About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the twenty-first century.
They misconstrued the whole thing. But it was 1895, he was a Shaker, and so it was understandable that when he disappeared, the first headlines suggested he had been kidnapped.
His name was Daniel Offord, and he was more than a member of the Shaker society, he was an Elder, and more than an Elder, he was Trustee of the North Community in New Lebanon (Hancock was called the South Community).
Offord was born in England. When he was eight years old, his family brought him to the Shaker community in Western Massachusetts. He remained a Shaker for the next forty-four years. It was the only life he knew. He moved up the ranks, gaining respect, and finally attaining the highest position possible in the society — head of the New Lebanon family. Now at fifty-two years old, he was gone without a word, without a trace. Naturally, they suspected foul play. Then they found his note.
As soon as they learned it was not a kidnapping, as soon as they learned he left willingly “to cast his lot” with a woman, the woman was demonized. Mabel Franklin must have tricked, seduced, or hypnotized him. Franklin must be an evil woman. Members even found a witness to bolster their suspicion. Mrs. Moody told the Shaker community that her husband had been a good man, true to her, until he laid eyes on Mabel Franklin and then “they lived happily no more.”
So Franklin was a femme fatale, right? If so, she was an odd sort of femme fatale. She lived in New York City where she trained as a bookkeeper. She was employed at the drug store of Julius Jungman at 61st Street and Third Avenue. She lived in Harlem at least 60 blocks from the drug store. To get to and from work, Franklin took up the new fad, bicycle riding. Riding every day, she became accomplished.
Riding a bicycle was the only thing about her that stood out. Otherwise she was described as quite ordinary. She was young and healthy but otherwise average. She was described as having nice eyes and brown hair, but none of her friends or fellow employees described her as handsome.
Tilden & Co. was a drug manufacturer in New Lebanon in need of a bookkeeper. They sent manager Harry Cox to the city to find someone. Franklin was offered the job and accepted.
It was the bicycle. Without it the two might never have met but Franklin went riding around the countryside in her free time and soon discovered the Shaker community. Offord and Franklin met.
Perhaps it was twenty-twenty hindsight, but the entire Shaker community remembered that Offord could not take his eyes off Franklin; he was bewitched. Clearly their leader was spirited away by a calculating woman.
Just why a 25-year-old woman should want to beguile a 52-year-old man; exactly why she desired a man who lived his entire life celibate in a sheltered community is not explained nor is the question even posed.
Nope, she was a sinner with designs on the Shaker Elder and off they went – she conscious of her purpose and responsible for her actions; he in a daze of some kind, enthralled, hypnotized, or otherwise not responsible for his behavior. A delegation was sent to find and bring the old man back.
They never found him. Then, three years later, as abruptly and mysteriously as he left, Offord returned.
When he left members were anxious to speak with the press. Now they were measured in what they would say. It was largely a private matter they said.
Did Offord take money from the community when he left? Apparently, yes. Will he return it? He was not in a position to. Where did he go? West. What did he do? He worked and invested and lost every dime he invested. He was gone for three years and three years after he returned, three years of living quietly in the community, he was fully reinstated as an elder.
Every news report focused on the wayward Shaker. Every story delved into his motives and actions. In news it is a mistake to bury the lead, but it is a greater mistake to miss the story. When he returned, Daniel Offord was alone. Where was Mabel Franklin? How was Mabel Franklin? No one knew; moreover no one asked.
