Patsy Jane Thomas

Patsy Jane Thomas

Female 1795 - Abt 1866  (70 years)

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  • Name Patsy Jane Thomas 
    Born 11 Feb 1795  Mercer County, Kentucky, U.S.A. Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Female 
    Died Abt. 1866  Peoria, Peoria County, Illinois, U.S.A. Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Buried Springdale Cemetery, Peoria, Peoria County, Illinois, U.S.A. Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Notes 
    • Patricia L. Goitein, "Strangers Along the Trail: Peoria's Shaker Apostates Enter the World," Presented at the 26th Annual Illinois History Symposium, Illinois State Historical Society, (Springfield, IL: December 2, 2005).


      ". . . In 1806, the Pleasant Hill converts began to gather into a communal family on Elisha Thomas' 140 acre farm, located on Shawnee Run near the Kentucky River. In December, 1806, forty-four converts of legal age, among them some of Peoria's future Shakers or their parents, signed a first family covenant, whereby they agreed to mutual support and to common ownership of property. Patsy Thomas Voris' father, Elisha Thomas, donated his farm along Shawnee Creek, and Charles Ballance's father, Willis Ballance and Willis' second wife, Joanna, were among the principal founders of the new Kentucky society.

      The Ballances converted July 12, 1806, when Charles was six years old. They immediately moved their family from Madison County to Garret County, Kentucky, where the Shakers first planned to form a community. Shaker plans were changed, however, after Elisha Thomas' donation, and the Ballances subsequently sold their Garret County property and moved to Shaker property near Shawnee Run on March 1, 1808.

      According to Shaker procedure, the Ballance family then separated, with the adults assuming family assignments, while their children, including one year old Prudence and eight year old Charles, lived in separate quarters and were raised by Shaker caretakers. Thomas Bryant's family, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins entered Pleasant Hill in 1810. Thomas' father, John, was appointed agent for the Society in 1811, and ordained first legal Trustee in 1814. John Bryant's children, Thomas and William, were also raised in the children's house. In 1814, 128 'Believers at Pleasant Hill,' among them all of Peoria's future apostates who were of legal age, would sign a second Covenant which required final, irrevocable surrender of private property and full personal dedication to the community of Believers. (Pleasant Hill records, unpublished, Pleasant Hill, KY; Clark and Ham, pg. 14.).

      According to Pleasant Hill records, most of the early Shakers entered Pleasant Hill for religious reasons, after emotional conversions to the faith. They usually entered in large extended family groups, including parents, several adult children and grandchildren. Although it is easy to see this religious impulse, there were practical reasons for their decision as well. Celibate living appealed to women who were tired of frequent childbirth, and were willing to forego sex for a more comfortable and longer life. Widows and widowers alike, left with several children, found help and support for their beleaguered family in communal living, where their children were assured of a healthy and spiritual environment, even if their surviving parent should die. . . .

      Shaker children, were raised by a series of care-takers in the 'Children's Family,' sometimes called the 'Children's Order,' a special Shaker family grouping specifically for children under the age of sixteen. Babies and infants, such as Prudence Ballance and Hortensia Voris, were separated from their mothers after they were weaned from the breast, or about one year old. (The Origin and Progress of the Society at Pleasant Hill and unpublished Pleasant Hill records) Although they lived separately, the children were able to see their parents and older siblings from time to time. . . .

      The women, who, according to Everett Webber, were often commanded to 'go on the toes, left arm folded across the stomach, right hand on the side, tips of the fingers touching the thumb' (Weber, pg. 57), specifically commanded Martineau's attention. She stated that 'the women, in their frightful costume, close opaque caps, and drab gowns of the last degree of tightness and scantiness, are nothing short of disgusting. They are averse to the open air and exercise, they are pallid and spiritless. They look far more forlorn and unnatural than the men. Their soulless stare at us, before their worship began, was almost as affecting as that of the lowest order of slaves; and when they danced, they were like so many galvanized corpses.' (Harriet Martineau, Society in America, Vol. 1, 1837, pp. 310-311 and 313-314.)

