220 Singing Valleys 



many of whom looked askance at the religious and social 

 practices of the brethren, they were driven inward upon them- 

 selves and so forced to develop intensively what they had. It 

 was this principle which has developed the rich folk cultures 

 of all oppressed and segregated peoples, working among the 

 Mennonites, Dunkards and Moravian Brethren in Pennsyl- 

 vania, surrounded by the scornful and scoffing Scotch-Irish and 

 Welsh, which gave them their agricultural superiority. The 

 community at New Harmony near Pittsburgh was another 

 fertile oasis of agricultural and horticultural lore. 



That extraordinary American mystic, Jemima Wilkinson, 

 who took to herself the title of "The Universal Friend," went 

 in for bigger and better corn. Jemima was born among the 

 Rhode Island Quakers shortly prior to the Revolution. The 

 miracles she worked and her reputed power to raise the dead 

 brought eager disciples flocking to her home. The neighbors 

 were disturbed and shocked, as the cautious faithful always 

 are when the religion they have professed is proved to work. 

 They were not sorry to see the Universal Friend pack up her 

 goods and lead her little band over the new Berkshire road 

 into the Genesee country. There Jemima claimed twelve hun- 

 dred acres of rich farming land. She settled fifty families on 

 this tract and promptly built the first grist mill in western 

 New York. Her crops of rye and corn and her herds of sleek 

 cattle occasioned wonder and envy among other farmers in the 

 valley. Were Jemima's harvests, they demanded, brought about 

 entirely by prayer, or did the Universal Friend work black 

 magic in the barns? 



Jemima could have told them that she joined to her prayers 

 a brimming measureful of common sense. She carefully se- 

 lected the seed she gave to the earth and prayed over. None 

 but the largest and best-filled ears were saved for the next 

 year's crop. Her disciples, working in the communal fields, 

 learned secrets in seed selection which some of them later took 

 to the corn belt. 



Bishop Hill, in Henry County, Illinois, which was founded 



