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50 Things To Do at Shaker Village

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Shaker Village opened its doors to guests from around the world in April 1968. Fifty years later, we celebrate those who came before us, and we continue to inspire generations! With 3,000 acres of discovery, there’s a lot to do around here on a daily basis. In honor of our 50 for 50 Campaign, here’s 50 things to try at Shaker Village:

  1. Go for a hike.
  2. Take a Discovery Tour.
  3. Listen to live music on the lawn.
  4. Meet the farm family.
  5. Go inside the greenhouse and see what’s growing.
  6. Take a hard hat tour to see what preservation work is currently happening.
  7. Go fishing.
  8. Take a riverboat ride on the Kentucky River.
  9. See a waterfall. You have to hike a little, but it’s worth it!
  10. Have a picnic.
  11. Watch the sunset from the amphitheater. It’s magical.
  12. Check out a bike and ride around the Village. They’re free!
  13. Visit the selfie exhibit.
  14. Relax.
  15. Pick out a handmade treasure or a Shaker Village souvenir in The Shops.
  16. Jump on board the horse-drawn wagon for a ride around The Historic Centre.
  17. Walk in the creek.
  18. Visit the bird blind.
  19. Talk to the gardeners and see what’s growing right now. Learn about how we use these fresh ingredients in our restaurant.
  20. Eat a meal at The Trustees’ Table.
  21. Walk up the iconic twin spiral staircases.
  22. Go kayaking on the Kentucky River.
  23. Walk to the cemetery.
  24. Attend a Shaker music performance in The Meeting House.
  25. Learn about food preservation in the Preserve Shop exhibit.
  26. Eat a piece of lemon pie.
  27. Drink a glass of wine or a cold beer on the Trustees’ Lawn.
  28. Take a peek at the rock walls. We have 25 miles of them.
  29. Taste an apple in the orchard.
  30. Visit the apiary to see where our honey comes from.
  31. Read the poem on the windowsill of room 174.
  32. Play with Boomer (our resident cat).
  33. Check out the Discovery Garden to learn about herbs.
  34. Relive your childhood on the tree swings.
  35. Identify plants and birds on The Trails.
  36. Go horseback riding.
  37. Take a hayride around the Village.
  38. Stargaze.
  39. Attend an Object + Stories program to learn more about our collection.
  40. Grab a handmade cookie from the Post Office shop.
  41. Find your way through the prairie maze.
  42. Climb to the highest point in Mercer County (top floor, Centre Family Dwelling).
  43. Find out who the Shakers were.
  44. Learn about our garden plans and how our farm animals have a job towards that bigger plan.
  45. Play checkers and more in the Cooper’s Shop.
  46. See wildflowers.
  47. Roast marshmallows around a fire pit.
  48. Visit with the artists in our Artist Studios and talk to them while they create.
  49. Take a selfie and post it using #shakervillageky.
  50. Have a rejuvenating night’s sleep in one of our 72 overnight rooms at The Inn so you can start all over in the morning!

We couldn’t make great things happen here without you! Our goal for the 50 for 50 Campaign is $50,000. If you would like additional information about our program, services or philanthropic opportunities, call the Development Office at 800.734.5611 ext. 1547. Give online now.

What’s your favorite Shaker Village activity? Plan your next visit at shakervillageky.org!

Rocks that say 1813 and other cool facts

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In the changing historic landscape of Pleasant Hill, buildings came and buildings went. It’s impossible to view the photographic and archival evidence without getting the impression that this place used to look a lot different than it does today (an understatement, I know). Personally, I’ve always been impressed with the imposing presence that the 2nd Centre Family Dwelling (built 1812-1815) casts in the historic photos of the village. If you want to learn a little more about this building, I encourage you to visit the exhibit in the Farm Deacon’s Shop (incidentally, this dwelling stood just to the north of this spot).

The 1813 Centre Family Dwelling had a long, productive life at Pleasant Hill that was tragically cut short by a fire in 1932. Here’s how it was described in the March 4, 1932, account from the Harrodsburg Herald:

    A spectacular fire that threatened to wipe out a large portion of historic Shakertown, started Tuesday night about eleven o’clock in one of the oldest and handsomest of the splendid buildings. It was occupied by three families, two of which lost their entire possessions. Several other buildings were threatened, but were saved by the Harrodsburg fire company in charge of Chief K. B. Phillips, assisted by volunteers, who got on the roofs of the threatened buildings and swept off the sparks as they fell. The Pennebaker Home for Girls caught on fire several times, chiefly from dried leaves in the gutters, but the blazes were extinguished before any damage was done.

