The Shaws were early settlers of Sheshequin, and several of them played significant roles in the early history of our church.

Ebenezer Shaw, known as “The Centenarian” because he lived to be one hundred years old, came to Sheshequin from Rhode Island in 1786, when he was fifteen. As an adult he farmed on property about half a mile south of the Sheshequin meeting house.

The Rev. George Rogers, an itinerant Universalist preacher who was then serving the congregation in Brooklyn, Pa., stayed with the Shaws during his first visit to Sheshequin in 1832. Ebenezer’s daughter Matilda met him at the door when he arrived. Matilda was a close friend of the poet Julia Kinney Scott. The Kinneys lived just up the road, between the Shaws’ and the Universalist meeting house.

Ebenezer Shaw and his wife Cinthia are on the earliest (1833) surviving list of members of the Sheshequin Universalist Society. The Society apparently had a tradition of having the oldest Trustee of the congregation serve as Moderator at its annual meetings. Ebenezer Shaw filled that role in 1843 and 1847; he was also on the Board of Trustees.

Five of the Shaw children – Harry, Hiram, Matilda, Norman, and Cynthia Eliasaph – were also members in 1833. The youngest, Ebenezer P. (“Percival”), was a member in 1845. The oldest son Uriah was also a Universalist, though his name never appears on a Sheshequin membership list. Uriah Shaw spent his adult life in Ulster; at one time Ulster had a Universalist society, to which Uriah might have belonged.

When construction of the Sheshequin meeting house began in 1822, Uriah Shaw was sixteen years old. He was a carpenter and probably worked on the building.

In 1935 Uriah’s niece Theresa Shaw Gore wrote in a letter to her son that the meeting house “was built by different ones’ works, as drawing stones for the basement drain & lumber, all turned out to help. Uncle Hiram, being a carpenter, did a lot of work on it – all for free.”

Theresa’s “Uncle Hiram,” a younger brother of Uriah, was only ten years old in 1822. Maybe Hiram worked on the building nearer its completion in 1827, or maybe Theresa’s memory was incorrect. She was born in 1848, long after the meeting house was completed. And she was 87 years old when she wrote that letter.