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Thesis (M. Div.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee, 1995. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-108).

In 1807 the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (Shakers)established a society near the Gasper River in Logan County, Kentucky. The society was soon named South Union, and it lasted until 1922, the longest-lasting Shaker community west of the Appalachians. Most of the first Shaker converts in Logan County had only a few years beforehand participated in a series of evangelical Presbyterian camp meetings known collectively as the Kentucky Revival, the Revival of 1800, or the Great Revival.Though Presbyterian revivalism and Shakerism shared certain characteristics (particularl millennialism and enthusiastic forms of worship), there were many differences between them as well; Shakerism was not necessarily a logical continuation of the Great Revival. So why did so many Scots-Irish Presbyterians in south-central Kentucky convert to Shakerism? How did conversion make sense to them? And how was Shaker conversion understood by those who did not convert? Through a close reading of primary sources, this thesis attempts to answer these questions. Shaker conversion is better understood as an interaction within a community rather than as a transaction between an individual and God. The decade or so preceding the establishment of South Union—the disestablishment of state churches, the mass migration to the trans-Appalachian west, the burgeoning market economy—was, for many Scots-Irish Presbyterians, a period of social disorder. This was especially true in south-central Kentucky, where the local Presbyterian establishment was riven by schism. The Great Revival was a brief but ultimately disappointing creation of an alternate community, a way of escape from the surrounding chaos. Shakerism offered the apotheosis of that alternate community. South Union was a camp meeting that never ended. However, the denizens of south-central Kentucky who did not convert to Shakerism were quite hostile to the new sect. They understood conversion as a form of betrayal, a renunciation of a community which they still identified with. This understanding became especially clear during a divorce case involving William and Sally Boler, in which William Boler’s rights as a man and a citizen became circumspect because of his conversion to Shakerism. Since the mid-nineteenth century, Shaker conversion has become less threatening to the outside world. Indeed, the popular imagination has co-opted South Union as quintessentially American. By reclaiming the Shakers from the margins of society, popular memory has effectively erased conversion from the Shaker story. After all, Shaker conversion was never as much about belief or even practice as it was about a distinct and separate community.

Hydrogeologic investigations were conducted on the drainage systems of an area of the Pennyroyal sinkhole plain of south central Kentucky. The degree of karstification of five area streams was studied to develop an understanding of the evolution of drainage as the landscape changes from a sandstone caprock plateau to a limestone sinkhole plain. The Chester Upland, capped by the Big Clifty Sandstone, possesses predominantly surface drainage and the Pennyroyal Plain, formed on Mississippian limestones, possesses considerable subsurface drainage. As the Chester Upland Escarpment retreats and surface streams are onto the limestones, the streams evolve to become subsurface streams. The five streams observed in the study (all flowing on limestones) demonstrated less karst development close to the Chester Escarpment and more karst development with increasing distance from the escarpment. Sediments derived from the escarpment and plateau blanket the stream beds thus perching the streams and preventing chemically aggressive water from forming karst solution features in the limestones. The streams farther away from the escarpment are removed from the sediment source and are therefore able to downcut into the limestone and invade the subsurface to become cave streams. Lithologic investigation of limestones exposed in stream beds revealed that minor resistant units can act to diminish downcutting and maintain short sections of surface flow. The stream investigated was not flowing on a perching layer, but instead was held on the surface by a stratigraphic control (spillover layer) that prevented subterranean stream invasion. Dye traces conducted on groundwater flow in the sinkhole plain revealed that the area drainage pattern is changing as surface streams invade the subsurface and that integration between drainage basins is taking place. Stream piracy and stream diversion are occurring in the subsurface causing alteration of the existing topographic drainage divides that developed before the surface streams invaded the subsurface. A general model is presented which shows the evolution of surface drainage to subsurface drainage, as the Chester Escarpment continues its northwestward retreat.