…

   The burned building was erected in 1813, according to the date on the stone structure. It was three and a half stories high and contained forty-two rooms, with a large finished basement of several compartments. It was located about 500 feet from Highway 68 which runs through the main part of the Shaker village, and faced West on a driveway. It was of handsome dressed stone with thick walls, the interior being priceless hand-fashioned woodwork made by the skilled artisans of the Shaker colony nearly a century and a quarter ago. The only water available for fighting the fire was from the large Shaker pond approximately 600 yards distant and across the highway from the burning building. The hose taken along with the pumping apparatus was not sufficient to reach the distance and the firemen sent back to Harrodsburg for more hose. The blaze was so far advanced in the stone building when discovered that all energies were concentrated on saving the nearby structures. The stone building was entirely gutted and when the tin roof caved in a veritable storm of spark fell in every direction, igniting even the clothing and hats of some of the spectators.

After the “storm of spark” subsided and the “spectacular” fire was extinguished, I imagine that the scene looked something like this (although I’m not sure when this picture was taken):

If you visit this location today, all you will see are the foundation stones peeking out on the surface, marking the footprint of this once massive building.  It’s all that remains of it – at least, all that remains onsite.  Because in 1937, much of the surviving stone was hauled to Harrodsburg to build a house for relatives of the Bohon family. The house still stands in town today (and is still in use), a subtle reminder that the history of Pleasant Hill is much bigger than the 3000 acres and 34 buildings that we care for today. There are a lot of inter-connections out there that we can’t forget about. Pleasant Hill is an integral part of Mercer County’s history, and vice-versa.

The coolest thing about this house? One of the stones used to build the rear wall was this:

Aaron Genton is the collections manager…

It’s Harvest Time!

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What do you know about sorghum? Enjoying sticky sorghum over warm, buttered cornbread is kind of like satiating Kentucky’s first sweet tooth. The crop has strong roots in Kentucky’s history, known for its value even outside of desserts. There are four major types of sorghum: grain, forage, biomass and sweet. Sorghum grain can be used as a gluten free flour alternative for baking, and it can even be popped like popcorn. Some sorghum varieties are used as pasture forage or silage for livestock feed. It’s also one of the primary ingredients in ethanol. Kentucky is among the nation’s primary producers of sweet sorghum, used to make the highly coveted sorghum syrup.

Sorghum being pressed at Shaker Village. What’s the difference between sorghum and molasses? Sorghum syrup comes from sorghum cane, and molasses comes from sugar cane.

Sorghum is a heat tolerant crop that does not require much water, making it the ideal plant to grow during the warmest part of the year. It does not originate in Kentucky, or even in the United States. It’s a cultivar of North Africa, making its way across the globe through ancient trading routes. The word Sorghum comes from the Latin words, “Syricum granum” or “Grain of Syria.”

In the United States, sorghum syrup has been used since the mid-1800s, but sorghum’s versatility was first made popular in the U.S. for its capacity in broom making! The Pleasant Hill Shakers relied on broom corn for their broom industry, and even cultivated sweet sorghum, making hundreds of gallons of sorghum syrup each year. The Pleasant Hill Shakers actually intercropped sorghum among young orchards, cultivating their orchards with annual crops as a way to increase food output in the years leading up to fruit production.

Apple trees and peach trees were planted at the same time, along with annual crops like sorghum, oats, even potatoes. After a few years when peach trees began to fruit, the annual crop planting would discontinue. Years later when the apple trees began producing, peach trees would be thinned from the orchard. Agriculture records indicate that the Pleasant Hill Shakers kept over 50 varieties of apple trees on their property!

Today, Shaker Village grows ten heirloom varieties known for their versatility and unique flavors. These varieties will fruit at different times from June-October. Some varieties, like the Yellow Transparent, are best known for their drying potential. Others, like the King David, are best for cider or to eat fresh. You can see The Orchard as soon as you drive onto our property. Come taste one of these varieties and see what you think!

The Shakers believed that the products of their harvest were gifts from God to be counted as blessings. Because the Shakers treated their crops as a blessing from God, it was sacrilege to waste any part of the harvest. We strive to emulate the Shaker practice of reducing waste by maintaining a closed loop energy system at the farm. All of the food in our garden is harvested for the restaurant, and anything the restaurant cannot use is sent back to the farm. These scraps are fed to the animals working in our deep litter compost pen, which eventually returns as energy rich soil back into the garden.

