Putting Their Faith in a Trust

By Elizabeth Mehren

Nov. 9, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

NEW GLOUCESTER, Maine —

For more than two centuries, the Shakers deftly balanced prayer with pragmatism. God would provide, they were certain. And what God overlooked, they took care of themselves.

Thus these pious men and women came to invent such practical devices as the spring-loaded clothespin, the flat-bottom broom and the circular saw. They patented a washing machine in 1858. Their multi-chambered oven from 1878 strongly resembles contemporary restaurant ovens.

The clean, graceful lines of Shaker furniture helped inspire Danish modern design. Their straightforward style of building influenced the founders of the Bauhaus movement.

“Hands to work, hearts to God,” preached Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers’ founder.

The Shakers were never large in number. At the sect’s peak before the Civil War, 5,000 claimed membership in the monastic Protestant fellowship in which men and women live as brothers and sisters. The group, known formally as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, counsels self-reliance and mandates celibacy.

Today, four Shakers remain: two elderly women and two graying men. They are pondering the future not only of their faith but of their way of life.

The Shakers live communally, owning nothing as individuals. Favoring plain, utilitarian clothing -- denim pants and simple shirts for men; long, modest dresses for women -- they shun adornment. They pray together several times a day. They believe life is a constant quest to emulate Christ.

“One of our founders said, ‘Even my every breath is a prayer to God,’ ” Brother Arnold Hadd said.

Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, their 1,800-acre farm and village here, is the last of 19 Shaker communities. To preserve their legacy as well as their idyllic, lakeside property, the Shakers announced last week that they had entered into a trust with the state of Maine and several conservation groups.

The community they are seeking to protect has changed little in 200 years. Most of the village’s 19 buildings are white, wooden structures with sharp, pointed roofs and no ornamentation. Apple orchards dot a rolling landscape where pigs and cows graze peaceably. Flowerbeds abound, along with rows and rows of herbs and vegetables.

It is this land that keeps them self-sufficient. To the Shakers, it is sacred soil, and they are the guardians for new generations -- though the line of succession looks shaky. Lee had said that when there were as many Shakers left as there were fingers on a child’s hand, the faith would rise again.

But no one has joined since Brother Wayne Smith, 41, became a Shaker in 1984. Sister Frances Carr, 78, is the village elderess. Sister June Carter is in her late 60s. Hadd, 48, is the village elder.

Besides the vagaries of age, the Shakers face worldly pressures. Property taxes hit $27,000 last year. Heating costs have soared. The village lies in the path of encroaching sprawl from Portland, half an hour south.

“Right now, we are sustaining our community,” said Hadd, the only Shaker who agreed to talk about the small religious group. He sat at a picnic table near the gift shop that attracts thousands who tour the property each year. Paper sacks brimming with Cortland apples were for sale outside, on an honor system of payment. Inside, packaged herbs and floral wreaths lined the shelves. Delicate oval boxes, a traditional Shaker product carved by Smith, and pickles, jams and fudge made by Carter and Carr also were on display.

“These are very astute business folks,” said Tim Glidden, head of the Land for Maine’s Future Program, a partner in the Shakers’ trust agreement. “The Shakers have always interacted directly and immediately with the material world in a way that some other spiritual communities do not.”

The village also derives income by leasing out 20 acres of farmland and 60 acres of orchards, as well as a large gravel pit. The stretch of shoreline that the Shakers own on Sabbathday Lake remains undeveloped while resort homes multiply nearby.

Smith and Hadd tend the livestock -- 30 sheep, nine cattle, three pigs -- and maintain farm equipment and the village buildings. The oldest dates from the 1760s, and the newest -- a garage -- from 1910.

Carter manages the library, where thousands of Shaker documents are housed. She keeps the village records and handles correspondence. Carr tends the gardens, cooks every meal and writes books about the Shaker culture.

Most of the seven full-time employees work in the gift shop. In summers they are joined by eight part-time employees who help farm. About 60 members of a volunteer group, the Shaker Friends, visit annually to help with maintenance.

“Our life is not cheap,” Hadd said, although he did not disclose the village income or the costs of the operation. “We would never want to get to the point where we could not pay our bills.”

With their mortality weighing on them, the Shakers spent recent months crafting what amounts to a will and testament for their land and village. Under the agreement, the Shakers will sell conservation easements to the trust, allowing the village to ward off development and continue operating as long as there are Shakers to live there.

The agreement does not specify whether the property will become a park, museum or other public space should the Shakers die off. That decision would be made by a nonprofit corporation -- the United Society of Shakers, Sabbathday Lake Inc. -- whose board members are largely non-Shakers. The $3.7-million conservation plan relies on grants, donations and public funds.

Jennifer Melville, a project manager for the Trust for Public Land in Portland -- which put together the agreement -- called the village “a living piece of American history.”

