Pleasant Hill, Kentucky
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| Shakertown at Pleasant Hill Historic District | |
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| (U.S. National Historic Landmark District) | |
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| Location: | Pleasant Hill, Kentucky |
| Built/Founded: | 1805 |
| Architect: | Burnett,Micajah |
| Architectural style(s): | Other |
| Added to NRHP: | November 11, 1971 |
| NRHP Reference#: | 71000353[1] |
| Governing body: | Private |
Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, USA, is the site of a Shaker religious community that was active from 1805 to 1910. Following a preservationist effort that began in 1961, the site, now a National Historic Landmark, has become a popular tourist destination. Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, or Shakertown, as it is known by residents of the area, is located 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Lexington, in Kentucky's Bluegrass region.
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[edit] History
[edit] Founding
On January 1, 1805, with eleven Shaker communities already established in New York and New England, three Shaker missionaries set out to find new converts among the pioneers then pouring into the western lands by way of Cumberland Gap and the Ohio. By August, they had gathered a small group of new adherents to the doctrine of Mother Ann Lee, many of whom had earlier been influenced by the fervent Cane Ridge Revival. In December 1806, forty-four converts of legal age signed a covenant agreeing to mutual support and the common ownership of property.
The community began living together on the 140-acre (0.57 km²) farm of Elisha Thomas. Additional converts were quickly added, and the property swelled to 4,369 acres (17.68 km²). By 1812 three communal families—East, Centre, and West—had been formed, and a fourth, North, was established as a "gathering family" for prospective converts. On June 2, 1814, 128 Believers bound themselves together in a more formal covenant that established the community in the pattern of the Mother Colony in New Lebanon, New York.
[edit] Early years
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The Second Great Awakening or Kentucky Revivals began at the end of the 18th century and continued into the early years of the 19th century. The Kentucky Revival was characterized by large camp meetings where ministers from various religious groups would preach for long periods. These meetings sometimes drew thousands of observers to a sites in the Ohio Valley of Kentucky. This powerful interest in religion sweeping the South inspired the Shakers of New York to think of broadening their community’s ministry efforts into Kentucky. In 1805, three Mount Lebanon Shaker members embarked on a journey to Kentucky in an attempt to gain converts among those caught up in the religious fervor. Later in that year the missionaries gained influential converts in central Kentucky and southwestern Ohio. By 1806, forty four people signed a covenant of commitment to the Shaker religion and in 1808 the Pleasant Hill Shaker community was permanently established. The commitment levels and strong will of the original Pleasant Hill Shakers helped them overcome hardships and survive against any adversity that they faced. The Shakers were skilled farmers, and over the years they expanded land holdings by acquiring adjacent farms for orchards and fields. Over time, Pleasant Hill became known for their excellent livestock engineering accomplishments, both with architecture and a municipal water system. Their location was ideal for agricultural and economic positioning. By 1816, they regularly traveled the rivers to larger cities to sell their wares: brooms, shoes, preserves, garden seeds, herbs, and other items. The Shakers serviced large cities with their products, some at great distances, such as New Orleans.
[edit] Through the Civil War and reconstruction
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Once the Civil War began, the Pleasant Hill Shakers ran into controversy. The New England based religious organization had a policy pacifism and was also opposed to slavery. The individuals who made up the Pleasant Hill society mostly came from the region and had a variety of views on the war and slavery, though formally the organizational stances were adhered to. Pleasant Hill was sympathetic to the Union, but being located in the South, Pleasant Hill became the target of some intolerant neighbors and bands of extremists. (This experience was relatively similar to the Koinonia situation during the Civil Rights movement.) Pleasant Hill's location placed the village in harm's way during the war. Though less traumatized than their sister colony at South Union, Kentucky. Pleasant Hill fed thousands of soldiers that came begging, particularly in the weeks surrounding the Battle of Perryville. The Civil War caused Pleasant Hill's material resources to be diminished, but more importantly the social environment and cultural changes in the decades before and after the war made Shaker life the village a less plausible lifestyle for converts.
