Shaker Village tour - Canterbury New Hampshire - Sept 27, 2019

Today's tour of the Shaker Village was so interesting.
The Shakers were an outgrowth of the Quakers.  They were so charismatic that they became known as "The Shaking Quakers".  They started living in communes, created self sufficient villages, and became entrepreneurs, had many inventions and patents, and have embraced technology.  Their beliefs were radical and after a period of time their numbers decreased,  since many were not able to maintain the strict doctrines. 

They have become known as excellent craftsmen in furniture and textiles.

The meeting house for worship - plain, simple, and had no center posts so that they could dance as part of their worship.  (They had 'toned down' the "holy roller" aspect of their worship and they invited people 'of the world' to come to their Sunday worship services)

The entire community was separated into "brothers and sisters"  (no more 'husbands and wives').

When they signed the Covenant, it included celibacy.  

(and the Shakers have almost died out ??)

The community is now a National Historic Landmark-open to tours .

Notice the visiting school children, and the way the leaders keep track of them!!

The building used for sewing and textiles

She is hooking rugs and she let me try a couple of hooks.

It is harder than it looks!

The Shakers are famous for the "Dorothy Robes"

They used the best wool, lined with fine silk and sold them to New York celebrities for huge amounts of money (even though they only wore the plain and simple garments)

The Laundry House- Hot water tank 

Fun to see the huge cylindrical washing machines, and large mangle.

The hoist system to get the soaking wet laundry to the second floor where they had elaborate systems to dry all the laundry.

These apples  really looked good- Surprise!!!

I guess the trees produced better tasting apples in the 1800's