The Shakers of Sabbathday Lake, Maine
Quilts and History
by Patricia L. Cummings
photos by James Cummings
A summer 2006 visit to the United Society of Shakers and the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Museum in New Gloucester, Maine revealed fascinating historical information about the religious sect, their lifestyle, and their textiles.
The bell that now stands at the Shaker site at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, was formerly a part of the Shaker community at Alfred, Maine.
The founder of Shakerism is “Mother” Ann Lee (1736-1784). As a married woman who had borne four babies, all of whom died, Ann Lee committed herself to a celibate life. A baptized member of the Church of England, in 1747, she joined a religious group of dissident Quakers, led by James and Jane Wardley. The couple, both tailors who lived near Manchester, England, were influenced by a religious revival in France in 1685, led by a group called the Camisards, also called the French Prophets.
The new Quaker group, which included Ann Lee, was derisively called “Quaking Shakers,” by the public. The name was a direct reference to the ecstatic “physical agitation” that accompanied dancing that was a prescribed part of their worship services.
Ann Lee became the acknowledged leader of the “Shakers.” Scorned for the expression of her religious beliefs, “Mother” was repeatedly stoned, beaten, and thrown into prison. On one occasion, she was confined to a cell so tiny that she could not stand up straight, nor lie down. Given no food or drink for fourteen days, she would have died had it not been for the kindness of a young man who stealthily fed her a mixture of milk and wine through a straw inserted into a keyhole.
After deciding to flee to America, she embarked from Liverpool in a boat called the “Mariah,” accompanied by eight of her followers. In the midst of a storm, a plank was jarred out of place and the boat began to take on water. Distraught, the sea captain threatened to throw any passengers overboard who continued to shake the boat with their dancing.
Mother Ann calmly revealed that she had just seen two angels at the helm, and they had promised a safe arrival. Immediately, a huge wave struck the boat, snapping the plank into its rightful place. The nine "Believers,” one of whom was her husband, arrived in New York on August 6, 1774.
Please click on any thumbnail photo in order to see a larger picture. Use the "back" button on your browser to return to this page. Thank you.
SHAKER COMMUNITIES ESTABLISHED
A field of wildflowers grow behind the building that is currently the Shaker Library which is next door to the former schoolhouse at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community.
The first Shaker community at Niskeyuna, New York, later called Watervliet, soon sent out missionaries. New communities were set up in ten states along the eastern seaboard, as well as in Pennsylvania and Indiana. Just before the Civil War, the number of Shakers rose to an estimated six thousand. Some Shaker communities have been dismantled altogether, some are now museums, and Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community in Maine is the only place where there are four active Shakers still living “the life.” Established in 1783, and once numbering one hundred and eighty members, at its peak, the Sabbathday Lake site in New Gloucester, Maine, has continually hosted Shakers since that time.
The original land area of nineteen hundred acres represents the donation of four adjacent farms that had been joined into one property when four families converted to Shakerism after a missionary campaign in the area in 1783. (When one joins the Shakers, all worldly goods become communal property). In 1794, the group was formally organized according to the structural heirarchy of the Church's Central Ministry based in New Lebanon, NY. Other Maine Shaker sites included one at Alfred (1793-1932), and a short-lived community at Gorham (1808-1819).
NEW MEMBERS
Today, new members are welcome, but not actively recruited. Many inquiries are received yearly, according to Executive Director, Leonard Brooks, and it is still possible to become a novitiate, to “try the life” before committing to membership. In times past, the Shakers took in orphans, with the hope of increasing the number of church members, particularly during the Civil War. A change in adoption laws in the 1960s curtailed this practice. If a married couple joins the Church, they must forego their marriage vows and live apart within the community. Historically, siblings also were separated and were raised by the adult “Brothers” and “Sisters.” This was helpful for widows or widowers who joined the sect hoping for help from the Shakers to raise their children. At twenty-one, a “child” could join the Church permanently. Some chose to leave.
BUILDINGS & LAND
Originally, sixty buildings stood at the New Gloucester site. Shakers have always paid property taxes as a way to contribute to society. As pacifists, they did not serve in the military. Shakers would tear down unnecessary buildings, or those in severe disrepair as one way to decrease the tax burden. The largest buildings at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker site are the brick Dwelling House, (1883); and The Meetinghouse, (1794), a three story edifice with a blue and white interior. Unfortunately, the colorfast and durable Shaker blue paint formula has been lost to posterity.
Interior of the Meetinghouse at the Sabbathday Lake Community. Men and women historically entered the building through separate entrances. To the Shakers, men and women were equal, but were kept separated as much as possible, so that there would be no threat to their celibate lifestyle.
