Professional, Native and antiquarian researchers combine to investigate…
Shaker Swamp
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A major wetland of the Lebanon Valley in upstate New York has been a source of healing waters and rare medicinal plants since the end of the last Ice Age. The Native, spiritual and secular communities that developed around this large swamp have all shaped the history of American medicine.
In Shaker Swamp: 4 Seasons in the Medicinal Wetlands of New Lebanon, NY, Ted Timreck explores this Medicinal Wetland at the base of Mount Lebanon. The wetland is a remarkably preserved ecosystem where at least 74 medicinal plants known to the Indians, Shakers and Tildens have been identified and still survive. It was first used as a source for harvesting medicinal plants by Native Peoples. Then, in the early 19th century, in a rare, documented instance of cross cultural cooperation with the early settlers, the Indians taught the Mount Lebanon Shakers about the medicines growing in the swamp. From the middle of the 19th century, the Tilden family who learned the medicinal formulas from the Shakers, built the first pharmaceutical factory in America at the edge of the Shaker Swamp.
The story of Shaker Swamp—and the broader lost history of natural medicines in America—is important to save for future generations, when it can be better understood in the wake of a contemporary upsurge in interest of evolving, natural remedies.
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Citation
Main credits
Timreck, Tim (film director)
Hamilton, Josh (narrator)
Distributor subjects
American Studies; Biology; Indigenous Peoples; Ecology; Plant Biology; WetlandsKeywords
new york state,wetlands,swamp,medicinal wetlands,medicinal plants,indigenous culture,indigenous wisdom,plants,plant biology,american studies,New Lebanon,Shakers,native peoples,natural medicine,homeopathy,american history,new england; "Shaker Swamp"; Bullfrog Films
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[pensive violin music]
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- [Narrator] Route 20 is the
longest road in North America
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and extends from Boston
to the coast of Oregon.
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Parts of the highway may
have been Indian trails
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before European contact.
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Route 22 is the longest
well-documented Indian trail
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in New England, running from the tip
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of Manhattan north to Canada.
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These two ancient pathways
cross in the middle
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of the Shaker Swamp,
perhaps not by coincidence.
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- "Hereabouts, the Indian
taught the white man
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"the curative properties of this water."
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"Erected by the Lebanon Valley Garden Club
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"for the benefit of mankind, 1940."
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It's a powerful statement
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that a community would
acknowledge its history,
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the significance of its history,
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and tie it back to the original people.
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That doesn't happen often
in the United States.
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"The Indian taught the white man
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"the curative properties of this water."
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[sighs]
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How much is there around here
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that is the remnant
evidence of that teaching?
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And how powerful and significant was this
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as a place of ceremony,
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because of the curative
properties of the water
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and the herbs of this place?
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[indistinct chatter]
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[Doug laughs]
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Okay.
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Okay.
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I'm sure archeologists
would blame a glacier.
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Umm...
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We study the context a bit more
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and we'll find the Native logic for it.
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It's clearly been shaped.
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- [Narrator] The medicinal
wetlands are unique
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to the region, both historically
and environmentally.
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The Shaker Swamp needs to
be preserved and studied.
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Not only is the story of
America's first large-scale,
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natural pharmaceutical
industry significant,
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but the wetland serves as
a reminder to the public
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about how much we still don't
know about our relationship
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to the Earth and the other
living entities we share it with.
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There is still a great deal to be learned
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as scientists continue
to make new discoveries
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about the chemistry of
our natural environment.
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[lively orchestral music]
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- There has been some
recent work done looking at
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how higher plants communicate
when they're attacked
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by pests or by leaf predators.
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And apparently-- for example,
these would be gypsy moths
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or tent caterpillars, something like that.
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And when a given tree gets attacked,
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when it's wounded by these herbivores,
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it releases certain chemicals into the air
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that it appears other
trees can pick up on.
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And so they pick up on it,
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even if they haven't been attacked yet,
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and they increase these
defensive chemicals
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that we're talking about.
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And that makes 'em a
little bit less susceptible
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for actual attack once the predator,
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the herbivores, get to them.
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Just all these things going
on we don't understand.
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- So this is an alder bush,
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which is one of the
most common woody plants
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in swamps around here.
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We call it speckled alder, Alnus rugosa.
