Shaker Road

Driving around the area, you may have noticed a number of different streets named Shaker Road. Longmeadow, East Longmeadow, and Enfield all have Shaker Roads. Today none of these roads intersect, but at one time all of these roads led to the Shaker community in Enfield, Connecticut.

Though it is not named on the map, the path from Williams Street to the Shaker settlement (modern-day Shaker Road) appears on early maps of Longmeadow.

The Shakers were (and still are) a Utopian Protestant sect promoting and practicing pacifism and simplicity in dress, speech, and manner. They practiced communal living, believing that it was possible to form a more perfect society on earth by their actions. Races were equal and women were considered equal to men, although work assignments were assigned by gender. Sexes were kept physically apart, and Shaker buildings are distinctive in design, having separate doors and stairways for men and women. Starting in the late 1770s, Shakers established at least 18 settlements in the Northeast, Ohio, and Kentucky.

Enfield Shaker Community

Founded in 1792, the Enfield Shaker community was the only Shaker settlement in Connecticut. It was located in the northeastern section of Enfield, just south of East Longmeadow near the present-day intersections of Route 220, Cybulski Road, and Taylor Road. 

Hartford County, Connecticut Smith’s wall map, 1855

The Enfield Shakers were divided into groups known as families: Church Family; North Family; South Family; West Family; and East Family. Each family had both male and female members, adults and children.

Shakers were celibate, so they needed to adopt children and recruit converts into their community in order to maintain their membership numbers. Shaker families adopted orphans and children from distressed households, educating them and raising them to adulthood. Those who were adopted were given a choice when they turned 21 – either stay within the community or leave.

Martha Pease, a member of the North Family, was one of these children. She and her siblings had been adopted into the Enfield Shakers. While she decided to stay with the Shakers, her brother, Hezekiah, did not. Hezekiah moved to the eastern part of Longmeadow, married, farmed, and lived there until his death in 1886. A detailed and interesting history of the Enfield Shaker community can be found here.

The Shaker community was intentionally self-contained and we can find little evidence that it interacted much with either Longmeadow or East Longmeadow – except to pay taxes. The Church Family and North Family expanded their land holdings north into Massachusetts and the 1891 Valuation shows that Mr. Van Dusen and George Wilcox, elders for their respective families, were responsible for paying property taxes in Longmeadow.

1891 Valuation of Longmeadow

In 1835, the gunpowder factory that became the Hazard Powder Company was built on the Scantic River. This area of Enfield, which was about 4 miles south of the Shaker village, is now known as Hazardville. Over 78 years of operation, the Hazard Powder Company had 17 devastating gunpowder explosions. The shock waves and sounds from exploding munitions, which were heard in Longmeadow and as far away as Hartford and Northampton, would have reverberated through the quiet neighboring community of Shaker pacifists just 4 miles away.

The last Shakers left Enfield in 1917 and their lands now house the Enfield Correctional Institute. The Enfield Shakers Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, includes 15 of their former buildings. Due to security concerns at the prison, you are not allowed to visit the site, or even stop your car to take pictures of the buildings.

The Enfield Historical Society has a collection of artifacts from the Enfield Shaker community. Many of these are on display at the Martha A. Parsons House Museum.

At last count, two Shakers still remain and they live at the Sabbathday Lake community in Maine.

Sources

• 1831 Map of Longmeadow

• 1880 U.S. Census

• 1891 Valuation of Longmeadow

• Hartford County, Connecticut Smith’s wall map

• New Haven Register: Sat. Apr. 9, 1887

• Connecticut History: Enfield's Shaker Legacy

• National Park Service: History of the Shakers

• Smithsonian Magazine: There Are Only Two Shakers Left in the World

Contributed by Elizabeth Hoff, Longmeadow Historical Society Board Member

Originally published October 1. 2020

Longmeadow During the 1918 Influenza Epidemic

Area schools, including Longmeadow, closed their doors on September 27th, 1918 in an effort to stop the spread of the deadly illness. 102 years later our community and schools are struggling with how to respond to a new and totally different virus.

• What role did World War I troops stationed in Boston, Springfield, and West Springfield play?

• What about the Boston Red Sox?

• Did you know a Tent Hospital was established in Forest Park to deal with the overflow of patients at area hospitals?

In addition to newspaper articles of the period, old Annual Town Reports offers a wealth of information on a variety of topics since 1855 when our collection begins. In the 128 pages of the 1918 report, only two short paragraphs give mention to the global pandemic which ravaged the world in the waning months of the Great War.

School Committee Meeting Minutes, October 1918

In the Board of Health’s section of the report, it is stated simply, “Our community has been visited during the past year with the usual contagious diseases. But the general health of the community at large has been quite good. The epidemic of influenza that swept over the country was quite successfully combated; 75 cases being reported with 7 deaths.”

On September 24, 2020, Melissa Cybulski presented her research about life in Longmeadow during the 1918 influenza outbreak. Click here to view the video.

Contributed by Melissa M. Cybulski, Board member, Longmeadow Historical Society

Originally published September 24, 2020

The Hurricane of '38

Photo courtesy of Alan and Molly Harwood (David Booth collection) Brewer-Young Mansion/ 734 Longmeadow St in background

In the past, hurricanes were not named like they are now. The United States started naming storms with female names in 1953. As you can imagine, there were many complaints about the system! It was only in 1979 that the U. S. began naming storms with both male and female names. Names were generally re-used, so I am honored to have had storms named after me for both 1956 (category 4!) and 1965. Thankfully Betsy was retired from the hurricane name rotation after 1965.

The so-called 1938 New England Hurricane made landfall on September 21, 1938, as a Category 3 hurricane. Meteorological forecasting was in its infancy, and warnings were incomplete. Forecasters expected the storm to go harmlessly out to sea, with concern only for shipping lanes.

The storm had sustained winds as high as 160 mph and it had a recorded wind gust of 186 mph, the strongest hurricane-related wind gust ever recorded in the US! It killed an estimated 682 people, damaged or destroyed more than 57,000 homes, toppled more than 2 billion trees, and caused an estimated $308 million in damages.

The eye of the storm followed the Connecticut river northward into Massachusetts. In Springfield, the river rose 10 feet above flood stage, and winds and flooding killed 99 people. Flooding washed away the Chicopee Falls Bridge.

Photo from the Meadows, Longmeadow, MA

Photo credit: Longmeadow Historical Society archives

Notice the trolley tracks in the foreground

Longmeadow, like countless other towns in New England, lost many mature trees, especially elms, that used to line the main streets. At a special Town Meeting, held a month after the storm, town voters approved the expenditure of $14,000 for storm-related repairs.

Springfield Republican, September 23, 1938

Contributed by Betsy McKee, Board Member, Longmeadow Historical Society

Originally published September 17, 2020