In 1873, benches were added to the interior of the Meetinghouse's large hall. Men and women always entered this building by separate doors and were seated facing each other. A long time Shaker tradition has been to invite the public to Sunday worship. Three bleachers at the back of the room are provided for public seating. In the nineteenth century, dancing was still a part of Shaker worship. As members aged, this practice was abandoned so that everyone could be included equally. Today's meetings include gospel readings, testimonies, and songs, the latter of which the Shakers have written more than ten thousand.
SHAKER DRESS
Traditional Shaker dress for women emphasizes modesty. The dressed mannequin in the photo is wearing a starched, white, net cap called a “neat,” which kept hair tidily tucked away. The cap, a symbol of purity, was required wear until 1900-1910. The dress is made of “Mozambique” cloth, a wool and cotton blend. A large cotton kerchief is shown folded and draped over the shoulders, and pinned tightly down the front.
The photo above shows a rope bed and a key, hanging on the wall, for tightening the bed. A woven coverlet is on top of the bed in this second story room in the Meetinghouse, reserved for traveling Ministry. A mannequin is wearing a "neat" on her head, a kerchief for the sake of modesty, and a dress of "Mozambique" fabric.
Frontal yokes eventually replaced kerchiefs, and during the Victorian Era, they were decorated with lace, rickrack, or buttons. At fourteen years old, teenage girls were required to wear the “Shaker Dress,” according to Althea Merrill who has written Shaker Girl (S. Portland, ME: Pilot Press, Inc., May, 1987), a fascinating book about growing up in the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community. She left when she was eighteen.
Surprisingly, Shakers had more changes of clothing than one would expect, usually three sets: clothes for work, everyday wear, and dress attire, for all seasons. Women were responsible for taking care of their own clothes and those of one “Brother.” Out of season clothes would often be stored in “attic” spaces above Dwelling House chambers at many of the Shaker communities. The Shakers processed their own wool, cotton, and linen until the Industrial Revolution when they could purchase cloth reasonably at the Bates Mill in Lewiston or Goddall Mills in Sanford.
Outer bonnets were woven for summer wear, and when they were a bit tattered, they were converted into quilted bonnets for winter. In the 1890s, bonnets became optional.
SHAKER PRODUCTS AND COMESTIBLES
To earn income for the community, the Shakers sold agricultural products, pulpwood, and herbs. They were the first to market small packets of garden seeds to consumers. Apples, a reliable source of income. The Shakers made applesauce with cider and dried apples which they sold to wholesale accounts. Also marketed were canned vegetables, pickles, mincemeat, honey, and hand-dipped chocolates, taffy, ribbon candy, and fudge. Sale of candies continued into the 1950s.
SHAKER INVENTIONS
The flat broom, a Shaker invention, led to a century long industry that included making brushes. The first washing machine, invented at Canterbury Shaker Village, won a gold Centennial Medal at the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876. Shakers created the first clothespin, the circular saw, and the apple peeler. The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community invented the clothing press. This innovative unit relied on heat, pressure, and the application of zinc chloride to render cloth wrinkle-resistant. In addition, the fabric repelled stains, and clothes needed laundering less often.
"FANCY GOODS” BUSINESS
The “fancy goods” industry at Sabbathday Lake, Maine began in 1860. A ready market for Shaker goods was found in New England. One lucrative sales site was the Poland Spring Resort Hotel, located just four miles north. Twice weekly, Shaker sisters would set up their goods in the hotel lobby. Handmade goods offered for sale included knitted sweaters, wooden sewing carriers with handles, pincushions, fans made of white turkey feathers, dolls dressed in a “Dorothy Cloak,” and poplar boxes. Sister Lizzie Noyes (1845-1926) was the only sister qualified to drive horses, so she was often at the reins when transporting the heavy trunks via wagon, to a market site. Trunks of fancy goods were shipped via rail to Boston, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
Poplar keepsake boxes were such a big seller, every girl was required to weave at least one yard of poplar cloth daily, before school. Poplar cloth consisted of poplar wood slivers and #16 warp cotton thread. Amazing is the fact that no less than eighteen steps were needed to process poplar wood for this use, according to Beverly Gordon in Shaker Textile Arts (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1983).
CLOAKS: A SOURCE OF INCOME
In the room setting above, a red Dorothy Cloak, can be seen.
In 1901, the Shakers at
Sabbathday Lake, Maine, began to take orders for
“Opera Cloaks.”
The cloak design originated in 1890 with Eldress Dorothy Durgin
(1825-1898) at Canterbury Shaker Village. The “Dorothy Cloaks”
were silk-lined and featured imported French wool in rich colors.
They were tied at the front top, under the chin, with a wide silk
ribbon. The most expensive cape had a lined hood and side pockets.
