Pleasant Hill, Kentucky
Encyclopedia
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
. It is a National Historic Landmark
District.
or Kentucky Revival began in the late 1700s and continued into the early 19th century. A revival
was characterized by large camp meeting
s, where ministers from various Protestant groups would preach for long periods, with music and dancing often adding to the emotional pitch of the congregation. These religious gatherings sometimes drew thousands of observers and participants in the Ohio Valley of Kentucky
. They were a form of community for people living scattered in relative isolation on the frontier the rest of the time.
The powerful interest in religion sweeping the region inspired the Shakers
to broaden their ministry into Kentucky. Lucy Wright
, the head of the Shakers' parent Ministry at New Lebanon, New York, decided to send missionaries west.
On January 1, 1805, with eleven Shaker communities already established in New York
and New England
, three Shaker missionaries
, John Meacham, Benjamin Seth Youngs (older brother of Isaac N. Youngs), and Issachar Bates
, set out to find new converts. Traveling more than a thousand miles, most of the way on foot, they joined the pioneers then pouring into the western lands by way of Cumberland Gap
and the Ohio
River.
By August, they had gathered a small group of new adherents to the doctrine of Mother Ann Lee
who believed in celibacy. Couples joining the community lived separately, with their young children and foundlings raised in a nursery. Children could decide whether to remain in the community when they reached the age of majority. Many of those proselytes had earlier been influenced by the fervent fundamentalist 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. They began living together on the 140 acres (56.7 ha) farm of Elisha Thomas, whose lands formed the nucleus of the Pleasant Hill Shaker village. Additional converts and property were quickly added, with the community occupying 4369 acres (1,768.1 ha). By 1812 three communal families—East, Center, 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, which established the community in the pattern of the Shaker Ministry's village at New Lebanon, New York
.
Another reason for their prosperity was their location, which was ideal for marketing their produce and home manufactures. By 1816, they regularly traveled the rivers to larger cities (some at great distances, such as New Orleans) to sell their wares.
The Pleasant Hill Shakers raised broom corn and made flat brooms so good that they sold for more than "ordinary" brooms. They also raised fruit and sold it dried or as preserves (more than ten tons of preserves in one year). Like many other Shaker communities, they raised and sold garden seeds.
By 1825, the Pleasant Hill Shaker village was a handsome community with large stone and brick dwellings and shops, grassy lawns, and stone sidewalks. One visitor, though dubious about their mode of worship, was impressed by their prosperity and delighted by their hospitality. He concluded that they were a "trafficking, humane, honest and thrifty people."
Over the years they expanded their land holdings by acquiring adjacent farms for orchards and fields, and fenced it with stone walls. According to a visitor in 1857, they had paid a hired man for twelve years to work fulltime at building stone walls, and he had completed forty miles of walls, at a cost to the Shakers of about $1000 per mile. Their buildings were large, substantial, and well-built, and furnished with modern conveniences.
The Pleasant Hill community was known for its excellent livestock. In 1838, Shaker John Bryant sold one pair of Berkshire hogs for $500. In the 1850s they kept about 500 head of well-fed cattle, and bred imported cows to improve their herd's milk production. They practiced selective breeding
and scientific agriculture well before the average farmer did. They also raised Saxony sheep for the wool, which Shaker sisters spun and wove into cloth for home use.
The Pleasant Hill Shakers were also known for their labor-saving engineering accomplishments. They had a municipal water system well before some towns in their area. By 1825 they had pumps in their kitchens for the sisters' convenience (at a time when many farmwives had to carry water from a creek). Their mill
had an elevator
for moving grain to the upper floor, and they had a mechanical corn sheller.
Shaker sisters also had the benefits of machinery for doing laundry by horse power.
One of their barns included an upper floor for storage of grain and hay, a cutting machine for chopping fodder, and an ingenious railway for delivering feed to the cattle.
Even before the American Civil War
began, the Pleasant Hill Shakers ran into controversy. The New York-based religious organization had a policy of pacifism and was also opposed to slavery
. Members who made up the Pleasant Hill society mostly came from the region and, as a result, had a variety of views on the war and slavery. Formally they adhered to the principles of the Shakers. The Shakers at Pleasant Hill adopted the practice of buying and freeing slaves. in 1825, due to mounting tensions over slavery in Pleasant Hill's surrounding community, a mob attacked Pleasant Hill and destroyed some of its facilities.
