestor to the modern day cult deconversion narrative. See Barbour, , Versions of Deconversion, 174.Google Scholar Raised on the northern New Hampshire frontier, Dyer was familiar with captivity accounts through local history, which included stories of Indian raids in Mary's father's lifetime. Dyer, a reader, may have read any of a number of captivity narratives, including that of Hannah Dustan, whose story was included in Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), a book Dyer cited in her history of Shakerism. Dyer also had access to Eunice Chap-man's publications, which used the captivity narrative format. Dyer may have been inspired (or taught by Chapman?) to present her work in a similar manner.
Humez, “A Woman Mighty to Pull You Down,” also notes the use of the captivity narrative format.
35. Dyer, , Portraiture, 337.Google Scholar
36. Eunice Chapman quoted in ibid., 234.
37. Dyer and Chapman were not alone as women who interpreted their lives through the lens of captivity. Abigail Abbot Bailey (1746-1815) lived in northern New Hampshire and framed her memoirs of life with an abusive, adulterous, incestuous husband as a captivity narrative. Abigail increasingly saw her husband not as an ideal mate but as her captor. After she was abandoned in New York State, Abigail made her way back to New Hampshire, guided by God. The use of the captivity narrative framework, along with biblical motifs, permitted women authors to present themselves and their experiences in a manner that did not threaten the social order. See Taves, Ann, ed., Religion and Domestic Violence: The Memoirs of Abigail Abbot Bailey (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).Google Scholar Dyer's and Bailey's works were available to the reading public at circulating libraries. The Haverhill (N.H.) Circulating Library, located at Portraiture publisher Sylvester Goss's office, contained a copy of Dyer's Portraiture. In June 1824, Bailey's Memoirs were added to the collection. The circulating library's holdings were advertised in the New Hampshire Intelligencer and Grafton & Coos Advertiser, November 26, 1823, and June 16, 1824.
38. Ministry Canterbury to Ministry Harvard or Shirley, April 19, 1824, OClWHi 4:A-3.
39. A Review of Mary M. Dyer's Publication, Entitled “A Portraiture of Shakerism,” Together with Sundry Affidavits, Disproving the Truth of Her Assertions (Concord, N.H.: Printed by Jacob B. Moore for the United Society, 1824).
40. Seth Wells to Ministry New Lebanon [?], June 15, 1824, OClWHi 4:A-34 (italics his).
41. Review, 14, 26.
42. Gale examined the depositions, “read the whole work, assisted in arranging it, and in numbering the pages”; Philbrick “assisted [Dyer] in drawing the work over.” Dyer, , Reply, 17.Google Scholar
43. Dyer, , Portraiture, 148.Google Scholar
44. The Shakers rewrote other Statements as well. For example, following the appearance of a condemning Statement by a William Lee in the Boston News-Letter and City Record (April 29, 1826), the Shakers rewrote the “very erroneous” Statement and mailed it to him. See W.X.Y. to Major William Lee, June 2, 1826, OClWHi 4:A-35.
45. See the discussion of a public debate similar to that of Mary Dyer's Situation in Cohen, Daniel A., “The Respectability of Rebecca Reed: Genteel Womanhood and Sectarian Conflict in Antebellum America,” Journal of the Early Republic 16 (Fall 1996): 419-61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In addition to noting respectability, certifying Statements frequently noted the religious affiliation of the affiants, illustrating the affiant's move toward more mainstream faiths and away from sectarian impulses.
46. Fletcher's affidavit is found in Review, 18-19; Watson's Statement is found in Review, 17-18.
47. Ibid., 58-59. The Shakers, in later correspondence, would refer to this Statement with humor, for example, writing in 1826 that Mary Dyer had come to Enfield “to see her little six feet boys.” Joseph Dyer to Seth Wells, June 25, 1826, OClWHi 4:A-11. Mary Dyer responded to her son's sarcasm by quipping, “My second son boasts of his stature. Watts measures a man by his mind.” Dyer, , Reply, 84.Google Scholar
48. Dyer, Reply.
49. Dyer, J., Compendious Narrative, 22, 54-58.Google Scholar In his Narrative, Joseph found it necessary to refer the reader to a biblical passage to level his accusation of Mary's same-sex advance.
50. Dyer, , Portraiture, 421-23.Google Scholar
51. Review, 34-35.
52. Dyer, , Reply, 26–27.Google Scholar
53. Mary Dyer, “To the Eiders and Principals of the Shaker Societies,” (N.p., 1825). It may also indicate that Dyer's earlier claim to knowledge based on a two-year residence with the Shakers had come back to haunt her as readers questioned her participation with a sect she now assaulted.
54. See the discussion on alterations in the Narrative in Joseph Dyer to Seth Wells, June 25, 1826, OClWHi 4:A-11.
55. Dyer, , Portraiture, iii–iv.Google Scholar
56. The similarity of countersubversion movements is discussed in Davis, David B., “Themes of Counter-Subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 47, no. 2 (1960): 205-24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
57. Ministry Enfield to Ministry New Lebanon, March [18?], 1827, OClWHi 4: A-ll.
58. Dyer v. Dyer, 5 N.H. 271 (1830); Dyer's name change is recorded June 1832, “An Act to Alter the Names of Certain Persons,” in Laws of New Hampshire, 1830-1842 (Concord, N.H.: John F. Brown, n.d.), 51-52. In 1852, Mary Marshall changed her name back to Dyer. See Laws of New Hampshire, 1845-1854 (Concord, N.H.: John F. Brown, 1853), 1235-36. Dyer purchased her home on April 17, 1830. Real Estate Records, box 14, folder 15, Papers of the History of Enfield, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. On Dyer's later years, see H. P. Andrews, “A Picture of Shakerism, Mrs. Mary M. Dyer,” Ladies Repository 21 (May 1861): 273-77. The next couple to use this law found themselves in the opposite Situation: the wife remained a Shaker while the husband sought a divorce. The argument this time was that permitting a divorce would actually maintain the institution of the family as it freed the non-Shaker spouse to start anew. See Fitts v. Fitts, 46 N.H. 184 (1865).
59. Newburyport (Massachusetts) Herald, April 27, 1824.
60. Dyer, , Portraiture, 371-72.Google Scholar
61. See, for example, Jacobs, Janet Liebman, Divine Disenchantment: Deconverting from New Religions (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989)Google Scholar, and the essays in Bromley, David G., ed., Falling from the Faith: Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1988).Google Scholar