The walks connecting the buildings are
here, as at South Union, Union Village, and elsewhere, laid with
flagging-stones--but so narrow that two persons cannot walk abreast.
Agriculture, the raising of fine stock, and preserving fruit in summer
are the principal industries pursued at Pleasant Hill for income. They
make some brooms also, and in one of the families they put up garden
seeds. They have, however, very complete shops of all kinds for their
own use, as well as a saw and grist mill, and even a woolen-mill where
they make their own cloth. Formerly they had also a hatter's shop; and
in the early days they labored in all their shops for the public, and
kept besides a carding and fulling mill, a linseed-oil mill, as well as
factories of coopers' ware, brooms, shoes, dry measures, etc. At present
their numbers are inadequate to carry on manufactures, and their wealth
makes it unnecessary. They let a good deal of their land, the renters
paying half the crop; and they employ besides fifteen or twenty hired
hands, who are mostly Negroes.
Hired laborers among the Shakers are usually, or always so far as I
know, boarded at the "office," the house of the trustees; and this often
makes a good deal of hard work for the sisters who do the cooking there.
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