new year Archives - Village@work

Melissa Williams, Development Coordinator

2022 has been an incredible year at Shaker Village. There is so much to celebrate and none of it would have been possible without your support as a guest, a passholder, or a donor.

Major Milestone Achieved

Five years ago, William Updike joined the Shaker Village staff as the Vice President of Natural & Cultural Resources. His goal was to secure each of the 34 historic Shaker structures on the site. The first step was to replace aging (and failing) roofs. William says, “A dry building starts at the top!” Realizing this ambitious vision required significant resources and funding, and it happened.

*The 1844 West Family Sisters’ Shop was one of six historic buildings at Pleasant Hill to receive a new roof in 2022.*

When you take a stroll down the historic turnpike and throughout the Village you will notice new roofs have been installed on nearly every building over the past five years. Six roofs were replaced just this year. This is a quite an achievement!

Water poses the biggest threat in historic preservation. When a roof reaches the end of its useful life, it starts to let water in which can damage the building’s structure. Preventing leaks and deflecting water away from the building helps to preserve these original Shaker structures for future generations. And that is precisely our mission!

Our team of craftsmen have also been hard at work this year on windows in the Old Stone Shop and completing the full preservation of the 1817 East Family Dwelling. With help from the grounds crew, the Village has truly never looked better!

Growing a Farm, and our “Farmily”

The Farm at Shaker Village is one of the most popular spots on the property for our guests. Can you guess why? It’s the animals! The Farm and the Garden are cared for by four staff members, and their successes in 2022 are amazing! Check out some of their accomplishments this year:

*Alamo, a Texas Longhorn steer, was one of the new additions to The Farm at Shaker Village in 2022.*

Completed the 3^rd year of solar grazing at LG&E, with our sheep, controlling vegetation across 32 acres of solar panels.
Increased our flock population and now have almost 200 breeding ewes!
Expanded our cattle grazing into a 60-acre sections of native grasses.
Added 3 new registered Shorthorn Heifers to our herd, 2 calves and 1 Texas Longhorn steer.
Built 2 large sections of woven wire fence in our pastures
Redesigned the garden area to have additional walkways for guests.
Built a High Tunnel to extend the growing season and completed its first year of production.
Finished our 2^nd full year of CSA garden shares across two, 10-week periods totaling 11 shares per season
Taught dozens of summer campers and hundreds of guests about honey bees and draft animals on our farm.
Donated hundreds of pounds of food to those in need.

Engaging Our Guests

Every day at Shaker Village there is a schedule of daily programs and tours for our guests to enjoy. Our Program Team takes great care and preparation in putting these programs together. They have a lot of fun interacting with our visitors. It is the most rewarding part of our work. Continually enhancing the guest experience is our top priority.

This year we launched the much-anticipated Shaker Village App. This FREE app places hundreds of historic images and other rarely seen content right at your fingertips. It is a great way for you to explore the Village and learn the stories of individual Shakers. Through the App, we hope you will gain a deeper understanding of the Pleasant Hill Shakers and their legacy.

*“Local Economies, Global Impacts” opened to the public in March 2022.*

In March 2022 Shaker Village also launched the new exhibition, Local Economies, Global Impacts. Sponsored in part by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, this award-winning exhibit tells the story of Shaker industry and trade, and is located in the East Family Brethren’s Shop and East Family Sisters’ Shop.

The Program Team and the Curator of Collections are also working on the development, fabrication and installation of two exhibits that will open in 2023. The first, Searching for Sister Mary, will open in March 2023. It will celebrate Sister Mary Settles who was the last Shaker to live at Pleasant Hill. The second exhibit, The Believers: Shaker Theology and Worship, will be installed on the second floor of the 1820 Meeting House. It will open in fall 2023.

Volunteers Make Improvements to The Preserve

Since the unofficial beginning of The Preserve, we have been constantly working to improve the habitat for all the wild things that call this area home. We gauge our progress through surveys of plants, trees, birds, small mammals and insects. This year a quick plant inventory revealed approximately 130 different plant species in The Preserve. And over the years we have observed 108 different species of birds.

*Indigo buntings are one of over 100 bird species that can be observed in The Preserve at Shaker Village throughout the year.*

As a guest, you can make your own observations in The Preserve by hiking or riding on our multi-use trails. Our trails are maintained by a team of two staff members and a growing number of dedicated volunteers who meet every third Saturday of the month (March through October). Our volunteers worked throughout the past year to improve the Heritage Trail by removing overgrown honeysuckle. This work opened up the trail and hikers should be treated to a beautiful wildflower display next spring!

We also encourage you to spend some time at the Bird Blind, which was updated this past summer. It’s a great place to see some of the area’s most abundant birds and insects. The Bird Blind is located at the center trailhead and is accessible.

We Make You Kindly Welcome

The Pleasant Hill Shakers were known for their hospitality and we carry that legacy forward today. Whether you are visiting for the day, staying overnight or spending a holiday here, we look forward to seeing you!

At The Inn this year, we renovated the bathrooms in four of our guest rooms. These updated bathrooms now feature walk-in showers and more spacious bathrooms. These upgrades were made possible by generous donor support and are part of our ongoing efforts to improve accessibility across the site.