While members of Pleasant Hill were sympathetic to the Union, their Southern location made them the target of some neighbors and bands of extremists. (This experience was relatively similar to the Koinonia
situation during the Civil Rights movement
.) Pleasant Hill was at risk during the war, although it did not suffer as much damage as its sister colony at South Union, Kentucky.
The Civil War depleted Pleasant Hill's resources. The members of Pleasant Hill fed thousands of soldiers who came begging, particularly in the weeks surrounding the Battle of Perryville
. Both armies "nearly ate [them] out of house and home." They also lost manpower when some young Shaker brethren left to join the army.
More importantly, the social environment and cultural changes in the decades before and after the war made Shaker life less appealing for converts. During Reconstruction and later, few new converts joined the Shakers.
As membership declined, the Shakers began closing communities and consolidating Believers into the remaining villages. Pleasant Hill, which had once had almost five hundred members, dwindled away. By 1875, despite an influx of new proselytes from Sweden, it had fewer than half that number. In 1900, only 34 remained. The Pleasant Hill Shaker community was dissolved in 1910.
Its last surviving Believer was Mary Settles (1836-1923). She was pleased to live long enough to see women's suffrage
and planned to vote a straight Democratic ticket on her first ballot. She said that Shaker sisters had always had equal rights
within their communal society.
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. It is believed to have been the first in the state. In the wash houses, the members built washing machine
s (also powered by horses) to reduce the heavy work of laundering
the community's clothes and linens.
Music was an important part of Shaker life, with the community performing songs, hymns and anthems written by both men and women. One of the best known songs is "Gentle Words", written by Polly M. Rupe in the 1860s. It includes a quote from the Bible .
The Meeting House was converted for use as an automotive
garage; the wood floor, built to withstand the 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
, residents in the region took a renewed interest in the crumbling village of Pleasant Hill. An admirer was the writer 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 to describe:
Others shared his interest. 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 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 preservation project.
Today, with 34 original 19th-century buildings and 2,800 acres (1100 hectares) of farmland, Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill claims to be "the largest historic community of its kind in America."
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
community
Communalism
Communalism is a term with three distinct meanings according to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary'.'These include "a theory of government or a system of government in which independent communes participate in a federation". "the principles and practice of communal ownership"...
that was active from 1805 to 1910. Following a preservationist
Historic preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
effort that began in 1961, the site, now a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
, has become a popular tourist destination
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
. 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
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
, in Kentucky's
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
Bluegrass region
Bluegrass region
The Bluegrass Region is a geographic region in the state of Kentucky, United States. It occupies the northern part of the state and since European settlement has contained a majority of the state's population and its largest cities....
. It is a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
District.
Founding
The Second Great AwakeningSecond Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening was a Christian revival movement during the early 19th century in the United States. The movement began around 1800, had begun to gain momentum by 1820, and was in decline by 1870. The Second Great Awakening expressed Arminian theology, by which every person could be...
or Kentucky Revival began in the late 1700s and continued into the early 19th century. A revival
Revival
Revival may refer to:*Resuscitation of a person*Language revival of an extinct language*Revival of a defunct team*Revival of a former television series*Revival of a former hit play in a new production...
was characterized by large camp meeting
Camp meeting
The camp meeting is a form of Protestant Christian religious service originating in Britain and once common in some parts of the United States, wherein people would travel from a large area to a particular site to camp out, listen to itinerant preachers, and pray...
s, where ministers from various Protestant groups would preach for long periods, with music and dancing often adding to the emotional pitch of the congregation. These religious gatherings sometimes drew thousands of observers and participants in the Ohio Valley of Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
. They were a form of community for people living scattered in relative isolation on the frontier the rest of the time.
The powerful interest in religion sweeping the region inspired the Shakers
Shakers
The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, known as the Shakers, is a religious sect originally thought to be a development of the Religious Society of Friends...
to broaden their ministry into Kentucky. Lucy Wright
Lucy Wright
Lucy Wright was the leader of the central ministry of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, also known as the Shakers or Shaking Quakers, from 1796 until 1821...
, the head of the Shakers' parent Ministry at New Lebanon, New York, decided to send missionaries west.
On January 1, 1805, with eleven Shaker communities already established in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
, three Shaker missionaries
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
, John Meacham, Benjamin Seth Youngs (older brother of Isaac N. Youngs), and Issachar Bates
Issachar Bates
Issachar Bates was the most prominent composer of music for the Shakers, best known for "Come Life, Shaker Life", which he wrote in 1835....
