8/07/2021

West Family Preserve House

My last post showed a couple of different maps of Pleasant Hill's main cluster of buildings at the spot where US route 63 intersected with Kentucky route 33 before restoration of the village. One of the surviving original Shaker structures is the West Family preserve house, built in 1859 and sandwiched between the West Family wash house and the West Family sister's shop. 


Thanks to the Historic American Buildings Survey, a pre-restoration photo of the preserve house from 1940 exists in the Library of Congress collection.

The building as it appeared in 1940

History buffs/nerds/geeks like me will appreciate the card catalog entry for the photo that has been preserved in the collection:



7/30/2021

A Pleasant Village

 

At its peak, the 3,000-acre Shaker village at Pleasant Hill consisted of over 200 structures. Today, the restored village contains 34 restored original Shaker buildings. 

This map gives us a bird's-eye view of the structures located in the heart of the village, from Trustee's Office to pigsty, and is reminiscent of the cartography style used by two Shaker men from the New Lebanon community who visited their brethren almost 200 years ago.

The map is found within the pages of Michael Capek's 2001 book "A Personal Tour of a Shaker Village" -- a book for kids in grades 4-7 described by one reviewer as being written "through the eyes of a fictional deacon, former slave, teacher, physician, and visitor to worship, readers learn about daily life, from waking rituals and food preparation to tanning chores, carpentry projects, and the care of silkworms." 

What the reviewer is apparently unaware of is that while the account of their daily life is historical fiction, the people that Capek highlights in the book are real: 

Benjamin Dunlavy (deacon)

Patsy Roberts Williamson (former slave)

Hortensia Hooser (teacher)

John Shain (physician)

The visitor mentioned in Capek's story had an experience that was likely similar to visitors Rufus Bishop and Isaac Youngs when they traveled through the Western Shaker communities in 1834, recording their observations and mapping fascinating pictorial renderings (in the LOC collection) of all that they saw at that moment in time.

Citation from Library of Congress:

Youngs, Isaac N, and George Kendall. Sketches of the various Societies of Belivers i.e. Believers in the states of Ohio & Kentucky. To which is added a slight sketch of Sodus Bay in the northern part of N. York. Also a map containing several of the states on which is laid out of the route of Bv. Rufus Bishop and Isaac N. Youngs New Lebanon while on a hour to visit these societies, in the summer and fall of. 1835. Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2002622454/>.

7/18/2021

Hands To Work, Hearts To God

The 1985 Ken Burns production of The Shakers can be viewed online by members who can access PBS Passport (58 minutes). 

Through diaries, archival photographs, music and stunning cinematography, Ken Burns creates a moving portrait of this particularly American movement, and in the process, offers us an unusually moving way to understand the Shakers.


of note -- 

26:00 - The Kentucky Revival 1800

27:00 - In 1805, the same year that Lewis and Clark were exploring the great northwest, the ministry at Mount Lebanon [New York] sent three Believers to Kentucky to gather in the restless...

27:45 - On a bluegrass hill near the Kentucky River in Mercer County, forty-four converts signed the covenant and established a village called Pleasant Hill. The river was their road, connecting the Shakers to markets down the Ohio and the Mississippi.

29:27 - The Western Shakers had a particularly progressive Shaker spirit ...

7/17/2021

For the Shakers, the Church Was the Body of People

Dr. Jacob Glover, Director of Public Programs and Education at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, discusses the history and culture of the Shakers and the settlement at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill in this THINK HUMANITIES Podcast from Kentucky Humanities. Recorded in 2020. (52 minutes)

Shaker Box - An American Classic



This 40-minute YouTube video produced by The Highland Woodworker delves into the history and production of the classic Shaker box. It follows woodworker Tim Arnold who explains how taking a class at Pleasant Hill blossomed into a career crafting unique boxes in the Shaker tradition. 



7/14/2021

The Water House at Pleasant Hill

 Pleasant Hill produced this short and informative video on preservation at Pleasant Hill, with a focus on the water house.


The Library of Congress has archival material on the water house.