      By the late 1820's, Pleasant Hill, with a population of approximately 490 Believers was as prosperous as the eastern communities visited by Martineau. Shakers were skilled and tireless workers, and at Pleasant Hill, they built a diversified and self-sustaining agricultural and light industrial community. The Society owned approximately 3,000 acres of land and their assets included a grist mill, fulling mill, saw mill, tan yard, ferries, a stone quarry, a public tavern for travelers, and fine brick, stone and frame buildings, all built by the residents themselves. They sold a wide variety of goods and services, including seeds, herbs and herbal medicines, and milled grains. They dyed fabrics, not only for their own use, but commercially as well. They constructed flatboats and transported their exports to nearby communities, as well as St. Louis and New Orleans.

      Peoria's future Shaker apostates played an important part in Pleasant Hill's impressive agricultural and commercial success. In 1812, James Gass became a Trustee and was appointed to transact the society?s external business. (Clark and Hamm, pg.12). Like subsequent trustees, including Francis Voris, Gass became a salesman for Shaker products and a purchasing agent for goods which the order had to buy. In 1816, Francis Voris and Abram Fite departed on the first of several long voyages by flatboat to St. Louis and New Orleans. In 1824,Voris signed an invoice for Shaker products shipped to Selma, Alabama and Herculaneum, MO. The inventory included carpeting, oil(linseed), cedar ware, large and small brooms, blue grass seed, baskets, hats, sugar boxes and carpenter's gauges all quality products made at Pleasant Hill. (Source: unpublished Pleasant Hill account books and invoices). . . .


      Dissent and Secession Shatters the Peace at Pleasant Hill

      . . . Peoria's future Shakers were at the center of the controversy, and their dissent and demand for political change within the society shook the foundations of Pleasant Hill, and threatened other Shaker communities with similar unrest. . . . The anonymous author of the 'Origin & Progress of the Society at Pleasant Hill,' a devout Believer, wrote that 'about 1826 we began to be beset in various ways by the aggressions and impingements of seceders or apostates, some of whom set up claims as Covenant members and attempted to keep possession and reside in the families among Believers, or to go and come when they pleased, while they threw off all disguise and publicly renounced the faith and disclaimed all allegiance to the Society, rejected its authority and refused submission to the rules and regulations thereof. Others that left the place trespass[ed] upon our rights and privileges in various way. These things brought great trouble upon the society and gave rise to much legal litigation between the parties . . .' (pg. 28, spelling and punctuation provided by author).

      In response to the dissidents' demands, changes were approved by Pleasant Hill's Senior Elder, Mother Lucy Smith., and some leadership positions became elected seats. James Gass, for example, was elected an elder of the first family. In 1827, Gass and Tyler Baldwin went to the central Ministry in New Lebanon, New York to seek confirmation of the changes made at Pleasant Hill. Their mission was a failure. Instead of approving the changes, the church leadership declared the Kentucky community to be in disharmony with the central doctrines and orders of the communal pattern established by New Lebanon and instituted quick and decisive measures to stem the revolutionary tide.

      Delegations of ministry and stalwart elders were sent from Shaker strongholds at Union Village, Ohio and New Lebanon, New York, to take direct action to quiet the dissension, reassert control, and restore religious order at Pleasant Hill. Mother Lucy Smith, was declared weak in mind and body, relieved of her responsibilities and escorted to Union Village, and Second Elder Samuel Turner was installed in her place. (Stein, pg. 128).

      An unidentified member of one of the Ministry delegations wrote the following description of the dissention at Pleasant Hill in a confidential letter dated Sept. 8, 1828, 'The condition of Pleasant Hill, we have good reason to hope, is not to be despaired of, although it is indeed deplorable to what it was about five or six years ago, as it respects both spiritual and temporal life and strength.'

      After Mother Lucy Smith's initial concessions, apparently 'parties were gradually formed,' all aspiring to be leads, and the heretical, the fault finders, flesh mongers, and -ism hunters, all found subjects enough to speculate to reason and to debate upon. Infidel philosophy and evil gained the ascendancy, so the gift and influence of the Ministry and of the leading part of the Society declined.' . . . (unpublished anonymous letter dated September 8, 1828, to Elder Nathaniel of Pittsfield, MA, transcribed by Larrie Curry, Pleasant Hill, Nov. 1992).

