Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village is a Shaker village near New Gloucester and Poland, Maine, in the United States. It is the last active Shaker community, with two members as of 2022[update].[7][8][9] With a new member, it had expanded to three members by 2021.[10] The community was established in either 1782, 1783, or 1793, at the height of the Shaker movement in the United States. The Sabbathday Lake meetinghouse was built in 1794. The entire property was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974.[4][6]
The Shakers were originally located in England in 1747, in the home of Mother Ann Lee. They developed from the religious group called the Quakers which originated in the 17th century. Both groups believed that everybody could find God within him or herself, rather than through clergy or rituals, but the Shakers tended to be more emotional and demonstrative in their worship. Shakers also believed that their lives should be dedicated to pursuing perfection, continuously confessing their sins, and attempting a cessation of sinning.[11]
The Shaker settlement at Sabbathday Lake was established by a group of Shaker missionaries in 1782, and was then known as Thompson's Pond Plantation. The first members were from Gorham, Maine. The community grew to over two hundred members in less than a year.[3] Its location in Cumberland County, Maine made it the most northern and eastern of all the Shaker communes. They raised their meetinghouse in April 1794 and built their first dwelling across the road in 1795.[13]
The Sabbathday Lake community grew to a size of 1,900 acres (770ha) with 26 large buildings by 1850. Buildings on the grounds included the meetinghouse and the Brethren's Shop, which still holds a working blacksmith shop and woodworking operation. A large new Central Dwelling House was built in 1883[2] or 1884.[1] The Shakers strived to be as self-sufficient as possible, while being an active part of the community. They built a mill and farm that enabled them to sell produce and commercial goods to the outside world.[1]
Membership
By 1800, more than 140 believers lived at Sabbathday Lake community.[14] By 1850, seventy Shakers lived in the Sabbathday Lake Church Family at New Gloucester.[15] The 1880 census listed 43 believers at Sabbathday Lake.[16] Membership hovered around that level until the 1930s, when only about thirty members remained. Two members remain as of January 2020.
Covenant
In 1957, after "months of prayer," Eldresses Gertrude, Emma, and Ida, the leaders of the United Society of Believers and members of Canterbury Shaker Village, voted to close the Shaker Covenant, the document which all new members need to sign to become members of the Shakers.[17] In 1988, speaking about the three men and women in their 20s and 30s who had joined the Shakers and were living in the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, Eldress Bertha Lindsay said, "To become a Shaker you have to sign a legal document taking the necessary vows and that document, the official covenant, is locked up in our safe. Membership is closed forever."[17]
However, a covenant is a contract with reciprocal obligations. Once executed between a number of parties, a covenant cannot be dissolved unless all parties agree—and the eldresses did not have the agreement of all remaining covenanted members.[citation needed]
The Sabbathday Lake Shakers reopened their worship services to the public in 1963.[18]
The central dwelling house
In the twenty-first century
Membership to the community is still open, and occasionally "novices" explore joining the society.[2]
As of 2006, the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village has 14 working buildings, including the Central Dwelling House, which includes a music room, chapel, kitchen, and large dining room.[1] The community still holds regular Public Meetings (worship services) on Sundays in the 1794 meetinghouse.
Another building with historical significance is the Shaker Library, which houses a rich collection of Shaker records for historical research.
Other historic buildings include the Cart and Carriage Shed, Ox Barn, The Girl's Shop, Herb House, Brooder House, Wood House, a garage built in 1910 for the group's first car,[2] stable, Summer House, and the Laundry building.[4] The village, which attracts up to 10,000 visitors a year,[2] has been open to the public since 1931, when the Shaker Museum and Library was established.[19]
Sabbathday Lake Shaker VillageAurelia Gay Mace, leader of Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village and author of The Aletheia: Spirit of Truth, a Series of Letters in Which the Principles of the United Society Known as Shakers are Set Forth and Illustrated, 1899, and The Mission and Testimony of the Shakers of the Twentieth Century to the World, 1904.