Prices ranged from ten to thirty dollars. At a time when “the
working man” was paid fifty cents or a dollar per hour, Shaker
prices clearly targeted the more affluent customer.
SHAKERS NOT AFRAID OF COLOR
An ochre color washstand with a white splash cloth behind. Note the intense blue color of a paint formula that has been lost to posterity. This photo was taken in a Ministry bedroom in the Sabbathday Lake Meetinghouse, New Gloucester, Maine.
The Shakers' love of color is reflected in their living spaces and clothing. A 1790 ochre-color wash stand, whose color was more intense when it was first made, is on display in a “retiring room,” that was reserved for the visiting Ministry leaders. A large, plain splash cloth served to protect the wall from soap and water. A rope bed is set up in the same room. A wooden rope bed “key,” to tighten the rope, hangs on the wall. Although from a distance, the bed cover may resemble an indigo wholecloth quilt, in actuality it is a blue and white, wool, “honeycomb weave coverlet,” with a lengthwise seam down the middle and was made by Alfred, Maine Shakers, in 1810.
Purple on Silk: A Shaker Eldress and her Dye Journal by Nan Thayer Ross, (New Gloucester, Maine: United Society of Shakers, 2003), reveals that through the 1850s, Shakers were dyeing and weaving cloth in many colors, some of which are: Salmon, Pink, Red, Prussian Blue,Yellow, Orange, Purple, all far from “drab.”
WHOLE CLOTH QUILT
A blue wholecloth quilt, from Harvard, Massachusetts, that was damaged by using it for moving furniture. It appears to have no other provenance, according to Brother Arnold at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker facility.
A blue, whole cloth quilt of glazed worsted (wool) is displayed in another retiring room. The quilt's top is calendered, a commercial process that requires the use of heat and pressure to make the quilt's surface glimmer. In 1918, the quilt was used to pack furniture from the Harvard Shaker community (in Massachusetts), when it was disbanding. The quilt's backing appears to have been home-dyed. Some English quilts of this type were imported from 1730-1830, and others of this style have a New England provenance.
The fine stitches, blue on blue, may be the work of young eyes. Intricate circular patterns, whose interior designs differ, are spread over the surface, interspersed with diagonal, channel quilting lines. As is the case with similar traditional whole cloth quilts, the motifs are superimposed over the (two) vertical seams. The quilt top is composed of three conjoined pieces, each piece being equal to the width of the loom.
BIBLICAL QUILT
Rose of Sharon quilt made by Eldress Stickney. This quilt has come back to the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community.
A 1928 quilt called “Rose of Sharon” by its maker, Eldress Prudence Stickney (1860-1950), was sold that same year to Gertrude L. Anthony. The (Sabbathday Lake) Shakers did not usually sell quilts. Amazingly, this quilt came back to the Shaker community via a granddaughter of the original owner, in the 1980s. The quilt may have been a custom order, inasmuch as Eldress Prudence was leading sales trips to hotels and resorts, at the time, and also because the Maine Shakers did not usually make quilts for sale. For a time, quilting was taught in the Girls' Shop by Eldress Prudence, and Sister Ada Sophia Cummings (1862-1926).
The eight-petal, appliquéd, red flowers are not uniformly sized, suggesting that they were cut out freehand, without use of templates. The green leaves on this hand-quilted quilt have faded to light tan due to an unstable dye.
The quilter probably called the quilt, “Rose of Sharon,” as a way to honor an associated Biblical passage. Of at least thirty-eight different published quilt blocks called, “Rose of Sharon,” no design with the exact same (Shaker) configuration seems to exist in a printed pattern. However, a very similar block is “The Garden Wreath,” which can be seen in the Encyclopedia of Appliqué by Barbara Brackman (EPM:1993).
1890 QUILT
The quilt on the bed was called, "Christian Cross," by its maker. A "Day Bag" as described below, can be seen on the bed.
"Christian Cross,” another Sabbathday Lake Shaker quilt, made in 1890, includes many shirting prints. The block is published with the same name in Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them, by quilt historian, Ruth Finley. A more recognizable name to today's quilters would be “Chimney Sweep." Throughout the nineteenth century, this block design was used for "Friendship Quilts."
MONOGRAMMED BED LINENS
Hand embroidered monograms of individual Shakers were added to bed linens. This was the work of skilled adults, not children. The embroidered Samplers seen throughout the Museum are also the work of adults, and in that regard, comprise “an unusual collection.” There are two linen “Day Bags” that are embellished with surface embroidery. Embroidered initials appear at the circular end of each bag. These items were made for two women Ministry Leaders, and are thought to have been made by Canterbury Shakers.