      With conservative leadership now firmly in control, fighting within Pleasant Hill became vicious. In September, 1828, a dissenter's letter was intercepted and used to intimidate dissenters still living in the community. It was 'publicly reproved and read from house to house and denounced, till it had the chance of operating, both as a vomit and a purge. But so secret and determined do these chiefs and evil workers mean to be that no one would own his being the author of that letter.' (ibid.)

      Future Peoria apostate James Gass, thwarted in his efforts to reform the Society at Pleasant Hill, was expelled from the community on January 28, 1828. He eventually became a litigant against the Society. Tyler Baldwin was expelled February 19, 1829. By late 1828, forty-two pioneer members of Pleasant Hill had departed and 'entered the world,' and legal suits against the Shakers were beginning to pile up in Kentucky courts. According to Clark and Ham, some of the apostates stated that they had failed to find the perfectibility of men and spiritual surcease which Mother Ann Lee's gospel had promised (Clark and Ham, pg. 46).

      Trustee Francis Voris, himself a future Peoria apostate, managed the village's internal affairs and organized Pleasant Hill?s legal defense during this period. Voris retained the confidence of the Central Ministry in Mt. Lebanon, and tried to secure Society assets, as apostates sued to recover their property or funds. In a letter to the Ministry dated May 13, 1827, Voris wrote 'There seems to be a near approach at this place, of troubles with apostates; and from the threatening attitude which a combined number of them are assuming, we may expect to undergo the ordeal of a thorough judicial scrutiny; and we think, from the grounds which their council seems to take, they mean to attack the foundation principles of the Church Covenant, on the score of its being contrary to the spirit and genius of the Constitution and government of the United States, and at war with the Common Law principles, we being somewhat in the form of a Church Corporation without a license. Upon this ground, however, we do not think there is much danger. Yet we think it altogether necessary to be well prepared with the best lights upon the subject that we can procure . . .' (unpublished letter, Pleasant Hill, transcribed by Katherine Fleming, 1993, spelling and punctuation provided by the present author).

      Voris clearly [was] concerned and irritated by the suits and the disharmony. He further states that apostate Samuel Banta 'an old man, who believed in the first opening in this country, and who then brought in considerable money and property, say to the amount of three or four thousand dollars, and who in the year 1814 signed the Church covenant, has turned off. He now claims his money and property to remove away again, disregarding his having entered into the Covenant, and once dedicating his property to the use of the gospel. The old man is greatly strengthened by other apostates, who are urging him on; as also are two of his own children in the world, who hold a respectable standing in point of Character, as well as one of them having considerable property. This together with his age, and grey head, and former good character in the world, forms altogether an imposing appearance. And added to this, they are endeavoring to make it an electioneering hobby on which his council wishes to ride into the state Legislature' (ibid).

      'It appears evident that as they have rejected God, that God has forsaken them in a very striking manner.' (Pleasant Hill Believer speaks of Apostates, September 13, 1831)

      By 1830, only a handful of the children of the original Pleasant Hill pioneers remained in the community. The early apostates, several of them future Peorians, did not remove far from Pleasant Hill while their law suits were pending in Kentucky courts. According to Pleasant Hill records, the apostates plagued the Pleasant Hill community by raiding their stock, secretly communicating with residents, and inciting public enmity against the Society in nearby Danville and Harrodsburg.

      On September 13, 1831, a Pleasant Hill Believer wrote to the Central Ministry describing the problems that they were having with apostates engaging in some vicious gossip: 'It is certain that we have been much afflicted for a number of years past, in consequence of false brethren and reprobates, who have gone out from among us, and stirred up the feelings of many of the world of mankind in these parts, to do the Believers all the injure in their power, so that if possible they might destroy this society all together.' (Pleasant Hill archives, excerpts, unpublished document, dated September 13, 1831, Winterthur 1044.10, transcribed by K. Fleming, 5/21/93). . . .

      In 1834, James Gass, Samuel Banta and the other litigants lost their law suits against the Shakers, and the binding validity of the Pleasant Hill covenant was upheld in the Kentucky Court of Appeals. The court ruled that Gass and Banta had been instrumental in forming the Pleasant Hill association and now were 'men disappointed in their objects of ambition,[that they were] of sound mind and of mature full age before they joined the society. [Instead of] being defrauded or seduced by others, they themselves were leading members inducing others to join them in the compact. Gass led the van, for his signature is the very first put to the covenant.' (The Decision of the Court of Appeals, in Kentucky, published Dayton, Ohio, 1834, Western Reserve Historical Society microfiche, pp. 50-51.)

