at the Getty Museum ; the Seed House was moved to another part of the town and is a private home ; and one very private family owns the compound where the remaining Tyringham Shaker buildings still are located .
Mount Lebanon Shakers settled on a mountain that straddles New York and Massachusetts . They led all-Shaker communities in administrative and spiritual matters and stepped in to help the Shaker village in Enfield , Connecticut organize and settle into the lifestyle . The Enfield site closed in 1917 and was purchased by the state in 1930 to establish a prison , which opened in 1962 and is now the state ’ s largest
prison complex .
New York photographer Jane Feldman lived on the Mount Lebanon Shaker site , which was originally home to five Shaker Families : Church , North , South , Second , and Center . Members of the families were not related but lived in the Shaker ’ s commune tradition . Feldman was a student at Darrow
School , which sits on the former Church Family site , and returned as community outreach coordinator .
According to Darrow ’ s Head of School Andy Vadnais , the Shakers gifted the
Successful businesswomen , Shaker sisters made and marketed products to sell to the outside community .
property in 1930 , and the Lebanon School for Boys opened in 1932 . In 1938 , it changed hands and was renamed Darrow School in honor of the first family to farm the land . Vadnais and his wife were on the faculty from 1983 to 1990 . He served as assistant director / curator of Hancock Shaker Village before returning to Darrow as head of school in 2019 , where he says that preserving Shaker heritage is a sacred responsibility .
Darrow ’ s Hands to Work service-learning program pays homage to the Shaker phrase , “ Hands to Work , Hearts to God .” Program crews embark in purposeful work — growing vegetables , tapping maple trees , running the Living Machine wastewater treatment system , and helping advance sustainability .
“ The Shaker Meeting House
HANCOCK SHAKER VILLAGE at Darrow School was considered the Vatican of Shakerism ,” says Feldman , who notes that President Abe Lincoln granted the first conscientious objector status to the Mount Lebanon Shakers , and Mount Lebanon hosted the 1905 Peace Conference .
Darrow School is not the only Shaker site on Mount Lebanon that was transformed after the Shakers left the mountain
The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts .
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40 // BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE Spring 2024