Author: Bates, Issachar
Biography:
BATES, Issachar (1758-1837: ancestry.com)
Born in Hingham MA to William and Mercy Bates. He taught himself to play the fife and served as a fifer during the Revolution. In 1778 he married Lovina Maynard; they had nine children. They eventually settled in Hartford NY, where he was a member of the Baptist congregation and acted as choirmaster, but after a conversion experience he left his family in 1801 to join the Shakers in New Lebanon NY. As a Shaker missionary, he walked tens of thousands of miles through Kentucky and Ohio, leading the singing at meetings and composing hymns that are still in circulation. He returned to New Lebanon in 1835 for his final years. (Wikipedia 13 Nov. 2017; Carol Medlicott, Issachar Bates: A Shaker's Journey [2013]) HJ