*After a short sabbatical, Chef Amber Hokams returned to lead Shaker Village’s culinary experiences in 2022.*

At The Trustees’ Table, we welcomed over 62,000 diners to our table. The fried chicken, Shaker Lemon Pie, and tomato celery soup are our guests’ tried and true favorites. If you’re looking for something a little bit different, check out our Fresh Food Adventure Series. Chef Amber Hokams is able to show off her skills and the best of the Shaker Village Farm during these events. This past year we hosted six of these culinary adventures – and we invite you to join us in January 2023 for the Bourbon Dinner!

With Gratitude…to our Guests, Passholders and Donors

As the year winds down, we are so humbled by the support you’ve shown Shaker Village in a year that has been challenging for all of us. The best part about Shaker Village is that it is nestled in this beautiful rolling hills of the bluegrass. When you visit, it’s because Shaker Village is your destination and you have made an effort to get here to enjoy the peace and tranquility.

In a year when the market has been unstable and inflation has caused rising gas prices, food costs and more, we know your charitable dollars may be limited. Yet we are celebrating all the things that you helped make possible in 2022. We cannot say thank you enough.

Pleasant Hill is a magical place. When the Shakers settled here in 1805, they had no way of knowing that this site would remain two centuries later. Thank you for making that happen, and for generously supporting Kentucky’s largest National Historic Landmark. We are so excited for 2023 and all the possibilities it will bring.

We will see you in the New Year!

fannie-marie-pennebaker-fisher-0472-600dpi-1

The presence of babies isn’t something you would expect to find in the records of a Shaker archive, and yet that’s precisely what we find in The Collections here.

Photographs of Shaker babies are few and far between, but we are privileged to have a handful of infant and toddler photographs in our archives. Some of the photographs, which were on display in the Shaker Selfies Exhibit last fall, show Pleasant Hill Shakers holding and posing with babies. Who were these babies, and how did they come to be in this community?

While not as much is known about the lives of babies and young children at Pleasant Hill as we would like, research is ongoing to discover more about the lives of Shaker youth. Though the Shakers didn’t believe in marrying and having children themselves, they didn’t necessarily condemn those outside the Shaker faith for doing so. After all, the offspring and orphans of others often became their wards, protégés and converts.

Shakers were known by their neighbors for their upstanding education system and elevated quality of life, which for some parents was more than they could offer their children at home. Such was the case for one desperate mother who, on a cold day in March 1865, left her newborn infant on the West Family milk bench. While the infant was “very neatly” dressed when discovered by the cow boy, the mother of the abandoned child professed she could not take care of the baby, thus leaving it to be provided for by the Shakers.

As research currently stands, more than 80 babies were present at Pleasant Hill between 1806 and 1889—a number that is still growing as names and stories of Shakers continue to be discovered every day in the archives.

Of the babies who appear in the Shaker record books within their first days or months of life, we know of four who were born here:

Love Monfort and Malinda Tyson had the unique experience of being born, raised and buried in a Shaker community. The baby girls were born at Pleasant Hill just one month apart—Love came first on November 25, 1809, and Malinda followed a month later on Christmas Day. Love’s mother, Peggy, came to the community with her husband, Jacob, when she was seven months pregnant, while Malinda’s mother, Anna, strolled back into the village just days before giving birth.² Both girls’ fathers ultimately left Pleasant Hill, but the girls and their mothers remained in the village until their deaths.
More than a month after coming to Pleasant Hill in October 1810, Rachel Monfort Voris gave birth to Hortincy Voris. Although her little girl ultimately left the community in 1829, Rachel and her husband, John, stayed and contributed to the community for the rest of their lives.
As a widowed mother of five, Jane McBride came to Pleasant Hill three months pregnant with daughter Lucy Smith McBride, who was born at the village September 30, 1831. By the time she died in 1856, all of Jane’s children had left her—all except Lucy, who remained with the Shakers another 10 years until July 8, 1866, when she ran away with Daniel Perrow, a fellow Shaker whom she went on to marry and have three children.

Beyond photographs and journal articles in the archives, evidence of babies at Pleasant Hill extends into our 3-D collection, where we find two infant and one adult-size cradles. The long cradle would have allowed for more than one infant to be rocked at once, but also would’ve been used to comfort ill and aged adults.

cradle

Stories like this are being discovered here every day.

With building restorations in The Historic Centre, new trails on The Preserve, innovative programs on The River, fresh crop rotations on The Farm and new recipes at the Trustees’ Table, it’s an exciting time to be at Shaker Village.

This year, and in the years to come, as we continue to work to inspire generations through discovery by sharing the legacies of the Kentucky Shakers, we hope you’ll explore Shaker Village for yourself, discover its stories and be inspired to do great things.

“Is this world any better for our having lived…? We can hope so; and in the peace thereof… look on the next page to hail with joy the face of the newborn year.” —S.A. Neale, The Shaker Manifesto, December 1879

¹ The markings on the verso of this photograph postcard date it anywhere from 1918-1930. Pleasant Hill dissolved as an active community in 1910, which leaves us to deduce that this baby was not raised in the Shaker faith. She was, however, related to the Pennebaker family of Pleasant Hill, which is why her photograph appears in The Collections.

² Anna Tyson and her husband, Joab, had first arrived at Pleasant Hill in September 1808, but when spring came, the journals tell us Joab “took his wife and children off by force.” When Anna returned to the village in December 1809, she was nine months pregnant with Malinda.

New stories, new programs, new projects, New Year. Check out this year’s Events Calendar for new ways you can experience Shaker Village in 2017!

Emálee Krulish, Archivist

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2022: A Year in Review