A Holy, Sacred and Divine Roll and Book; from the Lord God of Heaven, to the Inhabitants of Earth: Revealed in the United Society New Lebanon, County of Columbia, State of New-York, United States of America 

In the early spring of 1843, the attention of the Shaker Ministry in New Lebanon, New York, was “called to an extraordinary communication from the spiritual world; a Sacred Roll, being then written.” This spiritual communication, unlike many others that were being recorded in prose, poetry, music, and illustrations, was, by order of a Mighty Angel, required to “be printed before the twenty-second of next September [1843].” Brother Philemon Stewart, a prominent spiritual medium in the New Lebanon community explained in the beginning of that work, how on the morning of May 4, 1842:

…between the hours of six and seven, the word of the Lord, through a Holy Angel came to me, saying, Arise O thou little one, and appear before the Lord, on the Holy Mount; and as thou goest, kneel seven times, and bow low, seven time to the earth; for the Lord hath words for thee to write; and thou shalt kneel or sit low, by the side of his Holy Fountain, and the words shall be revealed unto thee, in flames of fire.” (Holy Roll and Book, p. [1])

A Holy, Sacred and Divine Roll and Book; from the Lord God of Heaven, to the Inhabitants of Earth … Church Family, Canterbury, NH, 1843. Shaker Museum: 1962.15138.1

Following those instructions and the Angel’s further instructions, Brother Philemon spent six hours a day for fourteen days, recording the words of “the Lord God of Heaven, to the inhabitants of Earth.” The brother was familiar with this “Holy Fountain.” A month earlier, he and Brothers John Allen and Benjamin Gates, with Sisters Betsy Bates, Eliza Sharp, and Miranda Barber, all “by divine appointment, went onto the spiritual fountain.” ([Public Journal of Daily Occurrences], Western Reserve Historical Society, Shaker Collection, mss. no., V:B-61 ) It was on this spot that he and brothers Amos Stewart, Joel Turner, and Isaac Newton Youngs would go on July 25, 1842, to erect a sacred stone that would become the focal point of outdoor worship held by the Lebanon Shakers several times a year during a decade of intensified spirit manifestations. (ibid)  

The Shakers were no strangers to the printing press. However, other than two lengthy works printed by the Hancock Shakers, Millennial Praises (1813) and Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations and Doctrines of Mother Ann Lee (1816), and printing done in Ohio and Kentucky, most of their printing was in the form of labels, broadsides, and smaller pamphlets. The Hancock printers were no longer available and Ohio and Kentucky were too far away to have work done by Believers there in the allotted time.  As a result, the Ministry turned to the Shakers at Canterbury, New Hampshire.  

In a letter from the Canterbury Ministry to the Lebanon Ministry, dated March 27, 1843, the Canterbury Shakers, with the unanimous agreement of their elders, trustees, and family deacons agreed to “print the work, and have no doubt it can be completed by the time named, providing we could commence on it before many weeks.” 

Elder Henry Clay Blinn was given responsibility for the work. He recorded in his autobiographical memoir:

I was sent to the printing office to learn to set type and to work the press. The family had owned a large Adam’s press for several years, and had printed some hymns and several small pamphlets; but had only small fonts of type. The acceptance of the work which would involve a book of some four hundred pages was a heroic venture on the part of the family, as no one fully understood the business, and the work must be done under many disadvantages. Four persons were engaged in the work. These four, however, had many other duties to perform in the course of the day, apart from the work at the printing office.”  (“Autobiographical Notes,” In Memoriam. Elder Henry C. Blinn 1824-1905. [Concord, NH: Rumford Printing Co., 1905], p. 28-29. )

Iron Hand Press No. 329, Made by Isaac and Seth Adams, Special Collection Room, Providence Public Library, Providence, RI.

The Adams printing press was likely one designed and made by Isaac Adams, a native of Rochester, New Hampshire, who, though he is best known as the inventor of one of the best early power presses extensively used by newspapers, had begun making acorn-shaped iron hand presses in the mid-1820s in a shop in Boston. [Fig. C – Adams acorn hand press at Public Library in Providence, Rhode Island, similar to the one the Canterbury Shaker probably used to print the Holy Roll and Book.] “The small fonts of type, nearly worn out,” are described, in the old English measurement system, as being small pica – equivalent today to 11 point type. The Canterbury Shakers wrote, “We examined all the different specimen type books, and selected the long primmer [i.e., primer, but pronounced as the writer spelled it and is equivalent in size to modern day 10 point type], as the handsomest and most suitable type for our sacred writings.” They also recommended adding extra leading between lines of type to give it an appearance of a sacred text. 

The Mighty Angel specified, “The number they are required to print, in their own society, is five hundred copies, for the purpose of giving to the children of men; … To be bound in yellow paper with red backs; edges yellow also.” These copies, with the special binding, were to be distributed to heads of state, government officials, and prominent ministers of the gospel. They were to be distributed free, for, “I have forbidden that they should make any charges, saith the Lord, or take [any] remuneration for these books.” (Holy Roll and Book, p. 161.) The Holy Roll and Book was printed in two parts. The first consisted of the sacred writing to be bound in yellow and distributed to the world. The second part was a collection of testimonies by Shakers supporting the sacred writings – these were not distributed. By giving away 500 copies of the book, Believers were left without copies for their own use. The printers at Canterbury suggested that since they had just printed 1,000 copies of another book, Youth’s Guide in Zion, expressly for the use of Believers and felt it was probably an insufficient number for that purpose – queried the Lebanon Ministry as to how many copies they should prepare to print. In the end it appears that the Shakers printed 2,500 copies of the book, 500 to be sent into the world and the remainder for members of Shaker communities. 