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And in olden times, obviously
it has been called tag alder.
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So the Shakers, in their little plant book
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about medicinal plants,
they say it was valuable
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in scrofula, syphilis,
and diseases of the skin.
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They used the bark, leaves,
and the berries also.
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And it was used in bitters
and as an astringent.
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- [Conrad] I mean, I would
imagine this whole area
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was forested prior to European settlement.
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- But then you have the beavers coming.
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- Yep.
- Make a dam,
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kill off the trees.
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A meadow develops, and
then slowly it grows in
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with the willows and the alders
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and slowly grows back into swamp forest,
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unless the beavers come back
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and knock the succession back down.
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So it's a dynamic system
that can repeat itself.
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- [Narrator] We tend to imagine
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that the undeveloped landscapes we see
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have always been just as
they look to us today,
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because people often don't want
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to envision nature as changing.
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- [Conrad] They don't
think in a dynamic sense.
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So in other words, you know, with this,
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we were talking about the changes in ponds
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and the changes that the beaver cause.
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People just aren't thinking
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that that's part of nature.
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They just expect things
to stay in one place
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and stay the same.
- Be in balance.
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- Yeah, balance implies that
things stay in one place
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where in fact, in nature,
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well, there is no balance in that sense
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of it staying in one place.
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And that's doesn't really
penetrate our psyche very well,
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especially when we're not
out and about very much
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and aren't in touch with
the seasons and the changes.
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[rousing orchestral music]
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[water flowing]
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[rousing orchestral music]
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[birds vocalizing]
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[rousing orchestral music]
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[orchestral music continues]
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[orchestral music intensifies]
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- [Jerry] The Shaker Society
at New Lebanon settled there
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in about 1787 on land that was owned
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by many of the early
converts to Shakerism.
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And they were confronted
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by the same thing everybody else was.
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How do you take care of
yourself when you get sick?
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The Shakers in that area, as
most people in the area did,
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did a lot of self-doctoring.
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And some of the materials they used
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were the local herbs and
plants that grew around.
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By 1800, the Shakers had started,
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with all of their other
agricultural pursuits,
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had started gardens up to grow herbs,
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and the gardens are growing
herbs both for culinary use,
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but primarily for medicinal uses.
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Around 1820, the Shakers
actually took that
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to the next step where
they started packaging
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and growing herbs,
specifically growing herbs
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and producing medicines with
those herbs for general sale.
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And at that point the
industry really takes off.
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And for the next 20 years or so,
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we have a huge growth in
both the types of materials
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that they're growing, the kinds of plants.
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They go from probably a couple
of dozen different herbs
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that they might grow to
well over 100 to 120,
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maybe up to 150 different kinds of plants
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that they're dealing with.
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The number of things that they could do
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to the herbs had increased,
and the machinery
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and sort of what the Shakers
would've called their
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medical laboratory, where
they're actually taking herbs
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and making medicines out
of them, that all grew.
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Some of the quantity of
herbs, I think, by 1850,
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you get quantities of herbs being grown
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and pressed and packaged and sold.
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That would be in excess of
25 tons of herbs a year.
00:32:38.770 --> 00:32:40.900
So we're talking about, you know,
00:32:40.900 --> 00:32:44.020
huge quantities of material being grown
00:32:44.020 --> 00:32:46.033
and moving out of the Shaker village.
00:32:47.260 --> 00:32:51.070
Along with cultivating herb
gardens or physician's gardens,
00:32:51.070 --> 00:32:53.500
where they raised large quantities
00:32:53.500 --> 00:32:55.960
of sort of predictable,
grow-able herbs,
00:32:55.960 --> 00:32:57.670
the Shakers also made a lot of use
00:32:57.670 --> 00:32:59.355
of their natural surroundings.
00:32:59.355 --> 00:33:01.750
So, they were situated
on the side of a hill
00:33:01.750 --> 00:33:03.700
where they had access both to things
00:33:03.700 --> 00:33:05.920
that would grow high on a mountain
00:33:05.920 --> 00:33:08.230
and things that would
grow low in the valleys.
