The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1909-04-21
The Quaker SeedSmen of
Long Ago..
LEVI SHAW AND DOCTOR JONES
The Waning Shaker Community
How 1t is Gradually Dying
Out-Necessary Young
Blood not In
Evidence.


currence, old Honesdalers will remem-
ber the long gray coats and broad-brim-
med hats of Levi Shaw and his brother,
as harbingers OF spring. AS regularly as
the season came and went, these smooth
faced, mild-eyed, gentle-mannered rep
resentatives of the New Lebanon Shaker
Community, appeared on our streets,
called from door to door on our mer-
chants of from thirty to forty years ago,
counted the garden seeds left over from
the years commission sale, took their
pay for such packages as had been dis
posed of, and left fresh boxes for the
ensuing seasons trade. Unlike the free
seeds sent from Washington by Con-
gressmen and Senators as reward to
their constituents for support at the polls,
and generally distributed locally by the
county newspapers as special favors to
their subscribers, the Shaker seeds were
always to be depended on, and, with
due respect to individual beliefs as to
planting in the proper phase of the moon,
if put in the ground in the proper "seed
time," were sure to reward the hus-
bandman with satisfactory "harvests,
in due season.
Levi Shaw, the chief travelling rep
resentative of the Shaker Community
was wisely selected by his platonic breth-
rem and sisters, to make friends in the
world at large. Suave, handsome, COM
panionable, he was always welcome in
business houses, even at time when
'drummers" were as a rule regarded as
nuisances. Just how he became the
warm personal friend of DIR. Joseph
Jones and his first wife, the latter a
daughter of The late John A. Gustin, the
Honesdale postmaster when the writer
was lad, we don't know, but this at
least is sure, that he made their house
his home on his annual visits here.
DIR. Jones was the pioneer among the
homeopathists of Wayne county. He
was a firm believer in and an able ex-
ponent of the "infinitessimal dose"
theory, a doctrine which was of course
vigorously combated by the physicians
of the old school. Once in a while these
upholders of the different systems in
dulged in personal controversy, and the
writer we'll remembers an occasion when
DR.. Jones dropped in at the drug store
of the late DR.. William H. Reed, more
familiarly known as doctor Billy.'
When these two met, friendly as they
were personally, the professional battle
was on, and when the allopathist laugh
ed to scorn the pretension that there
could be any efficacy in the pin-head
pills prescribed by the new school, DR..
Jones produced a bottle of strychnine
pellets, one of which was dose, and
declared that to swallow half dozen of
them would mean death. DR.. Billy took
good look at the hundreds of miniature
pills in the phial, and simply saying,
"Well, call the coroner" poured them
all down his throat. Whether the over
dose proved its own antidote, or whether
the doctor was immune against poison
may never be known, but certain it is
that DR.. Billy showed no ill results from
his heroic overdose, and that he lived for
many, many years afterward.
Notwithstanding such apparently dis
crediting incidents, DIR. Jones acquired
fine practice, and with itmaterial pros
perity. With the accumulation Of the
necessary funds he invested quite largely,
for professional man, in real estate,
and eventually became the owner of va
rious farms and other landed property
in the vicinity of Honesdale. On the 9th
ofNovember, 1869, he bought of Edward
Fowler and Benjamin Gates, trustees of
the United Society of Shakers, town of
New Lebanon, Columbia Co., N. Y,
433 acres and l3l perches of land, lying
along the Wangum in Cherry Ridge,
Paupack and Salem townships, with the
privilege accorded in former deeds of
building dams on the streams. This
tract was sold by Edward w. Weston,
agent for the warrantee owners, to the
late Judge James R. Dickson and VIM.
II. Cushman of Honesdale in 1855. In
February, 1854, Mr.. Dickson assigned
his share to Mr.. Cushman, and the same
day, (l5th) Mr.. Cushman sold the prop
erty to the Shakers.
When, March 2lst, 1870, DR.. Jones
contracted the lot to former Sheriff j.
T. Barnes, the consideration was $S, 800,
reservation being made of the hemlock
bark, which had been sold to l.. A.
Robertson, owner of the tannery at
Middle Valley, and the bass wood which
had been bought by Beers, Reed & Co.,
of Honesdale. Sheriff Barnes commenc-
ed numbering on the lot, which was one
of the most heavily timbered in this Sec
ton, and continued in that business un'
til he met his death by accident in his
own sawmill.