, set out to find new converts. Traveling more than a thousand miles, most of the way on foot, they joined the pioneers then pouring into the western lands by way of Cumberland Gap
Cumberland Gap
Cumberland Gap is a pass through the Cumberland Mountains region of the Appalachian Mountains, also known as the Cumberland Water Gap, at the juncture of the U.S. states of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia...
and the Ohio
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
River.
By August, they had gathered a small group of new adherents to the doctrine of Mother Ann Lee
Ann Lee
Mother Ann Lee was the leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, or Shakers....
who believed in celibacy. Couples joining the community lived separately, with their young children and foundlings raised in a nursery. Children could decide whether to remain in the community when they reached the age of majority. Many of those proselytes had earlier been influenced by the fervent fundamentalist Cane Ridge Revival
Cane Ridge, Kentucky
Cane Ridge, Kentucky, USA was the site, in 1801, of a large camp meeting that drew thousands of people and had a lasting influence as one of the landmark events of the Second Great Awakening. Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians all participated, and many of the "spiritual exercises", such as...
.
In December 1806, forty-four converts of legal age signed a covenant agreeing to mutual support and the common ownership of property. They began living together on the 140 acres (56.7 ha) farm of Elisha Thomas, whose lands formed the nucleus of the Pleasant Hill Shaker village. Additional converts and property were quickly added, with the community occupying 4369 acres (1,768.1 ha). By 1812 three communal families—East, Center, 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, which established the community in the pattern of the Shaker Ministry's village at New Lebanon, New York
New Lebanon, New York
New Lebanon is a town in Columbia County, New York, U.S., southeast of Albany. In 1910, 1,378 people lived in New Lebanon, New York. The population was 2,454 at the 2000 census.The town of New Lebanon is in the northeast part of Columbia County...
.
Early years
Though the Kentucky Shakers were poor when they started out, they were skilled farmers who made the most of their property. Even the most skeptical observers saw that they prospered, in part because of the high quality of their products. In 1852, a visitor wrote that every article of Shaker produce sold for a third more than what other farmers received.Another reason for their prosperity was their location, which was ideal for marketing their produce and home manufactures. By 1816, they regularly traveled the rivers to larger cities (some at great distances, such as New Orleans) to sell their wares.
The Pleasant Hill Shakers raised broom corn and made flat brooms so good that they sold for more than "ordinary" brooms. They also raised fruit and sold it dried or as preserves (more than ten tons of preserves in one year). Like many other Shaker communities, they raised and sold garden seeds.
By 1825, the Pleasant Hill Shaker village was a handsome community with large stone and brick dwellings and shops, grassy lawns, and stone sidewalks. One visitor, though dubious about their mode of worship, was impressed by their prosperity and delighted by their hospitality. He concluded that they were a "trafficking, humane, honest and thrifty people."
Over the years they expanded their land holdings by acquiring adjacent farms for orchards and fields, and fenced it with stone walls. According to a visitor in 1857, they had paid a hired man for twelve years to work fulltime at building stone walls, and he had completed forty miles of walls, at a cost to the Shakers of about $1000 per mile. Their buildings were large, substantial, and well-built, and furnished with modern conveniences.
The Pleasant Hill community was known for its excellent livestock. In 1838, Shaker John Bryant sold one pair of Berkshire hogs for $500. In the 1850s they kept about 500 head of well-fed cattle, and bred imported cows to improve their herd's milk production. They practiced selective breeding
Selective breeding
Selective breeding is the process of breeding plants and animals for particular genetic traits. Typically, strains that are selectively bred are domesticated, and the breeding is sometimes done by a professional breeder. Bred animals are known as breeds, while bred plants are known as varieties,...
and scientific agriculture well before the average farmer did. They also raised Saxony sheep for the wool, which Shaker sisters spun and wove into cloth for home use.
The Pleasant Hill Shakers were also known for their labor-saving engineering accomplishments. They had a municipal water system well before some towns in their area. By 1825 they had pumps in their kitchens for the sisters' convenience (at a time when many farmwives had to carry water from a creek). Their mill
Mill (grinding)
A grinding mill is a unit operation designed to break a solid material into smaller pieces. There are many different types of grinding mills and many types of materials processed in them. Historically mills were powered by hand , working animal , wind or water...
had an elevator
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
for moving grain to the upper floor, and they had a mechanical corn sheller.