00:33:08.230 --> 00:33:11.590
And at Lebanon,
as luck would have it,
00:33:11.590 --> 00:33:15.602
they're sitting right next
to a very large swampy area,
00:33:15.602 --> 00:33:18.100
and swamps are rich with plant materials
00:33:18.100 --> 00:33:21.880
that are medicinally interesting.
00:33:21.880 --> 00:33:24.580
I think the Shakers owned that property
00:33:24.580 --> 00:33:28.150
and knew that property and explored it
00:33:28.150 --> 00:33:32.680
and were able to harvest large quantities
00:33:32.680 --> 00:33:34.030
of plant material from there
00:33:34.030 --> 00:33:36.700
that they could turn into medicines.
00:33:36.700 --> 00:33:40.450
This is a very rich time in
the development of medicine.
00:33:40.450 --> 00:33:44.710
Part of that for the Shakers is brought on
00:33:44.710 --> 00:33:47.050
by things like cholera, which were--
00:33:47.050 --> 00:33:48.850
They were experiencing epidemics
00:33:48.850 --> 00:33:52.870
where the treatment was often
worse than the disease itself.
00:33:52.870 --> 00:33:55.390
But in the panic of lots
and lots of people dying,
00:33:55.390 --> 00:33:58.660
we have people trying
to figure out really new
00:33:58.660 --> 00:34:00.853
and safer treatments.
00:34:01.720 --> 00:34:05.050
This brought up a whole
school of medicine called
00:34:05.050 --> 00:34:08.410
either the "Eclectic school,"
or in New England
00:34:08.410 --> 00:34:10.690
most of the time it was just
called "Thomsonian medicine"
00:34:10.690 --> 00:34:14.290
after Samuel Thomson, who
developed sort of this system
00:34:14.290 --> 00:34:17.320
of medicine to treat people
without all the caustic poisons
00:34:17.320 --> 00:34:20.020
that doctors were tending
to use, or bloodletting
00:34:20.020 --> 00:34:25.020
or leeches, or all those
unpleasant treatments.
00:34:26.290 --> 00:34:28.870
And so a lot of the
Thomsonian practitioners
00:34:28.870 --> 00:34:30.550
were actually called Indian doctors,
00:34:30.550 --> 00:34:33.430
or that they had learned from the Indians.
00:34:33.430 --> 00:34:36.130
But there was, in the 1840s,
00:34:36.130 --> 00:34:40.120
there was a direct comments by the Shakers
00:34:40.120 --> 00:34:42.250
that they had forged an alliance
00:34:42.250 --> 00:34:43.780
with some of the Native Americans
00:34:43.780 --> 00:34:45.790
who were very knowledgeable
00:34:45.790 --> 00:34:47.530
about the plants that grew in the area,
00:34:47.530 --> 00:34:50.470
and they were delighted to be able to talk
00:34:50.470 --> 00:34:51.970
and meet with them and train them
00:34:51.970 --> 00:34:54.820
to gather herbs in the proper manner,
00:34:54.820 --> 00:34:58.630
and to keep them separate
and to package them up
00:34:58.630 --> 00:34:59.950
and bring them to the Shakers
00:34:59.950 --> 00:35:04.093
and trade for other products
that the Natives might use.
00:35:05.230 --> 00:35:09.070
So we have a really nice
interaction in the 1840s going on
00:35:09.070 --> 00:35:13.190
between the Native
peoples and the Shakers.
00:35:15.406 --> 00:35:18.489
[delicate piano music]
00:35:24.154 --> 00:35:27.487
[rousing orchestral music]
00:36:14.431 --> 00:36:17.848
[lively orchestral music]
00:36:53.797 --> 00:36:56.964
[delicate piano music]
00:37:03.254 --> 00:37:06.587
[gentle violin music]
00:37:19.154 --> 00:37:22.571
[lively orchestral music]
00:37:37.544 --> 00:37:40.294
[subdued orchestral music]
00:38:17.337 --> 00:38:20.920
[orchestral music continues]
00:38:28.779 --> 00:38:32.196
[lively orchestral music]
00:39:08.576 --> 00:39:12.826
[orchestral music continues]
00:39:48.002 --> 00:39:51.335
[lively orchestral music]
00:40:27.999 --> 00:40:32.166
[orchestral music continues]
00:41:43.480 --> 00:41:45.460
- One of the things
we're really trying to do
00:41:45.460 --> 00:41:48.340
is get a complete list.
