A Place to Learn about the Shakers and other Enfield, NH General Tips

Favorite Thing: There is a Shaker Village on the shores of the lake. The buildings are open for touring and there is also a store with various Shaker items.

It was interesting to learn that Shakers were celibate and the only children they raised were orpans.

They were prolific inventors and used modern technology, they had electricity before the capitol at Concord. Their heating system was ingenius, they ran the heating vents from their cookstoves across the ceiling of the entire room and therefore did not let the heat escape directly out the chimney, thus heating the entire room. The room above was open to the room below allowing the heated vent to dry clothes on racks which shortened the drying time. Everything was labeled in their houses and barns and as they lived in a communal society and rotated the workload, each member could match up the tool or piece of clothing by markings that corresponded with the drawer of cupboard where they belonged.


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Favorite Thing: I've more information on the Shakers, not to be mistaken for the Quakers. The Shaker church in America was founded by Ann Lee and seven followers who came from Manchester, England in 1774. They were the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Coming. The reason they were different from the Quakers was their practice of group dancing of whirling, trembling or shaking during religious services.

Their rituals sometimes brought on various psychic experiences. Spirit drawings were received as "gifts" or visions from God and these drawings were sacred to them; they used these patterns as the only form of decoration on the items they made. There is a market today for these simple items with the sacred drawings.


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