Shaker sisters also had the benefits of machinery for doing laundry by horse power.
One of their barns included an upper floor for storage of grain and hay, a cutting machine for chopping fodder, and an ingenious railway for delivering feed to the cattle.
Through the Civil War and Reconstruction era
The Kentucky Shakers' locations, however, were problematic during the Civil War or War Between the States.Even before the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
began, the Pleasant Hill Shakers ran into controversy. The New York-based religious organization had a policy of pacifism and was also opposed to slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
. Members who made up the Pleasant Hill society mostly came from the region and, as a result, had a variety of views on the war and slavery. Formally they adhered to the principles of the Shakers. The Shakers at Pleasant Hill adopted the practice of buying and freeing slaves. in 1825, due to mounting tensions over slavery in Pleasant Hill's surrounding community, a mob attacked Pleasant Hill and destroyed some of its facilities.
While members of Pleasant Hill were sympathetic to the Union, their Southern location made them the target of some neighbors and bands of extremists. (This experience was relatively similar to the Koinonia
Koinonia
Koinonia is the anglicisation of a Greek word that means communion by intimate participation. The word is used frequently in the New Testament of the Bible to describe the relationship within the Early Christian church as well as the act of breaking bread in the manner which Christ prescribed...
situation during the Civil Rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
.) Pleasant Hill was at risk during the war, although it did not suffer as much damage as its sister colony at South Union, Kentucky.
The Civil War depleted Pleasant Hill's resources. The members of Pleasant Hill fed thousands of soldiers who came begging, particularly in the weeks surrounding the Battle of Perryville
Battle of Perryville
The Battle of Perryville, also known as the Battle of Chaplin Hills, was fought on October 8, 1862, in the Chaplin Hills west of Perryville, Kentucky, as the culmination of the Confederate Heartland Offensive during the American Civil War. Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Mississippi won a...
. Both armies "nearly ate [them] out of house and home." They also lost manpower when some young Shaker brethren left to join the army.
More importantly, the social environment and cultural changes in the decades before and after the war made Shaker life less appealing for converts. During Reconstruction and later, few new converts joined the Shakers.
Last days
Kentucky Shakers had a number of problems after the Civil War, which had sapped their communities' strength. They continued to take in orphans, but few stayed past the end of their indentures. Winter Shakers were a drain on the village, and rarely earned their keep. Apostasy increased. They also had bad publicity when a seceder wrote an uncomplimentary series of articles on Shaker life in the Cincinnati Times-Star from August into November 1872.As membership declined, the Shakers began closing communities and consolidating Believers into the remaining villages. Pleasant Hill, which had once had almost five hundred members, dwindled away. By 1875, despite an influx of new proselytes from Sweden, it had fewer than half that number. In 1900, only 34 remained. The Pleasant Hill Shaker community was dissolved in 1910.
Its last surviving Believer was Mary Settles (1836-1923). She was pleased to live long enough to see women's suffrage
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...
and planned to vote a straight Democratic ticket on her first ballot. She said that Shaker sisters had always had equal rights
Equal rights
Equal rights can refer to:*Equality before the law, when all people have the same rights*Human rights, when such rights are held in common by all people*Civil rights, when such rights are held in common by all citizens of a nation...
within their communal society.
Life at Pleasant Hill
Amish
The Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...
, rejected technological advancements. In fact, the Shakers were inventors
Invention
An invention is a novel composition, device, or process. An invention may be derived from a pre-existing model or idea, or it could be independently conceived, in which case it may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social...
or early adopters
Diffusion (business)
Diffusion is the process by which a new idea or new product is accepted by the market. The rate of diffusion is the speed that the new idea spreads from one consumer to the next. Adoption is similar to diffusion except that it deals with the psychological processes an individual goes through,...
of many new tools and techniques. For example, in the early 1830s the Shakers of Pleasant Hill constructed a water tower
Water tower
A water tower or elevated water tower is a large elevated drinking water storage container constructed to hold a water supply at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system....
on a high plot of ground. A horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
-drawn pump lifted water into the tower, and from there a system of pipes conveyed it to the kitchens, cellars, and wash houses. It is believed to have been the first in the state. In the wash houses, the members built washing machine
Washing machine
A washing machine is a machine designed to wash laundry, such as clothing, towels and sheets...
s (also powered by horses) to reduce the heavy work of laundering
Laundry
Laundry is a noun that refers to the act of washing clothing and linens, the place where that washing is done, and/or that which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered...
the community's clothes and linens.