      The court decisions strengthened the Shakers' legal right to communal organization and protected them from further efforts on behalf of apostates to collect property and compensation from the Society. But the elders, desperate to be rid of the recalcitrant former Believers, paid the apostates $13,000 to resettle elsewhere, preferably as far away from Pleasant Hill as possible. (Clark and Ham, pg. 48.) . . .

      According to Pleasant Hill records and Charles Ballance's letters and journal/scrapbook, many of the Shaker apostates continued to communicate with each other, work and sometimes live together immediately after leaving the Shaker community, turning to each other for support and guidance as they adjusted both personally and professionally to the world.

      Apostates who had been raised at Pleasant Hill or lived in a Shaker community for many years had developed mannerisms and attitudes that were very different than those of the average person of the world. They were very quiet people, walking softly, closing doors softly, speaking in quiet voices. They were not skilled at small talk, and they worked constantly. They were forbidden to have pets, which in Kentucky and early Illinois would have branded them as being distinctly odd. . . .

      The Shakers were strictly celibate, and had developed an elaborate set of rules, procedures and customs to ensure that celibacy would be maintained. Communication between the men and women, boys and girls was strictly supervised, and even winking or blinking at one another was forbidden. Yet, within the confines of the repressed sexual environment at Pleasant Hill, love and nature apparently found a way to flourish, and several of the apostates married each other within days or weeks of leaving the community and soon started families of their own. . . .

      Francis Voris left Pleasant Hill August 25, 1829 and married Patsy (Martha) Thomas shortly after she left the Shakers in October of the same year. Of the twenty-six former Shakers known to have been living in Illinois in later years, only three (Charles Ballance, James G. Lineback, and Hortensia Voris) are known to have married out of the tight circle of Apostates. Moreover, all of the known Peoria apostates married, and only Thomas Bryant did not have children.

      Since Believers were expected to dissolve their traditional family ties when they entered Pleasant Hill, the bonds between parents and children, brothers and sisters were weakened and strained. It is remarkable, therefore, that family ties among the apostates had not been broken by more than twenty years of Shaker socialization. . . . Francis Voris left with his brothers Abram, Samuel, David, Henry, James Jr. and sister Hortensia and Montfort cousins Charity, David, Henry, John Jr., John Sr, and Banta relatives as well. . . .

      'Miss Hortensia Voris married Dr. Hogan, a practicing physician, but in a year or two they moved to Texas and I lost sight of them. Mr. Abram Voris went down the river as supercargo of a line of flat-boats, and while in the neighborhood of Natchez took the cholera and died.

      A year or two later, Mr. Samuel Voris married Miss Congleton and for more than a quarter of a century the two brothers, Francis and Samuel, with their families lived together in the homestead in perfect accord. As children grew to maturity and were married, additions would be made to the original house, but so long as the first couples remained there was no thought of separation. As time went on, they prospered and for years were considered among the wealthiest as well as the most hospitable people in the county.' ('Reminiscences of Julia M. Balance,' 1899 in Rice, Col. James M., Peoria City and County Illinois, pg. 69. Col. Rice was Julia's son in law.) (note: Sarah Congleton is Sally Congleton, according to Shaker researcher and Voris descendent, Jean Dones.)

      The apostates Shaker experience prepared them very well for the business of making a living in the world. While at Pleasant Hill, they had built a model community with a prosperous economy out of the raw Kentucky frontier. They designed and constructed all of their own buildings, mills, ferries and boats. They made fine furniture, textiles, clothing, and accessories. Although Pleasant Hill's economy was based upon agriculture, the Shakers processed their own agricultural products and developed light industries based upon these products. For example, they wove and dyed fabrics produced from cotton and flax grown in their fields, and sold them commercially. They grew, packaged and sold seeds along with Charles Ballance's gardening guide. They were their own business managers and salesmen and provided a wide range of goods and services to the surrounding community. Unlike Harriet Martineau?s eastern Shakers, who did not like to cater to visitors, Pleasant Hill was located on the old Lexington-Louisville stage road, and for many years, the Pleasant Hill Shakers operated a fine tavern for travelers.

