Section 202. Trusts for Shakers and Friends  


Latest version.
  • All deeds or declarations of
      trust of real  or  personal  property,  executed  and  delivered  before
      January first, eighteen hundred and thirty, or since May fifth, eighteen
      hundred  and  thirty-nine, to any person in trust for any United Society
      of Shakers, or heretofore  executed  and  delivered  to  any  person  or
      persons in trust for any meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or
      any of the purposes thereof, and the legal estates, interests and trusts
      purported  to  be conveyed, created or declared thereby, shall be valid.
      Trusts of real or personal property, for the  benefit  and  use  of  the
      members  of  any  United  Society  of  Shakers, or of any meeting of the
      Religious Society of Friends,  or  any  of  the  purposes  thereof,  may
      hereafter  be  created,  according to the religious constitution of such
      society of Shakers, or the regulations and rules of discipline  of  such
      Society  of Friends.  Such deeds or declarations of trust, heretofore or
      hereafter executed and delivered, shall vest in the trustees  the  legal
      estates  and  interests purported to be conveyed or declared thereby, to
      and for the uses and purposes declared therein; and such  legal  estates
      and  trusts,  and  all  legal authority with which the original trustees
      were vested by virtue of their appointment and conferred  powers,  shall
      descend  to  their  successors  in office or trust, who may be chosen in
      conformity to the constitution of such society,  or  the  directions  of
      such meeting.  In case of the death of all the trustees of any trust for
      the benefit of any meeting of the Religious Society of Friends or any of
      the  purposes  thereof,  heretofore  appointed,  or who may be hereafter
      appointed by virtue of this section, any  such  meeting  may  appoint  a
      trustee  or  trustees in place of such person or persons, and the person
      or persons thus appointed by such  meeting  shall  succeed  to,  and  be
      invested  with,  all  the  powers,  rights  and duties conferred by this
      section and the deed  or  declaration  of  trust  upon  the  trustee  or
      trustees.  In  case  of the consolidation of two or more meetings of the
      Religious Society of Friends into one meeting,  all  real  and  personal
      property   held   in  trust  for  either  or  any  of  the  meetings  so
      consolidated, or any of the  purposes  thereof,  shall  continue  to  be
      vested   in   the  trustees  holding  the  same  at  the  time  of  such
      consolidation, until their successors shall be chosen as above provided.
      Such consolidated meeting shall have the same rights, powers and  duties
      in  respect  to  such property, estates and trusts and in respect to the
      appointment of such trustees and their successors  as  the  meetings  so
      consolidated  or  either  of  them previously had. This section does not
      impair or diminish the rights of  any  person,  meeting  or  association
      claiming to be a meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, which such
      person,  meeting,  or  association  claiming to be a meeting, had to any
      real or personal property held in trust for the use and benefit  of  any
      meeting  of such society, before the division of such society which took
      place at the annual meeting held  in  the  city  of  New  York  in  May,
      eighteen  hundred  and twenty-eight.   An incorporated or unincorporated
      society or meeting of Shakers or the Religious Society  of  Friends  may
      take  and  hold  property  of  the  value  or yearly income permitted by
      statute to a corporation other than a stock corporation. No person shall
      be a trustee at the same time of more than one  society  of  Shakers  or
      meeting  of  Friends.  A  society of Shakers includes all persons of the
      religious belief of the people called Shakers, resident within the  same
      county.