We Learn About the Shakers

From Albany we drove about ten miles southeast to Old Chatham to learn about the Shakers who are more properly known as the United Society of Believers. We drove through rolling countryside and passed a huge field where people where putting their horses back in the horse trailers. Looked like a hunt meet. We learned that they hunt twice a week here. Wealthy area, I guess.

The first Shaker settlement was in Albany, New York. “Mother” Ann Lee, who came from Manchester, England in 1780, and other early Shakers are buried there. It was on my list to see but we didn’t get there. It’s closed on Sunday so we decided on this Museum.

The Shaker Museum and Library in Old Chatham is the result of one man’s lifetime collection of “all things Shaker.” John Williams collected 15,000 objects and 19,000 archival items that reflect the spiritual, domestic and industrial aspects of Shaker life. The non-profit group that operates the museum have purchased part of a former Shaker settlement at Mount Lebanon, about 25 miles from here. They hope to restore a huge barn (the Great Stone Barn) and move the museum and library there.

Mount Lebanon Shaker Village was the largest and most industrious Shaker community from 1785 to 1947. It was the spiritual center of Shaker society and Lebanon’s ministry directed the spiritual, temporal, and social activities of other villages. There were 600 members organized into eight families on 6,000 acres. Seed production, patent medicines, and chair manufacturing were among the many lucrative industries that supported the community.

There were societies founded in seven states but the only “active” one is in New Gloucester, Main and there are only four Shakers living there. Five of the sites are National Historic Landmarks.

The Shakers tried to establish “heaven on earth” through the practice of communitarian social organization, pacifism, celibacy, gender equality, and the public confession of sin.
They challenged prevailing ideas about worship, marriage, the family, and social and economic order. They made contributions to the history of American music, arts, architecture, business, and religion. They were the opposite of the Amish in terms of embracing technology. Non-Shaker farmers would buy equipment based on whether or not the Shakers were using it, because the Shakers’ farm production was so successful. They invented and marketed a washing machine that would wash and rinse multiple loads of laundry at once. Hotels were big customers. Their furniture design with its clean, simple lines, is legendary.

There were very few visitors there. It is off the beaten track. We spent quite a long time talking to one of the volunteers and learning about the Shakers.