00:41:48.340 --> 00:41:50.560
It may take us a few years,
but to get a complete list
00:41:50.560 --> 00:41:52.990
of all the plants that grow in the swamp.
00:41:52.990 --> 00:41:56.260
And it's very unique in
that one end of the swamp,
00:41:56.260 --> 00:41:58.450
one edge of the swamp appears to be
00:41:58.450 --> 00:42:00.670
in more acidic type soils,
00:42:00.670 --> 00:42:03.700
and parts of the swamp are characterized
00:42:03.700 --> 00:42:07.690
by calcareous or more alkaline soils.
00:42:07.690 --> 00:42:09.400
And we're comparing sort of a year,
00:42:09.400 --> 00:42:12.190
maybe two-year long
bio blitz of this swamp
00:42:12.190 --> 00:42:13.900
and to try to get a complete database
00:42:13.900 --> 00:42:15.580
of all the living things that are here.
00:42:15.580 --> 00:42:17.590
That's just one small part of the project,
00:42:17.590 --> 00:42:19.330
but it takes a lot of people.
00:42:19.330 --> 00:42:21.850
And getting into the
middle of a swamp is--
00:42:21.850 --> 00:42:23.590
this swamp is not easy.
00:42:23.590 --> 00:42:24.880
It's not like somebody's built
00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:28.180
a boardwalk out there for us to get in.
00:42:28.180 --> 00:42:30.220
It takes effort and dedication
00:42:30.220 --> 00:42:32.713
that only a botanist would have.
00:42:35.800 --> 00:42:38.440
- [Narrator] Eventually, in 2022,
00:42:38.440 --> 00:42:41.180
the Shaker Swamp Conservancy
was able to engage
00:42:41.180 --> 00:42:43.930
the Nelson Pope Voorhis organization
00:42:43.930 --> 00:42:46.180
to help plan the trails, boardwalks
00:42:46.180 --> 00:42:49.275
and preservation efforts
in the Shaker Swamp.
00:42:49.275 --> 00:42:52.360
- My goodness.
- I'm impressed with
00:42:52.360 --> 00:42:54.160
how much trillium there is.
00:42:54.160 --> 00:42:57.373
I've never seen so much
trillium in one location.
00:42:58.611 --> 00:43:00.250
...in this blue area.
00:43:00.250 --> 00:43:01.810
- [Narrator] The
environmental planning firm
00:43:01.810 --> 00:43:04.240
sent out a team to
conduct an initial survey
00:43:04.240 --> 00:43:06.250
with conservancy representatives
00:43:06.250 --> 00:43:08.440
in order to begin planning the pathways
00:43:08.440 --> 00:43:11.590
through the medicinal wetland
that will allow the public
00:43:11.590 --> 00:43:13.420
to experience the environmental
00:43:13.420 --> 00:43:16.574
and cultural history of
this natural resource.
00:43:16.574 --> 00:43:19.324
[twigs snapping]
00:43:32.500 --> 00:43:33.640
- We're at the top of the island,
00:43:33.640 --> 00:43:34.810
and this is really important.
00:43:34.810 --> 00:43:37.243
What I have seen so far is that
00:43:37.243 --> 00:43:40.363
this is an amazing woods
and amazing wetland
00:43:40.363 --> 00:43:43.300
in the fact that there's not
very many invasive species.
00:43:43.300 --> 00:43:45.760
There are a few, but not very many.
00:43:45.760 --> 00:43:47.590
You just don't see that very much anymore.
00:43:47.590 --> 00:43:51.010
And this is why we need
to create this trail,
00:43:51.010 --> 00:43:52.900
to not only show it off
00:43:52.900 --> 00:43:55.090
and explain this is what we really have
00:43:55.090 --> 00:43:58.060
for an ideal location to have a refuge
00:43:58.060 --> 00:44:02.680
of amazing flora and
fauna, plants and wildlife,
00:44:02.680 --> 00:44:06.400
but we also need to
have this as a preserve.
00:44:06.400 --> 00:44:10.780
Protect this site as it is,
in its current condition.
00:44:10.780 --> 00:44:12.460
- You know, a lot of our malls,
00:44:12.460 --> 00:44:15.370
a lot of our development
occurred on wetlands
00:44:15.370 --> 00:44:17.380
that ended up getting filled in.