Music was an important part of Shaker life, with the community performing songs, hymns and anthems written by both men and women. One of the best known songs is "Gentle Words", written by Polly M. Rupe in the 1860s. It includes a quote from the Bible .
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 in 1923 of Mary Settles, the last Pleasant Hill Believer.The Meeting House was converted for use as an automotive
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
garage; the wood floor, built to withstand the 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
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
church.
Following World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, residents in the region took a renewed interest in the crumbling village of Pleasant Hill. An admirer was the writer Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. was a 20th century Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion...
, a Trappist
Trappists
The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance , or Trappists, is a Roman Catholic religious order of cloistered contemplative monks who follow the Rule of St. Benedict...
monk at the nearby Abbey of Gethsemani
Abbey of Gethsemani
The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani is a Trappist monastery near Bardstown, Kentucky in Nelson County—situated on more than 2,000 acres of farmland, and considered to be the "mother house" of all Trappist and Trappistine monasteries in the United States of America...
. 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 to describe:
- "[T]he 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 his interest. In 1961 a group of Lexington
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
-area citizens led by Joseph Graves and Earl D. Wallace launched an effort to restore the property. By 1964 the Friends of Pleasant Hill had organized a non-profit corporation, raised funds for operating expenses, and secured a $2 million federal
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
loan to purchase and restore the site. James Lowry Cogar, a former Woodford County
Woodford County, Kentucky
Woodford County is a county located in the heart of the Bluegrass region of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of 2000, the population was 23,208. Its county seat is Versailles. The county is named for General William Woodford, who was with General George Washington at Valley Forge...
resident and first curator of Colonial Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg is the private foundation representing the historic district of the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. The district includes buildings dating from 1699 to 1780 which made colonial Virginia's capital. The capital straddled the boundary of the original shires of Virginia —...
, was recruited to oversee the complex preservation project.
Today, with 34 original 19th-century buildings and 2,800 acres (1100 hectares) of farmland, Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill claims to be "the largest historic community of its kind in America."
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.See also
- ShakersShakersThe United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, known as the Shakers, is a religious sect originally thought to be a development of the Religious Society of Friends...
- Shaker Museum at South UnionShaker Museum at South UnionThe Shaker Museum at South Union is located at the historic site of the South Union Shaker Village in Auburn, Kentucky, USA. The village was established by the Shakers in 1807 and closed in 1922...
, Kentucky - Lucy WrightLucy WrightLucy Wright was the leader of the central ministry of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, also known as the Shakers or Shaking Quakers, from 1796 until 1821...
- Isaac N. Youngs
- Canterbury Shaker VillageCanterbury shaker villageCanterbury Shaker Village, is a historic site and museum in Canterbury, New Hampshire. It was one of a number of Shaker communities founded in the 19th century....
, New Hampshire - Enfield Shaker MuseumEnfield Shaker MuseumThe Enfield Shaker Museum is a museum and historic site in Enfield, New Hampshire, USA. It is dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of the Shakers, a Protestant religious denomination, who lived on the site from 1793 to 1923. The museum features exhibitions, artifacts, eight Shaker...
, New Hampshire - Hancock Shaker VillageHancock Shaker VillageHancock Shaker Village is a National Historic Landmark District in Hancock, Massachusetts that was established by Shakers in 1791. It was the third of nineteen major Shaker villages established between 1783 and 1836 in New York, New England, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana under the leadership of Joseph...
, Massachusetts - Mount Lebanon Shaker SocietyMount Lebanon Shaker SocietyMount Lebanon Shaker Society, also known as New Lebanon Shaker Society, was a communal settlement of Shakers in New Lebanon, New York. The early Shaker Ministry, including Joseph Meacham and Lucy Wright, the architects of Shakers' gender-balanced government, lived there.Isaac N. Youngs, the...
, New York - FruitlandsFruitlands (transcendental center)Fruitlands was a Utopian agrarian commune established in Harvard, Massachusetts by Amos Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane in the 1840s, based on Transcendentalist principles...
, Massachusetts - Open air museumOpen air museumAn open-air museum is a distinct type of museum exhibiting its collections out-of-doors. The first open-air museums were established in Scandinavia towards the end of the nineteenth century, and the concept soon spread throughout Europe and North America. Open-air museums are variously known as...