The pattern of land use, she said, reflects “who the Shakers have been, and who they are. It shows that they are both highly aesthetic and highly practical. They still have stone walls, for instance, but they are willing to put breaks in the walls so they can get their tractors through.”

State historian Earl Shettleworth said that although several Shaker outposts had been turned into museums, he could not overemphasize the importance of preserving “the last active Shaker community in the world.”

The village is “a physical presence on the landscape that has survived since the late 18th century,” he said. “What is particularly special about it is that it is completely authentic -- an unbroken continuum for 200 years.”

Ann Lee was an illiterate blacksmith’s daughter from the slums of Manchester when she founded the sect in England in 1747. A British newspaper reporter who attended a service wrote in 1758 that the worshippers rolled on the floor and spoke in tongues. He dubbed them the Shaking Quakers, giving rise to the name by which the Shakers have long identified themselves.

Lee, who called herself Mother Ann, found steady persecution in England for radical beliefs that included the notion that men and women could coexist equally. In 1774, she led eight followers to America, where she believed the Shakers would live like angels in a heaven on Earth. The first Shaker settlement was in Watervliet, N.Y., near Albany.

Among Lee’s disciples was her husband, Abraham, who accepted her chastity vow. Lee, whose four children died before she was 30, had come to believe that sex caused most of the world’s problems.

Until the mid-20th century, the Shakers took in orphans who could choose to join the faith. Carr is the last of the orphans.

Gerard Wertkin, director emeritus of the American Folk Art Museum in New York, said he was so drawn to the Shakers that he visited Sabbathday Lake village with his family for many years and wrote a book called “The Four Seasons of Shaker Life.” Wertkin followed in the path of many American writers -- including Mark Twain and Herman Melville -- who chose the Shakers as subjects.

“They seemed to have survived against all the odds,” Wertkin said. “Here was a group which was celibate, which was communal and which seemed to defy all the aspects of American life which we hold dear.”

Wertkin said the deal to preserve the village echoed long-held Shaker ideals. “One of the Shaker songs in the 19th century was called simply ‘Progress,’ ” he said. “It addresses the idea that truth will be better understood as they move forward into the future.” As for the mechanics of that future, Wertkin said, “I think the Shakers intend to leave it all to God.”

Still, Hadd said he was relieved to set up a legal structure to safeguard the village.

“You see, besides being religious, Shakers are very practical,” he said. “The way I see it, it is no different from any of the other bargains we have made over the years.”

Raised as a Methodist by parents whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, Hadd learned about the Shakers from his grandmother. In his late teens, he began corresponding with the village elder in Maine.

When he visited Sabbathday Lake, he said, “I fell in love with the place, the worship, the people. I didn’t intend to become a Shaker. I felt a spark about being here.”

There were eight Shakers at the village when he became a novice, or first-year member. In his 27 years as a Shaker, at least 20 people have spent time at the village, thinking they might commit to the faith. Among them, only Smith became a Shaker.

Following tradition that began when nearly 200 people lived here, one of the Shakers rings the great bell atop the six-story dwelling house 10 minutes before each meal. The men and women come down separate staircases to gather in separate waiting rooms. When Carr sounds a buzzer, they enter the dining room together. Meals are no longer held in silence; that restriction was lifted in 1962. But men and women sit at separate cherry-wood trestle tables.

“Many people do not understand our life, the way we live communally,” Hadd said. “What we are finally is a family, and we do have our moments. No family is perfect.”

Hadd said the deep connection to something greater than himself, which first drew him to Shaker life, had never wavered.

“It was everything. It was total. It was the opportunity to live your faith,” he said. “And it is still going on. It is a constant conversion.”

On Sundays, the Shakers often are joined by visitors in the pristine white meetinghouse, where they pray in silence or listen as a member of the village reads Psalms. Worshippers sit on long wooden benches. The only other furniture is a lectern, from which Scripture is read aloud. The walls and ceiling are painted deep blue -- a color, Hadd said, that the devil detests.

Hadd said his prayers that new members would come forth were cushioned by his confidence that “God will provide” and preserve the Shaker faith. But he breathes easier knowing that the village and farmland are out of jeopardy, and that God helped guide the Shakers.

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Vanishing way of life

The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in Maine is the last of 19 Shaker communities that once existed in the United States. The last four Shakers live in the village.

1. Alfred (1793-1931)

2. Canterbury (1792-1992)

3. Enfield, Conn. (1792-1917)

4. Enfield, N.H. (1793-1918)

5. Groveland (1836-1892)

6. Hancock (1790-1960)

7. Harvard (1791-1919)

8. Mt. Lebanon (1787-1947)

9. North Union (1826-1889)

10. Pleasant Hill (1814-1910)

11. Sabbathday Lake (1794-present)

12. Shirley (1793-1909)