Celebrate Fall at Shaker Village to participate in these activities. Join us at HarvestFest on September 29 + 30 as we transform apples into cider using our heirloom orchard apples on a 19thcentury cider press. (Stick around for a demonstration on making hard cider as well!) Then, sample sorghum syrup from our horse powered sorghum press cooked down into that deliciously sticky syrup we’ve come to know as a part of harvest time here in Kentucky. Now all we need is a good homemade biscuit… wonder what the Trustees’ Table is cooking up?

Prefer to taste a little more? Check out our Hard Cider Bash on September 8. This Fresh Food Adventure highlights a menu of delicious ingredients from our orchard and garden and, of course, hard cider!

Bekah Roberts, Farm Program Specialist

Dixie Huffman Retires

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After 46 years of employment with Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Dixie Huffman is retiring. While that is a remarkable achievement by itself, Dixie’s connection to Pleasant Hill began almost literally since the day she was born. A lifelong resident of Mercer County, as a young girl in the 1930s, Dixie lived on land that was once owned by the Shakers, near the West Lot Dwelling. Her first memories of the Pleasant Hill buildings were from well before the restoration; at one time, she recalled, “it didn’t look like there was much life here.”

Dixie’s professional career at Pleasant Hill began in 1971, as an interpreter during her summer breaks from her full-time teaching career. Upon retiring from teaching, in the late 1970s, she became a full-time fixture of the Pleasant Hill interpretive team. As the years progressed, she began to work behind the scenes with the collection, helping the curatorial staff with very important tasks like cataloging, records management and research.

Dixie and her pencils from transcribing manuscripts.

In recent years, “Miss Dixie” has become best known among staff for her extensive transcription of the Shaker primarily sources. Sitting for hours in front of a microfilm machine, she diligently copied the original records onto legal pads that could easily be shared with staff and guests alike. It has often been said that she knows the Shakers personally, despite having never met them. If you’ve ever experienced her stories about Henry Daily, you know exactly what we mean.

There is no way to quantify the number of people she has shared the Shakers with over the years. But one thing is certain: each of these people had a warm, friendly and engaging experience. With her retirement, Shaker Village is losing one its institutions. We will all miss seeing her during her afternoon walks, her stories, her remarkable personality, her friendliness and her sense of humor. She has been a friend to all she encountered. In contrast to what she experienced in the days before the restoration, there is now life in the Village, and for 46 years, Dixie Huffman has been an integral part in making that happen.

Last week, staff, family and friends gathered with Dixie to celebrate and thank her for her work at Shaker Village.

For staff, having Dixie around meant great stories told from the journals she’d been transcribing on a given day, sweet conversations around the lunch table and the camaraderie of a great friend. She brought the Shakers to life for many, since she added her own fiery personality when retelling each one. She was well known for spending her breaks with the farm animals (of course, she was their favorite person to see, as she always brought a bag of apples with her). For us, it was more than difficult to choose a worthy gift for someone so special to not only the people here, but the place and the work Shaker Village strives to do. But we had to try.

The Dixie Huffman Scholarship will be rewarded to one junior or senior from Burgin High School or Mercer County Senior High School as a way to offset internship and/or college expenses. This area and education are two things near and dear to Dixie’s heart, so we chose to honor her legacy by paying forward to local school children her loyalty and dedication to this place. We will miss seeing Dixie daily “at the office,” but we know she’ll be visiting with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren often.

In the Words of Henry Daily…

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The journals kept by the Shakers have a lot of information in them, and most of it is very basic and straightforward. However, one of the delights of reading these volumes is when the personality of the record-keeper shines through. It doesn’t happen in every journal, and it is more prevalent in some than others, but when it does happen you can almost imagine that you are sitting in the room and having a conversation with a very real person.

This is especially true in the journals kept by Henry Daily. He had a big personality—one that comes across as interesting, sometimes funny, sometimes mean and almost never dull. I would describe him as a curmudgeon. When he keeps these journals, he is an older member who remembered the golden years of Shaker life. He is unhappy with the changes and developments that had taken place in the later 19th century—and he doesn’t hesitate to convey that in the journals. I can’t help but wonder if he ever said any of these things out loud.

Henry Daily is also really good for a soundbite. I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce you to him. I thought it would be fun to imagine if I actually did sit down across the table from him and interview him. How might he answer some of these questions? Probably in a similar way that he writes in his journals… so I used direct quotes from the journals in order to answer these questions. One thing you’ll notice: he often referred to himself in the third person, and this was pretty common in Shaker journals.

