Facts about Shakers
Under the leadership of James and Jane Wardley, husband and wife, the Shakers became known for their intense, ecstatic worship.
The agreement does not specify whether the property will become a park, museum or other public space should the Shakers die off.
Strict believers in celibacy, Shakers maintained their numbers through conversion and adoption.
The modern day union of Shakers is known as the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Coming.
The Shakers are famous for their ecstatic religious dances and work ethic, as well as their eschewal of marriage.
That decision would be made by a nonprofit corporation—the United Society of Shakers, Sabbathday Lake Inc.—whose board members are largely non-Shakers.
Shakers worshipped in plain meetinghouses where they marched, sang songs, danced, twitched and shouted.
Shaker ways influenced many people to write books and adopt ways of life from Shakers.
Shakers are no longer allowed to adopt orphan children after new laws were passed in 1960 refusing religious groups to take control of adoption, but adults who wish to embrace Shaker life are welcome.
The Shakers struggled with complex human problems that have no simple answers, and they managed to set up and sustain a distinctive way of life.
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 Shakers did not believe in procreation so therefore had to adopt a child if they wanted one.
The Shakers are a Christian sect, an offshoot of the Religious Society of Friends (or Quakers), originating in Manchester, England in the late eighteenth century.
The Shakers composed thousands of songs, and created many dances, which were an important part of the Shaker worship services.
Shaker chairs were usually mass-produced since a great number of them were needed to seat all the Shakers in a community.
Shakers could not have children, and although they did adopt up until the states gained control of adoption homes, this was not a major source of new members.
At various times, the Shakers had 18 major communities in eight states and six smaller communities in Florida and Indiana.
Shakers designed their furniture with care, believing that making something well was in itself, "an act of prayer."
The Shakers considered music to be an essential component of their religious experience.
The Shakers never forbade marriage, but refused to recognize it as a Christian institution since the second coming in the person of Mother Ann, and considered it less perfect than the celibate state.
The name Shakers, originally pejorative, was applied by outsiders as a mocking description of the group's rituals of trembling, shouting, dancing, shaking, singing, and glossolalia (speaking in strange and unknown languages).
The Shakers were an offshoot of English Quakers who had adopted some of the doctrines of worship followed by the Camisards (a French religious sect living in England).