Elder Henry C, Blinn’s Bookplate in His Copy of A Holy, Sacred and Divine Roll and Book … Church Family, Canterbury, NH, c. 1880. Shaker Museum: 1962.15138.1

Elder Henry was put in charge of the printing of the Holy Roll and Book and was assisted by three other Shaker brothers in the printing office. Brother Philemon Stewart had been sent by the Lebanon Ministry to Canterbury to work at printing and to be available for textual questions that might arise during the printing. Two other brothers at Canterbury are identified as working on the book. Brother James Murray, a fifteen year old, who:

…for several weeks … did the inking of the types with a large hand roller, but the task was too severe for his physical strength … he was employed in the printing Office during the summer but in the fall took a severe cold by unnecessary exposure which culminated in a typhoid fever, and resulted in his death on February 20, 1844.

Another brother, William Tripture, united with the Canterbury Shakers in 1829 at the age of 19 with his younger sister, may have assisted in the printing until the book was finished, but in 1844, left the society and organized a group of ex-Shakers who went from town to town performing Shaker songs and dances. (Emlen, Robert P. “Shakers in the Era of Manifestations, in, Imagining the Shakers [Clinton, NY: Couper Press, 2015].) 

Elder Henry commented in his Autobiographical Memoir that, “As this book was written under inspiration, everything connected with it seemed to follow in the same line.” As an example he reported:

After the first impression of each sig[nature]. Br. Philemon and three of the printers form a square in the press room, facing the four points of the compass. Each person was provided with a tin trumpet. The one that Br. Philemon used was three feet long & made a very deep, bass; the other trumpets were common length. At a given signal a long blast was made as a sign that the gospel would be published to the four quarters of the earth. After using the trumpets all would kneel in silent prayer, & at the close of this exercise, return to their several duties.” (Emlen, Robert P. “Shakers in the Era of Manifestations, in, Imagining the Shakers [Clinton, NY: Couper Press, 2015].) 

Beyond the concerns about the book being written under inspiration, there were the practical concerns faced by the printers and the community – it was a huge undertaking and the cost of the venture would be substantial. Fortunately, Brother David Parker, a trustee at Canterbury, left a detailed record of the costs associated with the Holy Roll and Book. The manuscript resides in the collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society Library. (Canterbury, New Hampshire: “Expenses for Printing the Sacred Roll, 1843; Western Reserve Historical Society, Shaker Collection, mss. no. II:A-2) From that record we know various cost associated with the printing of the book. Sixty-six reams of paper were required at a cost of $498.00. The cost of setting 420 pages of type for the text and yellow cover paper cost $300.90. The book was printed in an octavo format, meaning that two impressions of eight pages each were printed on each side of each sheet of paper. Once cut in half and folded, each sheet produced two gatherings or signatures of sixteen pages each. The paper was likely around 24” x 32” being that was about the largest size paper an Adams press could print. The presswork cost was $309.00. Presswork was billed in tokens – tokens being the number of one-sided sheets the press operator printed in one hour. From this we can discern that the printing of the Holy Roll and Book took around 309 hours to print. And the purchase of new type and leading for spacing between lines was $99.58. The Canterbury printers measured the setting of type in ems – the size of a piece of type cast with the letter “m” on it. It required about 706,000 ems to complete the composition of the book. There were also miscellaneous charges – folding, gathering, collating, and examining printed sheets; paper and red cloth for binding the copies to be sent out into the world; postage, travel, personnel other than those regularly in the printing office, and crating and shipping the completed books. All in all, the cost totaled $1,750 or $0.70 for each book. The binding was primarily done at Mount Lebanon by Brother Henry De Witt and at Harvard by Brother William Leonard. Those costs are not accounted for. 

The 500 copies bound in yellow paper were, in fact, sent out into the world. For example, in mid-December, 1843, “Brother Grove Wright returned from Hartford & Boston, where he, with E. Grove Blanchard & E. Joseph Myrick went to deliver a large number of copies of the Sacred Roll to the Counsuls [sic] to transmit to the Crowed heads of Europe,” (“Ministry Journal, Church Family, Mount Lebanon, NY,” New York Public Library, Shaker Collection, mss. no. 2.) and on February 6, 1844, “Frederick W. Evans & Issachar Bates returned from N. Y. where they have disposed of about 60 copies of the Roll & Book.” (“Elders Journal,” North Family, Mount Lebanon, NY,” Shaker Museum, Chatham, NY, mss. no. 21499.) In a copy of an undated letter to John Quincy Adams, at the time a member of Congress, Elder Richard Bushnell and Brother Frederick W. Evans noted that, “A notice from you of the reception of this [book], will be very acceptable. We sent 4 copies to the President some 5 or 6 weeks ago, but have had no notice whither they were rec’d or not.” (Elder Richard Bushnell and Brother Frederick W. Evans, North Family, Mount Lebanon, NH, to  John Quincy Adams, “Member of Congress,” Washington, DC, [n.d.], Western Reserve Historical Society, Shaker Collection, mss. no. IV:A-38. ) The reactions were mixed – ranging from polite notes of appreciation to severe criticism of the work as a blasphemous piece of work. 

For a more robust treatment of the success and failure of the Shakers’ efforts to get the Holy Roll and Book kept alongside Bibles belonging to heads of state and members of the established churches, and a discussion of the motivation for this work to be published in relationship to the publication of the Book of Mormon and the work of Adventist William Miller, see Stephen J. Stein’s article, “Inspiration, Revelation, and Scripture: The Story of a Shaker Bible,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 105 (January 1, 1995): 347-377.