Ethel Hudson; Last Member of N.H. Shaker Colony

Ethel Hudson, 96, the last surviving member of New Hampshire’s pacifist Shaker colony. Originating in England in the 1770s as the Shaking Quakers, the group moved to the United States in 1774. Shakers practiced celibacy, and increased their communities by taking in orphans and converts. Once numbering 6,000 in 24 communities, they stopped taking new members in 1965. The Shakers supported themselves by making and selling simple, efficient products including flat brooms, clothespins and ladder-back chairs. Miss Hudson had moved to the Canterbury, N.H., colony as a child in 1907. The New Hampshire community will be maintained as a museum. The United States has only one remaining Shaker community with living members, in New Gloucester, Me. On Monday in Canterbury, N.H.