Benjamin Osborn House | |
Location | Mount Washington, Massachusetts |
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Coordinates | 42°7′2″N73°28′12″W / 42.11722°N 73.47000°W Coordinates: 42°7′2″N73°28′12″W / 42.11722°N 73.47000°W |
Built | 1759 |
Architectural style | Colonial |
NRHP reference No. | 87001758 [1] |
Added to NRHP | October 1, 1987 |
The Benjamin Osborn House was a historic house off West Street in Mount Washington, Massachusetts. Built about 1759, it was a modest vernacular Georgian Cape style house. It was notable as a site where Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee stayed in 1781. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. [1] It was owned by the state, and located in Mount Washington State Forest.
The Osborn House was located down a long, wooded (and now abandoned) drive on the east side of West Road in Mount Washington, just to the east of a more modern, abandoned house. It was a 1+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, three bays wide, with a side-gable roof, clapboard siding, and a central chimney. Its exterior was devoid of significant stylistic elements. The interior had mainly 20th-century finishes, although the building's post and beam structure was visible. Its original two fireplaces had been replaced by a single one. The property includes an unmaintained orchard with trees estimated to be over 150 years old, and the Osborn family cemetery, located near West Street. [2]
The house was probably built not long after Benjamin Osborn bought a large tract of land here in 1759. [2] Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee stayed at the farmhouse during her May 1781 missionary journey to Tucconack Mountain (renamed Mount Washington, following the American victory in the American Revolutionary War). She is reported to have stayed in the area for about ten days, attracting large numbers of both sympathizers and detractors. [3]
The house was acquired by the state in 1958, and was part of Mount Washington State Forest. [2]
The Osborn House, and the other nearby building, were struck by fire on December 15, 2019, as was a private residence in the vicinity. The historic Osborn House was totally destroyed, and the fires are regarded by the state Fire Marshal's office as suspect. [4]
The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers, are a millenarian restorationist Christian sect founded c. 1747 in England and then organized in the United States in the 1780s. They were initially known as "Shaking Quakers" because of their ecstatic behavior during worship services. Espousing egalitarian ideals, women took on spiritual leadership roles alongside men, including founding leaders such as Jane Wardley, Ann Lee, and Lucy Wright. The Shakers emigrated from England and settled in Revolutionary colonial America, with an initial settlement at Watervliet, New York, in 1774. They practice a celibate and communal utopian lifestyle, pacifism, uniform charismatic worship, and their model of equality of the sexes, which they institutionalized in their society in the 1780s. They are also known for their simple living, architecture, technological innovation, music, and furniture.
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Ann Lee, commonly known as Mother Ann Lee, was the founding leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, or the Shakers.
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This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
The Washington–Rochambeau Revolutionary Route is a 680-mile (1,090 km) series of roads used in 1781 by the Continental Army under the command of George Washington and the Expédition Particulière under the command of Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau during their 14-week march from Newport, Rhode Island to Yorktown, Virginia. 4,000 French and 3,000 American soldiers began the march.
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Harvard Shaker Village Historic District is a historic former Shaker community located roughly on Shaker Road, South Shaker Road, and Maple Lane in Harvard, Massachusetts. It was the second oldest Shaker settlement in Massachusetts and the third oldest in the United States.
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Alfred Shaker Historic District is a historic district in Alfred, Maine, with properties on both sides of Shaker Hill Road. The area had its first Shaker "believers" in 1783 following visiting with Mother Ann Lee and became an official community starting in 1793 when a meetinghouse was built. It was home to Maine's oldest and largest Shaker community. Two notable events were the songwriting of Joseph Brackett, including, according to most accounts, Simple Gifts, and the spiritual healing of the sick by the Shakers. When the Alfred Shakers products and goods were no longer competitive with mass-produced products and the membership had dwindled significantly, the village was closed in 1931 and members moved to Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, also in Maine.
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The early chronology of Shakers is a list of important events pertaining to the early history Shakers, a denomination of Christianity. Millenarians who believe that their founder, Ann Lee, experienced the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the Shakers practice celibacy, confession of sin, communalism, ecstatic worship, pacifism, and egalitarianism. This list cover the periods from 1747 to 1826. This spans the emergence of denomination in the mid-18th century, the emigration of the Shakers to New York on the eve of the American Revolution, and subsequent missionary work and the establishment of nineteen major planned communities.
The Shakers are a sect of Christianity which practices celibacy, communal living, confession of sin, egalitarianism, and pacifism. After starting in England, the Shakers left that country for the English colonies in North America in 1774. As they gained converts, the Shakers established numerous communities in the late-18th century through the entire 19th century. The first villages organized in Upstate New York and the New England states, and, through Shaker missionary efforts, Shaker communities appeared in the Midwestern states. Communities of Shakers were governed by area bishoprics and within the communities individuals were grouped into "family" units and worked together to manage daily activities. By 1836 eighteen major, long-term societies were founded, comprising some sixty families, along with a failed commune in Indiana. Many smaller, short-lived communities were established over the course of the 19th century, including two failed ventures into the Southeastern United States and an urban community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Shakers peaked in population by the 1840s and early 1850s, with a membership between 4,000 and 9,000. Growth in membership began to stagnate by the mid 1850s. In the turmoil of the American Civil War and subsequent Industrial Revolution, Shakerism went into severe decline. As the number of living Shakers diminished, Shaker communes were disbanded or otherwise ceased to exist. Some of their buildings and sites have become museums, and many are historic districts under the National Register of Historic Places. The only active community is Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in Maine, which is composed of at least three active members.
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