CANTERBURY, N.H.
Bourne is sitting at a desk working on a beautiful chair pad, a colorful dogwood flower pattern she is hooking by hand. It would be something the Shakers would have done in this bright, simple room, along with mending, knitting, and sewing.
“Did you know that the Shakers were one of the first people to use a sewing machine?” Bourne asked.
We didn’t. In fact, we didn’t know much about the Shakers and their beliefs until we recently visited this pretty preserved village.
The Canterbury Shaker Village, arguably one of the most historically pristine sites in New England, sits on a hilltop overlooking some 700 acres of pastoral land, forests, nature trails, and ponds. Visitors can tour the cluster of 25 original Shaker buildings, hike trails, have a picnic, and participate in a variety of fun activities and hands-on workshops. This year, the living history museum will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a variety of special events and expanded programming.
It was a woman, Ann Lee, who was the founder and leader of the Shakers in America. She emigrated from England to the United States, establishing the first Shaker community near Albany, N.Y., in 1776. Eventually there would be 19 communities spread from Maine to Kentucky. The Canterbury Shaker Village, established in 1792, was sustainable for more than 200 years. At its height during the 1850s, Canterbury Shaker Village had more than 100 buildings and some 300 people who lived and worked there. Today, it operates as a living history museum, and remains one of the oldest and best preserved of the Shaker villages.
You can roam the site on your own or take a guided tour (special tours are offered for kids and families) and attend workshops (learn to craft a Shaker oval box or tape a Shaker chair, or be a woodwright’s apprentice for a few hours).
We visited on a cold, wet day and joined a handful of other people on the guided tour. Our first stop was the Meeting House, which was the Shakers’ place of worship. Built in 1792, it was the first building erected on land donated by a local farmer. Today, it’s the only intact, first-generation Meetinghouse in its original location. It’s a simple, unadorned space, with seating divided by gender. The Shakers were celibate, and their spaces were divided, the south and east sides of any building were for the women (sisters) and the north and west sides reserved for men (brothers). Often there were separate entrances and stairways into buildings. We wondered out loud why the Shakers didn’t die out sooner, and we’re told that the Shakers would often take in orphans and other families.
“In many ways they were way ahead of their time,” Joanne DeBold, our guide and museum interpreter, said. “They treated men and women equal, and they believed that all work, whether you were mopping a floor or crafting furniture, had equal value and contributed to the common good of the community.”
We passed the sprawling Dwelling House, built in 1793, and visited their large laundry area, spin shop, and dry house (for drying herbs), where we learned of the Shakers’ embrace of technology and innovation. Among other things, the Shakers were some of the first to have phones, lights, and indoor hot and cold water; they invented and patented several technologies including one of the first washing machines and extractors for drying clothes.
“They were constantly embracing technology to make their lives more efficient,” DeBold said. “The more efficient they were with tasks, the more time they’d have for religious and spiritual things.”
While the Shakers believed in communal ownership (also pacifism, equality of the sexes, and living simply), they were also successful entrepreneurs and inventors. By the 1830s, the community was fully sustainable and successfully competing in the outside world, selling their food, livestock, textiles, furniture, and more.
After the tour, we visited other buildings and watched people demonstrating traditional Shaker tasks. Some of the crafts you can see on-site are letterpress printing, oval box making, woodworking, chair taping, spinning and weaving, rug braiding, and sewing.
Gardeners were beginning to prepare and plant the fields, early spring flowers were dotting the rolling, picturesque landscape. It was pretty and peaceful. Not a bad way to live, we thought: simple, efficient, with a belief in pacifism and equality. But maybe not that celibate part.
If you go:
Canterbury Shaker Village, 603-783-9511, www.shakers.org. Adults $19, ages 6-17 $9, family of two adults and two or more children ages 6-17 $45. The museum will be hosting a variety of special events throughout the season, including Traditional Crafts Days, June 29-30; Arts Week, July 23-Aug. 3; Canterbury Artisan Festival, Sept. 14; Vintage Car Show, Oct. 12; and Harvest Music Festival, Oct. 26.
Diane Bair and Pamela Wright can be reached at bairwright@gmail.com.