Labadists had subsequently to resort to law to compel Herrman to hold to his engagement and to transfer to them the land for which they had negotiated. Besides this, in a codicil to the will of Augustine Herrman, which was made not a great while subsequent to this, provision is made for the appointment of three of his neighbors as his executors, instead of his son Ephraim, the motive assigned for the change being that Ephraim adhered to the Labadist faction, and was using his best efforts to proselyte his brothers and sisters, and he feared the Labadists would become, through Ephraim, sole owners of all his lands. Nor were his fears groundless. Having accomplished their mission to America, the Labadist commissioners returned to New York to embark for their own country. Until their departure their journal is prolix with conversations held with various persons on the subject of religion, some of whom are afterwards met in connection with the Labadist settlement in Maryland. The policy of the Labadists was to enlist converts by personal converse, and not by preaching. They attended church service whenever possible on Sundays, for prudential reasons alone, as they themselves admit. They studiously avoided bringing themselves into public notice, as though fearful, lest the object of their visit to the country becoming known, their plans might miscarry. While awaiting a ship in which to take passage, they received a visit from Ephraim Herrman and his wife in fulfillment of a promise made them on their departure from New Castle. A notable event which occurred during their waiting was a visit paid to the Labadists by Pieter Beyaert, "a deacon of the Dutch Church," whom they describe as "a very good sort of a person, whom God the Lord began to teach and enlighten, both ir regard to the destruction of the world in general and of himself in particular." This was an ancestor of the Bayards, of Delaware. He later left 1 "Memoirs,” pp. 343-344 New York and removed to the vicinity of Casparus Herrman's home, and was subsequently a member of the Labadist community. On June 19 the Labadists embarked for Boston, intending to visit that place before starting for Weiward. While at New York their reticence with regard to themselves and their apparent lack of definite purpose, had awakened suspicions and surmises concerning them, so that they were variously credited with being Roman Catholic priests, Quakers, Brownists and David Jorists. At Boston they surrounded themselves with the same air of mystery and were suspected of being Jesuits. John Eliot, the missionary to the Indians, to whom they sold copies of their publications, enjoyed the exceptional distinction of being the only religionist outside of their own faith, of whom they had a favorable word to say; due, perhaps, in some measure to the fact that work among the Indians was one of the avowed purposes of their own coming to America. They represent Eliot as expressing himself as highly pleased with the principles of their faith and as profoundly grateful to God for sending such pious people to the New World. On the twenty-third day of July, the Labadists set sail for Europe. CHAPTER V. LABADISTS AND THE MANOR. In 1683 the two Labadists returned again to Maryland, bringing with them the nucleus of a colony. As has been stated already, Augustine Herrman refused to consummate the sale of his land to them, and they only succeeded in obtaining what has since been known as the Labadie tract, by recourse to law. The deed is executed to Peter Sluyter (alias Vorstman), Jasper Danckers (alias Schilders, of Friesland), Petrus Bayard, of New York, and John Moll and Arnold de la Grange in company. This deed is dated August 11, 1684. The tract conveyed embraced four necks of land eastwardly from the first creek that empties into Bohemia River, from the north or northeast to near the old St. Augustine or Manor Church. It contained thirty-seven hundred and fifty acres. Those who were associated with Sluyter and Danckers in this land transaction are all persons who have been referred to before in this paper. They were all professed converts to Labadism. Soon after they had received the deed of the land, Moll and la Grange conveyed their interest in it to Sluyter and Danckers. Bayard retained his interest until 1688, when he seems to have left the community and returned to his wife. "Baltimore County Records." 'He and Ephraim Herrman had both separated from their wives on embracing Labadism. There is a tradition that Augustine Herrman pronounced a curse upon his son Ephraim that he might not live two years after his union with the Labadists, and he actually did die within that time, but not before he had repented of joining the Labadists, and, like Bayard, returned to his wife. The advent of the Labadists into Maryland does not seem to have attracted great attention. The aggressive spirit which characterized the Labadists in The Netherlands did not manifest itself in the New World. The additions to the community were made largely from converts among their own countrymen of New York. The industrial activities of the Labadists show the influence upon them of new conditions. Slave labor and the cultivation of tobacco had been two objections advanced against the planting of a colony in America, yet notwithstanding the virtuous indignation expressed in their journal against these practices, we find the Labadists engaged in cultivating tobacco extensively, and using for the purpose the slave labor that was so abhorrent to them. In addition to the cultivation of tobacco, the culture of corn, flax and hemp, and cattle raising were prominent among their industries. But the main purpose of the community was not rapidly accomplished. Their maximum development but slightly exceeded a hundred men, women and children. The feeling of detestation for them expressed by Herrman in a codicil to his will, seems to have been very generally shared by their neighbors. This was doubtless in part due to the distrust engendered by their peculiarities and their seclusiveness of life. The peculiar forms of the Labadists were not favorable to the propagation of their faith; so that there seems to have been no attempt whatever by energetic public preaching or by missionary efforts among the Indians, to realize the hopes of the mother community in sending them out. The spirit of zeal for the salvation of men that gave rise to Labadism was not manifested by the Church in Maryland. It may be that the report of the decline of their faith at Weiward had a disheartening effect upon them. But, however this may be, the fact remains that the Maryland Colonists whom the Labadists in their journal describe as 1 Samuel Bownas: "Life, Travels, Experiences," etc., p. 9. very godless and profane, were little bettered by the coming of the Labadists among them. Their efforts in this direction were confined to endeavors at proselyting individuals, and frequently those were selected for their proselyting attempts, who would bring some substantial material benefits to the community. In 1698 a division of the "Labadie Tract" was effected, Sluyter conveyed, for a mere nominal rent, the greater part of the land which he possessed to a number of the prominent men of the community. He reserved one of the necks of land and became very wealthy. In 1722 he died. Though up to that time there was still kept up some sort of organization among the Labadists, yet the division of 1698 marked the disintegration of the community, as did a similar division at Weiward, at about the same time. There, however, the dissolution came by consultative action, the Labadists returning to the Reformed Church became a leaven of profound spirituality, and their influence, it is affirmed, never died. The dissolution in Maryland came by the logic of events. The community dwindled into extinction. Five years after the death of Sluyter, the Labadists had ceased to exist as a community;1 and were it not for certain prominent families descended from them, whose genealogy has been carefully traced by the Rev. C. Payson Mallary, in his excellent monograph, the community on "Bohemia Manor" would be but a memory. When we come to examine into the cause of the failure of Labadism to permanently establish itself in the New World, we find it to be attributable to that assertion of individualism which has proved destructive to all attempts at founding religious or industrial communities, subsequent to this first community ever attempted in America. But besides this weakness, inherent in the communistic system, there were particular contributing causes for the failure of the Labadist ideal. Of these particular causes those result 1 Samuel Bownas: "Life, Travels," etc. 'C. Payson Mallary: "Ancient Families of Bohemia Manor." |