Canterbury Shaker Village!

Sign Text for New Hampshire Landmark #15:

Take opposite road 2.6 miles to the attractive buildings of this Utopian community organized in 1792 in the township of Canterbury. The Shakers established high standards of agricultural efficiency, craftsmanship, and domestic skill for their sect and extended this worthy influence beyond the confines of the Village.

More about the Canterbury Shaker Village:

The Shakers were defects from the Methodist and Quaker sects in England, led by Mother Ann Lee, who called the group the United Society of Believers, but others saw their dance-filled worship services and called them Shaking Quakers or Shakers! To escape ridicule, the whole sect fled to the 13 colonies in 1774 and founded 19 communities from Maine to Kentucky. Each of these communities was founded on the basis of communal ownership, celibacy, gender equality, and simple living!

In 1783, Benjamin Whitcher invited 43 Shakers to set up shop on his 100-acre farm. With the completion of their Meetinghouse in 1792, this was cemented as the Canterbury Shaker Village, which would persist for 200 years! To stay separate from the world, the Shakers maintained complete self-reliance with food, clothing and medicine, but they also sold produce, clothes, and crafts to keep their finances stable. Unlike the Amish, the Shakers made use of technology whenever they could and invented things like wrinkle-free cloth, the circular saw, and a prototype washing machine in 1858!

Because of strict celibacy rules, Shaker communities could only sustain themselves through new converts, and the 19 active communities dwindled down to 1 in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. The last Canterbury sister died here in 1992, and the Village has been a museum ever since!

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Be a responsible visitor! Please respect the signs and pathways, and treat all structures and artifacts with respect. They’ve endured a lot to survive into the present. They’ll need our help to make it into the future!