Shaker Trustees' Building – Second Chance at Life

A small Shaker community, founded in 1826 in Sodus, New York, relocated a decade later to western New York’s Genesee Valley. The land there was part of the hamlet of Sonyea, in the southwest corner of the Town of Groveland in Livingston County (New York counties are divided up into smaller divisions called towns). 

1852 Smith & Gillett map of Livingston County showing Town of Groveland 

By mid-1838 the move was complete and the Shakers settled as East and West families, building shops, barns, residences, a gristmill and three-story sawmill, and, circa 1839, a new office building at Groveland for the Trustees of the East family. This Trustees' building was also known, not by the Shakers but later by the Board of Managers of the institution that acquired the property, as the "Chestnut." 

As was the case in all Shaker communities, Trustees were the men and women of the community who managed the economic affairs on behalf of the community. Their building often served multiple uses but primarily as an office where business with the outside world was conducted. Trustees' buildings often reflected the Shaker commitment to simplicity and practicality in architecture.

Article from 1987 shows the Trustee's building at its new site in Mumford, New York

By 1892, the Groveland community, once populated by as many as 150 individuals, had been reduced to just 34 and had to close its doors. Shaker brother Hamilton DeGraw wrote in the Mount Morris Union newspaper on Thursday, October 20, 1892 an article "intended as a farewell greeting to dear friends and neighbors." He said: "The final and crucial test of any organization whether religious, societal or political, lies not in its popularity but in the amount of actual work done for human development." He went on to acknowledge "deep feelings of gratitude that we all feel for the kindly manifestations of sympathy and love that have been expressed by the community since the knowledge of our removal was made public. We have many attachments that endear us to the people of the Genesee Valley and Western New York, and tho' removed in body our prayers and sympathy will be with the people here."

DeGraw and the remaining members moved to the Watervliet, NY community (aka Niskayuna). The Groveland property was sold, for charitable use, to New York State and from 1894 to the 1980s the land and buildings housed an institution for people with epilepsy. 

In 1984, Genesee Country Village & Museum, an educational institution established in 1966 with the goal of preserving the architecture of the Genesee Valley region in a recreated historic village, acquired the Trustee’s building and moved it about 24 miles north to their property at Mumford, Wayne County.  

The colonial style timber frame with wood clapboard siding had a symmetrical façade, with evenly spaced windows, chimneys at either end, and a central hallway with staircase. The building housed a kitchen, dining room, office, and store. The top floor attic space was reportedly used as an infirmary. The meetinghouse at Groveland, built in 1842 and destroyed by fire in the first half of the 20th century, was reportedly painted a light blue, deviating from the traditional white reserved for Shaker houses of worship. Instead, it seems, the Shakers at Groveland painted their Trustee's building white.

Groveland Shaker Trustee’s building, restored and painted white 

Since 1982, the New York State Department of Corrections has operated Groveland Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison for males, at the site of the old Shaker community.

Beauty in Trusswork

I recently had the privilege of touring one of the surviving privately owned West Family structures from the Watervliet, New York community and took this photo of the attic space, the afternoon sunlight streaming through.

Divorce, Shaker Style

I recently finished reading The Great Divorce : A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times by Ilyon Woo and it made me more curious about the life of Nancy Runyon Ryan.  

Nancy, at age 20, had married Thomas Ryan in 1807. Within a few years the majority of her family had joined the Society at Pleasant Hill and Nancy and Thomas were busy with twin boys Lawson and Wesley, born in 1808. An interview conducted in 1835 reveals what happened next.

"Mr. Crouch had a sister that married a Ryan. That sister's son, living in Mercer [County, Kentucky] married into a family of Runyons. Runyons lived on this side of the Kentucky River, between there and Lexington. The whole family joined the Shakers, and younger Ryan's wife thought she must go too. She left twins lying in the cradle and went. This brought Ryan into conflict with one, whom he beats himself severely. Another one, that came to his house, he beat nearly to death. The man thought to go to the law but the magistrate advised him to keep away and let Ryan alone."

