Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

THE GREEN TREE TAVERN 177
however, evidently could not forego the opportunity of setting
the fashion, and Shaker bonnets were sold for fifty and seventyfive
cents apiece and were much worn. The colony had woolen
mills and made Shaker flannel in great quantities. As all
their manufactured products were honest and good, they were
very popular. They had an extensive trade in garden seeds,
for there was a ready sale for anything having the Shaker
stamp. They were certainly an industrious and thrifty people.
Though they did not marry, their settlement was kept
going for some time by the orphaned and homeless they continued
to receive. It was but the other day (March, 191 2)
that one of the Morris family wrote me that there was yet a
remnant of the Shakers in existence, though only about
nineteen out of the three or four hundred in old times. All
but one of their vdlages is deserted. The Shakers remaining
all live in their Uniontown, ride in their $7,000 automobile,
and dress like the "world's people." Tenants live in their
emptied houses and raise fine stock for them on shares. Only
two of these Shakers, we hear, are under sixty-five years of
age. The oldest of their buildings were erected in about 1807
or 1808, and the settlement began some time between 1803
and 1805.
Upon our way to Green Tree that autumn afternoon so
long ago, we passed through the main street of Shakertown;
another short turn and we saw the Green Tree House itself
and the large cedar tree for which it was named. I wonder if
it stands as of old in all its perennial verdure, a shelter for the
winter birds whose ancestors hid from storms in its thick
branches. Upon reaching the gate of the tavern we found
our friends the Morrises, but William had not yet returned
from school.
Soon after our arrival, and having had a good, warm
dinner, the family began to gather around their ample hearth
to give us greeting. School was out, and William was glad to
see us. It is true that when he was a lad of seven he had
spent a winter with our father away from home in Meigs
County, Ohio, while father was teaching a grammar school
there, but since then we had not known what it was to be