The cult that got away

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This was published 11 years ago

The cult that got away

Hancock Shaker Village, Pittsfield, Massacusetts.

Hancock Shaker Village, Pittsfield, Massacusetts.Credit: Alamy

Michael Gebicki discovers the lingering essence of the hard-working, self-sacrificing Shakers.

Outside Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Hancock Shaker Village is perhaps the finest surviving example of a Shaker community.

There is much to admire about Shakers. Officially known as the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, Shakers were a frugal, four-square, God-fearing people. They trace their roots to Manchester in 1747, where they began as a branch of the Protestant Church, with a strong anti-Catholic ethos. Persecuted in their native England, the Shakers transplanted themselves to the US in 1774 under the leadership of their founder, Mother Ann Lee.

Shakers lived in communes governed by rules that decreed not only what they could wear but also the colour of their floors and who they could marry, which was exactly no one. Ornament was shunned.

Their buildings as well as their lives were a synonym for simplicity. One rocking chair was sufficient comfort for a bedroom that might sleep four. Mirrors should not be larger than 12 inches x 18 inches (30 centimetres x 45 centimetres).

Not even the dinner plate was safe. According to the rules, a Shaker should cut his roast lamb at right angles. Their wilder emotions they reserved for prayer meetings, which included zestful singing, dancing, marching and generally whipping themselves into a frenzy of religious ecstasy, earned them the name "Shaking Quakers", or Shakers.

Although there are no practising Shakers at Hancock Shaker Village these days, their essence lingers, and visitors can freely wander around the 20 buildings where they worked, slept and worshipped, and the surrounding gardens. As well as tillers of the soil, communists, pacifists and teetotallers, they were prodigiously hard-working folk, and smart as new shoes. At Hancock Village they harnessed a diverted stream to drive a water turbine that powered a mechanical laundry.

They also devised ingenious kitchen appliances that were required to feed large numbers of hungry Shaker ploughmen in double-quick time, and a circular milking barn that was a marvel of its time. To make better use of their floor space, they developed the quaint habit of hanging chairs from pegs around the wall. But it is Shaker carpentry that sets the heart romping in the breast. Their plain, unembellished woodwork elevated utilitarian objects into art. Shaker cupboards, wardrobes, chairs and wooden boxes are masterworks, pared down to the utmost simplicity, the most mundane object displaying an absolute mastery of form.

Despite the attractions of weirdo prayer meetings and never having to decide what to wear, the Shakers were never numerous. Hancock Village was the third of 19 Shaker communities that were established in New England, New York, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Although they prospered, the movement peaked at fewer than 3000 members, and a congregation that practised total abstinence turned out to be one of their less-brilliant ideas. Celibacy forced them to depend on a steady supply of foundlings and orphans to grow.

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Today only a handful of Shakers remain, in a single community at Sabbathday Lake in Maine. In the age of TV evangelists, speaking in tongues, displays of religious fervour and the other wild excesses the Shakers formerly reserved for themselves have become common, and frugal self-abstainers are going the way of the dodo.

Trip notes

Getting there

Hancock Shaker Village is at 843 W. Housatonic Street, Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Pittsfield is a 250-kilometre, three-hour drive from New York City.

Qantas operates a direct, one-stop service from Sydney to New York at a starting price of $1398. qantas.com.au.

Visiting there

In 2013, Hancock Shaker Village is open from April 13 to October 27, from 10am to 4pm, and 10am-5pm after July 1.

More information

hancockshakervillage.org.

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