The Strange Cult of the “Knee Benders”: Interesting People #3

Kneeling Barbarian – Roman sculpture, 1st c. AD. [Source: Wikipedia Commons.]

For part three of our “Interesting People” series, we go to a proto-Ministry of Silly Walks in New York state, for “The Knee Benders.”

STRANGE SECT OF “KNEE BENDERS.”

NEW RELIGION THAT IS OPPOSED TO WALKING.

VOTARIES DON’T BELIEVE IN FUTURE PUNISHMENT, BUT IN GREAT SORROW AS PENALTY OF SIN.

[New York World.] The famous “drill” of the Salvation Army [prayer services spent on the knees]  has been surpassed. All the strange religious beliefs that have sprouted, as it were, in the fertile soil of Central New York, are at last paralleled in strangeness by a new sect of recent growth. The rapt Shakers, the strange commune of Oneida, the Mormons, with their mystic rites, who have long left the state, are less violently unlike the vast majority of mankind than these new sectaries. Scattered along the eastern shore of Seneca Lake, these people live in daily practice of the strange rite which has earned them the name of the “Knee Benders.” The name comes from the fact that the members of this strange band do their daily work and conduct their worship while on their knees. It was only last spring that this method of worship originated There is a small colony of foreigners, principally Swedes and Poles, settled in that region. Among these is a Swede named Johann Burson. A few months ago he began to act in a very strange manner and announced that he had several strange visions. He spent much of his time on a knoll of ground on his knees, and refused to work. He had been a small farmer, and he declared that he had been commanded in a vision to spend the rest of his life kneeling. So whatever Burson did, whether tilling his fields or driving his cattle to the field or weeding his garden patch, he never rose from his knees. Soon practice made him adept in his strange method of locomotion and it was noticed that he could get about with surprising agility. Soon his entire family began to kneel while at their daily work, and

THE INFECTION SPREAD

Among his neighbors, until now the sect numbers nearly 50 persons, all of whom literally spend nearly all their waking hours upon their knees. There are few of them, however, who have attained to such complete holiness as Burson. Most of them will use their feet at times as nature intended. Of course all the brotherhood soon found it necessary to provide leathern covering for the knees as ordinary raiment is little fitted for such a strange method of locomotion. The religious conceptions of the Knee-Benders are crude, and void of originality except in the one particular mentioned. They deny that there is any future punishment, but believe that the result of sin is received on earth in the form of some great sorrow. They do not recognize a Supreme Being, but attribute everything to nature, and they make their prayers to her. There is an element of socialism in their belief, and they cultivate their small farms in common, doing all the work that is possible upon their knees. Several times a day knee-bending services are held on the knoll where Burson had his vision, the worshipers always turning their faces toward the sun. This elevation is designated as the “Holy Knoll,” and the Knee-Benders regard it as sacred. The grass there is kept smooth, and the little hill is used for no other purpose than prayer. Outsiders or unbelievers of their creed are never allowed to set foot upon it, and at intervals services are held there of a pantheistic nature, in which the forces of nature are extolled rather than worshiped, and the forms of the assembled sectaries are bowed in recognition of Nature’s bounty. The neighborhood where the Knee-Benders dwell is sparsely settled, and those who dwell there have enough to occupy their minds and hands without bothering the brethren. After the first novelty of the thing had worn off no one seems to have paid much attention to them. Even the farmers’ boys living near them have ceased to take any notice of their queer ways.

ALL THE KNEE BENDERS

Are very poor, live in rude houses and speak little English. Their land is hard and clayey and needs great attention to make it productive. They are faithful workers, but their methods of farming are crude. One peculiar feature of their work is the way they prepare the soil for sowing. Men with large wooden mallets go over the ground on their knees, breaking up the lumps of soil with the mallets, and thus preparing it for cultivation. Central New York has been the birthplace of many strange religious sects, but as a psychological study none has been more interesting than the Knee Benders. If they are as tenacious of life as most other strange doctrinaires have been it is likely that they will continue year after year to hold their strange belief, that the communistic features of their faith will become more pronounced, and that in time they will become a closely knit community, seldom mingling with the world outside, neither growing by accessions nor depleted by death—a tiny world within the world, unnoticed by their normal brethren and unheeding in their turn. There are a few strange sectaries in the world who are as sensational in their devotions as

THE KNEE BENDERS

But one must travel far to find them. In no other part of the world, indeed, are they more numerous than in New York. The Oneida Community is an example of the extremes to which religious vagaries can go in the Empire State—the center of light, learning and civilization in the New York. The Holy Rollers are another strange New York sect whose rites are indicated by their uncouth name. The “Holy Grunters” is the irreverent name applied by their neighbors to a type fast disappearing of exhorters who exhaust the breath with every phrase so that it is regained with a husky guttural gasp… [another post, another day] The “Knee Benders” would make a fine literary study, if Walter Besant could visit them. Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 23 October 1897: p. 11.

Johann Burson apparently did not get the memo from Micah 6:8 about the requirement “to walk humbly with thy God.” One wonders what relationship (if any) this mania bears to other religious persons who performed extreme religious feats such as St. Simeon Stylites doing holy calisthenics on his pillar, the Shaker dancers, or Hindu ascetics who hold their arms up until the muscles atrophy?  Feel free to rise before sending any thoughts to chriswoodyard8 AT gmail. com.