Jill's Journal: Once again we braved the intense heat and humidity for a little history today. The girls and I headed to Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill near Harrodsburg, Kentucky. I loved this photo of the three girls getting their “Shake” on.
The largest restored Shaker community in North America, Shaker Village is a 3,000-acre living museum with costumed guides showing how life was 200 years ago in a celibate religious commune. There are 34 restored buildings – everything from a privy to a meeting hall – and 25 miles of rock fences. Men and women, called brethren and sisters, all lived and worked together in quiet discipline and equality, but the two genders were kept completely separate in everything from work to worship to meals. I found the original “laundromat/wash house” most intriguing after our washing machine drama of late! But the girls were most amazed by the Shaker-style, revival-like, wild song recreated by one of the interpreters (apparently these people really “shook” when worshiping as they felt moved by the Spirit of God; they were originally called “Shaking Quakers” before their quest for simplicity led them to shorten the name to “Shakers”). The musical performance was only forgotten by the girls after they discovered the wide variety of animals…turkeys, goats, cats, oxen, and Percherons (a breed of draft horses). Farming is still done on the property using the oxen and Percherons and an antique plow!
Interestingly and obviously, a celibate commune must rely on recruits to keep its population going. The Shaker movement was brought to the New World by nine people on a broken-down ship from England in 1774. The last Shaker of Pleasant Hill died in 1923. Of the 19 original villages stretching from Maine to Kentucky, only one in Maine remains an active Shaker community with just four remaining residents.
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