NEW GLOUCESTER, Maine – For more than two centuries, the Shakers deftly balanced prayer with pragmatism. God would provide, they were certain. And what God overlooked, they took care of themselves.
Thus these pious men and women came to invent practical devices including the spring-loaded clothespin, the flat-bottom broom and the circular saw. They patented a washing machine in 1858. Their multichambered oven from 1878 strongly resembles contemporary restaurant ovens.
The clean, graceful lines of Shaker furniture helped inspire Danish modern design. Their straightforward style of building influenced the founders of the Bauhaus movement.
“Hands to work, hearts to God,” preached Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers’ founder.
The Shakers were never large in number. At its peak before the Civil War, 5,000 claimed membership in the monastic Protestant sect where men and women live as brothers and sisters. The group known formally as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing counsels self-reliance and mandates celibacy.
Today, four Shakers remain: two elderly women and two graying men. They are pondering the future not only of their faith but of their way of life.
The Shakers live communally, owning nothing as individuals. Favoring plain, utilitarian clothing, they shun adornment. They pray together several times a day. They believe life is a constant quest to emulate Christ.
“One of our founders said, ‘Even my every breath is a prayer to God,’” Brother Arnold Hadd said.
Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, their 1,800-acre farm and village in New Gloucester, Maine, is the last of 19 Shaker communities that once stretched from Maine to Florida. To preserve their legacy as well as their idyllic, lakeside property, the Shakers announced last month that they had entered into a trust with the state of Maine and several conservation groups.
The community they are seeking to protect has changed little in 200 years. Most of the village’s 19 buildings are white, wooden structures with sharp, pointed roofs and no ornamentation. Apple orchards dot a rolling landscape where pigs and cows graze peaceably. Flowerbeds abound, along with rows and rows of herbs and vegetables.
This land keeps them self-sufficient. To the Shakers, it is sacred soil, and they are the guardians for new generations – although the line of succession looks shaky. Lee predicted that when there were as many Shakers left as there were fingers on a child’s hand, the faith would rise again.
But no one has joined since Brother Wayne Smith, 41, became a Shaker in 1984. Sister Frances Carr, 78, is the village elderess. Sister June Carter is in her late 60s. Hadd, 48, is the village elder.
Besides the vagaries of age, the Shakers face worldly pressures. Property taxes hit $27,000 last year. Heating costs have soared. The village lies in the path of encroaching sprawl from Portland, half an hour south.
“Right now, we are sustaining our community,” said Hadd, the only Shaker who agreed to talk about the small religious group. He sat at a picnic table near the gift shop that attracts thousands who tour the property each year.
Paper sacks brimming with Cortland apples were for sale outside, on an honor system of payment. Inside, packaged herbs and floral wreaths lined the shelves. Delicate oval boxes, a traditional Shaker product carved by Smith, and pickles, jams and fudge made by Carter and Carr also were on display.
“These are very astute business folks,” said Tim Glidden, head of the Land for Maine’s Future Program, a partner in the Shakers’ trust agreement. “The Shakers have always interacted directly and immediately with the material world in a way that some other spiritual communities do not.”
The village also derives income by leasing 20 acres of farmland and 60 acres of orchards, as well as a large gravel pit. The stretch of shoreline that the Shakers own on Sabbathday Lake remains undeveloped while showy resort homes multiply nearby.
Smith and Hadd tend the livestock – 30 sheep, nine cattle, three pigs – and maintain farm equipment and the village buildings. The oldest building dates from the 1760s, and the newest – a garage – from 1910.
Carter manages the library, where thousands of Shaker documents are housed. She keeps the village records and handles correspondence. Carr tends the gardens, cooks every meal and writes books about the Shaker culture.
Most of the seven full-time employees work in the gift shop. In summers they are joined by eight part-time employees who help farm. About 60 members of a volunteer group, the Shaker Friends, annually visit to help with maintenance.
“Our life is not cheap,” Hadd said, although he did not disclose the village income or the costs of the operation. “We would never want to get to the point where we could not pay our bills.”
With their mortality weighing on them, the Shakers spent recent months crafting what amounts to a will and testament for their land and village. Under the agreement, the Shakers will sell conservation easements to the trust, allowing the village to ward off development and continue operating as long as there are Shakers to live there.
The agreement does not specify whether the property will become a park, museum or other public space should the Shakers die off. That decision would be made by a nonprofit corporation – the United Society of Shakers, Sabbathday Lake Inc. – whose board members are largely non-Shakers. The $3.7-million conservation plan relies on grants, donations and public funds.
Ann Lee was an illiterate blacksmith’s daughter from the slums of Manchester when she founded the sect in England in 1747. A British newspaper reporter who attended a service wrote in 1758 that the worshippers rolled on the floor and spoke in tongues. He dubbed them the Shaking Quakers, giving rise to the name by which the Shakers have long identified themselves.
Lee found steady persecution in England for radical beliefs that included the notion that men and women could coexist equally. In 1774, she led eight followers to America, where she believed the Shakers would live like angels in a heaven on Earth. The first Shaker settlement was in Watervliet, N.Y., near Albany.
Among Lee’s disciples was her husband, Abraham, who accepted her chastity vow. Lee, whose four children died before she was 30, had come to believe that sex caused most of the world’s problems.
Until the mid-20th century, the Shakers took in orphans who could choose to join the faith as adults. Carr is the last of the orphans.
Gerard Wertkin, director emeritus of the American Folk Art Museum in New York, said he was so drawn to the Shakers that he visited Sabbathday Lake village with his family for many years and wrote a book called “The Four Seasons of Shaker Life.”
Wertkin said the deal to preserve the village echoed long-held Shaker ideals. “One of the Shaker songs in the 19th century was called simply ‘Progress,’” he said. “It addresses the idea that truth will be better understood as they move forward into the future.”
As for the mechanics of that future, Wertkin said: “I think the Shakers intend to leave it all to God.”
Hadd said he was relieved to set up a legal structure to safeguard the village. “You see, besides being religious, Shakers are very practical,” he said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