The interview certainly paints Nancy as a woman who has abandoned her babies but the Shaker journals help explain. They tell us that Nancy became a Believer in 1810, so Thomas' run-in with the brethren must have happened in 1810 when the twins were still quite young. Perhaps they had visited Thomas to proselytize, hoping to persuade him to try the Shaker way of life.  The journals also tell us it was another five years before Nancy was able to live among the faithful at Pleasant Hill. 

Having given birth to a daughter (Nancy Jr., born in 1812) during those years we can speculate that she soon returned to Thomas' household. Was she trying to convince her husband to join with her? Did the Church leadership offer Nancy help or advice based on similar experiences in other communities? Did Thomas die during this time? We know only that she arrived in the Spring of 1815, and that her children joined her there in May of that year. Who brought the children? 

We will likely never know the specifics but, like the protagonist in The Great Divorce, it seems Thomas was vehemently opposed to the idea of joining a celibate commune. 

While Nancy's saga was taking place in Kentucky, Mother Lucy Wright was consulting with the Elders at the community of Watervliet outside Albany. There, James Chapman had left his family to become a Believer. He soon returned home for his children against his wife's wishes. Eunice Chapman, had no legal rights to their children but was not going to give them up without a fight. This is the subject of The Great Divorce. In the NPR clip below, the author explains how women of this period, upon marriage, became "civilly dead." 

At Pleasant Hill, Nancy Runyon Ryan lived to age 65 and died a Believer. Her three children were raised among the Shakers, presumably with no further objection from their father. Each left Pleasant Hill separately while in their teens. 

I'll leave it for you to discover whether James Champman and his children remain Shakers or "go to the world."

Listen to a 6-minute NPR interview with the author here:

Watervliet - the first of the villages

Watervliet Center, North Albany, Albany and Schenectady Counties, 

New York, published by Stone & Stewart, 1866

Recently, I had a day to spend in Albany and decided to finally see the first of the Shaker communities - Watervliet. The area was known as Niskayuna by the natives and Watervliet by the Dutch settlers. Today, what remains of the Shaker village is within the Town of Colonie, adjacent to the Albany International Airport.


At its peak in 1839, Watervliet had 350 members and 2,500 acres of land. Sadly, in the 1920s, a fire destroyed all of the North Family buildings.  The South and West Family buildings were sold off to private hands;some are still standing. A handful of the Church Family buildings remain. I happened upon the village during an annual craft show in the meeting house and picked up some lovely Christmas gifts.

Thanks to a reworking of the east-west road that runs through the community, drivers cannot easily cut-through the village and this effectively slows the pace, enabling one to envision life here in the late 18th century and 19th century, before flight and automobiles. Inviting trails surround the old mill pond just south of the church family cluster.

Beautifully-drawn plans of the Shaker community at Watervliet, as it was in the 1930s, as the county was taking over the property, are here

Watervliet community showing locations of Church, North, West, and South Family plus Cemetery (north to the left)

Detail of South Family shows Shaker precision, order and practicality 

This 1813 poem about Watervliet was written at the Hancock, Massachusetts community and republished in Landmarks of American women's history by Page Putnam Miller :

Mother

Near Albany they settled

And waited for a while

Until a mighty shaking

Made all the desert smile

At length a gentle whisper

The tidings did convey

And many flocked to Mother

To learn the living Way

It's just a short walk from the Church family buildings to the cemetery where I visited Ann Lee's grave. Her brother William rests beside her on one side in the quiet, orderly burial ground. On her other side is the grave of Mother Lucy Wright, who ran the New York communities after Ann's death. As with the Runyon family, Lucy and her husband Elizur Goodrich joined the Shakers with many of their extended family members.

What impressed me most about Watervliet was how little remains. Of 778 original acres, most is now taken up by the airport, surrounding business complexes, the country club, the county jail. It makes me realize how lucky we are to have Pleasant Hill in its present condition.

On this date 232 years ago ...

Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers in America died at the community of Watervliet, New York.

Do all your work as though 

you've a thousand years to live, 

and as you would if you knew 

you must die tomorrow. 

- Mother Ann Lee 

Ann Lee's grave at the Shaker Cemetery in Albany County, NY
Photo by Erik Lander, 2001