The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Museum is the largest repository of Maine Shaker culture. Examples of furniture, oval boxes, woodenware, metal and tin wares, technology and tools, "fancy" sales goods, costume and textiles, visual arts, and herbal and medicinal products are among the 13,000 artifacts currently in the Sabbathday Lake collection. Although the collection represents every Shaker Community known to have existed, special emphasis has been placed upon preserving the heritage of the Maine Shaker Communities, including Sabbathday Lake, Poland Hill, Gorham, and Alfred.[19]
Present and future
Barns at Sabbathday Lake Village
As Shakers are celibate, new members cannot be born into the group and must join from the outside.[2] Many prospective members regard celibacy as a major obstacle which keeps them from joining. Current members have taken steps to ensure that Sabbathday Lake Village will remain largely unchanged when the final members of the group die.[2]
The 1,643 acres (665ha) of land owned by the Shakers in both Cumberland County and Androscoggin County include Sabbathday Lake which is 340 acres (140ha) with 5,000 feet (1,500m) of undeveloped shoreline with a beach that is open to the public and the 150 acres (61ha) Shaker Bog.[2] Other dismantled Shaker villages were converted into housing lots or prisons. In order to avoid this fate at Sabbathday Lake, the Shakers took some preventive measures in 2001.[2]
Preservation and conservation easements were sold to Maine Preservation and the New England Forestry Foundation. These two groups, with the help of eight other public and non-profit agencies, are working to cover cost of the easements. The village and surrounding farmland and forests will be protected from development. Brother Arnold Hadd was quoted by the Boston Globe in 2006. "We can't put up a Wal-Mart. Or a housing development. The land always has to remain for agricultural and forest purposes."[2]
The sale of future development rights has enabled the Shakers to restore and maintain the structures of the village. They also make money by leasing 29 cottage lots on Sabbathday Lake, leasing 1,000 acres (400ha) of forests, 30 acres (12ha) of farmland and orchards and a gravel pit.[2] Other income sources include production of fancy goods, basket making, weaving, printing, and the manufacturing of some small woodenware.[3] Their operation is run with the help of six year-round employees and six seasonal employees.[2]
Attending Shaker meeting, at Sabbathday Lake, 1886.
On January 2, 2017, the community announced that female community member, Sister Frances Carr had died that day. With Carr's death, Sister June Carpenter and Brother Arnold Hadd remained.[20] The Spring/Summer 2019 issue of The Clarion, the Shakers' newsletter, makes reference to an additional Shaker in the community, Brother Andrew.[21]
Community life
This community was one of the smaller Shaker groups during the sect's heyday. They farm and practice a variety of handicrafts; a Shaker Museum and Sunday services are open to visitors.[22] Mother Ann Lee is celebrated on the first Sunday of August to commemorate the arrival of the English Shakers in America in 1774. The congregation sings and a Mother Ann cake is presented.
The daily schedule of a Shaker in Sabbathday Lake Village is as follows:
The day begins at 7:30 am; the Great Bell on Dwelling House rings, calling everyone to breakfast.
At 8:00 am morning prayers start. Two Psalms are read, then passages are read from elsewhere in the Bible. Following this is communal prayer and silent prayer, concluded with the singing of a Shaker hymn.
Lunch begins at 12:00. This is the main meal for the Shakers.
Work continues at 1:00 pm.
At 6:00 it is dinner time, the last meal of the day.
On Wednesdays at 5:00 pm they hold a prayer meeting which is followed by a Shaker Studies class.[23]
The last two Shakers own all the property communally, and confess their sins to each other. The village regularly receives visitors, and Arnold and June teach them how to make soap and bind books. The money generated from these workshops keeps the village alive.[24]
Shaker Trust
To preserve their legacy, as well as their idyllic lakeside property at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, the Shakers announced in October 2005 that they had entered into a trust with the state of Maine and several conservation groups. Under this agreement, the Shakers will sell conservation easements to the trust, allowing the village to stave off development and continue operations as long as there are Shakers to live there.
The agreement does not specify whether the property will become a park, museum, or other public space should the Shakers die out. That decision would be made by a nonprofit corporation—the United Society of Shakers, Sabbathday Lake Inc.—whose board members are largely non-Shakers. The $3.7 million conservation plan relies on grants, donations, and public funds.[25]
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The Shakers are a sect of Christianity which practices celibacy, communal living, confession of sin, egalitarianism, and pacifism. After starting in England, it is thought that these communities spread into the cotton towns of North West England, with the football team of Bury taking on the Shaker name to acknowledge the Shaker community of Bury.The Shakers left England 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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Ruth Mildred Barker was a musician, scholar, manager, and spiritual leader from the Alfred and Sabbathday Lake Shaker villages. A prominent and respected Shaker during her long life, she worked to preserve Shaker music. With the help of Daniel Patterson, she recorded Early Shaker Spirituals, a collection of Shaker songs. In recognition of her achievements in the field, in 1983 she received the National Heritage Fellowship. She also co-founded and managed The Shaker Quarterly, a magazine and journal focused on the Shakers, to which she was also a regular contributor.
Aurelia Mace was a Shaker eldress, thinker, and writer. She is known for her letters and essays which were compiled into the book The Aletheia: Spirit of Truth.
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