AG: Good evening, Henry. It’s a pleasure to speak with you. You really look tired… how has your day been?

HD: H. Daily took a lot of our boarders to high Bridge to the 6 oclock & 10 minutes train then brought home a large load of freight. Then went back with a load of 48 boxes of Malt & brought home another large load of freight this was done A.M. he also took 480 lbs flour in the kitchen before the bell rang to rise this morning. After dinner H.D. filled up and hauled 1500 lbs to the office. John Smith let from 1500 to 2000 lbs flour spoil at the Office just from pure laziness because he did not keep it stirred. H. Daily took 150 lbs out of his flour houses. After this H.D. went to the threshing yard & filled up & hauled in 12 large sheets full of wheat chaff to pack malt in. Will this do for an old man’s day’s work or not. (7-18-1881)

 

AG: Wow, yes, it certainly will. On busy days like this, are you glad to have so many people around to help do the work?

HD: We are trying to harvest our wheat tho our machines do so poorly we get very little done. We have a few of the Brethren as hands tho it is mostly done by hirelings and we are getting in debt everyday worse and worse. Our business men do perhaps the best they know but the worst is they do not know. Our wheat is ripening quite fast will soon be ready to cut. We have a very strange elder in the C.F. He took our cart today and drove it through the middle of our wheat field & the grain is nearly ripe, namely Napoleon Brown we never saw the like before in our lives.  Napoleon Brown has had 4 pares of boots & 3 pares of shoes made for himself this year. Our shoe maker tells me this evening the boots were worth $41.00 the shoes were worth $16.00  This is $57.00 for Boots & shoes in one year the mending was worth $6.00  This is $63.00 for boots & shoes this year. If every member in the Center Family used up this amount they could not pay for their feet. There is 62 persons in the Center Family at this time. If all in the Family would consume as many boot & shoes as Napoleon Brown it would foot up $3906 the Family could not pay for their shoeing we think. This is awful extravagant indeed. (6-24-1881; 6-10-1881; 12-30-1887; 12-31-1887)

 

AG: I see… well, let me ask you about animals because everyone likes animals. I saw a dog running around… I didn’t realize that the Shakers kept pets. Do you have a pet?

HD: The Center Family has come to a desperate pass indeed.  They have Andrew Bloomberg a Swede for second Elder & he has a dog following him wherever he goes has him in the shop with him & has no use for him. This is not according to Shakerism but belong without… This dog will eat as much as a man or more. If we all had a dog we would all starve before spring since we have very little to live on & cannot afford a dog for each member in the Society. The dog is a perfect nuisance anyhow & them that keep them are no better certain. (9-20-1887)

 

AG: Ok. Well, I saw chickens on the farm, and they seem to be doing good right now… at least they are eating well, right?

HD: Frederick Roth retook charge of C.F. chickens this morning has been doing other work a year. Susan Murry has been pretending to take care of them in his place. (2-8-1887)

 

AG: It sounds like you have disagreements or problems, just like all families do. Sometimes it’s good to get a little space… do you always stay here, or do you get to leave the village sometime?

HD: Alexander Milligan & James Shain of the E.F. started to the Exposition in Cincinnati.  This is strange indeed when H. N. Daily had a free pass and could not get to go.  (10-6-1881)

 

AG: Henry, I have to be honest here. It doesn’t seem like you like anyone or anything. Is there anything you like to do?

HD: H.N. Daily went out to the Fare which is now going on. Was there 5 hours. The President Adison Walden took him in to the side show which the Debenport Brothers are running by the slight of hand which beats anything we seen there it is marvelous indeed to see what man can do. The president then took HD in the judges stand and told him to go any where he chose. HD had the best day of his life as to pleasure. So much for this day. (8-3-1882)

 

AG: I know you’re very busy and probably still have a lot to do. Thank you for your time, Henry.

HD: This has been a very cold day. H.N. Daily cleaned out the ice house A.M. We may have ice this spell if so we are ready to get it. H.D. went this afternoon by himself and hauled a load of straw to the hen house to keep the chickens feet from freezing. He is now 73 years of age past who will do so at this age.  (12-29-1887)

 

In all seriousness, we are fortunate to have so many remarkable first-person accounts of Shaker life here at Pleasant Hill. It is a joy to get to know these Shakers through their own words—and their own handwriting—as stories of work and worship within the community come to life through their journals.

Aaron Genton is the collections manager…