"ON THE CUTTING EDGE”
Curator Michael Graham comments that the Shakers have always been “on the cutting edge of technology.” In 1900, telephones connected Shakers to the outside world. In 1909, the Shakers were the first local residents to purchase a car (for $2,100). In 1926, they installed electricity. Today, the Shakers would be hard pressed to give up their computers or microwave ovens.
TWO CENTURIES IN AMERICA
In 1994, Shakers celebrated two centuries of life in America. Their philosophies, their way of life, and their extant material culture have all left an indelible footprint on our society. Much information has been written about the Shakers, some of which is reliable. As with quilt scholarship, be aware that not everything you read is necessarily true.
There is much more to the Shaker story than what appears in this article. In fact, most people think of Shaker furniture, when they think of Shakers at all. The Shakers were ingenious and resourceful people who catered to the general public by providing unique and wonderful products and material culture, in order for their communities to remain financially solvent and to maintain their unique way of life.
The Shakers have given much to America and to the world, and continue to do so, even today, through the extant examples of their work, preserved in museums, and, in the case of the four remaining, living Shakers, their faith-based testimony centered on the teachings of a religious zealot, an English immigrant by the name of "Mother" Ann Lee.
Cattle, peacefully resting, at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community
The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Museum and Library are terrific resources. Other Shaker museums in New England include Enfield Shaker Village (NH), Canterbury Shaker Village (NH), and Hancock Shaker Village (MA).
The United Society of Shakers offers a number of publications: www.maineshakers.com
To learn more about visiting the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community and Museum in New Gloucester, Maine, please see: www.shaker.lib.me.us
MUSIC:
Simple Gifts: a traditional Shaker dance song, written in 1848 by Elder Joseph Brackett of Alfred, Maine, as sung by Patricia Cummings.
Link to a file about Samplers
Bibliography
Books and Pamphlets about the Shakers, Shakerism, and Shaker Products
Life in the Christ Spirit by Brother Theodore E. Johnson (Sabbathday Lake, Maine: United Society, 1969). Reprinted from THE SHAKER QUARTERLY, Volume VIII, No. 3, Fall 1968.
Purple on Silk: A Shaker Eldress and her Dye Journal by Nan Thayer Ross, with an introduction by Brother Arnold Hadd (New Gloucester, Maine: United Society of Shakers, 2003).
The Sabbathday Lake Shakers: An Introduction to The Shaker Heritage by Sister R. Mildred Barker (Sabbathday Lake, Maine: The Shaker Press, 1985). ISBN 0-87451-404-7
Seasoned with Grace: My Generation of Shaker Cooking by Eldress Bertha Lindsay (Canterbury, NH: Shaker Village, 1987). ISBN 0-88150-099-2.
Shaker Girl by Althea Merrill Lebreux (S. Portland, Maine: Pilot Press, May 1987). No ISBN.
Shaker Tested Recipes compiled and tested by Canterbury Shakers (Canterbury Shaker Village, no date provided). No ISBN.
Shaker Textile Arts by Beverly Gordon (Hanover, NH and London: University Press of New England, 1980/1983). ISBN 0-87451-242-5.
Simple Gifts: the shaker song. (New York: Hyperion, 1992). Photography by Solomon M. Skolnick. This is a book that illustrates the lyrics to the dance song, “Simple Gifts,” with photos taken at Hancock, Massachusetts Shaker Village Museum. ISBN 1-56282-915-7.
Simple Gifts: Lessons in Living from a Shaker Village by June Sprigg (New York: Vintage Books, June 1999). ISBN 0-375-70432-9
The Best of Shaker Cooking by Amy Bess Miller and Persis Fuller (New York: Collier Books, 1970). No ISBN.
The Shakers and the World's People by Flo Morse (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1980). ISBN 0-87451-426-6.
The Shaker World: Art, Life, Belief by John T. Kirk (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Publishers, 1997). ISBN 0-8109-4472-3.
In addition, the text is influenced, no doubt, by years of interest in the topic, and visits to Canterbury Shaker Village, Enfield Shaker Village, as well as this most recent trip to Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village and Museum. Therefore, oral history figures into what I know about the Shakers.
At Canterbury Shaker Village, I had the pleasure of meeting Sister Gertrude Soule and Eldress Bertha Lindsay, in the 1970s. We are all so lucky that film maker Ken Burns has captured these ladies on film, in his documentary entitled,
"The Shakers."
Copyrighted in 2006 by James and Patricia Cummings, Quilter's Muse Publications, Concord, NH. All unauthorized use of this material is prohibited. For permission to reprint in any venue, please contact: pat@quiltersmuse.com If you plan to link to this article from your own website, please advise us, at the same e-mail address. Thank you.