      In Peoria, the Voris brothers quickly reopened their business links with St. Louis and New Orleans, helping to establish a non-fur trade related commercial link with the South that dominated the Peoria economy prior to the Civil War. They combined their agricultural assets with the business and trade skills that they had learned at Pleasant Hill. One of their earliest ventures was pork packing, transporting the meat to New Orleans on their flatboats (Ballance Scrapbook, undated news article written by C. Ballance titled 'Encouraging'). In ensuing years, the Voris family had numerous prominent and successful business interests and its members were among Peoria's wealthiest citizens. . . .

      Ballance provided an interesting biography for publication when he ran for office, and he wrote affectionate obituaries for Francis and Patsy Voris, but Shakers and Pleasant Hill were never alluded to (news clippings, Ballance Scrapbook.) He was elected Mayor of Peoria in 1856 and served as city alderman for several years. Henry Baldwin was elected Mayor in 1866. . . .

      Peoria County Estate records for the Ballance, Bryant, and Voris and Lineback families reveal that the apostates kept their estate business within the former Shaker group and their children, leaving trusted confidants within the family to put personal papers and business records in order, far from prying eyes.

      Peoria's early Shaker connection remained a well kept secret for at least seventy years until Peoria newspaperman and local historian, Earnest East, published Charles Ballance's 'Journal' in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society in April, 1937. East, however, did not recognize or elaborate on references to Pleasant Hill and the Shakers found in the Journal. . . .

      The original document that East worked with has disappeared. Charles Ballance's Scrapbook, however, has been preserved in the Lincoln Presidential Library manuscript collection. The scrapbook is a collection of hand written notes, draft letters, accounts, and newspaper clippings written primarily by Ballance under a number of pseudonyms. The Scrapbook also include the historically valuable letter to Abram Fite and dozens of autobiographical poems and articles written by Ballance, among them, his touching obituary for Patsy Thomas Voris. . . ."

      Edited by Roy Richard Thomas, December 2012
    Person ID I41674  Complete
    Last Modified 4 Apr 2018 

    Father Elisha Thomas,   b. 25 Sep 1762, Bucks County, Pennsylvania Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 5 Oct 1838, Pleasant Hill, Mercer County, Kentucky, U.S.A. Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 76 years) 
    Mother Anna Fulton,   b. 14 Oct 1756, Hampshire County, Virginia Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 15 Jul 1823, Pleasant Hill, Mercer County, Kentucky, U.S.A. Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 66 years) 
    Married Abt. 1784  Hampshire County, Virginia Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F18044176  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Francis Voorhees Voris,   b. 20 Sep 1790, Mercer County, Virginia, U.S.A. Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 15 May 1852, Peoria County, Illinois, U.S.A. Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 61 years) 
    Married 4 Jan 1830  Shelby County, Kentucky, U.S.A. Find all individuals with events at this location 
    • LDS FamilySearch Kentucky Marriages, 1785-1979: "Francis Voris & Patsey Jane Thomas, m. 4 Jan 1830 Shelby County."
    Children 
     1. Henry B, Voris,   b. Abt. 1836, Indiana, U.S.A. Find all individuals with events at this location
    Last Modified 9 Oct 2013 
    Family ID F18044182  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsBorn - 11 Feb 1795 - Mercer County, Kentucky, U.S.A. Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsMarried - 4 Jan 1830 - Shelby County, Kentucky, U.S.A. Link to Google Earth
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  • Documents
    Kentucky County, Virginia, as divided in 1780
    Kentucky County, Virginia, as divided in 1780

    Wikipedia
    Kentucky Counties in 1790 and 2004
    Kentucky Counties in 1790 and 2004

    Formation of Mercer County, KY (1785)

    1780 Lincoln (from Kentucky County, Virginia); 1785 Mercer (from Lincoln).


    Formation of Nicholas County, KY (1799)

    1780 Fayette (from Kentucky County, Virginia); 1785 "Old" Bourbon (from Fayette); 1788 Mason (from Bourbon); 1799 Nicholas (from both Bourbon & Mason).

    Headstones
    Patsy Jane Thomas (1795-1866) & Francis Voorhees Voris (1790-1852)
    Patsy Jane Thomas (1795-1866) & Francis Voorhees Voris (1790-1852)

    Find-A-Grave:

    Springdale Cemetery, Peoria, Peoria County, IL