it's almost as though Solomon and Elizabeth were mocking the shakers by using shaker aliases to cover up their polygamy lifestyle (because the shakers were celibate). they probably knew about them because of their backgrounds as quakers, and because a shaker settlement wasn't located very far away. in fact, some people who lived in the west union settlement in knox county, Indiana probably seceded from the shaker faith and relocated to morgan county, Indiana where Solomon and Elizabeth lived.