00:44:17.380 --> 00:44:21.190
It was seen as useless land by,
00:44:21.190 --> 00:44:24.190
you know, the growing developers.
00:44:24.190 --> 00:44:27.790
So to have the Shaker Swamp in as, again,
00:44:27.790 --> 00:44:30.160
pristine a condition as it's in,
00:44:30.160 --> 00:44:35.160
that captures this interplay
with the landscape,
00:44:35.350 --> 00:44:38.950
I think, is an incredible
asset for the town to have
00:44:38.950 --> 00:44:42.100
because, you know, so many communities,
00:44:42.100 --> 00:44:45.520
their large wetland
complexes are developed on.
00:44:45.520 --> 00:44:49.540
And New Lebanon has this resource
00:44:49.540 --> 00:44:54.540
of this really incredible encapsulation
00:44:55.323 --> 00:44:59.616
of ecology, both human and natural.
00:45:01.088 --> 00:45:04.671
[ethereal ambient music]
00:45:11.980 --> 00:45:14.860
- [Narrator] Again, in
the words of Annie Proulx,
00:45:14.860 --> 00:45:17.568
bogs and swamps take thousands of years
00:45:17.568 --> 00:45:19.368
to build up and develop.
00:45:19.368 --> 00:45:20.926
Humans and machinery
00:45:20.926 --> 00:45:24.100
can wipe out those
centuries in just months.
00:45:24.100 --> 00:45:27.280
But once a few interested
people put on their boots
00:45:27.280 --> 00:45:29.350
and go into the damaged wetland,
00:45:29.350 --> 00:45:32.350
and once their curiosity is aroused
00:45:32.350 --> 00:45:36.160
about how the water moves
and what plants, amphibians,
00:45:36.160 --> 00:45:40.390
and birds formally thrived
in their local remnant swamp,
00:45:40.390 --> 00:45:43.780
those preservation
forces are hard to stop.
00:45:43.780 --> 00:45:46.710
There is unequal joy in renovation.
00:45:48.904 --> 00:45:52.404
[lively orchestral music]
00:46:17.071 --> 00:46:20.154
[delicate piano music]
00:46:30.905 --> 00:46:34.155
[lively orchestral music]
00:47:49.073 --> 00:47:53.323
[orchestral music continues]
00:49:09.071 --> 00:49:13.321
[orchestral music continues]
00:49:28.809 --> 00:49:31.892
[melancholic piano music]
00:49:44.135 --> 00:49:47.468
[subdued orchestral music]
00:51:04.176 --> 00:51:08.343
[orchestral music continues]
00:52:09.528 --> 00:52:13.278
[orchestral music fades]
00:52:18.010 --> 00:52:20.230
[Narrator] In the decade of the 1960s,
00:52:20.230 --> 00:52:22.570
The Tilden Company was
driven out of business
00:52:22.570 --> 00:52:25.540
by the government's Food
and Drug Administration,
00:52:25.540 --> 00:52:27.400
basically due to the company's lack
00:52:27.400 --> 00:52:30.070
of modern medical testing
to support the claims
00:52:30.070 --> 00:52:31.993
of their natural herbal formulas.
00:52:33.190 --> 00:52:36.040
It's ironic that the decade of the 1960s
00:52:36.040 --> 00:52:39.430
that saw the death of Tilden's
natural medicine company
00:52:39.430 --> 00:52:41.950
was also the decade that saw the birth
00:52:41.950 --> 00:52:45.270
of the modern movement toward
alternative natural medicine.
00:52:47.770 --> 00:52:52.180
From the First Peoples through
the early Shaker settlers
00:52:52.180 --> 00:52:53.950
and onto the New Lebanon residents
00:52:53.950 --> 00:52:56.830
who built the Tilden
Pharmaceutical company,
00:52:56.830 --> 00:52:59.890
there was a remarkable thread
of knowledge about health
00:52:59.890 --> 00:53:04.450
and natural medicine that
was inspired, developed,
00:53:04.450 --> 00:53:08.173
and preserved at this one
environmental location.
00:53:09.753 --> 00:53:13.453
[ethereal ambient music]
