9

Shaker Bells

(c. 1880)

 

 

John Slocum, stubborn and taciturn, was not widely known for his geniality. Yet, after his spiritual transformation, whenever he met a stranger, Indian or white, in church or out, he held out his hand. Later, he would require his disciples to do the same.

This is the story of how John Slocum of the Indian Shaker Church at age forty died—and came back to tell about it—establishing a new religion.

In the 1880s, in Oyster Bay, Slocum lived on an isolated homestead, earning most of his pay at a nearby logging operation. He was of medium height, with a jutting eave of black hair on top of his swooping forehead, deep bright eyes, and a speckled beard. He married a wife who gave him thirteen children, only two of whom survived. Despite the hard times, Slocum refused to move his family to either the Skokomish or Squaxin Island reservations. He didn’t believe in a handout. He favored whiskey and betting. His profligate habits broke his health, which made it even harder for him to support his ailing family.

One day at work he fell ill. On a cedar plank he was carried to his farm in Skookum Chuck where he died at about four in the morning.

His mother placed coins on his eyes. She wrapped a bandage under his chin to keep his jaw from dropping, so his soul wouldn’t spill out. That night and throughout the following day, family, friends, and neighbors sat around waiting for the coffin to arrive.

John Slocum sat up.

Astonished kin and neighbors gathered round. Slocum announced, “If the people would convert to a new form of Christianity, renounce sin, and build a new church, God would repay them with a new medicine.”

Slocum recalled his disembodied spirit, glancing down at his dead body. Reluctantly, he had come back, Slocum said, to teach the people to love one another and to be good. He then shook hands with everyone and said, “We should always be glad to see each other because, who knows? This time might be the last.”

Slocum ordered the people to build him a church. Inside: an altar, with wax tapers and hand bells. Slocum also taught the people how to pray.

As news of the miracle spread, people began to refer to Slocum as a prophet.

A year later, Slocum again fell ill. Again, he died. His wife Mary, terrified to lose him a second time, began to shake all over. Again, Slocum revived. Slocum realized that he had returned from death a second time, only after his wife Mary began trembling. He thought, this must be the medicine that God up in heaven had pledged to send the people.

Prayer within the Indian Shaker Church looked a lot like a traditional healing ceremony. Slocum, never a big talker, allowed others to lead the church he had created. His bleak outlook had not improved. In his second passage to the other side, he had seen things that made him even more depressed than when he lived. When he passed away the third time, it was for good.

Though John Slocum’s mystic revelation had been witnessed by a mere handful, word traveled overland and up the Hood Canal to Dungeness. The Jamestown Shaker Church, the first church in the county with a bell tower, was built in 1878. Inside, the only decoration was a cross on the far wall and a candelabra hanging down from the ceiling. On the altar, a collection of bells.

 

Shaker Healing

 

The following details come from an eyewitness account of a Shaker healing ceremony in the Jamestown Church:

A youth of eight or so had become feverish ill, sick enough to die.

In the center of the room, the sick boy stood as still as a post. With hypnotic energy, the congregants circulated around him, stamping their feet and ringing bells next to his head. Every person sought a new and inspired way to make the boy “shake.” They passed their hands over him, blew on him, stroked his body, and whirled him round and round. He never moved an eyelash.

Hours passed.

Still, the boy never moved.

When one devotee fell out, exhausted, another stepped in.

Finally, the youth’s feet folded and his head hit the floor.

As he came to, he began to tremble and shake. The others watched, but did not intervene. Finally, he stilled. When it was over, he scampered to his feet. In the words of one participant, the boy was “free as a cricket,” completely healed.