Hancock Shaker Village

These photos are from the Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Massachusetts. The orderliness and serenity remains even if the Shakers who once lived here do not. A museum since 1961 after the community here closed, Hancock was the third of a total of 19 Shaker communities founded between 1783 and 1836 in New York, New England, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana.

The Shakers, whose proper name is the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing reached a population peak in the mid-19th century at about 4,000 to 5,000 members. Today, the Shaker community remains active only at Sabbathday Lake in Maine.

The Hancock Shaker Village is an excellent resource on the Shakers and on 19th-century rural life. For more information, please have a look at this website.

Been there? Done that? Let us know.