[Footnote: The "Millennial Church"
gives their number at four hundred about 1825, but I follow the account
given me at South Union.] Most of the members are Americans, but they
have some Germans and a few English, and they had at one time several
French Catholics.
They own nearly six thousand acres of land, of which three thousand five
hundred acres are in the home farm, the remainder about four miles off.
The South Union Shakers were early famous for fine stock, which they
sold in Missouri and in the Northwestern states and territories. They
still raise fine breeds of cattle, hogs, sheep, and chickens, and this
is a considerable source of income to them. Some of their land they let
to tenants, among whom I found several colored families; they have also
extensive orchards; the remainder they cultivate, raising--besides the
pasturage of their stock--corn, wheat, rye, and oats. They have also a
good grist-mill, from which they ship flour; they own a large brick
hotel at the railroad station, which, I was told, is a summer resort,
there being a sulphur spring near it, also a store, both of which they
rent to "world's people;" and they make brooms, put up garden
seeds--which was formerly an important business with them--and prepare
canned and preserved fruits, which they sell largely in the Southern
States.
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