[edit] Last days
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[edit] Life at Pleasant Hill
Many visitors to Pleasant Hill, observing the nineteenth-century architecture, crafts, and clothing, mistakenly assume that the Shakers, like the Amish, rejected technological advancements. In fact, the Shakers were inventors or early adopters of many new tools and techniques. For example, in the early 1830s the Shakers of Pleasant Hill constructed a water tower on a high plot of ground. A horse-drawn pump lifted water into the tower, and from there a system of pipes conveyed it to the kitchens, cellars, and wash houses. In the wash houses, washing machines (also powered by horses) were built to reduce the enormous chore of laundering the community's clothes and linens.
[edit] Preservation effort
Following the dissolution of the Shaker society in 1910, the property changed hands several times and was used for a variety of purposes. Elderly Shakers continued to live on the property until the death of Mary Settles, the last Pleasant Hill Believer, in 1923. The Meeting House, for instance, was converted for use as an automotive garage; remarkably, the wood floor, built to withstand the fervent dancing of several hundred brethren and sisters, proved strong enough to support the vehicles driven onto its surface. Some years later the structure was again converted, this time for use as a Baptist church.
Following World War II, there was a renewed interest in the crumbling village of Pleasant Hill. The former Shaker colony found an unlikely admirer in Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk at the nearby Abbey of Gethsemani. Having mentioned Pleasant Hill in his writings as early as 1949, Merton took considerable interest in the community from his first visit there in 1959 until his death in 1968. Describing his first look inside the Trustee's Office in 1959, Merton wrote in his journal of the:
- marvelous double winding stair going up to the mysterious clarity of a dome on the roof ... quiet sunlight filtering in—a big Lebanon cedar outside one of the windows ... All the other houses are locked up. There is Shaker furniture only in the center family house. I tried to get in it and a gloomy old man living in the back told me curtly "it was locked up." The empty fields, the big trees—how I would love to explore those houses and listen to that silence. In spite of the general decay and despair there is joy there still and simplicity... Shakers fascinate me."
Others shared the fascination. In 1961 a group of Lexington-area citizens led by Joseph Graves and Earl D. Wallace launched an effort to restore the property. By 1964 the Friends of Pleasant Hill, as they called themselves, had organized a non-profit corporation, raised funds for operating expenses, and secured a $2 million federal loan to purchase and restore the site. James Lowry Cogar, a former Woodford County resident and first curator of Colonial Williamsburg, was recruited to oversee the complex preservationist project.
Today, with 34 original 19th century buildings and 2,800 acres (11 km²) of farmland, Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill claims to be "the largest historic community of its kind in America."
[edit] Visiting Shakertown
Visitors to Pleasant Hill can tour the grounds, dine in the Trustee's house, view museum exhibits, listen to performances of Shaker music, observe artisans and farmers at work using traditional 19th century methods, hike the nature trails, and take a riverboat cruise of the Kentucky River. An admission fee is required for most of the tours and exhibits. Overnight lodging is available in many of the restored dwellings.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- National Register of Historic Places site
- Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill (Official site)
- Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill at American Byways
- Pleasant Hill, Kentucky is at coordinates Coordinates:
[edit] References
- ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2007-01-23).
- F. Gerald Ham. "Pleasant Hill - A Century of Kentucky Shakerism 1805-1910." Thesis. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky. 1955
- Thomas D. Clark and F. Gerald Ham. Pleasant Hill and Its Shakers, 2nd edition. Harrodsburg, Kentucky: Pleasant Hill Press, 1968, 1983.
- Clay Lancaster. "Pleasant Hill: Shaker Canaan in Kentucky, an Architectural and Social Study." Warwick Publications. 2001.
- Thomas Merton and Paul M. Pearson, editor. Seeking Paradise: The Spirit of the Shakers. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2003. ISBN 1-57075-501-9.
- Julia Neal. "The Kentucky Shakers." Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. 1977.
- Marc A. Rhorer. "Believers in Dixie: A Cultural Geography of the Kentucky Shakers." Dissertation. Boca Raton, FL: Florida Atlantic University. 2007.
- Marc A. Rhorer. "The Rise and Fall of Mother's Southwestern Branch: A Socio-demographic Study of the Shaker Community at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky 1805-1910." Thesis. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky. 1996.
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