West Union (Busro), Indiana

The Shakers soon discovered that they had built West Union on an Indian trail and war path, the traditional route of communication with (and attack against) white settlement at Vincennes. During the summer of 1811, rumors of an impending Indian war began to frighten residents of the Wabash Valley. (When international hostilities finally broke out, it was known as the War of 1812, though fighting between Native Americans and settlers had begun earlier.) In August, 1811, William Henry Harrison, the Indiana Territory's military governor, met with the Shawnee leader Tecumseh at Vincennes, but according to McClellan, "the Indians went away about as ill humor'd as they came."

In September 1811, Native Americans (probably Shawnee) stole four of the Shakers’ "best waggon horses, the team that was hauling timber at the mill." When the owners found out what direction they had gone, "James Brownfield the waggoner, and Abraham Jones, a colored man, and a linguist with a hired man by the name of Robins started with two horses to follow them, and get the horses on peaceable terms if they could." The Shakers took no firearms with them and were not looking for a fight. After traveling for two and a half days, they overtook the Shawnee, but could not convince them to hand over the stolen horses. The horse thieves "would not talk much but appeared to be mad, and were very busy fixing their guns." The two Shakers and their interpreter then snatched the horses and ran, "as quick as possible, each man having 2 horses to take care of. After they had got about 2 miles they discovered the Indians coming after them with speed." The men fled for their lives. "After running some 7 or 8 miles through a long Prairy," the exhausted horses had to be left behind, with the men's "saddles, saddles bags, blankets, big coats and provision."

Having a kind of swamp to cross before [the men] could find any chance of hiding themselves... they being so far done out, they could hardly get their feet out of the mud. The Indians got close enough to fire on them... The mud in the swamp robbed them of their shoes, and in their extreme haste to save their lives, they somehow lost their hats. After six days’ hard fatigue they got home pretty well famished, and almost naked by the action of the brush and briars on their few remaining clothes. We were then compelled to sustain the loss of six horses, besides all disappointments.[9]

En route to the Shawnee stronghold at Prophetstown farther up the Wabash in the autumn of 1811, where he narrowly defeated a Native American confederacy at the Battle of Tippecanoe, Harrison's army of 1400 men left Vincennes and "encamped on Snaps Prairy about 1 mile from our meeting house." Harrison's soldiers pillaged the Shakers' crops, confiscating wagons and horses to take north with them. "Our affliction on this occasion cannot be easily described," remarked McClellan. "However in a few days they marched on up the Wabash and on the 7 November the battle of Tippecanoe was fought. After which they soon returned, with many wounded and all greatly fatigued. We gave them all the comfortable usage we could, and they went on to Vincennes."

In the winter of 1811, the New Madrid Seismic Zone, centered in southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas, began a period of extremely strong activity that caused the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in the Midwest. The Shakers at West Union experienced these.

"On the 10 December [1811]" Samuel McClelland recorded, "the whole nation was suddenly awakened at 2 o’clock in the morning by the shaking of the earth. There were two more shakes after day light, tho’ not so heavy as the first." Immediate structural damage at West Union was minimal, in spite of earthquakes and aftershocks that continued throughout the winter of 1811-12. McClelland wrote:

The beginning of this year [1812] may be singularized by the shaking of the earth, which occurred so often that it would be both tedious and useless to have noticed every one. On the 14th of February, 2 hours before day, was the heaviest shock that was felt on the Wabash. A number of brick houses were cracked and the tops of some chimneys fell off. From carried information, we learn, that the shaking occurs almost daily in New Madrid, that the earth's motion appears to be about 12 inches horizontally in a north and south direction, that large chasms can be seen in many directions, some of which are a mile or more in length, from which muddy water and sulphurous vapors sometimes issue, almost sufficient to suffocate the frightened inhabitants.[10]

McClelland also recorded the widespread fear and sense of doom that pervaded the area for months, as the earth’s crust continued to heave and settle. The effect was not merely structural, but psychological and religious. Seeded by decades of backcountry revivals and "awakenings," fear of the earthquakes was heightened by apocalyptic foretellings of the coming end of time.

The primary damage done to West Union came from the Wabash River. The earth's shaking caused the Wabash to flow backwards and spill over into its floodplain. This was a huge inconvenience during the wintertime, when the water turned to mud and ice. And like other floods, it caused an increase in malaria and other insect-borne diseases the following spring and summer. In June 1812, McClelland wrote, "The fever began to invade the society in different quarters, and some begin to get very sick."

At the time of the earthquakes and the fever epidemic of 1811–12, West Union's population was still sizable, with McClelland reporting that "75 boys and 56 girls with a suitable family of brethren and sisters" were at the schoolhouse.

The hardships of the War of 1812 soon returned to visit them, however. The pacifist Shakers had refused to arm themselves or construct a fort for their defense against Native American and British attack. This put them and their property in danger and led to ridicule and harassment by the Indiana territorial militia, by far the Shakers' biggest nuisance. Armed settlers camped in the woods near West Union, "in and out of which they came and went... without even regard for common good behavior."[11] McClelland recorded that "Our gardens and fields were rich and afforded plenty for them and their horses. Our cattle and hogs they butchered and destroyed in a most savage wasteful manner." En route to the relief of Fort Harrison at Terre Haute, "the Press Gang came on and seized some of our horses, some saddles and some axes, as they were in haste to get up to [the fort], it being besieged by the Indians."

Thinking it better to temporarily abandon West Union rather than be abused by the militia or massacred by hostile war parties, the Shaker community loaded their property onto boats and headed downstream in mid-September 1812. Three hundred Shakers and their children, 250 head of sheep, 100 head of Cattle, 14 wagons, a keel boat, a pirogue and a canoe took refuge among the Shaker communities of Kentucky and Ohio until 1814. In their absence, their homes in Indiana were occupied by territorial militiamen. A few Shakers stayed behind to look after West Union, but "the Army was soon increased to 1000, our houses were converted to Barracks, our nurseries to horse lots and our fields to racing grounds. In short, the whole place looked as tho' a host of Pharaoh's plagues had passed over it."[12]

The stress of relocating and a hard winter took a toll on many Shakers during their refuge. Yet some were contemplating a return to Busro as early as the summer and fall of 1813. On January 24, 1814, "Adam Gallagher and Enoch Davis set off for Pittsburgh [from Union Village], for procuring materials for building, such as iron, nails, glass, paints, oil &c." Over forty Shakers set off for Indiana again in March 1814, with more following.

The land once occupied by the Shakers is now active farmland and owned privately. The site is along an unmarked county road a few miles northwest of Oaktown, Indiana, in the far northwestern corner of Knox County, almost on the Sullivan County line.[17] An Indiana historical marker on U.S. 41 near Oaktown actually stands a few miles from the site. The only Shaker structure that survived into the twentieth century was used as a private home before being demolished.

Archaeological remains of other buildings in the area have been unearthed by local historian John Martin Smith, but are unmarked and difficult to find. The mill was located on the Illinois side of the Wabash, just south of the iron bridge, though no remains are visible.